This is a blog I wrote a few months ago. I found it recently and realized that it is still as fresh as I day I wrote it. It captures my excitement over the journey, one year later. In fact, it reminds me that the journey is never meant to end...
It is 6:45 am. A few months ago, I would have been packed up, had my pack already lifted onto my back, and have taken my first steps down the trail for the day. In the soft early hours of the morning, I would be the first hiker who would have the honor of breaking the webs that had been spun so carefully across the trail during the night. The absense of spider webs always raised my hopes that someone else was hiking before me and there was a chance to meet and greet a fellow traveler in the hours ahead.
Today, however, my trail is not a path in the woods. I miss that path, but my life has been completely taken over by several new challenges in the months since I said goodbye to the AT and returned home from Harpers Ferry. I arrived home in the fall to the news that my mother was dying of cancer. The doctor explained the situation to us and predicted only three to six weeks were remaining for her on this earth. He was wrong in his timing. She lived through the fall and passed from this world just before Christmas. During that time, I moved in with her as a caregiver and son, a path that I had never envisioned walking.
The second challenging journey I found waiting for me involved the sponsor of my hike, the Christian Churches Disability Ministry. All summer long I had been sharing the dream of creating an online community for famillies who are caring for children and adults at home with disabilities. Everywhere I went I found families expressing intense interest and encouraging me to not let it remain just a dream. Once home, to my surprise, that challenge was entrusted to me. I now am working with CCDM as the Director of Spiritual Outreach And Development. My main task is to fund and develop this online community, with the potential of reaching out and touching thousands of families across America and around the world. We have named it, "The Hope Connection."
Today is a good day to once again pick up my pen and start charting the journey. I have just spent the night in Maryland, not far from where my tail hike ended. My purpose for being here is to wrap up some lose ends of family business. When I head back home tomorrow, it will be to dive in to the new challenges of my assignment. I believe its time to be Phoenix once again.
RSS Feed