Fall of 1977

Everything was going wrong. I'd been phoning the Lawyer about the law suit over the logs. He must have been giving me a story each time. Winter was coming again and we weren't finished with our log home. The bank was calling regularly wanting to know what the holdup was. When I explained about the logs, they didn't care. I didn't even try to tell them that as the wall got higher and I had to lift the logs higher, I was having more trouble just staying conscious. I didn't know what to make of it. I'd always had headaches but the pain in my head was worse and never eased up anymore. When I lifted the logs, I would get dizzy, feel faint and my skin would get cold and clammy. My vision would blur and my ears would roar. But, sitting still, for longer periods each time, that would go away again. Was I just lazy and looking for a way out of work? Was I crazy? No illness makes you sick and then goes away when you rest. None I knew of. I tried to push through it, ignore it. But it didn't go away. W was getting depressed and must have wished we'd never started. It was getting hard to motivate him.

With those headaches and the stress with JT that fall, I was starting to realize that I would probably never get to live in my log home on the 38 acres. I didn't know what else could possibly go wrong. Then JT went to live with Grandma and Grandpa Chief. Then Thanksgiving came, and he was gone. Those holidays are a blur to me. At Thanksgiving we didn't know JT wouldn't be back. When my family gathered for Christmas, it hit me that TK was now my only child at home. I'd had to send JT's gifts with Grandma and Grandpa Chief to Toledo. I was angry at W because he couldn't even hide his feelings about that. He was relieved and happy that there were just 3 of us now. Which also caused bad feelings toward W with my family. We'd been married 9 years and my family had never let on that they didn't like him. Now they didn't hide it from me, and Mom admitted she'd never warmed up to him. I didn't want another failed marriage, and it put me in the middle. W did love his son and he had been a wonderfull Father to TK. At least when they boy was young. As TK grew, his Father was expecting him to act as a man. Before he was even a teen. But, in 1977, that was still ahead of me. There was a lot still ahead of me. And the worst of it was coming a lot sooner then I could have guessed. And losing the log home was not going to be the worst of it.