The Garden of the Gods

While splitting wood today, (that is how most folks heat their homes here - it is a terrible pollution problem in the wintertime) and drinking coffee from my Garden of the Gods mug, I was thinking about how this September day was so different than last year this time. This morning (Sept 23rd) we awoke to our first snow on the mountains! Down in the valley where we live, it was only a rainy day. But I was thinking that last year this time we were in Colorado Springs.

Our primary reason for being there was some continuing training with Entrust, but a close second to that was for medical reasons. Last summer we discovered in the most painful fashion you can imagine, that Brenda was/is an epileptic. She had a grand mal seizure (technically this is a tonic-clonic seizure) for the first time ever in her life! I don’t know if you know what happens during a grand mal seizure, but literally the brain freezes up resulting in a total, dead weight, instantaneous fall. The results for Brenda was: three broken vertebrae in her spine, five broken ribs, four cracked ribs and one terrified husband.

Of course our medical situation in the Balkans is frightening on any day and we were actually in Greece when the whole gig happened. Long story short we (Brenda primarily) had planned for a long period of time to go to this Entrust training in the Springs. Her medical situation was so murky at that time, that it alone almost became the reason for visiting the States.

It was a difficult time for us. Brenda had literally not been alone for three months at this juncture, because we had to guard against another big seizure. She loves us all, but after not being left alone for a single second for 12 weeks, she was ready to take a large weapon, and hasten all our departures for the eternal kingdom.

So in response to that, I made a critical error. I let Brenda go to Florida and see her folks alone, but primarily to see the doctor. I once again underestimated how much Brenda hates doctors and what she will do to avoid them . . . and ignore them. She did go to the doctor, but when the doctor told her that basically she should be in a body cast (with three broken vertebrae), Brenda’s response was to not tell anyone what the doctor said, and to get on the next flight back to Macedonia. That is precisely what she did. I told you she was supermissionary.

While we were in the Springs, we visited the Garden of the Gods, and I got a coffee mug while there, as I usually do. I have coffee mugs from most of the places we have visited. We have lots of mugs. I have lots of memories. Those mugs always remind me of those places and those events in life. The Garden of the Gods was wildly beautiful, but it has a feeling of uneasiness to it as a result of all the unknowns that we were going through at the time.

Now one year later, Brenda is 3 inches shorter, has a fair amount of pain, but is enjoying her work to the max. So I guess I will keep splitting wood to warm the house in the wintertime and we will plow ahead with the work here. There certainly is plenty to do.