People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if their light is from within.
~Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
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Since arriving home after my recent Florida vacation, I’ve talked a lot about sharks. That’s because I was surprised I encountered any! —Never in a million years would I have thought it would be a possibility…for me to snorkel over one AND, on a separate occasion, have my children see, not one, but, TWO in the surf! So I had to do some research and find out more about the creatures, and whether or not we should have been fearful during our unexpected meetings with them.
It’s commonly reported that Grey nurse sharks (seen above; like the one I saw while snorkeling) are harmless. So should I have been nervous when I encountered one?
Well, I learned the International Shark Attack File (housed in Florida) has recorded 76 nurse shark attacks on humans, of which 29 have been classified as unprovoked…and two of those unprovoked attacks resulted in fatalities.
It seems the nurse sharks are sluggish during the day and become more active at night. Even though my sighting was during the late afternoon, I’d say it was good thing I’d had an initial fear, and a cautious approach and respect for the unknown at the time.
(I do recognize that curiosity often leads me into dangerous situations…but to date I’ve never been seriously harmed…unless you count the time I had a severe reaction a few months ago after the SAR exercise, when I unknowingly contracted a combination of poison oak, poison ivy and stinging nettle.)
As for my children, I don’t know what kind of sharks they saw. All I can say is that I’m thankful nothing happened to them and I hope we never see sharks again in the surf! I know I’ll always be scanning the ocean water wherever we go—I just don’t want to take the chance of anything deadly happening to any of us!
This whole topic of encountering unpredictable creatures reminds me of the time my sister Marlene and I wandered into the midst of a troop of at least 50 wild baboons foraging in the African bush for food (because of my persuasion, we had been foolishly tracking an elephant that visited our camp the day before)…or the time I encountered a baby bear during my morning walk in the Yukon (and we all know that “where there’s a baby there’s a protective mama nearby”)…but those are topics for other Blog posts.
Hang with me and you’ll certainly find adventure! And remember, we only live once…or do we?
Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
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Where I live in Canada it’s not too far to cross the border into the USA, so my family and I pop over the border often (in fact, we went just a few days ago on the Labor day weekend)…for camping, eating out, sightseeing, traveling and sometimes shopping.
When I heard about a Denny’s waitress in nearby Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, recognizing a serial killer and his most recent kidnapping victim and phoning the police who nabbed the perpetrator, I was in shock to know that all this happened in an area we frequent.
Joseph Edward Duncan III had kidnapped then raped, tortured and murdered a 9-year-old boy in a campsite (and also kidnapped and raped the boy’s 8-year-old sister), after brutally murdering their older brother, mother, and the mother’s fiancé in their Coeur d’Alene home.
Duncan was sentenced to death last Wednesday upon the recommendation of jurors who watched a horrifying video Duncan made of himself brutality inflicting his abuses upon his victims.
And as if the story isn’t horrifying enough, labeled as adaptable and dangerous to society, to fellow inmates and to prison guards, Duncan admitted to raping a boy at gunpoint in 1980, killing two half-sisters from Seattle in 1996, and is charged with killing a young boy in Riverside County, California, in 1997.
Then…believe it or not…as the verdict was passed to the judge, Duncan showed no reaction other than to smile.
What are your thoughts on the death penalty?
What if it was your child or grandchild or friend or loved one who was victimized by a rapist and killer?
Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
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When an old man died in the geriatric ward of a small hospital near Tampa, Florida, it was believed that he had nothing left of any value. When the nurses were going through his meager possessions, they found a poem. Its quality and content so impressed the staff that copies were made and distributed to every nurse in the hospital. One nurse took her copy to Missouri. The old man’s sole bequest to posterity has since appeared in the Christmas edition of the News Magazine of the St. Louis Association for Mental Health. A slide presentation has also been made based on his simple, but eloquent poem.
And this little old man, with nothing left to give to the world is now the author of this ‘anonymous’ poem winging across the Internet.
The poem was passed on to me so now I’m displaying it for all to see:
Crabby Old Man
What do you see, nurses? … What do you see?
What are you thinking … when you’re looking at me?
A crabby old man … not very wise,
Uncertain of habit … with faraway eyes?
Who dribbles his food … and makes no reply.
When you say in a loud voice … ‘I do wish you’d try!’
Who seems not to notice … the things that you do.
And forever is losing … a sock or a shoe?
Who, resisting or not … lets you do as you will,
With bathing and feeding … the long day to fill?
Is that what you’re thinking? … Is that what you see?
Then open your eyes, nurse … you’re not looking at me.
I’ll tell you who I am … As I sit here so still,
As I do what you’re bidding … as I eat at your will.
I’m a small child of ten … with a father and mother,
Brothers and sisters … who love one another.
A young boy of sixteen … with wings on his feet
Dreaming that soon now … a lover he’ll meet.
A groom soon at twenty … my heart gives a leap.
Remembering, the vows … that I promised to keep.
At twenty-five, now … I have young of my own.
Who need me to guide … and a secure happy home.
A man of thirty … my young now grown fast,
Bound to each other … with ties that should last.
At forty, my young sons … have grown and are gone,
But my woman’s beside me … to see I don’t mourn.
At fifty, once more … babies play ’round my knee,
Again, we know children … my loved one and me.
Dark days are upon me … my wife is now dead.
I look at the future … I shudder with dread.
For my young are all rearing … young of their own.
And I think of the years … and the love that I’ve known.
I’m now an old man, and nature is cruel.
‘Tis jest to make old age look like a fool.
The body, it crumbles … grace and vigor depart.
There is now a stone … where I once had a heart.
But inside this old carcass … a young guy still dwells,
And now and again … my battered heart swells.
I remember the joys … I remember the pain.
And I’m loving and living … life over again.
I think of the years, all too few … gone too fast.
And accept the stark fact … that nothing can last.
So open your eyes, people … open and see .
Not a crabby old man. Look closer … see … ME!!
Remember this poem when you next meet an older person who you might brush aside without looking at the young soul within. We will all one day, much to soon, be there too!
Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
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It is horrifying to hear that last week when Hurricane Gustav was a Category 4 storm, it killed at least 51 people in southwestern Haiti and 8 in the Dominican Republic. It then blasted over Cuba. And despite 250,000 people being evacuated from the storm’s path, many people were injured on Cuba’s Isle of Youth.
Even with the threat of Gustav approaching and having heard those statistics and knowing what Hurricane Katrina did, some New Orleans residents, without having cars or money for gas or anywhere to go, refused to leave. For those staying behind, the city imposed a “dusk-to-dawn” curfew—a citywide curfew that will continue until the threat of the storm passes. However, two million people in coastal Louisiana and the New Orleans area DID evacuate.
When Gustav struck Louisiana this morning, it was a Category 3 storm and then was downgraded to Category 2—still a pretty ferocious storm. (I’ve heard that’s one category less than what Katrina was in 2005.)
I wonder what happened to those residents who remained. Did they board up their houses? Did they gather sand bags? Despite officials saying this would be the storm of the century, those residents had been quoted as saying, “Really…How bad do you think it’s gonna get? Ah, it’s gonna turn north.”
Last I heard, Gustav is 70 miles from New Orleans (but sending whitecaps over levees). But Tropical Storm Hanna isn’t far behind. Let’s hope and pray those tenacious people will be OK.
Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
Read an excerpt now
TV Shows and Clips about the Death of Cindy James
This is amazing…an interesting day at the Florida beach…
My two children and hubby were jumping in wave after wave in the Gulf of Mexico near Naples.
Before joining them in the water, my attention was riveted on the medical personnel who had arrived at the beach to tend to an injured bather who had stepped on something sharp in the water and cut up his foot. When the techs left with their stretcher, I joined my family in the ocean and for at least an hour the four of us played in the surf. The water was 88 degrees Fahrenheit. The sky was a gorgeous blue. And I was in heaven as our laughter pealed down the beach.
Exhausted, I had just come out of the water with my husband and plopped myself down on a beach towel when it seemed almost everyone else was heading out of the ocean as well…with our son leading the pack.
Two sharks had been spotted.
And they had only been ten feet away from our children and a group of other tourists from the Netherlands!
The kids had freaked out, telling me later they had actually seen the fins and the bodies, but not the heads!
My daughter had spotted the sharks first and said to her brother, “Hey, are those sharks or are they dolphins?”
He had taken one look at the back fins and seen they were straight up and down like a shark’s, and not side to side like a dolphin’s, and had immediately high-tailed it to shore, telling his sister to follow.
Well the Dutch people had overheard the query and looked at the creatures as well and yelled, “SHARKS” causing a mass exodus.
15 minutes later when a powerboat cruised along the shore, just past the buoys, and told everyone to get out of the water, my husband was on his way back to the hotel with our children who’d had enough.
And there I was, chatting with the Dutch people on the beach and getting their side of the story and waiting for my hubby to come back and pick me up.
Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
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Plantation Key where one of the bodies was found.
Unknown to me at the time, last week as I was flying out of Florida and escaping the Storm, four unidentified corpses, scattered over a 30 mile stretch along the Florida Keys (where my family and I had snorkeled during our vacation), were found floating offshore. Authorities believe they started out together but currents, tides and Tropical Storm Fay scattered the bodies.
The remains showed signs that sharks had fed on them…making it virtually impossible to figure out if they were victims of Tropical Storm Fay, drug smugglers (who, I found out yesterday, frequent Summerland Key) or illegal immigrants (who often come from nearby Cuba).
The first body, that of a white male, was found by a lobsterman. The next day a family snorkeling along a reef near Indian Key came across a second body in the water (another male), and called 911 from a cell phone on their boat. (Now, I can’t imagine the horror of coming across a body while blissfully snorkeling with your family! Hopefully the children didn’t make the discovery…nightmare material for sure.) Hours later, two more men were found floating off the upper Keys.
Only two of the bodies had fingerprints. And if authorities can’t match the prints to anything in their database and no one comes forward to identify any the corpses, the bodies will be buried in graves that Florida reserves for the poor and unidentified.
You know that somewhere out there loved ones are wondering what happened to those men…let’s hope their identities will be discovered in time to lay them to rest with love.
Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
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Imagine blissfully snorkeling in the calm, clear waters off Florida’s Key West…soaking up the sight of colorful fish and amazing coral formations…and suddenly encountering a shark.
Yes, to my left (and perhaps ten feet below me—I found it hard to judge distance) a shark was lazily making its way from behind some coral that I had been approaching for a closer look.
At first I didn’t believe what I was seeing and then I immediately (and briefly) stuck my head out of the water to see how close the nearest person was to me in case I should need help. Visions of having a limb (or two) ripped off my body, me screaming for help and taking in mouthfuls of salt water, miraculously making it to the boat and having a tourniquet frantically wrapped around my severed leg and me passing in and out of delirium all the while praying I’d get to the hospital on time…well all those images flashed through my brain in a split second. (Perhaps it sounds a bit dramatic, but I had never seen a shark in any water I was swimming in—and let me just say it’s a rather frightening, and at the same time a curiously exciting, sight!)
None of the swimmers were close enough to hear me (even if I could have choked out a sound) so I knew I had to deal with this shark myself.
When I stuck my head back in the water, I froze and floated and watched. The shark easily glided about the reef and to my surprise it didn’t even pay any attention to me! Not daring to move, I watched it glide out of my eyesight and then I went in search of my husband to tell him the amazing and confusing news (guess I was brave by this point).
I must have seen the movie Jaws too many times because I just assumed the shark would have attacked…well Ok, at least shown an interest in me!
Together my hubby and I were unable to relocate the shark (and I was starting to wonder if he even believed I had seen one). Still, I was relieved when he told me the kids had already returned to the Tiki boat.
So there we were, looking for a shark and pointing out one amazing sight after another to each other.
Once everyone was back on board the boat, the fellow from England (an experienced snorkeler and diver) said, “Did anyone else see the shark?”
“Yes” I exclaimed, knowing my sighting had been validated. Turns out he had watched the shark (which he said was a harmless nurse shark) for ten minutes as it fed among the coral. (Now I wish I had asked him what it ate.) And together we declared the shark to be AT LEAST 7-feet long! Only the two of us had seen it.
Ok…I didn’t exactly stare death in the face, but still…it WAS spooky!
And yes, also an unforgettable Key experience!
Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
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Take the plunge…immerse yourself in one of my vacation days in Florida (pre-hurricane):
It’s a gorgeous 90-degree Fahrenheit plus humidity day in the 120-mile Florida Keys 200-island chain. Five miles offshore from Key West (the southernmost point in the United States), the lime-green water over the coral reef is clear, calm and shallow—ideal for snorkeling and viewing the natural habitat and all the species of marine wildlife.
Facemask sealed (by breathing in through my nose and tightening the mask around my face and making sure no stray hairs are trapped) and snorkel perfectly aligned, I sit down on the edge of the charter boat and jump-drop into the water. I hear my fins make a slapping sound, and then I am submerged. My 11-year-old son follows. Both his sister and his father are patiently waiting for us, images of brightly colored fish flicking through their minds—an underwater world to discover. Oh what a playground—but do not touch the reef we are warned!
Below us is a living coral garden—in fact, 47 varieties of coral (like the purple and deep royal blue seafans, soft and hard corals…). Plus500 species of tropical fish and other marine creatures to discover—rainbow-colored, striped, spotted and bright neon-electric fish; grouper; tiger fish; clown fish; barracudas (some over 4-and-a-half feet long); jewelfish; parrotfish (orange and purple); butterfly fish (yellow); queen angels (turquoise); large schools of two-inch silver fish that move together like a wave (just like in the movie Finding Nemo); urchins; needle fish that swim just under the surface of the water…
Absolutely breathtaking! Purely amazing!
I float and look. I paddle and look. I just can’t get enough of this colorful wonderland.
And astonishingly…about a half hour later…I see a shark and realize there is nobody immediately nearby!
In another Blog post I’ll share what happened next.
Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
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TV Shows and Clips about the Death of Cindy James
My family and I were recently vacationing in the state of Florida when Tropical Storm Fay approached and hit (and stuck around for a week). I watched as precautionary measures for the safety of the public were being made—city workers sucking out debris from storm drains to minimize the expected flooding. But sadly, the deaths of eleven Floridians are to be blamed on Fay’s flooding (as well as 1 death in Georgia, one in Alabama and 23 in Haiti and the Dominican Republic).
And through it all I found myself periodically flipping through the hotel’s TV channels, finding station after station tracking the progress of Fay, and wondered if we would be able to get out and enjoy the remainder of our vacation…or even make it out of Florida safely!
I’ll never forget the nervousness of waiting on the airport tarmac for takeoff, with seatbelt fastened (and a bursting bladder to boot!) for an hour as the winds knocked the plane around and the rain pelted down. The lady next to me asked if I needed to make a connecting flight. I didn’t. Later I heard 150 flights were either delayed or cancelled…we were lucky. And then, when the fasten seatbelt sign came on during the flight and the pilot announced we would be flying through a portion of the storm…let’s just say it was nerve-wracking to be bounced around like that and feel your stomach drop! UGGG!
This past Sunday when President Bush declared some Florida counties as major disaster areas, Fay had weakened to a tropical depression that was still expected to dump at least a foot of rain along its path and possibly drop tornadoes.
Considering my family and I had left the Florida Keys a day or so before the tourist evacuation order was given because of the approaching hurricane, and we also left Miami a few hours before a tornado hit that area, and the worst we experienced was severe winds and pelting rain (which was still warm, by the way)…I’d say someone above was looking after us!
Stay tuned for more Blog posts on my Florida adventure!
Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
Read an excerpt now
TV Shows and Clips about the Death of Cindy James