Lloyd Peckham
A year has passed (written 3/12/2022 in Tustin, CA) but we still miss Sharon's love for God and for His people. Here is a fun memory for the family:
You know that Sharon loved to visit her little sister, Nancy. That meant leaving the cold weather of Michigan, you know. She visited the warm Philippines and Sunny Southern California. Nancy and I had returned from Indonesia. We were celebrating Resurrection Sunday, April 4, 2010, with relatives in Corona. Sharon was with us. It was a beautiful, sunny day. We were eating in the back patio next to the swimming pool. I started to feel a tremor. We had last lived between seven active volcanoes in North Sulawesi. Earthquakes were common. And I had grown up in Southern California through some major quakes. In fact, the 1971 Sylmar Quake had altered my senior year of High School when the walls of Willard Junior High were cracked. Those students had to share our Santa Ana High School Campus. That meant we were done by 11:30 each day! There had also been a day full of quakes when I was in Third Grade in 1961. We had to evacuate our classrooms and wait it out in the open grassy playing field. I wanted to fully experience it. So I stood on my head. All day I tried to be on my head when a tremor hit, but never quite did it. Later, in the Philippines, one or two of my sons succeeded. They got to feel an earthquake through their head. But I missed it.
All this was triggered in my mind, with the added responsibility of hosting a sister-in-law who had not yet experienced an earthquake.
So, at the first inkling of a tremor, I said to Sharon:
"Sharon, we are in an earthquake. Don't panic, but:
1. Make sure you are not under anything that could fall.
2. Check the time
3. Have someone turn on the radio to find out the location of the epicenter.
4. Watch the waves form on the pool.
5. Stand on your head, if you want to really feel it.
Immediately, I was on my head on the concrete patio. Success at last! It was a good one!
Someone checked the time. The epicenter was in Mexicali, over 100 miles south of us. Sharon was away from potential falling objects. But she watched the chandelier sway. And she saw the waves slosh out of the pool. Being surrounded by calm Californian Quake-Riders, she rather enjoyed the event! She was always up for a new adventure!
Then the phone rang. Our host's son was down near the epicenter. Walls and fences were falling. Animals were fleeing. But he was safe. He got to help people.
This was all part of Sharon's love of family and travel.
