How Did We Ever Survive?

    One of the doctors I work for and I were just reminiscing about our childhoods.  I do wonder how we ever lived past the age of five.  I am certain, quite certain, that it is only by the grace of God that many of us lived, but doubly certain that I, in particular, survived my childhood only by His grace, because He had plans for me.  I don't mean to sound grandiose.  I mean, He has plans for us all, right?

Photo from JalopyJournal.com

     Now, in general, your and my preschool years were fraught with danger.  We lived on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and sometimes even without jelly.  Where were all the peanut allergies then?  The Planters Peanut guy was our friend.  Car seats for kids were these little chairs you hung over the back of the front seat and may have had a little plastic strap to put around the kid's lap.  Seems to me it about elevated us just in line to be a trajectory through the windshield.  Not cool.  It definitely had a nifty little steering wheel, though, so your child could pretend to drive!  (I still pretend to drive.)  Cars were built like tanks.  They didn't dent easily, so you could fly around inside the car during an accident, the energy of the crash being transferred to you instead of the car's indestructible body.  Cool! 


     Our '56 green and white Chevy station wagon was a great car, and it drove forever, and took my family back and forth from Pennsylvania to Tucson, AZ., in or about 1961.  That, and it was still going strong until the end of that decade.  Of course, it had no seat belts.  What were they, after all, in 1956?  I used to stand on the front seat while Dad was driving, and if he had to brake suddenly, his magical right arm would come across and save me from going forward into the solid steel dash or through the windshield.  I've talked to many people who have been  saved by their parents' magical right arm in that very same way.  When seat belts did come out, they were rather uncomfortable lap belts, and they were usually pushed down in the seat, out of our way.  They may have saved some lives, but they also were the cause of bladder trauma (if yours was full and you had an accident -- auto accident, I mean.  The other kind of "accident" also came if your bladder was full, but was a little different.) Also you could get a specific kind of vertebral fracture attributed to lap belts.  Enter the shoulder harness, cutting annoyingly into the side of your neck.  Do I have some kind of abnormal neck that my seat belt is always in my carotid artery? This worries me.

     But make no mistake, my years working in a hospital has convinced me I would not get into a car without using a seat belt, neck annoyance or not.  I DO value my life THAT much, for goodness' sake!

     When I was about to enter first grade, our family drove across country to Tucson, AZ. to live.  My mother's parents lived there, to take advantage of the more salubrious climate.  My poor parents, driving cross country with a 4 year old, a 6 year old and a 10 year old.  

     Speaking of safety, to lessen fights in the back seat over who had to sit on the "hump" in the middle, Dad, (a gifted carpenter), built a little sofa out of wood, padded it, covered it in green vinyl to match the car, and it fit the entire width of the cargo space in the far back of the station wagon, the back of it resting against the back seat and facing the rear.  Of course, it wasn't attached to anything, so often you had to brace your feet going up hill, or for sharp turns, as you would slide around a bit.  But it was great for my sister and I, who had legs short enough to use it.  No A/C, but the open tailgate window made a beautiful breeze.  It did become a matter of the near-death-experience the early morning we left a motel where we'd spent the night, and my sister was getting some sleep on the little sofa.  My father, unfortunately, had forgotten to close the tailgate of the vehicle.  There was my 4 year old sister, on an unattached little sofa, as we drove down the highway, tailgate wide open.  It wasn't until we stopped for breakfast -- those little boxes of cereal you could cut open and use as a bowl -- at a roadside picnic table, that Dad discovered his blunder.  When questioned why she hadn't said anything, my sister was surprised.  Doesn't Daddy know best?

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Me, at the time of this story, actually sitting on the little sofa. Don't mind my pout, we had been swimming all day in the mountains outside of Tucson and I'd just woken up!

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      Of course, we didn't need our parents' help to kill ourselves.  We were pretty gifted at doing the job also, and had many near misses all on our own.  We swam in unfamiliar swimming holes, built rafts out of old doors and inner tubes, hiked woods, and miles of railroad tracks, running across the bridges if a train came.  Fished off those RR bridges, too.  We tested the thickness of ice on skating ponds by skating on them and tied ropes on trees and swung out over swimming holes, dropping into massive depths of 3 feet or less.   My brother broke his arm sledding on a 45 degree hill liberally dotted with trees and rocks that ended in a 6 foot drop off into a creek.   He also tested the efficacy of my winter coat by shooting me point blank in the stomach with a BB gun.  Ouch.


     The worst thing we ever did we never told my parents until we had left home and were married adults.  One summer afternoon we walked up the railroad tracks to an old abandoned quarry.   On a whim we began to climb, my brother, who was probably about 14, I was 10, and my sister, 8.  We got about 6 feet from the top, about 25 or 30 feet off the ground, when we got stuck.  Couldn't go up, couldn't go back down.  I think it was raw fear of a beating, or just knowing the shame of getting in such a predicament when he was supposed to be the older, smart, and responsible one, that gave my brother the super-human strength to pull himself up the last 6 feet, pulling on thin roots, finding non-existent handholds and toeholds.  He got to the top, turned around, grabbed my arm and pulled me up, then my sister.  We lay on the top of that quarry, chests heaving, sweating, hearts pounding in our ears.  When we could talk, my brother said, "STUPID, STUPID, STUPID!!" and made us promise to never tell anyone about our foolishness.  And we never did until more than 20 years later.  We never even talked about it among ourselves.

     Like I said, it is only by God's grace that we survived.  And I didn't even MENTION the time that...

Trust me, there is NO GOLD at the end of the rainbow.

     I never saw any rainbows for the first many years of my life, which probably accounts for my fascination with them.  I know I'm not alone in my childlike excitement over them.  God thought they were beautiful enough to create them to signify a promise to Noah to never destroy the earth and all its inhabitants again -- by flood, anyway.  (Genesis 9:12-16)  The Irish believe little people hide treasure at the end of them, and who can ever find the end? Hollywood is in on the fantasy as well, with Darby O'Gill and the Little People and their treasure, though I never felt Darby's little people were particularly NICE Little Leprechauns, but that's off the point.  I also didn't like Finian's Rainbow much either.  But Judy Garland sang wistfully of rainbows and bluebirds, and so did Kermit the frog in his charming way.
     
     I saw a double rainbow in Haiti, over the sea, and that's the first rainbow I recollect ever seeing, at age 34.  But since I've moved to Berks County, PA, I see them all the time.  (Seems the sun always comes out while it's raining there, I wonder what that signifies?  Someone with more talent than I ought to write a song about that.)  Once, while driving along, I was astounded to see in a field about a mile away, the actual END of a rainbow.  That was a real novelty!  I suspected, though, that if I tried to drive down there, it would only elude me and I'd be late for lunch and my groceries would spoil.  I just drove home, and after that I began to carry a camera, and the daredevil picture taking I wrote about yesterday began!

     Then one day driving home from work, rainbows began coming out, and so did my camera.  I did pull over, at least, even if it was without much warning to the other drivers.  I began taking pictures of the most brilliant rainbows I'd seen in quite awhile.  Rainbows over cemeteries, in particular, because it seemed neat, like a promise after death.  Then I came down a hill and in a soy bean field right next to me was the end of a rainbow.  I pulled off the road and contemplated it.  Instead of fading, it got more brilliant.  I took several pictures and looked at them in my camera.  No, I wasn't losing it, the pictures were really there.  The end of the rainbow.  Think of it.  And NO TREASURE!!!  Stingy little Leprechauns...

     This week, as part of my job, I've been calling our patients who have been in the hospital to see how they are, if there's anything they need, any questions they have.  It's been very good, in a way, because sometimes people get home from the hospital and the whole discharge process is just a whirl.  When you finally get home and look and all the papers and things, you begin to wonder, "Now, what is this pill for again?  When do I call the doctor for this?" and even going through the reams of discharge instructions may not help so much.  That's when my call is supposed come to the rescue.


     I work in a Family Practice office, a big one, 6 doctors and thousands of patients.  Even so, we really get to know them because in a family practice office, we see people their whole lives, and their kids, their parents, etc.  I've worked here 12 years, ever since I got home from the mission field, and I've seen kids grow up and get their drivers license and drive off to college, and then get married and sometimes come in with a baby for vaccines!  So many of our patients are related, or neighbors, it can be "old home week" in the waiting room, too!  You won't believe this, but my doctors still make house calls.  Incredible, isn't it?  And I or one of the girls that work here have been known to jump in the car and drive up the road a bit to pick up a patient who can't get here, or drop off prescriptions for them at the local pharmacy, or take them their flu shot on the way home and give it to them.  Ya gotta help people in this life, and one thing I love working in this office is that people still care about each other.  Oh, we're not perfect, but we're more like a family than a lot of offices I know.


     What makes it hard, sometimes, are (is?) days like today, when more than half of the hospital people I'm calling were in the hospital and found out they have life threatening cancer.  One guy my age went in the hospital because he was having severe pain and found out he has this disease so rare that not only did I have to look it up, but so did the doctor here.  Turns out this nice and relatively young man is going to die, and it's going to be a very painful death, and a very disfiguring, very excruciatingly painful death.  That's a little hard for me to swallow, because of his age, and because I've known him so long.

     And one of my cancer patients is home and his daughter is trying to care for him.  When I called her I could hear the tears in her voice because when I called she heard tenderness in my voice and she nearly lost control.  I helped take care of both my father and my mother before their deaths from cancer, sitting up with them long nights with little sleep -- it's no picnic, and it's not like it is in the movies.  People don't look more beautiful as they're dying and whoever said love means you never have to say you're sorry was an idiot.

     Sometimes life is so beautiful I could weep, and I've heard music with swells that have filled my heart with joy, and I've knelt at the feet of God and praised Him with a full heart and uplifted hands, and I've stood on a hilltop and applauded the sunset and breathed deeply the salt air in a perfect sunrise with the sound of waves on a sandy shore. 


     But at least equal times, and maybe more, life is just plain hard, and painful, and often unfair.  There are times I've asked God "WHY???" also, and He hasn't always indulged me with a clear answer.  

"Just trust Me."  

     I think sometimes that over the years I've seen more pain and suffering and sickness and cruelty than I can stand.  But I still will trust Him.  I can do no else.  Only God make sense.  Only His Word makes SOME sense of it all.


     It was pointed out to me once that the best argument for no God in the world is also the best argument for there BEING a God.   "If there is a God, how can there be so much evil in the world??"  Well, if there ISN'T a God, how do you even know there is evil?  You can't know there is an evil unless there is a Good.  And the Good is God.


     I don't understand all of Life.  And when I'm a little more "up", I can probably do a little better, and maybe find that miraculous "Pot of Gold" that will make all the difference, and tie this all up in a nice little bow and make this all clear, instead of a mish-mash of nonsense.  


     But for now, I'll stick with Habakkuk:

"Though the fig tree does not bud
   and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
   and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
   and no cattle in the stalls,
 yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
   I will be joyful in God my Savior.
  The Sovereign LORD is my strength;
   he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
   he enables me to go on the heights."

                                Habakkuk 3:17-19

A Tree Grows Near Topton

     This is a tree that I pass every day on my way to work.  It's a nasty trick I have, I'm always snapping pictures while I'm driving.  Sometimes I'm alarming other drivers by half hanging out my window, like I was the evening I took this one.  Other times I barely slow down and have a camera balanced on my steering wheel and am snapping along.  I don't drive fast, and the roads I drive on are not very well traveled.  But the sights are so beautiful, I can't resist.  Later I have to crop out the hood of the car, the antenna, the Marvin the Martian I have hanging from my rear view mirror, or even, sometimes, my thumb.  I lose, sometimes, the most stunning photos, or what I FEEL are stunning, because my side mirror or the window or something, is in the way.  If I would just slow down, or, heaven forbid, pull over, I'm sure I'd get some wonderful shots.  Those times when I've actually done that, I've gotten some really nice ones.  Or if I left for work 30 min earlier, I'd have time to pull over and get that shot I missed the other morning of the 3 deer feeding on the top of a hill, silhouetted on the horizon.  But, no, per usual, I was running late and could only gasp and appreciate for the brief seconds they were in view.

     I think so much of my life is like that.  So many missed moments of beauty and missed opportunities because I've managed my time poorly, have been goofing around on the computer, watched an extra 20 min of television, caught that extra 30 of shut eye, or HAD closed eyes to the things around me.  Now I try to remember those deer on the horizon and file them away in my memory, but like the hundreds of other pretty pictures and missed moments, after awhile I don't know if they're real or manufactured, and before long, I won't remember them at all.