The Undertoad

In one of my favorite novels, The World According to Garp, John Irving's main character has a son that mishears the word "undertow" as "under toad." The child imagines that there is a giant Toad living under the ocean and that he occasionally creeps up and grabs people. For the rest of Garp's life, whenever he or his wife have a bad feeling, whenever they sense danger, they darkly joke about feeling like the Under Toad is around.

All this week I had bad things happen to me and to people around me.

We lost half of a grant that funds a good chuck of my hours, and I learned I would go from 40 hours to 25 hours a week July 1. Just like that.

My friend Holly hurt her knee while playing with her brother who was visiting for her graduation. She shattered it in three places and need major surgery. So, in 4 days time, with her mom's help, she packed up everything she owned and moved back to Indiana. Her goodbye party was Friday. I will miss her so much.

On Saturday the woman I do care giving for had to be admitted to the hospital. Tonight she was moved into ICU and the outlook is very grim. I can't go see her because its family only now at this point, though I am getting updates. It's just so sudden. It's so weird. On Saturday before the ambulance came she was asking me about my boy troubles. She asked me how my cats were adjusting to the new place.

I even could have saw her this morning but I didn't. I stayed home from work because I was sick and more than that, on Sunday, at the same moment I was sitting in Christian Education class asking why God didn't save more people, my brother was 8500 feet in the Cascades on Mt Stuart when suddenly he stepped into bad ice, couldn't dig in with his ice pick and fell head over feet 800 feet. Before I say anything else I will say he is OK!!!!

His team said it took less than 15 seconds for him to fall, but Sam said it felt like an eternity. At first, before he lost his pick, he was trying to dig in to stop, then he said he was tried to slow himself down from sliding with his crampons as he was picking up velocity going down the hill. Then he hit something and started to flip going head over feet. At that point Sam said knew he was dead and said his only thought was for it to be over quick. All he saw was sky, snow, sky, snow. He slammed into a group of rocks, slid some more and stopped 4 feet from a cliff with a 1500 foot drop.

Anyway, when I woke up with allergies I decided to stay home and tend to Sam. He sprained both wrists, both ankles and badly bruised his hip. He also has cuts from where he hit the ice. His climbing helmet is completely smashed. But he is ok, thank God.

My mom freaked and she is coming to visit next Monday thru Saturday even though Sam is fine. Part of it I think is that Sam refused to go to the ER after this because he doesn't have insurance and I think mom needs to see for herself that he is ok. Hell, I needed to see for myself that he is ok, and I live with him!

it will be good to see my mom.

anyway, as Garp would say, the Under Toad has been around, but God is still merciful, maybe in the way only God can be. I am so glad my brother is ok.