Time is a tricky thing. You can sit in an office chair for twelve hours staring at the clock. You feel the tick of the arm each time it pauses...60 clicks later the hand moves. You wonder, if you stare long enough, can you see the minute hand move? I remember growing up we had a clock in our kitchen that had no "tick marks" between the hour numbers. There was no way to discern the moments as the seconds went by; But, if you watched carefully enough, you could see the minute hand slowly, slowly moving around the clock. The trick was not to blink.
Can you imagine it? Take yourself back to 8 years old. Mom and dad are upstairs. Your brother is behind the divider (cereal box) that he's placed between the two of you so he can eat his breakfast in the peace of not having his little sister making faces at him in the early morning light. You're looking over the top of his cereal box staring at the clock, trying to figure out how much time you have until the bus comes. Your eyes zone out and you start to stare at that minute hand as if it were the most intriguing sight you had ever laid eyes upon. There- it moved! It's definitely closer to the six now than it was before...then you blink.
All of a sudden you're sitting in a patio chair outside a hotel with your music playing and your laptop in front of you, just remembering. There is no way to measure all the time that has passed between that time, so long ago, that you spent eating breakfast with your big brother every morning and now, here. Now he's taken a full time job hundreds of miles away and you're on an island.
Where did it all go? That's what you get for blinking, I guess.
Today I'm on an island. Every few seconds I blink, and I know that a few days from now my memories of this summer will be as immeasurable as those mornings 13 years ago spent with my brother. Memories...they're just out there. Some are clearer than others, but often, the amount of time that has passed has little to do with how clear they are. It's the impact they make on you, not their sequence in the storyline of life that makes them clear or fuzzy.
I'm going to miss this place. I can say that undeniably. Yesterday, I was feeling exhausted, lost, and homesick. I decided to go for a walk, and ended up on the edge of a dock with my legs hanging over the edge, staring up into the clearest sky full of stars I've ever seen. I walked away healed and feeling whole again. There is a peace that comes with being here that I think I will struggle to find elsewhere. Island life, I'm telling you.
I do want to share a story with you all before I go. Today I received a call late in the afternoon. The woman on the phone inquired about the special we're running, and then immediately asked me to go over the cancellation policy so as not to "waste my time." After explaining the 10-day, non refundable cancellation policy, she took a deep breath, and said, "Listen, I need to tell you something," she sounded young. "I just finished chemo-therapy and radiation treatments. I have cancer, and it spread to my brain. I'm going in for a CAT scan on the fourth, and may be going into surgery if they find out that it has spread more. Is there anything you can do."
I'm struggling to find the words to describe the feeling that came over me when she shared this with me, but I'll do my best to convey this in a way that you may experience the same thing I did.
I told her that even if she cancelled within 10 days, we could always put her money on hold and she could use it towards a future stay with us. She told me that it was not likely she would still "be here" to be able to come back another time, she was stage 4. After discussing it shortly with a co-worker, I told her we would give her up to 24 hours to cancel. She was elated.
She said, "You have no idea how much this means to me. Honestly, I think my dream of coming here is the only thing that kept me alive through the radiation treatments. I would just sit there and dream about coming to the Grand Hotel one day. Thank you so much."
If you had seen me during this conversation, you would not have seen my face. From the moment she first spoke the words "cancer" I put my head in my hands and prayed. Every word I spoke and every thought in my head went through my folded hands first. For hours after talking to her I couldn't stop, I couldn't get her out of my head, and couldn't keep myself from begging God to heal her. Something, then, led me to put her name into a search engine on the internet.
She had a pretty unique name, but I will still surprised when a news story popped up as the number one result. It turns out, she lives in Washington State, up near the mountains with her husband. The area they live near is a place known for people getting lost and dying in blizzards, avalanches, and sudden snow storms that pop up out of no where. Apparently, one man who had family connections with the mountain in particular that they lived near, came into town to have a meeting with her husband. He decided, before meeting with the woman's husband, that he would take a quick hike around the trail through part of the mountain. Of course, he got lost and a storm was coming in. When her husband noticed the man was late for their meeting, a weird feeling came over him and he decided to go look for the man. He and this woman went out, headed into 200 miles of hike-able trails, in search of the man, knowing there was a storm coming. They split up, and by a miracle of God, were able to find the lost man, return him to safety with their Siberian Husky by their side.
I can't explain to you why this woman has stood out to me so much. Part of me wonders if, out of the six people in my office, there was a reason that call came to my phone. I plan on praying for her relentlessly. I may never speak to her or hear of her again, but I believe in prayer and healing. I ask that any of you who believes in the same thing pray for her as well.
I think I'm starting to see the bigger picture. Do you?
No comments:
Post a Comment