gettingofftheinterstate

October 5, 2020

Follow the Road or Don’t

by Donna Poole

You wouldn’t guess it to look at him, but this almost seventy-two-year-old country preacher I’m married to has a restless streak a country-mile wide. At least it used to be a country-mile wide; maybe it’s only a half-mile wide now. It shows up in different ways. He gets a certain glint in his eyes.

Then he says, “I wonder where this road goes? You want to follow it and find out?”

He knows I do. I always do, except for that one time.

We were in Lost Nation, a game preserve area close to our home, when he asked his question.

“No, I don’t want to. That’s not even a road! Please, don’t….”

But it was too late. Hoping, as he always did, that our 1973 Pinto station wagon would magically transform itself into a Jeep or better yet a four-wheel-drive truck, John had already started down the “road” in Lost Nation that looked more like someone’s overgrown driveway. We swerved and bumped down the path that grew more overgrown and less road-like by the minute.

“I think we should turn around or back out of here,” I suggested.

“There isn’t anywhere to turn around, and I don’t want to back out of here. Besides, we don’t know where this goes yet.”

We never did find out. Finally, we could go no farther, and John had to begin backing out, considerably harder than driving in.

We were close to where we’d started when the Pinto sunk in a patch of mud.

“Help me push the car out.”

We pushed; we struggled. John remained optimistic. I’m the family Pollyanna, but those tires were half-buried in mud. Getting stuck in the mud in an isolated game preserve in the days before cell phones wasn’t fun.

John found an old fence post. “I’ll try to lift the car up with this while you push.”

I don’t remember now if either of us prayed. Let’s imagine we did. Whether we did or not, God was merciful. He let us wait long enough to realize we were in trouble. John hiked back to the road and flagged down a truck,

The truck driver hooked on a chain and pulled us out of the mud. He refused pay, smiled at John, and politely said, “Probably not the best place to try to drive a Pinto.”

I don’t remember what I said to John. Let’s imagine I was a good wife and didn’t say anything.

John’s restless streak used to show up in other ways too. He often got requests from churches looking for pastors. Would he come preach for them? He went every time and after a favorable vote asking him to come as pastor went through agony trying to decide if he should leave our church.

Finally, our church board asked to meet with John. Bud, our oldest deacon, spoke for the board. “Pastor, you’re driving us crazy! We never know if you’re going to leave or stay! Please make up your mind one way or the other.”

That time of many churches asking John to come preach and slowed and stopped. Many years passed. We didn’t get another request from a church looking for a pastor until John was seventy. It came from an adorable church with a small congregation near the shores of Lake Michigan. If you don’t live in Michigan, you may not know that many Michiganders drool at the thought of living near the lake. Including me.

John wasn’t tempted. He wrote the church a sweet note declining the request for him to come preach with the possibility of being considered as their pastor, smiled at me, and tossed the letter in the garbage. He didn’t tell anyone at our church. I confess, I got on the internet and researched the beautiful area; I’ve always hoped to someday live closer to the lake. But the beautiful road that beckoned me to the lake couldn’t compete with the heart of the people we love right here. Most important, John knew God wasn’t calling him to go down that road. I’m glad I don’t have to figure that out for him, and he doesn’t have to for me. We each must listen to that still small voice in our hearts and choose what road to take.

Still, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t God calling John to drive down that forsaken path in Lost Nation. That is one back road adventure he never tried again.

We drove back to the scene of the crime today so our daughter, Kimmee, could take pictures for my blog article.

“Dad, you drove down that? But it isn’t even a road!”

Exactly, Kimmee.

“Well, it was wider back then,” John said, sounding defensive.

Not by much it wasn’t.

“Take a picture of that sign, honey,” I said. “The one that says no vehicles.”

The sign makes me guess there must still be people with a restless streak a mile-wide looking for adventure. Too bad the sign hadn’t been there all those years ago. But then I wouldn’t be taking this backroad adventure with you.

Road in Lost Nation. Photo Credit Kimmee Kiefer.

John’s “road.” Photo credit Kimmee Kiefer.

Another view of John’s road–photo credit Kimmee Kiefer

The sign that wasn’t there when we got stuck. Photo credit Kimmee Kiefer

September 28, 2020

The Baby Has a Name–Almost

by Donna Poole

It was a monumental moment. At exactly 8:42 a.m. on May 28, 2020, I touched the keys on my laptop and typed the words, “Corners Church Jr.”

“I’ve started the sequel to my book,” I told Kimmee. “I thought Corners Church was a standalone novel, but I woke up in the night with a sequel in mind.”

“That’s great! But you aren’t really going to title it Corners Church Jr. are you?”

No, I wasn’t, but since the book baby hadn’t announced its own name yet, I’d give it that one until it did.

Writing a book is like wandering down back country roads; you probably aren’t going to end up where you expected, and the views will surprise you. I had a destination in mind when I began writing, but my book wandered off on a journey of its own telling. After many revisions, my new book begins like this:

Chapter One

All Who Wander

What am I doing here? It wasn’t the first time he’d asked himself that. Pastor J. D. looked around the long table and sighed. Another board meeting for the books; he’d give this one the same grade he’d given the others, a C for effort.

And C for Cyrus. The minute I open my mouth that man’s ready to holler no. He hasn’t liked me since day one, and I’m not his biggest fan either.

Day one. That had been a year ago. Sometimes it felt like a decade.

J.D. had been lost in more ways than one when he’d stumbled on Corners Church. After losing both Abby and his position as lead pastor at Riverside Tabernacle and Seminary in Chicago, J.D. had fled like a wounded animal to an Airbnb cabin in Barryton, Michigan. He’d purposely looked for an off the beaten path place where he could be alone. He’d planned to stay at the Airbnb only a month but had ended up staying a year. “Not all who wander are lost.” J.D. had thought about that saying often during his year at the cabin. He’d wandered a lot trying to regain some peace.

***

New characters found their way into my book, including Cass, one of the four adorable rescue cats who belongs to Kimmee and Drew and lives with us. The book wouldn’t be the same without Cass, and neither would its author.

Today, September 28, 2020, at 12:30 p.m., four months after I started typing, and 60,320 words later, I finished my third edit of my book. Thank you, Lord, I thought. Next, I need to find a cover and send it off to my real editor.

I’m more apprehensive about this second book child than I was about the first. Like all children born into a family, it’s quite different from its sibling; you might not even recognize they are related. We took an unexpected journey, my book and I. A few days after I started it, I found out I had cancer. I’ve written the whole thing sitting in bed, between tests, doctor’s appointments, and chemotherapy treatments.

Many days I couldn’t write at all. It was too much effort to concentrate or focus. On semi-good days, a strange thing happened. When I couldn’t force my thoughts into line to read a book or watch a movie, I could still write a book. Often, when my brain and voice were too weak to carry on a decent phone conversation, my fingers still flew over the keyboard, living life with the new characters at the Corners.

So, I’m a bit apprehensive about this book. But I’m exhilarated too. I prayed my way through the writing, and if it’s incoherent, my editor will tell me. If it’s decent, I may present you my new baby before Christmas, though I’m not promising. This book journey is far from complete. Let’s just say you’ll see it sometime soon, Lord willing and if the creek doesn’t rise, or, as a main character in the book insists on saying, “Lord willin’ and if the creek don’t rise.”

And that brings me to the book’s title. It’s either, If the Creek Doesn’t Rise, so as not to offend the sensibilities of the grammar Nazis and perhaps keep them from buying the book, or, it’s If the Creek Don’t Rise, in honor of Cyrus who says it that way.

Which title do you like? I’d love your thoughts.

This is Cass, a main character in my new book. Photo credit: Kimmee Kiefer

September 21, 2020

The Last Cutting of Hay

by Donna Poole

Summer doesn’t stomp off in a fury announcing her departure like some drama queen leaving a party, high heels clicking on a hardwood floor. Summer is a lady. In her whisper-soft ballet shoes, she glides off when no one is looking.

“Where’s Summer?” someone asks.

“I don’t know. She was here just a minute ago. Did anyone see her leave?”

“I wish I’d paid more attention to her. She was a delightful addition to the party, wasn’t she? Will someone close that window? It’s getting cold in here!”

The calendar and Kimmee, our daughter, tell us it’s the last day of summer.

We occasionally spot a rare butterfly or a hummingbird reluctant to fly south, but these sightings happen infrequently now. No joyous bird songs greet us when we step outside. It’s so quiet I can hear the dry leaves falling from the leaves and hitting the grass. The slant of the sun is different inside the house now too. I like that; it’s lighter inside than it was.

On one of our backroad ramblings the other day we passed a field and saw the last cutting of hay. Nothing says the end of summer more clearly than that. And nothing makes me feel more nostalgic, except, perhaps, the geese practicing for their flight south, getting the V formation right, but flying in the wrong direction. When it’s time to go, they’ll know when and where. God will tell them, and they will listen.

Before they were old enough to have “real” jobs, our boys, Johnnie and Danny, hired out to farmers who needed help baling hay. They were hard workers, so they never had trouble getting jobs. When they were very young, they’d stand on the moving tractor, pull bales and stack them, or load them onto the elevator, or stand in the barn stacking the hay as it came tumbling off the elevator. When they got a little older, they learned to drive tractor and rake the hay. Haying was hot, hard, exhausting work. The boys came home covered with sweat and hay and with funny stories of equipment cobbled together that a farmer somehow stubbornly kept running, of how they had almost fallen off a wagon when a tractor had jerked, or of the amazing food they had eaten.

“Mom, we’d work for Reeds for free just to eat Mrs. Reed’s food!”

While some of their friends loved lazy, hazy summer days with nothing to do, our boys enjoyed, to quote one of their favorite radio programs, “the satisfaction of a job well done.”

The boys were about twelve when they started hiring out to hay. They were skinny kids, all legs brown and sunburned, and I desperately loved them and their determination to work like men. That’s what their dad and I heard most about them, “Your boys work like men.”

What do they think of those haying days now? Do they regret the loss of summer freedom? John Jr. says, “That tough work made me the kind of man I am today. After baling, most the jobs I’ve had felt easy.”

Danny says, “I baled hay because I love the hard work. You instilled a good work ethic in all of us kids. All these years later I still bale hay and love it (although most of the time it’s round bales). If you work hard you have a better appreciation for what you earned.”

And now when I see the last cutting of hay, I think of how fast all those growing-up summers passed by for our boys and our girls and now are for our grandchildren. Just like summer leaves us quietly, so does childhood.

Soon the “Bye Dad! Bye Mom!” isn’t because the kids are going off to hay on a hot, summer afternoon. It’s because they’ve come for an hour, or an evening, and it’s time for them to go home with their own families, with their own children whose summer of childhood will soon be gone.

It’s so quiet then we hear the dry leaves falling from trees and whispering across grass. We notice that the slant of the sunlight is different for us now than when we were younger. We hear the lonesome sound of geese honking and look up to see them in perfect V formation but flying in the wrong direction.

We laugh then, my John and I, as we wrap our arms around each other, wave goodbye to kids and grandkids, and watch the geese. They’ll get it right when the time comes. When it’s time to go, they’ll know when and where. God will tell them, and they will listen. Our kids did, and our grandkids will too. Our prayers will help them find the way.

The last cutting of hay may be nostalgic, but it brings promise too. As long as the earth endures, there will always be another first cutting of hay; there will always be another spring. Our grandchildren will grow up to be hard workers who love God, and our children’s children will too. They won’t be alone. The world will always have some good people who work hard, love God, and love each other. I hear the promise in the sound of the wild geese who are in perfect V formation and look! Now they’re flying in the right direction.

September 14, 2020

Lessons From a Lunch Pail

by Donna Poole

John was wrapping a used brown paper grocery bag around his old, dented, black lunch pail. It took a lot of tape.

“She’ll think it’s funny,” he said, convinced his daughter must have inherited at least some of his irrepressible sense of humor.

“I’m not so sure.”

Tomorrow Angie would be six years old. All she wanted for her birthday was a lunchbox she’d showed us several times. She couldn’t wait to carry it to the first day of first grade and show all the friends she’d made in kindergarten, even Wendy, her least favorite friend. When I’d asked her why she didn’t like Wendy as much as the others she’d said, “Because, Mommy, she tells the other kids what to do, and I want to tell the other kids what to do.”

Wendy might not be her favorite person, but Wendy and all the other kids would love the cute lunchbox.

I kept working on the butterfly birthday cake. Our little girl adored butterflies. I thought about her other gifts. Her Daddy got her a used bike from Fees, church friends, and hid it from her. When she was napping or sleeping that summer, he sanded it, painted it, and shined it until it looked new. Grandma and Grandpa Poole sent money for a new bike seat and streamers. We bought her training wheels. Her other gifts were a package of chenille pipe cleaners from us, crayons and a coloring book from three-year-old brother Johnnie, and magic markers and a notebook from one-year-old brother, Danny. Grandpa Piarulli sent money for material for me to make her a new dress.

Angie sat on the floor when it was time to open gifts. She opened everything but saw no lunchbox. Then her Daddy handed her the bulky, ugly wrapped package. She, opened it, and looked up at him, confused.

“It’s your new lunchbox! For first grade!”

Her bottom lip trembled. Tears spilled out of her huge brown eyes.

He hugged her. “Don’t cry! Open the lunch pail.”

Inside was a note she could read with little help: “Look on top of the refrigerator.”

John held her up so she could see the exact lunchbox she’d wanted. Tears turned to squeals of joy as she pulled it down and held it close, but Daddy’s eyes and face filled with regret as his look met mine. He feels bad about those tears to this day.

“Let’s go outside,” he said.

When Angie saw her new wheels parked next to Daddy’s car, she forgave him, but she too still remembers the not-so-funny ugly lunch pail.

Angie’s birthday was on Monday that year, Daddy’s day off, so he had time to help her learn to ride her new bike. Our good friends and neighbors, Hales, came for ice cream and butterfly cake and brought Angie a new dress. She went to bed a happy girl, thinking of her blessings, not the gift her Daddy had thought would make her laugh but instead had made her cry.

My heavenly Father has handed me a few packages wrapped in ugly paper with even uglier looking dented lunch pails inside. I know he doesn’t do it expecting me to share a sense of humor I can’t understand, but do I cry? Sometimes.

“God is too good to be unkind and He is too wise to be mistaken. And when we cannot trace His hand, we must trust His heart.” –Charles Spurgeon

I need to remember to keep looking inside the lunch pails for the notes. I don’t expect God to lift me up and show me everything I asked for waiting for me on top of the refrigerator, but I do expect the notes to teach me to trust His heart. So far, I’ve found some breathtakingly beautiful notes in my dented pails, and I hope you have too.

September 7, 2020

Jungle Juice and Awesome Aunts

by Donna Poole

“Please,” John asked, “Stop calling your chemotherapy poison.”

I knew he was right; attitude toward treatment is important, so with the help of a friend I renamed my R-chop chemotherapy “Jungle Juice.” But what’s Jungle Juice without a good Tarzan call, right? I practiced that, complete with chest pounding, until John groaned.

The time came for my third chemotherapy treatment, halfway point, time for a celebration. I had just the perfect one in mind. I’d demonstrate my Tarzan call for the nurses.

“You can’t do that at U of M,” John objected. “Do you want them to kick you out of that place?”

Hmm. Maybe. I dunno. Well, if I can’t do my Tarzan yell inside, I have a surprise for you, honey.

So, as we walked sedately arm in arm, like any dignified elderly couple, through the parking garage into U of M, I let out my Tarzan yell. Twice. John looked for a car to hide behind.

During chemotherapy I offered to demonstrate my terrific Tarzan imitation for the nurses. They chuckled but politely declined.

A voice from the other side of the closed curtain called, “Well, I want to hear it!”

I called back, “A kindred spirit!”

My kindred spirit and I had a long, interesting conversation. She’s only forty and fighting the battle of her life for the next year against a rare, aggressive cancer. We didn’t talk much about cancer though; we discussed life in general, our faith in God, her five horses, and the nieces and nephews she adores. We discussed how important it is to be an aunt, and what a great influence and comfort an aunt can be.

I’ve been thinking about my awesome aunts ever since our talk. My Italian aunts were beautiful. I loved it when great-aunt Julia came to visit Grandma’s house when we were there. Not only did she press a shiny silver dollar into our hands, but she and Grandma had some wum-dinger discussions. Just as their arguments got interesting, they switched to Italian because they could talk faster, disappointing, because we couldn’t understand Italian.

I remember seeing two of my aunts, I think it was Aunt Mary and Aunt Louise, join arms and dance the polka in Grandma’s kitchen. All my Italian aunts talked fast and at the same time, called their parents “Ma” and “Pa,” and always treated them with the greatest respect. At least they did after they were adults!

I wish I’d known my Italian aunts better, but I didn’t talk to them much. Mom always insisted children were to be seen and not heard, so my siblings and I had to sit hands folded at Grandma’s and not talk unless spoken to. That gave us more time to hear the stories. We heard how once our gentle grandpa got tired of hearing my aunts argue about whose turn it was to do dishes, so he grabbed the table cloth, wrapped up the dishes, and threw them all outside where they broke on the lawn. I guess they never argued about dishes again!

In my last blog I told you about Uncle Tom, but I didn’t say much about sweet Aunt Virginia. We kids felt comforted just sitting near her. She was soft, kind, and wore necklaces made of pop beads, large beads you could pop apart and put back together, and she let us play with them.

Aunt Virginia loved to whistle softly. She was a quiet complement to Uncle Tom’s opinionated outspokenness. The only time I ever saw him get upset with her was when they were visiting us. He came into the living room in his t-shirt, and Aunt Virginia said, “Tom, you need a bra more than I do.”

This was the 1950s. People did not say “bra” right out loud. People especially did not tell a man he needed one. It was hysterically funny to us kids, but not to Uncle Tom, and he let her know it.

Mary and I stayed with Uncle Tom and Aunt Virginia a month when Ginny was born. I remember those as days of quiet peace, except for the time I had to rescue my sister from a too bossy cousin. I loved being there; I slept in a bedroom where a fan blew white, billowy curtains behind my bed, a place made for daydreams.

After John and I were married we visited Uncle Tom in the hospital after he’d had a heart attack, and then we went to church with Aunt Virginia. I told her how much she’d meant to me all those years, and how much I’d loved hearing her whistle, and how happy it had made me.

Aunt Virginia looked at me and chuckled. “Donna, I only whistled when I was nervous.”

My aunts were awesome. My kindred spirit on the other side of the curtain in the chemo room is an awesome aunt too. She’s single, with no children of her own, and adorers her nieces and nephews. I’m glad she sent me down this backroad rambling road remembering my aunts.

You may not have had the blessing of an awesome aunt, but if you have a niece or nephew, it’s never too late to be a special aunt to them. Maybe you can even teach them the Tarzan call. Everyone should know that, right?

“Only an aunt can give hugs like a mother, keep secrets like a sister, and share love like a friend.” –unknown

August 31, 2020

Then and Now

by Donna Poole

“Mom! You don’t have to hike every trail in this park!” our confirmed bachelor son, John Jr., said.

His much younger sister, Kimmee, looked up at him with grateful brown eyes; she was exhausted too.

“Yes,” I answered, “I do. You kids don’t have to come, but I have to hike every trail in this park.”

“Why?”

The question was logical.

My answer wasn’t.

“Because I always hike every trail in the park.”

Huge sigh from confirmed bachelor son. Small groan from little sister.

“Okay. If you and Dad are going to hike every trail, we’re coming.”

“Why?”

My question was logical.

His answer wasn’t.

“Because.”

Times change. This camping trip we didn’t hike any trails.

Times change. One day, in his late twenties, John Jr., the confirmed bachelor son came home from church.

“Mom, have you ever noticed Katie Smith’s eyes?”

And that was the beginning of the end of the bachelor days. John Jr. and Katie now have six children. All four of our children are married now, and we have thirteen grandchildren. That’s our wonderful now.

Sometimes it seems like yesterday I was a child. Occasionally I take a walk down memory lane in my backroad ramblings. It’s fun remembering my Uncle Tom. I had two Uncle Toms, and I loved them both. My tall, Italian Uncle Tom looked startlingly like Dad, except he was a foot taller. My mother’s only sibling was also named Tom.

Mom’s Tom was the fire chief of the Philadelphia Navy Yard and that made him a hero to us kids. When we went to visit him, he introduced us to downtown Philadelphia and street vendors. Uncle Tom bought me my first soft pretzel; I can still taste it. Dad was horrified. How did we know if it was clean? I didn’t care about clean; it was delicious. Uncle Tom was fun; and life was wonderful.

Uncle Tom took us to our first amusement park and went with us to Niagara Falls. He taught me to swim in the Atlantic Ocean.

We kids loved the yearly visits from Uncle Tom and Aunt Virginia. Uncle Tom was larger than life in more ways than one. He was a big man with a big heart, and he loved big. Best of all, he was on our side always, like a giant champion. Mom never spanked us when Uncle Tom was visiting.

Every visit, before he left, Uncle Tom bought us a present. Presents were a big deal in our family in the 1950s. You got a present for your birthday and for Christmas but never for any other reason.

One year when Uncle Tom came to visit, he didn’t seem to regard my sister Mary, and me, the way he usually had, as his little angels. Our other siblings still had his favor, but Mary and I troubled him.

We lived then near Taberg, New York, in the foothills of the Adirondacks Mountains. Our trailer park was in an isolated location and the only other children near our age in the trailer park were boys. Mary and I could outrun and outplay almost every boy at whatever sport there was. The two of us road our bikes for miles and swam in creeks. We took pails and climbed the hills searching for wild blackberries, coming home with heaping pails of them that mom made into mouth watering blackberry pies. Sometimes we roamed the foothills for hours. It was a wild, free, Tom Sawyer kind of life.

Uncle Tom did not approve. We heard him tell Mom, “Donna and Mary Lou are growing up like wild Indians. The only time I’ve seen them in a dress this whole week was to go to church. They act more like boys than girls. I’m worried about them.”

He talked to us too that week, about being more lady like. We listened politely and nodded. He was, after all, our favorite uncle, our beloved Uncle Tom.

Too soon, it was time for Aunt Virginia and Uncle Tom to head home. It was bittersweet though because we knew present time was coming.

“Donna,” Uncle Tom asked me, “what would you like for a present this time?”

“A baseball bat! I don’t have one, and I’d really love one!”

He sighed. “I’ve been talking to you all week about being too much of a tomboy. I’m not buying you a baseball bat! Mary Lou, what would you like?”

“I want a baseball to go with her bat!”

If I remember correctly, Uncle Tom told us to choose a “girls’ gifts” and we refused. We didn’t get presents that year. But we didn’t lose our love for Uncle Tom and had many more wonderful visits with him.

The Tom Sawyer days Mary and I shared only lasted a few years; for me it was fifth, sixth, and half of seventh grade, but they were my favorite childhood days. I could write a book about our adventures and the trouble we got into and out of!

Perhaps that’s why I felt like I had to hike every trail in the park. It’s something Mary and I would have done back then.

Someone said not to spend too much time looking in the rearview mirror, because we aren’t going that way. That’s true, but it’s fun to look back at the then and see how it shaped you into the person you are now.

Well, dear Uncle Tom, you knew Jesus as your Savior. I know you’re in heaven waiting for the rest of us to join you. You’ll be glad to know I acted quite ladylike this vacation, but only because my body was too tired to cooperate with my spirit. I did spot a new trail on one of our drives though.

“John, do you think we could hike that trail next time?”

“That one? No! It would kill us. That trail is two times longer than the one we hiked last year that did almost kill us. It goes down that mountain, comes up another one, and it curves around there, and . . . I’ll show you where it comes out.”

He drove quite a distance. “See? This is where that trail ends you want us to hike. Still want to try it?”

I just smiled.

Some people didn’t grow up Tom Sawyer, and it shows.

The Hills of Brown County and Uncle Tom and Aunt Virginia

August 24, 2020August 24, 2020

There’s Gold in Them Thar Hills

by Donna Poole

You travel a quiet backroad; it’s not your backroad, but its familiar feel says it could be. You see a group of friends laughing uproariously. One of them glances at you and sends a smile. They aren’t your friends, but you know they could be. You enter a small country church. It isn’t your church, but the warm welcome lets you know it could be. There’s healing in those brief connections, more precious than gold in the hills.

People have found gold in the hills of Brown County, Indiana. I’m sure not everyone was so quick to tell the tale, but the first recorded person to say he’d found gold was John Richards who discovered it in 1830 in Bear Creek. Commercial attempts at mining gold in 1875, 1898, 1901, and 1934 didn’t produce much, because apparently there just isn’t that much gold to be found.

There’s gold of another kind to be found in the hills though, the healing gold of connections. I wish I could remember how many years we’ve been traveling down the backroads to come home to Brown County, Indiana. We love the hills and the connections we’ve made here.

John and I grew up in the hills of New York State.

I was in fifth grade when Mom and Dad decided because we moved so much for Dad’s job as a mechanic with Mohawk Airlines, we’d just start taking our home with us. They bought a new trailer home, ten feet wide by fifty feet long, five-hundred square feet for six of us, make that seven when my sister was home on visits. Let’s just say that lack of space contributed to my early, long lasting love of being outside, especially in the hills.

I’ve always found a healing connection in what God made untouched by human hands. Even as a child I loved solitude, especially at twilight. As much as I love people, I sometimes need God’s quietness to heal.

We pulled into the campground at Brown County. The woman who handed me the map looked at my hat and smiled. It wasn’t the, “I’m so sorry” smile I often get these days. It wasn’t a quick averted “I don’t know what to say to you” glance. She looked right into my eyes. Somehow, I knew it was a “you go girl!” grin.

I told her, “On the worst of days I can’t imagine going anywhere. On my good days I keep thinking, ‘if I can just get to Brown County! I think I can heal there.’”

She laughed. “And here you are. I get it! I’m a five-year cancer survivor. I’m so glad you’re out doing this! Good for you!” She looked at John. “And good for you too! Thank you for bringing her!”

She’s not my friend, but I know she could be.

Over the years we’ve visited several small churches here in Brown County, and they’ve all felt like home. Our favorite church meets right in the park. We’ve come to love the pastor and his wife. They are friends. We couldn’t see them this time, not even at a distance, doctor’s orders.

We can’t hike our strenuous trails in these hills and laugh at each other afterward for even trying. Now John congratulates me when I go with him to carry the garbage to the bin several yards down the road.

We have a favorite little shop down in Nashville. The owner has told us snippets of stories over the years that found a home in my book. John is going to take him a signed copy of my book while I stay here at the camper. I will miss seeing him this year, but it’s okay.

I don’t mind what I can’t do. The healing human connections can wait for next time.

I’ve slept all night the last three nights, and so has John. I think the camping trip is doing more to heal my cancer than chemotherapy ever could. John and I have time here to talk about things other than cancer. We have time to live in the now.

It’s totally still outside and in my heart as I sit in my lawn chair talking to you through my blog. The sun smiles down between tall, ancient trees. God is in His heaven, and if all is not right with the world, it will be someday.

I’ve come home to the hills.

August 17, 2020

Under the Trees

by Donna Poole

Our picnic finished, we sat in chairs under trees next to the quiet water. Lazy isn’t the word to describe how I felt; inert is better. I was simply there, merely being. Too tired to read, but somehow having a book on my lap brought be comfort.

I looked down at A Circle of Quiet by Madeleine L’Engle and touched the cover. It too, had a picture of trees by the water. I knew I’d love the book if I could get energy to open it; I’d read it before. But this time, my hands refused to turn any pages. They were content to lie folded on top of the book. Maybe I could absorb it by osmosis.

On the other side of where we sat a piece of land stretched out, and then the river-like water curved around and widened into a lake where children splashed and played. They were far enough away that their laughter and shouts sounded like soft background music played in a candlelit room. It was sweet, but I couldn’t quite connect with it. I just sat. I couldn’t walk over the bridge and go to the swing where John and I love to sit looking out over the lake, but I didn’t care.

“Happy?” John asked. “Tired? Want to go home?”

“Happy, tired, don’t want to go home. I’m a tree now. Leave me here in my chair by the water and come back and get me when I have enough energy to get up and leave.”

He chuckled and opened his book. I napped on and off, and listened to the trees, their roots deep by the water. Their quietness sinking down deep into the mineral rich earth below.

It’s alright just to be sometimes; it’s okay not to have anything left to give. It’s fine to rest awhile by the still waters of God’s grace and soak it in deeply, to regain strength, and light and joy.

But the trees are always giving. They are giving me shade and peace. Their leaves are making delightful patterns on the water. They bring joy to the people who sometimes fish from these banks.

That’s because it’s their season to give. Soon, their leaves will drop like yours are now. They will stand silent and still against the cold of winter, and they will wait for spring’s renewal. You, too, must wait for renewal. But for now, just rest. Be.

The sun began to sink in the west, and John closed his book. “Ready to go now?”

“No. I really can’t go. I don’t have the energy. I’m serious. I have to stay here. I think I’m a tree.”

He laughed, pulled me to my feet, and steered me to the car.

“You’re not a tree.”

I looked at the trees one more time as we left the park. They whispered a goodbye message. You can be a tree if you want to be a tree.

I don’t want to be a tree forever, but maybe I’ll be one for a little while. If you see me, slouched down in my chair beside the water, baseball cap covering my bald head, looking too tired to move, don’t worry. I’m okay. It will get better. Just for now, I’m being a tree.

“And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season.” –Psalm 1:3

August 10, 2020

Bumps in the Road

by Donna Poole

We notice subtle differences in our backroad ramblings; the birdsongs are quieter now. The cicadas make up for the birds in volume if not in sweetness. The wildflowers deserve a standing ovation! If they had a voice, they’d be shouting a crescendo of praise, perhaps even the “Hallelujah Chorus” but their riot of color is doing that for them.

Rosinweed adds yellow sunshine to the wildflowers growing along the roadsides; it looks like a tall dandelion. White Queen Anne’s Lace is abundant. Blue Chicory, Daisy Fleabane, white with deep yellow centers, and the beautiful intruder, purple Loosestrife, combine to make fields of showy bouquets. The pink Coneflower, once a common wildflower in Michigan is now listed as threatened and according to the DNR it’s possible it no longer exists as a wildflower. We’ve planted it in our yard, and it spreads a bit every year. It’s bright pink right now in early August.

Are the wildflowers especially beautiful this year?

We’re learning to identify more wildflowers: the False or Oxeye Sunflower, the Woodland Sunflower, Ground Honeysuckle or Common Bird’s-foot Trefoil—don’t you love that name? We’ve spotted Wingstem, a terribly invasive weed with beautiful yellow flowers. I forget the names of these wildflowers as soon as I look them up, but I admire their beauty spread bountifully along the country roads for all to enjoy.

I used to love long hikes to admire the wildflowers, and I will again someday, but for now, when just a walk to the garden tires me enough that I lean on my walking stick and someone’s arm, I’ve discovered another way to enjoy them.

I hear echoes of my mother’s voice. “Take me for a ride, Dominic.”

Mom loved long rides to see the wildflowers. We’d all pile into the station wagon and Dad would drive down country roads, pointing out the wildflowers to us.

Now I sometimes ask, “Take me for a ride, John.”

He does. Early evening before the sun sets is my favorite time to ride. The world is quieting down then; the robins are chirping goodnight and perhaps missing their babies; sometimes I miss mine.

We exclaim over an especially vibrant patch of wildflowers and then see a sign. I laugh.

John looks at me. “What?”

“That sign. ‘Bump.’ It happens to all of us, doesn’t it?”

He smiles and reaches for my hand. It’s a rather sad smile. I don’t have to explain; he knows.

Just try cruising down life’s road without hitting a bump. Sooner or later we all hit one, or two, or many, and often there is no sign to warn us.

Sometimes Dad would hit a bump so hard we kids would laugh as our heads almost collided with the roof of the station wagon.

“Dominic!” We knew that yell well. So did Dad. Sometimes, maybe often, he deserved it.

Once he fell asleep when he was driving. We all did. We woke to Mom’s yell, “Dominic!”

Dad slammed on the brakes, and the car came to stop a few inches from a huge tree. As a girl I was sure all our guardian angels combined to hold that station wagon away from that tree. I pictured them, faces strained with effort, backs against the tree, arms entwined, and legs straight out against the bumper of our car. I’m still not so sure that didn’t happen.

Dad was in his late seventies or early eighties when he rolled his car. He hung upside down, dangling from his seatbelt, and couldn’t get free. Bystanders gawked as the car began to burn. One man rushed through the crowd and pulled Dad from the burning car just before his seat caught fire. God has more than one kind of angel.

When we drove from Michigan to New York to see Dad in the hospital, Kimmee was a toddler. She stared with compassion at her grandpa’s head totally wrapped in bandages. When we got home, she was looking at her books.

I heard Kimmee saying softly, “Poor, poor Grandpa.” She was looking at a picture of Humpty Dumpty with a head wrap after he fell off the wall. I didn’t let her see me laugh.

Even Humpty Dumpty faced bumps in the road.

Who knows? Perhaps Humpty Dumpty was just sitting quietly on his wall, enjoying a vibrant view of wildflowers when suddenly, crash.

In the traditional nursery rhyme, all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again, but Kimmee’s book painted a gentler view. Humpty Dumpty had a head wrap, but he was recovering. And who knows? Perhaps his future views of wildflowers from the wall were all the sweeter because of his sudden, unexpected bump.

I love my backroads view of wildflowers. Jesus loved wildflowers too. He said to His friends, telling them not to worry, “Consider the lilies.” He reminded them that even King Solomon’s clothes weren’t as beautiful as wildflowers clothed by God.

I’m amazed. God names every star in the billions of galaxies, sits beside every dying sparrow, and sees every wildflower. He counts the hairs on our heads. I’m saving Him a lot of work in that department, because of chemo I’m about bald! I can trust Him with my bumps in the road.

That’s not to say doubt never mixes with my faith. When a tsunami sweeps away thousands, when children die at the border, when innocents around the world suffer man’s inhumanity to man, when people starve, when an island is dedicated to the depravity of rich men—don’t think I don’t wonder why!

I know all the theologically correct answers. We’re born into a sin-cursed world and a better one is coming, but meanwhile, my heart cries with those who suffer.

I have bumps in my road; some have earthquakes that swallow them alive.

The sun doesn’t always shine on my backroad ramblings. And yet, as always, God points me to the light. Either I believe He is good, and will fix it all someday, or I do not. I choose to believe because I know Him too well not to trust Him.

One day, before Dad went to heaven, I was tired. Dad was near ninety. Surely, he’d have a hopeful answer.

“Dad, does it ever get any easier?”

“No, it doesn’t, honey.”

It wasn’t the answer I hoped for.

“It doesn’t get any easier, but Jesus gets sweeter.”

That was answer I could live with.

Jesus gets sweeter; the wildflowers get lovelier; and someday there will be no more bumps in the road.

August 3, 2020

Small Miracles Against All Odds

by Donna Poole

“There’s another one! See?”

No, I didn’t see, but Kimmee, lover of all God’s creatures great and small reached out for an almost invisible, tiny larva for her collection. In it came with its milkweed to join the others already in the house.

The tiny caterpillar ate voraciously for ten to fourteen days, and then one morning, Kimmee showed me it was hanging upside down in its beautiful green chrysalis. I marveled to see that during the next ten to fourteen days the chrysalis became transparent until we could clearly see the colors of the monarch butterfly inside.

Next, the chrysalis split open and the adult butterfly emerged little by little. It hung there for a while, drying its crumpled, wet wings, extending them, and resting, until it could fly. I went outside with her, and Kimmee opened her hand and released the butterfly into the big wide world.

Kimmee was probably seven or eight when she began bringing in larva, charting the progress, and releasing butterflies. She learned to identify male and female and recorded how many she had of each. Every time she held a Monarch in her hand and watched it fly away, we saw a miracle.

We knew the fragile looking Monarch might be part of the annual southward migration, flying all the way from Michigan to Mexico. One fall John, Kimmee and I camped on Edisto Island, a marvelous place, where ancient Live Oaks line the narrow road to the campground. On their way south, hundreds of monarchs covered a single bush right behind our tent camper. Had any of them come from Michigan, perhaps even from our yard?

Monarchs are fragile. Touch their wings the wrong way, and they will never fly again; yet they can migrate from Michigan to Mexico, even from Canada to Mexico, against all odds. How?

Who couldn’t use a small miracle against all odds right now? We’ve all lost so much, and our county fair is a small but big example.

The Hillsdale County Fair is a central part of life, not just for the week of the fair, but for many weeks before. The 4-H kids begin their projects in the spring. They spend hours, days, weeks, learning to groom and show their animals for the all-important show and sell days at the fair.

Those kids without livestock still participate. How many evenings did we spend at dog 4-H while Kimmee learned to show her dog? Then there are craft, cooking, academic, and photography projects. From scrapbooks to sewing to scarecrows, kids county-wide work unbelievably hard to prepare for the fair. Kimmee’s love of monarch’s became an academic project and many photography entries at the fair.

“John!” I said one year, a week before fair when Kimmee was getting about fifty last minute projects together, “look at this mess! There isn’t a room in this house that isn’t filled with a 4-H project!” I miss those messes.

Adults enter projects too, canning, baking, quilting, sewing, and so much more.

We love the fair. We linger at exhibits, stop and talk with neighbors and friends, and never leave without Fiske Fries and Red Barn elephant ears. When Kimmee was in 4-H we served our required hours in the kitchen; now we volunteer in the quilt booth where John laughs with everyone who stops and jokingly offers to sell the beautiful quilts to the person who will give him the most money.

The fair is an important part of county social life, and it’s an economic necessity for the fair itself.

This year, for the first time since 1851, we will have no county fair. This would have been year 170; it has never cancelled before.

Lori Hull, the fair manager, says, “I have often told people who aren’t from the area that they need to understand that the world in Hillsdale County stops for the last week in September. Everyone goes (to the fair).

“The paid attendance each year is around 40,000 people. Last year, there were over 400 kids exhibiting in 4H and over 600 open class participants. There are typically over 200 vendors that exhibit their products, food, and services during the week.

“The fairgrounds has also become a popular spot for weddings and receptions. The buildings and grounds are rented many times during the year for events as well. All that changed this year with COVID-19. We have suffered the economic impact of almost every event being cancelled, and their deposits having to be refunded. If you would have told me in March, when this whole thing started, that the board would vote unanimously in June to cancel the fair…I never would have believed it. And yet that is what happened.”

This year, there will be no tractor pulls or concerts. The Ferris wheel won’t light up the sky; no loud music will play on the midway. No children will tearfully beg for just one more ride. Long lines won’t stretch in front of Fiske fries. Friends and neighbors won’t meet and greet, hug and laugh, and promise to get together more often. Vendors who make a year’s living at the fairs will struggle to survive. We mourn our fair, and we know it’s a miniature parable of what is happening to our world.

We were at the fair office the other day, talking to Lori. We noticed a small miracle. Against all odds, a petunia was growing up through the cement steps. It had self-seeded from a pot of petunias Lori had the year before.

Later, I asked Lori, “Do you water that petunia that’s growing up through the steps?”

Understand, we’ve had a hot, dry summer. We can barely keep our garden and flowers alive with daily watering.

Lori answered, “Nope, I haven’t done anything to it! I guess it’s stubborn! Kinda like the manager, lol!”

The petunia is a small miracle of hope. The fair, the county, our country, the world needs hope.

I don’t know what you’ve lost as you’ve traveled your backroad or city street, but please, don’t lose hope. Find it the next time you see a monarch. Remember the petunia growing up through the steps at our county fair office, thriving against all odds. Remember Who created the butterfly, the flower, you, and me.

I write to you today, fellow traveler, with sorrow for what we’ve all lost, but with hope for the future. And I smile when I remember that stubborn petunia—and our equally stubborn fair manager!