You may have noticed—or not, that I have mentioned Glenn Allen & Ketchikan in regards to my parents homes. My parents have had 3 homes, all in different locations in Alaska, over the past 5 years. Glenn Allen, Craig, on Prince of Wales Island (POW) in Southeast Alaska and now Cooper Landing. The reason I mention this is so you can get a feeling of what my parents have done for us and the girls. My folks were living up in Fairbanks for my father’s job and when we told them I was pregnant with Alana they applied for a transfer of sorts and moved to Glenn Allen so they could be closer. While things were still very different for Alana than other children things were still not as bad as they are now and when they had been in Glenn Allen for a few years they were given the chance to head on down to POW and live a life more their liking; the ocean, small town, business owners, & just mellow moving that is hard to find in a lot of places in Alaska (mostly the ocean part!).
A couple of things are related to this move and when Larry and I went to go get the girls after the Seattle trip we fell in love with it as well, the ocean and catching fresh shrimp and crab every day, magic forests, the smell of the cedar trees which are so massive that you cannot get your arms around them and so many other things. A factor of living was a job though. My parents brought a small café, 1 of 3 restaurants in Craig and they wanted Larry to help them run it and be a part of it. We considered it so fully that in October of 2007 Larry headed down to Craig for 7 weeks to see if he would like it and want to devote all the time and energy that it would take to make it not only work, but be great. Turns out that Larry could do all those things and he worked with my mom and the town like a well oiled machine. He was a favorite of the more mature crowd; aka my mom’s friends who thought he could do no wrong ;-) and he loved them just as much. When he came home we made decision that we’d move down there and bring the girls up somewhere that was smaller, safer, and had more of the things we were looking for.
Now you have to remember a couple of things. This was way back in 2007 and we were trying to focus on Alana getting better not worse. Of course the fact that there was only a clinic on the island made us nervous but we talked with the doctors down there about here and they assured us that a medi vac flight from the island to Ketchikan was less than 60 minutes round trip and she’d be at Ketchikan General which had a good track record. While I remained guarded about the idea I also was being reminded that we could not allow fear of Alana’s illness to rule our lives, we had to keep on aiming high and dreaming big (or small).
As we prepared to set things in motion for the move Alana started to get very sick again. Now if you remember in December of 2007 I had a procedure and then she quickly followed behind for almost a 2 week stay in the hospital with lung collapses and 105 degree fevers. This changed everything because this is when the interstitial lung disease came up, the lung biopsy, and the problems that she was facing were going to be long term. What ended up happening is that instead of us moving to Craig and continuing Larry and my mom’s dream of small café ownership my parents asked for a special transfer to be closer to us and TCHAP to help with Alana’s care and the care of her sisters. After all the juggling was said and done, with great thanks and appreciation to my father’s commanders, they were able to move to Cooper Landing, 90 minutes away by car, in August of 2008, to help us take care of all those things that we were struggling with. Now Noelani and Shaylin could go to Grandma and Grandpas house for the weekend when they needed a break, when Alana and I were in the hospital my mom could come up and help Larry with school and shuffling to and fro; all those things that are really hard when half of the house is missing.
My parents shelved so many things that the loved to help us; a home they finally felt was perfect for them, my mom's thriving and amazing quilt store, the ocean, the people, the café, the fishing, and the serenity of Craig all for us. How can you beat that eh? I can’t think of a way at the moment, to beat it I mean, but maybe someday I will.
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