Jump off the roof

Around the early fall of 2004 Ellen and I were staying in the house because there was a terrific wind blowing and rain was increasing. A good afternoon to stay inside. Then Ellen rushed upstairs to tell me that water was spilling through the light fixture in the kitchen.

My first guess was that the roof was leaking from the driving rainstorm. So I rushed outside to struggle to put up Dave's 20-foot ladder up to the roof on the back of the house. With the wind blowing so hard I was less than delighted to scale up it to the roof top. Carefully I moved around the roof over the kitchen and then all over the roof, finding no place that appeared to be taking rain. By this time I was completely soaked and chilled, since the temperature was probably around 40 degrees. Then suddenly a big gust of wind carried the heavy ladder down crashing to the ground.

Although I shouted as loud as I could, the noise of the wind drowned it. Perhaps Ellen heard its fall, because she came out on the back patio. She was going to lift the ladder back up, but I shouted to her that she could not do it because it was so heavy. I asked her to find a rope to throw up to me so that I could tie it on top and scale down the rope. While I stood up there shaking with wet and cold clothing, she finally come out with a rope. Needless to say, there was no way she could throw it up with the wind blowing so hard. Then she disappeared for what seemed a long time, so that I surveyed the roof top to see if there wasn't some way to get down. But it was almost 20 feet to the ground and I had no wish to jump.

While Mom was in the garage trying to fashion several poles together so the rope could be lifted up, I was really feeling desperate. I took another look at the pine tree in front of our bedroom window. It was at least 12 feet from the edge of the roof, but there were branches that reached to the roof. The branch was so small that I was certain that it would break easily. As I looked down, it seemed the ground was a long distance below. When Mom did not respond to my shouts in the back, I decided that I would have to somehow to get down via the tree.

My leather gloves were wet, which gave me added concern about being able to grab hold of the limbs. Then I decided to jump as far toward the tree trunk with my left glove on the limb. As my left hand started to slip, my foot hit another branch below and to the right, allowing me to lurch forward with both hands moving lickety split along the branch toward the trunk. When I got to the trunk, I grabbed both the trunk and the limb, holding on until I surveyed the branches available that would allow my descent to the ground. Terra firma never felt so good.

I ran around to the back to find what had happend to Mom, finding her with some poles tied together. We then rushed upstairs with a step ladder to get into the attic to see where the water was coming down. There wasn't any rain coming through the roof into the attic. Then I moved down to our bedroom which was above the kitchen. Ahah! Water was spurting out of a copper pipe in the shower, splashing over the carpet and on down through the light fixture to the kitchen floor. All we had to do then was shut off the water into the house, until a plumber could be engaged to put in some new pipe. Later we had a new shower installed.

But I thought then and many times since how my guardian angels carried me safely to the trunk of that tree. Just one of many miracles in my life.