Asherel was off for the day with her friends so even she didn't know where I had headed. It was her birthday and friends were taking her to a day of fun at the White Water center. I had many errands to do in prep for the trip out to help sister Amy and then my son's upcoming wedding, but I thought I could squeeze in an hour at Lake Wylie. I brought a change of clothes so I could do the errands on the drive home.
I would smell faintly of fish and damp lake water hair, but it was a rare opportunity to be all alone doing something I love even more than raspberry cheesecake. Asherel's gifts were wrapped and waiting for her return, the birthday banner hung.... I drove with a goofy smile on my face to Lake Wylie, inflatable kayak bouncing in the back seat.
Mid week, Lake Wylie is deserted. I was the only boat on the lake. As I glided along, the only sounds were of ducks and geese and herons chanting with the rhythmic slapping of the water against the shore. I slipped into one cove and a huge flock of ducks rose into the air. I had never seen so many ducks! A heron circled above me, following me for several minutes. I was glad I was wearing my sun hat, as herons are large birds and I feared he was working on target practice.
I stayed close to shore, since it is near shore where most of the wildlife lingers. As I was cruising by a small island called Copperhead Island, I saw a head pop out of the water, a few feet from my boat. It was copper colored, with diamonds down the long back which I now saw trailed a good few feet behind the triangular, fang imbedded head. I paddled quickly a little further off shore and the snake slithered in between some shore line boulders. While still shuddering from that encounter with nature, I saw a floating log, about 3 feet long near my boat. I continued to look at it, thinking how much I love the peace and beauty of nature, when the log submerged. And did not re-emerge. I don't know if it was an alligator, but all alone on the lake in my inflatable tooth poppable boat, I paddled like a lawn ornament in a hurricane out of the vicinity. And I ammended my assessment of the nature that I love.... I love nature that doesn't bite.
As my pulse returned to normal, I paddled near some enormous lake mansions and thought of the latest news from dear sister Amy. After battling pancreatitis, a treatment of weeks of ice chips with only a brief interlude of a break form the hospital, she had received finally a possible cause for all this woe. The doctor suspects that the meds she is on for other issues may have precipitated the whole thing. The meds have been changed, and we are all hopeful that this very hard chapter in her life is coming to a conclusion. She had her first meal of solid food in almost 2 weeks, a feast, and her pancreas did not roll over in agony. If all continues this way, she will be discharged today, and will return for a CT scan in 8 days. At that point, if the pancreas cyst has not resolved, they will decide to drain, operate, or just leave it if it is still subsiding.
I reached my docking point with no further frightening encounters with carnivores, and drove on to my errands.
Later that day, there was a knock on the door. A neighbor stood there with a wrapped gift in his hand.
"This is from Comer," Ken said.
I looked at the gift. How had Comer, the 93 year old man with his feeble eyes, and cane, living in an assisted living center managed to get Asherel a gift, and how had he known it was her birthday?
"I took him to lunch today," said Ken, "And he wanted me to take him shopping. He said that when you and Asherel took him and Evelyn out yesterday, he remembered you mentioning it was her birthday today. He told me he would like very much if I would take him to a store where he could pick out a gift for her."
Comer can walk about a hundred feet, slowly, before he is worn out. I am sure the lunch out with Ken had done him in physically. With all the woes and worries of his life now with his wife with Alzheimers and his own failing body.....he had remembered how much a child delights in a birthday gift, and taken the painfully slow labored steps to secure one......
There are alligators that bite, and snakes that eject poison from fangs.... and that part of life seems cruel and jarring in the placid beauty of a quiet lake. But then, in counterpoint, there are herons that accompany solitary kayakers, doctors that cleverly find hope in hopeless places, and old men that remember what it is to be young and to yearn for what is yet to be. You just never know where joy may spring from, and for that reason, God compels us to not lose hope.
Job 6:11
11 “What strength do I have, that I should still hope?
What prospects, that I should be patient?
Amen!
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