Sunday, October 25, 2009

My phone woke me. My son called to tell me he'd put his fiancee in the hospital last night with a blood clot in her lung an his 3-year-old was sick with a fever.

I already was distressed that I could not visit my mother post-hospitalization, due to unreliable transportation, but I felt my son was calling out to me for help and I could do nothing. He is not one to call anyone for help, so this was especially painful for me.

I wanted to shut myself off from the world, but I couldn't completely. Curtis needed me to drive him to Grip Industries so he could pick up Miss Lumpy and drive her home. First, he needed to make a short detour and spend 5 or 6 hours at the garage working on her.

The closer I drove toward home and my cherished solitude, the more I knew I could not enter my home alone. I drove to Rotary Park and spent an hour or two roaming and photographing whatever struck my fancy. I met a family from Puerto Rico and shared my bench with them. It was under the shade of a set of palm trees and afforded me the space and time I needed to relax while the sounds of the gentle tide soothed my troubled mind. I looked out toward the Pineda Causeway and let the tide take my troubles out as it moved away with gentle lapping sounds.

When I came home, I did not feel alone and by the time I called my son, my grandson's fever had broken. His future wife is still in the hospital, but she seems to be doing okay.

Mother Nature is the best healer I know.

posted by Unknown at 10/25/2009 02:27:00 AM