Crud in the Coffee Pot

Everyone needs a little adventure in their lives.  I am not talking about the adventure of not being able to stop off at Starbucks and having to get your java from the office coffee pot, or heading down the nearest freeway off ramp onto a road you have never explored to escape the standstill traffic caused by rubberneckers watching someone change a tire.  I mean real adventure where you get out of your daily rut and leave your personally imposed safe zone and do something exciting and unusual that involves a little risk that you don’t know what the outcome will be going into it.   A lot of times going on an adventure means packing up and heading out on a big trip but sometimes you can find adventure as close as your own back yard.  Adventure waits just outside your door, you just have to let go your inhibitions, be willing to take a little risk and try something different.

  I have definitely had my share of adventure in my own backyard on the Cape Fear because there were times when risks were taken and outcomes were unknown.  I can hear in my mind to moon the current a thousand times over and over and still sometimes lean up river and flip over in a broach.  Local outfitters won’t rent their equipment to anyone on the river if the water level is above what they consider “safe” at 3 feet on the gauge, but I have paddled my familiar 10 mile run in less than an hour when the water was running at 5 feet.  I went once at 10 feet in my 16’ sea kayak, dropped over what looked like a perfectly innocent wave only to see nothing but sky and then water as the hole on the other side pulled  me backwards and sucked the whole boat down.  In a panic I popped the skirt a little too early swallowed a whole lot of water and was just lucky that it spit me, the boat and my paddle all out at about the same time in the same place.  I don’t mind saying that it scared the bejezus out of me.  Anyone who tells you that they have never been scared on the water is a liar. 

 Ladybug has had her share of broaching, wet exits and getting hung up in strainers, all things that make a memorable adventure on the river.  Her idea of fun does not involve rocks as they tend to attract her like magnets.  She has had so many bad experiences with rocks in the water that it sometimes affects her ability to successfully navigate around any kind of obstacle that has a degree to difficulty to it.  I think she sees what she needs to do to get around it but she panics in the moments leading up to it and in doing so misses that small window where she can successfully maneuver around.  Fear is a good thing sometimes because it can keep you out of trouble but in other situations that same fear can lead to inactions that only further push you into peril.  Rocks may be her mortal enemy and chop and waves are definitely on her least favorite list, but I have seen her make open water crossings in waves that have kept grown men standing on the bank yearning for calmer waters.  She will tell you really quickly that it scared her to death, but it hasn’t stopped her from going back out in unfamiliar waters in less than perfect weather.  I have seen that excited look of accomplishment on her face far more often than she will admit after particularly difficult or hairy paddling excursions.  It is one of the things that keeps her going back for more.

Adventures don’t always have to carry you to within an inch of your life.  Some of the biggest adventures Ladybug and I have had paddling together were on the calmest of days with nary a rock nor wave in sight.  We have paddled among the wild horses at Shackleford Banks and the Feral horses at the Rachael Carson Reserve.   We paddled out into a lagoon with hundreds of other paddlers and baked in the sun all day long to watch some people lift off on their own adventure into outer space.  We paddled across a lake with 900 feet of water below our hulls to a long forgotten town accessible only on foot or by boat.   We paddle into a pod of dolphins that excited us so much we completely forgot to pull out the camera.  Pictures are not always worth a thousand words, it is sometimes best to leave the camera lens covered and just watch things unfold with your own two eyes.   We took over 200 pictures between three of us as we sat on Lake Drummond and watch a sunset.  None of the pictures we brought back can ever really convey to anyone what we actually saw or the emotions unleashed as Laura, Kim and I sat alone on the lake in our kayaks unable to distinguish where the Earth ended and heaven began. 

Adventures don’t always have to involve sitting in a cockpit with a paddle in hand, I have had many adventures in my life far removed from the water.   As we have prepared for what again will be an adventure of a lifetime, it seems though that water has been a big part of our life for the better part of the last year and a half.  Some of the places we have been and things we have seen we will never visit again or be able to see again.  They are unforgettable memories made on other adventures of our lifetime that we can never truly convey to those who have never experienced anything of the like. 

Get off your tush, and start living life.  There is way more to it than a 9 to 5, bills in the mailbox and cars jammed on a freeway.  You only have one life to live and when it is your time to depart this world I would really feel sorry for you if your last thought was “What an adventure I had seeing that guy changing the tire on my way to drink crud from the office coffee pot.” 

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We Can Remember and Celebrate

Cancer is not something that we like to talk about.  Unless it is happening to them or someone close to them, most people would rather put the subject in the back of their mind.  Cancer is not a subject though that our family can ignore.  Far too many of our kin have been touched by and affected by cancer.   Some of us have lost parents or grandparents, some have lost aunts, uncles and cousins and some have lost best friends.   Some have even lost children.

My grandmothers were both strong women, full of life that worked hard every day taking care of themselves and their families.   They were well known in the community and gave as much of themselves to friends and neighbors as they did to their own family.  They knew no strangers and they offered and gave freely to anyone without asking anything in return.  To a young child growing up they seemed invincible.  But no one is immune or invincible when it comes to cancer. 

I still remember my mom telling me her mother had cancer.  I can’t tell you the day or even the year anymore but I know exactly where I was and what I was doing when she called out to me and my brother from the back door of our house and sat us down out on the deck outside and told us that Mama Gladys was sick.  I don’t remember the exact words or even If she said she had cancer, but we knew from what she was saying that it wasn’t good.  She fought long and hard but in the end there was nothing anyone could do.  My parents moved in with her and lived back and forth between our house and hers just before the end.  Luckily my brother and I were old enough and responsible enough to spend some time at home by ourselves.  It was our way of helping out and the least we could do as we helplessly watched my grandmother wither away and finally succumb to the disease. 

I don’t remember when or where I was when my parents told me that my dad’s mom had cancer.  I was much older but still living at home when my Grandma fought the beast.  Working with my dad at the time, we went by her house at least once a day and sometimes more often as things got closer to the end.  When it got to the point that she needed to stay in a hospital bed we set it up in the back family room so there would be more space for her caregivers to get around her to work and so more family and friends could sit and fellowship as we comforted her and each other.  I was sitting in a chair just at the foot of her bed as she took her last breath.  Her battle over she left the frail shell of what she had become and journeyed home where she could finally rest.

You can never really know what it is like to go through cancer unless you have the disease or you are a caregiver of someone who does.  Being there day after day and seeing how even the smallest of things we take for granted like changing clothes, going to the bathroom, feeding yourself or even taking a sip of water becomes a struggle or is impossible without help.  You can’t fully understand the feelings or emotions that go along with the battle, unless you are locked into a fight to the death or holding a loved one’s hand as they swing their sword against the disease.   I can see why some people don’t even want to think about the subject and keep it behind closed doors in the dark closet of their minds.  If you don’t pay attention and stuff too much in a closet though, sooner or later it is bound to tumble out on your head when you open the door.

In April of 2009 as I walked past that overstuffed dark closet, the door sprung open and I was knocked to the floor when my wife and best friend of 25 years was diagnosed with cancer.  I was flooded with memories held deep in the dark recesses of my mind of the battles my grandmothers had fought years ago.  Fear and anxiety take over and begin to steer you down a road of uncertainty.  You grip the wheel with all the strength you can muster as you try to keep from careening off the cliff.  Finding out someone so close to you has cancer is something I don’t wish upon anyone.  We were so lucky that through early detection, new techniques in cancer treatment that come from years of research, and the grace of God that Kim never had to go through what my grandmothers did, and will soon be celebrating her third year as a survivor.   As a survivor though you have to be ever vigilant not to let down your guard lest the beast will sneak up and attack when you least expect it.  Until there is finally a cure then no one is safe and we must all stand watch poised ready to fight back.

Kim’s victory over cancer is not the only successful battle that our family has to celebrate, there are many others in the ranks of our close and extended family and friends that have gone through their own battles and are still here to celebrate another year in their life.  But just as we celebrate victories, we again have to mourn loved ones lost until that day when cancer is but a memory and we can finally put down our swords.

We can’t bring loved ones lost to cancer back, but we can remember and celebrate their lives and the lives of everyone that is going through or has gone through the disease by doing what we can to bring awareness and help others to never have to go through what they went through.  In just three short weeks Kim and I along with 17 new found friends will begin a journey of remembrance and celebration as we do our part to fight back against cancer.   Follow along with us as we make this journey and help us to celebrate the lives of those who have battled cancer.

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