Pre Christmas Musings

 

"Are you the eldest daughter of an immigrant household or are you normal?"

The above sentence jumped out at me when I read a book review in our local paper. (It is the introductory sentence of Teresa Wong's graphic memoir: All Our Ordinary Stories: A Multigenerational Family Odyssey).

I happen to be that person! That eldest daughter who went through all the trauma experienced by my family as they relocated multiple times to finally settle in Canada. I have six younger siblings and an older brother. Times were tough, but we got through it!

 My sister, who is two years younger than me, was the more practical one. I was the dreamer with the imagination. Together we somehow managed to keep our siblings in line. It was not an easy task, and I breathed a sigh of relief when I began school in our little village in Paraguay. My sister had to manage the younger ones on her own for that year! They still love us, and now do their share in helping us in our senior years. You can ask them if they consider me normal!

I do not recall that our family ever went hungry. My grandmother told me that when we were refugees staying in the barn on a farm in South Germany, there was a small shelf with a curtain in front of it, in which we kept the food supplies that the farm family provided for us. Apparently  I, as a four-year-old, would sneak behind that curtain and gouge my little fingers into the butter. My feet stuck out underneath the curtain, and my grandmother would swoop me up and catch me with my buttery fingers, which we then licked together!

Another butter memory I have is my mother filling a large jar with cream and then I sat and rolled it back and forth on my lap until the cream separated from the whey and magically turned into butter! 

I still love butter! It reminds me of my husband, Hardy, who loved it too and always made sure to stock our freezer when it was on sale. Recently there has been a lot of food thievery in our local grocery stores. Apparently one thief left with hundreds of pounds of butter according to a recent article in the daily newspaper. The writer of the article wondered what on earth someone would do with so much butter! Hmmm--- use it lavishly on your Zwieback!

In her book, Eating Like a Mennonite, Marlene Epp "reveals food as a complex ingredient in ethnic, religious, and personal identities, with the ability to create both bonds and boundaries between people.." 

At this time of year, in December, we remember all the traditions that became dear to us as children and a lot of them evolve around food and special dishes. I  have baked my annual fruit cakes, some of which I gift to people who love it. There will be more baking in the days ahead!

My Christmas tree is up and decorated, thanks to grandson Ivan's and daughter Heidi's help in setting it up.

 

My daughters and I attended a special lighting ceremony with a donation to Cancer Care in remembrance of those who have died from this disease. We stood in the cold with hundreds of others. Our hearts were warmed as the lights went on and we saw the names of our loved ones.

Hardy's Christmas tree

MERRY CHRISTMAS,  EVERYONE! 

We Will Rise!

I check my calendar and realize that we are well into November and I have had no inspiring thoughts for my monthly blog post. I want to stop writing about grief but cannot seem to move beyond it, especially after watching the American election results!

I feel like the wolf in this November page of my calendar!

Then I get an email from my daughter. She sends me an article by Diana Butler entitled Midnight in America. I begin to read it and come to the words: 

It's okay to need to catch your breath after the wind has been knocked out of it. It will take a bit. But we will rise.

 

So I move slowly into my day. I see the maple tree outside my window has shed a lot of leaves but there are still more clinging to its branches than on most trees. While eating my breakfast I watch the sparrows and the chickadees at the birdfeeder. I just filled it yesterday and spread the rest of the seeds onto the round table  on the deck. Those are all gone and I notice a couple of birds hopping onto the table searching for them, so I go out and scatter some more seeds onto the table, and rake up the leaves that are slowly filling the deck. The sparrows remind me of the song His Eye is on the Sparrow and I know He Watches Me. I listen to it and am reminded that God is watching and providing for me the way I watch and feed the sparrows. 

The words above come from a book I just discovered in my book shelf. It is a beautiful book by Linda Watson, and it is signed by the author. I have no memory of attending this book signing or meeting the author. But there it is, a gift to me when I need some inspiration!

I leave you with another quote from the book  above. It could have been written by the Old Testament Psalmist, King David. I was surprised and delighted when I read the name of the author!

Stories

 

It's October and there is a chill in the air. The leaves are turning color. Nature is settling down for its winter sleep. This is the time for walking and the time to curl up in a cozy corner and read. I still like to hold a book  and turn the pages when I read. I have a library downstairs and have discovered that when I read a book for the second time after a number of years, it seems like I haven't read it before! A book speaks to me in the circumstances in which I find myself at the time of reading it. I have a granddaughter who grieves when she finishes reading a book she loves, because she can't bear it that the story is over!

Franz Kafka, (1893-1924), an  Austrian-Czech novelist and writer from Prague wrote : "If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for? ...We need books to affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into a forest far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us."

 

A book did that recently  for me as I read it for the second time.  I  read it years ago. 

Martel tells the story of a young boy who is in search of spiritual meaning, even though his parents are secular. He finds himself stranded on a lifeboat, the only survivor of his family who were on a ship headed for Canada. Some of the zoo animals his father had raised are also on the ship, and several end up in the lifeboat with him. 

Having just experienced the loss of a partner of over fifty years, I identified with this boy and his struggle to face overwhelming fear and anxiety, while at the same time dealing with his grief. It was a cathartic read! 

If reading and writing isn't your thing, there are other ways of telling and receiving a story. I have a brother-in-law who does intricate carvings from pieces of wood and acorns and seeds. The one below 

he called Ein Spaziergang.  (A Walk). He made it for me after Hardy passed away. The body is made from oak acorns Hardy and I picked up in Chortiza, Ukraine, while visiting the place where I was born. The base is made from a piece of shale found at Falcon Lake. My brother-in-law calls his creations J-Korns by Jansen. Each one is accompanied by an explanation. The explanation for the one below:

A J-Korn couple is enjoying a walk on a beautiful spring day in Kornucopia. He is supporting himself with a walking stick and she is carrying a parasol to shade herself from the sun. 

One of my sisters creates beautiful quilts for her numerous nieces and nephews. She tells the story through symbols. The one below is in the process of being created for one of my daughters. The middle panel shows a church to indicate her calling as a pastor. The bottom panel has her and her husband's initials. The candles and the teapot show that they are relaxing together. 

Nature tells its own stories.

 

 I wonder what this tree is telling us?

Of Courage and Clusters

 A number of years ago my daughter and some of the grandchildren and I went to a craft place and I painted a beautiful ceramic monarch. Every spring I hung it up on the fence in our back yard and brought it in again when winter made its entrance. 

This spring there was grief occupying my mind and I forgot. In late summer I saw it  in the basement and brought it upstairs. I decided to hang it on a nail on the deck instead of on the fence so that I would see it more often. While watering plants my arm brushed against it and my beautiful butterfly lay in several pieces at my feet. I was devastated! 

Grandson Ivan happened to be at my house. He said, "Oma, I have some strong glue at home, I'll glue it back together for you."

He gathered up the pieces and took them home. This is the boy for whom I made a butterfly quilt when he was born. There is a monarch on the top right of the quilt below. The picture was taken a number of years ago. 

This year he has a summer job and will be finishing high school in the near future. I hope he will be strong and courageous as he journeys through life! Like the monarch, the only butterfly known to make a two-way migration as birds do. They know when it is time to travel south for the winter, using environmental cues. They fly as far as 3,000 miles to reach their winter home, using a combination of air currents and thermals to travel long distances. Monarchs cluster together to stay warm. Tens of thousands of monarchs can cluster on a single tree. Although monarchs alone weigh less than a gram, tens of thousands of them weigh a lot, sometimes even breaking branches.

 I too, need the courage of a monarch as I continue to navigate life on my own! I'm thankful that I can be in a cluster with others who support and encourage me!

 

 

There's Always a Solution!

These days I am reliving a wonderful cottage holiday I enjoyed with my children and grandchildren and reminding myself that there's usually a solution to my problems. 

Two years ago, our holiday at this same cottage was cut short when we discovered Covid among our ranks. We had to say goodbye to our Ontario family after two days!  Last year Hardy and I could not be there because of his illness. It was a sad time for us. This time we would all enjoy it, kind of like a bittersweet chocolate bar!

We went tubing, and we went on a boat ride at sunset. We spotted six bald eagles with our binoculars!

The sons-in-law did a lot of the cooking and everyone helped with clean up. Two of the granddaughters helped me fry Rollkuchen (delicious deep fried fritters  that are eaten with watermelon in summer and with Borscht (cabbage soup) in winter. My mother made them without using a recipe. She told me the recipe in The Mennonite Treasury of Recipes was good but to use whipping cream instead of milk. I mixed the batter ahead of time at home and kept it chilled for easier rolling and handling. 

After all that hard work a granddaughter did our  nails as we relaxed on the dock. I thought the color she chose was quite beautiful!

Of course we all missed Hardy and there were moments of sadness but also evidence that he was still with us. On the bookshelf someone found a thank you card he had written . Usually I'm the card writer! It's not like him to leave something undated but there was no date on the card.  We took it as a greeting from him!

 

There was also a puzzle for us to do on which he had written that there were no missing pieces and we should enjoy it!

Our family had discussed scattering Hardy's ashes over the water while we were at the cottage. I chose a reading from Henri Nouwen :

Every time we make the decision to love someone, we open ourselves to great suffering, because those we most love cause us not only great joy but also great pain. The greatest pain comes from leaving...the pain of the leaving can tear us apart. Still, if we want to avoid the suffering of leaving, we will never experience the joy of loving. And love is stronger than fear, life stronger than death, hope stronger than despair. We have to trust that the risk of loving is always worth taking

The children  each read part of Psalm 90, a psalm Hardy and I read together when he was ill.

The grandchildren read lines from  John Donohue's poem On the Death of the Beloved.

I didn't want this to end in sadness however, and came up with what I thought was a good solution. Hardy had bought extra soap bubble liquid and stashed it under the deck for the next time we went to the cottage. I found it while doing some cleanup and thought this would be a great way to end the ceremony. I carefully put the soap bubble solution in the garage so I wouldn't forget to take it along. Much to my regret, I did forget it! 

However, there was a Dollar store in the nearby town and someone purchased soap bubbles with a label stating there was a wand inside the bottle for blowing bubbles. When I opened the bottle there was no wand! It seemed like this was not going to happen! 

Son-in-law Chris, gifted problem solver, came up with a brilliant solution! He came running up to the dock with the kitchen gadget below, used for flipping pancakes etc.  Plus it blew not just one bubble, but a whole bunch at a time, bigger than the regular wand! 

The ceremony ended in joy and laughter, the way  I had envisioned it!

When morning comes, let your love satisfy all our needs. Then we can celebrate and be glad for what time we have left. Psalm 90:14

Small Miracles

 When we  moved to Winnipeg from Ontario in 2008, the house we purchased had a large crawl space. Hardy looked at it and said "this would make a great play area for the grandchildren." And that's what it became until the youngest were in their teens, and even then they enjoyed going down there and having fun together. This wonderful place has now been dismantled and all the toys and mementos (except a few cherished ones that must stay in the family) have found a new home. 

It was a slow process and began like this

My nephew's wife is expecting their first child and there was going to be a shower. Instead of giving a card, a book donation was an option (used books were fine). I looked through all the books in the crawl space and found one about a dog called Farley (they are a dog loving family). My four sisters and I bought a baby carrying chair as a shower gift and wrapped it in an old quilt our mother had made. The Farley book went along as the card. 

That book was the first item to disappear from our crawl space and got me started on sorting, tossing and keeping. It was a big job as there was lots of stuff down there. I filled bins and bins and dragged them upstairs into the garage. Then I called a friend who runs a day care for her grandchildren. She had expressed interest and said her husband would come with his truck and pick it all up. And he did,  cheerfully loading it all up in his truck. I gave him some cookies! A small thank you for a big job done with a happy heart!

There were a few things I just couldn't part with. 

All the art work we did stayed up on the wall for now.

The table and chairs my great-uncle made for us when we were small will stay in the family.

And of course, some favorite books. A book lover like me finds it difficult to give them up!

Several weeks after that big job was done, our oldest daughter and her husband rented a wet vac and we cleaned all the carpets in the basement and the main floor. Then my daughter and I decided to go out for supper. She picked a place not far from where I live and off we went. When we arrived, I couldn't believe my eyes. It was the little restaurant where Hardy and I had our last meal out together! We had such a good time and it was a memory that stayed with me, even though I had forgotten which restaurant it was. We felt his presence there with us!

 My sister, who makes beautiful quilts made the wall hanging above. She wrote:

"This quilted dragonfly will remind me to embrace change with grace and gratitude and will remind me of the Holy Spirit in my life".

 

Let's Celebrate!

The month of June is well on its way and I am celebrating spring! Here in Manitoba it's a rainier, bleaker spring than usual, but it is spring, and I want to say yes to it. I tell myself that the rain will give the upcoming growth the necessary moisture to make it even more beautiful when the sun comes out. I go to my back yard and collect the first harbingers of spring: bleeding heart,  forget -me-nots and lily of the valley. 

 I place them in one of my favorite vases. This vase is quite old and there is a history that goes along with it.It comes from Aalsmeer, a town in North Holland, nicknamed the flower capital of the world! Hardy bought it in Europe in the spring and summer of 1965 when he was working for MCC. It was the summer before we got to know each other. He gave it to his aunt and inherited it when she passed away. There is a crack in it, but someone glued it back together again. I don't know who broke it and who fixed it, but it must have been a good glue, because the vase doesn't leak. It tells me that broken things (and broken hearts) can be mended and made useful again. I share this story with a granddaughter and promise to pass this beautiful treasure on to her some day. 

The lilac bush that Hardy and I dug up from my parents' garden a number of years ago is blooming more this spring than in the last few years. I remember the lilac hedge around my parental home and I celebrate their lives and their legacy. 

I wave goodbye to children and grandchildren who have come for a visit and have brightened my day. They are in the springtime of their lives and my joy and delight! I love to observe how they find their place in this world, and how each of the eight grandchildren has special memories of their Opa. 

Julia, who has been a camp counselor for several summers just recently got baptized at the camp. She told me that she wore her Opa's red and white plaid shirt over her bathing suit and that she found his hearing aid batteries in the pocket of that shirt, so she knew he was with her! As I was preparing this post, the photos below came up on my memory screen. Hardy is wearing the shirt that Julia chose to wear for her baptism! I celebrate this little miracle! 

In case you missed it, on the top left corner of the above photo  is a dragon fly, a special symbol of positive qualities such as courage, transformation, joy and adaptability.

A message from the book of Ecclesiastes 9:7-10:  

Seize life! Eat bread with gusto, Drink wine with a robust heart. Oh yes--God takes pleasure in your pleasure! Dress festively every morning. Don't skimp on colors and scarves. Relish life with the spouse you love each and every day of your precarious life. Each day is God's gift. It's all you get in exchange for the hard work of staying alive. Make the most of each one! Whatever turns up, grab it and do it. And heartily! This is your last and only chance at it, for there's neither work to do nor thoughts to think In the company of the dead, where you're most certainly headed. (Eugene H. Peterson, The Message)

In a Rejoice Devotional, Debora Carpeno writes:  

This life is full of uncertainty and death is inevitable. Yet, in the face of these realities, Ecclesiastes does not give in to despair. Instead it is a call to live life with fullness, joy and wisdom. Amid a turbulent world, and in the face of many choices, we must learn to allow ourselves to be calm, to rest and enjoy life.

Every day is a gift. Enjoy your gift! 

 

Season of Renewal

 

Spring has finally arrived, even in the frigid province of Manitoba! With it comes new life. The ever present sparrows now have to share their place at the bird feeder with the new arrivals. I never get tired of watching them as I eat my breakfast at the kitchen table facing a window into the back yard.

I wonder what this summer will be like, the first without my partner of almost fifty six years. I look forward to visiting grandchildren in Ontario that I haven't seen since last fall, a week at a cottage with family and perhaps a trip to Alberta. It will be a different summer than last years'.

In October I wrote a blog post about a package of letters husband Hardy and I wrote to each other while he was in Congo. Recently I came across some more letters that he wrote to his family the spring and summer before we met. They were written in his mother tongue (German). I found them interesting because he hardly ever mentioned this part of his life to me. Perhaps too many other exciting and life changing experiences washed this brief period away. I decided that it would be beneficial  for his daughters to read these letters and I translated them over a period of time, emailing them a letter whenever I finished translating one.

The spring and summer of 1963 Hardy got a job in Hybord, Manitoba. It was up north, close to Grand Rapids. 

Grand Rapids, Manitoba, Hydro Dam, $140,000 Project. (top photo)

Spillway at Grand Rapids Dam Project (photo below)

Again, just like when I read the letters I received from Congo, I felt as if he was in the room with me. I felt his presence. As was Hardy's habit, he carefully cut off the stamps from both his post cards and his envelopes and saved them. A grandson, who seems to be a lot like him, has inherited them.

I enjoyed reading and translating  these letters. They show Hardy's intimate relationship with his family, a relationship I was later privileged to share. An immigrant family, they lived in a two story house--the parents on the first floor, a single aunt and Hardy's Opa (grandpa) on the second floor, and Hardy and his brother on the third floor. Hardy was the last surviving member of this family.

 I realized once again how precious handwritten letters are and am wondering if we have lost something valuable in this computer age.

The weekend after I finished my translation project was a busy one spent with family and friends. I especially enjoyed an outing to one of the beautiful parks in Winnipeg, with my daughter. It was the park in which Hardy proposed to me and I took so long to reply that we were locked out and had to find a caretaker to let us exit the park!!

On Monday morning, however,  I felt depressed. At first I didn't understand why I felt this way after such a great weekend. Gradually it dawned on me. When I was translating Hardy's letters, I felt as if he was in the room with me. After the project was finished I once more keenly felt his absence in my life. 

This coming Saturday my sister and I are attending  a day long conference called Reclaiming Death--A Community Conversation. I'm not sure how this will affect me...

I have not yet graduated from the class called GRIEVING. It is long and intense! 

Thank you, my dear readers for being patient and walking this rocky path with me!

I Light A Candle

Since last September, when I said forever farewell to my life's partner, I have lit a candle every morning while I have my breakfast. Since our retirement this was always our time together. We discussed articles in the newspaper, talked about past events and our plans for the day, made to do lists and had devotions. Most of our days began like this for the last fifteen years. I realize now, what a privilege it was to have had that time and those years together, and I cherish them.

And so I light a candle...and I remember... 

 

I remember how we laughed when we received this gift and hung it up where we could see it to remind ourselves that neither of us should be a grumpy weed, and that we were both guilty of it at times! I think I should gift it back to whoever gave it to us because I now live alone and I can choose whether I want to be a grumpy weed or a beautiful flower! No one will call me on it! 

I recently found this cuckoo clock in a box in the garage. It was a wedding gift from my Oma, who wanted to remind us of time and its passing. We took this clock to Congo with us. Its call frightened a would be thief at night. We had it hanging in our home in Ontario where it called out faithfully for 24 years while our children grew up. Just before our retirement and consequent move to Winnipeg a visiting child pulled too hard on one of the clock's chains and broke it.  Hardy packed it in a box and we took it along to Winnipeg, but never had it repaired. Maybe one of our children or grandchildren will have it fixed and keep it.

Just the other day I saw a chickadee at our birdfeeder for the first time this spring. It will probably make its nest in the birdhouse again like it did for the last several seasons. Last year Hardy spent time on the deck in his recliner. I often sat with him there and children and friends came to visit. We observed the chickadee partners as they flew over our heads while feeding their young. Hardy often whistled, imitating their call. 

We had an awesome team of palliative care workers who came once or twice a week to check on Hardy and inquire about his needs. They were wonderful. One day, out of the blue Hardy, a linguist, asked this question:

"How can I use my linguistic ability to help myself in this situation?"

It was a strange question, I thought, but the palliative care worker didn't miss a beat. His answer was: 

"Listen to what your body tells you."

I remember that advice and try to follow it! Below are a couple of books that I have found useful on my journey with grief. 

Elisabeth Kuebler Roth takes her readers through five stages of grief. They are: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. I have gone through several of these stages by now. 

Jerry Sittser writes about how, on a lonely road in Idaho one dark night, he lost three generations of his family: his mother, his wife and his young daughter, and how it impacted him. But "this is not a book about one man's sorrow. Rather, it is a moving meditation on the losses we all suffer and the grace that can transform us".

I recently read an obituary about a man who had an important government job. He is pictured in front of a table filled with rows and rows of marmalade he made himself. The final advice he gave when asked what his grandchildren might benefit from hearing  was:

Be a strong person. Be a fair person. And be a loving person. And talk to strangers.