Preface

 

Readers are going to eventually ask me if the book is based on living or dead people: both.  Bill and Gloria are mentioned by name and I have their permission.  Anya was the pet name of the murdered woman journalist set back in that time period when she escaped to Austria to write her book.  Anyone could use Google and find her, but I didn't mention her real name or the name of the book.

I also used the last name of my friend Ellen Cohen as the doctor's last name.  The rabbi's names are from a list of names I found for Israel, but they are not currently living or even the exact names.  I think the rest of the characters came out of my head, especially Lyle, Jackson, Jillian, and Mia. 

The circumstances are based on possibilities and history along with my understanding of what people of different ages do and think.

I hope you enjoy reading the book.  I certainly enjoyed writing it.

© 2010 Nancy Dickerson. All Rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in print, on the Internet, or in any form without written permission of the author.

Destinations

Chapter 21

Conclusion

(Read the entire story to date in PDF format)

Chapter 21

Questions and Answers

Jackson had no way of expressing his happiness except to smile.  He wanted to shout and hug someone.  The call had come in the dark of night, and he could not contain his joy until first light.  He stood in the doorway to the other small bedroom and wished his niece awake, but instead it was little Christopher who stumbled into the room with squinting eyes and sleep tumbled hair.  Christopher would do, decided Jackson.

“Your face looks so happy, Uncle Jackson.  What is it?” asked the perceptive child.

“He’s alive, and he will be coming home,” Jackson fairly sang his news to the child while keeping his voice as quiet as possible in order not to awaken Benjamin and Jillian.

“But Momma will want to know now!” cried Christopher.

In the bedroom door, Benjamin stood in wide-eyed bewilderment.  “Have we heard anything,” he asked immediately.

As Jackson continued to smile and nod, Christopher looked from one adult to the other and repeated the news: “He’s alive, and he will be coming home.”  Then he ran and whispered the news into the sleeping Jillian’s ear.  Now his family would be happy again, and Jillian would not look so lost. 

Chaim Cohen had trained his team well for disasters, man-made or so-called natural disasters.  He had his own opinion about natural disasters, but the lack of wisdom of men’s choices was not his immediate problem.  He had organized and drilled his team, and now each move was made with the knowledge that every effort would count.  Lives would be saved.  Life would go on for the living, at least.

Inya had insisted on coming with him this time.  She knew he would not even have time to look at her, but she also knew that he would eat if she made him.  He always left his own welfare as a last consideration.  His team mattered and its efficiency mattered, but rest and food for him was seeing that the work was done and done well.  She was so proud of Chaim, but he belonged finally to her only after all the work had been done.  That was enough for her.  The love they shared came from a deep understanding of duty, of concern for others, and of appreciation for character.  When this earthquake shook these poor people, the Israeli doctors were ready to come to them fully equipped and fully aware that no one would understand their need to serve.  Inya understood.  For years she had only stood and served.  Even blind Milton would understand, she thought.  But this world was not very familiar with such an attitude.  She was glad to be able to see the difference they could make in this one tiny place.

Each time the Israeli doctors left to help another area, monitors kept a close ear on radios, TV stations, and even the Internet for any reference to Israel.  So it was that a monitor had caught a broadcast out of Colombia about a man who had helped Israel.  The information quickly brought a response from both Chaim and the men who had been asked to serve as peace keepers in this devastated country. 

As a doctor, Chaim knew that the GPS chip inserted into any of their group would enable them to return the member to their country—dead or alive.  Locating a person with a microchip was not as certain as the GPS chip, but since its inception, each person who served outside Israel had been required to allow the insertion of the GPS.  Not one had been lost.  Now it seemed that someone who had served Israel in the past would need just a bit of help from them.  Chaim decided against telling Inya of either the identity or location of the person.  It was enough that she knew that three of the men would be taking a helicopter to help someone else.

Bill could tell from the anxious look on the priest’s face that he was terribly concerned about something, and Bill was none too eager to hear bad news this morning.

“Buenos Dias, Senor Bill,” the priest greeted him.  “I bring word from one of your former students who is very frightened.  He believes that his life may be in danger, and he is going to attempt to come back to Somondoco this very day.  Do you remember Tomas?”

Nodding his head, Bill was about to encourage the priest to explain when he heard Gloria exclaiming about a loss as she moved about her flowers. 

“It is gone!  How could this happen?  It would have had to be taken for it to be gone!  Nothing is here on the ground!  Not even a thread of the string remains!  Who could have taken it?”

Bill stood and moved toward his wife with the intention of trying to soothe her and to try to understand why she was so upset.  It did not take Gloria long to explain that her hummingbird was missing—totally GONE!  Such a precious thing had appealed to her artistic impulses, but its loss brought sudden guilt that she might not have protected it as she should have—and fury to think that anyone would actually take something from her very patio!

Some disturbances call for action and others call for calm, so Bill was inclined to remain calm in the face of both announcements.  Besides, such things never begin well with the addition of more anxiety or perturbation.  Bill called Wrinkles to him and walked from the point where the bauble had hung out to what he would have considered the perimeter of a circle underneath the tree.  Stepping gently around in a clockwise direction, Bill began to circle the area.  With his nose to the ground, the huge dog snuffed at first one thing and then the other while following Bill’s footsteps.  Finally, the dog stopped while Bill continued to walk around.  Wrinkles first sat, then lay down on the ground.  But his head went up instantly as he alerted to a sound from the front of the finca.  His resounding woof got the attention of the three standing around him.  And then his grin assured them that the woof was a greeting rather than a warning, as Christopher ran and skipped through the front gate and toward the dog.

“The news is good!” he called out as he ran to plop down beside the big dog.  “Uncle Jackson is coming to talk to you now with Mom.  They will tell you what they know, but I know it is very good,” said the youngster as he began to hug on the dog.

“I must prepare some hot chocolate,” said Gloria.

“Senora Gloria, we have been up all morning and have eaten and had something to drink already, so you will not need to prepare anything for us,” said the child.

“Such a thing from a child!” exclaimed Gloria.  “But will you do something for me, Christopher?”

“Of course, I would love to do something for you,” said Christopher.  “What do you need for me to do?”

“Would you look for a tiny hummingbird that fell from the tree?  It is made of glass and was hanging here from this branch, and now it is gone.”

As Christopher began to look in the area which Gloria had indicated, Jillian and Jackson entered the front gate.  Both were smiling, and Jackson even seemed less stiff and was walking with a bit of a spring in his step.  Gladness of heart had, indeed, been as a medicine for him this day.

As the adults began to sit down and exchange pieces of news about Lyle and even about a young man named Tomas, Christopher glanced at Wrinkles lying on the ground.  He seemed to be licking his foot.  When Christopher stopped to look at the dog’s foot, he discovered that the big dog had practically buried a small object in the grass and the mud beneath the grass.  As the child began to dig it out of the ground, Wrinkles seemed to think the digging was more his job and exerted enough sudden effort to remove quite a few chunks of sod.

“No, enough already!  It is out and we don’t need any more dirt!” cried Christopher.

Bill turned to see a small section of his yard turned upside down beneath a happily grinning Wrinkles whose feet and legs were covered in mud.  Even Christopher had mud up to his wrists from retrieving the piece of glass from the dog’s handiwork.  But Gloria was to have her hummingbird, string and all, returned to her from the yard.

“Today things are to return to where they belong, I think,” said Bill with a chuckle.  “At least your treasure is safe again, Gloria, and Lyle will return as soon as he has seen a good doctor.  Now perhaps we can think about Tomas and his problem,” he said to the priest.

“I can tell you no more than what he said to me initially,” said the priest.  “He seemed very frightened by something that happened in the compound where the lay brothers live.  We must simply wait until we can talk to him, but he said that you should be told that he did nothing wrong.  He seems to think that you will want to know that he tried to help some man.”

“Tomas was always a bit melodramatic, I think,” said Bill.  “He would have made a good teacher, but his parents wanted him to be a doctor or priest.  I am not sure that his parents are alive even, but I know he still has family in this area.  Whatever is wrong, I hope that he can stay here without difficulty.  He could teach some of the children who live too far away to come to classes easily.”

The Americans had a ship off the coast of Haiti that included some of the best medical equipment available, so Chaim was assured of having what he needed for Lyle’s treatment, but his own crew had watched him and Inya leave as if they thought he might not return.  Or at least, so it had seemed to him.  Perhaps he simply did not wish to leave them.  But in his mind, Lyle was someone from his past that had made his future possible.  He smiled across the helicopter at Inya as they neared the deck of the ship. 

“This person must be someone really important for us to leave the rest of the crew behind,” Inya shouted above the noise of the rotors.

Chaim smiled and nodded his head.  Inya was accustomed to hearing only bits and pieces about his work, but sometimes she was well aware that all the little pieces fit into a much larger picture for Israel.  After all, her own brother had been one of those little pieces.  But sometimes it would be nice to see how all the pieces fit together.  As Chaim climbed out of the helicopter, Inya looked up to see their friend Moshe smiling back at her.  She felt that Moshe was almost a brother-in-law to her as much as he had been to Chaim.  She smiled at that thought.  Family was such a good thing.

Lyle was tired.  In the care of his friend Moshe, he had begun to relax.  Oh, his body was still sore and his head still throbbed, but he only felt the fatigue.  He had always wanted to make a difference in the world—to be able to give back. His mind wandered to Nemrut Dag—an entire area of a mountain built to teach men piety and appreciation for orderliness and a certain form of godliness—yet a burial place and reminder that even stone cannot remain long inscribed.  Broken stones—inscribed with laws or otherwise—made a fine tumulus for men’s graves and their visions of accomplishment. One burial place or another mattered little—the dead were just as dead and the living eventually joined them.

You think to foresee the future, my friend?  Your vision must enable.  We all die, but we can be free.  I give them a voice; you must give them hope.

“Anya?” Lyle called out and dropped off into a deep sleep.

For three weeks Jillian, Benjamin, and Christopher had stayed on Emerald Mountain with Jackson.   And now it was time for them to get a decision from him.  They needed to return to their own home, and they wanted him to return with them.

“What purpose can it serve for you to remain, Jackson?” asked Benjamin.

Christopher remained snuggled in the arms of this man he had grown to love.  It hurt him to feel that conflict threatened Jackson or his parents.  He just wanted to love them all and let that take care of any problems.  He reached up and hugged the big man.

“I love you, Uncle Jackson.  But I want you to be happy.”

“Ah, little man, I love you too.” 

As his hands ran over the child’s head and held the small hands in his own, Jackson began to speak:  “The best and most beautiful things of this world are not seen with the eyes or touched with hands.  The things that matter most must be felt by the heart.  You have a heart to feel that beauty, to know the hope.  No matter what your destination may be in the future, may God bless you to give of His hope.  Take your Uncle Lyle’s last words, ‘Let me not be ashamed of my hope’ and build with a patient and purposeful love.  This then is what makes our lives matter.”

“But I am angry with whoever hurt Uncle Lyle!  I want God to hurt them!” cried Christopher.
“We can’t do that, Christopher.  We have to ask for God’s blessings even on those who curse us. But you must understand something about asking for God’s blessings.  Even His blessings sometimes hurt.  Those who hurt Lyle may have to suffer much more because of what they did to him.  But let God take care of dealing with the problems and those who are hateful.  It is our work to give of ourselves in the best way we can.  Lyle’s hope was very certain; it was his hope in God that gave him the determination to make the violence of poverty cease for as many as he could reach.  I want to extend that reach for as long as I can hold up my arms.  I have to do at least this much for Lyle,” said Jackson.

“But why here?” asked Jillian.  “Couldn’t you do this from Texas or somewhere closer to home?”

“This is where we are needed, where we can make a difference in an entire country.  Besides, the climate agrees with me.  And this mountain is an absolute treasure trove of botanicals.  Perhaps my scientific interests can be almost as useful as Lyle’s chemical engineering has been.”

“Could I come back next summer and stay with you, Uncle Jackson?” asked Christopher.

“If your parents will allow it or if they will come too, I would love for you to come and spend as much time as you would like.  Maybe we can find a pretty little Paso Fino for you to enjoy.”

Benjamin and the jubilant Christopher walked back down the road to the waiting car.  Jillian sat still beside Jackson with tears sliding down her cheeks.  The big man gently took her hand and then reached out to lift her chin with his other hand.

“You look so much like your mother.  And your temperament is just like hers.  She was joy and lightness, bubbling happiness one minute and entirely too serious the next.  The summer she decided to single-handedly raise the living standards for the Indians near the lake reminds me of what Lyle wanted to do here.  But at least for that summer those women had work and were well paid for their efforts.  Maybe our ‘blanket fund’ won’t last long here, but at least we will have tried.”

“I had forgotten about that.  She was an idealist, wasn’t she?  How could I have forgotten?”

“And are you not from the same mold, Jillian?  You hope to heal the emotional wounds that are caused by disastrous traumas.  She tried to heal economic damage with hope.  Laci did not live long enough to see the effects of her small efforts in the lake country, but she gave the world a little girl who will make a difference.  Wherever you are—here, the lake country, or some other place—you will give hope to others.  You will lift up the hands of the weak and be a blessing, you and your children after you.”

“Well, there is only Christopher,” sighed Jillian.

“Oh, but I think you will find that is not the case,” smiled Jackson.  “Your face glows with good news.”

Startled, Jillian sat very still for a moment before reaching to hug Jackson.  Then it was with a joyful stride that she followed Benjamin and Christopher.

“Will you have lunch now, Senor Jackson?”

“Yes, Tomas, and I think some special wine from the lake country will provide a perfect toast to the future.”

Thank you for reading this book.  To Contact Nancy Dickerson, send an e-mail to info@slightlycreaky.com