Althea: A Story of Love Read online

  Althea - A Story of Love

  by Philip Rastocny

  Amazon edition

  Copyright © 2008-2010 by Philip Rastocny

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission from the publisher.

  Discover other titles by Philip Rastocny at http://www.Amazon.com

  Publisher: Grasslands Publishing House, 8525 Central Avenue, Brooksville, Florida 34613

  ISBN 978-0-615-38620-1

  First edition — August, 2010

  Cover graphics and design by Philip Rastocny

  Editing by Kimberly Santamaria, Una Florence, Jacque Lambert, and Robert & Linda Voges

  All photographs by Althea Rose or Philip Rastocny, or public domain except the following, used by permission:

  • Valley View Hot Springs, Warren Gretz, U.S. Department of Energy, National Renewable Energy Laboratory

  • Aztec Dancer, William Stadler

  • Pennsylvania Mine, Elizabeth Russell

  For my amazing soul mate

  Althea Rose

  Acknowledgements

  * * *

  Two years passed from Althea’s challenge to the time of this writing. Still fresh are the memories and events as if they occurred yesterday. What changed was me. Flying low, under the radar, with less concern about myself and more for others, made this journey well worthwhile.

  Pursuing your dream can be a labor of love, especially when encouraged and assisted by beloved teachers, friends, and family. It is to these unnamed heroes I am eternally grateful.

  I owe so much to so many. Especially to:

  • The Creator—who was and still is with me every step on my road

  • Shan and Gertrude Rose—who gave birth to the amazing woman I married

  • Dr. William DeWeese—the skilled superhero stranger who saved Althea’s life in surgery

  • Elizabeth Russell—who provided photographs of the old Pennsylvania Mine

  • John Bleeke—my high school English teacher who inspired me to take myself seriously and write from my heart

  • Mary Ellen S.—my college English teacher who by expecting more from me, changed my life with her caring encouragement, and helped me understand that questioning those in authority is a good thing to do

  • Linda W —whose prolific red pen and belief in me made me a better writer

  • Louise F.—whose unconditional coaching helped me in the production phase

  • All My Relations—all of my ancestors — every one of them — who chose the things they did in their lives to give me the opportunity to be who I am

  Forward

  * * *

  This is a biography, a love story, and a tragedy with a happy ending. The story demonstrates how important our God given abilities, our duty to serve each other, and our purpose to exist is. In the end, the question will always be Did we do our best to do good?

  All of our actions affect people in many ways. For me, taking care of Althea was my job and my blessing. There was a happy ending so that these people could go on enjoying each other and provide their blessing and seasoning to the world.

  William O. DeWeese, M.D., P.A., F.A.C.S.

  Diplomate American Board of Neurological Surgery

  July 7, 2010

  Introduction

  * * *

  Althea Rose like many people struggles with highly sensitive allergies and severe asthma. In an attack, her airway closes down and slows the flow of oxygen to her lungs making her feel like she is suffocating or drowning. Mild attacks cause coughing and shortness of breath while severe attacks can endanger her very life. Panicking during a severe attack could end her life and she must do the exact opposite of what her mind instinctively wants to do: she must consciously maintain calm. Experience has trained her mind to relinquish control of her body to her spirit, an invaluable life lesson that applies to many different scenarios.

  Her inspiring spirit has walked hand-in-hand in mine for almost forty years, and I feel honored to tell her story. It explains how she struggled against impossible odds in making her recovery possible by relying on her internal consciousness, what eastern religions call the breath behind the breath. In this consciousness, remarkable things occur and your connection to who you really are—behind the facade of the flesh—intensifies.

  Revealed chronologically one day at a time, this true story of love, adventure, and strength is told from a supporter’s perspective. Like anyone, Althea has more depth than just what one narrative can say. So before understanding her challenge, embracing her background helps you appreciate who she is and why she made certain choices.

  The first chapter sets the stage to her fun-loving and outgoing personality. The second and third chapters draw you into her challenge.

  Other chapters are split in half. The first half contains an introductory story in flashback form describing historical anecdotes, life experiences, or significant events. The second half contains a chronological account of her challenge transcribed from notes in a journal. Daily routines, behaviors, decisions, and events are noted for that day.

  An image of an Electro Cardio Gram (commonly called a heartbeat or ECG) separates the two halves of a chapter. The ECG visually shows the end of the background story and the beginning of the chronological account.

  Background Story

  Chronological Account

  Lasting resolutions to life challenges more often than not involve long processes rather than short-term events. The relentless monotony one experiences in such a prolonged challenge is unnerving. Vicariously living one person’s life during such extreme monotony can help you relate to how people feel in such situations. As love outweighs boredom, you may find an epiphany within yourself by the end of this book.

  Focusing on one way to support someone with this type of prolonged recovery, supporters may be inspired to develop similar techniques that work in different situations. As the one challenged, you may find alternative choices and attitudes in helping you deal directly with your unique issues.

  Many references to alternative healing modalities and methods are mentioned herein. Such references are intended to be used for demonstration purposes only and do not constitute recommendations for diagnosis or treatment. Always consult with your family physician, psychiatrist, or accredited healer when working with any health-related problems. Professional help will always guide you in making proper choices.

  Metaphysical experiences are also conveyed that can give you an insight to the direct experiences we had with the divine love of the Creator. Whatever your personal beliefs are, know that we respect them and encourage you to keep those beliefs close to you. Our beliefs may be very different from yours and we only ask this same open mindedness and respect.

  My all-time favorite quote is: Minds are like parachutes—they only work when they’re open. My hope is that this book helps you to get in touch with your own open mindedness allowing you to discover the creativity and the power of choice that sleeps within.

  My prayer is that you use your creativity to support someone you love in a personal and positive way. See beyond what your eyes tell you and look into their heart to know their true spirit.

  Philip Rastocny

  Althea at Age Eight

  Chapter 1 — Who Is Althea?

  * * *

  Our life was extremely happy and full of love. Our happiness was engaging, bold, and passionate choosing challenging activities that exposed us to unusual and unbelievably beautiful and fulfilling life experiences. Our love was
exemplary, complete, and contagious, revered by those who knew us. Our love was true love.

  Our adventures seemed endless. We trekked through wilderness mountains, built snow caves high above timber line, skied through remote valleys and rugged terrain, and camped in twelve-thousand foot high meadows amidst bears, mountain lions, foxes, wolves, and elk. We rafted through treacherous white water canyons, parasailed over warm ocean waters, snorkeled with vibrantly colored residents of the sea, and motorcycled with sleeping bags and tents throughout the wondrous west. We ventured far into the dry desert to mingle with astronomers peering into the deep dark night sky, meandered through the back roads of southern England, fished in cold Canadian lakes, and braved blizzards while snowshoeing through deep Colorado powder.

  Our dreams were hopeful, far reaching, and exciting, and our gratitude ongoing and deeply heartfelt. We wanted only happiness and our continued growing love for each other, for our friends, and for our family. We anchored our spirituality in the Creator and blended many forms of Christianity, Native American, metaphysics, and personal life experiences into our belief system. We felt nurtured, loved, and accepted.

  A fascinating woman, Althea was more than anyone could hope to understand and appreciate in a single lifetime. At five feet eight inches tall with radiant brown hair and hazel green eyes, she was brilliant, spontaneous, and full of joy and wonder. With a formidable slender stature and natural rhythm, Althea’s danced the feet off of all her would-be suitors.

  Upon first meeting her, you could not help but love Althea and her atypical views, spiritual devotion, and complete commitment to good. Coming from a western medical and psychiatric nursing background, Althea settled early in her life into massage and holistic healing therapies and then ventured on to more artistic endeavors.

  Painting and creating flowed naturally from her soft skilled hands. She was swept up in her seemingly endless abilities to express feelings of her life on canvas and in photography. As with modern abstract styles, swirls of color and simple designs permeated her paintings. Wild animals in their daily life routines intrigued her and drove her to capture them on film first hand. Her backpack overflowed with lenses, filters, tripods, and film and her eye caught details that escaped the average person. Absolutely relentless, she found ways to see the beauty in everything around her.

  All forms of storytelling—movies, reading, and verbal accounts—were precious to her in that life’s truths were dramatized and exemplified in them. While searching for meaning in her existence, she like many others—followers of eastern religions and metaphysics—had searched for much of the same.

  Her own pursuit of metaphysics came from personal, unexplained experiences. One such experience came when a bedroom curtain moved by itself as if someone pulled it to one side to look out. Dreams and other intuitive feelings became very real, and her mind raced to find out why. She understood that life was more than a physical experience and that the spiritual realm—the existence beyond this body—was more real than what we perceived it to be.

  Althea wanted to leave a legacy for future generations for which they would look back on with gratitude. For this reason she found comfort in the Green Movement early on in her life and dreamed to live completely off of the grid. While backpacking, we always left anyplace we ventured in better shape than we found it. With the exception of our tracks, our presence in the wilderness would be essentially unknown by others and Althea’s ecological efforts extended into our everyday lives.

  Harvesting the rain water that fell upon our roof, heating our water with the rays of the sun, improving efficiencies in appliances and lighting, and living a simple, unadorned lifestyle gave her enormous satisfaction. When twisting the shower faucet, Althea would sigh knowing not only was the water a gift from the sky but its soothing warmth was a gift from the sun.

  Althea loved to laugh and her humor was delightful, much like her father’s. Being a self-proclaimed West Virginia Ridge runner, her father’s humor wove humanness throughout his tales. Althea often chuckled realizing she repeated something from one of her father’s tall tales. Sharing these tall tales with others provides a subliminal insight to her values while assuring a smile.

  One summer, her family went on a long car trip out west crowding two adults in the front seat and three children in the rear. After a few hours in the car, Althea became bored and started twirling her foot inadvertently tapping it against the door. Hearing this repetitive sound, her dad thought there was something wrong with the car and pulled over to check the tires. Still finding nothing and even more puzzled than before, he drove off. Althea started tapping the door again—deliberately this time—so as the car sped up, so did her tapping. Her dad, now keenly attuned to this noise began to worry, pulled over, and checked the tires once again. Still finding nothing and even more puzzled than before, he drove off. Without mercy, Althea resumed her synchronistic tapping. When her dad pulled over a third time, got out of the car, and checked the tires, she could not contain herself when he got back in. Her uncontrollable laughter—knowing she had succeeded in “putting one over” on her own father—gave her away.

  Her free spirit and wild attempts to push the envelope gave life to otherwise dull social events. She loved to startle people with bold statements—sometimes believing what she said and other times saying things just to add spice to a conversation. Althea believed that getting people out of their comfort zones helped everyone to more fully experience and appreciate life.

  Her life was at its pinnacle in many ways, and with Althea in my life it was much the same. While both of us were in the Air Force, we met by accident one day in February of 1970 on a blind date. As Althea clearly recalls, my date stood me up and hers was hours late.

  I first saw her throwing a football to a friend and thought to myself, Now there’s someone I’d like to meet. She set down the football and when our mutual friend introduced her to me she agreed to come along on a picnic. After all, I had a new car and she really liked the orange color.

  Another couple—a friend of mine and his date—jumped into the back seat and Althea slid over on the front seat next to me thinking others were getting in. When I drove off, she slowly moved away with an expression on her face like she had accidentally put her hands into some warm stinky slime. My reaction to her sliding next to me was that she must like me. But when she slid away, I realized she was trying to correct my mistaken impression. I didn’t take this personally—in fact I found it quite humorous.

  For this blind date picnic, we drove to a park just across the state line from Texas into Oklahoma. It was a lengthy drive and along the way we really didn’t like each other but first impressions can be deceiving. I thought she was skinny and she thought I was conceited.

  I had been diving from local cliffs for over a year and we were going to a place where I could dive. Being February, this could be a bit challenging. But in southern Oklahoma, the air would be warm and the water quite cold.

  I planned to dive from the ledge of a small dam and changed into my bathing suit by the car. Scrambling up the ledge and peering into the frozen water below, I saw the ice had already melted about two feet from shore. I stood there in silence analyzing the situation, sizing up how long it would take for my muscles to cramp up and stop working after plunging through the ice. I wondered if there was enough time for me to swim safely to shore before that happened.

  Some friends watching from the shoreline below began urging, “Phil, don’t go! You’ll hurt yourself!” In the distance rang a lone taunting voice yelling just one word, “Chicken!”

  It was Althea. Our eyes met and at that moment something changed. Something wonderful swept through my heart and I was hopelessly smitten. I realized this was not only a football-throwing woman but one who spoke truth through the charades of life and knew its realities.

  What could I say? How could I react? She knew I couldn’t jump although I had talked about it all the way to the park. She was wonderful, amazing, different, real, and
she was my date. I did not jump but instead joined her on the shore.

  We gathered up our things and piled back into the car, my two friends again in the back seat. Heading up the mountain toward the top, Althea became intrigued with the terrain and wanted to climb from this midpoint to the top of the mountain. Once Althea made her mind up, there was really no stopping her, and this was the first time I was exposed to that.

  “Pull over and let me out of the car. I want to climb this mountain,” she announced boldly.