This Memorial day weekend was one of Joy and one of Sadness. I drove to Syracuse Kansas for my 20 year class reunion and spent Saturday with 15 of my classmates. Syracuse is a small town in Western Kansas very near the Colorado boarder. My graduating class only had 35 students so to get almost half of us there I thought was great. It was a great joy to see them all. The best part of the day however was seeing my classmate Chris Englert Sukach
on Skype from Afghanistan. For me to be able to give her a little glimpse of our reunion while she is over serving our country was the greatest honor I could have. The smile on her face will stay with me for the rest of my life.I must say it proved to be a harder task than I had thought it would be. I had procrastinated and not downloaded or setup a Skype account until about 8pm on Friday evening. I sent her a message on Facebook and asked her what time she thought might work for her on Saturday. When I woke up Saturday I checked my messages and she had sent me one back saying to try for 10:30am (Syracuse time). The trick was at 10:30am the parade for alumni and old cars was going to be starting and our class was riding in the parade. I didn’t let that stop me though. Thanks to classmate Kyle and his Verizon wireless I had my laptop all set up to take along with us in the parade. I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to visit with Chris.
I’m sure the community thought I was nuts riding in the parade with my laptop in hand. We went all through the parade and Chris never logged in. I was a little bummed but told myself I had tried. We then went to the school for the picnic. When I sat down to eat, something told me to check my email on my blackberry and sure enough Chris had sent me a message saying “Just finishing up. Be in my room in about 15 min” but the message had been sent about 45min ago:( I ran to the car, got my laptop, Kyle got the Verizon wireless and I logged in just in case she was still there and sure enough she was!!!
The next trick was getting a Skype connection long enough to say a full sentence. It got rather frustrating but the short glimpse of Chris and her smile made me keep trying. We finally were able to string enough connections together that I was able to allow her to see about 6 other classmates and even her father and brother. I looked like a crazy woman carrying my laptop around the picnic and talking to it. I’m sure I made Chris dizzy but I was trying to find our scattered classmates before I lost connection! I actually sent out a few apologies yesterday as I pretty much just blew some people off as they didn’t realize what I was up to.
Chris was able to show us around her small little hut that she shares with 6 people. She was whispering as she said some of them work days and some work nights and she didn’t want to disturb them. Her surroundings were a little difficult to make out but I clearly saw she did have a towel, a mirror and a big gun. She said that it “makes me a bad ass.” If you know Chris, it’s really hard to imagine her with a gun.
I hope Chris knows how much it meant to me to help bring her our class reunion. We are so proud of her and want her to be safe. She brought me more joy in that short little time span than I could have ever imagined. Thanks Chris! When our conversation ended my laptop battery was down to 9 minutes. Perfect timing!
SADNESS
I drove back to Texas on Sunday and on my trip home I got a text from one of my best high school friends, Kim. Kim didn’t make our reunion as she had something way more important to attend to. You see her mom’s Ovarian Cancer returned a few months ago, stronger and worse than before and was now terminal.
I remember Kim telling me back in 2008 that her mom, Julie, had beaten Ovarian Cancer when I told her my mom, Sherrie, had lost her life to it. The survival rate for ovarian cancer is 30.6% when not found early so I was so excited to hear her mom had won the battle. Little did we all know that the cancer would come back and take Julie’s life. She fought a long hard battle and suffered much pain but on Sunday that all ended and she joined my mom in heaven.
I feel great sadness for the Collins family and will keep Kim and her family in my prayers. I hope and pray that one day we will find a cure for cancer so that no one else has to lose a mother. I hope Kim knows that when I walk 6 days and 120 miles this year that I will be walking for her mom, Julie. We will find a cure! Love you Kim.
