September 15, 2010 Late Fall 2004 – Another hurdle crossed, and a good Thanksgiving

Andrea was expecting her fourth child in mid November 2004, but started having labor pains more than a month early. An ultrasound check showed that the baby weighed only about 4 pounds at that point in time. Fortunately things quieted down and the pregnancy continued. In late October she had another checkup and the doctor thought the baby was more ready, and made an appointment for Andrea to go to Hamilton, Montana (100 miles away) to meet with a doctor there. Due to problems in our local hospital at that time, most obstetrical patients were being sent to other towns to have their babies. While Andrea made the trip to Hamilton for her checkup, Emily, Charlie and little Samantha stayed with us.

Andrea had labor pains again November 1 and we thought she and Mark would have to make a fast trip over the mountains to Hamilton, but again it was a false alarm. The next day we had a severe snowstorm and bad roads, so we hoped they wouldn’t have to travel that day. On November 4, Andrea was sure it was the real thing this time; she called us at 3 a.m. and Lynn drove 25 miles to her place to stay with the kids until they woke up, and then brought them home to our house. Mark and Andrea headed over the mountains and made it to Hamilton by 6:30 a.m.


She gave birth to a baby girl, Danielle, at 11 a.m. The baby weighed 6 pounds, 2 ounces and was healthy. The birth went fine, but Andrea started hemorrhaging immediately afterward; she suddenly became dizzy and nearly passed out while she was holding the newborn baby. She had to be taken into surgery to halt the bleeding and to remove a piece of placenta that was still in the uterus—that hadn’t been detected with the ultrasound. Her fleeting thought as they took her to surgery was remembering that her grandmother—Lynn’s mother—died during childbirth (and the baby died with her) when Lynn was 8 years old. She bled to death in spite of extensive blood transfusions. This was a very sobering memory for all of us.

A couple months before Andrea was due to have her baby, we had grumbled a little about the fact that politics and problems here in our local hospital made it such that she had to go out of town to have this baby, but in the end it was for the best and we were very thankful. I think the Lord watches out for us better than we can.

The doctor in Hamilton wasn't able to find the cause of bleeding, so he immediately took her into surgery and scoped the uterus—to find out whether she had a ruptured uterus or some other problem--and discovered some mushy placenta still in there. So he removed that material, which resolved the serious bleeding. We learned later that our local hospital had the equipment to do endoscopic examination of the uterus, but no one here knew how to use it or read it, so it was a good thing that Andrea had to go somewhere else to have that baby! God does work in mysterious ways, and who are we to think we know best.

She had a rough time after the surgery, but the doctor let her come home the next day. We helped her with the kids because she was in a lot of pain for about a week, partly from the incisions that were made for scoping her uterus to determine the cause of bleeding. Little Charlie (3 years old) had just started pre-school (a Head Start program) 4 days a week, and Lynn often went to town to pick him up at school, since he got out too early to ride the bus with Emily.



When Andrea, baby and Mark went back to Hamilton for her 3-week checkup, the kids stayed with us again, and Emily helped me with the evening chores. She wanted to see her pet calf, Buffalo Girl, who was now with a group of weaned heifers. It had been a couple months since Emily had seen Buffalo Girl, and I wasn’t sure the calf would be as gentle and trusting as she was earlier. She’d become more suspicious of humans after we tagged and vaccinated her with the other calves in September, and no longer let Lynn or me pet her. But when Emily and I walked out in the field and called her, Buffalo Girl came from the far end of the field and seemed glad to see Emily, letting the child feed her a mouthful of hay and pet her. The calf and kid had a special bond; she was definitely Emily’s cow!

At Thanksgiving, Andrea insisted on cooking a big dinner, in spite of the fact she wasn’t completely recuperated from having the baby. We brought part of the food, and Emily was at our house the day before, helping me make a pumpkin cake. That child loves to cook.


We had a lot to be thankful for, that Thanksgiving—our daughter still with us (after several “close calls” in her young life), and our beautiful grandchildren. We were glad to have both our children living nearby, so we can watch our grandkids grow up. We were grateful that our son and his family were utilizing part of our ranch for their cattle (along with another leased place), since Lynn and I were starting to slow down, and downsizing our own cattle operation.

Raising cattle and horses has been one of the abiding passions of my life, but these past few years had widened my focus and I was not as reluctant as I thought I’d be about giving up part of our herd. I suppose I've been guilty of being more of a hermit than most people. I was too insecure and timid as a young person to feel at ease with people--even though I desperately wanted to be. This is probably one reason why I loved animals so much and chose to spend a life working with them rather than with people... since animals were (for me) easier to deal with--always honest and open, easier for me to be in tune with. Yet now I feel those early years were partly a preparation for what I was ultimately supposed to do.
I think God was patiently waiting for me to grow up. Now I feel a compulsion to love and help people as much as I can. The sojourn that began in Salt Lake at the burn ICU was the start of a new door opening, stripping away some of my complacency and contentment (and even the fanatic passion of care I'd been giving to my animals all those years) and I realized I CAN live without my critters if I must, and that my all-consuming drive to take care of them and survive in ranching is really not my whole vocation. It is definitely a vocation and a way of life, but I've been gently pushed into moving on to broader focus.

After the abrupt jerk-around with Andrea's accident, my life took a different direction. It wasn’t very obvious at first, but gradually more and more. My focus changed and I realized I could no longer run away from what I suspect I was intended to do all along, but as a young person didn't have the courage, strength or ability to do.

Where once I gave of myself utterly for my critters (24-hour-a-day focus during calving season, for instance, or riding range daily in summer to check on the cattle and take care of any problems) I now am compelled to focus on people, and love them. I'm still inhibited and fettered by my limitations (as a shy person, I still do best staying home and writing) but I find that perhaps I can use my writing as a way to help others.
Physically and emotionally, it wears me out to go to town or be among people, but I can relate to them better now--with more focus, compassion, tolerance and love, without so much of "me" getting in the way; there's still self-consciousness, but not as much. The pilgrimage that began in Salt Lake is ongoing, gradually stripping away some of my defensiveness and the walls I'd put between myself and other people.

I am a poor tool for helping others, but I feel I’m being led by the same Love that carried Lynn and me through the darkest jungle we'd ever been lost in. I guess God can even use crude and graceless tools (like myself) for His purpose, so I'm humbly trying to find that "fit" in His hands. I know that I find my most peaceful (worry free) and happy moments now when connecting with and loving someone else, trying to encourage a friend who's gone through trauma or a friend who is fighting cancer or some other serious challenge. Somehow, in some small way, maybe we can make a difference for someone or brighten their day, as others did for us. When Lynn and I were struggling and trying to keep from sinking, there were hands that reached out to us and helped us through it.



In 2004 we scaled down our ranching (from 160 cows to 30) and even though I still had a few horses, I didn't ride as often—just using the horses to move our cattle from pasture to pasture here on the place, or to help our kids move cows on the range. They were using our range permit and we no longer put our cattle out there. I never thought I could give this up (at least not until I was physically unable to do it), but Salt Lake changed all that. The fanatic passion shifted. It's nice to still have some animals, but they are not my defining focus now. I spend most of each day writing rather than working with critters, and Lynn has more time for doing a few other things like helping Andrea with all her little kids (he often drove the 25 miles to her place to stay with the kids on days she had to go to town). When one door shuts, another opens. We've been able to survive financially without the big cow herd, due to the increase in my writing (books and articles) and are able to continue helping our kids, and hopefully helping other people, too.
I am slowly, slowly learning not to worry so much, and to just have faith that things will work out, one way or another. Sometimes the way is not clear, and we don't know how it can work out, but God seems to give us answers, or help us find ways to cope, no matter what happens. Some days are harder than others, and sometimes it's impossible to see or know how certain challenges can work out, but I'm learning to trust.

We continue praying for several friends who are fighting cancer and other serious problems, and marveling at how Love is leading them through. No matter what the outcome, some of them are celebrating whatever amount of time they have left. They have been blessed in spite of pain and setbacks, making every day count. The openness, the love, the peace they have, is inspiring. There are all kinds of miracles. A person doesn't have to be saved from death to have a miracle. Sometimes I think the greatest miracle is just the awakening of our soul to Love.

This doesn't mean we won't become "down" and fretful, or grumpy in our painful moments, or angry or petty. Most of us are still like small children in our progress and not very far along in our struggle toward awareness, and we still get crabby and cranky or selfish at times. But I am grateful for the awareness of Love that now can so easily jerk me back to a bigger Reality, once again reminding me that life is so much more than pain or hate or pettiness or judging someone else, and not bound by suffering or death. Those things are temporary. And we can get beyond them. We can celebrate the joy of our connectedness and rejoice in the wonder of such Love that can comfort and support us all.

September 1, 2010 Kids and Calves, and thoughts about our journey…

The summer of 2004 brought more adventures, including 2 orphan calves. One morning that spring when I went outside to do chores I saw a cow in the field above our house lying on her back, with her feet in the air. I ran up there and discovered she was bloated and suffocating, and even though Lynn and I tried to save her, we were too late. Her month-old calf followed us in from the field as we dragged the cow’s body with the feed truck, and we put him in a little pen where we could corner him and feed him with a bottle. Andrea’s 3 kids enjoyed feeding him every time they came out to visit, and 6-year-old Emily named him Nick Nack Paddy Whack Jack.

Three weeks later we suddenly had another orphan, when Onyx died (perhaps from a heart attack—she was perfectly fine that morning and sometime mid-day she dropped in her tracks without a struggle) and left little Buffalo Girl without a mother. When we got that calf in from the field, she was too wild and scared to nurse a bottle, and we finally had to give her that first substitute meal via stomach tube.

The next time, she still refused to suck a bottle, until I trickled a little milk down her throat with a dose syringe. Her tummy was so happy for the milk that her scared brain finally got the message, and she started sucking the bottle. We put her with Paddy Whack Jack and the two of them lived together that summer, eating grass in the back yard and pens, and coming happily to anyone with a bottle.


Emily helped feed these calves whenever she came to visit, and she and Buffalo Girl developed a special bond. The little black heifer allowed Emily to pet her anytime, anywhere, and would come to Emily to eat a handful of picked grass. Paddy Whack Jack was pushy and ornery, but Buffalo Girl was always calm and gentle and trusting, entranced by this small child.

That spring Em finished kindergarten and our two older grandchildren finished 5th and 7th grade. Young Heather was student of the year for her 7th grade class. Heather and Nick helped ride range and move cattle several times that summer. They were both in 4-H and enjoyed showing their horses. Little Emily liked to ride, too, and sometimes when I’d come home from riding range I’d let her ride my horse around the barnyard.

I finally started sorting some of the piles that had been accumulating in my office, discovering things (including some pieces of unopened mail) dating back to the summer of 2000. Time passed us by for a while that year, as we struggled to just hang on and do the bare essentials. Our lives were put on hold for many months as we struggled to deal with Andrea’s injuries and everything that needed to be done for her, and it was taking a long time to catch up.

One of the highlights of our summer in 2004 was getting to finally meet some friends from Pennsylvania who came West for a vacation. They stayed here a week to go horseback riding and float the river. This was a farm family we’d corresponded with for 4 years. Dwight was one of the first of many people who wrote to us after Andrea’s burn accident, after he read about it in one of the columns I wrote for a farm magazine. He was burned as a young man, 19 years earlier, while trying to save his family’s barn after a gasoline explosion set it on fire. He’d been through all the problems Andrea was facing, and his letters of encouragement were a great help to her, and to Lynn and me, as we struggled through the first months and years of her recovery. In his letters, he encouraged Andrea, telling her that the terrible itching and discomfort of her grafts would gradually ease, and that life would become good again. He said that in some ways his burn injuries were hardest on his parents, who could not bear to see their child suffering. His letter was one of the first we received from total strangers, offering hope and encouragement.

Other friends (Beth and Mike) came to visit us later that summer, and Beth rode with me to check cattle on the range. We also rode through the burned area on our high range, to look at the aftermath of the range fire the previous year. In some places the grass was coming back nicely, but in other areas where the fire burned really hot (burning down through topsoil to the rocks) the bare areas were filling in with weeds. Much of the ground under the burned trees was still black, with nothing growing yet. The fire burned several miles of fence between our allotment and the Forest range, and some of our cattle strayed into the wrong range. It took many days of riding that fall to find them, and some went home with the neighbor’s cattle.

That fall Andrea went back to Salt Lake for her semi-annual checkup, taking her two youngest children with her, and Emily stayed with us (so she wouldn’t miss school). Em rode the school bus with Nick and young Heather, and every afternoon after school she went with Lynn out to Andrea’s place to do their chores—feed the horse, the dog and the fish. Andrea’s checkup assessing her grafts and health issues went well, and we were glad for that bit of progress.

The dark cloud looming, however, was that Andrea’s marriage was going through increasingly difficult times. We agonized for her and tried to help her and Mark as best we could, but there were limits in what we could do. The challenges that come along in life certainly remind us that we are never really in control, that unexpected winds can come along and blow us into strange lands. But I was so thankful we had some "lessons" in earlier phases of our journey, to know that no matter what happens, we are loved, and the One who loves us will always see us through the storms.

The journey continues to be an emotional roller-coaster. A letter from a dear friend, a mother of another burn survivor, mentioned how after her son’s accident she weeps so readily. In my reply I told her that Lynn and I have both been affected this way, too, ever since Andrea's accident. Our emotions are so thinly covered that they burst through. Like our children's fragile skin, our protective layers that we earlier hid beneath were burned away by the fire, and the patch-up graft we've tried to replace these with is more transparent and easily parted.

It's as though we are more touched by everything that happens; our sensitivities to what happens to other people are now more raw and exposed. We can't ignore the deepness of feelings, or keep ourselves removed from what others are feeling. We are pricked and touched, by joys as well as sorrows. We have become much more feeling creatures. It's as though we've tapped into the very lifeline nerves and arteries of humanity and are much more acutely aware of our connectedness.


Yet we also seem to be a little afraid of this vast openness and connectedness, maybe still trying to protect ourselves from such depths of feeling. I still try to resist suffering, even though I know that it's the best reminder of Love, and the only way to stretch and grow until something deep inside us breaks and enables the heart and soul to expand and hold more.

I sometimes ask myself WHY do we need such constant reminders of the truths we've learned on our precarious journey? WHY must we have to be jerked up short when life gets easy and we become complacent again? Maybe this problem (of so easily slipping into complacency and blindness) is why some seekers of Truth locked themselves away in monasteries and other places of retreat to try to focus more fully on THE WAY and not be distracted by life's trivialities, but I don't think that's the best solution. I think life itself, out in the tough real world, is the best environment for getting the maximum good from our journey, since it periodically forces us to take detours from what we thought was an easy path. It forces us to confront realities along the way, and scramble through thickets, briars and bogs--and take the hand of One who can lead us through the dangerous spots when we realize we can't make it on our own (even though we maybe thought we could).

And it is only out in the real world that we truly bump into one another and connect, and find that we are all children of God, and loved, and that we share so much (especially with our fragile layers ripped off so we can't hide behind our carefully built facades).

As I mentioned to my friend whose son was burned, all that matters is LOVE. But, oh how we try to cover up that truth in everyday life and blunder along without touching. I guess that's why I am actually grateful for the experience our burned children gave us. It opened up such a vast new understanding and caring. Indeed, I know that we are more able to rejoice, in so MANY things, because we have been privileged to know sorrow. Life is a seeming paradox. The deeper that sorrow carves into our soul, the more joy we can hold. We cannot know true joy until we have experienced sorrow.

The past few years have been a blink. It doesn't take much to plunge us back into the feelings of 2000. That experience is still vivid and raw (and each year I mentally walk through the events of that summer and am aware of the anniversaries that roll around). This is the night she got burned, this is the hour she was flying to Salt Lake on the life flight, this is the day she fell out of bed and cracked open the back of her head and the skin grafts on her elbows, this is the day she was moved from the ICU, this is the day Em and I finally got to go see her, this is the day she got to leave the hospital and become an outpatient, this is the day SHE GOT TO COME HOME, this is the day.... No, we can never forget.

Yet, time has a way of softening the edges. We can still plunge right back into that frame of the movie, but we also have the counterbalancing knowledge of how it progressed, how it didn't end right there, how we were led through successive scenes and were brought through the valley of the shadow, and learned to trust (though I still need reminders!! but the reminders do jerk me back to reality and assurance, thank God!!) That's the beauty of the journey. We have a Guide, and now we are more aware of Him, and that He does hold us in His hand, no matter what.

And I know that I can never be the same. I may at times be complacent and forgetful and caught up in the smallness of fret or worry, or dissipate my focus onto things that don't really matter, but underneath it all I realize my purpose in life has changed from what I earlier perceived it to be. Now the only important thing is love, and trying to be connected, and trying to help others who are struggling through pain and dark thickets along their own journey.

Our love for our wounded children has opened up a well of love that is greater than we ever imagined, and we want to share it with others. I feel so small and inadequate to do these things that I now feel called to do, but I also know that even the unimaginable is possible, so I struggle on, to try to make a difference where I can. I am a poor tool, but who am I to question. I think I'm just supposed to trust and follow. Maybe someday us “mothers” should compile a book about "faith by ordeal".

August 15, 2010 More Challenges

The winter of 2003-2004 started out cold.
Our son Michael and his wife Carolyn calved out their growing herd of cows here at our ranch during February and March, using our calving pens and barns. They camped here in an old trailer house, and warmed many cold newborn calves in that trailer, next to the wood stove. The little bedroom served as a holding stall for several calves that needed more time in a warm place, including the extra calves from several sets of twins. Those calves eventually got a mother, adopted by cows that lost their calves from various problems.

Andrea’s little family continued to have their share of problems. The evening before her first birthday, baby Samantha fell off Charlie’s bed and hit her head on the floor. Andrea rushed her the 12 miles to town, to the emergency room at the hospital, fearing that Sam might have a concussion or neck injury, but her head and neck seemed ok. The next morning it was obvious that her leg was hurting; she cried whenever that leg was moved or bumped. The emergency room doctors hadn’t checked her limbs; they’d been more concerned about her head.


Andrea tried all that day to reach a doctor, and finally took Sam back in to the hospital emergency room that evening for an x-ray and found that the leg was broken. After it was splinted, Sammy started crawling again, since it no longer hurt so much. She was so active, however, that it hadn’t started to heal by the time they took a second x-ray a couple weeks later, so the doctor put a cast on the leg. It didn’t slow her down at all; she crawled just as fast dragging that cast as she had before the injury. But the leg healed very slowly and the cast had to stay on 2 weeks longer than the doctors predicted.

Lynn and I struggled through our calving season in March, getting up at nights to check on the cows, realizing we were becoming much older and more tired than we cared to admit. Helping our children (Michael and his family with their cattle, and Andrea with her struggles to take care of her growing family in spite of her disabilities) took a lot of our time and energy, but we rejoiced in being a family.

One thing that helped me keep going during the hard times was the continuing deep friendship with the mothers of two other burn victims—whose paths we crossed during the summer of 2000. One of them lost her daughter to burn injuries and the other mother struggled with the ups and downs of her son’s fight for life during 3 months in the burn ICU. We three mothers began corresponding after that summer (more details about this in my book Beyond the Flames), and we became an informal support group for one another. We shared our journey—our fears and struggles--as one mother tried to cope with grief and loss, and two of us wrestled with the ongoing traumas of our wounded but healing children.

I continued to thank God for the unexpected and wonderful blessings that evolved from our plunge into that pit of despair the summer of 2000, and one of the most appreciated blessings was the friendship that grew between us 3 mothers. As I wrote to one of them in February 2004, “I feel that in many ways we are kindred spirits, and getting to know you has been a delight and a comfort; I feel that the support we give one another is something that God intended and I am so very thankful for it. It has certainly helped me through my rough times and is part of the many-faceted "tutorial" that has helped me grow. You will be forever a part of my unexpected journey.”

“I sympathize with your feeling of tiredness and just wanting to let go--and have a long rest of some kind. Our bodies seem to keep betraying us as they wear out! And it seems like such a long haul sometimes. It would seem that eventually we should have earned the privilege to slow down, but it just doesn't happen! There are too many demands upon us and they seem to just keep coming.”

“The one bright spot, however, when I pause to look back at all we've been through and all we've had to do in the past few years, is a feeling of awe--in trying to envision how we actually did get from A to B. I know I've had some Outside Help. And that's the little ray of hope I keep holding onto... that the Help will keep coming when I need it, and I can continue to struggle along and make it through the rest of the journey.”


Indeed, that was the greatest thing I learned from this life-changing ordeal: that I can trust, and not worry. Even when I forget—and start worrying about the little things—the larger lesson soon confronts me and I realize that my life, and that of my family, is in God’s hands, and that I need to let go of my fretting and stewing and simply love and trust. There will be some rough times, but ultimately we will make it through this journey because we have a Guide who loves us.

I’ve come to believe that our mission now is to help one another, to make the journey a little easier for someone else, as others have helped us. We realize now that life is all about sharing, and helping one another through the tough times. Our various trials do help us get things in perspective (if we so choose--I think some people just sink into despair and self pity, and never see the gifts that adversity can bring). The bad parts of our journey can certainly help us appreciate the good parts, and realize that we've had some wonderful times along the way. Like one old cowboy said of life, "It was a great ride while it lasted!" Indeed, none of us know how long it's going to last, but if we can do our best with whatever time we have left, it certainly makes us feel happier, more purposeful, more complete.

When we stop to think about the good parts, the many blessings, the love of family and friends, we realize those things make it all worthwhile and make the bad parts much more endurable. Adversity can also make us realize what we still have (the glass being half full, rather than worrying about it being half empty, so to speak). Andrea, for instance, is a great inspiration to me because she came through stuff I consider unendurable--and she not only endured, but is glad to be alive and to have a chance to do some things. She knows she will always have some health problems and impairments, but rather than worry about those, she concentrates on what she CAN do and goes on with her life, grateful for what she has, and the opportunities to help other people.

The thing that impresses me most about the "journey" our family embarked on, that summer of 2000--when plunged into a strange land without a map--is the Love that surrounded us, that gently guided us, that brought us through the terrible turns in the trail, even when we couldn't recognize the trail or see our Guide. I have always had a certain amount of faith in a Creator who loves us, but never really understood the depth of that Love, nor the good He wishes for us (and the selfless love for one another that He wants us to be able to enjoy), until the rug got jerked out from under me and I didn't have the strength or resources on my own to make it through the jungles and bogs that suddenly surrounded me. There is NO WAY I could have dealt with this stuff on my own; I am too weak. We had a lot of help that summer, and it continues to enrich our lives, in a deeper understanding of what life is all about. No matter what happens to us, we are loved. In spite of pain or grief or death, we can come through it. Not on our own power (at least not on mine...it's pretty puny!) but with love, like the love a father has for his child. And we know we can trust in the Father’s love.

Continuing On… late summer and fall of 2003

After the fire in August 2003 that burned part of our rangeland, we were short on pasture for the cattle. The calves were lighter than normal, due to the dry year and having to come home from the range early. The hay crop was very short, after bringing the cattle home and putting them in some of the hayfields. One bull was missing for a month, but showed up at the ranch later. He was missed in the hasty roundup and eventually came down through all the open gates.

Andrea worked hard that summer at her place to grow a nice garden, and Lynn went out there several times to help her pick and can vegetables. She stayed very busy with her 3 children—Emily was 5 by then, Charlie turned 2 in late August, and baby Samantha was becoming mobile and crawling around. That Fall Andrea was able to come out to the ranch again and ride her horse a couple times when she found someone to baby-sit the kids.

In mid-October Lynn went with Andrea to the hospital in Salt Lake, for more tests, and I kept Emily with me. Andrea was having problems with some veins in her upper chest (and collar bone area); they were swollen and blocked (one of her jugular veins has a 3 inch long blockage). This was probably aftermath from the IVs that were in there so long, during her summer in the burn ICU. The circulation had to re-route around it. She has a lot of circulatory problems; in one place on her leg a vein has become an artery because the artery was destroyed when the muscle burned away, and now it is right under her skin! It’s amazing how the body can compensate for various impairments.

She was also having chest pain and her heart was doing strange things. The doctors in Salt Lake did a lot of tests but didn't have time to do all they wanted, even though they worked her in to see several specialists that day and did tests until 6 pm. They were not able to figure out exactly what was wrong.



Five-year-old Emily stayed with me here at the ranch, and helped me do the chores and feed the weaned heifers. We had to sell Norman that fall, so Emily got to choose a heifer to replace Norman—her special pet cow. Norman was an unusual critter, named for the calf in the movie “City Slickers”. When she was born some years earlier, she was too small and tiny to survive outdoors in the cold weather, and spent the first month of her life in a cardboard box in the house, fed with a bottle. Later we gave her an adoptive mother—a young cow who had lost her own calf—but Norman never really thought of herself as a bovine. She grew up to be a good cow, but was also a family pet. She was so gentle that our grandkids could sit on her back. She ended up being Emily’s cow, so of course we had to make some kind of trade when Norman got old and had to be sold.

In November Andrea became very ill (weak and dizzy) and Emily stayed with us again while Andrea was in the hospital. The doctors never did figure out what was wrong, and finally let her go home, but we kept Em a few more days to make it easier for Andrea, who had her hands full taking care of little Charlie and baby Samantha. Em stayed with us 10 days that time, while Andrea slowly recovered from whatever it was that made her so sick. Em rode the school bus to kindergarten, and Lynn drove in to town to pick her up at noon each day.

It seemed like we simply bounced from one crisis to another that year, just as we had been doing ever since Andrea’s accident 3 years earlier. But we were able to keep it in perspective and get through it all, and at the same time try to help encourage a number of other people, including several friends who were going through worse trauma, grieving over the loss of children. One of the things I was beginning to learn through this pilgrimage/detour in our lives that began abruptly with Andrea’s burn injury was a realization and awareness of the outpouring of Love that we can open up to, through these great wounds in our soul.

As humans, our wounds are all different, but I have confidence now that the One who loves us most can heal them all. The scars are always with us, and that's not entirely a bad thing, because I think those scars remind us of the fact that we CAN be horrendously wounded, and heal. The scars can remind us that our spirits can be battered and bruised, but come through it, perhaps more focused on the One who does the healing.

So many things that were important to me before (that I thought held top priorities in my life) are not so important now, and I am glad for this. It's a sort of freedom that I didn't have before. Some of those things were heavy baggage, maybe loading me down so much that I couldn't get far enough away from them to see what's more important. Now I think I'm more able to "fly" rather than being chained to all that stuff I was dragging around. A lot of those things are still important, but not so much that I can't let go of them if necessary.

The truly important, most wonderful thing about life on this earth is the love that lifts us up from trivial cares and worries--the love that connects us with other people. The love and compassion for other people is what matters most, and is the thing that works best at getting us out of "ourselves", leaving some of that baggage behind.

Life is full of paradox. I’ve come to feel that there are no absolutes except love. To have joy, we seem to have to suffer; to really live, we must almost die. To really have life and the best appreciation and enjoyment of something, we must be prepared to give it up. There seems to be some wonderful good come from everything bad, though it can be hard to see at first.

Sometimes I think our greatest comfort, our greatest peace, comes from trying to help or comfort someone else. This is truly the connectedness that frees us from our own pain. Life is full of struggle, and it's never easy.

Without adversity or a challenge of some kind, however, many of us really don't grow in spirit; we don't mature much in our thinking, especially in relationships with other people. If things are too easy we don't seem to get past childish wants and needs. Without pain or confrontation of some sort, we don't stretch or try to overcome the challenges. Most of us have to be challenged--to reach beyond the ordinary, beyond the easy way. Often the people who do best at something are those who had to overcome handicaps to get there, and maybe the same is true in our understanding and ability to love.

It’s too easy to become satisfied with trivia and complacency. We generally don't reach beyond our own selfish little world until we’re forced to. Maybe the greatest good in tragedy or pain is that it can be the knife that shatters the wall we put around ourselves. It can peel us down to the core. And without the comfort of all the layers we've wrapped around ourselves, we have to reach for help--and in doing so learn that we can reach out to others and maybe help them, too. Seems like we really can't be helped or help someone else until we open up that protective coating of selfishness and complacency that we so readily pick up. Trauma and loss can certainly crack our shells. Then I guess it's up to us whether we grow, reaching out in fear and trembling, then finding that maybe we didn't need that shell after all.

After Andrea's accident and the jerk-around of our lives (our journey took a very different course after that), it seemed we started on a pilgrimage of discovery. Lynn and I thought we knew where we were going, we thought we knew what life was all about, but we really did not know. The abrupt new path we were thrust upon--with scary twists and turns--opened up a new dimension we really hadn't been aware of. But it took awhile to see beyond the fear and trauma. We were still novices on this new journey, but we were traveling the path with more insight, and glad for the opportunity it gave us to open our eyes, our hearts. We have been lifted up and blessed by the love we've found, and the sharing of this with other wounded souls.

For us, the experience of tragedy was the true "start" of our lives, and we are very grateful for our many blessings. We are thankful that we still have our daughter, and have been subsequently blessed with several wonderful grandchildren. We are thankful for the people whose paths we cross, and all the love we’re encountering in this ongoing journey.

July 5, 2010 – Ten Years Later: Remembering Fires

As I write this, on July 5, 2010, it has been exactly 10 years since the night of the fire in which Andrea was burned. In some ways it seems so long ago, and in other ways just like yesterday. On this milestone my husband Lynn and I pause to reflect on all that has happened to us since that horrific detour, and we are thankful for our many blessings.
This time of year always brings sobering thoughts—sharp and painful memories of that life-changing fire, as well as concern for the approaching fire season in our arid West. During the past several decades, many regions have suffered terrible losses from wildfires (loss of forests, rangeland resources, private property, livestock, homes and human lives). Wildfires on public lands have increased in incidence and intensity, partly due to dry conditions during drought years, and also because of the build-up of dry fuel as logging operations have been shut down on most Forest Service lands and grazing uses have been reduced on public rangelands.

After the horrible fire season in 2000, our county suffered a number of devastating fires again in 2003. That summer was hot and dry—it was our 4th year of severe drought. The Tobias fire started in early July, a few miles up the valley from our ranch, burning thousands of acres of range and timber, miles of fences, and some cattle that were trapped in the fire. The Cramer fire later that month was even more tragic because it took the lives of 2 young firefighters. One of them was the son of good friends of ours. Our entire community was devastated.
Then on August 11, lightning started a fire on the mountain just above our cattle range on Withington Creek. Fire crews began trying to control it, dumping water by helicopter, and dropping fire retardant from big bomber planes. Strong winds kept the fire burning in spite of these efforts, and it continued to grow. Some of Michael and Carolyn’s cattle (our son and daughter-in-law) on our high range pasture were in danger, so Lynn helped get those rounded up and down to our lower ranch pastures. The 3 of them worked until midnight with horses, dogs and a pickup (using 2 way-radios for communication) to get the cattle out of that canyon to bring them down, but it got dark before they got them all. Andrea watched the flames from her side of the mountain, shooting more than 100 feet above the skyline. It brought back harsh memories.
At daylight the next morning, Michael, Carolyn and Lynn went back and gathered the cows and calves they’d missed in the dark the night before. There were still 120 cows on the Baker Creek side of the mountain, however, and we weren’t sure if they’d be safe. Michael and Carolyn spent the rest of that day on their horses on the ridge, with cell phone and radios, ready to let us know if Lynn should drive up that side of the mountain to start opening gates—if they had to bring those cattle home, too.
The Forest Service personnel told us the fire wouldn’t come down the mountain that direction, so for the next few days we just monitored what was happening. Michael had to get back to his haying jobs. Lynn spent a lot of time up the creek with the fire crews and helped them locate better places along the creek for their pumper trucks to get water--to haul to the tank they’d set up on the mountain—for the helicopters to dip from.
Firefighters kept the fire from spreading very much until 5 days later when strong winds took it toward town, threatening a housing subdivision. Those homes were quickly evacuated. Then the wind changed, saving the houses and bringing the fire back toward us. Fire crews in Withington Creek pulled out immediately. They got out of the danger area just minutes ahead of the raging fire, and evacuated the neighbors above us on the creek.
Earlier that morning the air had been calm and the fire seemed under control, so Michael and Carolyn had gone to their kids’ 4-H horse show at the Fairgrounds, 18 miles away. By afternoon, however, we realized the fire was coming toward our range again. A huge mushroom cloud of smoke spewed upward, 25,000 feet into the sky, easily visible above the top of the big hill above our house. I called Michael and Carolyn on their cell phone, and they left their kids, horses, and trailer in the care of friends, and rushed home.
Lynn hurried up the mountain in our old jeep, to start opening all the gates so the cattle could come down. Michael and Carolyn grabbed their other horses and galloped 2 miles up the road and then up through our 320-acre pasture to the high range. It’s a steep climb, but they didn’t spare the horses. Black smoke boiled up out of Withington Creek. The wind brought the fire roaring up out of the canyon to the top of the ridge, where it lapped over onto the Baker Creek side. Lynn began to worry more about being able to breathe than being burned up; the black smoke was thick and choking. The roar of the fire was incredible—like the sound of a dozen 747 airplanes all taking off at once.
He made it to the top of our range in the jeep, just ahead of the fire, and started shooshing cattle down our side. He took the jeep places no driver had ever dared go—honking and yelling—and parked it periodically to run after groups of cattle he couldn’e drive to. Michael and Carolyn soon got there and began gathering the cows below him. They had 2-way radios but could not hear one another because of a hill between them, but Lynn was higher on the mountain and could hear them both. He relayed their messages to one another, telling where different groups of cattle were located and where to go to find some they’d missed.
At home on my radio I heard snatches of their frantic conversation—Lynn yelling at Michael to tell him that the fire was coming up behind them, that they might have to make a run for it, and to leave the cow he was having trouble with (she was fighting the dog) and to go back over the hill where there were 30 head that he might have a chance to save.

Andrea called me on the phone, worried about what was happening up on the mountain and hoping they were all right. She knew first-hand what terrible danger they were in. I was also getting a lot of phone calls from friends and neighbors asking if they could help gather the cattle. I had to refuse their offers; there was no time. No one else could get there quickly enough with horses, and we also didn’t want to put anyone else at risk. Someone who didn’t know that range allotment could easily get lost and be in harm’s way.
Thanks to the radios, good horses (that were very fit and able to gallop continually in steep terrain), well-trained dogs, and great determination, Michael, Carolyn and Lynn rounded up most of the cattle in that rugged, timbered pasture in about 2 hours—an area that usually takes 2 days to gather them.
The fire was on the ridge right behind them as they brought their groups together and hustled them down the mountain. If they’d been just 15 minutes later they would have been cut off the by fire. Burning tree branches and embers rained down on them; Michael’s shirt was burned full of holes.
At one point it looked like they’d have to leave the cows and make a run for their lives, but a last-minute change in the wind (a miracle!) saved them, and saved our neighbor’s homes at the same time. The fire came within a few hundred yards of the first house, and stopped. The fire on the ridge blew back on itself and stopped, sparing the timber and grassland on the Baker Creek side.


Cows that were missed that day did not perish. Michael and Carolyn were able to gather most of them the next day, and the remaining few they didn’t find came down later on their own, through the gates we’d left open. The fire raged out of control in upper Withington Creek for several more days and spread southeast along the mountain range, burning 11,000 acres, but we were safe. We’d lost a lot of grass and several miles of fences, but we rejoiced because no one got hurt. It could have ended so differently!
As we struggled through that ordeal, we realized that even though the fire threatened our ranch and our livelihood, it was a walk in the park compared with a perilous trek through the burn center, or through the valley of death and the loss of a loved one. We realized that we can handle, with more grace than before, the curve balls life throws at us—because we are not as tightly bound by the things we thought were so important earlier. We can purchase hay to replace the lost grazing. We can replace cows. We can rebuild fences. The things we often tend to worry about or think of as devastating are not such a big deal. There was no better reminder of this than our friends’ loss of their son, and the near loss of our daughter 3 years earlier. Anything else is trivial.
The challenges that come along in life are good reminders that we are never really in control. Unexpected winds can blow us into strange territory. I am thankful that we had some lessons earlier in our journey, to know that no matter what happens, we are loved—and that our Guide will always see us through the storms.

June 18, 2010 - Continuing On

Andrea’s continuing journey is a celebration of the human spirit, of triumph over great odds. After her horrendous burn injury she hung onto life in the burn ICU in Salt Lake City with a very strong determination because she didn’t want to leave little Emily without a mama and because there were still so many things she wanted to do—and she’s doing them. She’s raising her kids and living an active life.
Her miracle baby, Charlie, was born August 24, 2001, a little less than 14 months after her accident. Emily and Charlie were later joined by a baby sister, Samantha, on January 15, 2003. At that time our local hospital was having some internal problems and no doctors here were delivering babies. Andrea and Mark had to drive more than 100 miles over snowy mountain roads to the nearest hospital. Fortunately they got out of our valley just ahead of a bad snowstorm and made it safely to Arco, Idaho, where little Sammy was born. Lynn and I took care of Emily and Charlie while they were gone, but Andrea insisted on coming home the very next day after the baby was born. Big sister Emily proudly held the new baby and wanted to help take care of her.
Having 3 young children kept Andrea very active and busy. These activities were good physical therapy for regaining and keeping full range of motion in her limbs, even though she was often exhausted. She also planted a garden for several summers; working in it gave her a chance to be out of the house—which for an outdoor person was good for her spirit and peace of mind. Whenever she could, she also came back out to the ranch to see her horses and the cattle.
Physical disabilities and health problems are an ongoing challenge for her, but she rarely lets these get her down. She had to go back to Salt Lake in September 2003 to the cancer center, for mole mapping, to keep track of proliferating mole tissue on her legs that was inadvertently transferred from her back to her legs with the skin grafts. She also had one leg checked at the burn center because of constant pain (and toes numb and cold) and poor circulation in the foot.
She had several other problems that fall and winter with headaches and dizziness, pain around her collarbone, and chest pains. She made several trips to the local emergency room. Little Emily stayed with Lynn and me for 10 days in November when Andrea wasn’t physically up to taking care of all 3 children. Doctors here and in Salt Lake did a number of tests and never could pinpoint the cause of these problems, but they did discover that 3 inches of one jugular vein was completely blocked. The human body is truly amazing, however. The blood circulation had rerouted, creating a new vein that goes toward the center of her neck, bypassing the blocked jugular. She also has a big vein in one leg that has become an artery, creating a new route for one of the major arteries that was destroyed by the burn injury.
Our bodies are amazing in how they can adjust and adapt. Andrea’s damaged body is truly a miracle. She knows she will always have physical problems and impairments from her injuries (such as her scarred and damaged lungs which were injured in the fire and by subsequent bouts of pneumonia), and she’ll have to face continuing and new challenges over time, yet she rejoices in being alive. She can live with the inconveniences and hardly ever talks about them; the people around her rarely know the constant pain she lives with. She’s put it all into perspective. What to most of us would be terrible and devastating, she takes in stride because she was given the chance to keep going.
Her skin is still fragile, but she wears her burn scars beautifully. She’s not afraid to wear shorts and sleeveless shirts. She doesn’t let her impairments or disfigurement hinder her in what she wants to do, and often uses these as a stepping stone toward helping other people. The visible aspects of her injury open doors for her to connect with other burn survivors or to help people try to understand or deal with injuries and disabilities.
Since she is not a bit self-conscious about her scars, she puts others at ease. She has a special touch with other people who are going through suffering. Her scars establish instant credibility as one who has “been there” and they know she understands what they’ve been through. People with serious problems or handicaps are more open to her, more willing to tell about their own situations, and to be helped and encouraged by her, because of her own experience with trauma and her tough spirit.
Some people may stare at her burn scars or may be uncomfortable at first meeting her, not knowing how to relate to a burned person. But if they talk with her they soon get past their initial hesitancy because Andrea is a person who exudes life and vitality. The inside person shows through so strongly that the outside appearance doesn’t matter. She is who she is, defined by her spirit, and not by her impairments.
She is a constant inspiration for the rest of us, especially when we get impatient with life, with others, with ourselves, or overly concerned about trivial things. Now and then we all need to stop and think how blessed we are, and not worry about the little things that often bother us. The lessons I learned during the summer of 2000 were not easy, when I nearly lost my daughter, but now I thank God for those insights and the times I am truly at peace with life—those islands of calmness, joy, and thankfulness amidst the daily hurries and worries of everyday life.
Sometimes I have to be reminded of these lessons. I never want to forget. Some people might think I’d want to forget—and indeed, the sharp edge of that trauma has faded a bit with time—but the lessons about what’s important in life are too valuable to forget. That experience helped to strip away the superficial, unnecessary (and even detrimental) baggage we carry around, peeling me down to the essence of what is truly important in my life.
It’s all too easy to momentarily forget and slip back into old ruts, being preoccupied with the mundane stuff, but thanks to the extreme nature of those lessons, lots of little reminders can instantly jerk me back to my true priorities. I don’t want to ever lose this broader perspective because it sets me free from the superficial worries and problems of life, and all the false priorities we tend to heap up.
I still tend to worry too much about my daughter’s impairments and on-going problems, but when I put it all in God’s hands I can rejoice in the fact that she is still here, a part of our family, and has blessed us with beautiful grandchildren. I can take each day and be thankful for it, rejoicing in God’s love and mercy.

Healing by Helping Others

May 14, 2010 – blog update


Every time Andrea went back to the burn center for checkups, she tried to see and encourage newer patients. She felt this was her most important goal—the encouragement she could give them. She told me, “You never know but what you might be able to help a patient hang on, to give them courage, and to let them know there IS life after a burn, and to not give up. That’s the important thing to me now, the help I can give someone else.”
For instance, when she went back for another checkup on May 15, 2002 she talked with 2 men who’d been badly burned. One was burned over more than 80 percent of his body when the propane truck he was driving wrecked—and he had been in the ICU for 100 days. The other man was a painter. He was burned over 60 percent of his body, after paint fumes exploded. He was still in the ICU but was out of bed and in a wheel chair and ready to start walking again.
“Andy, the painter, asked a lot of questions. His hands were grafted, like mine, and he wanted to know every detail about therapy—how many hours and days a week it would take. I explained that it depends partly on the individual. Not everyone needs the same stretching exercises, and some patients will do their home exercises while others don’t. It takes constant work. I told him how I had no mobility in one ankle and one hand when I left the burn center to come home, so he could see the improvement. A year ago I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to ride again. But in just over a year I’ve improved a lot farther than my doctors thought I would,” she said.
[Andrea has been riding quite a bit since her injuries, helping us move cattle. The accompanying photo was taken on one of those rides]
“You set little goals for yourself. I told them about Emmy coming to see me while I was still in the hospital. I was too weak to hold her, and I could hardly bear to have her sit on my lap because it hurt my legs so much. I told them that during my 3 weeks as an outpatient (before I got to come home) the thing I worked at most was to try to regain enough strength, in at least one arm, to be able to pick her up. When I got home, I was able to pick her up for a moment, with my left arm. I told them things like that. The biggest thing, since they both had hand problems, was to diligently work on their hand exercises,” explained Andrea.
Through all her trips to Salt Lake, she was also a great encouragement to families of burn patients, especially the mothers of two young men who had been severely burned when they fell into near-boiling water in one of the thermal pools in Yellowstone Park. They suffered 3rd degree burns on about 95 percent of their bodies, being totally immersed in the hot water except for their heads. They’d been brought to the ICU when Andrea was just starting her experience as an out-patient, while Lynn was taking her back to the burn center almost daily for wound care assessment.
Lynn said those mothers were frantic, just like we had been. “The shock of the accident, not knowing whether your child was going to live or die—they were desperate,” he told me on the phone. “Trying to help them was a help to Andrea and me. Our reaching out to them made us both stronger. She’d already been encouraging other burn victims in the ICU, but these 2 boys were suddenly there, with a lot more skin gone; they would have a longer road to travel. But the main difference at that point was that she was farther down the road and had gotten through some of the terrible challenges they still had to face. She was up walking around. This, in itself, gave those mothers hope—just to see Andrea and her stage of progress. She had survived. She’d walked out of the burn ICU. She’d gotten past critical. Their sons could, too.”
One of the nurses told me later that this was a great encouragement to those mothers—Andrea being able to tell them that “this is the hardest thing in your whole life, but you can do it!”
Lynn told me that this role of being the comforter, the inspirer, helped Andrea deal with her own injuries and pain. “It gave her an outlet and a purpose, and something positive to do. We both realized that this was what we had to do—to talk to those mothers and show them that someone had been through this, like them, and survived.”
This was the start of a new focus for all of us—for Andrea as a burn survivor, dedicating her efforts to helping others, and for us as parents, trying to encourage other parents. Burn survivors and their families inadvertently joint a unique group, a fraternity like no other. These ties become strong and deep. Whenever you meet someone who’s had a similar trauma, there’s an instant bond. All the other differences in our lives or personalities are insignificant; we share much more than we don’t. People we became close to in Salt Lake that summer, and the ones we continue to meet, are very dear to us. Though we come from different backgrounds and lead vastly different lives, we are like family, but with an empathy and understanding that families often do not have.
The social worker at the burn center told us later that the summer of 2000, when Andrea was there, was one of those special times when families bonded. There were so many severe burns there all at once, and those families bonded partly just because the length of stay for all of those patients was so long. We coped with our own struggles partly by helping the others who were struggling, too. When you become part of that kind of “family” you are always a part of it.
Another facet of our new purpose in trying to encourage other burn survivors and their families stemmed from our deep gratitude for Andrea’s survival. We felt so blessed, because we didn’t lose our daughter. In thanksgiving, we felt compelled to do something in return, and the natural outlet for this effort was to help the ones who, like us, had been suddenly plunged into a terrible unknown. We could gently encourage them, and show them the love and help that others had shown us. This is our way of “paying it forward”, in continual thankfulness for the help and love that sustained us when we didn’t have the strength to get through it on our own.


Some of our friends here at home who helped us in every way they could (including spending time in the ICU with Andrea when we couldn’t be there) were also part of the reason we endured. This kind of friendship is a true blessing. We owe a large debt of gratitude to Bob and Jane Minor [pictured here with Emily and baby Charlie a couple years after Andrea’s accident], who helped us get through that terrible summer.
The sharing of families in trauma is one of the best things we can do for one another, and it becomes a wonderful blessing. When Andrea suffered her burn accident we had very little knowledge or understanding about this kind of injury. We had nowhere to turn, and didn’t know what we’d have to face. So when someone comes along who’s been there, and is farther down the road, we gratefully grab their hands and follow. We met several people in the days and weeks after Andrea’s burn who made a huge difference in our ability to cope.
Then, being able to be there for someone else and to do the same thing for them, you feel really good about it. You realize you’ve passed through the valley of the shadow of death and have come out the other side. You can extend a hand to someone who is still struggling through the worst parts of the journey and you can tell them they will survive, they will endure.
The more that Lynn and Andrea and I interact with other burn survivors and their families, and learn about their trials, problems and accomplishments, the more we realize that every burn survivor is special. This kind of injury happens to all kinds of people, but it indelibly marks them with a unique kind of courage. They become special because they have survived, and they have endured the unendurable. These are very ordinary people who have been called to become extra-ordinary, overcoming incredible odds.
Even if their burn injuries are not immediately life threatening, the long painful recovery and the fortitude they must develop to withstand the painful rehabilitation is heroic. They must all dig deeper into themselves to find more strength than they ever thought they could possess. Andrea’s continuing journey, still dealing with the impairments and problems from an accident that happened nearly 10 years ago, is a celebration of the human spirit, of triumph over great odds. We continue to rejoice in her life.