The Pull To Be In Two Places

This has been a week to remember; one of juxtaposition and opposites; one where the skill of being in two places at once would have come in handy. But you have to decide. When two conflicting needs - or three, or more - present themselves, something has to give.

My second grandchild was due last Sunday. Who would want to miss that event, to not be there to see this child in her first hours, to be with son and daughter-in-law to celebrate and revel in this new life, and to hold her and touch her in those first hours?

And at the same time, 900 miles away, all 5 of my siblings were gathered at my sister's house, knowing - this time, unlike the other times, with a fairly high degree of certainty - that my Mom was in her final days.

And two sons prepare to leave for Haiti.

I stayed home. I was there in a hospital delivery room just two hours after Adelynn Ray LaCore came into the world on Monday, March 8, 2010. I held her then, and then again on Wednesday at home, while my siblings waited in Kentucky. 

All the while I wrestled with when to leave. My lungs were getting worse, asthma rearing up again, no one really knows why. I tried to figure an alternate way to get my son to the Twin Cities on Friday to meet his brother for their trip to earthquake-ravaged Haiti, so that I could leave to be with my siblings. I thought through with Casey how she might be able to get away and go with me. Should I leave yet, or not? Complicated issues, complicated questions.

On Wednesday evening I was able to get a faxed-in prescription for Prednisone filled - a drug that past experience had made clear I would need before I left for Kentucky.

At 1:09 AM Thursday morning, my cell phone rang beside the bed. My sister. Mom had left us.

Later that morning, the pieces fell into place. I started on the Prednisone. I realized that one son could take the other to the Cities on Friday, and I made arrangements for that to happen. Casey managed to make arrangements to be gone from work for a few days. I left work early, we packed, and by 10:00 that morning we were on the road. As I write this now, it is early Friday morning in a Days Inn in El Paso, Illinois. We will pack and leave here shortly to finish the journey. Or at least to finish the start of the journey to lay my Mom to rest.

I am saddened that I wasn't there with the rest of the family, to support them through this ending. But I know that I made the right decision, that given all the limits of reality, the boundaries by which we must operate, the conditions at hand, staying as long as I did was right. I had been there 4 times in recent months, to visit with Mom, to support her as I was able, each time saying goodbye for what I well imagined was the last time.

Still...

I think the Prednisone is starting to work. My lungs are a bit clearer, perhaps. Bryan will take Tim to the Cities this afternoon to meet Jon, while Anna stays with Lisa and the girls. Casey and I are enjoying rare time together on the road. We will see the family this afternoon to begin to grieve with them.

And "underneath are the everlasting arms." In all of it, all of the joy and the sorrow and the decsion-making there is this God whose utter greatness and goodness and grace simply amaze.