The Ribbon of Road Ahead

We have two incredible sons. The stories of how they came into our lives are amazing.  They are told and retold whenever we have Holidays together. They both live far away and I miss them very much.

I wrote this for Loren on the 24th anniversary of his Clupnyhood, four years ago.

The A Roar A Boring Not for Alice..er…The Roaring Boring Alice…not quite right…Aurora Bores Alice AHG The Northern Lights

The night time sky is so fascinating.  I have watched my brother set the timer on his camera to follow the night sky as the earth rotates into morning.  At 9000 feet on Mount Adams I sat outside the tent all night, too amazed at the twinkling stars and planets to sleep.  In the Eagle Cap Wilderness I laid on my sleeping bag marveled by the August meteor showers.  In the depths of the Snake River Canyon a gentle slope of cool grass brought relief after a sweltering day on the river and we watched the moving pinpoints of airplanes and satellites and shooting stars as we shared the stories of our lives

Of all the nights I have gazed into the heavens, there is one that stands far above the rest.

July 8,1991

So many events lead us to this date.  They have been chronicled in many places.  Let it suffice to say this day changed the lives of Carol and Charlie Clupny forever.

The phone rang, calling us to another Eastern Oregon town about 2 hours away.  We rushed to gather the needed items and piled them into our car.  This was all new to us, we weren’t exactly sure what we should do.  So we drove.  And as we drove we chose a name for our baby  boy

born

                                                         July 5,1991

                                             LOREN MICHAEL CLUPNY

My mom shared a promise with her Cousin just before her death in AUGUST 1990.  I never heard my mom speak like this but this is what she said:  “When I get to heaven I am going to kick some butt and get Carol and Charlie a kid”.

Charlie was in the driver’s seat whisking us home to a place that was not prepared for a baby.  We had nothing ..  I started to get anxious thinking “Loren is going to have to sleep in a shoe box (Charlie’s size 12)  or we will have to pull out a drawer and tuck  him in with socks and t-shirts.” (swaddling clothes, manger)  Panic was pushing its way up my throat.  I was truly terrified. But before I could ask “Charlie can we take him back” I saw something out the window.

In the distance I saw strange lights.  Unusual flickering, flaming, weaving, churning lights.  Colors so brilliant and then so fading that it made me wonder if I was imagining them. I thought it could have been a forest fire.  Yet that did not make sense. The behavior of the lights was unlike any flame I had seen.

Charlie carefully steered the car through a rest area parking lot full of people who had also witnessed the phenomena from the freeway.

aurora borealis

The aurora can be seen best magnetic midnight. In northern latitudes, the effect is known as the aurora borealis (or the northern lights), named after the Roman goddess of dawn, Aurora, and the Greek name for the north wind, Boreas, by Galileo in 1619. 

Dawn Wind.  It is rare that the wind blows at dawn.  And when it does it brings us ALIVE..It AWAKENs us in a way that keeps us from falling back to sleep.  It makes the dawn fresh and clean and vivid. Loren Michael Clupny you are a rare and unique man…You sing life, you dance life, and you love more and deeper than life,  more than we can understand.

That night, July 8,  1991 the aurora borealis surrounded us in our little car with our three-day old baby and escorted us home.

And in the dawn that little baby awakened what was dead inside and we became family.

                            Loren Michael Clupny,   you are Aurora, dawn. Borealis, wind.   

                                          Happy 24th anniversary of that night.