The Enchanter's Theorem

I actually drafted this on the plane coming home. I had planned on waiting to upload photos when I got home and then writing about these last few days, but some of it needed to get written down before I lost it. The Momma Brain eats things sometimes and sometimes it doesn’t, but I didn’t want this to get eaten.

Going to MI, I had a red eye that consisted of three legs. LAX – DFW, DFW – ORD, and finally ORD – FNT. That’s Los Angeles to Dallas to Chicago to Flint for those of you who don’t speak airport codes. But coming back, Robin got me a practically straight shot, just FNT – ORD, then ORD - LAX. Flint to Chicago is not even a half hour hop on a commuter jet. Tiny thing that feels like a Mini Cooper when it starts careening down the runway for the sky. I had a reasonable amount of time to get to my gate when it came time to change planes and even time to suck down some wireless and read my email, if not respond to all of it.

I sat by the windows and saw my plane had already arrived, one of the big Boeing 767s. Great Dane compared to the Eibauer Chihuahua I’d gotten there on from Flint. And frankly, right there, that’s the difference between Los Angeles and Saginaw, where my grandparents are now entombed together and where my father grew up, though he was not born in Saginaw.

I had to sleep first when the plane took off from O’Hare. I was actually feeling quite motion sick, which was super odd. I don’t get sick on planes. I think it was just the exhaustion. I’ve been running on nothing but grief and will power for so long these few days. Nap sorted me out in no time at all.

But sitting there, forty minutes out from landing, the grief was a physical weight on me again.

Yeah.

So, I sat and worked. Answered emails when I was in the terminal. Worked on notes for the.childrens.crusade, because of course, as seems to happen, I travel and my stories talk to me. My characters showed up and began to tell me who they were.

And on top of that, I’m going to try and get to Haiti here in the next couple of years. My cousin, CJ, who is a pastor in Ohio, goes there twice a year with doctors who take in medicine and set up a field clinic. It’s not Doctors without Borders, but one of the companion orgs that does the same work. He’s a great pastor, but a not so good photographer. Seeing the few he had, I felt the same call I’ve felt about other things. I need to go there with him at some point and help get more images out of that place. My sister, the nurse, Caralee, is also thinking of going with him too to work in the clinic. She has other issues to work out first, but if she can get those solved, I think it will…well, I don’t know what it will do.

It might not save the world.

But looking around at my family at the dinner after we laid my grandfather to rest and listening to my cousins’ stories, I realized that we had all come by the same calling that came from my grandparents.

Save the world.

Even if it’s just a small part of it.

Find a way.

And save it.

So here I go, Grandpa, Grandma. I read you loud and clear. All your grandchildren and great-grandchildren do. We won’t let you down.