Memories of Sandra Phelps

Memories of Sandra...

Leave it to Sandra to speak from the other side... Thank you for being part of my life. I celebrate it all. I am gone but you still have joy to celebrate in your life and I encourage you onward.

Like being hit with a brick... the unbelievable, the unthinkable, the no, not Sandra!

But it was true. I knew she was in heaven (wherever that is). I pictured her in her angel’s gown, sitting with hundreds of people around her, all those souls she had touched during her 79 years.

But I could not reach her. It was too crowded!

I watched and waited for a sign that I would see her again... I was hoping to see her spirit animal.

I knew she wouldn’t let me down. Then on August 2nd, in the road right in front of me, there she was—a beautiful, smooth-furred brown coyote. She stood still for a long moment, then slipped away in a flash. But it was long enough for me to recognize her and celebrate her life on the other side.—Marsha

Sandra in our lives...

Saturday, June 2, 2018 was her 79th birthday, for which I and many others had posted Facebook felicitations. So you can imagine the shock when I read her thanks (to all of us) the next day, Sunday. It was like an arrow pierced my heart (or a brick). The thought of her being gone. Even though these past few years I hadn't physically seen her very much, I always felt that if I ever really needed her for something—anything—she would always be there with her cheerful joy-filled spirit to oblige me.

Sandra is the friend that I lived with after I left my first husband, in fact, she went with me to Europe to meet up with Misha and helped us get established in Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia. Later when we came back to San Diego, she and I bought side-by-side halves of a duplex in City Heights. She retired early from SDSU as a career counselor and later moved to Thailand to teach English, and we visited her there; she built a beach house in Baja on the gulf, and we visited her there several times; we bought the Imperial Beach condo together; and a weekend house in Julian; and on and on. From her world travels, she moved back to San Diego county a few years back, but we hadn't seen her as often (it used to be everyday!).

Anyway, when she wrote in her 2017 Xmas letter that she'd had a double mastectomy, I was shocked. But she was a health-freak vegetarian, and I just figured she would recover like she had from other health issues, and take up the pink-ribbon breast cancer cause... well, that was not to be. I learned from her niece Sarah, after the fact, that the cancer was very aggressive and she died within a year after much pain and suffering. I am so sorry I didn’t try to see her this critical year.

Sandra was a wonderful Christian woman and always active in all sorts of social and people causes—like Amnesty International and the women's movement, etc., and she helped everyone who came within her circle. She was an unbelievably joyful person who seldom got mad or even irritated (except with Misha).

The three of us after cashing Sandra out of the IB condo. She was so happy; we, not so much.

Sandra’s Baja beach house—Los Pulpos

Sandra (with camp doggie) and me//Sandra with my sister Barbara Nelson

One of my fondest memories is Sandra’s odyssey in building her Los Pulpos casita south of San Felipe, Mexico. It was to be her anchor when she wasn’t in Thailand or other places. It was only livable during the winter because of the intense heat; but we made many trips down either taking her or picking her up.

The scan shows the first page of her journal covering the house years (19872007). In the end, she decided she didn’t want to just be a part of a “gringo-ville” community. She had to have purpose—how quintessential Sandra. So she sold the casita and moved on to the Lagunas and Alpine and eventually San Marcos.

Other memories of Sandra Women’s Lib for Christian “ladies.” My first meaningful encounter with Sandra involved a weekly Bible Study she hosted at her Superba Street house in Logan Heights in the late 70s. We read the New Testament through and marked any passage that could be encouraging or supporting of women’s equality in Christianity (Christians were finally getting involved in the women’s movement). During one of these meetings, I met Sandra’s parents for the first time, and it was at these studies that I met Sandy Gold (a friend of Sandra’s from LA days). Our lives became very intertwined.

Living on Superba Street. When I decided to leave my first husband, Sandra invited me to stay with her. This was an especially difficult time for me, and she gave me support and encouragement, and I learned to live in the ghetto. She was never judgmental about what I was about to do.

Going to Europe. When it came time for me to leave, Sandra went with me. First to England, then across Europe to Yugoslavia.

We traveled in a “new” used car with Misha in a rough guide trip, but we made it to Dubrovnik, the Pearl of the Adriatic.

Coming to America! Misha’s first Thanksgiving in the USA (1979).

Sandra and I prepared the food, then drove over to a campsite on the canyon’s edge in “big blue,” her old VW van. When we arrived, she ran to the canyon edge and shouted “Hello, Grand Canyon!” We never forgot that freezing cold camping trip that introduced Misha to America and the Grand Canyon and Sandra’s efficiency.

Welcoming Baby Sasha. Sandra was more excited than I when she heard about me having a baby at age 40! And she was a great “auntie” to him, especially when he was little. It was very special to see her interact with him in Thailand, when as a 6-year old, he was fascinated with signaling for a “tuk tuk” (taxi), the language, and the flag.

Sharing a duplex. The years we shared the 46th Street duplex (left) were especially fun. We three together tried to tame the wild canyon brush in our long, skinny yard, and control the flash floods of winter. And we saw each other just about every day.

Burying Heidi. Sandra had several dogs when she was more stationary. The first one we knew was Heidi, a fantastic German Shepherd. We even shared Heidi as a watch dog (when our car kept getting vandalized, we put Heidi in the car). Heidi got old and died during one of Sandra’s domestic trips. Sandra asked that the vet keep Heidi on ice until she got home, and then asked Misha to dig a grave for her on the edge of the canyon property. So with pick ax and shovel, he dug Heidi’s final resting place. Unfortunately the hole was the wrong shape; so Heidi had to be buried vertically instead of horizontally.

Mothers’ Day at the Border. My sister Barbara and I went to Los Pulpos to get Sandra in 2005 on Mothers’ Day weekend. My sister brought her dog, which attracted the drug sniffer dog, which then marked our filled-to-the-brim car for secondary inspection and our bodies for frisking. So three senior ladies were suspected of drug trafficking until all of their searching only came up with a cute little female dachshund flirting with the drug sniffer dog. It was a good thing they didn’t ask to see Sandra’s passport, which was full of trips to Asia and back! We parted with one border officer suggesting that this would be a Mothers’ Day we wouldn’t forget.