Author: gettingofftheinterstate

by Donna Poole

It was a beautiful autumn day, perfect for cross-country. We stood in the crowd cheering on the exhausted runners as they raced to the finish line. Megan, our granddaughter, was in the first group, blonde ponytail swinging side to side, running like a deer, her graceful stride making the long race look so much easier than it was. We hollered her name until we were hoarse, and Megan finished well, earning another PR and winning a medal. Now Reece, our grandson, runs for that same school Megan graduated from many years ago, and he too runs fast and finishes well.

On that long ago autumn day, we waited for Megan to cool down from her run, talk to her coach, and get congratulations from her teammates. When it was our turn, we hugged her and told her how proud we were.

By then the cross-country teams were gathering under their schools’ brightly colored canopies, packing gear, and getting ready to board buses. Spectators drifted away from the sidelines and walked to their cars. We said goodbye to other family members and turned to head to our vehicle.

Then I saw something almost unbelievable. “Wait! John, look!”

He followed my glance down the track. A lone runner was still coming in, so late, so far beyond all the others. Her weary feet pounded the track slowly, but she kept coming. I searched her face for signs of sorrow or embarrassment, but all I saw was a spunky determination to finish what she’d started.

You go girl! You run! You’re a real winner!

Years have passed since that perfect autumn day. I don’t remember Megan’s time now, or where she placed, though I was proud of it then. But I remember that determined girl running so slowly, almost at walking speed, but finishing what she started.

I wonder what became of that girl. Did she go on to college or get a job? I have a hunch whatever she did or will do in life it won’t involve quitting.

We don’t always get to meander back country roads in beautiful sunshine on perfect autumn days when life is easy for the living. Sometimes hard, heartbreaking circumstances force us to push through cold rainstorms, slosh through mud. and keep going even when we’ve already spent our last penny of strength five miles earlier.

It would be so easy then, wouldn’t it, to curl up and give in, to let our tears mingle with the cold rain and call it quits.

“It’s always too soon to quit.” –Warren W. Wiersbe

God says when we’re weak we’re strong—strong in the strength He gives us. We can pound the track with weary feet, even when we’re so far behind the others no one sees us on the track.

God Himself and an unseen heavenly host cheer for us.

“Keep going! Keep putting one foot ahead of the other!”

And so, we do. We run; we walk, and we crawl until hands and knees bleed. We may not see the other runners, but we gain courage knowing they too are giving their best. We’re not alone; we’re walking each other Home with our love and prayers.

When weary and bedraggled we finally reach the finish line, God will greet us with a smile, a hug, and the words, “Well done! Well done, my good and faithful servants.”

Heaven’s halls will echo with cheers of joyful celebration, and we’ll be so glad then we didn’t quit!

by Donna Poole

I’m standing in a country field in a comforting September silence, alone except for the thousands, perhaps millions of butterflies dancing with delight over the wildflowers. My memories are fading fast—the horrified looks of my comrade firefighters when we realized the thuds we heard among the shrieking sounds of collapsing metal and screams for help were bodies—bodies hitting the canopy. People were jumping to their deaths?

I looked up at the twisted building torn almost in two by the plane and I ran for the stairs. I had to help people get out.

I prayed as my feet pounded the steps, prayed for my wife and babies at home, prayed for my own safety, prayed God would help me rescue some from this burning hell. Smoke seared my lungs and blinded my eyes, but I did save a few before pain, unbearable crushing pain unlike anything I’d ever imagined in my thirty-two years pinned me down. I must have passed out.

This field, is it a dream? I hold out my hand, and butterflies land on it. I feel their tiny feet before they fly away to rejoin the dance.

I breathe deeply, the sweetest air I’ve ever known. My eyes are clear, no longer crying black, smoke-filled tears. Running through the field toward me I see so many people I’ve loved, my parents, my grandparents, my favorite Sunday school teacher when I’d been a little boy, so many family members and friends. I’m enveloped in love, and the butterflies dance around us.

Suddenly, the butterflies hover midflight, unmoving. My dear ones stop their shouts of rejoicing and fall to their faces. So do I. There they are, the Father, and the Son. Where is the Holy Spirit? Oh, I know. He fills my heart so completely that there is nothing left but love, and I weep tears of joy.

The Son lifts me up, and I look into His face, Jesus, the One I have loved so long. I kiss the nail print in His hand.  

“Thank you, my Savior, for taking my sin into your heart when you suffered on the cross, for taking my punishment, and making my sin not to be. Why, why did you do it?”

He throws back His head and laughs, and the melody fills the heavens. “I did it for love. Love is the reason for everything.”

The Father holds out His arms, holds me to His chest, and I feel the beating heart of the universe. With every beat it says, “love, love, love.”

I pull back, struggling to remember, the smoke, the screams, the suffering, the stench of death. “But why?” I ask.

“Love is not the law of earth yet,” the Father says. “But it will be someday. Will you help me with that?”

He stands me to my feet. The Lord Jesus takes my hand, holds it high, and says, “Of course he will. He has already begun. Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

Now millions take up the chant, “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

But they aren’t looking at me. They are looking at Jesus, God the Son.

“Lord,” I whisper to Him, “what is the date?”

He smiles. “Do you mean in earth time?”

I nod.

“September 11, 2021.”

“What? 2021? But didn’t I get here just a minute ago on September 11, 2001?”

He laughs again, that beautiful sound. I can’t help but join, and so do millions upon millions of others.

“Yes,” He says. “It was just a minute ago heaven time.”

We’re standing on a bit of a hill; I can overlook the crowd and see the field with the butterflies. Still they dance.

by Donna Poole

Today is the end.

How’d you like that for a dramatic opening? Okay, I know it isn’t the end of summer, but August 31 and Labor Day weekend have always seemed like summer’s last hurrah to me.

Not that I even noticed much of summer this year. Ross Ellet, my favorite meteorologist, says 2021 is Toledo’s second hottest summer since people began keeping records in 1873.  I did notice the heat and the humidity. Our antenna TV picks up the Toledo stations and “tropical” is a word we heard a lot about the weather this summer. I felt the heat as I staggered from house to car to go for my chemo treatments. We saw the haze over corn and bean fields as we traveled. I remembered how the blacktop used to bubble and stick to my flipflops on hot days and wondered if the roads were the same now, but I was too tired to ask John. He drove me to my treatments and understood when I was too tired to talk. I felt bad about the wasted conversation time, but we held hands sometimes, and we were together.

If I were a child going back to school and the teacher asked how I’d spent my summer, I’d say, “getting chemotherapy, being sicker than the proverbial dog, and sleeping.”

If you’ve been walking this bumpy road with me, you know I have a refractory cancer, resistant to treatment. Morticia, my lung tumor, ate R-chop chemo for lunch and grew. She stubbornly survived radiation and GemOx chemo. John and I decided no more chemo once GemOx finished, and my oncologist agreed. So, after fourteen chemo treatments and eleven radiation sessions Morticia still lives.

 But I’m remaining in the drug trial for Epcoritamab, and it’s helping. Recent scans showed Morticia shrunk a bit, and perhaps my upcoming ones will show she has shrieked and melted like the wicked witch of the west!

With my last chemo a few weeks behind me, my brain is starting to wake. I notice the shorter days and feel sad. I don’t love summer’s extreme heat, but I do love long days filled with light. Ross Ellet says our next 7am sunrise won’t be until March 7, 2022. We’re losing three minutes of daylight every day.

I chase that daylight in my imagination and beg it to return.

One of my favorite verses says, “The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” –Proverbs 4:18

The Berean Study Bible puts it this way, “The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining brighter and brighter until midday.”

When daylight fades from our view it’s getting light on the other side of the world. The sun is always shining somewhere, and when God trusts us to walk in the dark, we can be sure He’s holding our hands.

It’s interesting, I think, that there won’t be any darkness in heaven. “And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.” –Revelation 22:5

Until heaven comes, we will face times of darkness, of suffering, of loss, times when daylight fades. It helps then, I think, to turn our faces to the light we have, however dim.

It doesn’t take much light to brighten the darkness. That’s why I love the little electric candles in the windows of our old farmhouse. It’s why that commercial was such a success, “We’ll leave the light on for you.” We’re drawn to light.

Tom Bodett was a NPR personality when Motel 6 hired him in 1986 to be the voice for their commercials. He ad-libbed the line, “We’ll leave the light on for you,” while recording his first commercial. It became an instant and lasting success for over a quarter of a century. It won many awards. Advertising Age Magazine named it one of the 100 best ads of the twentieth century.

God always leaves a light on for us. When we turn our faces to God, we reflect His light, and we can leave the light on for others who are hurting and feeling alone in the darkness. I can’t think of a better reason for still being here and not over there where the daylight never fades.

by Donna Poole

It was time! Mary and I left early in the morning. We wore our sweaters, because even though it was August it was cool in the foothills of the Adirondacks Mountains. We shoved our lunches into brown paper bags, even though we knew we would eat lots of the treasure we were hunting and sure to find. We set off with our buckets, the kind of energy only nine-and ten-year old’s can claim, and lots of enthusiasm.

We had no set hiking route; we didn’t know exactly where we were going, even though this wasn’t our first time climbing the foothills to look for wild blackberries. We just walked down the road until we found a field not fenced off with barbed wire or a hot wire—the worst—cut through and started the steep climb. Our younger sister, Ginny, remembers going with us once. I imagine it was a strenuous hike for her little, short legs!

It didn’t take long for us to find our first row of luscious wild blackberries growing in a tangle with cat claw thorns impossible to avoid. Blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, and almonds all belong to the rose family, but we didn’t know that then, and wouldn’t have cared if we did. We only cared about stuffing our mouths, filling our pails, finding adventure, and finally heading home for our reward, Mom’s best in the world blackberry pie.  

Once we stumbled on a long-forsaken boy scout camp with its old, crumbling buildings. My imagination told me a story of a deranged killer who’d found the camp at night and now the bodies of little cub scouts and their scout master were skeletons buried beneath my feet. I made up some excuse why we shouldn’t stay there long.

Mary tried to teach me the art of walking silently through the woods like a native American, one foot exactly ahead of the other, making no sound. She was much better at it than I. Every time I snapped a twig, she looked back reproachfully at me with her dark eyes until we both laughed and gave up.

As the day warmed, we took off our sweaters and tied them around our waists. We rolled them and used them as pillows for naps after a picnic lunch.

We saved our lunch bags; woe to the child who returned from an adventure or a day of school without a lunch bag. I remember detesting the old, wrinkled bag at lunch time in the school cafeteria. It was sad enough not to have money to buy lunch, but couldn’t we at least throw out the lunch bag each day the way the other kids who brought their lunches did? Apparently, their moms weren’t in the running for the title of Most Frugal Mom USA. But then, their moms probably couldn’t make the best blackberry pie in the USA either!

After lunch we either continued exploring or picked more berries. I remember reaching into one bush to get a berry bigger than my thumb when several snakes slid over my right arm, dropped to the ground, and slithered away. It happened so fast there wasn’t even time to scream.

“Did you see that? I almost got bit by three, or six, or maybe even nine rattlesnakes!”

Mary shook her head. “I didn’t see any snakes. And I’m sure they were just garter snakes.”

Though rattlers do live in the foothills of the Adirondacks, I later learned that it’s very common for garter snakes to lurk in the berry bushes. Mice love berries; snakes love mice; you finish the equation. But in my mind back then, I was a hero, almost as brave as Nancy Drew who stood up to criminals. I stayed right where I was and kept picking berries. No two dozen rattle snakes were going to scare me away from getting blackberry pie!

As you might guess, my story of the dangerous encounter grew with the telling. I was quite disappointed when my parents, instead of admiring my sheer courage of braving rattlesnakes, agreed with Mary that the snakes had been harmless garter snakes, waiting to eat mice, with no interest in eating a sweaty fifth grade girl.

It seemed to Mary and me those carefree days of August adventure would last always. Forever we would be sisters, climbing the hills, stuffing our mouths with the sweetness of wild blackberries, sharing laughter and the scratches from thorns, and going home to parents, siblings, and the world’s best blackberry pie.

by Donna Poole

The bride’s mother was trembling with exhaustion; it was her first outing since the stroke that had paralyzed her right arm and left her right leg with a limp. The groom’s mother was choking back tears; was her baby boy really grown and married? She said when she got home, she felt like standing on the roof of the house and shouting to the world, “You can’t have him. He’s mine!”

But for the minute both mothers and the rest of the guests smiled and waved goodbye with calls of, “Good luck!” and “God bless you!”

The twenty-year old bride and groom drove a few miles; then he pulled over and stopped.

How romantic! She thought. He’s going to kiss me.

“Do you have the envelope with the money people gave us?” he asked. She nodded. “Let’s count it!”

Money for the honeymoon was short, and he wanted to see if there would be enough.

Money through the years would be short. Sometimes they didn’t even spend money on anniversary cards, let alone flowers, dinner, or gifts. A simple, “Happy anniversary, honey,” had to do.

The twentieth anniversary is special, but the two of them had no more money than they had the day they married. There would be no celebration, or so they thought. They had a baby, five months old, and three older children, a happy, simple life, and that was celebration enough.

But the three older children had something else in mind. They were seventeen, fourteen and twelve, and had a little money left from birthdays and Christmas. To supplement what they had they looked under couch cushions and in the car and found some change. Off to the grocery store they went, came back, and prepared a delicious picnic.

“Mom and Dad,” one of them announced, “we’re taking you to Cascades Park to celebrate your anniversary.”

The weather was perfect that day, August 1, 1989, not too hot or too cold. The mom cried when she saw the beautiful picnic so lovingly prepared.

“We have a surprise, Mom. We heard you say once you wished you could go on one of the paddle wheel boats. We rented one for you and Dad. We’ll push the baby in her stroller and watch you. Go have fun!”

The mom felt like a kid that half hour in the paddle wheel boat. It was even more fun than she’d imagined.

“Now you kids take the boat for a ride,” the mom said, when they hauled it back to shore.

The kids looked at each other sheepishly. “We don’t have enough money to rent a boat for us. We only had just enough to rent it for you.”

“Oh, honey!” The mom looked pleadingly at the dad. “Can we rent a boat for the kids to ride? They did all this for us!”

The dad looked miserable. “I’d love to rent a boat for the kids. But I only have fifty cents.”

Someone laughed, and then they were all laughing. It was okay. It had been a wonderful day. And as sad as the mom felt not to be able to give the kids a ride on the paddle wheel boat, her gratefulness for their love and sacrifice overshadowed the sorrow. They had raised loving, giving, generous children.

And the baby in the stroller? She began giving before she could talk. At church, she gave all her cheerios to the baby boy sitting in front of her. When she was a little girl, she planned special things for her parents as often as she could. She spent all her money on people she loved.

One year their giving girl turned into a miser and refused to spend a cent on anyone or anything. Her parents were confused by this abrupt change in personality, but the mystery cleared up as August approached. She had saved every penny to send them back to spend their anniversary night where they’d spent their honeymoon. Her brother pitched in the little she lacked at the end.

Years flew by, and it was time for the fiftieth anniversary. The giving girl organized a beautiful party, far lovelier than her parents’ wedding had been. The decorations and food were perfect.

The giving girl’s husband and some of her family helped, but she worked so hard her feet swelled so she could barely get them into flip flops.

Family and friends came from near and far to celebrate with the couple and watch them renew their vows. It was a magical day, the kind you read about in story books but never expect to live, and the mom tried to hold every minute in her heart.

The mom and dad watched their grown kids, in-law kids, and others clean up after the party. The mom and dad helped too. By then the giving girl could barely walk, but love kept her going.

That night the mom lay in bed with tears running down her cheeks, thinking of the beauty of the party and the story of love those swollen feet told. She thanked God for the love and sacrifice returned to them by their children.

How rich they were in the love they shared together! It had grown so much it had burst the seams of their hearts and flowed out to comfort the wounded and the hurt God sent their way. The mom hoped what Oswald Chambers had written was true of them, “Our love but makes a more sure haven of rest for multitudes of strained and stressed lives. From our love should spring great patience and gentleness and service for others, for love is of God.”

August 1, 2021, that couple will be married fifty-two years. He will preach at the country church he has loved and pastored for forty-seven years. If her chemotherapy reactions don’t prevent it, she’ll listen to him preach on the radio in the parking lot; her oncologist won’t allow her to be in a group of people. Later, their giving girl, who has been taking wonderful care of them during this year long cancer journey, will fix them something to eat.

Before they sleep, they will repeat their vows, and she will say, “Grow old along with me; the best is yet to be.” Please, dear Lord, may it be true.

She’ll think of their four kids, their four in-law kids, and their thirteen grandkids. She’ll think of the extended family, church family, and the multitude of friends who love and pray for them. And she’ll know something: they are the richest couple alive.

by Donna Poole

“Ring the bells that still can ring,

forget your perfect offering.

There is a crack in everything.

That’s how the light gets in.” –Leonard Cohen

Memorial Day, July Fourth, Labor Day, I’m a sniffling, patriotic mess at our small-town parades, perhaps to the dismay of my family; though, I think they are used to me by now. From the children wobbling by on their decorated bikes, to the band—never in step though usually in tune, to the groups giving away water and tiny flags, everything makes me cry. And forget it when the VFW passes by proudly carrying our American flag. I stand with my hand over my heart, and tears run down my face. God bless America!

One long-ago parade holiday we were about ready to load the kids in the car to go to the parade when someone from church called my pastor husband and needed him to come for counseling.

“Please, hurry,” the person said.

John rushed out the door. “I’m sorry, honey,” he said. “Maybe you can get a ride to the parade with Kenneth and Mae.”

I hesitated. I hated to bother the Hales, our neighbors; though, I knew they’d say it was no bother. Johnnie was just a baby and didn’t know we’d planned to go to the parade, but Angie, his toddler sister knew. I looked at her face, her brown eyes begging. And I wanted to go too. I called Hales.

Kenneth and Mae were elderly, and two of the kindest people God ever made. They pulled up to our back door. I put Angie in their backseat first, told her to wrap both arms around her chunky brother until I could get in, loaded the old, impossibly heavy baby stroller in next, and climbed in last.

I took Johnnie from Angie and held him on my lap; baby seats weren’t required or the norm.

“Thanks so much!” I said to Hales.

“It will be more fun to watch the parade with little ones!” Mae replied.

Kenneth found a perfect parking spot; the parade would go right by us as it turned the corner. The street was full of children and many of them had helium balloons. Angie noticed.

“I’m sure they are giving those away a few blocks up the street by the speaker’s stand,” Mae said. “You could get her one.”

I hopped out of the car, told Angie to wrap both arms around her chunky brother, hauled out the impossibly heavy stroller, and struggled to unfold it. I put Johnnie in it. Angie got out, and we walked the few blocks. I could feel sweat running down my face and back. When we got there, the balloons were gone. I comforted Angie, and we began our walk back to the car.

Repeat. Open the back door. Help Angie in. Take Johnnie out of the stroller and tell Angie to wrap both arms around her chunky brother until I can get in. Fold the impossibly heavy stroller and heave it into the back seat. Climb in myself and take Johnnie.

That’s when the elderly woman from the front seat spoke. “Honey, I do believe you’re in the wrong car.”

Was it worth it all when the band straggled by, out of step but not out of tune, and the VFW walked by carrying our American flag, and I stood with my hand over my heart and tears running down my face? Oh, it was!

It wasn’t a perfect day, and we don’t have a perfect country, but freedom is still ours, if we don’t let it slip through our fingers. No, it’s not a perfect freedom; there has never been such a thing.

Oh wait; there is one perfect freedom offered by God to each of us. Jesus died on the cross to give us freedom from the penalty and power of sin. If we confess our sin and need of saving; He gives us that perfect freedom, and “If the Son therefore shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.” –John 8:36

Free to enjoy eternal life!

I can’t remember if John was home yet when Kenneth and Mae dropped me off at the back door; I don’t think he was. Angie didn’t get her red balloon. I needed a shower. Johnnie needed to chill.

Our country may need a shower, more red balloons, and a time to chill. We all see what’s broken in America, but today, let’s celebrate what we have. I’m not always proud of America, but I’m proud to be an American. God, bless the USA! We don’t deserve it, but please, for the sake of your praying, repenting, hoping people, do it anyway.

“Ring the bells that still can ring,

forget your perfect offering.

There is a crack in everything.

That’s how the light gets in.” –Leonard Cohen

by Donna Poole

Just smile and wave boys, smile and wave. That’s what I and my kind do because we don’t know any other proper response. We likely have no idea what you just said.

I don’t know how long I’ve been hard of hearing, probably a long while. I do know we’ve had a good friend for over forty-five years, and I’ve never heard more than half of what he’s said. Maybe that’s why we’re such good friends!

Did you know that hard of hearing people are more likely than the general population to get early dementia? I think I know why. Without meaning to, we withdraw little by little into our own worlds and let conversation flow on around us. It’s easier than asking, “What did you say?” or, “Would you repeat that?” every two minutes. We catch fragments of conversations and respond when we can.

Time passes, and we don’t realize how bad our hearing loss has gotten. Until something out of the ordinary makes us face reality.

For me, it was not being able to hear my oncologist and many of my chemotherapy nurses. I do ask them to repeat. Otherwise, I wouldn’t know if my oncologist said, “Call in Hospice,” or, “Don’t eat popsicles.” That’s a difference I might need to know!

So, John and I had the hearing aid conversation. We don’t have the Medicare and the supplementary program that pays for hearing aids, but we don’t want to change it. You wouldn’t either if you were us! It has paid every cent of a brain surgery, ICU stays, other minor surgeries and hospitalizations, monthly IVIg treatments that cost about seven grand each, and all my chemotherapy. Our insurance agent told us never to change it.

Without insurance help, we were on our own to pay for whatever hearing aids we bought, so I started researching. John hates to hear this analogy, but I sometimes ask him how much money he wants to put into an old and perhaps dying horse!

I saw an ad on my phone for inexpensive hearing aids available online and asked my Facebook friends for opinions. I got lots of ideas from them, and something totally unexpected. One of God’s earth angels we’ve known for years lives in a nearby town. He saw my Facebook post and messaged me. He had the kind of hearing aids I’d asked about in an upgraded version. He’d worn them only two weeks and decided to go with something else. The company refused to let him return them. You guessed it; he gave them to me. I wore them for the first-time last night.

We ate in the living room, as we do most nights. Not only could I hear every word said in the living room, but I could also hear conversations in the kitchen when people when back for seconds! It was amazing, and overwhelming.

I always brag about my wonderful family so I’m sorry to tell you this, but they are incredibly noisy. They toss silverware from the island into the sink, and it sounds like bombs exploding. I had to leave the kitchen. One of them has this high piercing whistle. I always enjoyed it pre-hearing aids; I thought it was a quiet, tuneless whistle; at least I could never pick out a tune. When they turn on a light switch in this old house it sounds like a cap gun going off. And their voices are so loud!

They laughed at me. “Wait until the whole family gets together. What are you going to do then?”

I thought about our wonderful family, all twenty-three of us, thirteen grandkids. I know what I’m going to do then. I’m not going to wear my wonderful new hearing aids. I’ve prayed for hearing aids for years, and I’m beyond grateful for these, but like some wise sage said, probably my mom, “There is such a thing as too much of a good thing.”

by Donna Poole

“In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o’clock in the morning,” –F. Scott Fitzgerald

The old mystics used to talk about the dark night of the soul, and singers and poets since have adapted the phrase for their own meaning.

When it’s dark inside, do we forget to sing? We may. Friends can help us then. “A friend hears the song in my heart and sings it back to me when I’ve forgotten the words.” –Unknown

God gives songs in the night (Job 35:10). John and I used to listen to a radio program titled “Songs in the Night” on Sunday nights after we put our young children to bed. Many years later our sons told us that as soon as they heard the theme music play, they covered up their heads with their blankets. They were just little boys and thought the program’s title was “Sounds” in the night. They didn’t want to hear any scary sounds in the night!

God gave me songs this week. A friend visited our church on Sunday, played his guitar, and sang, “The Old Country Church.” Perhaps it’s a good thing I was listening from Kimmee’s car in the parking lot instead of being inside. I used up many tissues crying at the good memories that song recalled.

On Tuesday I heard more music. Bobby Charles is a music therapist at University of Michigan Hospital. He visits oncology patients because he loves to give songs in the night. We patients getting strong chemotherapy listen to him play his guitar, tap our toes in our beds or recliners and almost forget cancer for a while.

We’re hurting; it’s starting to get dark inside, but Bobby Charles hears the songs in our hearts and sings them back to us when we’ve forgotten the words.

I had a chance to talk to Mr. Charles Tuesday. I asked if what I’d read was true, music is the only activity that activates the entire brain. He said he’d read the same thing. We talked about the mysterious ability of music to recreate memories, to calm, to help alleviate pain.

“There is still so much we don’t know about the power of music,” he said.

He can play about any style of guitar music. I requested “Country Road”.

“You mean the John Denver Country Road?” He smiled and not only played it but sang it as well.

Mr. Charles played “The Sound of Silence” by Simon & Garfunkel; suddenly it was 1965, and I was a junior in high school with my whole life before me. I loved music when I was a teenager.

Mom didn’t like us to play music at home; looking back I understand why. Six of us, seven when my older sister visited, lived in a trailer ten feed wide and fifty feet long. That tin box magnified every sound, and we weren’t quiet kids.

I do remember Mom singing a few hymns though, “I Come to the Garden Alone,” and “God Will Take Care of You.” In my memories, when Mom sang, she was always in the kitchen. Mom made wonderful spaghetti, homemade donuts, potato pies, and pasta va zoola, so when I remember her music, I remember her food. I can almost smell the thick spaghetti sauce simmering on the stove.

There was no cussing allowed in the home I grew up in, not even in songs. Mom had a bar of soap ready for anyone who offended the no cussing rule, but when I was a child and got mad enough at my younger sister, Mary, I sang, “Bloody Mary.” She hated the words, “Bloody Mary is the girl I love,” and when I shouted out the last six words including the cuss word, she always told Mom, and I got to sink my teeth into the soap. So, remembering that song makes me taste soap!

Macy, our granddaughter, is a genius at remembering lyrics, and she’s my hero in many ways. With a chromosome deletion and addition, her determination has taken her further than experts ever thought she would go. When Macy was pre-school age, she memorized every word of every verse of every song we sang at church. She picked up the words to songs on the radio and on her CDs as well. She sang a song that named all the presidents. I often thought if someone could put everything Macy needed to know to music, she could learn it all without struggling.

What is there about music? My husband, John and I used to have a nursing home ministry pre the two C’s—cancer and Covid. People in the home, some no longer able to speak a sentence or even tell you their names or room numbers, could still sing the words to hymns they had learned long ago.

After Bobby Charles played on Tuesday at the chemo center, I did something I never do, unless I’m writing. I shared with him, a stranger, some of my own struggles. But you know what? We weren’t really strangers anymore. He gave me one of his CDs to listen to at home. Its an easy listening style and is available on iTunes and Amazon, “Bobby Charles forever and a day.” I think you would enjoy it.  

I hope you aren’t facing that dark night of the soul where it’s always three o’clock in the morning, but if you aren’t, you may someday. If it happens, listen for a whisper of a song. God will give you a song in the night even if its harmony is tears.

When God makes the new heaven and the new earth, we won’t need our songs in the night; I don’t know if we’ll even remember them. He’ll wipe away all our tears and we’ll have an eternity of joy and music!  

The Best Is Yet to Be

by Donna Poole

The little girl had a perfectly heart shaped face, long, dark brown braids, and almost black eyes. She watched, brown eyes dancing with excitement, as I opened my Christmas gift from her, one she’d saved pennies, nickels, and dimes to buy me. I was a year older, and she knew I wanted gold colored doll-sized silverware.

There it was in my hands, the silverware I’d longed for but never really expected to have. I looked at her happy smile, and then I did something so unbelievably cruel tears still sting my eyes when I remember. We’d been fighting, some little girl sister argument over something now long forgotten.

“I don’t want this stupid stuff,” I said to Mary. “You keep it.”

She didn’t say a word, but her face. Oh, that sweet face. Her lips trembled. Tears spilled out of those dark eyes and ran down her cheeks. I did love the gift. I was sorry for the words the minute I said them. It was a lesson it would take me a lifetime to learn; there is no taking back cruel words once said.

Mom grabbed the gift from my hands and gave it to Mary. “Donna, you will never touch these as long as you live. Do you hear me? Never.”

And I never did.

Many years later I finally apologized, and Mary forgave me, but the memory lingers of a wonderful gift rejected and the sweet giver deeply hurt. 

***

I’m getting familiar with my pattern now. I get chemotherapy and a trial drug on Tuesday. By Thursday my five “sick as a dog” days begin.

Someone first wrote the phrase “sick as a dog” in 1705, so it has been around for awhile now! Back then dogs were often stray creatures, usually sick, and left to die unaided in the streets. People didn’t value their lives the way we do now.

I feel for those dogs, lying sick in the streets during my sick as a dog days, Thursday through Monday. I’m too sick to appreciate the beautiful gift of life; I just survive. By late Monday afternoon I start to rejoin the land of the living just in time to drag myself to the hospital for Tuesday’s injection of the trial drug. But! That Tuesday I get just the trial drug and any thing else I need depending on blood counts, NO chemotherapy. On the way home God wipes a film from my eyes and once again I see.

Remember being a kid, swinging high, lying back in the swing. and looking at life from upside down? Breathtaking, wasn’t it? It’s like that when I once again see.

I reach for John’s hand, and he smiles at me. I love how boyish his smile still is, and the way he jokes about driving Miss Donna and never complains about the many hours he spends in the car. I think about how lovely my care team is, doctors, nurses, the lady who schedules everything, and the phlebotomists, especially the one who finds me every week, no matter where I am, and gives me a Bible verse to help me through the day. I picture home and know it will be spotless when I get there, because our daughter, Kimmee, not only cooks gourmet meals, but she also cleans, gardens, and does a hundred other things.

We pull out of the parking lot and ease our way into traffic, and I grin at how young the pedestrian traffic is, students and hospital employees, riding bikes, walking fast, jogging, and running, ponytails swinging side to side. Live kids, live! The world needs your youth, your energy, your enthusiasm.

When we get out of the city, I catch my breath at the beauty of nature’s bounty. It has rained, and June is green with hope. So many different shades of green combine to make one glorious watercolor wash. Flowers brighten the landscape. I’m a tree hugger from way back. If I only had the energy, I’d ask John to stop the car so I could get out and throw my arms around the rough bark of one and thank God for its Creator.

I’ll feel better for a few days now until its time for chemo again Tuesday.

Last Sunday I curled up in bed barely alert, only awake enough to know I was sicker than a dog. This Sunday Kimmee will take me to parking lot church. I might even put my hand over my heart and try to sing if I don’t run out of breath. I know I’ll cry; I seldom make it through a parking lot church service without grateful tears. And Kimmee won’t laugh or roll her eyes. She’ll just hug me or touch my arm and ask if I’m okay.

Later that day we’ll finally celebrate Easter with our kids and grandkids. We’ll watch the grandkids hunt for eggs in the grass at our son and daughter in law’s house and give them their Easter baskets. We’ll take off our masks long enough to eat together. Our son or daughter-in-law will probably build a fire, and we’ll sit around it and laugh and talk and love every minute together until the last ember.

Can we ever cherish the gift of life too much? If we take it for granted, if we let our trials rub off the shine until only the gray remains, are we throwing the gift back at its Creator? “I don’t want this stupid stuff. You keep it.”

In our dog days we may be incapable of loving life; everyone has those survival mode days. But when we can, let’s hug the people we love and the trees too; let’s laugh and sing and put our hands over our hearts and cry. Because life is good. Oh, what a wonderful gift!

by Donna Poole

There once was a whaler from Pompeii,

            Who went ashore to sashay,

            But instead went to church,

            And was forced there to perch

            For a two hour long flowery homily that went neither fore nor aft and said nothing.

            The kind old whaler probably not from Pompeii,

            Wished he had gone to sashay.

            Looked around church sooner.

            Rig was a bark not schooner.

            Its grand tonnage was packed but most of its cargo was sleeping.

            The wise old whaler definitely not from Pompeii,

            Almost stood to sashay.

            Knew the Cap’n wasn’t heard,

            Didn’t even know windward,

            He for sure didn’t have a harpoon onboard and if you aim at nothing you hit it. Always.

By me with apologies to all real poets

So, what did I see from where I sat in the hospital room last week? Once I stopped feeling like a snail too weak to pull its hinder parts back into its shell—that’s not entirely allegorical; don’t ask, I could think. I remembered a story I read early in our ministry and laughed. A whaler did go to church on shore leave and listened to a similar homily described above. As the whaler tried to slip out of church, the clergyman stopped him and asked what he thought of the sermon. Being a kind man, he wasn’t sure what to say. Finally, he responded.

“Well, matey, you had fine words, but you had no harpoon on board.”

Would you believe that story has, perhaps more than anything, shaped John’s preaching ministry and my writing? When John first graduated from college and became John Poole, BA in theology, and ThB in Bible and theology, his sermons were more informational.

When he asked me what I thought after an unusually information-only packed sermon, I’d ask him, “What was your harpoon, matey?”

I sometimes regret that question now when the harpoon touches me! And he never gets behind the pulpit without a harpoon onboard.

The same is true in my writing. Informational writing is fine if that is the writer’s goal. What’s my goal when I write? If I don’t know my goal, I’m wasting my time and yours.

So, I grinned when I thought of that story in the hospital and looked around for harpoons for you and for me. I could find some for me, but I guess you’ll have to find your own!

I found my first harpoon. It had “Jesus” written on the side. Sometimes I forget that Jesus is the hub of the wheel of my life.

I promise I’m not digressing. We saw a twelve-year old on the news who just graduated from high school and college at the same time. He’s quite the goal-driven kid!

I told John, “When I was twelve my goal was to get my cards to stay on the spokes of my bike with clip clothes pins because they made the coolest sound.”

Obviously, I was not the goal-driven kid on the news.

I loved riding my bike. But what if the hub of my bike had been off center so some spokes were longer and some shorter? You can imagine how well that tire would go around! When Jesus is the center of my life, the spokes are even. I don’t mean my life is easy or perfect. I mean things are more balanced.

So, I try to keep the main thing the main thing. Many other things matter dearly to me: family, church family, friends, my writing, my readers, finding joy, and so much more. These are my harpoons in life, my goals, the things that matter. Cancer is my great reminder that we don’t have earth-time forever, and now is when I better polish up my harpoons and stop getting tangled in the million and one nets that don’t matter.

I said you had to find your own harpoons, and so you do. But here’s what I see from where I sat in the hospital room. I see a harpoon with your name on it, because if you’re someone in my life, or just someone who reads what I write, you matter to me. That harpoon may be the most important thing I ever give you because it will prepare you for this life, and for eternity. Next to your name it has the name Jesus and John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

Notice it doesn’t say get eternal life by being a good person, or being a good Catholic, or a Baptist. There are only two names on that harpoon, your name and His. Those two are more than enough for here and forever. And that’s what I saw from where I sat.