Life's Ups and Downs

Excerpt #19 from Life is Short but Wide

photo by Alain Bonnardeaux on UnSplash

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Christmas Eve 1992. The phone rang, still a novel sound, and to my amazement, it was my parents calling from Canada. My grandfather Willms had passed away early that morning. Grandpa had not been doing well for many years, with increasing dementia, and he was in a care home. He still loved the old song, “Jesus Loves Me,” and would sing along whenever he heard it. I spent the day remembering Grandpa – his grizzly cheek that scratched when he kissed me, how he enjoyed treating his grandchildren to ice-cream, his always-cold feet, and his work in the raspberry fields and on the little farm they had on Old Yale Road. Memories flooded my mind as I continued to prepare for Christmas. My parents also told me that they would delay their arrival for a few days as Grandpa’s service would be held soon after Christmas.

Once again, my extended family gathered far away, and I was not there. My mind flew over the miles, wishing I was there in the church and at the cemetery. When my parents did arrive on January 1, we had a lovely time together, and another belated Christmas celebration. Dad always wanted to stay busy with something, so he built five small benches for Bible club. The home where we met didn’t have enough chairs and these five benches augmented the ones we already had. We were able to store them outside the home, and they were filled to overflowing the first week of use.

After my parents returned home, life’s routine continued. I spent countless hours writing letters, including a quarterly newsletter to a mailing list of about 100. One piece of writing advice I’ve never forgotten was that every letter should include a takeaway for the reader such as words of encouragement, a little joke, or a prayer. I also wrote a personal note or letter to each of our financial supporters once or twice a year. In the afternoons, I sat at the dining room table, my writing supplies spread out before me. A large tree outside the window branched over the house, and made me feel as though I was in a treehouse high above the earth, with sunlight filtering patterns onto the table. On occasion, as I wrote, I sensed someone watching me and I would look up to see monkeys in the tree staring at me in curiosity. We would look at each other for a few moments before I went back to writing.

One evening we looked up from the dinner table to see a large hairy tarantula on the living room wall, about 8 inches across. Rather than dispose of it, Travis asked if he could keep it as a pet. He kept the spider in a glass aquarium fitted with a screen lid. It wasn’t a very lively pet. Tarantulas like to capture their own prey, so Travis caught live insects – grasshoppers and flies – for it to eat. Travis soon tired of that chore and released the tarantula back into the wild, fortunately not into the house!

Tim had a few stressful weeks at the hospital involving the dismissal of an aide. He made numerous trips to the lawyer and the work inspector in Puyo. At the end of January 1993, Tim said he never looked forward to a weekend as much as the upcoming one. He spent most of the weekend sleeping and then began coughing. He dragged himself through the next week, eating little and sleeping a lot. By Friday he was quite ill, so Dr. Steve ordered a chest x-ray. Tim’s right lung was one-quarter full of pneumonia, and he was admitted to hospital immediately. When I arrived with his personal items, Tim’s room was full of people. A nurse made numerous attempts to start an IV, without success. Dr. Oswaldo Benavides was called in and was finally successful. A member of his accounting staff was trying to discuss business with him, and the family of a patient waited outside the door to speak with him. Not very restful.

When I visited him the next morning, he was sitting at the cashier’s office in his pajamas, the IV stand alongside, trying to fix the computer. The cashier had come to his room to tell him it was not working. That was the final straw. I spoke with Steve and suggested I bring him home. I managed the IV and played the dragon to anyone who called, allowing only a few people to speak with him. After a few days he was switched to oral medication, feeling somewhat better, but still weak and coughing. It was several weeks before he fully recovered. I removed the IV myself one day while the children were at school. Tim and I have said that without the modern wonder of antibiotics, he would likely have died from pneumonia at a young age. Oddly, he only contracted pneumonia in the jungle, never in the mountains.

Travis’ 10^th birthday party was a wild affair. The boys had a fun time roasting hot dogs and marshmallows over the open fire in the covered hut. Surprisingly, a couple of them had never done so. After supper the boys played outside in the dark, running and shouting across the grass before coming in for cake and giving Travis his presents. Everything went well until Travis opened his last gift, a life-sized articulating balsa wood snake. I averted my eyes as best I could and curled up behind Tim, creeping further up the back of the couch as the boys continued playing with the snake. Tears began streaming down my face as I tried to control my fear. I just couldn’t handle it anymore. Tim took the snake and put it into Travis’ room. The boys were a little taken aback by my reaction, but very kind.

The boys went downstairs to watch a movie while Tim and I read upstairs. Bang! A gunshot outside. We looked at each other, shrugged, and went back to reading. Bang! Bang! Two more shots had Tim investigating. People milled about the entrance to the guesthouse, less than a stone’s throw from our door. A six-foot long snake had startled our co-worker Laura Adler who had been leaving the guesthouse to return to her home across the property. She hollered, and Lance and Lynley Whitelock heard her. Assuming it was a small snake, Lance had grabbed a machete. Once they saw the size of the creature, Lance returned for his pistol and tried to kill it. He hit it twice and although he broke the backbone, the snake was very much alive and very angry. Tim joined in and chopped off the head with his machete. The birthday guests watched wide-eyed.

After the movie, around 10:30, they all went out to sleep in the canvas tent we’d set up. Rain began. The tent leaked. A group of the boys dragged their sleeping bags indoors and slept in the basement. A few others stayed out in the tent but came in at 5 am. After a breakfast of egg casserole and cinnamon buns the boys went home, and after this very restless night we dragged ourselves through the day.

Ashley’s party a few weeks later was a tea party, much tamer, and lots of fun with the girls in pretty dresses. Cristal’s party was also a dress-up affair with dinner by candlelight. Each time a birthday came around the children would pour through a book of party cake designs and choose one for me to make. There were pirate cakes, number cakes, castle cakes, and more. I enjoyed planning the parties with the children, thinking up games and crafts to go along with the chosen theme.

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