Isolated and alone in a vast wilderness, scared for her Child's safety, yet determined, doing all she could to protect Him, hot, tired, and relying on trust in God. Every mother is aware of the strength, endurance and sheer fierce determination to protect that is mysteriously added to our personalities during childbirth. Never had I had to draw on it to so deliberately and consciously. It was also more 'portaging'-carrying on in faith and belief, in spite of the silence from God, the absence of confirming signs. Once we finished the portage, we still had to paddle the length of Grand Lake to our car, then we would drive for an hour to the nearest hospital.
Grand Lake is a long narrow lake, crossed at the halfway point by a railway bridge.
The wind was in our faces and the paddling was slow. We prayed a rosary as we paddled along. In an hour, we had finished 12 decades and reached the railway bridge. There were people having lunch on the embankment. Yes,' they answered.