When I was little we lived in Oklahoma. On ten acres of land, 5 of which was a vineyard. We had horses, a goose, ducks, dogs, as well as two little girls running around. We moved there when I was three, and my sister was two. We moved back to Texas when I was eleven. Time will play a part in this story as I tell it. Come to think of it, time seems to play a part in a lot of life...
We lived outside a small town called Tuttle. It had a bank, dairy farm, school and not much else. My sister and I had loads of adventures playing all over the place at our house. Two little girls with vivid imaginations... Building snowmen, learning what living in Tornado Alley meant. One of my favorite/most terrifying memories was watching a twister slowly form and begin to touch the ground a few miles down the way. Oklahoma is flat so you could see for miles and miles...
We'd run around and every time we got hot or needed something to drink, to the water hose we went. Mom was big on us drinking our water. She tried to train us to appreciate good ol' water, but I didn't like the taste of it. So I rebelled and didn't drink as much. My sister however, drank it all the time...
One day my sister got sick. Time went by. She stayed sick. I remember lots of nights waking up to hearing her throw up. My dad telling me to go back to my room as he held her up because she didn't have the strength to sit up and vomit in the toilet. I'd go back, but I'd lay there with my hand on the bedroom wall that was also the back wall of the bathroom. She slept on the bottom bunk of our bunk bed so she could hopefully make it to the bathroom if she got sick. I started sleeping on the floor just so she knew I was close and she could touch me if she needed me.
It got bad. We didn't have insurance but my mom took my sister to the doctors anyway. They could not figure out what was going on. She had these bumps all over her. She couldn't keep much down and was getting more and more sick. Then I started getting bumpy and sick. I wasn't as bad as she was, but it was miserable. Where you are exhausted and weak and throwing up stomach acid that burns your throat.
My parents were getting frantic. We were both getting more sick as time went by. My mom thought something was in the water. No, the doctors said; that couldn't be it. She kept saying she wanted to have them test it. Nope, no need, they said. So my mom talked to a private lab in Tulsa and sent a sample of our well water to them. In the meantime, she started giving us bottled water...
The results came back a few weeks later. The water was almost pure manure and rust. Apparently the dairy plant up the river wasn't disposing of their waste properly. My mom immediately had a reverse osmosis water system put in and from then on out all we drank was filtered water.
My sister and I got better, but it took a toll on our bodies. There's not really a way to tell exactly how much heavy metal poisoning we absorbed. Five years of that stuff. If God leads me to fall in love one day, I will let him know of possible faulty plumbing. That way he can make an educated decision about sharing his heart with me.
This is not a doom and gloom story. On the contrary, I believe God had, and still has, plans for those two little girls. We're not quite as little anymore. And He didn't go anywhere no matter how sick we got. There's something amazing about faithfulness and loyalty from the Healer of a broken world. Even when you're a little girl.
So...If we go out to eat and I ask if they have filtered or bottled water to drink, now you know why. I'm not a water snob. Just learned from my experiences...
We lived outside a small town called Tuttle. It had a bank, dairy farm, school and not much else. My sister and I had loads of adventures playing all over the place at our house. Two little girls with vivid imaginations... Building snowmen, learning what living in Tornado Alley meant. One of my favorite/most terrifying memories was watching a twister slowly form and begin to touch the ground a few miles down the way. Oklahoma is flat so you could see for miles and miles...
We'd run around and every time we got hot or needed something to drink, to the water hose we went. Mom was big on us drinking our water. She tried to train us to appreciate good ol' water, but I didn't like the taste of it. So I rebelled and didn't drink as much. My sister however, drank it all the time...
One day my sister got sick. Time went by. She stayed sick. I remember lots of nights waking up to hearing her throw up. My dad telling me to go back to my room as he held her up because she didn't have the strength to sit up and vomit in the toilet. I'd go back, but I'd lay there with my hand on the bedroom wall that was also the back wall of the bathroom. She slept on the bottom bunk of our bunk bed so she could hopefully make it to the bathroom if she got sick. I started sleeping on the floor just so she knew I was close and she could touch me if she needed me.
It got bad. We didn't have insurance but my mom took my sister to the doctors anyway. They could not figure out what was going on. She had these bumps all over her. She couldn't keep much down and was getting more and more sick. Then I started getting bumpy and sick. I wasn't as bad as she was, but it was miserable. Where you are exhausted and weak and throwing up stomach acid that burns your throat.
My parents were getting frantic. We were both getting more sick as time went by. My mom thought something was in the water. No, the doctors said; that couldn't be it. She kept saying she wanted to have them test it. Nope, no need, they said. So my mom talked to a private lab in Tulsa and sent a sample of our well water to them. In the meantime, she started giving us bottled water...
The results came back a few weeks later. The water was almost pure manure and rust. Apparently the dairy plant up the river wasn't disposing of their waste properly. My mom immediately had a reverse osmosis water system put in and from then on out all we drank was filtered water.
My sister and I got better, but it took a toll on our bodies. There's not really a way to tell exactly how much heavy metal poisoning we absorbed. Five years of that stuff. If God leads me to fall in love one day, I will let him know of possible faulty plumbing. That way he can make an educated decision about sharing his heart with me.
This is not a doom and gloom story. On the contrary, I believe God had, and still has, plans for those two little girls. We're not quite as little anymore. And He didn't go anywhere no matter how sick we got. There's something amazing about faithfulness and loyalty from the Healer of a broken world. Even when you're a little girl.
So...If we go out to eat and I ask if they have filtered or bottled water to drink, now you know why. I'm not a water snob. Just learned from my experiences...
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