On Adventuring

“What did you do over summer, Shannon?” my third-grade teacher asked. We were going around the room at the start of a new school year, sharing about our vacations.

“We camped on Catalina, but not on the side with all the people—on the side with all the buffalo. And we jumped off our favorite cliff and ate fish my dad caught spearfishing! It was awesome!” 

My teacher and classmates looked at me wide-eyed, unsure how to respond. 

“So, no trips to the mall then, I’m guessing,” another little girl offered, trying to fill the silence. “Uhh…no. No malls.” 

Even swapping weekend stories landed me in the same awkward spot. 

“We hiked and we saw a rattlesnake and my dad killed it with a big rock. Oh, and my little brother got poison oak. Again.” Or, “We grilled the leopard shark my dad caught, and the meat kept moving even after my dad cut it apart.”  

My classmates would take turns guessing what new adventure we had gone on that weekend or holiday break. It didn’t take me long to realize we were not exactly like other families. The kid who did crazy stuff was a badge I wore proudly. 

With a little distance from my childhood, I can see more clearly now two parents who had been told by their Huntington’s Disease doctors to go and live their lives to the fullest for as long as my mom could. And they did. Man, they did.

Let me offer a little background on what is a rare and often little-known condition. Huntington’s is genetic. Each kid has a 50 percent chance of getting it from a parent who has it. My grandpa got it from his mom and passed it down to my mom. 

Doctors and scientists have mapped where the genetic mutation occurs. A DNA segment that repeats itself 10 to 35 times in healthy humans, for some reason, repeats itself 36 or more times in Huntington’s patients. The result? An overproduction of the Huntingtin protein and the slow breakdown of muscles and brain cells. 

The simplified explanation borrows from more well-known diseases. Take Parkinson’s, ALS, and Lou Gehrig’s disease, combine them—then stretch them out over two to three decades—and that’s Huntington’s, or HD, as it is also known. Though researchers continue to make huge strides in HD treatments, it is 100 percent fatal and has no known cure. 

While each of us must rest in the truth that God alone knows the number of our days, we also could see pretty clearly that, unless He chose to heal my mama on this side of the grave, the clock on her mobility, and on her life, was ticking fast.

So, my parents took us kids and filled my mom’s healthier years with remarkable adventures. 

Little Harbor, on the remote side of Catalina, was hands down my mom’s favorite place. The buffalo, brought over for a film in the 1920s, roam free on the back side of the island. Campsites with picnic tables dot the hillside and valley near the harbor. And every year in early August, after my dad finished summer school, but before the school year started for my teacher parents, we would claim campsite #17 for a week.

All six of us would take the ferry to Avalon with all our gear. My older sister, Annie, was super into fashion and looking cool. She would tell us repeatedly she wished the ground would open up and swallow her as we dragged spearguns, tents, and sleeping bags up the ferry ramp at Avalon. An hour-long, windy van ride later, we were there, looking out at the endless ocean with almost no one else around. 

Our weeks were full of spearfishing for my dad and me, playing in the waves for my siblings, and kayaking for my mama. We would somehow lug her baby blue single kayak, lovingly named, Jemima Puddleduck, with the rest of our gear. My mom logged countless hours in her kayak, toting granola bars and water bottles for the rest of us in the ocean. 

No trip was complete without cliff jumping at least once each day, usually two or three times though. A shaly rock offered the highest jump for those brave enough to sort of slide down the edge of it and jump out to avoid the rocks below. I may or may not have gotten stuck on this shaly ledge, unable to push out to jump safely. And, I may or may not have forced my dad to swim 100 yards back to shore, then hike up the hill to rescue me. 

I knew better than to let the fear of that unconquered cliff fester, so later that day I dragged my dad back to it. Before I could change my mind, I ran off the ledge, cleared the rocks, and landed with a satisfying splash in the crisp water below. 

Although Catalina was our go-to, one summer, my parents decided to change it up, and drive up the California coast, camping along the way until we reached the Jed Smith River at the California-Oregon border. 

We loaded into our gold 1980s Dodge Ram van, dubbed the Luv Van. Much to our chagrin, our parents bought this mint condition van off an older couple who hardly used it. Complete with gold carpet, gold seats, and even gold curtains, it also sported hideous brown stripes down both sides. 

The license plate actually had the letters “LUV” on it. The four captain’s chairs inside were surprisingly comfortable. However, my seat in the middle row behind my dad did not have a window, making a road trip rather frustrating when everyone else is commenting on how amazing the scenery is along the way.

We pulled in after dark to our first stop, pitched our tents to get some rest, only to get woken up in the middle of the night by rain soaking through our tents, our sleeping bags, and our PJs. Freezing, we ran for cover to the Luv Van, and tried to sleep a few more hours. 

The sun came out the next morning, and we dragged our piles of wet laundry to the closest laundromat. While our gear dried, we found an all-you-can-eat pancake breakfast at a local fast food place and dove into those hearty stacks with abandon.

We did eventually make it to our destination in Jed Smith and set up camp for a week of fun along the river. We found some pretty epic jumping rocks and took turns doing crazy stunts off of them. One morning, my mom drove my dad and us four kids to the top of the river and dropped us off. My dad had been told it was a popular spot for white water rafting and we could see groups getting into their big rafts to head downstream. 

My dad motioned for us to come closer. Out of a plastic bag, he produced five pool rafts my mom had bought from the dollar store. 

“Everyone, blow up your rafts—we’re going to float down the river,” he explained. 

So we did. Surely dad knows what he’s doing—he’s probably done this before, right? We hit our first rapid, which was pretty sharp going over on a pool floatie. I glanced over at my dad for reassurance and saw an unfamiliar sight—his eyes were wide with fear. He started shouting directions for us to try to go over the calmer parts of each rapid and stay together. 

One cold, tumbling rapid after another, we made painful progress downstream. A few hours later, we crawled out of the river, frozen and stiff. We were down two pool rafts, which had popped along the way. But, we made it. My mom made mac-n-cheese over the fire that night—it was hands down the best meal I had ever had in my short life.

Those adventures and so many others from my childhood are seared in my memory, much-needed breaks from the awful reality of watching my mom deteriorate. Most kids, up to a certain age, do life fairly unaware of the mental and emotional weight the adults are carrying—and they should. 

My parents tried hard to keep us from carrying the weight of my mom’s diagnosis, but it was unavoidable. It found its way into everything we did. No matter how incredible the moment, it was always followed by the sobering thought that mom wouldn’t be able to do these things much longer. 

The weight came with gifts attached though—transformative, gracious gifts. Our family simply saw life differently—the world around us seemed sharper, clearer. Time was marching steadily on, despite our best efforts to slow it down. We seized opportunities to go and live with a zest I did not see in many others. My parents were not about making tons of money or climbing any earthly ladders of success. My mom was leaving us altogether too quickly. So we paused, reveled, and wondered in a way others did not have the capacity for.

When my mom’s condition worsened and the grief of caring for her felt it might crush us, my dad and I would get up before the sun, and head for the beach. Joining the lineup of surfers in the water as the first rays of light flashed over the horizon soothed our weary souls. 

It was not simply the beauty around us, but a grace-filled reminder from the One who made it all. The One who made us, and who made my sweet mama. The sunrise each morning, and the tides coming in and going out, coming in and going out shouted glory to a God whose faithful hands were in every detail.

He was holding it all together—and He was holding my family, too.