We watched her grow up, a little bit at a time, during our annual treks to Bellingham for the Fourth of July, although we hadn’t seen her for many years.
And now we’ll never see her again.
Janet was the eldest of the four blond children born to the son of my husband’s cousin. Jim’s wife, Judy, and I were pregnant at the same time — she with her fourth and me with my first. We both have sons who recently turned 30.
I had just finished shopping at the new WinCo in Centralia on Sunday — a packed parking lot provided testimony to the busy aisles inside — when I received a text message from a relative. Janet had been killed in a murder-suicide in Waite Park, Minnesota, where she lived. Her two young children, who were in the house at the time, were safe yet traumatized. Those poor little ones.
How absolutely heartbreaking! I can’t stop praying for the family, for the children, for my husband’s cousin.
We read about such tragedies. I’ve even met parents whose children were murdered or did the murdering. But it’s always been other families who suffered such tragedies. I prayed for those families, too, but this time, I knew the victim and her parents. I know and love her grandparents.
It’s just so sad and so senseless.
I’ll never understand such violence, but I see more hostility than ever on the freeway, for example.
A couple of times on Thursday, when I drove my daughter to Vancouver to shop for apartments closer to her new job in Portland, I had people flashing lights, flipping me off and shouting profanities. Why? I had nowhere to go with cars in front of me. The anger and hostility is baffling.
But touring apartments in five different complexes gave me a better understanding of the homeless problem.
Housing is expensive. In Washington state, the average rental rate for a studio apartment is $1,486 a month with a two-bedroom apartment costing about $2,057, according to Apartments.com. That’s $17,832 a year for a studio, or $24,684 for a two-bedroom apartment.
Somebody working full-time at a minimum-wage job paying $16.66 an hour earns $34,653 a year. With two-thirds of that going to housing, only $10,000 remains for food, gas, transportation, utilities, health care and other costs. Can you imagine trying to survive on the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour? That’s only $15,080 a year for a full-time minimum-wage worker.
At his presentation last month to the Lewis County chapter of the American Association of University Women, Pastor Mark McHugh of Harrison Square Presbyterian Church in Centralia noted that Washington has the nation’s third-highest rate of homelessness along with its fourth-highest average housing cost.
He also noted that people have prejudices when it comes to the vulnerable and the poor and the homeless, and those words came back to haunt me after driving past a homeless encampment near two of the apartment complexes we toured. I worried about my daughter and her husband living in such proximity to the Vancouver Homeward Bound Safe Park, an organized site where people can park motor vehicles in the old C-Tran transit center. It looked a bit like the former encampment of RVs along Ensign Road near Providence St. Peter Hospital in Olympia.
My compassion for people without homes grappled with concerns for her safety. The program requires people to sign a code of conduct regarding hygiene, site maintenance, alcohol and drug use, and other prohibited behaviors.
I hope the $427,000 Shalom Village at 1227 Harrison Ave. in Centralia provides the transitional housing people need to leave homelessness behind and find solid footing with a job and a roof over their heads. The village is the brainchild of the Hope Housing Collaborative of Lewis County, a collaboration of four local churches — Harrison Square, Westminster Presbyterian Church, Gather Church and Chehalis United Methodist Church.
Last month, I invited my sister and daughter and son-in-law to join me for a fun night of Bingo for a good cause, a fundraiser for Shalom Village, which I believe raised about $7,000. We had a good time at The Juice Box playing bingo and putting tickets in raffle baskets hoping for a win.
We recently spent a week in Tucson enjoying the blue skies and sunshine to celebrate a milestone birthday for my husband with all four of his children. We rented a house through Airbnb that sleeps 10, which gave us plenty of room to enjoy time together and spread out when we needed space.
When we returned to the Northwest — and the rainy weather — last week, we appreciated the Evergreen State’s green grass and trees. The Sonoran Desert’s brown landscape dotted with blooming green cacti, palo verde plants and other trees offers a different kind of beauty, but the lush greenery of the Pacific Northwest in the spring with cherry trees and dogwoods blooming can’t be beat. We took heart knowing we’re headed into our state’s best season — summer.
One thing I enjoyed in Arizona was paying $2.99 a gallon for gasoline, rather than about $4 at home.
On the way back, catching up on the news, I read an article saying Washington’s gas prices could increase another 40 cents a gallon by 2031 under a bill revising the state’s Clean Fuel Standard law. I rolled my eyes. I’m all for clean fuel, but we already have the nation’s third highest gas prices at $4.37 a gallon, behind only California at No. 1 and Hawaii in second place.
Washington is also the eighth most expensive state in the nation for retirees (not that I’ll plan to retire soon) with an annual cost of living of $68,259.
According to a January GoBankingRates analysis, you need to be a millionaire to cover basic retirement costs in the 15 most expensive states, including Washington. Hawaii is the most expensive place to retire with an annual cost of living of $110,921, followed by California ($86,946), Alaska ($74,147), New York ($74,147), New Jersey ($68,980) and Vermont ($68,559).
While on vacation, I also received email messages from Airbnb about plans by Washington state legislators to increase taxes on Airbnb rentals. We’ve enjoyed trips to Spokane, Leavenworth, Wenatchee, Ellensburg. Clarkston and other places in the state, often renting an Airbnb rather than staying in a hotel. When I check out Airbnbs, I may like the per-night price of a rental but at times close the app in disgust when taxes and cleaning fees nearly double the cost. Now, if the vacation tax is approved, that’s likely to happen even more frequently.
I realize Washington has a projected budget shortfall of $15 billion, but I wonder why state lawmakers don’t look harder at cutting costs rather than raising revenue. When residents face a budget shortfall, they usually do just that — look at places to curb spending.
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Julie McDonald, a personal historian from Toledo, may be reached at memoirs@chaptersoflife.com.
