Release Date: Tuesday, June 15, 2010
My heart was speaking to me. It told me to ignore the zillion tasks that were squawking at me. It told me, Go home. I lifted my eyes from my work at the computer, gazed out the windows of my study, and saw that my heart was leading me south. There was something that I needed to do. I decided to follow my heart.
As soon as I made that decision, of course, many frustrations arose to threaten my journey. They filled me with indecision. Are these omens telling me I should not go? I wondered. Half a dozen times I paused and considered turning back. Each time I decided to stay the course because the first message contained the essence of something we call "purity of heart."
It took many more hours to arrive at my destination than it should have. All along the way I coached myself - and truly believed - that it was all happening as it should. Despite the misgivings that flew at my resolve as if they were angry blackbirds pecking at my face, I felt centered. Calm. Purposeful. I was following my signs. I was ignoring false detours.
At last, I saw the exit to Circleville, Ohio. As I pulled off the highway onto the ramp, my iPod, which is loaded with more than 8,000 songs and which was set on shuffle, began to play "No Regrets" by Tom Rush. I was flooded with emotion. This song is special to me. It always calls up images of my mother as she mourned her husband and the love of her life--the man who was such a magnificent father to me and my siblings.
I drove a few miles ahead. There, on the left, was my destination. The last strains of Rush's song sounded when I flicked on my left turn signal and
watched for an opening in the oncoming traffic.
The next song on my iPod began to play as I pulled into St. Joseph's Cemetery. The first line of Van Morrison's "Reminds Me Of You" is "I miss you so much . . . " It was as if Morrison was seconding Rush's motion that this was exactly where I should be. That my heart had been true and I was correct to have followed it.
And so I brought my book to my parents, who always, always believed in me. I laid it just below my mother's name. The floodgates were opened and tears fell from my eyes. This was the moment toward which my heart had been leading me.
My hands were shaking so much that many petals fell from the peonies I placed in the headstone vase. Two fluttered down and landed upon the cover of my book. I started to move them and then stopped. How appropriate, I thought. Of course there would be two petals that would fall, one touching the other.
I started talking to my parents. I told them about meeting my Melchizedek and about how and protective he had been of me. I had heard that Melchizedek was hundreds of years old. Not mine, I told them. My Melchizedek is really quite young. In fact, he's extremely young to be so wise. My Melchizedek is awesome.
I placed daisies, the flowers that covered their graves so many years ago the day we buried them, in Robby's and Stevie's headstone vases. I talked to them, too. I told them how sorry I was that they had died so young.
I sat on the grass and had a long talk with my parents. Together, we recounted the moments that had led to this day. Together, we walked down Memory Lane. That walk brought me to a bicycle ride I took one beautiful spring day in Willoughby, Ohio. A two-year-old little towhead, my firstborn, Brittany, rode in a child's seat behind me as I cycled around Willoughby in the sunshine.
A few days later, Brittany asked, "Mommy, stone books?"
Our daily routine was to either ride the bike, or a tricycle, or sometimes I would push Brittany in her stroller, a few blocks to the library. At home, we read piles of books every day. So when Brittany asked me this unusual question, I tried to remember which titles were in the stack of library books. Nothing was clicking. There didn't seem to be a connection.
Brittany persisted. "Mommy. Stone books?"
And then it hit me. On our bike ride earlier that week we had passed by a cemetery. She was right! They were stone books!
And so it seemed to me on this eve of the release of my first book that, somehow, a 29-year-old moment was also part of this moment. The present had gone back, swooped up the past, and returned it to me so that I could recognize that God really does draw straight with crooked lines. He had been drawing me toward this moment long before I knew it. He and His universe had been conspiring to bring me to this day for a very long time.
Paulo Coelho writes in his magnificent The Alchemist: There is one great truth on this planet: whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it's because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. It's your mission on earth . . . The Soul of the World is nourished by people's happiness . . . And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.
So it had.
And I feel so blessed.
I introduced my parents and brothers to the best four-legged friend I have ever had, Donovan--the canine companion who has sat beside me every sentence of the way. Donovan sniffed their headstones and looked up at me with questioning eyes.
It was hard to say goodbye. I did so with many a backward glance.
But time marches us forward, doesn't it? And God rewards us for trusting in the future. Immediately upon pulling out of St. Joseph's Cemetery I received another message. I turned on my car stereo. Once again, the iPod shuffle found the perfect song for me: Bruce Springsteen's "Working On A Dream." I smiled. It is true. The release of Miracles Every Day is not the fulfillment of a dream; this is one accomplishment in my personal quest. I am still working on my dream. I'm far from finished here.
And so, today, I am filled with gratitude for everyone who has helped me to fulfill this part of my personal legend. I hope that my first published book gives honor to my parents. I hope that my family and friends know that their love has been the key to my happiness and that I treasure their love with all my heart. Perhaps most of all, however, this moment belongs to my Melchizedek. It is his voice that held me steady and kept me on course. I was blessed to have God's hand on the wheel and Gary Jansen's on the rudder.
On the journey home, I eschewed the highway for a country road. There were four confounding detours because of that decision. Even so, I had total confidence that I was where I was meant to be. My trust was rewarded with one final sign of the day. An American bald eagle, huge and majestic, swooped down alongside my car. He looked at me. Then he deigned to alight on a tree stump by the side of the road, allowing me to have a chance to admire him both in full flight and at rest.
Sometimes love and the pursuit of our personal legend is in full flight. Sometimes it is at rest. But, in life and in the fulfillment of our chosen destiny, love is always, always there.
