There's no wasting time in Spain...it's all important and precious!

From my journal.... while I was visiting in Segovia, Spain, May 18, 2014

I can't believe how fast the days are flying by here.  Now I'm starting to feel a bit more relaxed and the emotions about the passing away of my Spanish papá feel so real and close today.
I decided to walk up the highway towards the "parador".  It was only about 3km up to the area where they have such beautiful views of the entire city of Segovia.

From there, you can see the "acueducto", the cathedral, the "muralla" (walls of the city), the castle, (Alcázar)...all of it in eye's view.  A picture doesn't really do it justice. It's really so much more beautiful in real time.

As I was looking out over the scenic view at the cathedral of Segovia, I saw a very large bird fly in front of the view and begin to fly towards me high in the sky.  It was black and white with a huge wing span and I immediately had a thought that I wanted to ask papá, "¿Cómo se dice el nombre de este pájaro en español?"

It was a stork. I had remembered the type of bird, but I couldn't remember the word in Spanish.  How frustrated and sad I felt that I couldn't turn to papá and ask him.  He taught me so many things, just as my own father had...about the birds, the flowers, the stories from all the towns we visited.  I stood there looking at the views with those majestic-looking birds swooping and diving through the sky in front of me and I cried.

They say that people we love visit us in nature.  Just like the other day when a butterfly painting of papa's fell out of a stack of old letters and pictures we were looking at.  I knew at that moment that his spirit was there...in me and around me.  I just felt his presence so strongly as I looked out over beautiful Segovia.  I saw it as he did, a beautiful painting, something to behold and treasure.

All of a sudden, I knew! It came to me like that, a thought, an answer! Papá told me the name of the bird in Spanish, "una cigüeña"! A stork! The birds that make their nests in the bell towers of the churches.  He was still there answering my questions...giving me love and care...his "hija americana".

One of Papa's Paintings of Segovia