Arkansas
It is weird being back in Arkansas. You hear phrases in life like "everything is the same but different" and that's a pretty good explanation for it.
I made this drive every year for 10 years and therefore picked up on several landmarks along the way. Seeing I have not been here since 2008, I had forgotten many of them. Even driving in the dark my mind quickly started to flash thoughts....lighthouse ahead on left, strip club that looks like a cave on the right, the intersection in Pocahontas that I always turned the wrong way on. I found myself laughing a lot at how familiar it all was. I would start thinking to myself, "have I passed the [enter landmark here] yet" and try to watch for it even in the obscurity.
I woke up early yesterday morning and knew I couldn't meet up with the the sisters in Fredericktown until the afternoon, so decided to go to the temple. It was something I wanted to do and spiritually needed to do. I knew that the inspiration to go was true as Satan was taking every shot he had to try and keep me from going. After a while I just started laughing because things were falling apart, messing up, making me frustrated and I knew it was Satan and his antics. I took a deep breath and decided that no matter what, I was going to go commune with the Lord at the temple whether Satan liked it or not.
Leaving the temple put me in late afternoon traffic to get started south. I don't mind driving yet when you get multiple lanes of traffic with a lot of cars, I start to freak out a bit....ok, maybe a little more than that. It didn't help that it was freezing rain and my mirrors had iced over. (Seriously, can't make up stuff better than the truth). I survived, peeled my white-knuckled fingers off the steering wheel and eventually returned to 2 lanes.
After dinner left me with 3.5 hours still to go and a dark ride. I never had made the trip in the dark so it was a new experience. With having been to the temple, my mind was full of new views, new thoughts, new thoughts of old views, and more. I just started picking thoughts out and working through them as the miles added up. Sometimes it is not so much "finding an answer" as it is "finding peace with" when it comes to thinking and working through things. I'm learning more and more that finding answers in the sense of who, what, where, when, and especially why, are not always that important. Although they are nice things to know, that information doesn't necessarily bring you the final peace you are looking for. It seems that those answers often just create more questions.
As I started getting closer I let my mind take a break and went back to thinking about the landmarks. Yup, that ugly black raven (that looks like it made of chicken wire and paper mache) is still in Ravenden. I hit the edge of Hardy and rolled through downtown, noting what businesses had changed on the strip. The old gas station which had been several restaurants was now a Mexican place and the catfish diner with the huge chair out front was closed and abandoned. As I came around the corner, my attention quickly turned to the "museum" lot. There was that dang cop car with the mannequin in it. At that moment it really hit me, I was going to Carla's and she wasn't going to be there. All these fun and crazy memories that I was laughing and enjoying as I hit the edge of town had been made with Carla. They were our moments from many years of visits. I had never been here without her....until now. The remaining 10 miles were quiet. Somber and quiet.
It's been a good visit so far. I am doing a lot of listening and observing. Uncle Jeff and I have talked a lot and it is good to hear the many stories. We've been out and around and I just look over the landscape (it's beautiful down here on the edge of the Ozarks) and take it in. My mind goes back to the questions and thoughts I have been working through lately. What is here that can help me find peace? What can I learn here to help heal my soul? I listen to some of the struggles emotionally Carla was having and I am reminded of our tight genetic link. As Jeff talks about the past few years, he simply says, "she gave up." In the moment I hear that, my soul just screams at me, "you can't."
Aunt Carla passed at home quickly and painless. Home health was here wrapping her feet and legs and they were having a talk when Carla just got very quiet and then was gone. They are calling it a blood clot that caused an aneurism. Jeff talked about the large amount of people that came to her service. He talks about how Carla felt she was alone and never thought people cared about her and how he wished she could have seen everyone. I told him that she did.
Life will go on down here. Later tonight we will start going through stuff and tomorrow I will pack up and head back. I go back with a lot of information. I go back with some changed views of things. Most of it, I wouldn't really know how to describe in words. Even though Carla wasn't here physically, she has been here.
It's the same, yet different.