Happy Birthday to Mom and Me!

I have now celebrated my second COVID birthday and, in spite of the restrictions, it was a joyful experience. My four sisters and I were looking forward to celebrating outdoors, which until shortly before my birthday was allowed with exactly five people, but then things got out of hand in Manitoba and even that was not any longer permitted. But I received lovely surprises at our front door: 

A delicious lemon buttercream cake, baked by my youngest sister Margaret

  

Beautiful cards and well wishes from family and friends. 

You will notice that these cards are handmade. That is one positive thing about this COVID experience: We have time to be creative. The one on the left is artwork done by my sister Ruth. The one on the right is from my friend Yayoi who does origami (Japanese paper folding art). In the center of the card is a beautiful flower that unfolds into heart-shaped petals.   

My thoughtful oldest daughter remembered my nostalgia about a rabbit storybook from my childhood (see March 2021 blogpost). She found it on Amazon and ordered it for me. 

The grandchildren also made cards and we had Zoom meetings with them throughout the day. 

Here's a link sent by a friend on how to have fun with the Happy Birthday song:

https://youtu.be/OaZveHbxAYs

 Preview YouTube video How to play "Happy Birthday" Like Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms, Bach and Mozart Piano by Nicole Pesce

I did some reflecting about the time I was born (May 1943) in Ukraine.

When my brother was born in 1941, the Germans were celebrating their victory over Russia, and my parents called their first-born Victor. They were able to resume church services, and both my parents were baptized. They were happy and hoped for better days.

(Pen-and-ink drawing by Teresa Pankratz)

Two years later, at the time of my birth, the Russians had defeated the Germans and our lives, as people who claimed German ancestry, were in danger. My parents called me Elfriede, hoping for peace (the word Friede is peace in German). Dad took Mom to the local hospital, but as soon as I was born, he checked us out because he had heard rumors that the Russians were sending all patients who identified as Germans into exile.

In October of that year (1943), our family left Ukraine by train -- first to Poland and then to southern Germany. After four years of refugee life, we boarded the Volendam, a passenger ship heading to Argentina.
Following another five years of pioneer existence in Paraguay, we emigrated to Canada.

When I asked my mother about her memories of these difficult years, she had no desire to talk about them. She told me that she couldn't remember the details because she was so busy just keeping track of us! She had two children in Ukraine, one during the refugee years in Germany, three in Paraguay, and two more in Canada!

 My parents celebrating their 25th anniversary in 1965. I am in the back row, second from left.

My mother and I share a birthday month, and tomorrow (May 30th) she would be 100 years old. Sadly, she passed away in 2008, at the age of 87, just before our family's move to Winnipeg. The above picture was taken at her last Christmas celebration. Regrettably, I couldn't be there as we were in Ontario preparing for our move. She wanted us to come; I think she sensed that it would be her last Christmas.  Early in January she quietly slipped away.

A poem in memory of my mother

My Mother's Hands  . . .

Rough hands they were, with cracks and crevices, 

carved there by caring for eight children and a homestead.

These hands drew water from a well, milked a balky cow, 

mixed manure to spread over dirt floors, washed and swept these floors,

cleaned children's ears and noses, 

sewed, laundered, and mended their clothes,

tended a garden and worked in the fields.

But more than anything, 

I remember that these hands kneaded the dough for our daily bread.

I can picture her now, 

back bent, head down, hands deeply immersed in the dough;

kneeling on a chair beside the table, I watched those hands in fascination.

The smell of the yeast dough is with me still.

Mother's hands kneaded it to supple elasticity until the strength of her went into it.

Deftly, she shaped the bread into loaves, pushed it into the hot clay oven.

I sat and watched until it turned golden brown.  

We ate it all, knowing that mother's hands would make more bread, the next day and the next.

In all our childhood years, strength from those hands, those cracked and work-worn hands

flowed into making bread.

 

What special memories do you have of your Mother ?

 

Listen to the Birds!

This is one of my favorite photos of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip. They look like ordinary folks enjoying a  summer outing, and they look so happy. Philip, especially, is relaxed, his hat balanced on his knee. The picture was taken in 2003 on a sunny day at The Coyles of Muick, near the Scottish Aberdeenshire town of Ballater, by their daughter-in-law Sophie. In the background, we can see the mountain of Lochnagar.

This is the photo the queen shared on the eve of her husband's funeral (April 17, 2021), which would have been one of the saddest days of her life. He died at age 99.

"Grief is the price we pay for love."

Nearly twenty years ago, Queen Elizabeth said these words as she shared about grief and loss in the aftermath of the September 11, 2011 terrorist attack in the United States.

Her words resonated with me. Before Philip's death in April, Hardy and I lost three dear friends, two in February and one in March. When I was younger, and my mother would tell me about another one of their friends who had died, I listened sympathetically but thought to myself, "Oh, they lived a good long life and it was their time."

I didn't have that glib thought in my head at all when our friends passed away. Two of them were in their late eighties, and yes, they had lived a long life, but they were our dear friends.
One of them was younger than me, only sixty-nine. That in itself was tragic. Another was a gynecologist who had been with us in Congo and delivered two of our children by C-section, hosting me at their home to convalesce for a week after the surgery. The third was Hardy's friend since his youth who had chosen a similar path of service in an African country.
Not only is there sadness at never seeing them again in this life, but the thought of my own demise creeps into my consciousness and becomes more of a reality.

We had a sudden snowfall in April, which didn't help matters; I longed for spring and new life. Then there have been the COVID restrictions and we haven't been able to be with our children and grandchildren. We haven't seen our family in Ontario for over a year and a half! 

One of my sisters put into words what I was feeling:

Grief is an emotion that comes in unexpected and unwanted moments ... like late at night when you want to sleep but can't, or in the morning, after a night of sleep when you expect everything to be normal but it isn't. Then it comes in waves of uncontrollable sadness. You don't want to feel it but you have no choice, it will not leave you. You try to avoid it with various kinds of therapy and slowly the emotions are fewer, with longer 'happy' moments in between, until you find a new normal for yourself.

One morning I looked out the window and was quite amazed. Our maple tree was full of birds--not the little sparrows and chickadees that gathered around our bird feeder throughout the winter. They were red-winged blackbirds, and they were singing, long trilling sounds as they flashed their wings. They were migratory birds and they had returned! I had never seen that many birds in our tree at one time. It felt like they were messengers sent to cheer me.

That day I also heard a robin's song, very loud and insistent ... another sign of spring. I couldn't see the robin (it must have been up on our roof) but its song was beautiful and uplifting.

Today was a lovely day in May. This morning I checked our lilac bush which we planted from cuttings in my parents' yard a few years ago. Last year it had only one bloom. Now I noticed it was full of buds!

Our daughter came over and we walked around the lake near our house. Other people were out and about, walking their dogs, pushing strollers with smiling babies, riding bikes.

The world seemed almost normal again.

There is one favorite tree in which all the birds seem to congregate and we just sat on the bench and listened to the music, interrupted at times by the honking of geese. The lake was full of life and light.

https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/mcvmagazine/bird_songs_interactive/index.html