Chapter 2: Into The Woods

Immediately everything was dark. The bathroom disappeared as if the lights had been snuffed out. Slowly a green light faded into appearance above, just as we expected. Clara released my hand and floated upward towards what seemed like the surface of a lake or a pool. We stumbled out of the water and fell on our hands and knees onto the ground. 

We found ourselves, as we knew we would, in the woods. Green light filtered down through the branches of every tree you could name. Straight birches and gnarled oaks grew side by side, along with twisted cedars and quivering aspens. The ground was carpeted with pine needles and gold and brown leaves. I took a deep breath in inhaled the rich scent of earth and growing things. “Can you hear anything?” Clara whispered to me. 

“Just you. Why are you whispering?” 

“This just seems like…a…whispering place,” she replied. Slowly we got to our feet. She was right. I had walked the sanctuaries of hundreds of churches in a dozen countries across Europe. But this was the most holy place I had ever stood. We began to wander away from the pool from which we had emerged, until Clara had the good sense to mark an “O” for “Oxford” in the dirt with a stick. The woods stretched on as far as we could see, and it was hard to choose where to begin. According to “Magician’s Nephew,” each pool would take us to a different world. Could we get to Narnia? Hogwarts? Neverland? And which pool was which?”

“I don’t know which one to choose.” Clara frowned, staring around at the wealth of pools around us. 

“Did you think they would be marked like the woods in Nightmare Before Christmas?”

“Of course not! Well…yes…kinda…” we laughed.

“Well, just pick one and go. This is your adventure.”

“The guys are never gonna believe this. Oh wait! Does your camera work?”

I pulled my phone out of my pocket. No bars. No surprise. But the camera did come on, and I took Clara’s photo by the pool she had chosen. Maybe if her brother and father saw the picture, I could convince them it was THIS wood and not just some park in London. I turned the phone off, not knowing what kind of effect a magical journey would have on a battery. “Is your green ring ready?” 

“Absolutely. Green ring in my left pocket, yellow in my right.”

“How does that make any sense at all?”

Clara shrugged. “I just figured we would be here more than we would be anywhere else, so right hand for the place we will go more.”

“Well, it’s logical. I guess Lewis would approve. Ready?” We put on our green rings and stepped into the water.

**********

We found ourselves, again, in the woods. “I don’t think it worked,” Clara said. 

“No, these woods are definitely different. It’s much hotter here. And not flat. The Wood Between is smooth and almost tended. This woods has roots sticking up everywhere. Plus, you can hear things.” Cries of birds, croaks of frogs, and possibly the howls of monkeys filled the air. Compared to the near silence of the Wood Between, it was almost deafening.

“I wonder where we are, then.” She walked up a rise to our right to get a better look at the landscape, then dropped quickly to the ground. “PIRATES” she whispered loudly back to me. I crept slowly up the rise to join her and peered over the edge of the rise. We were crouching on the top of a hill looking down on a crescent-shaped island. A three masted pirate ship lay at anchor in the bay in the center of the crescent. The wind picked up and an unmistakeable black flag, painted with a skull and crossed swords, waved in the breeze.

“Do you think these are fun pirates or not-fun pirates?” I asked. 

“How are we gonna tell? Get closer?”

“Are you crazy?”

“Well, we did put on yellow rings that we dug up from under a bench in Oxford.”

“Fine, we’ll get closer. Just be very careful. There’s a big difference between Captain Hook and Long John Silver.” 

Suddenly a flock of birds burst out of the trees above our heads. I gasped, then clapped my hand over my mouth to muffle the sound. “Birds flying signify danger cliche!” Clara muttered. The last bird out of the trees was an enormous blue parrot. “PIECES OF EIGHT, PIECES OF EIGHT!” it shrieked.

“These pirates are definitely not fun. We should get out of here!” But it was too late. Before we could move, eight burly men came out of the woods singing “Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest—Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!” The first man in line was shorter than we expected, and walked with a limp because of the wooden leg reaching up to his right hip. “Halt!” he cried out, and the rest of the men shuffled to a standstill, staring right at us.

One of the men reached down and pulled me to my feet, while another grabbed Clara’s arm. “Leave her alone!” I shouted, fighting against my captor. He wrapped his arm around my middle and held me close to his stinking shirt. I turned my face away, trying to breathe, and stomped on his foot. He yelped in pain and shock and let me go; I threw myself at the pirate who had Clara in his grip, but she had elbowed him in the ribs and he was doubled up in pain as well. 

“For a bunch of pirates, they don’t fight very well,” Clara muttered under her breath.

“They’re probably not used to girls who fight back,” I answered.

The pirate leader shoved the other men aside, bellowing at us. “Where did you come from? There’s no way you were stowaways on my ship, by thunder!” I bit my lip to hold back a chuckle at my favorite exclamation.

Clara was quicker to answer. “We’ve been on this island for weeks. We were…shipwrecked here. My mother and I were the only survivors.”

“What was the name of the ship?”

I answered with the first ship that came to mind. “The Enterprise.” Clara rolled her eyes and groaned. 

“There’s no ship called the Enterprise from London.”

“No, we launched from…um…the colonies” I forgot when in history Stevenson had placed his pirates and didn’t want to take chances on them not knowing about Texas.

“Hmm.” The one-legged pirate grunted at me and shoved Clara and myself into the line of pirates. We were handed shovels and told to follow along.

After trudging for about a mile (up, down, across a stream, and around too many trees to count) we came to a ring of trees nestled together on top of a small hill. “Huzzah, mates, all together!” shouted one of the men, and they all took off at a run, headed towards treasure that Clara and I knew was not there. Clara and I held back as the men ran off. “Do you want to follow and see them not find the treasure?”

“No, I don’t want Silver mad at me. Yellow rings ready?”

“Ready.”

And with that, we left Treasure Island behind.

Chapter 1: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Bodleian Library

 “You’re not crying, are you, Mom?” Clara asked quietly as she stepped next to me. “Mom?” She paused. “MOM. PEOPLE ARE WATCHING,” she whispered loudly.

“I’m not crying,” I said with a sniffle. “It’s just, it’s…it’s…LEWIS.” We both chuckled and sniffed, trying to look like we were not, indeed, crying. I blew my nose and shoved the tissue back in my pocket. Then we meandered through the rest of the churchyard. It was a perfect Oxford summer day, the temperature a breezy 25 degrees…Celsius…as my phone had decided to go metric on me. 

Clara and I had fled the brutal Texas heat for a week in London, and we had set this day aside for a pilgrimage to the home of our favorite author. To sit where Lewis sat…to walk where Lewis walked…to touch the doorknob Lewis touched…to squeal over the typewriter which Lewis’ brother Warnie had use to type the Narnia books. To try the wardrobe, of course. (We were disappointed to find only coats). The final stage of the tour of the Kilns was to visit the churchyard where Lewis and his brother were buried next to their mother. And I tried, again, not to cry.

The cabbie who had driven us to the Kilns met us at the Six Bells pub and drove us back to the center of town (it was only four miles…6.5 kilometers, thank you) but we would be on our feet the rest of the day and enjoyed the drive. Plus, we drove by a house where Tolkein had once lived, just for some extra nerd cred.

Clara absolutely insisted on eating lunch at the Eagle and Child, Lewis’s favorite pub in town. She didn’t have to twist my arm to convince me to indulge in fish and chips, as well a pint. Honestly, did we have any other choice? The pub was crowded as rain was threatening, but we managed to grab barstools and counter space in the sacred Rabbit Room. 

“What’s the plan after lunch?” I asked Clara as she wrestled the Rick Steves guidebook out of her backpack. 

Clara flipped to the sticky notes she had in the book for Oxford. “I’d like to see the Radcliffe Camera if we can, and then I think we can get tickets to the Bodleian Library and the Divinity School. After that we can…wander around Hogwarts, I guess.”

“Wandering sounds fantastic. Oxford is the place where so many adventures have begun!”

“Oh, I know. Lewis and Tolkein, obviously, as well as so many other great minds who studied here. Plus, the Divinity School is literally Hogwarts.”

“Wait, what?”

“Yeah, they filmed parts of several of the movies there.”

“Oh fun! Will totally have to see it today. Are you about ready to go?”

“Oh, yes. What do we do with our rubbish?”

We tossed our rubbish in the bin and stepped out of the pub into the cool, cloudy afternoon. Clara pulled the map out of my backpack and we walked up to the Radcliffe Camera, but sadly there were no tours that day. “Oh, you have to be a special reader to get in,” she said. 

“Well, kiddo, I think you’re pretty special, and you are definitely a reader.”

“Ha ha mom, I don’t thing that counts.”

“Well, their loss. Selfies anyway!”

We got our tickets for the tours and found we had 30 minutes before the Divinity School visit. My shoe was untied, so I sat down on a bench facing Radcliffe Square.

Clara knelt down to but her book back in her bag. “Wait…what’s that?” she asked, reaching under the bench.

“What’s what?” I knelt down too, and saw that she was prying something small and square out of the dirt under the bench. She unearthed a dark brown wooden box, brushing dirt off the sides and the lid. The box rattled and rang when she turned it over.

“Can you get it open?” She handed me the box and I pushed and pulled on what seemed to be the top. Then I noticed a ridge on one side. I pushed on the ridge with my thumb and the center third of that side of the box slid down.

“Oh! It’s a puzzle box!” I was finally able to slide the top of the box open and I gasped at what I saw inside. Four simple rings rattled around in the box, two of them obviously gold and two of them with a greenish tint.

Clara gasped too and we stared at each other, mouths and eyes wide open. 

I recovered first. “Nope. No way. I have read too many books…no way am I putting on these rings.”

Clara’s eyes were shining with delight and the prospect of adventure. “Ha. I’ve read all of those same books. Hand ‘em over.” 

I slid the pieces of the box together and wrapped my hands around the box, then looked around the square to make sure no one had seen us. My mind was whirling. How could we have found THESE RINGS? And yet, it was Oxford, the place where the best adventures began. I took a deep breath and made a decision.

“Fine. We’ll do it. But not out here. The muggles are watching. Come with me.” 

Clara followed me to the nearest bookstore where I picked up a copy of “The Magician’s Nephew.” “I can’t believe we’re going to try this,” Clara said, giggling. 

“Me either. Now, where can we get supplies? We need snackage if we’re actually going on an adventure.”

We found bottled water, a wedge of cheese, a small loaf of bread, some dried fruit, and a package of beef jerky at a shop across the square. “Where’s the loo, please?” I asked as we paid for the food, and we found our way back to the bathroom. We divided up the food between our backpacks and then pulled out the box again, setting it on the bathroom counter. I slid the side down and the top across and carefully tipped the four rings onto a paper towel. 

“Don’t touch them yet! I don’t remember which is which!” I cautioned her. I flipped through the novel to check which ring was which, then wrapped each green ring in a piece of paper towel. “Here, put this in your pocket, and be careful with it!” I took a deep breath and put the ring in Clara’s hand, and she shoved it in her pocket. I did the same with my green ring. Then we stared at the yellow rings. 

“Twenty minutes ago we were buying tickets to go the Bodleian library,” Clara said. “I think this is going to be more fun.”

“Yeah. Me too.” We grinned at each other. Clara took my hand, and together we reached out and touched the yellow rings.

Long Distance

The radio bands were always quieter after midnight. This is what drew Lee and Bill to the back den off the kitchen on Friday and Saturday nights—quieter radio bands meant a greater chance of finding new life and new civilizations (or at least new amateur radio friends). Arlington, Texas is a long way from everywhere today, and it was even farther from everywhere during the summer of 1970. But perhaps that’s what made the radio miracle possible.

Lee and Bill had been interested in amateur (or “ham”) radio their whole lives. One of Lee’s friends at school was a licensed ham radio operator, and as soon as they could, Lee and Bill became licensed themselves. At first, all they could do was communicate on just a few bands (similar to radio stations you pick up in your car) with all the other novices; they were also required to use Morse Code. Dots and dashes flew from their code key, up the two dipole antennae in the backyard, and into the night sky, where they bounced off the ionosphere and landed in backyards across the state, across the country, and even across the world.

Many of these Morse Code communications were themselves coded messages. QRZ meant “Who is calling me?” CQ meant “I am going to announce my own call sign.” QSN was “Did you hear me?” Messages like OMG and LOL are old news to ham radio operators.

Even when Lee and Bill had earned their conditional licenses (meaning they could speak over the radio and were not restricted to Morse Code) they still used the Q codes for simplified communication. QRA meant “What is your call sign?” Each operator had their own call sign that was issued to them when they received their license. Lee’s call sign was K5MRC and Bill’s was K5MTB. Both young men had radios in their car and would sometimes call to each other when they were driving across west Texas. “CQ K5MRC, this is K5MTB, do you read, over?” Most of the time the ionosphere cooperated and the brothers could speak to each other. One night though, even though they were only 100 miles apart, nether could reach the other. An odd signal broke through. “K5MTB, I read you, I also read K5MRC, I can relay, over.” 

“QRA caller, this is K5MTB, over.” 

“This is AC4TT, I can hear you and K5MRC loud and clear.” Bill was confused by the unusual call sign. All of the ham radio operators in the US had signs that began with K or W.

“AC4TT what is your QTH (location)?”

AC4TT laughed. “I am in Tibet.”

For whatever reason, on that night the radio signals would not bounce low enough to get from point A to point B in west Texas, but the man in Tibet could hear them both.

Many nights, like that summer night in 1970, the young men found themselves in the den at the back of the house, hunched at the table covered in black boxes and coaxial cable coils. The radio transmitter sat at the back of the room, in front of the window so the brothers could keep watch on the pair of antennae in the backyard. This particular night started out no different. Lee went to the kitchen and came back with two mugs of coffee poured from the percolator on the stove. “Let’s see who we can find tonight, ok Bill?”

Bill and Lee took turns calling out to friends in Texas and also in other parts of the nation. Flips of switches and turns of dials helped them adjust the delay of the signal from one dipole antenna in the backyard to the other, miniscule tweaks that would help them focus on specific incoming radios signals. At nearly two o’clock in the morning, a weak signal came across the receiver, a tired voice sending out a distress call. “CQ, CQ, is anyone out there, over? CQ, CQ, is anyone out there, over?”

“QRA caller this is K5MRC, we hear you, your signal is very weak, over.”

“K5MRC we read you, over.”

“QRA caller this is K5MTB in Arlington, Texas, we read you, very weak signal, what is your QTH?”

“Brockton Naval Station…Antarctica.”

Bill put the large silver mike down and looked at Lee. “Did they just say…”

Lee shook his head. “We should check again.”

“QRA caller what is your QTH?”

“Brockton Naval Station, Antarctica. Yours is the first voice we’ve heard north of the Equator in six months!”

“OK Brockton, we read you, let us do some adjustments…” Bill turned a dial on the radio receiver and flipped a switch. This would send the signal on the flattest trajectory possible, as far south as possible, for as long as the ionosphere would allow.

“Brockton, do you read us, over?”

“We hear you loud and clear, Texas.”

Brockton’s signal was loud and clear, too, as if the men at the bottom of the world were in the room with them.

“Thank God, we have 24 men down here and we have not spoken to our families in 6 months. Can you call our families and let them know that we are all ok?” 

Bill’s face broke into a grin. “We can do better than that, Brockton, we can set up a phone patch and you can tell them yourselves!”

Bill grabbed a small black box and several cables from the shelf near the table. He ran three cables to the phone patch box: one from the radio itself, one from the microphone, and a third from the rotary desk phone on the table.

“OK Brockton, what’s the first phone number?”

Lee set the handset on the table and dialed the long distance number on the rotary phone. Somewhere in America, a sleepy voice answered. “Hello?”

Lee cleared his throat. “Hello ma’am, this is Lee McRight, I am an amateur radio operator in Arlington, Texas.” 

“Uh-huh.” 

“I have your son on the radio, he is calling from Antarctica.”

Sleep disappeared from the voice on the other end of the line. “Johnny?”

“Yes, mom, it’s me! I just have a few minutes, but I wanted to let you know that I’m doing okay.”

Mom’s voice was choked with tears. “I’m just so glad to hear your voice. I love you, son!”

“I love you too, Mom!”

For the next two hours Lee and Bill took turns dialing the phone. “I’m sorry to disturb you in the middle of the night, ma’am, but I have your husband on the phone from Antarctica.” Wives, mothers, girlfriends, all got to speak to the men who had been out of touch for so long at the cold, dark, bottom of the world.

The last “I love you! I’ll see you soon!” had been said, the last phone call was finished. Bill picked up the microphone and squeezed the button on the side. “It was good to talk to you Brockton, this is Texas, signing off.”

There was silence on the other end. Bill and Lee looked at each other and looked back at the radio, waiting for a response. The signal that had perfectly clear just moments ago was lost, perhaps because of a sudden shift in the ionosphere.

“Brockton? This is K5MTB, over.”

Nothing. The bands were silent.

But then again, after midnight, they usually were.

The Doolittle Raiders...Men Who Did Much

Today is April 18th. Seventy-six years ago, 80 men took off in 16 planes from the deck of an aircraft carrier for the first time. Ever. Not just the first time for themselves as individuals, but for the first time in history. It was the first American offensive move in World War II. James Doolittle and his men did the unheard of in order to fight the unthinkable--attacking Tokyo with not enough gas to get home.  There is only one of these extraordinary men still left alive.

I wrote this poem for sixth graders after stumbling across the story of the Doolittle Raiders while doing research for Gourmet Learning, a curriculum company I wrote for many years ago. With the permission of Gourmet, I can publish this poem here.

If you do not know about James Doolittle and his raiders, learn the story. Our world is the way it is today because of them.

"Eighty Men in Sixteen Planes"

Eighty men in sixteen planes on the Hornet's  deck that day,

All were dressed in full flight gear prepared to fly away.

None had ever launched a plane to fly it over sea.

But this is what they had to do to strike the enemy.

James Doolittle led the man, he'd be with them when they flew.

He trusted them completely, for they were his handpicked crew.

Although the future was unsure, the pilots showed no fear.

And after fourteen days at sea, the target was drawing near.

The 18th was a dreary morn, low clouds hung from the sky.

Then through the early morning mist they heard a frantic cry.

"Alert! Alert! The've spotted us!" The enemy was at hand!

They were too far away to fly and safely get to land.

The squadron sprang into action, their planes they began to load.

In minutes all the gear and weapons they would need were stowed.

They took off from the Hornet's  deck and flew across the sea.

Courageous and confident, they wanted victory.

By that day's end it was quite clear their triumph was secure.

Truth and freedom, liberty and goodness, these things would endure.

They flew our first attack that day, the nation to defend.

If freedom you appreciate, share the tale of Jimmy's men.

In honor and in memory of the Doolittle Raiders

Resurrecting Easter: A Three Part Series

Part Three: Just Keep Breathing

This is the third part of my Easter Trilogy, but I cannot tie up all the loose ends. There is no box with a bow, no “happily ever after” as of yet. I have not come to the end of my Easter story. But that’s probably because I am still breathing. God is not finished with the path I have to walk. So I keep walking. And I keep singing, for praise is a powerful weapon against the darkness and the unknown.

And I keep breathing. I have several friends who have a “word of the year” for 2018. These are words like “Inspire,” “Grow,” “Flourish,” and so forth. My word for the year? “Breathe.” Just keep breathing. Because some days that’s all I have the strength to do…take it one breathe at a time.

With that in mind, with this post I will follow in the path of many great writers. When you don’t know what to say, steal someone else’s words. But it’s not stealing, really, if you give credit where credit is due. So, thank you, J.R.R. Tolkien, for being so inspiring, and for writing this wonderful little conversation about the stories that really mattered.

“Yes, that’s so,” said Sam. “And we shouldn’t be here at all, if we’d known more about it before we started. But I suppose it’s often that way. The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo: adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that there were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of a sport, as you might say. But that’s not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have been just landed in them usually—their paths were laid that way, as you put it. But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn’t. And if they had, we shouldn’t know, because they’d have been forgotten. We hear about those as just went on—and not all to a good end, mind you; at least not to what folk inside a story and not outside it call a good end. You know, coming home, and finding things all right, though not quite the same—like old Mr. Bilbo. But those aren’t always the best tales to hear, though they may be the best tales to get landed in! I wonder what sort of a tale we’ve fallen into?”

“I wonder,” said Frodo. “But I don’t know. And that’s the way of a real tale. Take any one that you’re fond of. You may know, or guess, what kind of tale it is, happy-ending or sad-ending,

but the people in it don’t know. And you don’t want them to.” (JRR Tolkien, The Two Towers)

These words brings me back to the first Resurrection weekend. The disciples didn’t know, on that Friday night or that Saturday, what Sunday would bring. We look back knowing The Rest Of The Story and think them foolish because Jesus had told them multiple times that he was going to die and then come back to life. But Jesus had said a lot of things in parables, in stories, about fig trees and pearls of great price and wedding feasts with bridegrooms and virgins and lamps…and despite all this the disciples were completely clueless, for they were in the middle of their story. They had watched their leader, their rabbi, the head of their little tribe, be executed in the most brutal way the Roman empire could imagine. No one had ever come back from being crucified. Was this just another one of His parables? How could this possibly end well? In the middle of the story, they did not know, they could not know. So perhaps we can look on their fear and trembling with some grace.

I know, today, that Jesus did indeed rise from the dead, that He is now seated at the right hand of God.

I know that Frodo and Sam make it to Mount Doom, complete their mission, and then make it home again (I’m not even sorry if I spoiled it for you…the story is 80 years old, it’s not my fault if you haven’t read it or seen the movies yet.)

What I don’t know is what is going to happen tomorrow. Or next week. Or next Easter. I am still in the middle of my story. God does not give me more than a few pages of the story at a time. I see it unfold as it happens. But I can have faith that it will unfold, for God is the Author and Finisher of my story.

Is it easy to keep walking through uncertain, troubling times? Of course not. But we have such treasures of hope in the Scriptures! We know from Isaiah 25:8 that God will “swallow up death for all time, And the Lord GOD will wipe tears away from all faces.” Do we feel the sting and pain of death and loss today? Yes…yes we absolutely do. But we walk in glorious faith, knowing that Jesus, “for the joy set before Him, endured the cross and is now at the right hand of God.” (Hebrews 12:2). 

And so, until I come to the end of my story, I must keep believing that God will see me through. I keep walking. I keep singing. And. I. Just. Keep. Breathing.

Resurrecting Easter: A Three Part Series

Part Two: The Agony Of Defeat

Easter of 2010 was glorious. I had successfully given up chocolate for Lent and had subbed as the sound tech at the military chapel in Italy. Sunrise service came and went with glorious song. It was perfect. My last wonderful Easter.

Christmas of 2010 was pretty fantastic too…we got to go home for Christmas and see my family, including my grandmother (my mom’s mom), who my kids called “GG” because she refused to admit that she was actually old enough to be a “Great Grandmother.” But then GG got sick, and didn’t improve.

Plans for the spring were made with a backdoor, a “what if,” a “just in case.” Any hotel reservations I made for Spring Break had to be cancelable at the  last minute with no fee. I mean, we get used to doing this anyway with the Army, but this was just another time to be making very tentative plans. Then my husband had to go away to school in Arizona, so all those four-person plans became three-person plans and I needed a child care backup because last-minute flights to America ain’t cheap. 

On the Thursday before Easter, Maundy Thursday, I got the call that GG had passed away. I raced home and packed up the kids, packed up myself, and bought ridiculously expensive plane tickets. Dad told me not to come, but there was no way I was NOT going to be there. I spent Good Friday on a plane, on a trip that lasted forever. Easter Sunday was surreal that year, in a borrowed dress because the airline lost my luggage, surrounded by sisters and parents and nieces and nephews but SO ALONE without my own little family. I said at the time that it was the worst Easter ever. 

The next Easter was the last we would spend in Italy. It was a beautiful day, but had its own bittersweetness to it, as all “lasts” will. The cover photo on my Facebook page was taken on that day. I can’t bear to change it. The triumph of the cross, in the face of a death that is now tied to a holiday, is something I cling to even 7 years later.

Easter of 2013 found us in America, in Clarksville, Tennessee. This was not a good year for us. Moving back to the states, with the “reverse culture shock,” had been very difficult and I was sick most of the time. Add to this that my husband was gone for about half of our time there..including Easter. That year the holiday fell on Spring Break and the kids and I drove down to “the farm” to spend time with my husband’s family. When we got there, we found that Grandma Faye was very ill and not expected to recover. I don’t remember much about that week except for two phone conversations. I called my Aunt crying, “I don’t want to lose another Grandmother on Easter, I’ve done this already and I don’t want to do it again.” The other was with my husband, as we tried to decide when to head back to Tennessee or to stay for the funeral, should Grandma Faye pass while we were there. “What do you want to do?” he asked. “I want to stay in New Braunfels forever and not go back to Tennessee,” I bawled. But go back we did. We left Texas on Saturday and drove for two days to get home. That was probably the first time in my life that I was not in church on Easter Sunday. We got home and heard that Grandma Fay had passed on Easter Sunday afternoon.

Easter was losing “treasured holiday” status as fast as it had been gained.

We got out of the Army in November of 2013 and limped back to “the farm” to lick our wounds and determine what civilian life would look like. Eventually we found a house of our own, a church of our own, and several Easters passed without incident. There was still a heaviness that surrounded the holiday. Joy was there in full force because Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! But the holiday remained a reminder of loss. Slowly, though, one Easter at a time, it became easier to handle.

Until March 29, 2017, when a bus crash killed 13 members of our church, two and a half weeks before Easter. I am not going to dwell on that night because I have written about it before (here and also here). That Easter was a Sunday like no other. I experienced the power of song in ways that I had not before. My broken soul wept and rejoiced at the same time, for even though we do walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, we fear no evil, for we know the Lord is with us and He is triumphant.

Easter this year is on April 1. Just two days after the anniversary of the bus accident. I have been dreading it for months. So many hurts tied up in one holiday, and each pain seems to amplify the other. I find myself walking a dark road emotionally at this time, going through unrelated struggles greater than any I have faced before. It’s hard. It’s stupid hard. I know that God will see me through, every step of the way. But that doesn’t make the way easier.