Thursday, May 03, 2012

While not really a travel blog, I like to think I will continue to post travel stories here along with my published essays and short stories. The road is calling this month as I will head to New York on Mother's Day weekend with my daughter continuing the weekend trips tradition I started with my mom about 2000. We visited Put-in Bay, Emerald Isle, Marietta, Cincinnati and a couple trips to Lake Hope before Mom was too ill to travel. Carey and I will continue the tradition by spending a couple nights in Manhattan. She wants to see Strawberry Fields. I want to see the Greenmarket Farmers Market. We both can't wait to see the Museum of Natural History. More fun and more travel stories. Then later this month, we will join our Southern Family for another long weekend. This time at my favorite beach -- Topsail Island. The beach background in this blog is Topsail. Travel. I love you.
I found God, but was He lost? Kate M Carey It was through death that I found God. God wasn’t really lost. And I wasn’t really lost. But we were having a long-distance relationship. I prayed to Him nearly every night of my adult life. Nothing big -- no ceremony, no altar. no bowed head or kneeling at the bedside. Just silent whisperings. I prayed for my friends and family. I prayed for the POWs and MIAs. I prayed for my daughter to be happy, healthy, and well-balanced. I prayed for my husband’s health. I prayed for calm strength and strong wisdom for me. My mother died in October and God was there with us. Every day and every night of her hospice care, He was there. He didn’t say much, but He did a lot. When I yelled at him or cried, “Please God, take her.” He was silent. When I woke up and said, “Will it be today, God?” He was silent. When she called out “Sweet Jesus, please let me die!” Like mother, like daughter. My mother’s cries were met with His silence. When she asked, “Why can’t I die?” My father, brother, and I were left to answer her. I tried the “it’s-not-time-yet” approach. My father tried the Catholic approach of his youth “Only God decides when you die.” My brother was silent, like the God we kept asking for help. But God was there. He stood by me. He helped me see that his miracles are even more evident in death than they are in life. He showed me what love was. I saw love pour forth from my brother every time he lifted our mom from her bed and helped her to the bathroom. I saw love in every screetch-scretch-screetch sound of the slide of my father’s walker as he made his way to my mother’s room. I saw love in my aunt’s face with each new soup she brought because my mom always loved her soups. I saw love in my mother’s friends who came to say good bye and I heard it in their voices as they called her from afar one last time. I saw love as they listened calmly as she told them she was dying and she had a message for them, “Only God decides when you die,” she said with the wisdom of those who know their time is short. I saw love in the care the Hospice nurses brought on each daily visit and in each increase of morphine. I saw love from my friend who drove an hour far out into the country to a place she had never been to bring me wine, chocolate, cheese and a loving hug. I saw love as I watched from the front porch as her car headed back to the city where we both live. I saw love in the email life lines I had with friends of twenty-some years during the long days and even longer nights of Hospice. I saw love in the drops of morphine I slipped into my mother’s now silent mouth. God showed me love. He showed me how others live his love because He knew that I needed love to conquer my sadness. He knew I needed to love my mother on her way to heaven. It was through Death that I found God. God wasn’t really lost. But in the warm fall light of October, he was found. Kate M Carey works in higher education and writes stories about daily life. Her characters experience love and loss as they work their paths through life often with humor and seldom without chaos. She is married and has a daughter. Kcarey4@gmail.com 566 words