Miracles

The doctor smiled when he came in the room, and I knew it would all be ok. Mom was still cancer free, and we could go on with our lives now……at least until the next check up. Thank goodness.

Mom couldn’t see past this doctor’s visit. Couldn’t make a plan for anything until she knew. Now, she can plan.

Mom and her best friend Lonnie (another bush nurse from Alaska who also lives in the wilderness) are looking to settle on the east coast somewhere up in the mountains, somewhere they can still make a difference in the lives of others, somewhere they can live like they do in Alaska but closer to civilization and with some community around them. After helping Mom browse through some information on mountain property, I suddently thought of the Big Laurel Learning Center in Mingo County, WV--up on the mountain. When I was teaching at Marshall University, a friend, Sam St. Clair, introduced me to the women who live in this community and run a number of programs that serve the community. I became a volunteer. I worked in the food Pantry, worked the horses, cut wood, and put together a CD of the publication “The Mountain Call” that the founder of the Big Laurel School and the JASMER Land Trust, Edwina Pepper, published in the 1970’s. One of the nuns of the community, Sister Jane, a potter, made a cup inscribed with "Women are the celebrants of life" that has had a prominent place in every kitchen I have had. I always felt it was a magical place, and now I know why I was drawn there.

I am the link between my mother and that mountain ridge in WV. She knows she can’t stay in the wilderness of Alaska much longer—her body has taken a beating, and she cannot live as she once did. But she can’t leave Alaska in defeat. Rather, she can leave not running from something but toward something. And I know of this place that would offer her the opportunity to be part of community that works for the good of others and the land—offer her the adventure she craves.

She and Lonnie have a lot to offer the community--as bush nurses, they can help with medical care and health education. Lonnie now works in a mental health hospital and is experienced with addiction treatment. My mom is trained in emergency care, pediatric care, and care of birthing mothers. As life-long activists, teachers, and wilderness lovers, they could do much to support the land trust and ecology center. They will have money from their retirement, social security, and sale of land in Alaska to live off of, so they wouldn't need to leave the mountain to work nor need any financial help. They just want to live among people who understand why they want to live the way they do, to make a difference in the lives of others, and to live in harmony with the land. I wrote Sister Jane and Sister Gretchen, and they are interested in meeting my mom and Lonnie. We are planning a trip.

All I can think is that this is a miracle. When we get exactly what we need when we need it—that is a miracle. Where they come from I can’t even begin to say. But I know ‘em when I see ‘em.