The Judys Move To Bethel: December 2020

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

The Judys moved to Bethel in 2016, and now we move away. This will be the last blog for us. I sincerely apologize for not keeping up with posting about our lives in Bethel. There are many reasons for that, and I guess I’ll put COIVD-19 at the top.

I don’t want to say much about the pandemic, other than I don’t want to have to live through another one. As I write this, Alex, Brad, and I have remained COVID free and we hope that doesn’t change. We are diligent mask wearers (unless we are walking the dog), we have maintained social distancing, and have gotten our first vaccinations. I fear Brad will be forever changed by all this because he has been very isolated. School has been virtual, but it hasn’t been over Zoom like most places. He had Key Note presentations to watch each week. I commend his teachers for doing a wonderful job putting those presentations together, but it doesn’t replace seeing classmates online or in person. He has maintained his ever-positive attitude and seems to be coping well.

Running Rapid COVID tests

My first mask making adventure

F-bomb. Pretty much sums it up.

One down, one to go

He trusted me to inject him!

Moving. Yes, we are moving. If I have your address, I will mail you a notification (once they arrive in out post office box) card with our new address. We will be living in Chugiak, Alaska, which is about 20 miles north east of Anchorage. Alex will transition back to work at the VA and I will be back teaching health aides at the large tribal hospital in Anchorage. The jobs sort of fell into our laps, so we would have been dense not to take them. I even asked if I could wait until the summer to start work so we wouldn’t have to move in the darkness of winter, but that wasn’t an option. We were able to find a nice home to buy and Brad will be attending Mirror Lake Middle School. Big changes. Things aren’t necessarily better somewhere else, but we decided that it was time for us to go.

If you have been blog readers since 2016, you may recall the awful trip that started in Michigan and ended in Washington. This time, we will not have a broken U-haul that will need to be unloaded in the rain. We will not have a boat trailer that breaks and makes sparks as the metal pieces bump along the road. We will not go days without showering. And we will not sleep in our boat in gas station parking lots.

We did, however sleep in our car. After flying to Anchorage, getting the car, loading it with nine checked bags and a dog, we drove the 40 minutes to our house, arriving close to midnight. We couldn’t open the door. The electronic lock didn’t work because the battery was dead. Figures, eh? We were told there were no keys to the house (note to self: never buy a house that has no keys) and I guess didn’t think to demand keys. I made a reservation at a hotel that was close, but when we arrived, the guy told me there was no room at the Inn. The other hotel in Eagle River, which is 10 minutes away, was full too. We contemplated driving all the way back to Anchorage, but didn’t want to leave all of our stuff in the car parked in a sketchy parking lot, so we went back home and slept in the car. The 24-hour lock smith didn’t answer the phone. The locksmith that was 10 minutes away and opened at 0700 didn't answer the phone and the automated answering service told me that they didn’t have any services in our zip code. The guy that wasn’t supposed to be open until 0900 called us back and drove out to save the day. He got into the house and made us keys.

The movers showed up with three huge moving trucks and unloaded our stuff. It was a little overwhelming seeing all the boxes and knowing we have to unpack all of them. It’ll be a process. . . .

Loading up in Bethel

We had 30 pallets of stuff. That was the fullest the cargo plane had been leaving Bethel in over a year.

Unloading in Chugiak

I’ve been looking through pictures and recalling the memories we have made in Bethel. Wow. We have ventured up the Kuskokwim in a boat and camped in remote areas that don’t see very many people. We have fished and hunted and picked our food. We have watched sunsets that take hours. We have camped in the winter (well, I did once . . . ). We’ve hiked up remote hills and watched moose swim in the river. We’ve floated he Kisaralik, survived our raft flipping, and taken bush planes to remote villages.

Kisaralik float trip

Arctic char

View of the Kisaralik from the float plane

Three Step Mountain on the Kwethluk River

Ginormous Chinook Salmon

Kite flying in the tundra

Berry picking

Lingonberry jam

And our kid grew up. He was 8 when we arrived and turned 13 on the 18th of December. He has had so many opportunities to do things a lot of people never do. He’s worn a snowmobile suit under a life jacket to take a boat to a wrestling tournament. He’s also taken a bush plane to get to a wrestling meet. He has participated in so many different extra curricular activities that sometimes I didn’t know if he was coming or going. He has seen sadness and poverty in ways that I wish he hadn’t, but he has gained an understanding that many people are not as fortunate as he is. He was born happy and continues to be. Even being secluded in the house only talking to his friends on the phone, he has maintained his happy and easy going demeanor (except when it comes to doing the dishes).

This was pre-COVID when he actually went to school

Duck hunting

Catching frogs behind the house

Kuskokwim smelt

COIVD hair cut

COVID clown

Killer COVID clown (but no trick or treating this year, sadly)

2016

2020

Brad won $1000 for getting a COVID test at the airport

I can’t say enough about the people we met in Bethel. You need to rely on others when you live in a remote area, and Bethel is pretty remote. It was the kindness of the people who made us decide to move here. People are welcoming and giving and even if you don’t know them very well, they will help you if you ask. Bethel people are resolute and hardy and can tolerate a lot. Alex has really enjoyed the people he has taken care of. The Yup’ik people are kind and giving and love to tell stories. As a culture, they have shouldered many hardships and many have daily struggles that I will never be able to comprehend, but still they laugh. So many times I see people sitting and talking and laughing. Humor and joy are present despite the struggles.

During my time in Bethel, I had the honor to work with Community Health Aides. This past year, I took a different position at work, which took me away from the health aides, and I realize that should have stayed with them. They are a tremendous group of people who take on the challenge of providing medical care in the far reaches of this vast state, and they do it in the most precarious of situations. COVID has not been kind to this area and many villages have been very hard hit. Some villages had over one third of the residents test positive, with the health aides being among them. Some villages have dealt with people who died from COVID and have not been able to grieve in their traditional way (there are no funeral homes here and the family does all the post mortem care). The health aides are the ones that people turn to when they are sick and they show up to work every day to take care of their village, their family.

My wonderful health aide instructor colleagues

Why move now? Why move in the dark of winter and in the middle of a school year? I don’t think I can really answer that. When we agreed to move here to work, we were each given a one year contract (which, by the way never usually happens). We made it through the first year and just kept doing what we were doing. We didn’t make a conscious decision about staying or moving; we just lived. This pandemic was a big instigator in our decision. The flights were cut back to one per day (and now there are more) and it wasn’t really safe to go anywhere anyway. Mail delivery was slower, it was harder to get things delivered, and we realized that we are really far away from family. Family is important. Yes, we will still be in Alaska, but we will be closer to a major airport, and it will be easier for people to come visit and or for us to travel.

We were involved in a horrifically tragic accident September of 2019 in Arizona. A man on a bike traveling 40 mph collided with the vehicle I was driving. He died. An investigation ensued and for three months, I was in a constant state of fear and anxiety that the police were going to come to my house, arrest me and extradite me back to Arizona. For three months. That horrible incident was ruled an accident and the Santa Cruz County DA decided that no charges would be pressed against me. I don’t usually think about bad things happening, I don’t perseverate on what the future will bring or how I’ll die. Who likes to think about bad things? But being involved in that accident and being directly involved with the death of another human being is probably the second worst thing that could happen to me (losing my son would be the first), and that is something I think about every day. Alex and Brad were with me, so they have their own demons from that day. Life is precious and short and we can never know when ours will change, from an accident or COVID or something else. I can also say that I now know what PTSD is. So all of that also changed our priorities just a little bit.

2020 was going to be a year of travel for us, but alas, it wasn't. We were able to go to Hawaii in March just before the shit hit the fan. Alex’s kids met us there, and it was nice to be together as a family. Alex’s son, Bryne, came to visit in July had the full on Alaskan experience: boat ride and camping on a gravel bar, hiking Three Step, eating moose, and making sausage. The only thing we didn’t do was pick berries because they weren’t ripe. My sister, Chrissy, and her family came in August, COVID be damned! They also got the boat ride and gravel bar camping, and berry picking. My other sister, Becky, met me in Anchorage for a long weekend and we did the touristy things there. Unfortunately, there were gale force winds and the waterfalls before the tunnel to Whittier were actually falling UP, not down because of the wind. It was great! We also walked around Hatcher’s Pass in the snow in tennis shoes. Who would think to pack boots in October?

The Judy-Neumann camp site

We were able to travel a little before COVID hit us full force. We went to France last October and stayed at a wonderful old B&B with Dick and Jane. We traveled the country side and ate fresh baguettes every day. The history of the area was fascinating and there were rock dwellings from 50,000 years ago and we toured the Lascaux cave. We spent one day in Paris and pounded the pavement for 14 miles walking all over that city. We made it to the top of the Eiffel Tower after waiting in line for about three hours. It was packed with people and a little unnerving being that high up in a building that swayed a little bit. But I can cross that off my bucket list. We were fortunate to spend time with Dick and Jane. Dick died suddenly in September. We will celebrate his memorial later in 2021.

Escargot . . . yum!

(photo credit: Bob Clough)

There are many more stories I could share about adventures we have taken, but I think I’ll just show pictures. Bethel has been an adventure, to say the least. This is a special place that has been both trying and rewarding. It will never be forgotten.