March 23, 2012,
Early this morning I walked with Paula, my neighbor to the community garden down by the park. Not very far. We went to see what her garden looks like and to water the plants. She’s very excited about her new project. I love to see my neighbors come together on community projects. I live in a subdivision set in a rural setting. When I first moved out here 12 years ago, the only businesses were a small gas station with 2 pumps, 3 churches, and a great bar-b-que place down the road. Now we have a small grocery store, a new gas station with 10 pumps, an assisted living home, a Chinese take-out, a beauty salon, and 2 Dollar General. I hear we are getting a Sonic and a check cashing place. The pastures that bordered our homes are now wall to wall houses. We have 1 new elementary school and 1 new middle school. I hear a new high school will be built in the corn fields behind our development. The city has been knocking at our back door with new development projects for some time now. Development is inevitable. Further east on the farm to market road that passes our main entrance, a movie studio was built. The area around the movies studio was rumored to have been slated for an amusement park on the scale of Disney. Thank God that deal fell through.
Since the fires that burned 1,600 homes in Bastrop and 26,000 acres last September, I am hoping developers will be discouraged from building in that area. The Bastrop fires were nothing like I had ever seen before in this area. Whole neighborhoods were wiped out. Bastrop is known for it beautiful trees and forests. The Bastrop State Park was almost completely destroyed. As the fire raged, thousands of fire fighter from all over Texas and the United States tried to save the area. Some Bastrop residents had just a few minutes to evacuate their homes. Austin residents, Bastrop residents and residents from surrounding towns could just stand by and watch it all burn. Some families displaced from their homes were living in their cars in the parking lot of Walmart. This fire burned for 2 months. Life is slowly getting back to normal. A few residents are rebuilding. No one wants to leave this area. Many of the families that live in Bastrop go back generations.
Once residents were allowed to return to what was left of their home sites, volunteers were allowed to go in groups with them to help them clean up. I went in with a group one Sunday morning. We gathered in the parking lot next to the convention center, given our assigned home sites, then driven out to the sites. As our cars made their way through the charred pine forests, I was shocked at the damage. Charred trees, homes, fields, cars, trucks, farming equipment, and debris littered the whole area as far as you could see. We drove through neighborhoods with people living in tents, cars, trucks, and any other kind of temporary shelter because they had nothing left to live in. Burned out dog houses, children’s toys, play areas, baby swings, television sets, and mobile home frames were all that was left. The fire is alleged to have started when a 45 mile an hour wind blew a power line into the trees that lined one of the neighborhoods. The area has been in a drought for some time, so the sparks easily ignited the trees. From there the fire spread.
My crew pulled into a home site where a man and his dog were waiting for us. His wife and children were staying in a hotel in Austin. His home was completely burned down. Nothing remained to salvage. All we could do was clean the debris, piling it up on the side of the road for FEMA to take it away. We all wore masks over our noses and mouths, heavy books, and work gloves. We worked with shovels, wheel barrels, and a small backhoe. The work was grueling. We worked until the site was cleaned, then moved on to another area. At the end of the day, we all went home tired, thirsty, and hungry. However, we all knew we would return to continue the clean up effort. These people were our neighbors. Their homes could have easily been our homes. I laid awake in the middle of the night for days waiting to hear the siren from the sheriff’s car or the fire department, telling us to evacuate. In the morning, I would always looks to the east of my area to see how much of the black smoke was still in the sky. Now, 6 months later Bastrop is still and will be rebuilding for some time. The historic downtown area was spared. The quaint little shops and restaurants are still open for business. The pristine Colorado River still hosts kayaking, fishing, and swimming. This is still a beautiful area to visit.
After Paula and I walked home from the community garden, I drove to the little bar-b-que restaurant down the road for some breakfast tacos. I have been eating at this restaurant since I moved here in 2000. The place is not fancy. The walls are cinder block, the floor cement, ceiling fans help keep the inside cool. They have a patio in the back for parties. The people who work there have been there for years. The food is fantastic. Customers come from far and wide to eat at this place. On any given day, you can see farmers, ranchers, bikers, cowboys, state police, county sheriffs, pastors from the local churches, school teachers, city workers from Austin, retired folks who live nearby, families with children, you name it. The atmosphere is friendly and casual. After I finished my tacos, I had planned to drive to Austin to run a few errands but I was too tired. My energy level is slowly diminishing with each passing day. I am able to do one or two light activities a day, usually in the morning. Then, I sleep the rest of the day. I will have surgery late next week. I am not looking forward to it. I know that once they open me up, the cancer may spread like wildfire. My situation is serious. So, I wait with anticipation to see how the quality of my life will change after next week. I am in amazement at how my cancer spread this rapidly. My arms, shoulders, legs, sides, and back ache a little more each day. I can no longer lay on my sides to sleep. They ache too much. My babies walk on me and over me in the middle of the night. Before I would just hug them and send them off to the bottom of the bed. Now when they walk on me, as pets do, because thy love us, their weight is a little more than I can stand. I still pray for a miracle. The Bible had numerous stories about how some people just touched the coat of Jesus and were cured. I always ask Jesus that if I can’t have a cure, maybe He can send this cancer into remission for a while. I still have things I want to do. My friend Nancy from San Antonio seems to think that the Lord feels I have done enough and is calling me home to rest.
I have been reading, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Messages from Heaven. A woman prayed to the Lord for two more years with her aging mother. She didn’t want to put her in a nursing home, so she and her husband move her to their home here in Texas. Exactly tow years to the day to the hour, to the minute that this woman asked the Lord for two more years with her mother, her mother passed away. I am not concerned about how much time to ask for as much as the quality of whatever the Lord wills. At any rate, it will be tough to say goodbye to this life. I have had a blast. Looking back, I wouldn’t change a thing. Life’s been good.
Eventually, I will not be able to keep up with this blog. I would like all of you to keep on living, greet each new day as a blessing from God, thank Him for that day and all the days ahead of you, love your family and friends (even the ones who are mean to you), be the bigger person in the face of defeat, and the humble person in the face of victory, pray everyday, love your pets, adopt a pet because so many of them are abused, abandon, and helpless, adopt a child if you can, grow a garden, write a bucket list and start checking things off. in other words live like you mean it.
