Life ebbs and flows; sometimes we are beaten back by the
tide, other times it lifts and carries us. Randy Carlson had retired from
teaching at Belle Plaine at the end of the school year, but on the 19th
of June he was at the school supervising students in the gym. His wife, Terry,
was home with her daughter looking at pictures.
“Into each life some rain must fall, some days must be dark
and dreary,” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
After several days of rain the hillside nearby gave way and
slammed into their dream home, collapsing a wall and bringing tons of mud into
their dining room. Terry and her daughter got out safely. However, their house
may be damaged beyond repair. Home insurance does not cover this type of loss
and flood insurance may not have either.
Randy was two years ahead of me in high school; Terry was in
my class. He was a successful basketball coach and popular teacher; together
they raised their four children. They had worked hard and built a beautiful
home in the country, where they had planned to spend their well-deserved
retirement. They had not planned on this; they certainly did not deserve this.
They lost personal property, their home and their dream, and
yet both were quoted in the Belle Plaine Herald saying, “We’re very lucky.”
It’s hard to imagine being able to muster that attitude
after such devastation. How many of us would have the perspective that things
could be worse, that there are many people worse off, to be happy just to be
alive? I would like to think I could be like that, but I’m not sure I have the
strength, and I pray that my mettle is never tested to that degree.
My mother used to say “Every family has trouble, if not now,
then later.” I never liked hearing that,
as it sounded like so much doom and gloom and rather fatalistic, as in trouble
is headed your way and there is nothing you can do to stop it. It’s not very
comforting to have that to look forward to.
We all wish for our problems to be manageable, the kind
where we say, “Someday we will all laugh about this.” We avoid trouble, and we
certainly don’t look for it. We manage our risks, we work, plan and save so
that someday we can stop working and enjoy the fruits of our labor. But what
happens if the fruit tree is suddenly uprooted by a wall of mud right before it
is ready to be picked?
A relief fund for the Carlson family has been set up at the
State Bank of Belle Plaine P.O. Box 87, Belle Plaine, MN 56011
Their friends, family, and their home town will be there to
help them bounce back; we should all be so lucky to have that much support. But
to accept the good with the bad like the Carlson’s have, that takes real depth
of character; character as deep as an ocean.
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