Wapsi Square

Jhayne

What is a Wapsi girl?

What is a “Wapsi Girl”? Well, Monica is intelligent, kind, caring, and funny. Shelly is tough but compassionate and lives her life feet first… jumping in to help whenever she can. Jacqui is very fair minded, Amanda is very independent and Lakshmi is as strong as she wants to be. Katherine is learning to come out of her shell and Heather is learning to relax and find there’s more to life than work. I think to be a Wapsi Girl, you need to take charge of your life and form it into what you want to be.

I’m a coder, a geek, a gamer, a philosopher, a large woman, a daughter, a wife, a “nosy-know-it-all” sometimes and almost always very opinionated. I love to debate about… well, anything… as long as it is with someone who also feels strongly about something and wants to discuss it logically.

I’m a caregiver; I just found out that’s what you call people that take care of an elderly relative till the end of their days. My Dad is 83 years old and just recently had a heart attack, some nerve damage in his legs, and his short term memory is pretty much shot. He can tell you all about delivering ice for iceboxes when he was a kid, but he can’t remember if he had lunch. My husband and I live with him now and take care of a lot of details needed to take care of a home, but mostly we help him maintain his dignity and self worth now that his body is wearing out on him. It’s a very difficult thing for all of us to go through but it helps to have patience and a good sense of humor.

I got to be a hero once. Most people don’t get the opportunity to be heroes unless they are police, fire, military or medical personnel. (They are always heroes!) I was just a cashier in a grocery store&ldots; the best I could do was to package someone’s eggs securely and not crush the tomatoes. One day, I was fishing with some friends and their boys, aged 7 and 2 years old. At some point, the 7 year old caught a fish and everyone got very excited. Then the 2 year old climbed up a bench to see better and before anyone could reach him, he fell backwards off the bench, off the pier and into the water 7 feet below.

It’s amazing how time stops in moments like this. In the 1 or 2 seconds it took him to reach the water, I planned how to jump in and not splash the baby or cause him to go under or to be splashed away from me. I’d pull him up by his shirt and pull him towards me and how do you do baby CPR again? Its five puffs then check his pulse…or is it three… I’ll have to work that out…

Then the 2 seconds passed and he hit the water, and I hit the water right next to him, bounced and grabbed his shirt. He was already face down but he wasn’t in the water long enough to get scared and try to breathe. I pulled him to me while still trying to figure out if its 3 or 5 when he gave me the biggest smile and started laughing. He thought it was hilarious that we were swimming all of a sudden with our clothes on.

Everyone started breathing again and I passed him up to his mother. Then I realized the bounce was because the water was only three feet deep and I’d jumped feet first and broken my leg in the process. I couldn’t stand for the next 6 months so I took off from work, rented a wheelchair and went back to college. I did really well in college so I quit my job and finished my degree in computer science. Right after graduating, I got a new job which is rewarding and challenging and I really enjoy.

The point of all this rambling is this: someone else might say it’s a shame that I have to take care of my ailing father. I say I’m lucky that I get to help him along during a very challenging part of his life. Someone else might say it’s a shame that the baby almost drown and it stinks that I broke my leg. I say it’s great that I know I can handle emergencies and even though I limp, I still have a much better life now and a lot more freedom. Life happens, and life is tough but no matter what live hands you, when you look at it in the right light, life is very good!