Angels, Mermaids and Devil Machines

A dear friend died last week. She went down with her boots on, suddenly, with the smell of angel dust on her. Some folks die and it is sad or tragic. Others die and you have this feeling that the heavens just opened up something special-like. Nothing will ever be the same without them, but they also changed the world and then jumped on up to glory, like a flash. That was her. And my Daddy. The hole in the fabric of the universe might never heal, but we know they had to go. They were too good for this world. The devil loves to mess with peoples' minds, after a loved one dies. Every possible scenario of regret floats right on in and ruins everything. "If only..." Truth is, our loved ones with Jesus do not care now about this or that. They've done healed and are over it. Only we care, and we torture ourselves with what we can't change. We all need to stop doing that, and look around and fix what we can fix right now. 

I spent the weekend with my sister and some of her girls in Savannah. It was hot, muggy and rained a good bit, but we parked ourselves at Tybee Island Beach on Saturday. My joints were killing me, so my sister found me a ledge in a tidal pool to sit in. I settled my hinder parts in there and called it the Mermaid Chair. Hours passed and we all talked, laughed, soaked in the sun until we were pruney.  Women need that stuff. Our word boxes emptied out like lava from a slow volcano. Time stood still for a little while, one of those rare and beautiful days. We ate a delicious supper; the girls headed off to a ghost tour while Melanie and I opted for a movie. It wasn't horror, but it was mighty scary. I felt like we were little girls again, pulling our feet up into our seats to escape the monster aliens. Packing up Sunday morning was bittersweet; we had thoroughly enjoyed our time of uninterrupted sisterhood. It's so hard to get that anymore. We have 15 children and 18 grandkids between us, and life only gets more complicated the older we get. 

No one told me that an MRI would be the most painful procedure I've ever been subjected to, but it pert-near was. This morning, they made me lay on my tummy, never a fun affair, and place my already very-sore arms above my head. Then they threaded my poor wrist in some kind of cage and told me not to move for twenty minutes. The technician said, "And by the way, this is actually the worst MRI that we do. Everybody's shoulders end up killing them in the end." Within minutes, the pain was searing and there was no end in sight. Add to that, the technician forgot to play my requested Mozart....(ole Amadeus would have at least distracted me a little). I breathed, did all those kooky relaxation tricks (thinking of beaches, mountains, waterfalls) and none of it worked. I remembered the births of my four children, how that at least the contractions came every few minutes instead of locking down like a vice-grip. I began imagining the pain of car wrecks and trains and planes. Then I thought about Jesus and began to understand why crucifixion is one of the worst deaths: it's because of those shoulders. Just when I thought I couldn't last one more second, all the crazy noise of that machine stopped and everything slid out of the tube. I boohooed like a baby. The sweet girl helped me up and out as I blubbered and ruined my makeup. Ken met me at the door, me a shredded mess. He quickly got me a drink out of the vending machine and made me take a pain pill. I am now ashamed of my wimpiness, but upon remembering birthing several 11-pound babies without drugs, I have to own that this was some more kind of unnatural torture. Either way, after having the shakes most of the day, I'm now in a perpetual state of thankfulness. Thank you, God, I'm out of that machine.