The Suitcase

It was the first Christmas after my husband had left me for a man, and a foriegn lifestyle. Just a few months into the new challenges that single motherhood brought, both physically and financially. I was tired and frightened still trying to get my footing in my new role. I had very little money, and spent most days worried about how I would take care of the four small children that were my lone responsibility now. I pinched pennies and saved to make sure I would have what the kids needed. I so wanted their Christmas to be grand, at least as grand as it had been in years past, and I wanted it to be happy and as normal as possible. I decided to go and spend the holiday with my parents and siblings. This allowed for my husband to be at his mother's, just a few miles from my family, and the children could enjoy both homes, and that would give them the best chance for a normal Christmas, normal was such a prize to all of us at that time. The selfish part of me wanted to lick my wounds and punish him...keep him from the kids...the better part of me wanted the children to have their family...I determined to make it work...make myself make it work.

I put aside gas money little by litte, and purchased my children's presents, their dad helped with the cost of gifts, and that was a huge help, but he had little money too...living in two households instead of one was stretching his income to its limit. He was always good to me in financial issues with regard to the children, but this was at the beginning when I had no idea what I could expect from him. He wanted me to trust him, and he had just left me for a man and a lifestyle that he had hidden from me for many years, I wanted to trust...but it was hard to find. I had a wall up around my heart and my soul...and the only entity I had invited into my madness, was God...I had, in desperation gone to me knees and asked for relief, and in God I had found the strength to get through the days that led us to Christmas.

The days marched on and departure day arrived. The children were a blur of activity and I was packing up the Colt wagon, a small car that seated my children with little room to spare...a mini mini van. I packed as much as I could in the car and still had no room for the luggage. I had to strap a large suitcase to the top of the car...it was all the nicest clothes we had, smashed tightly in the big brown case, I got everything in that one so we would have less to take. I had never attached luggage to the top of a car before, but gave it my best effort. It appeared secure as I pulled out of my driveway and made my way to the freeway and the 6 hour journey to my parents home in Southern California.

We made our way south, through Gilroy with the sting of garlic in our noses and then on to highway 5 a long stretch of nothing We had been traveling for several hours and the singing and playing and ruccas in the car had given way to sleep, or drawing as we continued on our way. We were on a lonely stretch of road, no businesses or exits. The sun was setting in the west, relative peace...and then, I saw in the rear view mirror our suitcase tumbling down the road corner on corner...I saw it rolling back from us...I pulled over just as quickly as possible when you are traveling 70 miles an hour...but I knew that the suitcase, if it survived the roll would be a good ways back, and I didnt want to leave my children alone at the side of the road alone, Branden was then only nine and Lauren was just a toddler of 3. I dont remember if I prayed when I opened the car door and stepped out, I walked back down the road as far as I could go with the car still in site...I saw no sign of the missing case. No sign of what represented most all the clothing for my entire little family...it was gone. I figured it must have rolled down the embankment and was not visible to me anymore. I was crestfallen. With a heavy heart, and deep concern for how I would ever be able to replace what was lost I turned back to my children, knowing I could not search any further without putting them at risk. I walked back up to my car this time I walked up to the passenger's side of the car, as I had gotten out I had been on the driver's side exiting. Now, as I approached the rear side of the car...there sitting as if it had been placed there by a well meaning stranger was our suitcase...how was that possible...my eye darted in all directions...no car pulling out, no sign of life...had someone been there, I would have seen them, heard their car. How did that suitcase get there...it was marred and banged up, but was still closed and intact, sitting there on the side of the car. My eyes could not take in that suitcase...it was completely impossible for it to be there...I had seen it tumble down the road behind me...saw it, that was how I had known to stop...but there it was sitting by my car. I sobbed with gratitude...and smashed that case down the center of the front seat and rested against that magic bag the rest of the journey home to my parents....

Nearly 20 years later I still can not believe that the suitcase sat there neatly by the rear tire...my angel knowing I could take no more retrieved it for me...no other explanation. I do not share the story with many..not sure I have shared it at all, actually. I dont want someone to tell me how that didnt happen, how the airflow must have forced it down next to the car, I know it didnt...I know i saw that bag tumble off the car...and off in the distance and down to the left...I followed it with my eye as I pulled over...I know where it went. I know that nobody was where it went when i went to find it either...I know this, I was there.

I know that God parted the Red Sea to free the Jews..that Moses a prophet was able to do that...everybody knows that...what I did not know...until that day, and what I sadly forget from time to time..I know that God can create miracles in our lives too...little partings of the sea...with as much meaning in an individual life as that sea meant to that whole people...I know that God loved and knew about little me that day...little single mom on a long journey home, embattled and scared with little...he knew my heart, he knew where I was in those moments on the side of the road...and he brought to me the material thing that I needed to know that I woudl be safe and clothed in his love...that it would be ok...that I had nothing to fear.