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Dakota’s faith is awe inspiring.  It is a gift I have yet to recieve, however I do rejoice in hers and wonder if it is due to the innocence of childhood or something deeper and more truly special.  For instance, a couple weeks ago Dakota’s mom ran to the store leaving Dakota and her three year old brother with Randall, who was back and forth to his shop.  Ryder began poking Dakota with a fork and Dakota didn’t like it so she called the store and had her mother paged to tell on her brother.  Suspecting a practical joke by her husband, Lee Ann immediately called Randall on his cell phone.  He denied complicity and went into the kitchen to investigate.  Randall even hit redail on the phone and no real number was on it.  Now, tattling is a fairly normal occurance in any household with young children and none of us would have been surprised except Lee Ann had not told anyone which store she was going to and it happened to be the new Alaska Ship Supply which had recently opened.  Dakota is five years old and can not read the telephone book even if the new store’s number had been it.   After she had explained the fork poking incident to her father, Randall asked her how she got the telephone number.

“God told me,” she said.

So far we haven’t found a more plausible explanation.  I, for one, am not going to disabuse her.  Faith is a wonderful thing.  Alas, it cannot be manufactured.  However, I do reap the rewards of Dakota’s faith.   After I got out of surgery she told me she was going to ask Jesus to make me better, but she was going to have to wait a day because Jesus was gone.

“Oh, really?” I asked.  “How do you know that?”

“His sister told me,” she said, without a moment’s hesitation.

“Jesus has a sister?”

“Yes,” she said.  “Her name is Lizzie.”

Hello,

Happy New year.  I wish the very best for you all. 

On December 6th, I fell walking home from work, a gentle controlled fall but my prosthesis slipped down and I broke my arm.  So here I am, after surgery and slowly on the mend.  Boy, what a nusiance, especially since my kids and grandkids will hardly let me take a step without one of them in attendance.  In truth I am so weary of this one handed business, must walk with a stick for balance with my arm in a sling.  However, the stick comes in handy to scare off foxes who congregate outside the library doors where well meaning people think they are cute and throw them scraps.  Soon the daylight will be back and I won’t feel so nervous of them.  For some reaason we have a lot this year and seeing five or six in a group sort of unnerves me.  I feel so vulnerable with only one arm, the strangest thing, since my actual arm has been gone nearly 25 years.  So, this has really bummed me out.  Sorry, I know I should be able to to take it in stride. 

Anyway, enough whining.

Hi Everyone,

The one thing I am worse at than letter writing is blog writing.  At least I can find my paper and pen when I have a minute.  Getting this blog site to come up, upload, and whatever else it does is too much for my 19th century brain.  I truly was born a hundred years too soon.  Randy’s wife Lee Ann is helping me with this and being very patient.

How are you all?  Good, I hope, and surviving the economic upheavals that seem to be never ending. 

When electricity here in the village reached 56 cents a kilowatt hour I turned off my refrigerator and find I hardly miss it.  Actually it is convenient to use the space for extra pots and pans.  I remember at the ranch I always turned off the kerosene fridge when it was cold enough to set jello on the back porch.

October 10th is the third anniversary of Milt’s death.  I have taken my vacation to coincide with this hard time.  I’m doing housecleaning and head cleaning at the same time.  For the first time I am really considering relocation.  This community is not like the ranch but more a cannery town and suburb of Seattle.  I’ve gone so far as checking out real estate in the San Juan Islands.   Stuart Island had a marvelous little storybook cottage I fell in love with.  The island is small, close to the Canadian border, does not have ferry service, electricity, or even one commercial business.  I don’t know if it has a Post Office or not.  It sounds so much like Chernofski except for 157 sunny days instead of 8 that I was ready to pack my bags.  Then the cottage sold, alas, so I must find another place where walking is the norm and livestock comes to the fences to greet you.

Chuck is off on a sailboat adventure and won’t be back here until next April.  He and Randall’s oldest son Killian went halibut fishing last summer for the time of Killian’s life and quite a few more grey hairs for Chuck.

Now Randy and Killian are off to Larsen Bay on Kodiak Island to hunt deer.  I won’t be surprised if Randy comes back completely white haired.

Dakota is doing great now after a very rocky start getting her meds adjusted.  We all hope and pray that this is a developmental thing she will grow out of.

Ryder, who was born the day his grandfather died, will soon be three.  All of us hope that the terrible two phase is just that, a phase.  None of us can keep up with him.  I’ve always said that Killian was my reward for not killing Randy as a child.  Well, Ryder is my revenge on Randall for all the times he scared me to death.  Ryder has no fear or his own mortality, no thought for consequences, and a stubborn nature that exceeds even Randy’s.  And when he wants, no one can catch him.  He is a total darling, takes stitches, scoldings, and hugs, in his stride. 

Annikah Hope, the newest addition, is a beautiful good baby, the first of Randall’s children who did not have fairly serious conditions in the first six months.  So far, all she has had to deal with is a first tooth, which appeared yesterday.

One thing wonderful about here this year is a gorgeous warm fall, and coming after a cold disappointing summer, it is so welcome.  I hope all of you are having such a bonus of good weather.

Best Regards to all,

Cora Holmes 

I had a short article in the Feb/Mar Country magazine about why I continue to live on this island.  On a Saturday night  in February in the middle of the night, in the middle of a blizzard, my five year old granddaughter had a massive seizure and I rediscovered the real reason I wouldn’t live anywhere else.

My youngest son, Randall, calls me at 1 AM from Anchorage, Alaska, where he is stuck in contract negotiations  for the local longshoreman’s union.  His voice is hoarse.  “Get to the clinic,” he says. “Dakota had a seizure. The clinic is trying to get a Coast Guard chopper to medivac her to Cold Bay where a C-130 can pick her up and bring her on to Anchorage.”
     I dress on on automatic and go outside to my car, which I haven’t driven for weeks. It is covered in snow and ice. The wipers are frozen down, but the motor starts, and I chip away at clearing a hole large enough to see through. While I scratch at the ice buildup in the driving snow and bitter cold I think about how impossible it will be for a helicopter to land. I pray one is already on the ground.
     I drive the two miles to the clinic through whiteouts and drifts across the road. There is no other traffic.
     My daughter-in-law waits outside the clinic to take me through the locked doors. “They finally got it stopped,” is all she says. She looks much calmer than I feel.  Inside the small room used an an infirmary Dakota’s other grandparents and aunt hover over her stretcher.  Her eyes are closed.  She does not  respond to my voice or the touch of my hand.   She is grinding her teeth.   I do not recognize any of the three attendants.    “Grand mal?” I ask the room at large.
     “No,” the one male replies.   He doesn’t look up from the drawer he is rummaging through. I can see they are getting Dakota ready for transport. My daughter-in-law fills me in on what happened.  Dakota had been looking at the light in the kitchen of her other grandmother where they were visitinng for the evening when she suddenly collasped and would not respond. They rushed her to the community clinic, which is just down the hill from her house, while her father, John Days, who is the Unalaska Harbor Master, called the police and alerted the medical people to get to the clinic. Even at that they were there ten minutes before any medical personel arrived. The roads were so close to impassable.
     She tells me they injected Dakota with valium and dilantin even before they got an IV started.  Later I find out from Randall they had snowed her with phenobarb. So they did all the right things to save Dakota’s life and protect her brain from whatever was preying on it.
     I want to kiss their feet but limit myself to identifying the MD who will be accompanying Dakota to Anchorage in such terrible weather conditions and thank her for risking her own life for my granddaughter.
     The helicopter lands at the airport. I hear the attendants in the next room calling for the ambulance to transfer Dakota. I hold tight to her little hand. It lays limply in mine. I’m careful not to dislodge the oxygen meter taped to her finger again.
     Word comes that mom cannot go. The chopper is too small. It is a dolphin, a stout little workhorse of a machine.   It has flown in from a law enforcement cutter in the Bering Sea in winds that would knock a man down and visability sometimes no grteater than the hand in front of your face.
     The ambulance arrives. Dakota is transferred to a board, strapped down and covered with two light blankets. “Does she have a hat?” The Doctor asks. I take off my knitted stocking cap and snug it around her head, thankful I can do anything at all. I’ve been in aircraft many times in Aleutian winters. They are very cold. We follow the stretcher outside to the ambulance where Dakota is loaded aboard. Her mother is allowed to travel with her for the five minute ride to the airport. I fumble in my pocket for my car keys, knowing my driving skill does not rise to following the ambulance on the hazardous roads.
     Then around the corner of the clinic comes EMT Mike Sheffield. “Cora…” he says. And I am in his arms weeping on his chest. “I can’t stand it,” I scream.
     He gives me a big hug. “She is in good hands,” he said. This is the man who put my husband on a stretcher when he suffered a massive heart attack on another awful night and then gently lifted his body out of the bath tub three months later. He is young. His sons are younger than my grandsons, yet he has the biggest heart.
     “Come with me,” he says. “I’m following the ambulannce.” He helps me into his personal vehicle whose running board is level with my waist. “First I have to stop at Public Safety for a bag.”
     I say nothing but I am so scared. A bag. Dakota has been breathinng fine the whole time, one of the encouraging signs. Now they are afraid she will need an Ambu bag. I must be grateful everyone is thinking of every p[ossible disaster. We stop at the Police Station and Mike runs inside. His truck is cold even with the motor running. Snow quickly piles up on the windshield. He is gone less than a minute and is back with a huge fluffy pink sleeping bag which he stows on the console between us. “Down,” he says. “Good for forty below.”
     I breathe a sigh of relief. A sleeping bag. “Thank you.” The rest of the trip he spends telling me what a competent doctor Ann is, that she is the one he always takes his own kids to, that he has utmost confidence in her. Before I know it we are at the airport. Mike takes the sleeping bag and disappears. In a few moments I glimpse the stretcher carrying Dakota emerge from the ambulance. She is swathed in layers of down sleeping bag. The helicopter is waiting. It is small and red and looks so insignificant against the wall of snow and night. The truck I am in shakes with each new gust of wind. The transfer is quickly accomplished and then I see my plucky little seven month pregnant daughter-in-law jog across the tarmac in her father’s borrowed float coat and climb aboard. She gets to go after all.
     I watch the rotors speed up and like magic the squat little machine lifts off. It is swallowed in an instant and vanishes into the black and white night.
     Then begins the wait, first for news that they arrived safely, and then for Dakota’s condition. Guarded prognosis turns more optimistic as her coma lessens. She is moved from the pediatric intensive care to a regular ward. Tests reveal no permanent brain damage.
     Due to the dedication of the clinic personel and the bravery of the Coast Guard choppper and C-130 crews my granddaughter still has a chance at a normal life.

Hello to all my reader friends, browsers, and chance visitors who stumble onto my brand new blog. Like most of my good intentions, this method of communication is proving more difficult than I imagined. Please bear with me while I sort out the mechanics of going paperless in the cyber age.

Most of you who visit here already know me from Country magazine and my books, ‘Good-Bye, Boise…Hello Alaska”, and “Dear Cora…”. I also publish fiction under the Legend Books imprint.

So….Today is April 9th, 2009. Snow and ice pellets are screaming past my window. Chapter nine of my work in progress is waiting on my desktop.

My energy tip for today is, save money by immediately pouring your fresh brewed morning coffee into a thermous and turn off the coffee maker.