#47 The time you were the most terrified-your knees were knocking, your heart was racing, you could barely stand to be in your own skin.

Traveling in Alaska is so dependent on the weather.  If you were leaving the village you spent hours obsessing over online weather predictions.  The jet from Kotzebue could fly in just about anything but the little planes that went back and forth to the village were a different story.  Which, is good.  It gave you great confidence that they took your safety seriously.  But, when your flight got delayed you were very bummed.

One time another teacher and I had to go to Kotzebue for math training.  We flew in on a Wednesday afternoon and were going to get to fly back to Selawik on Friday.  Friday we sat at Bering air waiting for the afternoon flight to Selawik.  They delayed it, and then they ended up canceling it.  Dejected my colleague and headed back to the hotel to spend another night in Kotzebue.  Saturday morning we went back to Bering air and began the waiting game again.  The weather hadn’t improved that much, and the flight got delayed, but suddenly the sun came out and we were able to hop on the plane and leave.  Usually, the plane went straight to Selawik but the pilot informed us that we had to drop someone off in Noorvik.  No big deal.  We were headed in the right direction.  When we took off we had to go through a bank of clouds.  This part is very scary in a little plane.  You know that the pilot has instruments that let them know where you are but that means very little when you can’t seen anything around you but clouds.  You start thinking about Sweet Dreams that Patsy Cline movie where they come out of the clouds and hit a mountain.  We never really came out of the fog bank so it felt like we were flying blind the entire way to Noorvik.  There was a lot of turbulence and the plane was bouncing up and down.  I remembered thinking “This is it, this is how I’m going to die.”  I didn’t cry or scream.  I just sat there praying.  I thanked God for giving me a good life and I asked that my parents not be too sad about losing me.  All of the sudden the plane did a nosedive and I just held on.  But, we landed.  I almost passed out with relief.  We dropped the person off and then the pilot said that we would be going on to Selawik.  I remember thinking that I should get off the plane.  Sure, I didn’t know anyone in Noorvik but I knew I could sleep in the school.  I didn’t know what to do so I sat there.  We took off and it was much of the same but suddenly we came out of the clouds and it was perfect flying weather.  You could see Selawik gleaming in the distance.  It had never looked more beautiful.  When we landed I couldn’t decide if I should kiss the gravel runway or the pilot.  I kissed neither.  I patted him on the back and thanked him for getting us home safely.  He said, “Well, Selawik is going to be my home now because they closed the airport in Kotzebue.  I can’t go back until it clears up.”  Both my colleague and I offered to let him come to our homes for lunch and a place to crash (this was the village way.)  He politely declined.  When I got back to my house I called my cousin and her family in Kotzebue to tell her that I had made it back to the village.  They were pretty shocked that anyone had made it out.  “We only heard one plane and we figured it was just some nut.”  Yep.  That nut was me.

#48 The difference between the first death you remember and the most recent one.

There were many deaths in my young life that I don’t remember.  But the first memory I have of actually seeing someone who was dying and then going to their funeral was when Joe, Buffalo Wrestling’s number one fan died of cancer.  Joe and his wife Pauline lived for Bison Wrestling.  They were the age that grandparents should be so I kind of thought of them as my Buffalo Grandparents.  (Since my own grandparents were far away in Iowa.)  Joe had gotten sick and was on oxygen.  I remember my parents taking all of us kids over for a visit.  They had a little rat terrier that was so excited about seeing all of us little kids that it started running circles around the house and then it run up into my dad’s arms and peed all over him.  I remember it being one of the funniest moments of my childhood.  When Joe died, everyone was sad.  The funeral was at the funeral home in Buffalo.  I remember everyone wearing the school colors of purple and white.  All the wrestlers and their families were in attendance and my dad was a pall bearer.  Joe had served in the military and they did the military salute.  I remember being shocked how loud the guns were.

The last death I experienced was incredibly sad and painful because it was someone who was very young.  My best friend’s niece died after a long illness.  I took great solace in the fact that during all her time in the hospital, the family had a lot of time to talk, joke, laugh, cry and hold each other.  Everything that needed to be said got to be said.  The memorial service for this young girl was also at Peterson Chapel.  People who visited the family were given seeds to plant “forget me nots.”  There was also a theme about butterflies.  The mother of the girl who died, told me that “Butterflies need to be free.”  It was such a beautiful sentiment.  Now, every time I see a butterfly I think of this girl and smile.  I know that while we are sad that she is no longer on Earth with us, she is free and in the best place there is.