I got a story to tell ya about a man named Eddie. Before I can tell ya about Eddie, though, I gotta tell you a little something about Montana.

In case you don’t know, because you’re not from here, or because you’re not the type to set foot in certain establishments, either because you can’t or you won’t... most gas stations here in Montana have casinos in the back corner. They’re tucked away, outta sight... almost invisible if you’re not looking for ‘em. I’m not a gambler or casino kind of person, so at first, I didn’t realize how very present and prevalent these little back corner casinos are. Don’t get me wrong, there are signs for casinos at gas stations all over Montana, but I didn’t “see” the casinos in the back corners, until I did. Now I know, and now you know… most gas stations here in Montana have casinos in the back corner.

Some, but not all, of those back corner casinos have a bar in their back corner. A few of those back corner bars have a restaurant hitched to their back corner. So, sometimes, in some gas stations in Montana, there’s a casino, and a bar, and a restaurant…

You following me? Keep taking left turns if you’re not. You’ll either end up facing the door to the gas pumps or you’ll end up where I did… on a bar stool. That’s where I heard the story about Eddie at 1:50 in the afternoon on an unassuming Monday.

Before I can tell ya about Eddie, though, I gotta tell you about the bartender. I can’t remember her name exactly, which is a shame because she’s such a pivotal part of the story about Eddie. It was something like Joan, or Jan, or Joy… something like that. I’ll call her Joy because she was downright joyful. Beautiful, petite, young, tawny skin, big brown eyes, a smile that never turned flat… Native American or Arab heritage if I had to guess one; because we’re in Montana, probably more likely she’s Native American, but I’m not completely sure. Doesn’t matter. What does matter is that she was simply sublime. She flitted… floated... more than moved behind the bar… here, there, everywhere, always smiling.

I was impressed at her personal attention to each patron. Some, okay, let’s be honest... most, of the folks in the bar on a Monday afternoon, she knew by name and anticipated their poison. The one guy, in construction yellow, couldn’t even get his NA O’douls order out before she had the top popped and over the counter to him. (NA O’douls is a “near-beer” for y’all who don’t know. Considered non-alcoholic by state and federal regulations, may or may not be considered alcoholic depending on your personal opinion. Looks like a beer, smells like beer, tastes like beer, is it a beer? At the very least, it’s near beer...). An older woman came in and Joy was absolutely delighted to see her and show her the new earrings her husband had made! I’m not a big earring person, but my daughter, Tatum, makes earrings, and Joy was so excited, I couldn’t help but have my interest piqued. They were stunning earrings, not that I can remember much about them now. They were either butterflies or hummingbirds and, though I can’t remember which, or what was so remarkably intricate about them, I remember thinking her husband must have had her in mind when he handcrafted them. Floating, flittering, simply, sublime… This story is about him. Her husband is Eddie.

Before I can tell ya about Eddie, though, I gotta tell ya how it was I found myself on a bar stool, on a Monday afternoon, in the back corner, of a back corner that, after all that corner talk, turns out to be nothing more the front, right-hand side of a gas station as you’re facing the gas pumps… I told ya, just keep takin’ left turns ;)

Anyway, back then, Monday was my only day off, so really it was more like a Saturday than an unassuming Monday in my world. I was working 60+ hours a week, most of ‘em outta town. The twenty hours in town, during the rest of the world’s weekend, were hard-on-my-body, manual-labor type hours. I hadn’t done manual labor type work for pay since I got my college degree decades before. I was the type that paid a membership to go to a gym to do manual labor. My profession was “intellectual” and my body needed to stay healthy. I wasn’t going to get any health benefits from the work I did with my mind, so I went to a gym. Then I found myself working weekends at a gym, cleaning it from top to bottom. Back breaking work for one such as I had become. How I got from being a “professional with a desk job” to woman working 60+ hours a week, doesn’t matter. It’s not pertinent to the story about Eddie.

You probably know by now though, that before I can tell ya about Eddie, I gotta tell ya about something else. This time, I gotta tell ya about a guy I was sweet on back then (still am, actually, not that it matters much to this story). He was sitting on the bar stool to my right when I heard the story about Eddie. He knew that Monday was my Saturday and after a 40 hour “intellectual” work week out of town, I did 20 hours of manual labor in town and was downright pooped by Monday, my only day off. I’d asked him to sometimes surprise me on my days off with something novel that I didn’t have to plan, just had to show up for. So he took me to a restaurant in a gas station…

I have a thing for wings. I like ‘em. I know they’re not healthy for me, but they’re good, so I eat them, and I like it. I’d heard about that particular restaurant sometime back from some former co-workers. They swore that restaurant, Bob’s, or Al’s, or JD’s or something like that, had surprisingly good food for being a gas station restaurant. I believed them, sort of, but never got around to proving them right or wrong. My guy heard about the place too from his co-workers. Evidently this little gas station restaurant has especially good wings, according to his work buddy. He knows I like wings and novelty. What’s more novel than wings in a gas station, casino, dive-bar, restaurant at lunchtime on a Monday?

Joy took our order and was as delighted to help us decide on our wing sauce as she’d been to show the older lady Eddie’s earrings. She got advice from the cook and other patrons on what sauce the new folks should try. I can’t remember what a single one of them suggested, or what we settled on, but the wings were saucy, and that’s all that mattered… when they finally came out. I said it was lunchtime earlier, but that’s not exactly the truth. It was a tad bit later than I like to have lunch and I was hungry, downright, impatient-like hungry.

 Joy mindfully, and of course... joyfully, brought our drinks, one hot with honey, one a banquet in a bottle, one after the other. She wasn’t one to judge what anyone ordered to drink in a bar on a Monday afternoon. She just served them with that enchanting smile of hers. Her cheer, grace, and attentive conversation almost distracted from the fact that our drinks were almost done before the wings were out… almost, but not quite.

By the time the wings came, I was ready to eat, but first... honestly out of obedience, more than desire that day, I bowed my head and my guy doffed his hat to pray. I said words quickly. Words I’d said a million times before in about a million different variations. Something like “LORD bless this food to our use, and thank You for it.” (I probably especially thanked him for chickens, but I can’t remember, it doesn’t matter.) I finished with something like, “Please bless those who prepared and served this delicious fried food and beverage. In Jesus’ name, amen.”

“You’re prayin’ folks,” Joy said, more than asked, from the kitchen end of the bar as she floated back to us on Holy Spirit’s wind and her invisible wings.
“We are,” I said with a smile, as I dipped my wing in ranch or bleu cheese, I can’t remember which. I can remember it didn’t pair well with whatever sauce I also can’t remember... doesn’t matter. What does matter is what Joy said next.

“Will you pray for my husband Eddie?,” she asked, then, in between moments of serving other patrons, who already knew the story, she told us the story about Eddie...

No sense in stringing you along any longer. This time I’ll come right out with it and tell you. You see, Eddie had lived a rough life. Got himself a reputation, then in trouble, then locked up. I’m not sure what exactly he did, it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that either in prison the first time, or after prison, or when he had to go back in for what Joy says he says he didn’t do that last time, but at sometime in the midst of everything that is Eddie’s story to tell... Eddie found God. Or more likely, God, Good Shepherd He is, found Eddie.

Eddie, a lost sheep, who loves a hummingbird or butterfly, who serves barflies, needs prayer. Eddie’s coming up for parole this September. She asked us to pray he got out. Like I mentioned before, Joy says Eddie says he didn’t do anything to get locked up that last time. “Guilty by reputation, or association” or something like like that. She’s adamant he shouldn’t be locked up and the beautiful butterfly with the boldness of a lioness, isn’t afraid to ask prayin’ folks to pray.

She reminded me of the Bible, only maybe more tangible. There’s a part somewhere in there that says something about us (that’d be God’s children) not being anxious, but rather bringing our requests to God. She certainly didn’t present as one anxious for anything, what with that smile she never lost and that joy I remember her by. She also wasn’t concerned about sharing any of the fine details of Eddie’s story. She just wanted more of “us” to bring a prayer, a petition, to God that Eddie would be paroled.

There’s another part in the Bible that says we can approach God boldly because Jesus paid our admission price, or something like that. I’d like to say I’m not one to judge, after all there’s that whole bit about me being in a gas station, casino, dive-bar and on a Monday afternoon, nonetheless; but if I’m honest, I did judge… I’m sure you can think all the same things I was thinking about Eddie, and have your own thoughts about someone like me being asked to pray for someone like Eddie, and if God would even think about hearing prayers from people like us…

I’d like to think bar stool prayers are some of His favorites, so, I put my judgment down and asked if I could pray right then and there. I told you she was joyful, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything more beautiful than someone that excited to pray in my life. We had church right there in a bar. She took care of a tab of a patron first then bowed her head with me as we let her request be known to God again, only this time together, in fellowship, two or three gathered together in Jesus’ name... for Eddie.

Jesus advocates for me when the accuser sees me walk in a bar and condemns me for being nothing but a barfly on a bar stool. He tells His Father, I’m His, I’m free. I walk daily in that freedom that fights against the accusations that I’m nothing worth saving. Jesus advocates for Eddie when his accusers judge him, admittedly me among them. He tells His Father, Eddie’s His, Eddie’s free.

So let it be, in Jesus’ name that the story about Eddie may ever and always be that he is free!

Joshua and Caleb. Fresh from slavery. Ready for freedom and dirt of their own. Two of twelve sent to spy out the land the Hebrews once inhabited and were once again promised after a great deliverance...
They looked, they saw, they tasted, and they wanted to take back their land. The land was theirs after all. The God who delivered them from the hand of Pharoah, who generations before that, sent father Abraham from his home territory to find, said the land was theirs. These two knew it, trusted it, trusted the mighty hand of God and were ready. Ready for victory, ready to take back what was theirs before famine and oppression changed the course of their history.
They were ready! Spears in strong hands, adrenaline and anticipation coursing through their blood and veins. They stood in front of Moses, mediator between mighty God and mortal man. A multitude of Hebrew humanity amassed behind them as they gave their report... the land was good, all God promised! Theirs to take back.
hey raised their spears, muscles tense and tight with assurance. "Let's go!" they shouted with a stomp! A war cry, loud and strong, much the victory chant the Hebrews gave with shoulder checks, fist bumps and high fives, as the refugees rejoiced when they left the dead first born of Egypt behind them... Egyptian treasures in their carts and packs. 
"Let's go!" they screamed, veins popped out of strong necks, heads and spears raised to the glorious God of heaven...
But no...
No response... No reciprocation... No chant back this time. 
No "Let's go, let's go, let's go!" like before... when the masses shouted it in awe and in frenzy to hurry along the living littles as they walked between a wall of water on dry land.
No, "Let's go!" like before... in unbelievable, earth trembling, mind-blowing, hands-on-head, fists-to mouth, glorious, victorious celebration when the sea swallowed up their enemies in front of their thunderstruck eyes. 
No.
No, "Let's go." 
Not a whisper. They stood, the two of them, in the eerie silence...
Looking, in question... in confusion... in disquiet, first to each other, then to Moses, they saw the answer in his furious and forlorn eyes. Mighty arms lowered, spears dropped, they turned and saw... 
They said, "Let's go," but ten of twelve spies said, "No."
No way. No how. No go.
They said there were giants. They said it was impossible. 
They said, "No go," and God said fine. No faith to go, no Promise Land for you. 
Save two. Two mighty warriors. Two men among the masses, strong to fight, ready for battle, God at their helm. 
These two would taste victory over more enemies. They would take back the land of their ancestors.
They would... in time. 
Forty years they waited while the doubters died off, the lot of them. Forty years Joshua and Caleb waited. Forty years they trained the youth not to be weak, slave-minded victims, but God's chosen, victors.
They waited and they watched plague, and snake bite, and marauders and God's mighty hand take one after another, in groups and individually, to their sandy graves. 
Then there was one. One last doubter. One last coward. One of the twelve. The last of the lot. Then there were none.
Then Moses went to the mountain top and saw the Promised Land and told them to be strong and courageous. Very strong and courageous.
Then they said, "Let's go!" 
Their army was with their God, victory was in their hand, and they proceeded into the Promised Land!
​"Let's go!"

Luna... Luna... Luna... 
I've had stories inspire me to write them before, but Luna is the only character I've ever met that wants me to live the story with her. She came to mind about two or three years ago. I love her and want to get to know her. I'm not sure where this will go... but here we go... Let's talk about Luna...
The Columbia Falls Volunteer Fire Department #3 Chief didn't usually call any available volunteers in or have morning briefings, but today he did. Asked any available volunteer to come in for a 7am briefing. Three were able to make it in, Bonnie, Sam, and Ken. The Chief started as they all informally took up space in the common area.
"She came in last night. Well fed, clothes were clean. There's a canister of formula in the diaper bag. A safe harbor baby. Looks like her parents must have dropped her. All we've got is the video and the note. They were careful to cover their faces but definitely male and female..." 
The chief, a portly man, no one would want to see running into a burning building, pressed play on the video feed. 
The time tracker noted 12:54am. A couple, male and female, age unknown, carried a car seat and diaper bag up to the front of the Columbia Falls VFD #3. They came from the north side of the parking lot, kept any vehicle they used to access the fire department out of the video's view. Both were gloved, wearing over large shaded glasses and had COVID style masks over their nose and mouth. Both touched the baby, hugged the baby, lovingly but made no noise, spoke no words. They strapped the baby in the car seat, set the diaper bag beside it, with the note on top and walked away the way they appeared. 
The whole interaction lasted less than four minutes. 
"What's the note say, Chief?" one of the volunteers asked as she rocked the baby in her arms.
The Chief, picked it up, as if he actually needed to look at it again to recount what it said, "Her name is Luna. She never sleeps."  
"So far she hasn't... I'm guessing she's one, maybe two months old. Should be sleeping every two to four hours. Nothing yet. Not a wink."

I lost my computer. What's one more loss right? Evidently on the heels of the largest loss in life it's just enough to set my sad sorrowful soul off into an explosive fit of grotesque grief once again. Who knew? 
Who knew?!
Aftermath... after an explosive fit of emotion, mourning, melancholy you look around and observe the wreckage. Surely I'm not the only one, the only woman at least, who's regretted what happened in a fit of emotion. I never understood hysteria until the last few years. Perimenopause has wrecked me, and just in time to deal with the "all of it" of losing a child and building a dream and leaving a life I once knew and creating a new life in a new place with the love of my life. The love of my life who is lucky enough to the the "all of it" all over him. Lucky guy. 
So here I am in the aftermath, trying to figure out what to do with myself, my self that I do not know or recognize, although I remember who I once was and know who I want to be.
Here I am. Finally out of the spinning loop of horrible feelings and spiraling thoughts. 
Here I am. On a borrowed computer spewing words for therapy and art and you and me. 
Here I am. I am here. Here sitting on a swing that leans a little too far back to be comfortable, but here I am. (I'll remember to bring a pillow for support next time)
Here I am. Still, for but a moment. Rested after a 2 mile walk, because this I know I MUST do in the wake of the aftermath. I MUST move! I MUST be active, get my heart rate up, get endorphins and dopamine flowing. I MUST because it keeps medicated. Yeah, like a pill. 
Here I am. Repeating wisdom of the ages and science to myself. I've known this about me for years and somehow in the mess of grief, I've lost the motivation to "do" walks, or hikes, or workouts, yet I MUST. 
Here I am. Hearing birds chirping and letting thoughts filter into and out of my head in a beautiful flow of consciousness. 
Write. Write was my word of the year and ironically I've written less, I think, this year than the decade past. Maybe two decades. Irony? Maybe. 
I had intentions to write birthday cards this year to all the most famous people in MY life... you know, hubs, kids, grands, folks, close family, and I can count on probably two hands how many made it to the mail box. 
Travis Tritt sings a song about the best of intentions, having them and failing. There's a melancholy to the song I love, and there's a kindred song in my heart. I have so many good intentions. Maybe too many. So many I don't know where to start or what to prioritize and so nothing happens. Nothing but intending to, which seems so far away from being intentional, but they're related right? One is the thought, one is the execution?
Here I am being intentional about walking or hiking AT LEAST two miles six days a week. I'm on day three... let's see how long I can keep this stretch going. 
Here I am being intentional about writing, by keyboard or pen, fifteen minutes six days a week. Thing is both of these I love... to move and to wonder... to wander if you will, in body or mind.  
Here I am at the end of fifteen minutes.
Breathe... 
Verse of the day: Nehemiah 8:3 - It inspires me, the word of God!