seeing beauty through another's eyes

With all due respect to Mr. Emerson, I'd like to take a little poetic license  and make that  "Never miss an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful"... through the eyes of someone else...

I hope you won't mind.

This past weekend, my husband and I traveled out of state to the funeral of his grandmother.  We visited with family my husband hadn't seen in years.  It was an opportunity for him to show me places from his childhood as I listened to his, and other family member's, memories. To put pieces together that helped mold him into the man he is today. I met his uncle Ed. He was a man of few words, and pretty much kept them to himself.  Not the kind to just walk right up and engage you, but once he got to know you, you could see what a kind heart he had.  I knew of, through stories from my husband, the farm his uncle Ed had worked on all of his life and I asked for a "tour" of the farm.  

As four adults and one little girl climbed into his gas powered "golf cart" he drove over what seemed to me as miles and miles of ground.  He named every plant, every kind of animal he used to raise, showed me 2 ponds and a couple of streams on his property.  I hung on his every word.  Not because I'd never seen crops, (I have farmers in my family)  but because I was seeing this through his eyes.  This land was so much more than his livelihood through the years.  It was his passion.  Time had not been kind to his body, but he found strength and comfort in this land.  Though he wasn't much of a "church goin' man", I got the sense he knew of God, not so much from his people, but felt his presence from his handiwork.  I'm grateful I was able to experience this through his eyes.

Update:  June 7th this giant of a man was laid to eternal rest.  I consider it an honor to have met such a great man with a kind heart.   He will truly be missed.