Back to Arizona--Not Feeling Very Brave

With a daughter's wedding just a week away, I wasn't feeling very brave Saturday when Jonathan dropped me at the Rapid City Airport.

It had been four weeks since I last flew to Arizona, and I had to get my port accessed (something I have to have done every month regardless of whether I get an IV of anything or not) and get the usual herceptin dose, besides a couple extra IVs that I had requested. I wasn't sure how my body would respond to those, and I was a little apprehensive of being down here by myself, driving through Phoenix traffic in hundred degree heat after hefty IV treatment.   

I'd been scrolling through Facebook on Jonathan's phone on the way while he ate popcorn beside me to stay awake driving. Much as I adore popcorn, I dutifully managed to not sneak even one kernel, as carbs feed cancer. And I want to live longer.

I want to see what God is doing with our children.

New things are happening, and not just a cooler full of bass fish Danny brought home the other day from the pond of a neighbor who invited him to come fish.

 But I am not allowed to tell quite yet.

We had fried fish that night, and I had steamed lambs quarters I'd picked along the driveway where the soil was disturbed. No one else seemed to be very jealous, since it resembles spinach, but I was practically licking my lips, because when you've drunk essiac tea, dregs and all, three times a day for nearly a year and a half, steamed lambs quarter with butter, salt, pepper, and a few sprinkles of soy sauce is delicious!

 "God always makes it up to me when I go down there to Arizona," I told the family when I was thinking about being down in the terrible heat by myself, leaving behind the spring flowers like the wild roses up at the gate by the road--freshly blooming without even us planting them! 

Our goats stuck their noses inside the flower garden fence and ate all the new growths and leaves and stems of the two rose bushes Hannah planted. The scamps!  

As if there isn't enough green grass and even blooming alfalfa, they aren't content but must stand up on their hind legs and go for the lowest leaves on the trees in the draw and the closest plants to the garden fence. 

But getting back to my airport story, I almost cried when Jonathan and I had to say goodbye again at Rapid City Airport. I was struggling to get my big suitcase (heavy with a few extra things because of wanting wedding clothes with me for the wedding so they wouldn't be forgotten, and groceries to tide me over Sunday in AZ) around the maze of walkway. Jonathan noticed me fumbling, and came around the other end to set the suitcase on the scales for me. Then he took it off and hauled it over to the check-in spot, and I didn't have to do that part. 

We were both looking over our shoulder just before he went out the door--the two still-sweethearts who said goodbye one time thirty years ago in Ukraine, after six unforgettable weeks of beautiful courtship, when he had to fly home again to work hard to provide for our home. How hard that parting was!

It's one reason it's still hard to say goodbye. We just don't do very well with partings and goodbyes. So I was feeling a little teary as I got through security and wandered down the hall toward my gate. At Rapid City, there are only a few gates, and a gift shop is on the way. Most of the gifty items in the shop are lovely, without so many inappropriate things that pop disgracefully in your face in so many bigger city shops. I had time to kill, so books caught my eye--especially these ones, and not just because my name was on the front!

These books are true stories unearthed by the South Dakota grandson of a Norwegian immigrant named Anna who ran away from the cruelty of her father's second marriage and made her way to America at age 17.

A young man named Iver had left Norway a few years earlier, on the same ship, in the same awful steerage compartment, at the age of 15. The two met in South Dakota, the land they had both heard of. 

The stories are tear-jerking, heart-breaking, and delightful all at the same time. I read half the book on the airplane that evening, and the other half on Sunday afternoon and evening after visiting my friend at Life Care Center. 

She experienced two seizures while I was there. I am no nurse, but I could support the sister and niece who were there crying. I could read Psalm 103 when my friend was able to listen again, and pray with her. I could spend an hour and forty-five minutes there and then go home and read my book again--just for some down time.

Because sometimes a not-so-brave little lady by herself in Arizona needs to read about a really, really brave lady in South Dakota to inspire her to be of good courage, because God is looking after all of us!