It's Christmas in our Hearts

It's Christmas in our Hearts

 

 

Sitting here on my couch, my foot on the ottoman because I had surgery last Friday, I've had ample time to reflect on Christmas and the year that is almost past.

 

Lynda and I fully expected to be talking about the sequel to "Guam Adventures - Mystery of the Cave".  "Guam Adventures - The Darkened Light"  waits in our notebooks and on Google Drive for completion.  Have we been slugs and not worked on it this year?  No.  It is nearly half finished.  We just hadn't planned for life to get in the way.

 

Following our big book signing last year, Lynda learned soon after returning home, that she has cancer.  I wish I could say she "had" cancer, but that is not the case.  She has had chemotherapy, 2 surgeries, and now is undergoing radiation therapy.  She visited Dave and me in July after completing chemo.  We worked on the book, as planned, but mostly just hung out and enjoyed each others' company. 

 

I have made 3 trips to Indiana this year.  Unprecedented for me.  Lynda is the one who usually does most of the flying.  But this year has been my turn.  Two days before my surgery I returned from Indiana after spending many days and nights in the hospital with her.  As difficult as it was seeing her in pain, fighting the cancer with every breath, I was blessed to be there. 

 

While at the hospital I was so impressed with those who took care of her.  The nurses were amazing!  Not only were they smart, professional women, they were caring, loving, and funny.  The doctors put up with the endless questions.  If they didn't know the answers, they would find them.  One young doctor showed Lynda's husband Glenn the results of every time her vitals were taken.  Explaining every detail.  Knowledge can be very comforting.

 

Lynda is currently at a nursing home in Kokomo, Indiana.  She is undergoing physical and occupational therapy in between the radiation treatments.  It's all very complicated.  Our hope and prayer is for her to be home in a couple weeks.

 

Christmas is the time when families gather to celebrate the birth of our Savior.  It is difficult to be here in Arizona, far from any of my family, save my wonderful, generous husband, Dave, who has encouraged me through out this year to go be with my sister.  But I have felt the presence of our Savior more this year than I have in many years.  I have talked to Him continuously.  Why would He care what I have to say?  And why am I always asking Him for something?  Not literally some "thing", but for His continued help and blessings on Lynda and all of our family.  I am just a speck among all of the other millions of people who need His help.   He does care, though.  I've never been more sure of that.

 

Next year, be ready to go to createspace to order "Guam Adventures - The Darkened Light".  Lynda and I will revisit Jo and Susan and get their story told.  I'm sure you will want to buy it for your 8 to 13 year olds, or just for yourself.

 

In the meantime, have a blessed Christmas.  Celebrate the birth of our Savior.  His love is endless.

 

 

Terry

 

By the way, if you'd like to send a card to Lynda her address is:

Lynda McCroskery
Sycamore Village
2905 W Sycamore St,
Kokomo, IN 46901

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'll take fiction

In "Guam Adventures - Mystery of the Cave",  Jo and Susan  are almost constantly together; sitting next to each other on the plane flying the Wilks family to Guam, taking their first tentative steps into the jungle with their Mom and little sister, Graci, being dive-bombed by bats in the cave at Tarague Beach  with their friends Mike and  Ryan Mulligan.

Lynda and I were similarly together much of the time when we were kids.  Was it because we just loved hanging out together and didn't have any friends of our own?  Of course not. The two of us shared a room most of our lives, fought over everything under the sun, as siblings do.  As young women we married military men and lived apart for way too many years to calculate.  When both of us moved to Indiana, it was with joy that we began spending as much time together as possible ... because we wanted to.

Jo and Susan, altough created from the essence of our lives, are fictional sisters. However, we wanted to create our story around the two girls and didn't want to lose our readers by adding too many characters.  The same holds true in the 2nd book in our series, "Guam Adventures - The Darkened Light". 

Our fans might ask, "when is 'The Darkened Light' going to be available?"  Hmm, that's a good question.  We have made an extra large dent in the new story.  In fact I wrote a new chapter last week. Hang in there.  We will finish it.  This year?  Maybe.  We hope so...

Last October when Lynda came out to visit, we had our book launch for "Mystery of the Cave" at Davis-Monthan AFB.  We did a book signing and talked to some interesting people, including some Vets who had served our country well.  It was a priviledge for us to listen to their stories.

Lynda headed back to Indiana after spending 3 weeks with Dave and me.  We always love having her here.  A few weeks later, after Lynda went to see her Dr. and was put through some grueling tests, we got the scary news that Lynda has cancer.  Heck, I knew she was having some issues, but did NOT expect cancer to be the prognosis. 

Now what?  Well, I wish we were Jo and Susan and someone could do a re-write and edit cancer out of our lives, out of Lynda's life.  Alas, life is not a work of fiction.  It is stark reality.

For those of you who are stunned by this news, it is almost unreal to all of us Wilkersons, as well. It's now that I wish I was still in Indiana so I could pop in just to get a look at my sister, maybe sit and chat about politics, Dancing with the Stars, our grandkids, the weather, nail polish, age spots,  getting old, being young, happy times, sad times.

 Lynda is doing well.  She is into her 4th (and hopefully last)  month of chemotherapy.  Some days she is shaky getting out of bed or standing from a chair.  There is the ever-present nausea and constant quest for something she can eat that doesn't taste like metal or dog poo (not that she's ever eaten dog poo, but she can imagine).  With the exception of our brother, Mark, God granted us Wilkersons with approximately 1 quadrillion hairs, so, although she pulls out handfuls every day, Lynda still has enough to brush.  It
may or may not all fall out. I offered to send her some of mine, but she declined. I don't think she'll need it, anyway.  If she does end up bald, what the heck, bald looked good on our Dad, his Dad, Uncle Joe, and brother Mark looks a-okay with his shiny dome.  Besides, it may grow back the strawberry- blonde she would accept as her reward for months of using the lint roller on everything. 

This coming Thursday morning my brother-in-law, Glenn, will send out the first text message of the morning "We're at the hospital.  After the blood test results come back we'll know if Lynda will have chemo today". (Glenn has been a godsend to all of us during this time.  He always keeps us informed and has been a rock for Lynda.) She's been good to go all but one time, which was a couple weeks ago when her red blood cells were in hiding and the white ones were way too small.  So, she got to take a couple weeks off, only to resume with the dreaded "double dose" she's been getting at the beginning of each series of chemo.

I pray for Lynda every day.  Oftentimes I awake during the night and immediately start to pray.  My big Sis is never far from my thoughts.  It is the same for all of us Wilkerson siblings, Lynda's kids, nieces, nephews, friends.  God has been good.

In a couple months we are hopeful Lynda will get the 'all clear' from her Dr and will fly out to Arizona to hang with Dave and me before she has to go back and have surgery.  I'll still go to work every day, but my evenings will be full of talking and laughing and, maybe, some crying with my Sis.  We will write.  We will dig into Jo and Susan's new adventure.  Maybe we'll get lost in the lives of two fictional sisters who resemble us, but whose biggest concern is solving the mystery of "The Darkened Light".


You haven't read "Guam Adventures - Mystery of the Cave", yet?  Holy cow!  Hurry to creatspace.com/4008187.  Get your copy today!!!

We were "Children of the 60s"

In the 1960s life was much different than it is today.  The world was still recovering from The Great Depression and World War II, believe it or not.  It really did take that long for our nation and the world to get back on its feet. 

Nobody we knew really had a lot of money.  Most of our family and friends lived  pretty conservatively.  The United States was (and is) the land of opportunity.  Hard work and big dreams ruled.

We were just kids, Lynda and I.  We attended the same school in California before we moved to Guam where we, again, attended the same school.  Our father, Bill, wore an Air Force uniform to work everyday.  Mom, Joanne, was raised in a very poor family and appreciated her new life as a military wife.  She adored our father and he adored her. They cherished us kids, although we were a handul at times.

On television we watched "The Donna Reed Show", "Leave it to Beaver", "Bonanza", "Captain Kangaroo" and "Howdy Doodie". Most of the time, tho', we played outside. 

In December, 1960, our family took the 36hr flight to Guam.  I'm sure it was difficult for Mom to leave her family in California, but she never let on to us kids.  She was ready for a new adventure.  Our sister, Traci, was only 19 months old when we made that long journey.  There were two stops along the way.  The first was Hawaii and the second was Wake Island.  Guam was like Disneyland to us.  We dressed in shorts, t-shirts and zoris, even at school.  Tarague Beach was amazing!  White sand, palm trees, coconuts, hermit crabs and sand castles.  There was a way cool cave where tables were set up for the squadron picnics. This cave is featured in "Guam Adventures - Mystery of the Cave".

From Guam we moved back to California, but this time we were only an hour or so from Los Angeles and Mom's family.  Sadly, her father had  passed away while we were on Guam, but her brothers and her sister were there.  We didn't move into military quarters right away, but lived in a community outside of Riverside called La Sierra.  Lynda was in Jr. high by then and she and I started going to separate schools.  We had a little brother, Mark, who was born on Guam and little sister, Kim, was born before we moved into military quarters at March Air Force Base.

We were all about music in those days.  The Beach Boys, The Beatles, The Supremes, The Temptations and too many others to name.  We learned the words and harmony to all of the most popular songs.  Singing was like breathing, a gift we inherited from our parents.

Lynda and I both entered high school in the Moreno Valley school district. When I was a new freshman, just discovering boys and getting used to being in school with the big kids and Lynda was a junior with a steady boyfriend, we got the news that we were moving again.  This time it was to a cold, snowy place ... Goose Bay, Labrador.  Lynda thought it was the end of the world and I was none too happy about it, either.  I'm not sure how the other 3 kids felt about it, I couldn't hear anything outside of Lynda's crying and carrying on.

The first day of school at Goose Bay was a shock.  We were in temporary billeting on base and waded through several feet of snow to board the school bus.  (In fact, on our way to McGuire AFB, where we would catch the plane to Goose Bay, was the first time we witnessed snow falling from the sky.  It was pretty cool.) 

Our time at Goose Bay AFB turned out to be one of the biggest blessings of our lives.  Everybody knew everybody and we made life-long friends.  Our parents allowed us more freedom within the bounds of curfew.  School was more a social gathering to us (as our grades reflected), which extended to the youth center with its weekly dances, the ski slope, bowling alley, gym, theater and the basement of friends' homes. Lynda and I are both married to wonderful men we met there.  

Dad retired from the Air Force in 1971. We lived in Indiana at the time, and Dad was stationed at Grissom AFB.  Life would never be the same for Lynda and me.  We were kids of the 60s.  Adulthood arrived with the 70s. 

In my opinion, the 60s was the very best decade in which to be a kid.  Our parents didn't worry about predators, violent tv shows or video games, too much sex on screen when we went to the movies, which we did a lot.  We respected our elders, held our hands over our hearts every morning when we recited the 'Pledge of Allegiance' at school, we built tents out of blankets draped over trash cans in the carport, played hopscotch, hide-n-seek and 'Mother May I'.  We ran across the street on pavement so hot it took our breath away.  We rode the shuttle bus to ballet lessons and the bowling alley.  We crossed our hearts and hoped to die, and meant it.  We also both experienced first kisses and fell in love in the 60s.

In "Guam Adventures - Mystery of the Cave", Lynda and I wanted to convey a sense of innocence and endless possibilites.  In "Guam Adventures - The Darkened Light", we will once again lead readers through the jungle, caves and mystery that surrounded Jo and Susan on the island of Guam, when they, and we, were children of the 60s.

You can own your very own copy of "Guam Adventures - Mystery of the Cave".  Go to www.createspace.com/4008187.  Join your friends in reading the adventures of Jo and Susan.