On this day I complete my 48th year

Well, it is December 5th. I am now forty-eight years old. Tomorrow I will be forty-eight years and one day.

Amazingly, I hadn't thought I would be on earth. But here I am. Alive and well, and very thankful to God for keeping me here. Not that earth has been so much fun, and not that I don't like the idea of heaven...but it's where I have to be cause there are certain things I must do in my life.

I totally believe in each life having a purpose. There are things in this world that others cannot do or that others would not do. Each life is important. Some folks don't know how important their lives are. For whatever reasons, they have never been told how important they are to other folks. I find that hard to believe but there are people in this world who aren't told on an ongoing basis how good it is for their friends, their families, the world at large that they are in the world. I've been very lucky. My friends always tell me how important I am to their lives.

I was lucky also in that my mother told me the wonderful myth of my life. True myth. And it's had wonderful power over me, power to encourage me in times of serious grief and distress. That's my mom on the left there. I miss her very much. Her birthday was Dec 7th. So we always celebrated it together.

Anyway, the overpowering myth of my life: I was born in spite of the fact that my father wanted to abort me. (He succeeded in aborting five of my brothers and sisters.) So from birth I was a survivor. Then when I was a baby, I had to get some vaccinations. My mother and her friend kept making dates to go to the clinic but something weird would always stop my mother. At last my mother's friend said, "Irie, I'm not waiting around for you." (Irie, is a jamaican term which means something like "sympatico friend.") So my mother's friend went and got her baby vaccinated. Her baby died, along with several other babies who had been vaccinated at that clinic. Turns out there was something wrong with that batch of vaccine, badly maintained or something.) Survival number two.

Then when I was thirteen I was on Bear Mountain and running around like mad as kids often do. Suddenly I felt a hand stop me in my tracks. There was no one there. But there was this pressure of a hand against me, stopping me. I stopped running and walked a little further. When I looked I saw that there was a sheer drop down a cliff. If I had continued running, I would've dropped over the hill and died. Survival number three.

In college, a fellow attempted to rape me. Some of the bloggers who have reviewed my book were offended that I didn't make the rape less offensive. Oh well! They don't know squat. I was beaten to a pulp and left on the floor with aching ribs that pained me for almost a month. But I survived.

During the past 20 years I came down with fibromyalgia. That is 20 years of sleeping only two hours or so a night. I had a son who was diagnosed as autistic and who was non-verbal and prone to allergies. You cannot imagine what kind of life this was, sleepless and taking care of an autistic kid for these past 17 years. But God has never failed me. Sometimes I would pray: "Lord, just take me home to heaven. This kind of life is slow torture." Somwetimes I would seriously wonder if I just shouldn't end it all. But then the Lord came to me in a dream one night and said, --He is sooo wonderful, my dear, dear, Saviour-- "Hold on, Carole. Live a little longer. You have six great works to do."

I laughed in His face when he said that. But I now know that if He hadn't told me about the six works I had to do, I probably would've given up and allowed myself to die. But I encouraged myself in the love and promise of my God and I managed to write Wind Follower...on two hours of sleep at nights and with achy bones. And I created a character who also chose to live in spite of her sorrows.

Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. His greatness is unsearchable.