My dear dad lived his final days in a beach house which was my mother's great love.She was Irish and being able to hear and smell the ocean was in her DNA. Dad was from inland Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Dutch and all that implies. He had nothing for the beach, but he got great joy from making Mum happy. Therefore the retirement in Ipswich, MA.
She was dead but he didn't want to leave her house. too many good memories. The thing was, however, that almost all his neighbors went south for the winter and the house got hit pretty hard by storms being on a hill facing northeast.This time, at least, the roof survived, mostly.
About being stubborn, we had plenty of warning but he refused to leave. Even my brother or sister's house would have been much safer. So, I stayed with him and prepared for the worst. I brought up all the firewood I could find. I filled jars and the tub with water, I cooked some things in case the electricity went off, found candles and flashlights. I made a pile of blankets and hammer and nails near the fireplace, thinking that if we had no heat, I could make a tent room to keep him warm. He went about his business. He was around 90. Not too much fazed him. "If I die, I die here." Turned out to be true but not during that storm. My inner self was kind of screaming "What about me?" I wasn't ready to die.
But I almost did. Of cabin fever. How did those wagon train people do it? But the electricity survived and therein came my survival. The storm was plastering all the windows (all four sides) of the house. It was dark inside. We couldn't open any doors. Between the wind and the snow piling up in front of the doors, we were trapped.
This was a week or two before Christmas. I called my son in Seattle to bemoan my fate. He quietly suggested that I open my Christmas present which was sitting under the tree. I did so. It was a big box of Godiva chocolates and a pirate copy which he had bought in Thailand of the unreleased last season of the Sopranos. My life made a 180 degree for the better. I went downstairs to the VCR and had my little orgy.
When a neighbor came by about 30 hours later and noticed that our doors were blocked up to the roof, he dug us out. The snowplow came in a bit and I got my car out with a lot of help from whomever I could find.
I drove home to another seaside town. My house was much more immediately on the water. I had to let down and raise the stairs from my deck to the beach depending on the tides. I knew the tides were going to be wild, and I was excited to get home and watch. The back side of the house had almost no widows, the ocean side, nothing but. The house had been a horse barn for quarry horses for hundreds of years so I never worried about it surviving storms. It always did. I opened the door and was just stepping in exclaiming "Holy Shit" when the mail man tackled me from behind and pulled me away from the house. "What the f***?"
He pulled me along to a protected place where we could view the wild seas. I saw what he was concerned about. In the area next to my house where they used to load the granite on ships bound for England, there were giant stone walls made of such stones. The blocks of granite were 12 feet long and four feet deep. At that moment they were being tossed around, right in front of my deck like beach balls.
I went down the street and drank coffee and chatted the storm stories until things calmed down. There had been some terrific damage done by those granite monsters, fortunately not to my house. Respect.
So, I conclude that there are mysterious means by which God can save me during a blizzard. Firstly with a package from sonly, then by someone shoveling the door open, then by the rude postman who saw grave danger before I did. Sometimes I think I miss the drama and the beauty of nature in New England, then I get ready to go have a swim and think that I don't need that anymore in this life.
No comments:
Post a Comment