Camp for All is a barrier free camping facility for people with disabilities and chronic illnesses. I had the privilege to be a part of their program staff for three and a half years and since then, I've been a part-time volunteer on weekends during the fall and spring. On Mother's Day weekend of 2006, the user group was adults with MS and I had been joyfully working at the fishing dock all day. We finished the evening at the ever popular dance, and soon afterwards my friend and I decided to head back to Houston in order to spend the next day with our Moms. So at eleven o'clock at night, we hopped in my van, Snowball, and drove home.
The hour and a half drive, which included a stop at the Brenham Starbucks and a gasoline fill-up in Hockley, got me back to my apartment just past twelve-thirty. My friend Bianca was staying the night with me and as she was helping me change into my pajamas, we both heard a very strange noise. It was similar to that of a cicada bug that harmonizes in the trees during the summer- kind of a competitive ticking noise showing off who can be the loudest in the early afternoon sun.
"Did you hear that?" I asked her and she said that she had. She wondered if my chair was making an odd noise and I told her no. I suggested that it must have been a bug right outside my window as my wheelchair was parked right beside it. I went to bed not thinking about the noise again, but in the middle of the night, I awoke to a loud crash on my desk. My eyes popped open in a startled fear, but without my contacts I might as well be staring into a black hole. I could however tell that there was no one in my room and I assumed that something had fallen due to gravity's curse.
The next morning I sat at my desk putting on my makeup in preparation for the Mother's day celebration that I would spend at my parents, when I noticed that my favorite picture frame was lying face down. Surely, I thought, this must've been what had fallen in the middle of the night. My house keeper had dusted not three days prior and I assumed that she had stood the picture in an unbalanced position and it had finally given up on its efforts to stay upright. I finished getting ready without noticing that the curtains in my bedroom window were undone- it would not be until twelve hours later that the real reasons for the many oddities would come to fruition.
On that Sunday night, I had a brand new caregiver working for me. She arrived close to eleven and helped me get into bed. Everything seemed to be going well for her first night on the job. She handed me my cell phone and said to call her if I needed anything in the middle of the night. The room that she was to sleep in was on the other side of the apartment and she worried she would not hear me yell for her if I needed help. Thank goodness for her preparedness because at one-thirty in the morning I woke up to the sound of rustling in the mini-blinds- like someone was trying to break into my apartment. In my panicked state I dialed her number and whispered into the phone when she answered, "I know you think I'm crazy, but I need you to come in here right now!"
She was in my room in a flash flipping on the light and asking what was wrong. I told her that there was a noise coming from my window. She rounded the corner and stood a good three feet from my window when she let out a scream that I've only ever heard from a paid, professional actress in a horror film. The breath entered and exited her lungs so quickly that she was barely able to convey the message to me that there was something big and black in my window and she did not know what it was.
"Should I call my dad?" I shrieked. Her head bobbed up and down, "Call your dad! Call your dad!"
My dad, after hearing my frantic pleas, was on his way while I, in the meantime, lay helpless in my bed praying that the big, black thing would not join me under the covers. My caregiver paced the living room waiting for our heroes' arrival, most certainly not willing to enter my room again. Finally my dad came through the door after what seemed like the longest fifteen minutes of my life. He walked into my room and I asked him what he thought it was.
"I already know what it is. I can see it from the outside of your apartment. It's a snake."
I am quite sure that everyone within a three mile radius heard me scream the name of God and then beg to be put into my wheelchair. I also know that the tire marks remain on the carpet from where I tore out of the room like my hair was on fire. Lastly, I am fully aware that my father is the bravest man I will ever know because the story ends with him removing a three foot long water moccasin from my bedroom window.
How, you ask, did a venomous snake sneak into my apartment? Well, that's the best part of the story. It did not have to sneak in at all. In fact, that snake could not have felt more welcomed in my home because it was me that carried him inside. I brought him home with me on my wheelchair.
When I was leaving Camp for All two nights before, we had to walk down a very dark path to get back to my van. I felt myself roll over what I thought was a water hose, but when I turned around, there was no hose to be found. I knew I had rolled over a snake, but I thought it had slithered off into the grass. Instead it got caught on a two inch bolt that sticks out from the bottom of my wheelchair and wound its way up onto the battery box that sits in between my wheels where it had a comfy, warm ride home. Then my friend crawled off of my wheelchair, up and over my desk, and settled into my window for a temporary stay at Little Wriggle's Bed and Breakfast. Luckily, wheelchair girls were not on the menu.
That snake, in its valiant efforts to travel to the big city, had weaved its way around not just the layers of my wheelchair and mini-blinds, but also the layers of my sanity. For days, anything that touched me challenged the strength of my seat belt because I would jump a mile high. Knowing that I was within inches of a creature that could have severely injured me, or the people who thankfully provide my care, still to this day gives me chills. But it is that same realization that also reminds me of the many blessings I experienced at that particular time, and on a daily basis. And that gives me chills, too.
