I got nothing. Nothing to add to the debate about Rep. Todd Akin and “legitimate rape” and sperm-killing vagina venom. Only this — it rains on fools and kings alike. And when you are dealing with cancer, getting drenched in a thunderstorm seems like a welcome option. But you remember how I have these prophetic dreams from time to time? I’ve written about them here on the blog and in those books of mine. Usually the prophetic dreams aren’t good news.... Read more
Taking Care of Mama 8.22.12 You buy the plane ticket To come see me You comb my hair, Rub my neck You position my dinner Just so You pack the oxygen In the car, All the while, telling me Not to worry God’s got all this and more Under his control. I know, I know I was the nurse for Forty-two years, remember? Radiation doesn’t hurt It only kills. Politics 8.22.12 The crash of the... Read more
Mama took the doctors best prognosis in typical Mama fashion. She looked straight at them and said, “Man is man and God is God.” Her meaning was clear: Man can only guess. God knows. The oncologist shook his head in agreement. I don’t know what particular belief system he ascribes to, if any, but he was completely and utterly respectful of Mama’s conviction that God has all of our days numbered. She won’t die a moment beforehand, and she won’t... Read more
The blinds drawn, lights off, I leaned over Mama’s hospital bed and rubbed her neck. “I don’t know how you manage to be so strong,” I said. “It’s like my mama always told me,” she answered. “Root little pig or die.” My mother has spent a lifetime figuring out how to survive only to find out she’s dying. A couple of months. That’s the guesstimate prognosis. A week ago she was out shopping — one of her favorite activities.... Read more
“This day is not a sieve, losing time. With each passing minute, each passing year, there’s this deepening awareness that I am filling, gaining time. We stand on the brink of eternity.” Ann Voskamp When that soldier came to our little trailer house in 1966 with that Regret-to-Inform telegraph in hand the whole thing tore me so that for years, decades really, my memory of that moment got all catawampus. I have that very same catawampus feeling in my head... Read more
A watercolor of Scottish man in a kilt playing the fiddle took the Judge’s Choice Award. I know because I was the judge who awarded it. I’m not sure what time we got home last night but when I stepped into the house, hot from being locked up for days, I thought about how when I left the house last Thursday I had plans, different plans. One of the fair superintendents of the Morrow County Fair expressed surprise that I... Read more
A friend once told me how difficult it was for her to adjust to the military way of life. She had grown up a product of prosperity. Her father had discovered some necessary component to something in the music industry and had made a tidy fortune in the process. There were fancy cars and vacation houses, famous people sleeping over and all the things that go along with the lifestyles of the rich (or poor) and self-absorbed. She was not... Read more
The argument over health care is politically-charged and I have nothing much to add to it other than choices matter. They can make the difference between life and death, between a good life or a miserable one. Mama has choices, and for this day I’m grateful for that. When we sat down as a family to weigh the options, finances was not the determining factor. Mama’s best care was. I am completely aware that for millions around the world that’s... Read more
Mama is sitting at the edge of her bed eating a biscuit with jam and drinking a tall black coffee from McDonalds, which Mama declares is pretty good coffee. I am the culprit who snuck the “real food” in. Mama says you can tell everybody the food here is bad and besides, she’s been a nurse for decades. “I always thought it was stupid when you have an 80-year old patient who has their way of eating and you get... Read more
A week ago I was in a hospital in Spokane, Washington celebrating the birth of our first grandchild. There were tears that day, too, but of a different sort. Tears of joy. I remember little from all those religion classes I took at University but the one thing I do remember is how eternity was once viewed not as a cloud to sit upon, or a harp to strum, but the passing along of one’s self into the next generation.... Read more
Karen Spears Zacharias
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