It was a perfect morning – a dove-gray sky with the amazing saturation of reds, oranges, and yellows … a braking car, a Pepsi truck, Target’s target …

A dove-gray morning that felt like 31 degrees with its 3 mph SSE breeze and 51% precipitation.

A dove-gray morning with the chilly tickle of the breeze upon my face as I walked sure footed in barefoot shoes and freed from hip and knee arthritic pain … a temporary release from the imprisonments of fading health.

A dove-gray morning with blooming trees filled with Spring’s whites and purple blossoms that seemingly woke during the night as I slumbered.

A dove-grey morning that carried the silent memories of fog horns, condensed-covered windows, pajama breakfasts with melting buttered waffles, maple syrup, bacon, rich dark coffee, unique scent of the newspaper, and the medley of sounds — crunchy folded newspaper, laughter, and voices of morning kitchen reunions from slumber to wakie-wakieness.

A gray-dove morning with unknown and unheard sounds of explosions as drones fill the sky; fear-filled, pain-filled screams intermixing with crumbling buildings … lives forever traumatized … all deafened by distance voices filling the air, “keep blowing them away” – “keep pushing, keep advancing, no quarter, no mercy.”

A gray-dove morning with a 9 year old bully in his ill-fitting Sunday clothes at the helm.

A gray-dove morning where more than 1,900 people have been killed and at least 20,000 injured in Iran.” …”more than 1,000 people in Lebanon and displaced nearly 1 million, 20% of the country’s entire population, creating a humanitarian crisis.”

A dove-grey morning of mourning