Skip to main content

There and Back Again -- Part II

By Neal Stone -- 

The Journey Within -- A Visit with Unca

After a very teary goodbye to Aunt Kaye it was off to Alabama to visit Unca (uncle) Ron.
Storm on I-65Image by Dystopos via Flickr
It was about a three hour trip and went well, other than a major rain storm greeting us once we hit Alabama.

We finally arrived to Unca Ron's house and before we could hop out of the RV, Unca came out and greeted us. It was another awesome reunion with long lost family. After forty years I finally got to meet so many relatives -- some I didn't even know about.

I really got to enjoy some goof times with Unca Ron as well. After all these years and all this looking, things finally were coming together.

Read Part I of this story by clicking here.The first night there we sat and talked and got to know each other as family. My sister, Unca, and me finally together. Catching up, talking and sharing our lives that have been apart for so many years. It was awesome to connect.

On the first night we put the dog in his gazebo outside. It was still muggy, but the gazebo was in the shade and Chanel did OK with the heat so far. What she didn't do well with was being left alone. She threw a fit thinking she was being abandoned (given to us when she was five from owner who had from puppy). Throw in muggy weather and a pug nose and her getting upset and throwing a fit lead to her throat swelling and her having breathing problems. What we thought was a heat stroke was a major anxiety attack and it was scary. Her tongue turned blue and she was having problems breathing and it looked as if we were going to lose her.

Unca Ron wasted no time in locating an emergency vet and rushed us out there to get Chanel treated. It was so cool to see how he cared and went into action. I was impressed by this and felt that my unca was one awesome guy. He understood how Chanel was our family and wanted to see her get better.

We got to the vet and they took her back and she was better in no time, but we had to leave her overnight. She is all better now. Thanks Unca!

We stayed with Ron for a few days and got to drive around and see some cool houses. The houses in Washington are so boring compared to the south.

In the evenings we would talk and look at photos. Another one of those magical moments when you sit and look at photos till your eyes watered from being tired, and then looked some more. Found a photo of my dad in high school that looked so much like me in high school that it blew me away.

I have learned once again that my dad and I share so many traits. Even so far away and never seeing each other we turned out alike in so many ways.

We did a family picnic and I got to meet my cousin Rhonda as well as her daughter Stacy. I also got to meet her boyfriend who was also a fellow computer geek. He gave me a USB hub which was cool. Those are handy when you have a laptop.

We had a great time. A lot of eating, walking and talking. Best part was watching Ron trying to play baseball. Hopefully he keeps his day job because...sorry unc...he sucked at it. LOL. But it was much fun watching him just enjoy himself and being with family.

We went out for dinner a couple days before we left and I got to meet Mandy my second cousins and Rhonda's other daughter. I got to see a couple posters she created for my Unca Ron and realized that I have so much in common with all my family there. Mandy and I both are creative, artistic and avid bicyclists.

On the way home I got to ride with Unca Ron is his convertible. We had the top down and road around listening to Bruce Springsteen. It was an awesome moment to enjoy good tunes, family and just connect. Add this to one of those magical moments. I will never forget that ride and the peace and joy I felt in being with my unca.

Then the time finally came to leave. The RV needed some repairs so Unca had to take us to the dealership to pick it up and we left from there. It was hard to leave knowing in a few days we would be thousands a miles apart.

This journey has caused me to look inward and see how important family is. So many times we sacrifice our family for things that aren't really as important. Work, other families, church functions, i have seen people lose family over all of these. You can always find another job, church will always be there and other families need to learn to take care of each other. But your family you have once and only once. Then they're gone. Be careful because if you're not paying attention, the thing that matters most could get lost.

When I was a teen my parents pushed me aside to help some bus kid favorite. I was told I had to make the sacrifice to do “God's work”. What they didn't realize is I was the sacrifice.

Family is important above all else. Keep them or lose them and if you lose them find them before it's too late.

Next Part 3 – The Journey Home

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Are You an Atheist Success Story?

By Avangelism Project ~ F acts don’t spread. Stories do. It’s how (good) marketing works, it’s how elections (unfortunately) are won and lost, and it’s how (all) religion spreads. Proselytization isn’t accomplished with better arguments. It’s accomplished with better stories and it’s time we atheists catch up. It’s not like atheists don’t love a good story. Head over to the atheist reddit and take a look if you don’t believe me. We’re all over stories painting religion in a bad light. Nothing wrong with that, but we ignore the value of a story or a testimonial when we’re dealing with Christians. We can’t be so proud to argue the semantics of whether atheism is a belief or deconversion is actually proselytization. When we become more interested in defining our terms than in affecting people, we’ve relegated ourselves to irrelevance preferring to be smug in our minority, but semantically correct, nonbelief. Results Determine Reality The thing is when we opt to bury our

So Just How Dumb Were Jesus’ Disciples? The Resurrection, Part VII.

By Robert Conner ~ T he first mention of Jesus’ resurrection comes from a letter written by Paul of Tarsus. Paul appears to have had no interest whatsoever in the “historical” Jesus: “even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, we know him so no longer.” ( 2 Corinthians 5:16 ) Paul’s surviving letters never once mention any of Jesus’ many exorcisms and healings, the raising of Lazarus, or Jesus’ virgin birth, and barely allude to Jesus’ teaching. For Paul, Jesus only gets interesting after he’s dead, but even here Paul’s attention to detail is sketchy at best. For instance, Paul says Jesus “was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” ( 1 Corinthians 15:4 ), but there are no scriptures that foretell the Jewish Messiah would at long last appear only to die at the hands of Gentiles, much less that the Messiah would then be raised from the dead after three days. After his miraculous conversion on the road to Damascus—an event Paul never mentions in his lette

Christian TV presenter reads out Star Wars plot as story of salvation

An email prankster tricked the host of a Christian TV show into reading out the plots of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Star Wars in the belief they were stories of personal salvation. The unsuspecting host read out most of the opening rap to The Fresh Prince, a 1990s US sitcom starring Will Smith , apparently unaware that it was not a genuine testimony of faith. The prankster had slightly adapted the lyrics but the references to a misspent youth playing basketball in West Philadelphia would have been instantly familiar to most viewers. The lines read out by the DJ included: "One day a couple of guys who were up to no good starting making trouble in my living area. I ended up getting into a fight, which terrified my mother." The presenter on Genesis TV , a British Christian channel, eventually realised that he was being pranked and cut the story short – only to move on to another spoof email based on the plot of the Star Wars films. It began: &quo

ACTS OF GOD

By David Andrew Dugle ~   S ettle down now children, here's the story from the Book of David called The Parable of the Bent Cross. In the land Southeast of Eden –  Eden, Minnesota that is – between two rivers called the Big Miami and the Little Miami, in the name of Saint Gertrude there was once built a church. Here next to it was also built a fine parochial school. The congregation thrived and after a multitude of years, a new, bigger church was erected, well made with clean straight lines and a high steeple topped with a tall, thin cross of gold. The faithful felt proud, but now very low was their money. Their Sunday offerings and school fees did not suffice. Anon, they decided to raise money in an unclean way. One fine summer day the faithful erected tents in the chariot lot between the two buildings. In the tents they set up all manner of games – ring toss, bingo, little mechanical racing horses and roulette wheels – then all who lived in the land between the two rivers we

Morality is not a Good Argument for Christianity

By austinrohm ~ I wrote this article as I was deconverting in my own head: I never talked with anyone about it, but it was a letter I wrote as if I was writing to all the Christians in my life who constantly brought up how morality was the best argument for Christianity. No Christian has read this so far, but it is written from the point of view of a frustrated closeted atheist whose only outlet was organizing his thoughts on the keyboard. A common phrase used with non-Christians is: “Well without God, there isn’t a foundation of morality. If God is not real, then you could go around killing and raping.” There are a few things which must be addressed. 1. Show me objective morality. Define it and show me an example. Different Christians have different moral standards depending on how they interpret the Bible. Often times, they will just find what they believe, then go back into scripture and find a way to validate it. Conversely, many feel a particular action is not

On Living Virtuously

By Webmdave ~  A s a Christian, living virtuously meant living in a manner that pleased God. Pleasing god (or living virtuously) was explained as: Praying for forgiveness for sins  Accepting Christ as Savior  Frequently reading the Bible  Memorizing Bible verses Being baptized (subject to church rules)  Attending church services  Partaking of the Lord’s Supper  Tithing  Resisting temptations to lie, steal, smoke, drink, party, have lustful thoughts, have sex (outside of marriage) masturbate, etc.  Boldly sharing the Gospel of Salvation with unbelievers The list of virtuous values and expectations grew over time. Once the initial foundational values were safely under the belt, “more virtues'' were introduced. Newer introductions included (among others) harsh condemnation of “worldly” music, homosexuality and abortion Eventually the list of values grew ponderous, and these ideals were not just personal for us Christians. These virtues were used to condemn and disrespect fro