For Her Birthday

Shawna Case-Bekish grew up in the humble but amazing town of Kittitas, Washington, where she lived a peculiarly normal life until her teenage years. When I met her, she was doing her best to blend in with her classmates a few years behind me, but everyone knew she was meant for something more, if she did not.

As with all teenage years there was turmoil of the most evilest of kinds, hormonal. This brings with it unnecessary pain, sorrow, confidence and arrogance (It’s an extremely fickle beast). The extraordinary thing about Shawna is that she was above it. She had control over her emotions like no other high school kid had, yet understood what all of her classmates were going through. A few words from Shawna to the chemically unbalanced and all the problems drained away like bacon grease down a sink. She was like a nurse for the confused and forlorn. The hormonally challenged lived easier lives in high school because of Shawna Case-Bekish.

One would think that this amazing person, with such a talent for empathy would stop after this magnificent contribution to her surroundings, but no. Shawna is a giver. The next opportunity for her to give of herself occurred when she was only 19.

On a date with a lucky young man on a dock in Bremerton Washington, not far from the naval shipyard, something odd attracted Shawna’s attention. A strange appearance in the water reminded her of something she knew from her hobby of military submarines from around the world. Recognizing this as a periscope of a Soviet “B” Class submarine, she wasted no time. Shawna dove into the cold water of Puget Sound and swam quietly out to the nuclear powered behemoth lurking in the shallows. Submerging herself and very nearly drowning while entering the submarine through a torpedo tube, Shawna slipped into the submarine and was immediately apprehended by the crew. Having studied the Russian language by mail via a handsome pen pal she had known since elementary school, Shawna gleaned that the submarine was rogue, meaning it no longer answered to any government. The submarine meant to capture a submarine from the United States and use any nuclear weapons it found to wreak havoc on LA and Hollywood for cancelling the game show Hollywood Squares.

Shawna, understanding the submarine commander’s pain, explained that a new Hollywood Squares game had recently been aired and that it was only a matter of time before black market video tapes of those seasons made their way back to Russia. Shawn then immediately seduced the submarine commander, making him fall hopelessly in love with her. Once satisfied that he could not live without her, Shawna, escaped out the top hatch of the submarine and swam back to the dock.

Heartbroken, the submarine commander piloted the stolen craft out to the Mariana Trench and scuttled the ship to the deepest depths of the Pacific ocean, thwarting any further attempt at cancelled game show retaliation.

In only 20 minutes time, Shawna Case-Bekish was responsible for saving the United States West Coast and television and movies as we know it. A little wet from swimming back to the dock, she resumed her date that unfortunately ended when the young man tried to steal second base. He was picked off.

Through her twenties, Shawna crafted a life of service. Her motto became: “whatever you need.” She gave people literally what they needed. If a person needed their tire changed, she was there with a jack and a socket wrench. If another person had a headache, she would rub their temples until the pain was gone, or sing Guatemalan lullabies (the prettiest kind) until a baby was soothed to sleep. At one point Shawna built a two story, 4 bedroom, 2.75 bath house on land she reclaimed from the sea using dykes she fashioned herself. It took her a year of her life, with the family in need watching from dry land, but it was sturdy and safe (for the most part, nobody could have foreseen the raccoon attack).

As for me, she has been a source of constant inspiration. Whether I’m reading about her constant adventures to Asia, where she relocates wayward pandas, or her work in dyslexia clinics in India, I am energized to be a better person.

She inspired me to write this today. I was happy to do it because it is her birthday… and she asked me to, and that is the Damm truth.