by Donna Poole
Packing Old Bertha, our aged fifth wheel, went amazingly fast.
“Do you think we could maybe leave late Sunday afternoon instead of Monday morning?” I asked.
“Maybe,” John said.
“One more evening for a campfire!” I held the imaginary S’more dangling in front of his imagination.
“You don’t have your treatment side effects yet?”
I shook my head. “Nope. Maybe I won’t get them this time.”
Yeah and maybe it won’t be cold in Michigan this winter.
Even though Morticia, my lung tumor, is behaving like a good girl, taking a nap, and not saying a word, I continue the same treatment regimen I had when she was baring her nasty teeth and showing lots of cancer activity. I had the treatment on Thursday. The side effects are unpredictable except for one thing: they always come. They often start on Sunday.
“Maybe we can leave Sunday, babe,” John said. We’ll see how it goes.”
Late Sunday afternoon found us and Old Bertha bouncing down our gravel road headed for the highway. Lake Michigan, here we come!
I admit; we felt a bit apprehensive. We don’t have the best vacation history. Oh, it’s an interesting history, if you want to hear all the reasons vacations have been interrupted, shortened, or aborted.
But I had a good feeling about this vacation. “I don’t have one of my gut feelings,” I told John.
“Good!”
My gut feelings are nothing to mess with. On our previous vacation a month earlier we were debating the pros and cons of going to one of our favorite campgrounds in Brown County, Indiana, where we already had reservations. It’s quite a distance from us and two things made the decision easier: Gas prices took a sudden jump, and I had one of my gut feelings someone was going to need us. Someone did. We ended up camping just twenty minutes down the road and making a hospital call almost every day.
We were almost to Lake Michigan before the side effects hit, so the trip was nice. But we were both happy to see the sign to the campground. It was bedtime by the time we filled the water tank, backed in, leveled, and got set up. We decided there would be plenty of other nights for campfires; we had a lovely, uninterrupted week and a day stretching in front of us. We voted for an early bedtime.
Monday there was no denying that the side effects had come full force, but the day was beautiful. Sometimes rainy camping days have outweighed sunny ones. John and I both remembered one unforgettable week when it was raining when we arrived at the campground; raining every minute we were there, and still raining when we left a week later, and no, I’m not exaggerating. But the weather reports looked great this time. Nothing but blue skies.
We were delighted with our campsite too. Right from there we could see the boats going down the channel into Lake Michigan. We took a short walk down to the channel and came back to set up our chairs and pick up our books. Here until next Tuesday. Ahh. Talk about a kids out of school feeling. We had big plans! Read. Drive up the shoreline. Walk to the channel several times a day and watch the boats. Sit on the beach and say goodnight to the sun every night as it dipped in glorious colors into the lake. Have campfires. Eat S’mores. Play Rumi cube.
“This is the best campsite we’ve ever had. The weather is beautiful. It’s going to be a perfect week. I have one of my gut feelings.”
John grinned. He’s almost always happy, but this was the carefree kid smile he doesn’t often wear. My smile matched his. It was fun to see him looking years younger. He needed a week free from ministry responsibilities, always a challenge for any pastor, but especially for one his age and with his health problems.
Exactly then his cell phone buzzed. Someone had died; would he be willing to preach the funeral? It would be Friday.
Of course he would.
Did I want John to say yes? Of course I did. I loved the people who needed someone to preach a funeral; we’d known them for at least forty years. And I loved John for being the kind of man he was, always ready to be there for others.
But why did it have to happen now? Impatient with myself, I swatted away those mosquito buzzing thoughts. I recognized them for what they were.
“Do you have your computer, honey?” Rhetorical question. Of course he had his computer. And unlike the old days when he carried a box full of study books “just in case” he now had the internet handy for research.
The next three days weren’t totally preparation, study, and funeral sermon writing for John, but they were mostly so. And me? I tried to stay awake and read my books, but the treatment side effects worsened by the day. I slept a lot. We managed a few walks to the channel, but that was about it. We didn’t even have evening campfires.
Thursday came, the day to go home for the funeral. We were barely out of the campground when John steered the truck over to the side of the road and glided to a stop.
“What’s wrong, honey?”
He sighed. “No brakes.”
Why just why? Another mosquito buzzed.
One tow truck expense, one mechanical repair expense, and six hours later, we set out again. We got home very late, did some laundry, and fell into bed exhausted.
No good deed goes unpunished. Quit being so cynical. What happened, Donna? You fall out of your Pollyanna tree? I swatted away another mosquito thought.
The treatment side effects woke me up early Friday, but I was determined to go to the funeral. I thought John did a good job. He was loving, compassionate, humorous at times. Most importantly, he reminded people everyone spends eternity somewhere, and God sent his Son, Jesus, to die on the cross to remove the sin that keeps us out of heaven. When we repent of sin and put our faith in Jesus, the end of this life is only the beginning of a life more wonderful than we can imagine.
My head and heart thought it was a fantastic sermon, but my stomach didn’t agree, and it had the last word. I followed its orders and beat a hasty exit to the bathroom during John’s closing prayer.
We got back to the campground by dark too tired to even think of a campfire.
And then came Saturday. My side effects finally settled down to manageable. John’s kid smile returned. We had three fantastic days left and we packed into them everything we hadn’t been able to do the other days, except for eating S’mores. We discovered our marshmallows had expired in March, and our chocolate candy bars were missing. It’s hard to have S’mores with just graham crackers.
Who needs S’mores to be happy? We sat by a crackling campfire. We walked many times to the harbor and watched the ships. We sat on the beach and marveled at the sight of the sun dipping into Lake Michigan. We found a great church to attend on Sunday. We played Rumi cube, and my humility prevents me from telling you how many times I beat John. We held hands, talked, and laughed.
On our last night we did something we’ve never done; we walked to the channel after dark. And we found magic. An almost full moon hung over the harbor and reflected in the water. The lighthouses at both ends flashed their beacons, and the homes lit up along the way whispered a message. They told me to be grateful for our three Mary Poppins Days. They were practically perfect in every way.
We turned slowly away from the magic of the harbor and headed back to Old Bertha, one last sleep, and then home. And my heart whispered another message. It told me to ignore the mosquito thoughts, to be thankful for every minute God gives me on this earth, and to be especially grateful for the man who was walking by my side and holding my hand.
The end
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These blogs are now available in book form on Amazon:
Backroad Ramblings Volume One: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter
Backroad Ramblings Volume Two: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter
Backroad Ramblings Volume Three: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter
Backroad Ramblings Volume Four: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter
I have six other books on Amazon as well, four fiction books in the “Life at the Corners” series, and two children’s Christmas picture books.
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