Moon Setting, Sun Rising

Today I am grateful for the new green we are seeing in the grass and the buds on trees beginning to emerge. I am also grateful for time to write yesterday, always a good way for me to spend time. 

On Good Friday, I had an opportunity to take in the morning horizon in a way this "city dweller" typically is unable to. I had an unobstructed view of both the moon setting and the sun rising, which I believe happens around full moon phase. I took these two pictures from the driveway of our family farm just after 6:30 in the morning.

The moon is somewhat visible in the first picture, as is my shadow. I had to use a tree to cut the brightness of the morning sun in the second picture. 

I had traveled without my own family, who had other commitments. My brother Artie, the lone inhabitant of the house here since our mom went into the nursing home almost two years ago, had left earlier for his job at a neighbor's dairy farm. Rare have been the times I have been here all by myself in the decades since we moved there in the spring of 1981, when I was not quite 16. 

It was a meaningful few moments I spent pondering that thought and taking in the quietude, void of other humans, though still interrupted by animals, passing vehicles, birdsong, and other early morning sounds. 

As I consider our aging mother and also my aging siblings and I, as well as the newest members of our family, two great-nieces I met later that day, I get a mix of emotions. One of those emotions is always gratefulness. Grateful to be a participant in days that get beautiful starts like this one did, and in days that offer challenges and grief to bear. Grateful to be part of it all and find meaning in the range of experiences and emotions.