The life story of a snow leopard - Part 3

[pardouncia]

I hadn't realized just how long this had grown.


Talking about all this tech has skipped past some other events of note. A local woodworker who sold antique furniture he repaired and refinished needed help during a regional sales weekend. It was the “Trail of Sales” that was held in the area each year. They’d print a map in the newspapers of each town where businesses were taking part and make a big day of it one Saturday in the beginning of the summer. John was the owner, and he needed help that morning. My older sister was supposed to work for him as a means to make some extra money, but she didn’t end up going. So my mother called and suggested I do so. I wasn’t interested, but I did it since I felt obligated. I’d met John before, he was a friend of the family, and my sister had made a commitment. So I felt like I needed to go in her place.

After that initial Saturday, John asked me to help him out with other things. I went from working a day or two a week to five or six days. It started as only a few hours per day, but in time that would increase. He had me do simple jobs, sweeping and cleaning up around his shop. It had been so long since I’d done much outside of my home, ever since leaving school at 15, that I really lacked basic life skills. So he began to teach me in a Mr. Miyagi and Daniel sort of way. I picked up little things, from the basics of working for another person to myriad skills that come in useful otherwise. I learned basic home repairs, electrical work, etc. Meanwhile, his sister, whom also worked in his woodshop on her own projects, began to teach me to drive. My mother had made sure I hadn’t learned, and here I was way past the age where I should have. We’re all the way up to 2004 at this point, if I’m keeping track of time correctly.

She started out teaching me in an old GMC Sonoma pickup with a standard transmission. I think she realized my lack of aptitude, or coordination, when I backed into a stack of hay bales. We were out on her farm as I first started to learn. That would prove to be a fortuitous idea on her part. I can’t imagine being on actual roads while so inept. She did eventually have me drive more outside of the farm, but my limitations in dealing with the clutch proved too trying. She decided I’d switch over to learning in her car with an automatic transmission. Things went much more smoothly from there. We spent time on country roads going forward, and I’d eventually get my license in summer of 2005.

This coincided with various other life events. In 2004, our mother had been working locally to help support her household, but she wasn’t happy working so much. Early on, after our stepfather was kicked out, she’d worked with me to create her own eBay business. We sourced classic cars and worked as a proxy to sell them online. Many people lacked the skills to do this themselves at the time, so we’d get a commission on sales. This went rather well for a while, but she was inconsistent in her own ways. So she didn’t stick to it and went on about getting a day job. Instead of trying for something more logical, she found work with someone she’d known in the water well business. So she was working as a roughneck, and that’s a lot of hard work for anyone. As always seemed to happen with her, she pushed herself to give 100% to an endeavor for a while, and then abandoned it. Such was this case here.

A lot of the work was done in or around the nearby city where our stepfather was living. So she began to stay with him some nights just so she wouldn’t have to drive back and forth, she’d say. One day she just didn’t come back. My sister and I didn’t know what had happened really. She had been staying more and more with her husband, but she was still working. Her boss even called to ask about her. Evidently, she’d just not gone back to work. That was very strange. So she gave up, and now she was living with our stepfather full time. We were old enough to be on our own, but it was still strange.

It was January of 2005 when I told someone I’d known for years that I had feelings for him. This was someone I wasn’t supposed to have feelings for, and so we would have to go on as if nothing was said. I couldn’t help but tell him the truth at least. I was better able to handle having feelings for a guy then, but that they were unrequited for entirely understandable reasons gave me a new type of pain. This time it was one that would linger.

By the time I was ready to get my license in 2005, it actually happened in that city where my mother and stepfather were living. I’d come up to have some medical tests my mother insisted I get done. She’d neglected her children’s health for years, and now she wanted to do something right? It was a surreal situation. I needed to stay in town for tests, and I still lacked my own vehicle or a license at the time. So I couldn’t go back and forth without a ride. My boss began to think I’d abandoned my job. To be fair, I didn’t know what I was doing. I was still very naïve for my age and didn’t know how to say no to my mother. Besides, I thought she was finally trying to do something right as a mother, to help me.

I got a referral to see a specialist, and all of this cost a lot of money. Some programs existed to help with financial aid, but a lot was just piling up in medical debt. She said she’d pay this as she was my mother, and she wanted me taken care of.

I had some scans and scopes of various types, which were less than enjoyable experiences. This required me to stay overnight more and more. I was afraid I’d lost my job. I felt trapped without having my own vehicle. So while I could, I looked for one to buy with the little money I’d managed to save up. This ended up being online, and that wasn’t the greatest of ideas. I was just coming of anesthesia at the time. It wasn’t a good vehicle, but it was mine. With it I was able to take the driving test there in the city, and I got my license. I was older when I got my license than anyone I knew, but at least I’d done it.

During this period of time, I spent time on the phone with someone very close to me, the person I’d realized I had feelings for, even loved, earlier that year. Since I was away from home and didn’t have a laptop, it was the only way I could keep in touch. Such was still unrequited, of course, but we were close friends. He was my lifeline through this year.

Visits to see the specialist hadn’t helped much, other than to increase debt and find out there might not be any answers. He’d tried a drug with documentation stating it was only cleared for women at that point, yet somehow I was a test case? I don’t know for sure. He never told me. Another more common medication also did little if anything to help. In the end, he told me, “You might just have to learn to live with it.” I won’t go into my problems here. That would expand this, and it’s already getting long enough. I live with the issues even now. Life goes on. We get used to things.

I returned home, leaving our mother and stepfather behind. Fortunately, I was able to pick up my job where I’d left off. I doubt many bosses would have allowed that. He was trying to help me though, which was a positive aspect. He hadn’t hired me for his benefit but for mine. I think I’d disappointed him a little by disappearing for a month like I did. I didn’t know what I was doing at the time. I thought seeking medical help was wise, and there was always my mother telling me how much sense it made to wait and stay another day, since I’d have to come back the day after for more tests or a follow-up visit anyway. How this spanned over so much time I don’t really know.

And so the story moves forward. At some point in the time he’d been building up his online business, our stepfather purchased a small convenience store. I don’t know how he managed that. I think it must’ve been a foreclosure deal. He was always so scattered with how he dealt with life. He was a jeweler, but now he was working at a convenience store. Our mother was able to wedge herself into this and pretty much took over the business, while he was free to work at home with his online business and jewelry. As long as she kept paying his bills with the profits from the convenience store, he was happy.

This probably began during the same period as I was there for the medical tests. I’m having trouble remembering specifics. 2005 is a foggy year. My mother also took it upon herself to sign up for credit in my name for the new business. Because I was still living in her house, with my sister at the time, she made me feel like I was obligated to help out. I’d already spent years working for free, first for her husband, then for her, and I’d been working and contributing to paying for bills since she’d relocated. But here we were. Wrapped up in her way of thinking, which wasn’t the most logical, I acquiesced. She’d already signed up, I just had to confirm it with the creditor. How strange that was. Thinking back on it, I can’t believe she did this. Both she and her husband had ruined their credit, filing for bankruptcy in years past, around when the fire occurred, to deal with their own outstanding debts. So she needed my still-good credit. She argued that the business needed more finances to run well. It takes money to make money. I was naïve. I’ve already admitted this.

One more thing I remember specifically about 2005 is that it was the year we lost our family dog, Oliver. My mother wasn’t any better about animal care than she was caring for us, having dropped almost all motherly care when she married her current husband and embarked on the sudden trips across the country. We’d gone from having regular dentist appointments and doctor visits for annual checkups, to the point where we were 12 and 13 or there around, to nothing at all. Our pets stopped receiving preventative care, going to the vet for vaccinations, or anything else. Oliver would suffer for this. In retrospect, I believe he had heartworm. The way in which he deteriorated would seem to indicate this. I didn’t know what was going on at the time. He’d seemed meek and unhappy for a while, but I was ignorant enough not to realize it was something serious.

I pointed out how bad he was on Christmas Eve of that year. I even brought him in the house, which was not allowed as he was an “outside” dog. Being brought up as I had been, this was common. People still have purely outdoor dogs in places like that. Farm dogs are especially common, as well as “barn cats.” I feel bad for the cats because I know their lives are much as our cats’ had been when we were on the farm. They weren’t vaccinated, they were allowed to breed unchecked, and their lives were almost always cut tragically short.

Due to the time and holiday, the vet clinic’s answering machine stated there would be an emergency charge to see any pets. This would be a flat rate of $100 just to get in. That didn’t include whatever treatment was needed. My mother opted not to do this. Of course. I had little money at the time. Most of what I made working for John and doing freelance music mixing for the dance studio went toward what bills I managed to accrue thanks to terrible money management practices I’d learned from my mother. This was in tandem with having to help pay for things at her house where she no longer lived. I was only making a small amount of money each month. $100 would have been beyond my capacity at the time. The terrible example she set where she had neglected taking care of us as well as not doing basic pet care for so many years also meant I had a skewed perspective on how one should approach these situations. At the same time, my younger sister had begun working for the local animal shelter, mostly dogs, that was a no-kill facility. She’d befriended the daughter of the couple who ran it. So she just happened into working there. Yet it was all new to her at this point and not something she had learned enough from to equate to helping us with our situation here.

We insisted we keep Oliver indoors overnight, on a towel and watching over him. My sister and I would take turns. We tried to get him to eat, drink, anything. He seemed so ill. I felt bad as I realized his claws were overgrown. So I took it upon myself to trim them. No one had told me the possibility of cutting too far. I found that out the hard way. It didn’t seem to hurt him, but he did bleed, and what a mess that made. I felt awful. If only people would learn how to take care of their pets, and then pass that on to their children. My sister lambasted me as she’d evidently learned about trimming a dog’s nails from her work at the shelter. Little good that did after the fact. I was able to quell the bleeding in time. It required constant application of cornstarch and gauze, as I recall. I’ll probably never forgive myself for this. He was dealing with enough as it was. Here I thought I was doing something to help. Live and learn? If only he could have lived to see me learn.

Our mother made us put him outside before we slept. It was far into the a.m. hours. Instead of putting him outside in the cold, we put him in an unfinished addition to the house. Our mother and stepfather had some skuzzy guys build on to the house out into the backyard, only they never quite finished. It was a shoddy job to say the least and probably needed torn down and started over. It did, however, provide shelter and slight warmth when compared to being outside.

I went to check on him throughout the night. I couldn’t sleep. At 5 a.m. Christmas morning, I went to check one last time before trying for sleep again. Oliver had not made it through the night. Later that day, we buried him. I don’t remember anything else about that Christmas.

It was 2006 when I broke my nose. I was working for John helping him and another man clear out some things he had in storage. The airport rented out hangers for storage purposes, and he wanted to consolidate his stuff so he wouldn’t have to pay for the unit anymore. There was an old air conditioning/heating unit. It weighed several hundred pounds. The darn thing took all three of us to pick up. We were loading it onto the pickup when my foot got caught between the planks of the wooden palette it was sitting on. This meant the other two moved when I could not, and everything went tumbling down. My face smashed right into the grated surface, crushing my nose. As blood poured from my face and I began to get woozy, they discussed whether I needed to go to the hospital. The bleeding wasn’t showing any signs of stopping, so John decided it was best to take me. At this point, I was getting to the stage where shock sets in and just felt sick and disoriented. The ER staff made me stand and wait while they worked on admitting me. Why do these places always take time for paperwork while you’re in dire need of help? Oh, sorry, just stand there while we get all this taken care of. Sure, I’ll do that. No worries. Meanwhile, the world was going black.

Somehow I made it to the hospital bed. I had a basic examination, was gauzed up to slow the bleeding, and taken to have a CAT scan. Fortunately, a doctor who only came once or twice a week from a nearby, larger town was there and able to treat me. She wasn’t there immediately, but after a while she was able to flush things out, pull the serrated skin back together, and stitch me up. There was no surgery or correcting for the damage. That was to wait for an ear, nose, and throat doctor in the city where my mother lived. I had to get through the weekend first. It wasn’t a fun weekend. I seem to have a tolerance for opioids as well. They did little to help with the pain but did serve to make me nauseous.

Monday came, and I was taken to the specialist in the city. There I had anesthetic to help with the pain as the doctor used a metal tool up my nose to snap things back into place. That was the extent of correction for the damage. No further surgery was given. This was the most insurance would cover. Fortunately, John had insurance that handled this sort of situation. It was far better than nothing, as I’d have been out $800 for the ER visit alone, but the limited care I received was still not what I’d have hoped for. I wanted to go back to have things done correctly. The doctor said he could do reconstructive surgery. This would also help with my now-restricted nasal airway. Yet this was considered elective and not covered by the aforementioned insurance. I tried to set up an appointment regardless, but the receptionist informed me that they did not accept patients without insurance. She told me they could not help me any further. Go away now. I wish I were joking, but that was the experience. It was rude, dismissive, and demoralizing. This is why my nose was never fixed correctly. It’s a jagged mess to this day, leaving me with breathing issues that impact my sleep, as well as compounding allergies and sinus infections.

It might have also been in 2006 when I caught a nasty flu during the winter. It ended up turning into bronchitis and was one of the worst experiences I remember in my life. I was sick for a full month. I think it started as the flu and turned into bronchitis, followed by catching another cold. My immune system had been through the wringer at that point. I was lucky to have the boss I did, or I’d surely have lost that job then. I’ve never worked anywhere since that I could have missed that much work.

It was also 2006, around Halloween of that year, when our 19-year-old cat, Marmalade, became ill. We took him to the vet, but there was nothing that could be done. He’d had kidney issues for years. That often comes with age with cats. Our mother wasn’t keen on having him treated once we discovered this, so we continued to care for him as always. I look back on these events with regret. If only I’d known better or been more judicious. Due to him being in kidney failure, the only option was to put him to sleep. “Humanely euthanized” sounds so benign. If only we treated our animal companions like we do humans. Would you humanely euthanize your child? While there are options, such as dialysis or kidney transplant, these aren’t available for pets. So you’re forced to make tough decisions. Christmas, and now Halloween down. What trauma could visit us to tarnish another holiday? The loss of pets was becoming rather disheartening. Marmalade was a jerk, but he was our jerk. We’d had him for almost as long as memory went back, considering our age. That is, where my younger sister and I were concerned.

Sometime between 2005 and 2007 there was a fire in the trailer house where our mother and stepfather they lived. She was gone running the store while he was home. He’d been taking a shower when he smelled smoke. He got out and saw there was a fire. I don’t recall what caused it. He barely made it out of the house with his sandals on and whatever he was wearing, half dressed. It was pretty much a total loss. Everything he’d built up since being kicked out on the side of the road, everything he owned, including items my mother had brought to him from our house, was gone.

Red Cross and his church helped some. They were put up in a hotel for a while. The church did far less than Red Cross, and he was dejected over this. He thought they’d care more. Well, that is asking a lot. They took a small collection to help, but realistically what do you expect? People think church will take the place of everything else in helping them get back on their feet in life. Most don’t have the resources to do much in situations like this. At least, anything short of the mega churches with crystal pulpits. Not that those would help. That is, other than their preachers get rich.

Our stepfather recovered more quickly than you’d expect, purchasing some of those foreclosed or dilapidated homes you see on “we buy houses” types of ads. He bought two places in need of major work, unlivable in their current conditions. He’d move into one. Our mother didn’t want to do this, living and working on fixing up the tiny, tiny house while running the store. So she opted to stay in the hotel. Red Cross wasn’t going to continue paying for it. They’d already been moved to a smaller, cheaper place at one point. Now, she was responsible for paying for it on her own.

One flaw in all of this was her need to pay all of her husband’s bills as well as her own, keeping enough liquid assets to maintain the store itself, and having enough left to pay her bills for her house. Yes, all the while they had a house back in our small hometown. None of this made much if any sense. Our stepfather had to know she was using money from the store to support her own house. So it’s baffling why she thought he wouldn’t realize if she just kept paying for everything else. She also ended up having unexpected expenses due to his son, our stepbrother. He’d grown up enough to move out and begin college, but he wasn’t good with money or practicality. He wanted the big bachelor apartment and nice, new pickup. It was used, but it was newer than what most kids his age could afford. He took out loans. He bought new furniture on credit for his apartment that was already more than he could afford. His scholarships for college depended on his keeping his grades up, but due to his lavish lifestyle, he had to take a job. This prevented him from focusing on his education like he should have been, and he lost his scholarships. One thing after another happened to the point where he’d been begging his father for money, guilting him for how things had gone between his parents and how his father had never been there for him growing up.

Of course, this meant our mother had to help whenever he asked. She’d send money to cover rent or truck payments, what have you. This overextended her finances further. Later, I would learn my stepbrother also asked his uncle, our stepfather’s brother, for money on multiple occasions. So he was relying on everyone to help him out. The overextension was too much for the store, and our mother started missing credit payments. This was not good. I didn’t realize it at the time. Guess how she was paying for the hotel when she couldn’t pull the finances from the store. I had another business credit card at the time she’d been using. I discovered this and insisted she stop running up my credit if she couldn’t pay it. That didn’t go over well. If only I’d known the first, larger line of credit was in such jeopardy.

2007 was a busy year. I think it was the same one where I had the sleep test done to try to determine why I was having sleep issues, again at my mother’s insistence. I’d had anxiety all my life and insomnia both related and unrelated to this. The test required spending the night in a specific area of a hospital where you could be monitored. Trying to sleep on cue was difficult. Then, they only discovered I had sleep “abnormalities,” “apnea events,” and stopped breathing for up to a minute. They gave me a clean bill of health and sent me on my way. Some of the expenses were covered as before, but I received a bill from an unknown doctor who’d been consulted. Because it came so much after the initial test and wasn’t a doctor I’d been told about, I tried to inquire. The doctor’s office where this specialist worked told me the bill was no longer their responsibility. It had been turned over to a collection agency. I didn’t even know about it until it was already sent to collections?! My credit was already on shaky ground. This didn’t help.

I also think this was the year our stepfather’s mother moved back to her home with her husband in Albuquerque, NM. Things are hard to place specifically, but it was probably between 2006 and 2008. My sister also must’ve moved out on her own in 2008. She had some friends who owned a rental property and let her live there at a discount. They helped her out a lot in getting her start.

In April of 2007, I flew to North Carolina to serve as best man at a friend’s wedding. It was actually a lot of fun, where weddings aren’t always so much. Meeting my friend and his fiancé, along with his family, was nice as well. They all treated me like family. I still keep in touch. I flew out of Amarillo to Dallas, then from Dallas to NC with perhaps one layover. I can’t remember where that was. There was a fiasco with American Eagle losing my carry-on in Dallas, which involved my going to the opposite side of the airport from where my connection gate was, then needing to return and go through security again in time to make my flight. NC was beautiful though, if a bit warm even if it was just spring. I’ll always remember that trip fondly. My friend got a dog as a puppy from the local animal shelter while I was there. He still has the dog today. It was like he and his wife’s first child. I hope Mystic is doing alright. I’ll have to ask.

Back home in Texas, I was still working for John at this point. It’s because of him I discovered what freedom tasted like. I’d gotten rid of the terrible vehicle I started with, had another terrible one in its place, and finally ended up with a better Jeep. It had issues, but I could handle them. I was learning to do some of the work myself. So at least I had a dependable vehicle. The expenses of turning over cars like that drove up my debt as well, but I was as frugal and practical about it as I could be. I bought used vehicles and didn’t dive deeply into debt. A good parent giving some semblance of guidance could’ve helped prevent a lot of the initial issues I had.

So it went that I was driving to the grocery store one Saturday afternoon when I saw John driving toward me on the same street. He waved me down, so I pulled over. He asked if I wanted to go with him and his wife, Diane, on a trip to Colorado the next day. It was just to be a day trip, but it could be fun to get out of town. I’d never considered that I could go anywhere other than to the nearby city where my mother and stepfather lived. It just hadn’t occurred to me. My mother had taught me learned helplessness too well. So I said yes. This was an eye opening moment.

We left early the next day, perhaps around 6 a.m. They always liked to get an early start with things. They were early risers. We stopped at a breakfast place at a nearby town, an hour or two into travel. I remember that was pretty nice. It’s the small things in life, right? Part of the reason we’d left so early was to make it there while it was still breakfast time.

They owned an antique store, which I’d helped put in the foundation for. It was a floating foundation of cinderblocks set atop the concrete sub-foundation that had been poured prior to our placing it. I skipped over this before, so I’m circling back again to fill in the blanks. I also worked there several days each week covering hours while his wife was at her day job. The pay wasn’t great, but it was nice to have more regular work. It also gave me time to read. I went through so many books during this time, including the first Warriors series by Erin Hunter. This trip was in part to look for antiques to buy for the store, but what I was interested in was the scenic drive through the mountains. I hadn’t seen mountains since I was a kid. It might’ve been at least ten years.

It wasn’t a long drive, just a few hours, to the nearest mountains. These were in southeastern Colorado. None of the stores they wanted to visit were open yet due to it being Sunday, so they opted to take a scenic drive through the mountains and come back to the town we were visiting. The drive was one of the scenic byways America is famous for. This one arced through the mountains to the west of the small town where the shops were. While John and I wanted to stop and take in the natural beauty, or even walk around some, his wife was not interested in the outdoors and insisted we press on. So we did.

Early up the highway, there was a small grocery store called Ringo’s. It’s a bit famous in the area. John told me they had locally-sourced goat cheese, along with other cheeses. So he liked to stop there to get various things like those. I found this interesting, to see out of the way places like this. It was a milepost sort of destination, where everyone in the area went for key items. I wonder if it still operates like it did back then.

Farther along, I remember stopping at Monument Lake. There was a small antique store there, but again the day meant it wasn’t open. Diane was willing to stop long enough for us to check, but once we realized the store was closed for the day she kept on us to get back on the road. Both John and I were disappointed. This experience is probably what sparked our later adventures without her, where we could explore the mountains and not worry about making good time but instead take our time. We weren’t trying to get somewhere. We wanted to enjoy the journey.

Near the end of the arc before it intersected with the interstate, we stopped in La Veta. There’s not much to the tiny town, off the foothills of the mountains. It’s more like a waypoint on the way to getting somewhere. I think it used to be a railroad or mining town. We had lunch there at a nice little café. John and I would revisit the location to eat on future adventures. Our journey took us to Walsenburg, then back to the interstate from there. We headed south and found ourselves where we’d begun earlier that day. Shopping occurred, going from various stores to pick out items for their store, Diane’s favorite part of the day. I remember little of this. I know there were some interesting art pieces in galleries we ventured through. I liked some of the old furniture, too. Much had more character and charm than modern furniture. At least it was well made. How much of what we have today will last the test of time?

The trip made an impression. Months after our return, I kept thinking about it. Realizing I myself could go on such expeditions inspired me. I felt like I had a new lease on life. It wasn’t immediate, but not long after I embarked on my own adventure. I intended to revisit the same scenic byway, stop at a campground I now remembered we’d camped at while our mother was remarried to her first husband, the only time we’d really gone camping as kids, and then head to Colorado Springs to visit Cheyenne Mountain Zoo the next day. I would have to make it all a whirlwind trip because I’d have to do it over the weekend and be back at work Monday.

This first trip was not well planned, and getting around Colorado Springs to the zoo was difficult as I’d never driven there before. I mostly remember the good from the experience though. It was overall positive for me as I learned what I could do. I gained newfound freedom. Colorado was right there waiting. Not to mention, I saw a snow leopard at the zoo!

I went one more time that year at least, again on my own. It was October. The world was freezing over. The same campground at Bear Lake was far colder without official management this time of the year. A couple was at the lower lake coming up to the higher lake, which was also frozen over. Blue Lake was the more fished of the two, as I recall. They had their husky, Aspen, with them. She was romping around out on the frozen lake surface. I spoke with them a little. When they left to head back down to the main highway, I was on my own. No one else ventured up to camp overnight this high in the mountains in October. Though the campgrounds were left open for hunters, the normal facilities were unavailable. So I made the best of it. I had gotten a newer Jeep earlier that year. It was far better than the previous ones I’d owned. I could unroll a sleeping bag in the back and camp that way. The first time I’d gone I didn’t have a sleeping bag, but I’d purchased one at this point and was better prepared to spend the night.

It snowed overnight, leaving an inch of fresh powder on everything, and continued to snow as I woke and packed things up. I decided I had best head down since it didn’t look like it was going to let up anytime soon. I didn’t want to get stuck up there.

It was an adventure in itself getting down. Snow kept falling, and I thought I could find a place to stay, perhaps a cabin. So I headed on up the interstate to Colorado City. I tried to find some cabins John had mentioned staying at with his son years prior. Unfortunately, I wasn’t sure where they were. I almost made it to Lake Isabel up Highway 165, but the weather was just too bad. Shortly before reaching the lake, I stopped to turn around. On the way up, I’d seen lots of hunters headed down. I should have taken the hint. Why would they all be fleeing the mountains if there wasn’t good reason? Yes, you can tell hunters by the way their vehicles look in America. It’s pretty obvious. At least I didn’t see deer strapped to their hoods or anything. So the stereotypes only go so far, sometimes. I was in a low gear heading back down the road, but conditions were treacherous with snow melting on the road beneath the accumulation as it continued to come down. I lost control and went into a slide downhill. By some miracle I managed to keep the Jeep on the road, though I ended up stopping sideways across both lanes. That’s when I decided an even lower gear was called for. Perhaps I’d just go at a snail’s pace the rest of the way down.

I wrote about this in a journal entry once as “Facing God at Lake Isabel,” but perhaps that held meaning in a different way at the time. I wasn’t sure where to insert this in my story here. Throughout life we have realizations. Some come quickly. Others are slow, taking time to evolve as we do. I think I began to lose faith as life unfolded. I saw more of the world, both figuratively with the internet and in reality as I traveled. I was exposed to more thoughts and ideas than I’d known growing up. It’s difficult to hold on to faith when you see so many things that don’t make sense. You notice the contradictions of religious texts. Besides Christian teachings, others seem fantastical and lack grounding in the world we live. I don’t know when it happened. Perhaps it was just this slow progression as I mentioned, but I began to lose belief. Even as my Christian faith melded with therianthropy, spiritual ideas coexisting in some sort of harmony, time went on. Things change. I changed. I think it’s a frightening realization, awakening to find you aren’t sure what to believe anymore. Most of us probably want to believe in something greater, beyond our understanding. Spirituality or a universal truth. Life beyond death. A meaning behind everything. These are concepts all cultures have in some form or fashion. I don’t know that I’ll ever stop looking, wishing, or hoping. I’m just not sure what I’ll find anymore. I’m ever seeking to understand. The truth is out there, right?

So, let’s get back to this experience and 2007. Back to the story yet unfolding. So a stay in a cabin was not in the cards that day. I headed south back down the interstate to Trinidad where I finally was forced to stop. I didn’t want to drive down Raton Pass in the storm that continued. Hotel and motel options were limited seeing as everyone else who’d fled the mountains as I had, along with travelers in general, sought refuge in the lowlands. Prices were hiked. I paid far more than I should have had to for a motel room. Then I called my boss to let him know I’d be leaving in the morning to head home, so I wouldn’t be at work until the afternoon. John understood, but I think he was a bit frustrated. I didn’t plan this, but that’s how work relationships sometimes go.

That winter my best friend of many years was planning to visit. We’d decided he’d arrive on a set date in late December. This was important because my older sister wanted to do something nice for me for Christmas. She got me tickets to see Trans Siberian Orchestra in Denver. Unfortunately, my friend came upon a job offer for part-time work at a local store leading up to the holidays. He decided he had to take it, and this meant he would be working over the time he was supposed to arrive. Now, he hadn’t purchased plane tickets yet. So he was fine there. It wasn’t such good news regarding the concert tickets. I tried to get them exchanged, but that wasn’t possible. I’m not very good with plans being dashed when someone has committed to them. So this had me rather upset. Not only was he altering his travel plans, but this had impacted the concert tickets my sister had gotten for me. I didn’t want to go alone, and I tried to sell them second hand, but it was for naught.

My friend didn’t seem the least bit bothered by this. He went on about his life unencumbered, as usual. Due to his new part-time work, he was to be tied up until the New Year, which would be 2008. That’s when he was planning to arrive instead, in the first week of January. Seeing as my plans were upturned, my boss had me work through the month. I did get Christmas off, but just. I was still a kid in some ways, expecting things like holidays off and free time around Christmas. In reality, I barely got time off during my friend’s eventual visit. That coincided with a nasty cold I came down with. So the cloud over his arrival was pretty gray.

His arrival was further delayed by his forgetting his passport, he lived in Canada, and needing to get it brought to him on a bus, the same way he’d gotten to the nearby city where the airport was. With that dealt with, and a day or two later, he was on his way.

When he arrived, he was tired. I had to drive him from the airport and city where it resided to the small town where I lived, which was an hour and a half trip. I was still sick, also tired, and our first day was mostly not feeling well. We made small talk during the drive. It was surreal as we’d known each other for years at this point and yet were so awkward together. I suppose that’s the difference between knowing someone online and meeting them in person sometimes. It’s not always the case. It can go better.

Of course, being so tired and not feeling well had a lot to do with it. Then, my younger sister had made a mess of the house leading up to his visit. So I’d spent days trying to get things in order, wearing myself down while I didn’t realize I was getting sick. So I was really feeling lousy by the point when he got there.

I believe he stayed for three weeks, or close to that. Yet it was the strangest thing. He wasn’t as good with social graces in person as he was online. I don’t imagine I was either. We got along fine, but he lacked understanding when I needed to sleep. Since this was before smartphones and he lacked a laptop, the only way he could get online to correspond with his girlfriend or other friends was using my computer. This was in my bedroom. He often stayed up late online while I needed to sleep for work. This was hard to get across to him. I think he finally realized near the end of his visit. Oh but the fun of being socially awkward. We who grew up with the internet, literally as the internet came of age, so did we. It left some areas of development somewhat lacking?

We did have plans to go to Colorado Springs while he was there. I drove us, planning where we’d stay, which wasn’t a bad hotel at the time. Years later it costs more than I could afford now. Isn’t that ironic? We could only stay for a couple days since I had to get back home and go to work. While there we visited the zoo, which is my favorite zoo of any I’ve been to. Cheyenne Mountain Zoo has snow leopards and is located on a mountainside. It’s pretty unique. The snow leopard who was there then died only a couple years later. I was sad to find this out. They brought in two new ones, a male and a female. The male, Bhutan, is still there now.

We also saw some movies at a local theater during our trip. “Alvin and the Chipmunks” was in theaters then. My friend wanted to see it again a second time. I’d have gone with him, but I’d just picked up food at a restaurant and thought we were going back to the hotel to eat. Then he asked to drive by the theater to see what show times were. The next thing I knew, he was leaving me to see the movie. I was a bit flummoxed. I’d have liked to have gone too had I known. It was another strange moment.

Since he was a bit at a loss for what to do while we were there otherwise, I suggested we look through some magazines in the hotel nightstand. That’s where I found out there was a big cat sanctuary nearby. We set up an appointment to go the one day a week when they allowed visitors. It turned out to be quite fun. Somehow he was distracted, which is his way, scribbling in a little notebook things to remember for a movie review he wanted to write. At that time he posted movie reviews to a website I can’t remember the name of. He wanted to write one about “Alvin and the Chipmunks.” So the staff at the big cat sanctuary were a bit confounded by his paying more attention to his notebook than the animals, but that’s my friend for you. I was figuring out it was just how he was.

While back in my hometown, between my working and sleeping, we tried to watch some of my favorite sci-fi series, “Babylon 5.” We watched other things, of course, did some walking around town, ate out a little, and talked a lot. The time passed quickly.

One thing I remember is him talking to my sister and her then boyfriend, a guy she’d later marry. They were discussing a man who worked in a machine shop with a lot of dangerous things like acetylene torches that used pressurized tanks. Something happened one day, and the man was killed in an explosion. My friend commented, as was his usual way to find puns that seem almost bewildering, “I bet that was a blast.” My sister didn’t know what to make of that. I’m not sure I knew either. I think he sometimes covered up discomfort with attempts at humor. His humor was his humor. Such was his way.

I’d wished he could stay for longer, but the day he had to leave came all too quickly. I returned him to the city where the airport was. The plane left the next morning, so we stayed the night in a hotel. It wasn’t bad. We ate a late dinner at a Kabuki restaurant. While the food was good, we weren’t either of us feeling very hungry. We hung out at the hotel late into the night, just talking, before sleep finally took hold of us. I don’t think we wanted to give in, but we knew we had to.

He left the next day, and the song “Leaving On A Jetplane” came into my head as his plane took off. It felt depressing. I went home alone. I wouldn’t see him again until a couple years later.

Not long after his visit, while I was working on helping to renovate one of John’s investment properties, I began looking for work that was more steady with higher pay. He’d been kind enough to teach me a lot of things and keep me working, but I wasn’t going to get very far in life this way. I needed something else. I applied to a slew of things varying from hotel desk clerk to video store clerk, when those were still a thing, and by chance a design job at the local newspaper.

The owner had been out sick for weeks, but I came back every week to inquire as to whether she’d been able to review my resume. I guess persistence paid off. I ended up getting the job. It’s something you usually need a degree for. I guess being in a small town with a limited applicant pool helped. This is where I’d spend the next 5 years working, learning graphic design, editing, and all kinds of things related to the newspaper business.

At first, it was overwhelming. I didn’t know what I was doing or if I could handle the stress of learning so many new things. It involved skills I knew the basics of, but it required a level of learning far beyond what I’d done in years since leaving school. I did my best and managed to get along somehow. By the end, I’d mastered everything the people there could teach me and was handling far more work than anyone should have to. I think that happens when a place is understaffed and your boss sees you are responsible.

I continued to visit Colorado when I could, taking the chance during the rare days off the newspaper allowed. We got normal holidays like Memorial Day and the Fourth of July, so I was able to go on camping trips on those three-day weekends. I wouldn’t get any real time off until the week between Christmas and New Year’s, which is the only time off we could truly depend on. The newspaper shut down for this week due to the low advertising numbers after Christmas. This allowed for everyone to have a break. It was one of the few perks of working at the newspaper.

So came the holidays of 2008. My father was visiting from Illinois during this time. Our older sister had managed to help mend some of the rift between us. I’m not sure why. Perhaps she thought it was important. She’d done this back in the mid 00s, I think. Things get foggy. So much happens, as it goes. Life.

After Christmas, I packed up to visit Washington State. I wanted to see a friend there, and the trip would allow me to visit newspapers in Washington and try to find work. I’d been applying across the state. Little did I know just how under-qualified I was at the time. I just knew I wanted to live near the mountains, and back then I’d set my sights on Washington.

In retrospect, it was probably not wise to visit during the holidays. I’d tried to contact people at the newspapers ahead of going, but nothing had panned out. So I just went ahead and went. I never did manage to get in touch with or set up meetings anywhere. So the trip was already a failure in that respect. Then the winter weather that year turned out to be extreme. Many areas I passed through declared a state of emergency. Things were a mess. I should have turned back, but I was stubborn. Between Billings and Butte, Montana I came upon a mountain pass in the night. The sky was clear with stars overhead and interstate seemed fine. Then as I came around a curve, everything became slush, visibility was gone, and I was in a snowstorm. I lost control and went into a skid. By some miracle I turned the tail end of my jeep into the snowbank on the right side of the road. If I’d hit the concrete median on the left, I’d have fared far worse, if not flipping and falling down to the lower level of the interstate lanes heading the opposite direction.

The snow I impacted helped slow me to a stop. As I got myself together, I shifted into a lower gear, put it in 4wd, and corrected myself to head on down the road at a much slower pace. I had no warning, so this shook me more than I can say. By the time I made it to the city and found a place to stay, I could barely pry my hands from the steering wheel.

I had a new GPS, given to me by my older sister for Christmas. This kept malfunctioning and even tried to send me off an off-ramp that didn’t exist in Spokane. Yet it was how I found motels along the way. It helped guide me, buggy as it was.

Between Spokane and Seattle was Snoqualmie Pass. This was in the midst of a snowstorm, had been having avalanches, and was an outright mess by the time I got there. The left lane was covered in snow and slush several inches deep. Yet a semi was ahead of me going uphill when it began to spin out and slide back toward me. My only choice was to move into the left lane and try to manage to go uphill in the mess. It was taking a chance, very dangerous, but my only real choice in the moment. It all worked out, thank goodness. That’s a memory that’s stuck with me.

Each day’s travel took twice as long as it should have. A two-day trip ended up taking four. By the time I made it to Seattle, I was exhausted. Then I had no time to stay due to needing to return home. So I was only able to visit with my friend and stay one night, which was New Year’s Eve.

That’s a nice memory. It was cold for Seattle. Damp and rainy. It had even snowed a good deal there a week or so prior to my arrival. That’s not common for the coast. I froze, and my friend thought nothing of the weather. He’s used to the ocean and dampness.

I headed back using a different route than the one I’d come. This time I tried to go south through Oregon and bypass the winter weather predicted across the region. Winter must have had other ideas because the weather seemed to follow me. My entire trip back went much the way the trip there had. Only I had fewer brushes with death. I did see semis jackknifed and off the interstate, a car spun out of control and flew off the road in front of me, and other such harrowing experiences occurred. Four days later, I arrived home. My boss was not happy about my late return, but I had little choice in how long it took. I don’t remember the travel itself fondly. La Grande, Oregon was a nice town I spent the night at. I recall that. There was a Chinese restaurant ranked highly by some national rating system. I got takeout and ate at the motel. I remember how cold it was there that night.

I came back through Utah and Wyoming. It was icy and awful, but I managed. There was a strange Hawaiian-themed motel that hadn’t been updated in decades where I spent the night in Cheyenne. Then it was back through Colorado, stopping in Colorado Springs, and I returned to Texas. I remember how relieved I was to get home. What next though? I came down with food poisoning or a stomach bug, I’m not sure which. That was awful.

I’m surprised that after missing even more work I even had a job to go back to. Somehow I did, and it would continue for several more years. I wouldn’t make such a travel attempt during the winter again.

I don’t remember much about 2009 other than the trip that skirted December of 2008 and January of that year. I went on trips to Colorado when I could, of course, I worked like crazy, and I motivated my older sister to go to Colorado. She hadn’t been in years since her boyfriend, whom she lived with, didn’t like travel unless it was to something like a NASCAR race. She eventually convinced him. They were going to take his insanely-expensive RV and stay in a Walmart parking lot, but I told her about campgrounds that weren’t expensive. If they were going to see mountains, they should stay in the mountains. She got to see Pike’s Peak and Garden of the Gods for the first time in years. She really liked those kinds of things. She’s the person how inspired me to travel more, getting me the GPS, and often helping to route my trips to Colorado. So I was glad to try to help her take a trip of her own.

It was over Labor Day weekend when they went, and I was camping elsewhere in the state, but I made a point to meet up with them. Her boyfriend got drunk, and she with him, so I ended up the designated driver getting them back to the RV. It was a strange experience. I’ve never understand drinking. It just doesn’t interest me. That he and my sister were alcoholics didn’t help matters. But I’m getting ahead of myself again.

My sister had been dealing with health issues for quite some time, but she never drew the connection to her drinking. Doctors had tried to help her. Due to the alcohol, her stomach lining wasn’t able to absorb vitamin B12 very well. So she was given shots she had to take and supplements. Things got worse by my birthday in September. She ended up flown by lifeflight helicopter to the nearby city with a hospital that had a trauma center and intensive care unit. That’s where she had part of her stomach removed due to a perforated ulcer. She still didn’t make the connection

By Thanksgiving, she’d end up in the hospital again. She continued to drink, and she smoked. The two put together left her deteriorating. My younger sister and I tried to advocate for her, but no one listened to us. No one in the family wanted to think about her drinking. The hospital and doctors didn’t want to be responsible for her. Her boyfriend drank himself, so he wasn’t going to stop her.

At this point, my mother and stepfather had a small place he’d purchased that had been under foreclosure up in Washington. Strange, no? So they were up there. My younger sister and I had to convince her that she had to return to see our sister. This might be her last chance to see her. Our sister was that bad.

She’d been home when she shouldn’t have been, discharged from the hospital, when she passed out in the bathroom and aspirated vomit. She wasn’t found until sometime later by her boyfriend, and lifeflighted again to the city. This time she was far worse off than the last.

We’d spend the holidays of 2009 at the hospital. It was all a mess since my younger sister had a young baby, we all needed to work, but we were missing work, driving back and forth almost every day. I would arrive home in the evening, sometimes as late as 9 p.m., go in to the newspaper office and work until 11 or midnight, go home, sleep, then get up by 6-7 a.m., go to work until 9 or so, and then get a ride with my sister and her husband to go back to see our sister at the hospital. Our father even came down from Illinois. So it was my younger sister, her husband, their baby, our biological father, our stepfather, and our mother along with me staying there. It was a really difficult time.

There was lots of family drama, blame to go around, and our sister was in the middle of it. Family drama never seems to end. My boss was upset I was missing work. Things were a mess. I only missed work for the first week or so, then didn’t visit except for on weekends.

But really, this all runs together. Our sister ended up in the hospital again and again after this incident, all caused by the similar reasons. Shortly after being released the first time, she ended up back in the hospital. Things were just a mess. Her boyfriend wouldn’t do anything to take responsibility or try to help keep her from drinking when she got home. She felt his lack of care and would seek out her coping mechanism, which would see her end up in the hospital again.

I remember through the course of that year I’d go to check on her after getting off work. One evening I caught her as she collapsed in seizures, barely catching her before she hit her head on the tile floor. I had to call 911 and go with her to the local hospital. The local trips to the small hospital in our town became normal as well. Our mother and stepfather had returned to Washington and tried to put the responsibility for caring for our sister on us. As if we should be more conscientious. Such was the way of our mother.

So 2009 passed, miserable as it was. I don’t remember much more about it. 2010 began little better. Other than our sister’s constant hospital trips, around May our mother returned to live in the house where I was, which she’d left years prior when she went to be with her husband. I’d had to try to upkeep everything with little money, still in debt thanks to what she’d done before. Then she was there trying to micromanage everything and expecting me to be her “child” again. This didn’t go over well. A few months later, her husband returned as well. He’d come back from Washington after she had. She had never gone back after a trip to see our sister once, during one of the more terrible ordeals with her being in the hospital. She’d stayed at a hotel while our sister was in the hospital at some point, spending months there. I guess our sister’s boyfriend was paying for this? It was strange. He had lots of money though, and this way he could stay back where he lived and not have to be responsible.

Again and again our sister would yo-yo back and forth to the hospital with her boyfriend doing nothing much to help her. With my mother and stepfather living in the house I’d grown up in again, I was feeling stifled. I couldn’t handle it. I worked, then came home to a strange dynamic where they’d treat me like no time had passed. I was in my 20s, but they acted like it had been when I was a kid. That they were both nearly impossible to get along with and the most negative people in the world didn’t help.

An almost fortunate occurrence gave me a way out. I’d been moving my stuff out secretly into storage when they weren’t around. Then one particularly bad night with my older sister, when my mother, stepfather, sister, and her husband all ended up at our sister’s house trying to figure out what to do, a possible solution was finally put on the table. Her boyfriend could pay for her to go to a rehab unit in Oklahoma. It was one our mother had heard of, I guess. We didn’t know much about these, but it was better than nothing, and certainly better than continuing down the path we had been.

So that weekend as they were to take her there, I packed up and moved out. I’d found a small efficiency to rent, and I evacuated. My mother freaked. It was not an easy ordeal.

I remember my mother telling me I could save up the money I spent on rent if I just stayed with her, how impractical it was to move out, why had I done this at such a bad time, and so on. She just didn’t understand. I wonder if she does even now. She was already upset about my older sister, and now this. So she was very unkind. She told me if I was going to pay someone else rent, I could just pay her that. I explained that made little sense, and I had already been put in enough debt thanks to her. I didn’t need to be paying her more money. To this she said I owed her that money for all the years I’d stayed in her house. Of course, had I not been in so much debt and paying on that, as well as her household bills every month, I could have afforded to leave years before. The whole argument didn’t go over well. I never would return to live with her either.

So she and her husband took over the monitoring of our sister, treating it as if something they alone were doing. My younger sister and I had never been trying, obviously. I forgot to mention some of the horrible experience during her brush with death in 2009-2010 involved the doctors telling us she wouldn’t survive. Every doctor on her case gathered and told us we should sign a do-not-resuscitate order. Our mother was not happy. We all argued. I guess the doctors were wrong. Our sister survived. But it was a horrible situation, and my younger sister and I only wanted to do what was right. We didn’t want to force our sister to go on suffering if there was no chance she’d ever survive. Our mother didn’t see it this way. This formed a chasm in the family that never really healed. I’ve been I the middle, trying to bridge the divide ever since. My younger sister got most of the blame for this. I tried to reason with my mother. I think the problem is that my mother and sister are both stubborn, see things their way, hold grudges, and don’t try to communicate. So they never truly resolved things.

A met a black cat when I moved in. He was young, probably around a year old, not fixed, and ornery as all get out. But he was friendly, and we took to one another. It turned out he belonged to a nearby neighbor who let him go outdoors, didn’t have a collar for him, or seem to do much in general as far as caring for him. I ended up being his refuge. He’d come to me late at night when he couldn’t get into his home, to escape the cold and rain or snow. I never fed him, nor did I try to lure him away from his owner. He came to me for safety, security, and love. He was such a big dork of a black cat. A snuggly boy who would make a mess of my bed with mud and all as he lay there getting warm and grooming himself. I’d wrap him in towels and try to clean him, but still. I think because of the color of his eyes I called him Jasper.

He minded well though. We had an understanding, a bond of trust. So if I let him know something was off limits or he’d crossed a line, like getting on the countertops in the kitchen or trying to get into food, he’d kind of do the equivalent of a not of a cat. I could see understanding and acceptance in his face. He always tried to coexist. With cats you are not the boss. You are their companion. If you have trust and try to give and take so there’s understanding between you, they’ll often respect boundaries. He was a great friend that saw me through a lot of hard times, greeting me often when I got home from work, hanging out, and just being a cat.

In August, the computer I’d bought custom-built five years prior died. The power supply failed sending 110v through all the components, and it went up in smoke. Nothing was salvageable. I’d been bad about backing up, so almost everything I’d accumulated on it from 2005 to that point was lost. I had some CD’s and DVD’s here and there, a few files on ftp servers, and a couple USB sticks. I pieced what I could together, but I never got back the majority of my content from that five-year period. I wish I’d done a better job of backing up my data. I lost files friends had sent, music, videos, and more photos than I can remember. There were stories I’d written, Notepad notes I took, poetry, and more. The loss was devastating.

Again, I was demoralized and disenchanted with technology. This time I found a better company to custom build a PC to my specifications. It had to fit within my budget, but it was something at least. I couldn’t deal with building my own. It just wasn’t in me anymore. My passion was lost.

In fall of 2010, months after I’d moved out on my own, my best friend from Canada would visit again. Well, he was taking what he called an “epic trip” to see friends across the United States. He hadn’t planned to visit me, even though it had been nearly three years since we’d seen one another. He lived with his mother still and had few living expenses, so with his work was able to save up quite a lot. I wasn’t so fortunate. So I couldn’t afford to visit him. I did intend to try to visit him in 2008 when I went to Seattle, but he said he was busy so it wouldn’t work. Thus it didn’t happen.

He said he couldn’t divert his travel plans all the way to where I lived in Texas, but he did reroute them a bit so we could meet up in Colorado Springs. I told my boss my plans for the weekend, but as usual, no one made any effort to make it workable for me to leave early that Friday. So I had to head down late and arrived not long before his bus made it to the station. He took busses across the States for his trip. I was just able to check in at the motel before meeting him there to pick him up. It was late at this point, and I was rather tired.

We didn’t get to stay at the hotel we’d spent the previous trip at because prices had gone up, and I had far more limited finances. I took him to the zoo again, of course, and we went up Pike’s Peak this time. It was a fun if rushed trip. We even saw Garden of the Gods while he was there. But I had to get back to work, and he wanted to get back on the road to continue his trip. I think he was on this trip for something like three weeks. He stopped at various locations to meet friends and do things. At one point, he was in Florida and spent several days visiting Disney World.

We used to chat everyday back then, so his being away from home and online far less often meant I got to talk with him less. He’d call occasionally, but it wasn’t the same. I missed him a lot. I take friendships differently than a lot of people. It didn’t help that I was going through a tough time in life and needed his support. Perhaps my life never really stopped being that way. It just seems to go wrong, and then more wrong.

I don’t remember the holidays that year or much else. I recall now that I’d had to leave my cat behind when I moved out. That was awful. I tried to bring Murky with me, but she was unable to cope with the change. Some cats get so used to their surroundings, where they’ve spent all their lives, that moving them causes them to just shut down. She was dying from a sort of state of shock. I took her to the vet multiple times, and they told me the only real way to help her was to take her back to the home she’d always known. So she’d spend her last few years at my mother’s house.

The life story of a snow leopard - Part 4