Hot Spring Cove, Vancouver Island, BC, 18-SEP-2018 – Two days ago, we regained cellular service after a two week absence. The first Messenger text to come through was a single, ‘‘Where are you? The pain is unbearable.’’ from a close, family friend.
This year we have an Iridium GO with us. It has allowed us to be in contact with world via e-mail, voice and text. It has been invaluable.
I did my best to make sure that everyone dear to us knew how to easily contact us. In the case of my Dad, who suffered a blood clot, this worked as planned
Our friend’s teenage child intersected with evil and was the victim of a violent crime nine days earlier.
I messed up. Let’s be honest I fucked up.
The time difference meant that it was late at night there more than a week after the attack. We’d failed our friend.
We are fallible human beings. When I made the list of people that would need to contact us in an emergency, my mind’s eye passed over a happy, healthy family with smiling joyous children.
The time here in Hot Spring Cove has been a break. It is the end of summer. Summer is something we’ve skipped the last three years in SE Alaska. It is summer to the residents of Alaska, but temperatures in the 50s F and mostly rain don’t match the definition of two people who have lived south of the Mason-Dixon for so long.
We spent our time visiting with new people, hiking, soaking in the spring and reflecting.
We’ll be in Victoria in a week or so, and the Seattle on the first.
