“Sometimes things don’t go, after all, from bad to worse.” That’s a line from a poem by Sheenagh Pugh ( I think that’s how to spell her name.) It’s been rolling around in my head this morning with so much good news. The Macowiaks survived a plane crash in Lynn Canal. It’s a miracle, really. Mike, and his son and one of Valina Hansen’s girls are all okay. (The women’s choir was emailed last night.) Martha sings with us and is at Harborview ( the terrific place where my life was saved)– and I can practically see all the prayers and good thoughts waving like flags in the wind all over town this morning. Tomight we will sing with all our hearts to heal hers. ( It’s her heart that sent Martha on the medevac.)
There’s that, and about the same time the plane crashed, a jury decided Teddy Hart is not guilty of a crime in a case involving being on probation and living in his grandpa’s house and an officer finding his grandpa’s guns in the closet that became all mixed up with paperwork and procedure but ended with justice.
Yesterday, I was walking Pearl on the beach, looking toward Eldred Rock about the time all this was happening– and I don’t believe it is a coincidence – that I thought of that chalk board in my mud room, the one that still says “Be kind. Be Brave. Be Thankful.” And I wished that for Ted’s jury. I was also thinking about an old friend who died in Wisconsin this week, Jeff Shields (60, cancer) and the obituary I was writing for him and how you just never know, and how brave he was at the end, and how thankful I was to have known him. I didn’t even know about the plane crash and the Macowiaks swimming to shore on this cold afternoon, but I had a sense that a prayer of gratitude was in order. I said a Hail Mary. Then I looked down toward the cannery by Martha’s house actually– and thought of another poem ( honestly, is this too woo-woo? I hope not. Bear with me.) Jane Kenyon’s “Let Evening Come.” The last line of that poem is something like “God will not leave us comfortless.”
What’s a person to do with all this? I don’t know. In the meantime, I will remind myself to be kinder, and braver– like the Macowiaks, and be thankful for those wise jurors and justice and Teddy’s gentle smile– and I’ll pray for Martha. May God hold her in the palm of his hand.
( That’s a lot for one Thursday, I know. But there’s also a Friends of the Pool meeting at 4:30 at the pool, the women’s choir practices from 6-7 in the museum, and the first River Talk of the season is at 7 in the Chilkat Center. Tomorrow it’s First Friday on Main St.)
