Beginnings and Endings

Asherel had her first class driving a car. She had been very nervous about the whole experience- not typical for her. But she came home happy and unscathed. She had even driven one of the busier roads in Charlotte. I was grateful this "first" had gone well on the road to baby bird hot-rodding out of the nest. (PS Baby Bird, if there is any hot-rodding in reality, the keys will be yanked out of your beak....)

Meanwhile, I brought the rough draft of my unfinished WWII book to Comer. He sat upright in a recliner chair in the Assisted Living Home, with a thick blanket over him, despite the 90 degree day outdoors. His eyes were closed when I arrived.
"Comer?" I said.
He opened his eyes. "Hey Sugar!" he said weakly.
"I brought you my book, but I warn you, it is not edited. It is not as good as it will be when it is finished."
He took the book and began thumbing through it.
"This is my story?" he asked, "I had no idea it would be so long!"
"Yeh, it is 250 pages so far.... but it still isn't done. I have other interviews still to do."
"I've finished my stories with you," he said, not understanding that the book was largely, but not only, about his war experiences.
I explained to him what I had in mind, the varying subplots I intended to weave through the whole story. I hoped I had done the right thing bringing him the unfinished book with no ending yet. He had been so worried he would not be around to read it and I knew I was months away from completion. However, the subplots had not yet been tied together, and I knew it was not yet what it would one day be.

While I was there, a nurse came in. Her tag identified her as a hospice nurse. I presume her presence there, the calling of hospice, did not bode well for Comer's long term prospects.
As he looked over the book, she asked him if his stomach had settled with the new medicine.
He said it had, and then he introduced me, "This is my publisher- Vicky."
Publisher? I chuckled.
I gathered some old pictures from him that I wanted to scan for the book, and then hugged him goodbye. He felt frail, and hot.
"I'll return these tomorrow," I said, holding up the photographs.
"No hurry," he said, leaning his head back against the cushion.
Yes there is, I thought....

Firsts and Lasts, all crumpled together in one day. Asherel just starting a new journey down a new road; Comer quietly ending a journey down the last road he would travel on earth. Books started, plots developing, but no clear ending with all the elements neatly explained and tied together. I was still writing each day and praying that God would direct me to the perfect End. As I left Comer, I prayed the same for him.

Ezekiel 37:1-6,11-14 (NIV)
The hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. [2] He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. [3] He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”
I said, “Sovereign Lord, you alone know. ” [4] Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! [5] This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. [6] I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord. ’ ” [11] Then he said to me: “Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ [12] Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. [13] Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. [14] I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord. ’ ”




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