Running in Michigan. With a stumbling block, or a Stepping-Stone.

~ Live & Learn

71° F. An intermittent breeze blows off Lake Superior.  Upper Michigan…a half step slower in pace, and a full step-and-a-half ahead in balance.  With skies so blue, clouds so white, water and air so clean, you can taste the Pure emblazoned on the license plates on the cars that pass me by.

I run under the bridge which towers overhead. Rail cars roll out on the ore docks.  A massive freighter sits silently waiting for the iron ore pellets to fall down the chutes into its belly. One can’t pass this scene and not be filled with Gordon Lightfoot’s The Wreck of Edmund of Fitzgerald:

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they called ‘gitche gumee’
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of November turn gloomy
With a load of iron ore twenty-six thousand tons more
Than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty

I enter Presque Isle Park. I’m hearing horns through my ear buds. Can’t be.  I tuck my earbuds into my pocket and follow the tune. A man, in his 70’s, in a kilt, stands in the woods with his bagpipes – he’s alone and belting out Scotland the Brave. Goosebumps pop on my forearms. I must have Scotland in the gene pool, must have.

Genes. Family history. Family trees. DNA testing. The purpose of this family get-together was to celebrate my Father-in-Law discovering his full Sister on a genetic service. What’s bigger than meeting a sister you never knew you had?

He was given up for adoption as an infant. Over dinner, he stood next to his Sister raising a glass.  He opened with “nothing is stronger than family” and then from memory recited a poem by R. Lee Sharpe:

“Isn’t it strange how princes and kings,
and clowns that caper in sawdust rings,
and common people, like you and me,
are builders for eternity?

Each is given a list of rules;
a shapeless mass; a bag of tools.
And each must fashion, ere life is flown,
A stumbling block, or a Stepping-Stone.”

An 86-year old man, unflappable in hundreds of toasts and speeches, has tears streaming down his face, his body trembling with emotion – with his Sister reaching to comfort him. Given away as an infant. A Sister he never knew he had.

And each must fashion, ere life is flown,
A stumbling block, or a Stepping-Stone.

And there sitting around the dinner table was The Family.  A writer for a local paper. A Librarian. An elementary school teacher. An elected city official. An Architect. Two Doctors. A farmer. Two home schooled boys. And 17 others in the Family watching the scene unravel in slow motion.

And so it was. Marquette, Michigan. The week of the Blueberry Festival. The weekend of Art on the Rocks and the Outback Fine Art Festival.  The Saturday morning Farmer’s Market.

And the Peters’ family reunion.

As the plane climbed to 30,000 feet, I think of Amelia Boone (and me and our lives) in this backdrop: “I felt so much external pressure to keep winning. You have to keep winning, Amelia. You have to keep winning. What happens when you don’t win anymore?”

What happens?

You head to a small town…
You surround yourself with your family and other wholesome people…
and…
You slow-the-hell-down.

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44 thoughts on “Running in Michigan. With a stumbling block, or a Stepping-Stone.”

    1. Yes…Yes

      “Home was indeed very dear to me. You know of course that the very air of one’s native place seems different from that of anywhere else. The smell of the earth, even, seems to have a special quality of its own. Besides, I found there to comfort me the tender memory of my father and mother. I looked forward to the months of July and August, when I could live like a snake hibernating in its hole, secure and comfortable in familiar surroundings.”

      ~ Natsume Sōseki, “And Then” (1909)

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  3. This is beautiful, pal. My mother-in-law passed away this week, so family dynamics have been top of mind. So important to treasure what you have while you have it, because it can go in the blink of an eye. Glad that you had this time with family…sounds just about perfect.

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    2. My condolences dear Lori. It’s sad to lose one’s parents, and hopefully you had a good contact to your in-laws too; so that would hurt a lot – peace to you and especially to your partner.

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  5. Just imagine the storing of this scene for all the children present! They might pretend they weren’t changed by it; but, oh how they were. We grownups should be more brave and shout it for all to know…life despite whatever your whatever is, is always always worth continuing!

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  6. As one who was abused and abandoned as an infant, but adopted and raised in a “perfectly dysfunctional” family, I have only recently begun to ponder some of these “what if’s?” I think though, that I’ll wait until my adoptive parents are gone from this earth, and they are in their late 80’s. (“perfectly dysfunctional” is a reference to the fact that there was only one family named The Waltons)

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        1. I wasn’t going to say more, because I could write a whole book about people giving their babies away, but yes, you’re right, only it is very late at 86. All those missed years. I think there are way too many mothers giving up babies for the sake of convenience. Sometimes, in a few cases, it’s necessary, but so often, it’s just easier, or it saves face, and that’s so sad for the baby.

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  8. Perfection, David. From Gordon Lightfoot (song is STILL playing in my head) to the bagpipies (I DO have Scotland in the gene pool) to your wonderful father-in-law who accepted with joy what life has given him and is not afraid to show it and recited that beautiful poem…
    Yes. Slow The. Hell. Down. Glad you did! And then shared it with us…

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  10. Wow and wow again – this is YOUR family’s story?! How amazing this is, and THAT it is possible at all, is amazing again – I do hope it teaches YOU to think maybe more of your family, the one you love and cherish and maybe it makes you slow down a notch or two…. you’re not James Bond, you only live once! Happy Sunday, dear friend.

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  15. So Wonderful that your father in law was able to meet his sister, that Susan meet her aunt and that your children their great aunt, that you meet a family member and all the other family members present witnessed, felt, with hearts and amazement engaged in the joining of welcoming a new life into the fold…and I think how fitting under the setting of “Pure” Michigan sky and wrapped in the “Pure” air..each breath is a True Gift…

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  18. Tears flowed as I read this again…I am so grateful your father in law, Tom was able to meet his sister before he passed…and he was a “Man of True Value”…

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