Lord, We Believe; Help Our Unbelief
In the wake of a second hailstorm, our pumpkin patch was seemingly obliterated. The rest of the gardens rebounded fairly quickly, and the work of watering, weeding, and participating in local farmers' markets continued unabated. Dan's intention was to pull out the pumpkin plants as soon as time allowed. Days quickly melted into weeks, and before we knew it, those plants had grown large and lush again, their tattered leaves hidden beneath new growth.
"They won't produce anything," Dan told me, understanding the unspoken hope I was feeling as we walked through the gardens one evening. "The hail took out the blossoms," he explained. "There won't be time enough for them to make new ones and bear fruit before winter."
The plants continued to grow, easily reaching four feet tall, with massive leaves. Our barren pumpkin patch soon became the talk of the neighborhood, with passers by stopping regularly to comment on it's beauty. We decided to leave the plants, whose unusually large size we attributed to their lack of fruit. All of their energy was directed into growing leaves. We could enjoy the beauty even without the promise of a harvest.
The patch became a favorite hiding place for the younger kids, who could easily disappear beneath the monstrous plants. It was sometime in early August when one of the children first reported finding a "baby pumpkin." Soon it was like a daily egg hunt, with all of the kids wading as far as they could into the jungle of twisting vines to look for more. "There's at least a dozen good-sized pumpkins out there," our eldest son reported. "We'll at least have enough to decorate for fall."
Mildly surprised, Dan was clearly pleased that we would have something, however small, to show for our labors. The kids and I love all things autumn, and setting up displays of straw bales, cornstalks, pumpkins, and gourds has become an eagerly anticipated annual tradition, second only to finding and cutting our Christmas trees.
Deeper into the Valley
The busyness of fall soon overtook that of summer, and the kids and I focused our attention on harvesting and preserving produce and getting ready for the new school year. I had accepted a position teaching middle school humanities once a week at a local hybrid school, so my mind was even more occupied than my hands. It was stressful.
In the midst of all of the other things going on in our life, Dan and I were also into our second year of defending ourselves against a lawsuit brought against us due to the ineptitude and/or dishonesty of our former insurance agents and brokers in California. Without the protection of the liability insurance policy for which we had paid for nearly three years, we found ourselves paying out-of-pocket for our legal defense. We had a five-figure bill due at the end of September that amounted to nearly half of Dan's annual income from his regular job. Yes, it was unbelievably stressful.
September 10, the day before the first day of classes, Dan gave me a somber heads-up. A hard frost was in the forecast for the week, with temperatures dropping into the 20s. Almost apologetically, he told me that I would have only two days to harvest most of the garden if I didn't want to lose it. It was hard not to be discouraged as my well-laid plans for a smooth, pleasant first week of school went out the door.
September 11, the first day of school, after having gotten a solid two or three hours of sleep, went by in a blur of caffeine and adrenaline. By the time the kids and I got home, around 6:00 pm, we were ready to drop.
September 12, the first day of formal teaching at home was off to a rocky start. In order to pay our attorney, we had grimly accepted the necessity of taking out a loan against our home. The appraiser was due to arrive mid-morning, and I was flying about in a panic trying to restore some sense of order and cleanliness to the house. The kids were doing their best to tackle their assignments without much help from me. The appraiser arrived around 10:30, and I spent about an hour walking in through the house and around the property.
At some point while I was outside, Abbi came out and told me that our little Rose (11) wasn't feeling well and had a terrible headache. I told her to give Rose some ibuprofen and have her lie down in my room until I could come inside. When the appraiser finally left, my heart heavy with the reality of financial toll the lawsuit was having on our lives, I headed back to the house.
I had just stepped onto the front porch when Abbi, flung open the door and said, with great urgency, "Mom, Rose needs you right now. Something is really wrong with her."
I found Rose lying on my bed, her arms and legs oddly contorted, quietly moaning and clearly agitated. In that moment, every other concern in my life disappeared.
Praying silently, I began to assess her condition. I attempted to reposition her limbs for comfort, and placed a damp cloth on her head. "Mama, I'm scared," she whispered.
I began to ask her about her symptoms, what hurt and where. As she struggled to find words, I saw the fingers of her right hand tightly contract, her forearm eventually drawing up against her little body, stiff and slightly contorted. Stroking her slender fingers, willing them to relax, I continued to ask her questions. Her words came haltingly, then became garbled and disordered. Her eyes widened in fear as she heard herself.
"That's not what you meant to say, was it?" I said, struggling to remain composed. She shook her head, tears slipping from the outer corners of her eyes.
Then the right side of her face went slack, her eyelid drooping and the corner of her mouth visibly turning downward.
"Smile for me, Rosie," I whispered. With great effort, the left side of her mouth turned upward.
"Sweetheart," I whispered again, "Please don't be scared, but I need to call for help."
Tears now flowing, her face ever more contorting, Rose managed to say, "Mama, pray." And I did.
And so, within twenty minutes of the appraiser leaving, emergency responders were in my room, an ambulance in my driveway, and a life-flight helicopter in the field next to the pumpkin patch. And nothing else mattered anymore.
After a few hours in the ER, and four more stroke-like episodes, each worse than the ones before, a small dose of a major opioid finally brought relief. Rose was eventually diagnosed with complex migraines, which in rare cases, can present with stroke-like symptoms. And while much about such migraines is unknown, and they often hit without warning, they are often precipitated by periods of stress, anxiety, lack of sleep, and chronic dehydration. It was a major wake-up call.
Our life was out of balance and Rosie was our barometer.
Nearer and Nearer Still
Out of balance or not, our life is our life, and it just keeps going on. As much as I wanted to quit everything that day, I couldn't. I had classes to teach. I had my own children to educate, to feed, and to nurture, a home to manage, a husband to love and help. And lawyers to pay.
The reality of the coming frost did not change, and all of the kids, including Rose, were determined that we save as much as possible. And so, on Wednesday, September 13, we pulled in everything we could from our really big, little garden, everything that the coming frost would damage. When we awoke on Thursday morning, reluctantly emerging from our cozy beds, we looked out to see a crystalline shimmer on the world outside.
The pumpkin patch was nearly surreal, with each massive leaf glittering with the facets of a thousand diamonds. Once the beams of the morning sun crested the nearby mountains, we knew that the final, crowning glory of our pumpkin plants would quickly wilt into shapeless masses of rotting, soggy leaves. We oohed and aahed for as long as we could stand outside before heading off to begin our day.
