Mother Daughter

Virginia Morris Martin, 1928-2011

It's Sunday in Indonesia, the day of the week when Jennifer and I make a point of playing our Stained Glass Music mix, a collection of religious bluegrass songs and our effort to retain a sense of structured spirituality while on a boat sailing around the world.  There are songs of birth and death, life and the hereafter, faith and trust, songs that resonate across the years and miles for us.  One of our favorites, and one that I think we each will want played at any after-the-fact celebration of our life is the Carter family classic, Far Side Bank of Jordan.  Listening to the song today brought tears to my eyes as I imagined Jennifer's dad, Glenn Moore Martin, who died a few years ago, waiting patiently, as the song suggests, on the "far side bank of Jordan" for his wife Virginia Morris Martin, who passed away peacefully on August 7, 2011, having had a last chance to see and feel the love of her four children, five of her grandchildren, and her only great-grandchild.  It's a smaller world we live in.

Kate, using her late grandfather's walker

Kate's hip surgery went as well as expected, and yesterday, just a few short days after being with her grandmother, Kate found herself using her late grandfather's walker as she took her first tentative post-surgery steps, with her mother, Jennifer, watching and capturing the moment on film for her dad, me, to see halfway around the world.

Being away from family is the hardest part of this trip; we can easily weather the occasional storm, the broken watermaker, the heat and humidity; they do not touch our hearts and souls, nor do they leave the lingering sense of helplessness and, yes, selfishness, as I sit on a sunny beach reflecting on my mother-in-law's selfless life, and worrying about my daughter, my niece, my family.  God bless them all.