Summer 2006

In mid-May 2006 Lynn and I helped Michael and Carolyn round up their cows and calves (100 pairs) from the field below our lane, to haul them to rented pasture on a ranch/range 10 miles up the valley. Some of their friends came to help. With 6 stock trailers, they only had to make 2 trips.
The next day Lynn and I went to town to join Andrea and young Emily on the annual MS Walk to raise money for multiple sclerosis research. We’d lost several good friends to MS in the last few years, so this is a cause we always support. While we were in town we bought more grain and milk replacer for the 5 bottle babies.
Michael and Carolyn had grafted several "spare" calves onto cows that lost theirs that spring (calves lost at birth or to coyotes). But after having 5 sets of twins and a few other orphans (a couple heifers didn't want to be mamas and no one wanted to take the time and effort right then to make them change their minds) and some other freak things, we still had spare calves. In early May one of their young cows died eating poison plants, so that left another orphan. So we had some pets that summer. Andrea's kids always enjoyed coming out to the ranch and helping feed the bottle babies.
In late May Michael and Carolyn turned more cows out onto our range, from our upper pastures. Later we put 17-year-old Rhiney (our baby-sitter cow) and her calf with all the orphan calves in a small pasture. We put up an electric wire to keep Rhiney from eating the calves’ grain. The calves were small enough to walk under the wire and come to their grain tubs. Eight-year-old Emily stayed with us several times and helped feed the calves their bottles and grain.

I finally got Andrea out here a couple times to ride, that summer. Emily had been learning to ride Veggie (a 20-year-old grandson of the old mare my kids learned to ride on, more than 30 years earlier).

Emily started going with me on some fairly long rides to check and fix water troughs on the range.

In late June Andrea came out to ride with us. I'd been telling Emily how her mom used to ride range with me all day when she was little, and how we'd take our lunch and a canteen full of frozen lemon-aid. It would thaw out but still be cold by late afternoon after riding in the hot sun. Emily wanted to have a "picnic" ride, so we did. Andrea got a babysitter for her 3 younger kids and rode with us. This was Emily’s longest ride so far, and only her third ride solo on Veggie, without me leading him from my own horse.
For me, having Andrea out here riding again was a joyous "milestone" in our journey since her accident 6 years before. This was the first time Andrea had REALLY ridden range with me since her burns. She made a few short rides with me the spring and summer of 2001 (the year after her injury), just to prove to herself that she could still do it, but she was still very, very fragile and impaired. And since then, she'd been so busy with all those little kids that kept arriving. She only rode her horse once in 2003, for some family photos when a photographer was here taking pictures for an article about our ranch for SUCCESSFUL FARMING magazine.
So, that summer's ride in early July was a special occasion--3 generations of us, riding together.
We were able to give Emily her "picnic" up in the mountains, with our horses grazing in the grassy, shady meadow while we ate our peanut butter sandwiches beside a stream. It was great to see Andrea back up to strength again, riding her fractious mare Breezy, who hadn't been ridden for 3 years (and was snorty and silly after such a long "vacation”). It was gratifying to see Andrea riding again with all her former confidence and skill, and getting on and off to open and shut all the difficult gates. She also cleaned out one of the springboxes where the pipe had quit running and one of the water troughs was empty. It was almost like old times.
I realized that the last time she rode with me doing routine range work was on July 4, 2000, the day before she was burned. On that ride she helped me round up several pairs to bring home (bull calves and their mothers) to wean the calves. Those cows gave us a real challenge and we were glad for good horses--to outrun and outmaneuver those devious cows as they tried to run down the steep hills or into the brush to get away from us. Our cows love their mountain pasture and hate to come home!
We had a really good ride that day rounding up the young bulls, with great teamwork, great companionship. I always loved riding with my daughter because we were such a good team, whether training young horses or gathering or sorting cattle. We shared many thoughts and feelings on those daily range rides--while we were checking cattle, fences, gates, water troughs, making repairs to fences or water sources, or bringing home an occasional animal to doctor for some problem or another, or the young bulls to wean. But that wild, good roundup ride on July 4, 2000 was our last one; it was the very next evening that she was burned. So, riding with her again, 6 years later, was like a special gift.
We 3 rode again a few weeks later--an even longer ride--to check water troughs, and we spent time fixing several problems. We found 4 little frogs at one spring, which Emily wanted to catch, so we brought them home in a plastic bag. We'd taken our lunch along, in a plastic bread sack tied in my coat behind my saddle. When we found the frogs, Em just HAD to have them, so we emptied our lunch sack (by eating the last muffin) and put the frogs in it, along with some water from the spring. Emily had wanted to find some frogs all summer. Andrea carried the frog bag home on her horse (5 miles) for Emily. So it was a fun, wonderful day.

Life is certainly different now (after the burn) but oh, so sweet, in ways I never envisioned before. Early on, I grieved for the loss of what we'd had before, and the fact that our lives were changed and I might never be able to ride range and train horses again with my daughter. Then I finally resigned myself to never having it again. I was just so utterly GRATEFUL that Andrea survived and could have a LIFE, and kids, and pursue some of the dreams that had kept her fighting for life when she so nearly died. She told us later that she couldn't give up, because there were still so many, many things she wanted to do.
So, a tiny gift like being able to ride again with her, was almost like old times, but even more special because we had Emily along with us and we were doing it for Emily. It was a wonderful thing--one of those special milestones that I will always keep close to my heart. It will lift my spirits and serve to remind me (in future) when I need to remember that all the plusses outweigh the tough challenges that come along on some of the turns in the road. I keep thanking God for his many gifts along the way.
Meanwhile, we got our haying finished that summer while the weather was hot and dry. The creek was low and our irrigation water very limited. Afternoon storms often brought lightning, but very little rain. The lightning started several fires, including one at Twelve Mile, close to Andrea’s and Mark’s house and the fire department worked for 2 days to protect the homes along the river. BLM crews dumped water on the fire with several helicopters scooping water from the river.


During July we had extremely hot weather, up to 100 degrees, lasting longer than usual. We can usually cool our house off a little at night by opening windows, but several nights were too hot or smoky to do that. There were several big forest fires in eastern Idaho and the smoke drifted into our valley.
In early August Michael was still busy doing custom haying so I helped Carolyn and their kids for several days gathering cattle off the middle range pasture, to move to the high range. It was great to be able to ride with those grandkids, too. They were becoming excellent cowboys!




All through that summer I was busy writing articles and books and then signed a contract to do two more cattle books for Storey Publishing--a calving handbook and a cattle health care handbook. I started first on the calving book, working at it every morning in the wee hours before chores. But it was a fun one to write, since this is a topic dear to my heart. That summer I tried to do at least 5 to 8 pages on it a day, sandwiched in amongst working on articles for various horse and cattle magazines. With fewer cattle, Lynn and I depend more on my writing to help make ends meet, so my writing became become a full-time job.

Spring 2006

The final week of March 2006 was cold, so we had to put calving cows in the barn.
Rodennia calved out in the maternity pen at 2 a.m. one morning so we brought that calf to the barn. He was too big to carry so we put him in the wheelbarrow—since the sled was over by the kid’s trailer house on the other side of the creek and we didn’t take time to go find it. It was a challenge getting the wheelbarrow over the frozen manure piles with the calf trying to flop out.
Zimbobbee calved later that morning, but by then the sun was up and it wasn’t so cold. We put that cow in one of the small side pens to calve and she didn’t have to go in the barn. It was an exciting day, however, as one of Michael’s cows, Alvira, was having a backward calf down in the field. In order to save the calf they would have to pull it, but the cow didn’t want to come to the gate. She ran past 13-year-old Nick and nearly ran over Carolyn (driving the 4-wheeler). Then Alvira ran out the wrong gate and up the driveway instead of going to the barn. She headed up the horse trail, but Nick (who loves to run, and was on the 8th grade track team) ran up the main road and got ahead of the cow. He slid down the steep bank to the horse trail and cut her off, then chased her back down to the barnyard. They finally got Alvira to the corral by the barn, where they restrained her in the head-catch and pulled the calf. He was still alive, but barely.
A few days later we put Buffalo Girl (Emily’s cow) and her young calf up in the swamp pasture with the other first-calf heifers and their calves. Emily named Buffalo Girl’s calf Curlie Sue because the calf loved to run with her tail straight up in the air and curled over her back.
Eight-year-old Emily came out to the ranch to stay overnight and went with Lynn and me to feed the cows. She enjoyed seeing Buffalo Girl again. Even though this young cow (2-year-old) with her first baby hadn’t seen Emily for half a year, she remembered her friendship/bond with the child, and allowed Emily to pet her. Emily also enjoyed seeing all the cows and calves, and the yearling heifers—and several cottontail rabbits that lived in our barnyard.


By April the weather had warmed up and we had rain. The snow disappeared from the low hills and grass started to grow. The corrals were very muddy and we had to put chains on the feed truck to get around in the boggy fields without getting stuck. Fifteen-year-old granddaughter Heather got stuck on one of our upper fields while taking salt and mineral to that group of cows, and Lynn pulled her pickup out of the mud with our feed truck.
Our last heifer calved. We put her in the barn to calve because it was raining so hard that morning. She calved without help, but soon afterward we heard some loud bellowing, so I went back outside to make sure the heifer wasn’t pushing the new calf around—as some confused first-time mamas will do at first.
I realized the bellowing wasn’t coming from the barn, but from the little corral where Michael and Carolyn’s last 3 heifers were penned. I ran over there and saw one heifer standing by the fence, but no calf. She’d calved next to the fence and the newborn calf had slid underneath the poles, and was sliding down toward the creek. With every wiggle it was moving farther down the bank toward the rushing water. I climbed over the fence and pulled the calf back up the hill to where I could stick its hind legs back under the fence—where I could reach them from the proper side and pull the calf back into the pen. I pulled him to safety in the middle of the pen where the new mama could lick him. We called Michael and Carolyn and they drove down from their house to put that pair in the barn, out of the rain.
Our white cow, Lilly, calved in late April.
Zimmeric calved the next day while we were branding and vaccinating, and Cubby, the last cow to calve, had her calf on May 1st. We had a belated birthday dinner for Michael and Carolyn and their kids; they all have birthdays in April but it’s such a busy time of year that we usually just have one big celebration.
With all the snow we had that winter, and the spring rain, the creek was higher than usual and flooding its banks. There was water over most of the lower fields and very few dry places to drive the feed truck to feed the cows. Michael and Carolyn had been doctoring a lot of calves for scours and a few for pneumonia; many were sick because of the wet conditions. The creek was dangerously high, and whenever the calves had to cross it they’d go clear under water. Due to the risk to the calves for drowning, Michael and Carolyn moved that herd, putting them in the field below our lane where it was drier an only one small access to the creek for drinking. Then the cows wouldn’t be continually crossing the creek and putting their calves in danger.
Two cows couldn’t find their calves on the day the cattle were gathered and moved, and we suspected those calves had drowned. Michael left those two cows there, in hopes they might find their calves, but they didn’t, so 5 days later they rounded them up and sold them. Ironically, the day after Michael hauled the 2 cows to the sale, one of the calves showed up in the lower field. He’d been sick, hiding deep in the brush, and his mother had not found him. He had not responded to her bawling because he was so sick. Carolyn found him when she drove the tractor down to that field to get our harrow (to start brushing the fields); the calf had staggered out of the thick bushes and was lying along the edge of the trees, in the shade.
She and Michael brought the calf up to the barn and put him with their bottle orphans. They treated him with antibiotics and fed him by stomach tube--and gave him castor oil to get his gut moving gain. He was weak and wobbly from the intestinal infection and ulcers, but he eventually recovered and was raised with their other orphans.

Meanwhile, as we finished calving season and prepared for taking the cattle to summer pasture, we struggled with a few family problems, such as the declining health of my parents and the rift that could not seem to be mended with my sister. She kept shutting out the rest of us, and hindering any relationship we might have with my parents. I kept praying for resolution to that challenge.
But with heartache come blessings to counterbalance the pain. I realized I was very blessed by the friendship of many people who had crossed our path since our daughter’s burn accident 6 years previous. I was discovering that God's blessings are all around us.
We only need to open our eyes and our hearts to His love, His forgiveness. And if He can forgive us, surely we can forgive one another. This is what I constantly prayed for, as we humans so often act like selfish children and can't seem to get past the me-first or you-did-me-wrong or I'm-better-than-you phase of growing up, like a bunch of 3-year-old kids throwing sand at one another in the sandbox.
How we must amuse and exasperate our Father at times! I am certain God must have a sense of humor--which seems to be a necessity for loving parenthood--and He probably smiles as He gathers His wayward children into his arms, scolding and forgiving and loving us. If HE can love us, with all our imperfections and mistakes, we surely can strive to love one another, and be more tolerant, understanding and compassionate.
We all have our own timeline, and enter into a broader understanding of our life's purpose at different spots along our journey. I wish I had been more open (and less timid and afraid) earlier in my life, but we can only go on from here-- from where "we're at". Each day is the first actual day of our lives. God can use us wherever and whenever He finds us (or to be more accurate, whenever we open the shutters and "see", and let Him into our lives).
We are all learning and becoming—all in the process of trying to make a little progress toward what we are supposed to be. I am grateful whenever I encounter those loving people who are farther along on the path, reaching out to give me a hand and help me along in my own journey.
It's so awe-inspiring, how we all can help one another, to make the journey easier and so full of joy! Loving others is such a strange mix of sorrow/compassion for the trials they go through (empathizing with the hurts and tragic losses they suffer) yet also filled with the joy/gratitude for God's love and comfort that can bring us all through whatever tragedies we have to face. Life is such a paradox, but oh, so wonderful. I am ever grateful for the people that God continues to put in my path.

For anyone interested in reading more about our “adventures” on the ranch and with our animals, check out my bi-weekly column “Notes from Sky Range Ranch” at http://insidestorey.blogspot.com This is the publisher who does my horse and cattle books.

Calving Season 2006

We had a birthday party dinner out at Andrea and Mark’s place in January for Sammy, who had just turned 3, and Emily, who was celebrating her 8th birthday. Little Danielle, 14 months old, was eager to help them unwrap all their presents.

In mid-January Michael and Carolyn sorted their big group of cows, putting the earliest calving cows in the field below our lane, near our main calving barn. They spread straw along the fence in that field, for bedding, and also in the 2 big corrals where the 90 heifers will be calving. They had 80 first-calf heifers and would be helping us with our 10 heifers.
Michael and Carolyn started camping here at nights in our old trailer house, so they could check on the calving cows and heifers. We had a blizzard a few nights after they started calving, and one calf nearly froze to death. His mom calved in a snow bank then went into some brush to get out of the wind, and left her new calf out in the snow and wind. Michael and Carolyn found him a couple hours later, barely alive. They took their calf sled and 4-wheeler to get the calf, but the 4-wheeler couldn’t make it up the hill through the deep snow. So they pulled the sled up the hill by hand, put the calf in it, and the sled started sliding down the hill. Michael jumped in the sled with the calf. They whizzed down the hill at high speed, until the sled hit the feed trail at the bottom—which was covered with frozen cow pies. Michael had to crouch in the sled rather than sit, to keep from breaking his tailbone as they rattled over those bumps. Then they took the frozen calf to their trailer and thawed him out by the wood stove.
Another cow had twins the next night, and only mothered one of them. The neglected twin nearly froze, but Michael and Carolyn found it in time, and thawed it out in the trailer. Later they grafted it onto a heifer that lost her own calf at birth. A few days later they had another set of twins, from a cow that had twins the year before. After warming and drying them in the trailer, they were both just fine.

We had 10 days of severely cold weather, and lots of new babies. Just before the worst cold weather, Michael had acute pain from a kidney stone. He spent most of the day lying on the bed in the little trailer house, trying to keep warm, and drinking lots of water to try to pass the stone—but he was vomiting a lot because of the pain. Lynn and I helped Carolyn do all the feeding, and I helped her tag and vaccinate calves that needed shuttled out of second-day pens to the fields. We moved other pairs out of the barns, and brought in cows with newborn calves. Young Heather helped after school, and we finally got finished with all the chores after dark. Lynn drove to town to pick up Nick after basketball practice.
By 8 p.m. Michael’s pain was so bad that Lynn took him to the Emergency Room at the hospital. The doctor gave him a shot of morphine and some medication to relax the urinary tract, and several liters of IV fluid to increase his kidney output—to try to flush the stone that was caught between the kidney and bladder. The stone finally moved into the bladder at 10:30 and the doctor let Michael come home. He passed the stone at midnight, and then insisted on helping Carolyn with the calving through the rest of the night.
The next day was severely cold and all of us worked around the clock to keep from losing any newborn calves. Michael had to pull a set of twins; one was positioned upside down and he had to rotate it, and the other twin was backward. He and Carolyn managed to save them both.

That week they also had one premature calf and a blind one with some skeletal problems. Those 2 "handicapped kids" lived for a while in the trailer house, and had the run of the place like a couple of pet dogs. They also had a couple calves the mothers either didn't want (one heifer tried to kill her new baby) or couldn't raise (an old cow with cancer) and they grafted those babies onto the mothers of the "special needs" calves.
In late February we had a serious coyote problem. Coyotes killed a newborn calf in the maternity field, and then killed a week-old calf in the lower field. Michael started carrying a gun in the tractor while feeding cows, and managed to shoot a couple of the coyotes but there were still at least 6 harassing the cows. One night a group of young cows with new calves were bellowing and stampeding, and when Michael and Carolyn drove down to that pasture with their 4-wheeler and a spotlight, they found that the cows had trampled one calf to death in their efforts to defend their calves from the coyotes.
By early March Michael and Carolyn had more than 200 calves, and our own small herd started calving. One of our heifers had twins, so we grafted the extra calf onto Michael’s young cow whose calf got trampled. Buffalo Girl (Emily’s pet heifer that was raised on a bottle) had a nice heifer calf, named Curly Sue. Several of our first-calf heifers have now calves.
So, the cows were keeping us busy checking them at nights, since our weather wasn’t very nice for calving outside. Lynn and I would stagger out of bed periodically and peer out the window with spotlight and binoculars to see if anyone was calving and needed to be put in the barn. Our "maternity ward" for the ladies in waiting is near the house, with a good view from the windows, so unless it's snowing so hard we can't see (or foggy) we can generally check them in our nightgowns without having to go outside in the cold. The kids' cows, by contrast, being a larger herd, were in a bigger field farther from the house and trailer house, so they took turns trudging through the field at night to check on them, and bring any cows with new babies to the barn.


We continue to name all our calves, like Ursala (daughter of Cub Cake, who's a daughter of Cubby, who's a daughter of Cinnebear, who's a sister to Polar Bear and Bear Claw), Leena (daughter of Shirleen, who's a daughter of Rishira), Curly Sue, Dinglebelle (daughter of Dingaling, who's a daughter of Ringa, who's a daughter of Syringa), Rosalee (daughter of Rosie, named by our granddaughter Emily), and other crazy names. Over the years we've had fun thinking up thousands of names--drawing upon everything from Shakespeare and Greek plays (Ophelia, Antigone) to the Bible (Absolem, Shadrack), and Beowulf (Grendel, Hrothgar, etc.) and nonsensical made-up names the kids came up with when they were little.

On another subject, I received a letter in March from a friend who had recently undergone cancer treatments and was hopefully recovered. He was studying to become a tutor to teach English as a second language, and to teach basic English skills, and was also becoming involved in cancer outreach. Those of us who have been through one kind of hell or another and have come out on the other side (in awe and gratitude!!) seem to have this urge (maybe even a fanatic obsession!) to help other people who are struggling through the bad stuff.
Our cancer-survivor friend agreed with us that a support group, an understanding listener, or a no-nonsense lecturer ("You WILL NOT give up!!) can make all the difference in someone’s future. When someone cares, you do try a whole lot harder. On her trips back to Salt Lake for checkups, Andrea has sat in the ICU with burn patients who wanted to die and told them in no uncertain terms that they could not give up...that they still had too much to live for. And they listen because she's one who has been there.
The real challenges of life (potentially life ending challenges) do get our attention and get our priorities straight and take the blinders off. They open our eyes to realities about ourselves, and about the Love that is there waiting to find us when we do lift our eyes.
Connecting with that Love and becoming (albeit in fits and starts and imperfectly) a part of it in helping others is the most awesome and blessed experience one can have. Bad things can always evolve into wonderful blessings if a person lets it happen. Wake-up calls.
I guess that's why Lynn and I felt compelled to tell our story and to hope it will help other burn survivors and their families (or anyone else going through a tough road), and why we are now more apt to try to connect with and help someone who crosses our path rather than just pass by on the other side of the road and feel sorry for them. Amazing how these wake up experiences strip away the protective layers we so carefully (yet unknowingly) put around ourselves through the years. We don't hide behind them anymore. We gladly bare our souls to someone else if we think it might help, or go out of our way to give encouragement or brighten their day. We are all in this life together.
That winter, one of our friends who was more at-home with the internet than I am located a list of burn centers around the country. I started going through the list and calling them, trying to connect with people who might be interested in having me send sample copies of my book BEYOND THE FLAMES. Often I just got transferred to someone's answering machine, and only a few of those people called me back. But once in awhile I got lucky and spoke with a "real" person, and many of them were receptive to having me send them a book.
I was glad for this breakthrough--being able to connect with the various burn centers--because this is where my book may make a difference in a person's life. Lynn and I were so devastated by our daughter's injuries, not knowing if she would survive, or what life would be like if she did survive. One of the things that gave us the most encouragement was a little book that someone gave us, about a burn survivor, and his physical/spiritual journey through the valley of death--and through it. This gave us hope, and that little ray of hope was what we desperately needed at that time. So after we began our own pilgrimage (the detour in our lives that began at the burn center) we knew we had to write our story, in case it might also give hope to someone else facing a dark night of the soul. One of my goals has been to connect with other burn units. If we can donate books to some of them, we’ll feel like we're starting to accomplish our mission!
My parents were becoming more frail that winter. Mom was ill for several days, and spent a day in the hospital to get a spiking high blood pressure episode under control. She’d been wearing herself out too much taking care of Dad, and worried about his having to go to Missoula, Montana (145 miles away) once a week for a chemo drip—something the doctor put him on to slow down a rare type of blood disorder. The trips over the mountain were hard on him, since it was an all-day ordeal.
I wrote to my brother after Dad’s 2nd weekly drip treatment in Missoula, and said that Dad was very tired, but perky. “Not so giddy this time. Maybe they didn't put the steroids in the concoction or maybe they changed the dosage. Mom is still tired after her high blood pressure episode, but her blood pressure is more under control now, since the doctor changed her medications. She goes to see the heart doctor today (the one that comes over here periodically from Missoula). I think she's been wearing herself out too much taking care of Dad, and she's probably worried about his having to go over to Missoula every week for the chemo drip.” I kept worrying about my parents, and the fact that it wasn’t easy watching them grow older and more feeble, and having to carefully ease into the role of caregiver to those who took care of us when we were young.

Winter 2005-2006

November and December of 2005 were cold. We had several weeks of cold weather before Christmas and it got down to 20 below zero. Just before the worst of the cold weather we had a lot of snow. We started feeding hay a few weeks earlier than usual because our fall pasture was so deeply snowed under. It meant buying more hay than we'd planned, but also meant there was more snow in the mountains than we had the previous year. We wouldn’t be so short on irrigation water the next summer.



We weren’t sure what the weather would be like by the time we started calving. Our herd was small (down to 30 head) but our son Michael was calving his 285 cows here at our place. His cows started calving in mid January. Ours were bred to calve in February and March. Michael wanted to add more stalls on one of our calving sheds; we don't have enough barn space for all his cows if weather is cold or nasty.

We had enough barn space (when we were calving in January) for 20 pairs, which is about the most calves we ever had born in one day, but we only had 185 cows at the peak of our herd numbers. We'd hoped to do the barn add-on project in the fall, but Michael was too busy hauling hay. He bought hay from 3 other ranchers around the valley (more than 400 tons) and was hauling most of it himself on a flatbed trailer.
Andrea was busy with her little kids, and helping carpenters add onto her house at 12 Mile. She was up on the roof nailing shingles before Christmas. She also helped put insulation in the walls, and put up the sheetrock. But she had a bad fall one day when she was in town (missed a step on the stairs going into a store, and fell several feet onto concrete) and hurt her knee, so that slowed her down a little. Lynn was out at her place helping with the building project, most days, except when he got the "stomach bug" that was going around and was laid low with diarrhea for several days. He wasn't able to eat--just drank lots of Gatorade to keep from being dehydrated. He resorted to taking some of the calf medicine (liquid neomycin sulfate) we give our calves for diarrhea caused by intestinal infection, since the human medicine didn't seem to help much. He got over the diarrhea pretty quickly after that.
Michael and Carolyn helped me feed our cows and load our hay until Lynn got over being so weak and sick. We were glad they lived close by, to help us; usually we are the ones helping them, getting their kids to and from the bus when they're busy calving, helping them work cows etc. (we call ourselves the battery backup, since we're ready to help in any emergency) but this time it was their turn to help us until Lynn felt better.
I am glad both our kids and their families live here in the valley. Though Andrea was 25 miles away, on the other side of town at 12 mile, that's still very close, compared to some families that are scattered all over the country. We often help baby-sit her kids, and Lynn sometimes picked up little Charlie from pre-school when Andrea wasn’t able to get into town.
Andrea never ceases to amaze me. She doesn't let her pain and impairments (from the burn injury) slow her down at all. That winter she was carrying heavy bundles of shingles up the ladder to the roof even though the tendons in her ankles don't work properly. She was using gloves without fingers during the cold weather so she could handle the nails--because she doesn't have enough feeling and dexterity with the grafted skin on her fingers. But she needed to go back to Salt Lake sometime for more surgery (to release some graft contractures that were pulling one little finger out to the side, and pulling on both shoulders--which puts her spine out of line, creating back pain and headaches). She wanted to wait until spring to have it done, however, so she wouldn't be handicapped (while the surgical sites heal) while lugging little kids around on frozen, slippery ground. The doctor would probably have to do the shoulders one at a time so both arms won't be immobilized at once.
So, I looked at my daughter carrying on with her life, living it to the full. Every day I rejoice in her ability to do that, and thank God for the gift of those 3 youngest grandkids, that "would not have been" if their mommy had died in the fire or from her burn injuries. God is indeed merciful and generous in His gifts.

That winter after Christmas I was trying to catch up on a lot of letter writing. For the past 10 years I've tried to do more and more letter writing, to encourage friends and relatives who are going through tough challenges. Before Andrea’s injury, I had immersed myself in the ranch and taking care of animals. I never was very good at interacting with people—always a bit too timid (and claustrophobic in crowds). But we all have our different gifts and I know now that I can still help people, in spite of being a hermit!
During the past several years I've come to realize that perhaps the best way I can "make a difference" or brighten someone's day is to write letters to people who need emotional encouragement to face tough situations. I've also discovered that I've become braver about talking on the phone. As we get older, more of our friends are going through traumatic challenges like cancer or the loss of a spouse, and in some small way I've become part of a generic "support group", partially because it's my way of "paying forward" all the help and love that carried me and Lynn along when we were going through the ordeal of Andrea's fight for survival.
Lynn and I have "connected" with an incredible number of people since the summer of 2000, and it's amazing how we've all been able to help each other more fully because of the traumas we've gone through. It amazes me how we can be "found" by God, to accomplish His work. Trauma and tragedy are often the keys to unlock the door to the heart and soul. Due to human complacency, laziness, selfishness or whatever we want to call it, most of us don't quite see the whole picture when everything is going smoothly for us. It seems like most of the folks who are the most loving and understanding and tolerant are people who have suffered some kind of trauma in their own lives. We are slow learners, aren't we, until we bump up against some hard knocks.
But extreme adversity puts us more completely in the NOW, and opens us up to God and to other people. It helps us live each day more fully. As one of our cancer-survivor friends recently put it: "living each day as if we are dying". This gets our priorities in order (at the top of which is being open to God's Love and recognizing our connectedness with one another--which leads to love, tolerance, empathy and reaching out to help each other) and puts the trivial stuff way down in its proper place.
Also at the top of the list is family. Families add a whole new dimension to our lives. Families are special and precious and I am sad for people who never have kids. Children (and grandkids) add to the richness of our experiences and seem to be almost necessary for some of us, in helping us gain the maturity and wisdom needed on our own journey. We have very much appreciated our children and the many lessons they have taught us along the way.


The circle of life (and the balance created by the old learning from the young--as well as vice versa) is one of God's greatest blessings for us. Each child has unique potential as a special creation, and also has immeasurable possibilities for being part of our own learning process in our spiritual journey. God can use even the "impaired/challenged" or wayward children (sometimes even more than "normal" ones!) to open our hearts and teach us more about love and understanding and forgiveness and selflessness, for instance. We have several friends with handicapped children, or children with other problems, and though at first glance that would seem like a terrible burden, it has also been an awesome lesson in love, filled with unimaginable blessings. God can use ALL things for wondrous, unexpected blessings. Sometimes it's hard to see it at the time, but it comes.
That winter I wrote to my friend Liz (whose son was burned severely in August 2000), who had told me about the agony of watching a good friend die of cancer. It's so hard to watch a loved one die. You wish, wish, wish you could take away the pain, the agony, and lend strength to fight the battle.
It had been hard for Lynn and me, that summer, watching our friend Dave (who lost his fight with stomach/liver cancer--which he'd valiantly fought for 2 years) slip downhill and leave us. He was ready to go and handling it with grace, but the last week of his life was very miserable. He was at peace with it emotionally and spiritually, but the physical misery was still very difficult. It was a relief to have that over with, a blessed release from that ravaged, frail body. He was at peace with his journey, and impatient to go on to the next phase of it. Death, like birth, is not without pain and struggle, as we leave one phase of our life and enter the next.
The toughest part was for his widow, who must try to deal with the rest of her journey without him. She's the one we worried about. Dave was always trying to comfort the rest of us, up until the very end. He was doing ok (at peace with his journey), and at the end was impatient to go.
I was also commiserating with Liz’s challenge of helping take care of ailing parents—hers and her husband’s. I could only try to imagine what it's like, trying to care for both sets of parents. My own parents were becoming frail, especially Dad, who was having balance problems and an increasing number of falls, and taking too many pain pills for his shoulders and back--and befuddled in his mind much of the time. At that point Mom was able to manage him and they were still living independently but I was not sure how much longer that would last.
Indeed, the world is full of suffering. We have it so easy, in this country, in so many ways (compared to the starvation, wars, poverty and lack of medical services, etc. in so many other countries). Yet the death rate is still one apiece, and though we tend to be complacent at times, and spoiled, life has a way of thrusting us into reality.
In my view, reality means that without opening ourselves to Love, we become lost in all the suffering and misery. But Love gives us a way to face it. If in some small way we can help alleviate the suffering (physical or emotional) of someone else, we can find our own peace. The paradox of the human animal, it seems, is that we must live in the real world, of floods and earthquakes, hurricanes and war, where life is often cheap and short, but we are also blessed with this spark of something greater, that transcends the ephemeral bodies that we trundle around in for a time. The dichotomy of this existence is fraught with struggle; we are mortal yet immortal. So tied to earth and yet transcending it. Something within us yearns and strives for a higher plane. We humans are worshiping animals, and even in our most primitive existence our prehistoric ancestors reached out to something beyond ourselves.
I guess I have to be an optimist, and always have been. My twin cousin (who I am closer to than a sister--she's always been my best friend) put it so well in one of her letters to me that winter, saying that she had to be an eternal optimist, to keep her own sanity. I guess that describes me, too. I've always been an optimist, trying to look at the positive, the good in things, the good in people, the plusses rather than the minuses. I watched my father (and many of my relatives) fight depression all his life, and I know how very, very far a little of that goes. A little bit of negativism can sure ruin a whole bunch of goodness.
There is plenty of misery, grief and hardship in this world (and hatred and war). I have to be an optimist for my own mental and emotional survival. The alternative is too bleak. Love and hope are the only mitigating factors in this life, on this earth. Love is the only thing that bridges the chasms between people, and brings compassion and understanding, tolerance and peace. Love and hope are the antidotes for despair. And when human strength and courage fail, love can carry us through the minefield of life. Lynn and I found that out, during the summer of 2000, and our faith and hope have grown. What I only had an inkling of before, I know for sure now--that God does love us, and that He will carry us through whatever we face in this life.
Everyone walks a different path on this journey, and it seems that some paths are tougher than others. I am not sure I could handle the trail that some must climb. I just pray that God will give me the strength and grace I need as I face my own cliffs and boulders, swamps and jungles. I am encouraged, however, by the fact that He led us through the summer of 2000 when our own strength was woefully inadequate. Somehow I know that He will lead me through the rest of the challenges.
And I do fear them those challenges. I am not sure I can face the end of my own life with as much grace as my friend Dave did, for instance. I see my parents (especially Dad) becoming frail and tired, hurting and depressed and more negative, and I don't want to go there.
I know I am a wimp, especially when it comes to tough physical pain, and if I get to hurting that much I hope that God will allow me to bow out sooner than later. I know I will not have the courage nor the grace (at least not on my own) to handle some of the things life can pitch at us. I also know how vulnerable I am to the suffering of a loved one (it was hard for me to cope with Andrea's challenges when she was fighting for her life, and even when she was starting her very painful recovery here at home after the summer in Salt Lake). So I pray for mercy and Love that can comfort and ease life's hard/bitter moments and the knowledge that pain and devastation will pass. Eventually it will be just an eye-blink in our existence.
I have to be an optimist, and I try to see each new day as a new beginning, a chance to do something good, and maybe try to brighten someone else's day. We're all on our separate little journeys, walking our own path, but there's a connectedness we can open up to. We can sometimes help pull each other along and over the obstacles when the path gets rough.

Fall 2005

Summer 2005 finished with getting the rest of our hay baled and hauled, and rounding up the cows off the range. Young Heather and Nick took their horses (Chance and Mr. Kay) to the 4-H horse show at the Fair, bringing home 8 trophies between them. They also did very well in the 4-H working ranch classes—ranch roping, cattle sorting and team penning.



It was a very dry year and we had more forest fires that fall, some of which were out of control for several weeks, filling our valley with smoke. It was a huge reminder of the devastating summer 5 years earlier. Then in mid-September we had a sudden change in the weather, and some long-awaited rain, with snow on the mountains.
I helped Michael and Carolyn round up cattle, bringing them down to our own mountain pasture

We spent several days finding and gathering some that had strayed to the neighbor’s range—cattle that had gone through several gates left open by hunters. On one ride we found one pair and a bull, sorted them out from the neighbor’s cattle, and brought them down to where we used to have a gate between the Forest Service and BLM allotment. But when we got there we found that the Forest Service crew who rebuilt the boundary fence earlier in the summer (after it was all burned up in the fire 2 years before) had eliminated that gate.
We started taking our little group on down the fence, but the bull charged back through our horses. Michael rode after him, and Carolyn and I took the cow and calf along the fence to another gate. Then we rode through more of the burned area trying to find the other strays.
After several long days of riding and sorting cattle, we found nearly all of them, and went out again to search for the rest. We split up to search more country. Carolyn and I found no cows on our side of the mountain and headed back to Baker Creek to pick up a few pairs we’d gathered in that area. As we started back that direction, we saw Michael in the distance, leading his horse down off a ridge. The fact he was leading the horse and not riding, we realized something was wrong. Carolyn rode back to check on him while I gathered another little group of cows we’d found in the timber.
Michael’s horse, Classy, had gotten her hind leg caught between two logs, while scrambling through some down timber on the other side of the mountain. She’d ripped her leg open, exposing the back tendon. The wound was spurting blood when Michael dismounted to examine it, and the tired mare was trembling and glassy-eyed, going into shock from the pain and sudden blood loss following the day’s exertion. Michael took off his heavy flannel shirt and ripped the back out of it, tearing that big piece into 4 strips. He wrapped the biggest strip tightly around her lower leg to cover the wound, and tied it on tightly with the other strips. This pressure, and the thickness of the layers, slowed the blood flow—which had already formed a large pool on the ground.
Classy held her leg up the whole time he was bandaging it, but she did not try to kick. After he got it wrapped, she relaxed and put her foot back down on the ground, and within a few minutes she was not so shaky. Michael was able to lead her out of the timber and over the hill to Baker Creek to join us.
After we brought the gathered cattle out of Baker Creek and around the mountain toward our upper pasture, Michael and Carolyn traded horses. Carolyn led Classy down the steep mountain, following the cows down to the gate, while Michael and I rode on around toward the rough cliffs above Withington Creek and found a few more pairs. We got all the cattle down into our upper pasture and Michael then led Classy down to the road, where he redid the makeshift bandage, which was starting to slip. We met a hunter driving down the road, and he gave Michael a ride 3 miles down to their house, so Michael could get their pickup and horse trailer--so he could haul Classy to town to the vet.
The makeshift bandage had kept the wound clean, and even though the tendon was nicked, it was not completely cut and would heal. The vet was able to staple the skin back into place over most of torn area. Michael kept the wound bandaged several weeks (changing the bandage daily) and gave Classy penicillin shots for a couple weeks, and it eventually healed very nicely.

We had good weather for a while in October, and young Emily spent several days with us that fall (on a couple weekends and school vacations), and she had several riding sessions on one of my old horses (Khamahn--nickname "Veggie"--a 19 year old grandson of old Khamette, the mare my own kids learned to ride on, 35-plus years ago). Veggie had never had a kid on him before and was a little nervous the first time, but he soon got used to Emily and they got along great. At first I led "Veggie" around while Em got used to how she should handle the reins.

Then she progressed to riding him solo around the barnyard in familiar surroundings where he felt at ease. Then I took her on longer rides, leading Veggie from my own horse, traveling several miles over our low range and back.
We have to go a little ways along the country road before we can get to the range pasture, and I didn't want to take a chance on Em not being able to get the old horse off the road in time when traffic (including logging trucks) came along; it was safer leading him from my horse. But she did very well (using the same little child's saddle my kids learned to ride on) and was soon able to ride Veggie without being led from another horse. She was a little older and stronger than my kids were when they learned to ride.

When my kids were little and just learning to ride, their legs were still too short to reach below the saddle pad, and old Khamette couldn't feel them kicking to try to make her go. I led her from another horse, and we'd ride all day checking cattle and gates, or moving cattle. In summer, Lynn was busy haying and I'd take the kids with me to ride range all day, as soon as they were big enough to sit on a horse that long. By the time Michael graduated to a horse he could ride solo, Andrea (2 years younger) was ready to start riding Khamette. I could lead her alongside me as we trotted or galloped—while chasing a cow--or let her drop behind on a narrow single-file trail through the trees. The kid gained confidence and riding ability but I had the horse in tow so the old mare couldn't just stop and eat grass. .
One afternoon while Em was at the ranch, she hiked with Lynn and me to check on the cows in the pasture above our house and was delighted that Buffalo Girl (a big yearling) remembered her. They hadn’t seen each other since Buffalo Girl was a bottle-fed orphan the year before. The heifer walked right up to Emily to be petted and tried to lick her face. On another hike she and I collected leaves for her school project, and put together her leaf collection.


We weaned our calves in October and hauled the steers to a sale. We kept the heifers, and put them in the little pasture above our house. We worried that they might get sick because the weather turned suddenly cold and wet, with several inches of new snow. But they stayed healthy, thanks to their pre-weaning vaccinations.
That fall we received a newly published book, written by one of our friends—a young woman who lost her husband in a freak accident. Lynn and I appreciated Julie’s very clear way of expressing her faith and her feelings. We got several copies of her book (You Only Think God Is Silent) to give to other people, knowing it could be an inspiration and encouragement to others going through soul-wrenching trauma and loss.
Tragedy does indeed thrust us onto a wondrous detour that opens up new territory--and places us on a pilgrimage from which there's no turning back. It can bring us grace and compassion and open us up to the love of God in a way we could never fully experience nor comprehend before. We might think we understand God's love with our minds, but until we experience and feel it in our hearts--after we've completely run out of self-sufficiency and can only depend on Him--we really don't "get it". How wondrous are the gifts He gives us.
We wanted to share Julie’s book with several friends, including some who had lost spouses to cancer. We were glad she was able to write it, and share her story. This kind of life-changing experience (coming through tragedy and having it mold and hone us) sets some of us on a mission, to spend the rest of our lives trying to help and encourage others.
Another book we often share is called The Last Dance But Not the Last Song, written by Renee Bondi, a young woman who has also created several music CDs. Her story is a fantastic, awesome example of spiritual triumph over tragedy, and her music is wonderful.
We stumbled onto her story by accident, or actually by "God incidence" as she puts it. Renee feels there are no "coincidences". The summer after Andrea was burned (2001), Lynn was on our upper place irrigating, and ran across a young man who was here working for the summer for a company doing contract work for the BLM. Mike was hiking through our range, doing "fuel mapping" for the BLM (evaluating the amount of dry grass, dead timber, etc. for future fire danger). After Lynn found out what his job was, Lynn told Mike about Andrea's burn accident in the terrible fire at 12 Mile the year before (a fire that got quickly out of control because of the horrendous amount of dry grass in that area). That side of the mountain, all along the Salmon River, had not been adequately grazed for several decades. The BLM and Forest Service had reduced or eliminated the grazing rights of those little ranches along the river.
Lynn told Mike about Andrea's burns and her progress in recovery (one year out from the accident) and mentioned that I had started writing a book about this experience. So Mike told him that his wife Linda's cousin (Renee Bondi) had just published a book about her own accident (which left her paralyzed) and her spiritual journey. The book had just come out and Renee had sent Linda a copy. We wanted to read it, so Mike called his wife, Linda, and she sent Mike the book to loan to us, before she herself had even had a chance to read it!
Thus began a wonderful friendship with Mike and Linda, and after reading Renee's book we ordered a copy for ourselves, and all of her music CDs. We found her music so inspiring (especially since she overcame great odds to eventually sing again) that we got more of her music to give to friends who might be helped and inspired by it. We also keep ordering more of her books, to give away. Her story is one of hope, courage and triumph (and surrender to God's love), and her music is filled with the joy of that God-centered life.
I still like to listen to Renee's music when I get "down" or out of focus, getting too caught up in trivial things or feeling low or sorry for myself, or small and petty or not being open to love and joy and thankfulness for my many blessings. Her music gets me back on track again. I have a special connection to it because it's all tied up together with the trauma our family went through, and the unexpected, long journey we were launched into.
Knowing how much Renee has come through, and how much we are all loved, and guided, and blessed by the One who loves us most, her music wipes away my doubts, my fears, my pettiness, and helps me reconnect with what I am supposed to be. Why walk, when you can fly! Why burrow inward when you can help someone else and try to be an instrument of God's love.
I sent Renee’s book and music to my cousin’s wife Leanne, who was diagnosed that summer with a serious form of breast cancer. She had surgery and then was on chemo for several months. She was scheduled to have more surgery the day after Christmas, and then radiation. She was feeling badly that she didn’t have the energy to do the things for Christmas she wanted to do for her kids and grandkids. But she had already given them the most special gift, of love--and I admired her calm faith and serenity in handling her fight against the cancer. She is still fighting it, 5 years later, and has dealt with it matter-of-factly, and with great trust.
Her battle has been truly a marathon (sort of like a cross country run through all kinds of terrain), with some hard climbs and slow spots. I keep praying that her body and spirit and determination carry through for the journey and that when she gets to the finish she will have "won"! A long marathon like this is taken one day at a time (sometimes one hour, one moment, one step at a time), but I am confident that her faith and trust in the One who cares most will carry her through.
The "NOW" is what's important, living in the NOW and accepting the love and strength that God gives us, moment by moment. That's the only place peace can really wrap round us. I think we all tend to live too much in the future and trying to deal with the "what ifs", and we forget to live in the NOW. But things like cancer or any serious life crisis can help us focus on the NOW and on reaching out to God (who is always reaching for us) to carry us through this moment. True peace is only achieved in the now.
Leanne was such a help to me and to little Emily (cheering us on, steadfastly) during our traumatic summer in 2000, with Andrea’s injuries. Leanne and her daughter Karen and little granddaughter Sarah wrote to me and called frequently on the phone, and sent care packages for helping entertain 2 ½ year old Emily. Sometimes Sarah would talk to Emily on the phone

These past several years, in humble gratitude for their prayers and care during my time of need, I have tried to take my turn to be supportive to Leanne. She is in my thoughts and prayers every day, as she still continues to battle her cancer. It's been my turn to be part of her "support" crew, to "be there" for her however I can. Life has an amazing way of bringing us round to the fact that we do not make this journey alone... we are meant to help one another.

Late Summer 2005

Summer on our ranch is usually a mad scramble as we try to get the irrigation and haying done and take care of the cattle. The summer of 2005 I was also working on a book manuscript. Lynn got our old swather going and put new tires on it, and cut our hay and some of Michael’s hay on his leased place. Michael had been too busy doing custom cutting to get any of his own hay cut yet.

We had a long stretch of hot weather and no rain. Some of the springs and water troughs on our range were not working very well, so Carolyn and kids rode out there several times to check the troughs and work on some of the springboxes. Michael and Carolyn’s kids were really good help with the riding, moving cattle and irrigating, but were also gone awhile to basketball camps.
Andrea was driving to town nearly every day from 12-mile, taking her young kids to swimming lessons. She rarely had time to come out to the ranch.
Our two cats were getting old (age 13 and 14) so Lynn brought home a couple of kittens a friend was giving away. They adapted quickly to their new home, but had a bad habit of climbing up under vehicles in our driveway. After Michael and Carolyn were here at our house one day, we noticed the kittens were gone. They probably crawled up onto the motor of their Ford Explorer. But they didn’t show up at Michael’s house (2 miles up the creek from our place) so we figured they jumped off or fell off somewhere along the way. We looked along the road but didn’t see them. They were gone for a week so we assumed they didn’t survive.
Then one evening when Lynn and I were hiking along the cow trail above our house for our daily walk, we heard a meow. The yellow kitten, hungry and skinny, crawled out from some big rocks along the road bank. We called and called, but the other kitten wasn’t there. We carried the yellow one home, and it ravenously gorged on milk and cat food. Three days later the little black kitten came meowing out of the field near that same place on the trail as we hiked by. We don’t know how far up the creek the kittens rode under the Explorer before jumping or falling out, but it took them a week to wander back toward home.


That summer I continued to write letters to Laurel, whose daughter perished from burn injuries the same summer that Andrea was burned. As I mentioned to Laurel in one letter, “I wish you still had Sara. I wish you had never had to endure such terrible loss and pain. I can never fully feel the depth of your pain because I haven't walked in your shoes. I still have my daughter, even though the life we knew before (her ability to help me on the ranch, to help with the cattle and horses, and ride range with me) is gone and changed forever. That's a tiny thing, compared to how your life changed.”
Andrea’s accident, however, did set my priorities straight and I realized I could endure the detour our lives had taken, I could live without the things I thought were so defining of my life; I could actually live without my cattle and horses. For so many years we all struggled so hard to survive in ranching and pay for our place and our cattle. As I mentioned to Laurel, “It's a good life, living on the land, and a wonderful place to raise children, but I realize that all too often the drive to survive here--to take perfect care of the cows and not lose any calves--came first, taking the most demands of my time, energy and passion.

Through Andrea's accident and fight for life, my focus changed. I was being reminded that my focus needed to change. I needed to focus on the love of family, the connectedness with other people, and learn to trust a bit more in the fact that God will help us survive financially, one way or another, and that I don't have to be so single-minded about thrusting so much of my energies into the ranch and cattle.”
I learned (not an easy lesson for me) to be more relaxed about a lot of things, and not be so intense or worried about the little things. I learned that I CAN live without the single-minded focus on my cattle and horses. Andrea's accident and her long, difficult road back to life led me through a new door and I found I could leave much of the old "me" behind. It is this "awakening" that I am grateful for.
I am not glad that the experiences dear to my heart that Andrea and I always shared (the wonderful companionship working daily with the cattle and horses) are no longer there, but I can accept it, and let that life go. Yes, we still have the ranch and a few cattle, but we've now sold most of the cows to our son and are letting him use most of our ranch--and I no longer ride as much--maybe a couple dozen times a summer instead of nearly every day.

I am at peace with this change, however (something I would not have been able to think possible, before the summer of 2000), because God has opened up a greater window in my life--for helping other people--and also enabling me to make up the difference in our income with my writing, relying more on it and less on the cows.
I wrote to Laurel, saying our experiences are all different. “I am not sure I could have endured the loss of my daughter; you have the greater challenge and I am in awe of your progress in your journey. But you are very right in saying that it is through the suffering and trauma (the "human condition" as some might call it...the consequences of living in the real world where accident and tragedy can happen) that we gain understanding of our connectedness and kinship that can give us strength and love and compassion. The connectedness, the empathy, can lend us strength. I know how much the caring of other people helped me (and still does!) when struggling through the dark hours.”
In late July Lynn and I received a message from a good friend in Canada, and a copy of the Eulogy he gave at his wife’s memorial service. It was a touching tribute to her life. We’d gotten acquainted with Dan and Margo (ranchers in Manitoba) about 25 years earlier. They’d been reading my monthly column in Grainews (a Canadian farm newspaper) from the time I started writing it in the early 1970’s, and Dan called me on the phone one day to ask a question about treating a sick calf. A few more phone calls over the years, then a few letters. After Andrea’s burn injury they were very supportive and became good friends. Then Margo was diagnosed with breast cancer and it was our turn to be supportive, as she bravely fought, and finally lost, her battle.
As Margo slipped into the final weeks, Dan kept us updated on all the details, including his thoughts and feelings, and his reminiscences about their life together. In spite of Margo’s pain, their last weeks together were a beautiful time of sharing. Dan’s e-mail updates to friends became the nucleus of a book he wanted to write—as an inspiration to other people who are traveling through the devastating landscape of cancer. That book, by the way, is now published (November 2010) and is called Hitchhike to Heaven.
When I wrote to Dan after he lost Margo, I thanked him for sharing their lives with us. This kind of "connectedness" makes all of us stronger, yet gentler, more appreciative of life and the gifts God has given us, and the Love he has for us. Again and again--after our own dunking into the depths of tragedy—we’ve been reminded of how much God loves us, and how much He wants us to love one another.
The repercussions of love go far, like little ripples from the pebble you throw into the water of a quiet lake--they go out and out and out and you never know how many lives they may touch. I am convinced that Good, that Love, that God's plan for all of us (to find peace, joy, comfort, our purpose in life, contentment, fulfillment by loving others...etc.) is so much stronger than all the bad things in this world. Sometimes the epiphany, the light bulb that goes on in our soul, the sudden awareness of his Love is like a lightning strike, but so often it's more like the quiet workings of sourdough, gently stirring in the depths of our soul and softly but gently changing us little by little. And all those ripples that touch us, from the pebbles cast forth by other people, these things ultimately change us and help us become more receptive to loving God (and letting Him into our lives) and loving others.
I thanked Dan for sharing his feelings about losing Margo. I told him, “We rejoice with you both--with the peace and joy she must be experiencing now, free of pain, and in the loving arms of her Creator. We share your joy and peace of mind that she is indeed, "home" at last. And I know that her love for you, her earthly lover, friend and soul-mate, transcends time and space and her spirit will still be with you until you rejoin her. It is so wonderful that we can know these things in our hearts, even though sometimes it is hard to fathom them with our minds. It's great that God made us emotional as well as calculating, made us creatures of heart and feeling as well as logic, with an instinct for worshiping that which is greater than we are. We have an inner drive to recognize that we are the creation (a child of God), as well as our instinct for self-determination and self-preservation. It all comes together in the miracle of life and the paradox of our earthly existence, as we at some point in our lives reach out (often when we are hurting, or at the end of our own rope in terms of our own abilities to cope with whatever pain, tragedy, challenges that happen to us). And then we discover that He was reaching for us, all along, and we find our "salvation" (our at-oneness, our peace and purpose) in Him.”
“Enjoy and cherish your family... the wonderful legacy that you and Margo were instrumental in creating. It never ceases to amaze me how tragedy can jerk us around to Reality, to set our priorities straight and make us realize how very, very blessed we are, and that the love of family is precious, that no little trivial things (that so often mess up families and get in the way of what's really important) should ever come between you and the ones you love. I guess that's one of the beautiful, wonderful, positive things about tragedy--it brings us together. It smoothes out the differences and puts us all on the same page, and we can appreciate and love one another, deeply and unconditionally, in spite of the little things that tend to separate and alienate us. It sounds like Margo's passing (her going ahead of all of you to the next chapter) brought you all together in love, and deepened the love you had for one another. It is so wonderful that you made her passing/celebration of life a time of joy and fun for the grandkids. They will always remember Grandma with good feelings and a special place in their young hearts rather than remembering this as a time of somberness and stoic grief of their parents. What a wonderful thing you accomplished for those grandkids!”
“We shall keep you in our thoughts and prayers as you drift back into the mundane routine of your life (though ranching is never mundane, thank God), while retaining the afterglow of all that has occurred these past few months, as you went through the marathon of human endurance (so draining, physically!) and emotional/spiritual "overdrive". We shall also be cheering you on as you work on your book... a wonderful project that will help guide you/sustain you through this transitional time without Margo as you miss and grieve for her, and a project that will bring you joy because it will be a great help to others.”

Summer 2005

The summer of 2005 was hectic as usual here on the ranch. Lynn and I were pinch-hitting for Michael and Carolyn (we call ourselves the battery backup!) and helping out as much as we could—after Michael’s horse accident (with his arm in a cast) and Carolyn’s knee injury. I helped ride range and move cattle and Lynn helped irrigate. In our job (as cow caretakers) none of us can afford to be sick or laid up. We take on this job as a full time every-day-of-the year commitment. The cows own us, not the other way around! But us crazy cow people seem to thrive on this type of dedication. I think it serves us in good stead for learning the important lessons of life.
Michael got the pin and screws out of his finger in June and was trying to get some of the motion back. The broken joint healed but was very stiff. The piece of bone with the tendons attached healed back to the main bone (the pin was holding the broken joint together until it healed). He was riding his horse again, though for awhile he had to get on one-handed, which is no small feat on a young, skittish horse.
One weekend I helped him and his kids for two days, riding to move their cattle from the low range pasture to the middle range pasture. Carolyn finally got back on a horse for the first time since her knee injury, and helped move cattle the second day. Her knee was still in a brace, but getting more range of motion with physical therapy. The doctor told her that if she was careful and did physical therapy to strengthen it, it might heal without having to resort to surgery.
Andrea and kids were doing well that summer, though Emily and Charlie had their tonsils out in hopes to reduce the amount of colds and ear infections they were always getting. While Charlie was recovering from having his tonsils out he stayed overnight with us--and enjoyed helping feed the bum calves--while Andrea and Mark went to Missoula to have Emily's tonsils out and tubes put in Sammy's ears; the doctor was reluctant to take her tonsils out right then, wanting to do it when she was a little older.
Em was pretty sore after her tonsil surgery, but looked forward to staying with us for a few days when she felt better--to make cookies and do a lot of fun things, like petting the horses. She went with Lynn and me on our evening hikes, and also enjoyed working on her "book" while I worked on mine. She started making a "book" when she spent the summer with me when she was 2 ½ years old, cutting out pictures from magazines and catalogs and pasting them in a spiral notebook. She spent hours doing that. Now she still cuts out pictures but can also write captions for them.
My book projects were keeping me very busy that summer. I finally got The Horse Conformation Book finished (and the illustrator did a WONDERFUL job!) and it had just been published. My Getting Started With Cattle book was in its final stages of being published. Stable Smarts, a book of handy hints for horsemen, was going through editing and illustrating. I had also just gotten the proofs (to check) for my book on Understanding Equine Hoof Care and horseshoeing. I was also asked to do a small book on raising beef cattle, and was trying to work on it in the early mornings before chores (with a goal of doing at least 3 to 4 pages per morning, so I can meet the deadline) and then working on articles and phone interviews for articles the rest of the day, sandwiching in any cattle work that had to be done.
For instance, one morning we had to doctor a lame cow with a foot infection, trimming her foot and giving her antibiotics. At least our smaller herd needed less attention. I was no longer riding range every day in the summer (our small herd stays home on closer pastures, and I only ride to move them occasionally, or to help our kids/grandkids move their range cattle) and I can devote more of my day to writing. I miss the more active lifestyle of earlier years, but don't mind being able to make up the income difference with my writing. We still have a few cattle of our own and are able to help the kids with theirs.
That summer the parents of one of the boys who was severely burned in August 2000 in Yellowstone Park (not long after Andrea’s burn injury) planned to make a trip to Yellowstone to see where their life-changing detour began. I wrote to Liz, and said, “You shall be in my prayers and in my heart as you make that pilgrimage. Yes, it's been an epic journey thus far, and how far we have come! My heart goes out to anyone who is burned, and we instantly rally into support mode to try to help. I keep hoping my book BEYOND THE FLAMES will be of help to some who are facing these challenges.”
I thanked Liz for all her letters during the years we were both trying to cope with our children’s burn accidents, and told her she had truly blessed me with her friendship. “We share so much, having "gone through hell" with our injured children (and come through it and into the light of hope and joy and blessings). It means so much, lending one another much needed support, and because we seem to understand one another so well and have similar thoughts and feelings on so many levels. A friendship like yours fills a gap in my soul. "Meeting" you (though we have never met in person) was one of the most cherished gifts that evolved from our pilgrimage through the burn ICU with our children.”
“As we gradually get farther out from that traumatic time, I realize I am finally able to "let go" a little more and relax back into some sort of normalcy in relationship with my daughter that I nearly lost. I realized the other day that even though she has impairments and fragility from the injuries (always more susceptible to pneumonia, for instance, with her impaired immune system) she is no longer so quite so fragile and vulnerable. Or perhaps she is just a lot more determined, and also at ease with her situation, and I can be less of a worry-wart. I find myself more comfortable now with letting her live her own life. We talk often on the phone on days I don't see her, but now I find I can sometimes let a whole day go by without worrying if I haven't "checked on her to see how she's doing". Perhaps this is a more normal, healthy thing, letting go and letting her do her own thing and just being available if she wants to talk or needs something. I've finally moved out of the position of support/caregiver to just being "mom" again, and that's a good thing,” I told Liz.
The door that opened for Lynn and me (after several others slammed shut, with Andrea's injury) as we slogged through the scary detour and out into the light again has been a wondrous turning point in our lives as we channel our energies into trying to help other people. So many people we know (and so many others that cross our path now--maybe not by accident) are suffering from cancer or battling some other kind of tough challenge and we feel we’re supposed to be part of the support crew/cheering section to help in some small way to encourage/inspire/lend strength, etc. It's as though the detour we were thrust onto the night of July 5, 2000 ultimately gave us a mission. We find ourselves happiest when we can help someone else, even if it’s just in a small way, to try to brighten their day. It's part of those ongoing lessons, helping me try to focus on others instead of myself. Sometimes it's overwhelming and I feel very, very not up to the task, but I am thankful that God gives me new strength every morning.
Liz was battling breast cancer that summer, and doing better. I told her I was glad she was feeling stronger physically. It is so hard to be strong in spirit when we're weak and hurting in body! I am such a wimp, and can't function very well mentally/spiritually when I am hurting or tired. I am truly inspired by people who can keep going emotionally and are strong spiritually when they are hurting in body. I pray that as I get older, tireder and more decrepit the good Lord will grant me the grace to be gracious and not cranky!
Liz had just hosted an 80th birthday party for her dad, before his surgery, and her mom was in seriously failing health. She was hoping her mom could find a peaceful transition as she slipped from this life into the next. Watching our parents grow old and fail in mind and body is hard, but it also helps us gain more insight into the paradox of life and the bittersweet journey we make, and ultimately gives us more understanding and acceptance of the Love we are given that can carry us through.
Our empathy expands as we gain more experience with the cycles of life, with illness and pain, tragedy and death and loss. Liz and I agreed that our friend Laurel's loss (losing her daughter in the same burn accident that nearly claimed Liz’s son) is unimaginable, since we had not lost a child, but our empathy for Laurel is great--and more full than it would be if we hadn't gone through our own hard testing.
Meanwhile, we were having a good summer, here on the ranch. Our drought was over for awhile; we had some good rains and the hills were still green. We had an amazing crop of grass on the range and the cattle were doing well. We’d not had a summer this green and lush since 1976, and we were very thankful for the moisture.