Karen

The first anniversary of my wife’s death was in October this year. As of this writing, we have been married for 45 years, 3 months and 6 days. Honestly it’s only been 45 years, 3 months, 5 days and I don’t know how many hours. Karen was my best friend. She understood me, even my weirdness of how I think about some things.

Karen was my helper. She was willing to sit in the car or truck and do whatever I asked, as I would be either under the hood or under the car itself, working. She was my encourager when I would come across an unsolvable problem that must be solved.

In late November, we would usually take our part Labrador - part Rottweiler dog, Char, and drive to Rialto Beach near La Push on the coast. On the way, we would stop at 7-Cedars Casino for a great buffet dinner. Even though there were lots of signs about not taking food out of the restaurant, Karen would always smuggle out the best prime rib she could get, just for Char. She would say that Char needed to eat. So, if that was OK, then why was I accused of spoiling Char by buying her a Mc Donald’s hamburger? Oh well. Between the two of us, Char ate very well. Anyway, at the La Push area, Karen and I would walk along the shore and Char would play. Karen really loved the coast in November. She would call it watching the angry waves. We would also stop at Lake Crescent.

In December, Karen would go, or I should say, Karen used to drag me down to the fancy music hall in Seattle to hear the Messiah. While she would sit back and enjoy listening, I would sit back and nap. I couldn’t understand it. All I heard was 2-1/2 hours of Tarzan calls. I got bored.

One day we found a YouTube video of one of the songs from the Messiah. This video had not only the words, but also the words were color coded for base, treble, choir, etc. They also went up and down with the frequency. I was totally amazed at what I saw. Do people really hear all that? I couldn’t believe it. But everyone I asked said they could, in fact, hear all of it.

Karen knew about my unusual hearing problem, that I don’t process sound normally.  But for most of my life, I didn’t understand what it was.  Hearing aids were useless to me, and we were told that as I got older, my hearing and sound processing would get worse. Karen and I talked it over. After a long talk, Karen and I decided to go to school and take a year of American Sign Language together.  That’s just one way Karen supported me in life.

I said that Karen understood my weirdness.  Sometimes, she organized weirdness for me!

For example, one day, while on our way to the mountains on highway US-2, we stopped at the rest stop just outside of Index. I wandered off by myself and left Karen talking with some guy. When I came back, I found that the two of them had decided to dress me up in a Bigfoot suit for Groundhog's Day!  Of course, I agreed to do it.

I remember that when I was a small boy, my mom would tell me to watch for cars before crossing the road. And that’s exactly what I did on Groundhog’s Day. Dressed in a Bigfoot suit, I watched and waited for a car to come along on US-2.  Then I would run across the highway, just in front of the car! I had so much fun that day.

Over the years, Karen and I visited many great places including the Desert of Maine, a privately owned 20-acre area of glacial sand in Freeport, Maine.  We saw both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, as well as the Gulf of Mexico. We checked out dinosaur footprints in Texas, stood on the rim of volcanoes in Oregon and elsewhere, and went into caves in California, Tennessee, and Arkansas. Together, we hauled a pickup truck load of books to what was once called Nookta Mission, (now called Esperanza Ministries) so they could be used in different libraries on the west coast of Vancouver Island. We walked on a glacier near Banff, Alberta and did so much more.

We had a lot of fun together. I miss Karen.