Transcription
Around the Cosmic Campfire by Tony Wright
Chapter 17: Some Really Short Shorts
Story Three: Winona Judd
Tennessee had a horrific outbreak of tornadoes in 2007. I helped with the cleanup of one person's yard, devastated by one of the tornadoes not too far from my home. I'd never seen anything like it. Tiny splinters everywhere were poking up out of the grass as far as the eye could see. Their world had been turned into wood and metal toothpicks. The entire community, including one large and vibrant local church, Grace Chapel, had a special music program to help victims. I went, not as an entertainer—as I had not played out the role for many years—but I volunteered as a hands-on chair massage person in the green room for the collection of entertainers who did volunteer to sing for the donating audience. There were many.
At one point, our local resident entertainer, Winona Judd, came into the back green room area, and I was able to say hello to her. She had been gifted with a massage from me by her sister, Ashley, a couple of years earlier, but Winona never came. I started to remind her of the pending massage after we met back there, but I never got the chance to tell her. She left abruptly. But somehow I felt it; I knew she would come, and it would be the right time. I said to myself that I would hold that space for her, and she would come when she needed me the most. I cast it out there that I intended to do angel work and not just body work for her. I always had the knowing that when someone needed me, they would come. Yes, similar to Kevin Costner's "build it, they will come" Field of Dreams—it always worked that way for me. And therefore, I set that thought down and just let it rest.
Time really passed. It took a little while, but it was certain. Nearly seven years later, her wise personal assistant called me. She needed me greatly, and we arranged for her to come. When she drove up the stone wall of my rustic retreat, I had been stressing about her coming, as I always do on the first massage. She got out of the car by my rock wall, and I was there to greet her from the porch.
"Live out in the woods, will ya?" she hollered up to me. She was laughing at how remote I was, and I suddenly, with the sheer sound of her voice, felt like I'd known her all of my life. I knew I was going to be able to help her, and she has never professionally left me since. I have been helping her every time she gets off the road for many years now, and she's like a sister to me. I don't know what took her so long to get to me. I know she was supposed to come; I heard it long ago as a message, but it was perfect timing. And I guess that is how things just are. Time doesn't really mean much of anything, or maybe we should ask, is there any such thing as time? Ultimately, I can say I have been so enriched in my life just to know her, and we simply stay the course over the years as the years have just flown by. I'm very blessed to have such a soul sister. I do thank her for her gracious and grateful heart. Dieting into the god station, then suddenly one day she found my station two. I'm not quite sure, but I think it was so.