Christmas Letter 2020

 

Downing Christmas Letter 2020

2020 was certainly a hot mess, wasn’t it? I could go down the list of all the drama in the world, but then it wouldn’t necessarily be about us, now would it? Here’s a little poem to get you warmed up just for the fun of it:

            Broken arm and injured head

            Camping when the skies turned red

            Riding before the forests burned

            A two-mile hike turned into a 10-mile concern

            2020 has been an interesting ride

But hold on tight cuz there’s more inside

 

“Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course.”

~ William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part III, Act III, sc. 1 (1564 - 1616) 

 

Cold Vengeance

We started off 2020 with plenty of snow and playtime at Willamette Pass resort. What a beautiful start to the year, complete with Sophia’s first couple lessons on skis. Yes, skis. Cheryl and I are snowboarders, so the foreign nature of our daughter doing “pizzas” and “French fries” on the slopes was… well… weird, to be honest. I can’t teach her a single thing! I can call out “PIZZA!” and hope she slows down, but that’s the extent of it. She did pretty well, but her strong, independent leadership style (also known as parental defiance) resulted in some pretty awesome crashes. I’ll admit to all you readers that I did get a laugh at her final faceplant that happened without ANY warning. Even now I chuckle remembering her entire body smashing into the deep, fluffy snow. No, she didn’t get hurt. No, she didn’t even cry. She did, however, try blaming me, even though I was about 20 feet away. She was ticked and looking for vengeance as she pulled the clumps of snow off her goggles.

 Final Run

Over years of snowboarding, one tends to gain the wisdom through trial and tribulation, that the final run of the day can be the most dangerous. You’re body is tired, you’re mentally tired, but there’s a layer of confidence that tells you in a sweet, innocent voice to take one last run down the slope. Afterall, you’ve had a good day, why not one final run? Well, that’s what was on Cheryl’s mind as she took the last lift of the day on the bunny slope. It’s easy, and she’d been practicing on the slope successfully most of the day, so where’s the harm? She slid off the lift without a problem, finding her ideal spot to latch her one binding before making her way down the hill. She’ll tell you she was tired. She’ll tell you she should’ve sat down to secure her binding. She’ll tell you that when her board slipped, she fell backward, breaking her right forearm in two places, plus a longitudinal fracture. The medics were fantastic, and the trip to the hospital in Springfield was actually rather quick. Sophia got to be the nurse’s assistant, helping build the brace to help her mom heal.

 The Strength of a Woman

 Hold onto your seat for this one…

The rain pounded the hood of Cheryl’s Mini-Cooper as she pulled into the parking lot near her office in Salem. As she stepped quickly from the car, she stepped over a parking curb, only to realize too late that there was an 18” drop on the other side. She tumbled, and on her way down to the sidewalk below, she prepared for impact. What she didn’t realize at the moment was that her head was on target to hit the building’s brick wall first. Oh, I forgot to mention that she was scheduled to get her cast removed from her snowboard injury the very next day. This one incident turned into an ongoing ordeal that stole her perception, her speech, her driving, her profession, her quality of life… but it didn’t steal her strong spirit, her drive to love and help others, her willingness to overcome this awful disaster, and her ability to find the joy in spite of the challenges she faced. While she’s still working through many of these issues, her improvement is amazing, and she’ll tell you “I’m one day closer to healing.” One silver lining is that the onset of COVID set me up working from home without hardly any traveling.

 Room to Spare

We finally finished the master bathroom suite we started in the late summer of 2019! The sparkly walls, glorious glowing vanity with oversized bowls, a soaking tub big enough for me, and even an extra tall, extra deep walk-in shower that has amazing acoustics and room to spare. It’s rather quite romantic and is a beautiful end to a long remodel. It’s definitely something to see, but reservations are encouraged!

 Lung Buster

Our summer vacation brought us back to Sun Valley, Idaho, even amid the COVID restrictions and government overreach. We found a nearby hiking area with notes that suggested several trails were ideal for families, so we set off on an adventure through the rugged hills. The map said it was 1.6 miles. The map DIDN’T say it was 10 miles long with 1,000 ft elevation change! Low on water and exhausted, the daylight drained slowly away as we made our way along the trail. We came across two mountain bikers an hour or so apart, but otherwise there wasn’t a soul to be found. We did find rather large feces, though, which made me remember the posters warning of bear and moose in the area. Apparently, with bears you can play dead… with moose you basically are dead. It wasn’t the most pleasant thought to carry quietly as we navigated the unmarked splits in the trail and encourage Sophia to keep walking. At some point, we realized she wasn’t wearing socks, and as the little trooper wore out, I changed into her personal chariot to get her back to the car. After some research, I found that this particular trail gained the nickname “Lung Buster” by expert hikers and mountain bikers. I’ll note for the history books that was her first experience being so exhausted to the point of nausea.

 Trails and Tales

This summer kicked off the first of many camping adventures for me and Sophia. The first trip landed us at a state park I frequented growing up, and we marched all around the park’s trails and tried to catch crawdads, and to my amazement, she wanted to eat them! I’m down with that, but where she got the idea, I’ll never know. I also initiated a tradition I started with my boys when they were young that made traveling distances enjoyable, and campfires a treasure they still remember. I call it Storytime with Dad! I weave tales and adventures where Sophia gets to play as the main character, overcoming quests and challenges, solving puzzles and riddles, capturing the bad guys and rescuing people or creatures from villains of all shapes and sizes. Our trips alone are marvelously magical, and I often think I should record them for her later.

Another camping trip, as Sophia requested, was to the Oregon coast on Labor Day weekend. That was the day Oregon burst into flames, fanned by high winds that severed large tree branches across the campground we were staying at. I’m not sure how Sophia slept through the night when the wind ripped through the campground like a freight train, whipping our tent like a dry leaf, and breaking heavy tree branches throughout the forest. After checking our site several times throughout the night for potentially deadly tree branches, I finally got some sleep when the wind relaxed and we weren’t crushed in our tent.

I woke the next morning, after hardly any sleep, to find the entire sky a dark orange, tinged with red. Ash flitted through the air, and the park rangers said that there was only one road open, which was fortunately the one we needed. We made it back home on caffeine and sausage biscuits to get the sleep we desperately needed while our state burned.

Interestingly, I rode my Harley through the switch back road of the Old McKenzie forest, through the great lava fields to the town of Sisters for a fantastic lunch, and returned home through the forests of the Detroit Reservoir just two days before they burned down.

The Warden

Sophia, along with every kid in the nation, had a major setback when the government shutdown schools and sent kids home without much support. Sophia started second grade in the fall, but the government restrictions only allowed two hours in class each day. The best we can figure is that COVID can get you if you’re educated longer than that. Smart little bug! Second grade is tough because, as you can imagine, typing and software navigation isn’t really a strength yet. The two hours classroom instruction, followed by too many hours trying to figure out the online system was tough on Sophia, and unfortunately, Cheryl had to be more of a warden than a mom. We did find a solution in November that we’re very happy with, but we also know there are many families still trying to work through these difficult restrictions.

 Dare we peer into 2021? I think wisdom would tell us to avoid saying “it can’t get any worse”, because if 2020 taught us anything, is that it can get worse. That said, we are not without hope for a bright future, which may very well start in 2021! Let’s remember the strength shown by many in adversity, especially Cheryl as she’s stayed strong through a rather challenging year. Let’s remember to remember others; to reach out; to seek them out; to be intentional and stand up for one another.

 

“God creates men, but they choose each other.”

~ Niccolo Machiavelli (1469 - 1527)