New Year’s Day came in chilly but the weather was good for this time of year. There was a marathon race in West Plains and John went with Andy Yinger who was the assistant high-school coach. They both finished and won second place in their divisions. We watched Bowl Games all day on television as we took the Christmas tree down and packed all of the decorations away. Now we were ready for the new year to begin.

The 3rd of January we took John to the mid-night bus for New Orleans. We sure hated to see him go. Aunt Beulah and her sister Mildred came from Arkansas the next day so Mildred could catch the bus back to Omaha. We went up and visited with them until time for her to go. Aunt Beulah went right back home as she had a bad cold and didn’t feel well.

We settled in to a routine with me working Tuesdays through Thursdays and Warren working Monday through Fridays. I was picked up at home and taken to the station of the day. We served 9-counties with 13-stations so each day we were in a different town, with a different crew and the applicants were constantly changing. My job was very interesting in the regard that nothing was ever the same. It was tailor made for me because I have to have variety to stay enthusiastic. If you’ve worked with the public, you know there is lots of variety out there to keep you interested…….or to some people….a little crazy.

I also liked the 4-day week-ends. I had a day to get ready for the week-end and a day to get caught up after the week-end. Then I worked my 3-days and it started all over again. Variety, variety, variety. I loved it.

I made a notation in my journal on Friday February 22nd that we watched the U.S. Hockey Team beat the Russians in the Olympics and what a thrill it was. We couldn’t believe our eyes when those spirited kids got the puck in for the winning goal. It was a time of national pride for all of us.

On March 24th mom and I took Warren to work at the school and I noticed he looked so tired as he walked away from us…it crossed my mind several times that day. I ran a few errands and got ready for Bible Study at our house that evening. When everyone left afterwards, Warren complained about a “charlie horse” in his left leg. He had a big knot in his thigh but wanted to finish his work at school so he left the house at 10:15pm and didn’t get back until after midnight. When he came home he had a lot of pain in his left leg and he couldn’t walk…also sick in his stomach.

He came to bed and all through the night he thrashed around….he couldn’t get any relief and neither of us slept. I thought it was just a cramp in his leg and that it would go away but by 5:30am when it persisted, I turned the light on to see just what was going on. I was shocked to see his left thigh swollen so that it looked like half of a football on top of his leg. I called Becky quick and she came on the run to help me. I was thinking….blood clot.

We headed for the emergency room at Fort Leonard Wood (since Warren was retired military). He became sicker with each mile and couldn’t stand the movement of the car because of the pain. By the time we arrived he was unable to get out of the backseat so a couple of the medics came with a gurney to help him. They wheeled him into the ER and Becky and I sat out in the waiting room wondering what on earth could be wrong.

There was no way we could have imagined what was ahead for us. It was the last day of normal life we would have for many months…for now we would have to go through a very long and dark valley…………

Until tomorrow,
Essentially Esther