Sandra-Kay Austin

Ever had ‘what if” thoughts stab you in the heart?

Any one, Anywhere, Any time

I threw a glance up at the single star brave enough to still be shining in the dark sky above the streetlight-less road.  Thank goodness the storm isn’t here yet. The soft rays of yellow escaping through the front windows of the modern single-level home ahead beckoned to me like a lighthouse.  Scrunching farther down into my warm jacket, I adjusted the beam of my flashlight and picked up speed.  Tomorrow night might be a different story. With Environment Canada’s warning that the Pineapple Express will bring severe winds and heavy rains. Funny how something that is happening so far away can affect us so much.

A smile came to my lips when my ears caught wild scuffling on the other side of the door. Then complete silence followed, which amplified the thud of my discarded shoes dropping onto the hard garage floor. I turned the key in the lock and flung the door open.   Seeing that I was at eye-level to and just inches away from a pair of bright eyes, I chuckled.  “Yeah, it’s me again.”  The dog responded by thrusting a wet nose in the direction of my face.  Ducking out of reach with a laugh, I climbed the two steps to the door, patted the top of his sleek brown head, and cuddled him. After that, gently nudging his thigh-high shoulder, I pleaded, “Let me past so I can turn on the back lights. I promise we’ll go out and play before I feed you.”  I padded toward the back of the house, listening to the pitter-patter of the New Zealand Heading as he followed me across the hardwood floor.  Suddenly he charged by me, pounced on a ball, and bounded back with it in his mouth. I laughed and shook my head. “We’ll play with one of your outside toys. You sure know we play when I’m dogsitting, don’t you?” Dogsitting. What a great word for scaled-down babysitting. My left eyebrow lifted. Wonder what it says about a society where even the dogs have babysitters? And more food and toys than most people in the world?

Wrapped in the wild night’s wet black shroud late the next evening, I once again hurried in the direction of my lanky brown-and-white friend. Let him out. Tuck him into bed. And then you’re home. The wind made a sound like water tearing across sand and my eyes rose to the towering evergreens close by.  Please Lord, don’t let the batteries on my flashlight die, I breathed, realizing that I couldn’t even distinguish the forest from the sky. I gave myself a mental shake. This is ridiculous.  You only have to go two houses and you know what’s here. Nothing has changed. You’re on a paved road with no traffic, your neighbour’s lawn is on one side, and there are trees on the other. Soon you’ll be back in your own cozy little house, snuggled into your easy chair again watching the end of the TV show. So what if the storm is here? It’ll pass and tomorrow everything will be back to normal.  You are so blessed!  Just think of the earthquake victims in Haiti.

A horrific slide show featuring earthquake survivors started to play in my mind.  Bloody faces and moving arms sandwiched between concrete slabs. Huge shocked eyes belonging to gaunt children wondering aimlessly through mountains of rubble.  Weeping filthy people desperately searching for loved ones.  Weary people trying to survive without even food or water after having survived with not much more for years.  Real people caught in a real-life nightmare. Tears in my eyes, I pushed the images from my mind but facts sprung up take their place.  A 7.0 earthquake hitting right before dark. Hospitals, several orphanages, schools, government buildings, the International airport, communications systems, all destroyed.  33 aftershocks, fourteen of which registered 5.0 and 5.9.  A guestimate of 200,00 dead.  Hundreds of thousands of injured.  An estimate of over 2 million people now homeless in Port-au-Prince and surrounding area.

An icy hand gripped my heart.  Haven’t our scientists been warning us for some time to prepare for the same thing? They’re always saying that the two stuck tetonic plates off the West Coast could let go any moment and a massive earthquake will follow.  What if the earthquake had happened here in Canada instead of in Haiti? What if it had happened to me? Would I be wondering around in silent shock or screaming for my missing loved ones? What if I had no water or food? Could the unthinkable that is happening in Haiti actually happen here? The stench of my neighbour’s and friend’s dead bodies turning my stomach.  My dead loved ones being carted away by dump truck to be buried with 80,000 other people in a mass grave. And what if I were severely injured?  If I made it to one of the few remaining places where I could get medical help, would there be any supplies left?  Or would I, like many injured in Haiti, be treated with cardboard splints and already-used latex gloves, or have no painkillers when I must endure an amputation performed with a vodka-disinfected hacksaw?

Life is fragile.  Every day we live is a gift from God. Are we thankful for it?  Do we remember that natural disasters can happen to anyone, anywhere, at any time. This one happened to some of the poorest people in Haiti.  But it could just as well have happened to me in one of the wealthiest countries in the world.  And some catastrophe could happen to you too.  Then, who will sacrifice to give money to reputable relief agencies so they can help you? Who will pray for you and your rescuers? Who will provide the means to rebuild your home and your life? It’s often said that ‘to whom much is given much is expected or required’. Right now, it’s time for those of us who have much to be *’good Samaritans’ to Haiti.

* Luke 10:29-37 The Holy Bible

Sources for information on situation in Haiti: Wikepedia Encyclopaedia and CNN

PS:  I’m giving as much as I can and I hope that you are too.  Below are links to just a few reputable agencies working in Haiti that will use your money wisely:

MCC,  World Vision,  Crossroads, and  The Salvation Army

Sometimes we all need a new way of looking at disturbing things. Here’s a peek into the surprising way I received “new eyes” to see something.

Frying Pan to Fire

It was as if I’d been injected with a drug that had instantly paralyzed my muscles and left my mind in a mute scream.  Every ounce of my attention was focused on the mock rattler sunning itself on the flat rock a few feet away.

“Sandy?” dimly registered in the perimeter of my mind but, trapped in my solitary world of terror, I couldn’t respond. “Help me!” I cried out silently to the only other human within miles.  Suddenly, my husband’s strong hand pulled me backwards and the evil spell was broken.  Every muscle trembled and sweat poured from every pore.  I gave him a shaky smile, right before the urge to glance back overwhelmed all reason.

The six-foot long rock snake hadn’t moved at all.  Sporting a rattler’s markings, its gigantic size and missing warning rattle gave it away as a harmless counterfeit. My huge eyes zoomed in on the black diamond pattern on the buff coiled back sparkling in the afternoon sunlight.  If it had been any other creature, my heart would have swelled with appreciation and I would have paused to drink in its unique beauty.  Instead, fear sent me scrambling away in the opposite direction, transported back to the dreadful day that had changed these ordinary reptiles into horrendous monsters.

Once again tall grass swished against my eleven-year-old legs as I hurried along the skinny sunlit path behind our house, laughing and following my younger sister to who knows where to do who knows what.  She stooped and I watched as she straightened with a foot-long green ribbon of snake in her hand.  Not sure that I liked its unhappy squirms, I halted.  Her mouth twisted in an evil smile and she stepped toward me with the creature extended. My heart beat faster. Then, she was flying down the path at me! I turned and ran for my life. If I can just make the house. My knees turned to jelly the second the door slammed behind me.  Safe! I stumbled across the room, waiting for my heart to slow.  Just after I realized that my mother was at the neighbour’s, a creak from the door spun me around. No!  You can’t bring it inside! My sister’s black eyes gazed directly into mine, and then, she charged right at me!

With a shriek, I bolted for the only room with a lock.  The click from the closed bathroom door lock brought a surge of relief and I clung to the door, feeling my knees go weak.  Then, movement near the floor on the other side of the door drew my eyes to the crack.  A small oval head appeared near my right foot!  Uttering an unearthly scream, I leapt backwards and up onto the toilet seat.  Calm down. It can’t get you here, an inner voice whispered, as my sister’s gleeful giggles announced the writhing arrival of its green body.  I threw a glance at the window.  You’d have to get down on the floor to reach it. My stomach turned over.  I can’t. Listening to the diminishing sound of my sister’s footsteps, I saw my tormentor slither its length away from the door. Do it.  Jump down and get away, everything within me urged.  My muscles refused to move. I could taste my terror as my captor began to slide slowly toward the base of the toilet.  Time froze and fear drew me deeper and deeper into its dark pit, where even my mother’s voice near my ear failed to register when rescue arrived.  Fear had a name.  And it was, “Snake.”

For years snakes haunted me, appearing unexpectedly to spoil the day and living on in my dreams at night.  This is silly.  I have to do something, scampered through my mind after such encounters however, with no money for professional help, my only option seemed a prayer to avoid the awful things.  Our dwindling chance meetings afterwards helped but desperation eventually drove me to pray, “God, I can’t live like this! Please do something!” Little did I know that the cure for my fear would seem worse than the phobia.

My cure began when our long search for rental housing ended that spring.  “I’m so glad the cottage has a deck!” I bubbled, peering out at the Straight of Georgia from the large wooden one stretched across the back of the simple cottage.  “And the gardens!  That part’s almost like a tropical jungle.  And the owner said there are over thirty roses.  I’m going down to look at them.”  A song of joy in my heart, I strode out onto the long rectangle of lush grass. All of a sudden, a pencil-thin green body slithered away from my feet. As soon as I could move, I bolted for the deck. You’ll be fine, I lied to myself. Just watch out for it. The constant state of nervousness that followed exploded into full-blown panic a few days later when my neighbours told me that my back yard contained a hibernaculum, a nest where snakes gather to spend the winter. They were right and my private little paradise became my private hell.  I opened the drapes on the sliding glass doors in the morning and found snakes nestled against the glass.  They slid off my front porch when I walked out the front door. They rose in the grass like periscopes when I ventured onto my front lawn.  And my dog’s excited barks in the back yard constantly pointed out the squirming prizes that his paws were holding down to show me. The grass and garden soil moved. And fear threatened to consume me. God had responded to my prayer all right!  He had yanked me out of the frying pan and thrust me into the fire!

“You don’t want to see this,” I heard my husband say, a few years later, as we were walking hand-in-hand down the country road near the home we’d bought in Central Vancouver Island. My eyes automatically went to the pavement ahead of us, where two foot-long brown garter snakes lay twisted together like strands of rope. Oh, isn’t that interesting, popped into my mind. So that’s how you guys make babies. I glanced both ways down the empty road and looked back with a frown.  But don’t stay there too long.  You’ll get hit.

Change of perspective eh? Oh, I’m not saying that I want to run out and hug a snake! But now I see snakes as God intended me to, simply as other creatures that He made and loves.  Exposing me to their exit from the hibernaculum was like immersing me in a healing fire.  It burned away the fear and allowed me to see reality. What about you? My fear was named, ‘Snake’. Does your fear have a name?  Remember, God is only a prayer away.

Front Garden At Cottage

Back Gardens At Cottage