Final Preparations

Every year at this time we come face to face with the season of dying. Every year it seems to come as a surprise, as if we never experienced it before. Those of us who are not fond of winter look out of our windows with disgust and loathing on our faces. 

What is that white stuff coming at us all of a sudden? It's not even Halloween yet! We didn't have a long enough season to prepare ourselves for this onslaught! Why is it suddenly so cold? Where did we put our winter boots last spring? I only have one winter glove, the other one fell out of the car last spring and we've forgotten all about it.

Those who love winter just smile and open their arms to it. Their Christmas lights were put up well ahead of time when the weather was still bearable. Their winter boots are nicely arranged at the side entrance, and their gloves and toques are placed in a basket in the closet ready for the winter adventures.  

Some of us are in the autumn season of our lives. Even though we have watched our parents and other loved ones live through their final days, most of us don't accept the fact that some day we will experience this as well. How do we prepare for that "some day" as it approaches?

Our family spent many years in the (Belgian) Congo. There we had ample opportunity to become familiar with death in all its raw forms. I was pregnant when we arrived in January 1969. We lost our baby son that May (see blog posting of June 2014).
http://ens-intransit.blogspot.ca/2014/06/remembering-is-way-of-meeting.html

This personal experience prepared me more than anything else for some of the cultural responses to death. I saw that my Western co-workers were not good at it. Some avoided me altogether. Others prepared a birthday cake for me (it happened close to my 26th birthday) and acted cheerful. Others told me it was probably best, because he might have been born with defects (he wasn't).

I shared two experiences of how the Congolese deal with death in Doris Janzen Longacre's book Living More With Less (1980, pp.193-194). 

One who comforted me most was an African cleaning woman who came into my hospital room. This is what I wrote:

While I was alone in the hospital room trying to come to grips with what had happened, a middle-aged African cleaning woman came quietly into the room. As she began cleaning she turned to me and said a few words in a language I didn't understand. I shrugged my shoulders to indicate that I didn't know what she was saying. She reverted to sign language and now I knew she was asking about my baby. How was I to tell her that he had died? I tried, then just shook my head. Overcome with grief, I burst into tears. Her eyes told me that she understood. She was a complete stranger and yet she began to weep with me. As she went about her work she mourned softly. Her caring comforted me.

I also described another experience I had sometime later:

As I sat on my veranda overlooking the street below, I suddenly heard a wailing that gripped my heart and stopped my breath. A woman, stripped to the waist, with ashes falling from her disheveled hair, stumbled down the street. Other women were supporting her but her anguish seemed too deep to share. As they moved toward the river, the wailing increased. I recalled that the day before a teenage boy had drowned in that river. The men were still searching for his body, This was his mother. 

In the article I share that this woman was a Christian and that later at the church funeral she was calm and serene, but on this day she expressed her grief in her own way. 

After living in Congo for a longer time, I learned that the culture requires people to wail and grieve loudly so that they will not be accused of having caused the death.

In Africa, death is a fact and treated as such. There is no hiding behind soft music and heavily perfumed flowers. There is usually an all-night wake where singing and wailing take place.

A book review in the Winnipeg Free Press by Jura Koncius (Oct. 16, 2017) informs us that the Swedes are practical when it comes to death preparations. Entitled Leaving One Less Burden, the reviewer recommends that we "take a lesson from the Swedes and toss unnecessary trash before you die." The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning (love that title!), written by the 80-ish artist Margareta Magnusson, will be published in North America in January.

Koncius writes: The main message from this mother of five is: take responsibility for your items and don't leave them as a burden for family and friends. It's not fair. . . . The concept of decluttering before you die, a process called "dostadning," is part of Swedish culture. (It comes from the Swedish words for death and cleaning.) . . . Magnusson suggests that 65 is a good time to start death cleaning, but the process is freeing at any age.

I take some comfort in the fact that I was 65 when we moved from Ontario to Manitoba and really cleaned up a lot of clutter that had accumulated over twenty-four years of family life. At that time I was not familiar with the term death cleaning, I just knew that we couldn't possibly take all that stuff along! However, accumulation is well on its way again. I must begin my dostadning soon (a.k.a decluttering or The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up (see blog posting of July 2015):
http://ens-intransit.blogspot.ca/2015/07/life-changing-magic.html

Most of the Congolese people I remember would not relate to this Western concept of decluttering, since they live simply from day to day. However, we certainly can learn something about how they deal with death; they experience it more frequently than we do.

Can you relate some of your experiences in which you have observed how people prepare or refuse to prepare for their final moments?

A message of comfort and hope:

Just remember in the winter 

Far beneath the bitter snows

Lies the seed that with the sun's love

In the spring becomes the rose.

I Forgive You

It was a balmy autumn evening and after supper Hardy and I decided to go for a walk around the lake near our home. Sunsets in fall are spectacular here in Manitoba and it is awesome to watch the geese gathering on the lake, calling to each other as they prepare for their long journey south.

I was a little out of sorts by a conversation that took place just before we left and it was interfering with my enjoyment of the time we had together. Then I saw something on a tree stump close to where we were walking: a small stone painted orange with three little words written on it in black marker: 

I don't know who left it there or for whom it was intended, but it certainly was a poignant reminder to me about how I need to say these words more often.

As we passed the tree stump again on our way home a family with two children came by. The little boy saw the rock, excitedly picked it up and ran to show his mother. She was preoccupied and didn't pay attention to him. He slipped it into his pocket and ran off. I wanted to tell him to leave the stone on the stump so that others could see it. But then I thought, "That stone will do its work no matter where it is."

A few months ago I received a call from someone who wanted some translation work done. Donna said she had some old German letters in a box her father had left her and she couldn't read them. I invited her to come with the box and we would look at the letters together. Some time later she arrived with a beautiful box and we pulled out old letters, boarding tickets, etc. 

Donna's father had immigrated to Canada from Germany. Most of his relatives remained in Germany and the Soviet Union and they corresponded with each other. He told his daughter that the box and its contents were his most precious possession and she should take good care of it. 
To her it embodied all the love her father had showered on her; unlike her mother who had physically abused her from the time she was an infant. As a result she suffers from epilepsy. She shared all this with me, but there was no bitterness or malice toward her mother. She had taken counselling and worked through her problems. She has a loving and supportive husband and because she cannot go out to work due to her seizures, she spends her time at home making jewellery which she sells at craft sales.

A lovely necklace I received as a gift from Donna

Last weekend Hardy and I attended the last sessions of a Mennonite writers conference at the University of Winnipeg (Mennonite/s Writing VIII). We were privileged to hear presentations by Di Brandt, Jeff Gundy, Miriam Toews, and Rhoda Janzen. They were all wonderfully enriching. Toews and Janzen spoke of using humour as a useful literary tool to work through dark times. Even as a child, Miriam used humor to try to help the family cope when her father and her sister succumbed to depression. Eventually, both her father (a well-loved high school teacher) and her sister were not able to overcome the darkness and took their own lives. 

Sitting beside me listening to these presentations was an elderly woman. My first impression of her was that of a happy person who enjoyed life. While chatting with her, I soon realized that I was sitting beside Miriam's mother. She is one of the most delightful people I have ever met!  Her face looked like an apple, all wrinkled and round. Her eyes twinkled, and she was always laughing. She told me that she lives with Miriam and her family in Toronto; she lives upstairs and Miriam's family lives downstairs. They often eat breakfast and also dinner together. For having had so much sadness in her life, she seems like an extremely resilient woman.
Forgiveness must certainly have played a part in that.

We cannot walk through life without experiences that cause pain, some to a lesser degree than others. Some are self-inflicted and then we need to forgive ourselves. Others are caused by people we love or by circumstances beyond our control. There are many stories. 

An African pastor shared with me recently that in Rwanda a woman who is a survivor of the 1994 genocide told him that forgiving is about the victim's sanity. We need to forgive those who have hurt us so that we can be healed. This is not an easy thing to do and that is why it needs to be practiced continuously. 

When Peter asked Jesus if he had to forgive someone seven times, Jesus said, "Not seven times but seventy times seven." (Matthew 18.21-22).

Someone who has taught me much about forgiveness is Wilma Derksen whose thirteen-year-old daughter Candace disappeared in November 1984. Seven weeks later her body was found in a shed, bound and frozen. I recommend reading her latest book:

Try to Remember the Days of September

It seems to me that September is almost more like the beginning of a new year than January, especially if you are involved in school. There are new clothes, new books, new teachers, new classmates, etc.

When I think back to my own school experience, and especially to new beginnings, an incident in Grade 3 stands out for me and I remember it as if it happened yesterday.  

It was 1953. A year earlier our family had arrived in Canada from Paraguay and that first year my siblings and I attended a little country school in Alberta within walking distance of our house. Most of the children in that school were Mennonite and so was the teacher who was my mother's cousin.
(See blog post of Sept.1, 2015  >>  http://ens-intransit.blogspot.ca/2015/09/two-little-words.html/ .)

When that year was done, I understood English but wasn't yet speaking it. Our family moved into a small town (Didsbury) where my father found work in a dairy. For us children it meant a new school in town and more adjustments. My mother's work was to feed and dress seven children and keep the household running. She also took in sewing and alterations from people in town. Often they would give her used clothes and she would remake them to fit us. She was an excellent seamstress and this saved a lot of money. However, we were still new to Canada and she wasn't always aware of the latest trends. Winters were cold and we had a half hour walk to school. Mom made me a jacket with a fur collar and a fur-lined hat. It was warm and cozy but I did receive some remarks from classmates that weren't exactly flattering.

My siblings and I on our way to school. I'm on the right in the back with my fur collar and fur-lined hat.

I was very fortunate to have Miss Margaret Robertson as my teacher. She was young, with short dark brown hair, thick-lensed glasses and a lot of lipstick. She had a warm and tender heart for children and was very sensitive to their needs. I will always be grateful to her for what she did for me that year.

To get the class off to a good start in the morning we had "show-and-tell" and anyone could volunteer to share something special with the class. I so badly wanted to participate but I was afraid to use the English words, knowing that they would come out wrong and people would laugh at me. Being the sensitive teacher that she was, Miss Robertson knew this about me. She also knew that some children had made comments about my fur collar. 

One morning during show-and-tell she called me to the front. That day I was wearing a blue-checked dress with a blue taffeta vest which my mother had made recently. I'm wearing it for our class picture (below center).

Miss Robertson told the class to look at my dress carefully because it was very special. She asked if anyone had ever seen it in a store. No one had. She said it was because there was only one dress like it in the whole world and I was wearing it; my mother had made it for me. The class responded with great amazement and applause.

I was suddenly very special in the eyes of my classmates, and that year I was invited to the birthday party of the principal's daughter who was in my class. The principal, Mr. Wiggins, was also the town photographer and took the photo above. The birthday girl is on the left in the back row, seated. I am second from the right in the back row. My mother made that dress for me as well. It was pink with black velvet ribbons.

Miss Robertson also picked me to be a flower in a play about Little Red Riding Hood. I was so happy to be a flower because Miss Robertson told the class that flowers were beautiful and smelled nice! I felt so lovely that day! I am second from the left in the front row.

Kind teachers who are understanding and loving are so important in the life of a child. I wish I could tell Miss Robertson what an influence she had on my life. This post is dedicated to her, as a thank-you.

Do you know someone like Miss Robertson? Or, perhaps you have had a teacher who had a very negative influence on you. How did that affect you? It would be interesting to hear your story!

Try to remember the kind of September

When life was slow and oh, so mellow.

Try to remember the kind of September

When grass was green and grain was yellow

..........

Deep in December it's nice to remember

The fire of September that made us mellow ...

[ http://www.streetdirectory.com/lyricadvisor/song/uuaac/try_to_remember/ ]

Life Begins at Eighty

A couple of years ago when I turned 70, I suddenly felt "now I really am a senior!"  I re-called how shocked I had been when a dear older friend of ours turned 70, and now it was my turn. My sister assured me that it was just a number and life would go on as usual. Which it did! Being in good health, the changes were so gradual I hardly noticed them.

This year I face another significant milestone. My life partner is going to be 80 in September. As the autumn months approach, so does the autumn of his life. He has had a few health issues after age 77, but they are manageable. Just recently I heard a CBC announcer who was interviewing an elderly person declare: "Life begins at 80!" 

I thought, "really? Is that even being realistic? Isn't it pain and sorrow that begin at 80?"

Actually, when pondering this thought, I realized that pain and sorrow are with us from the day we are born. We arrive ... helpless, naked and vulnerable. We can do nothing for ourselves and we are totally dependent on those around us. If we have loving nurturers, we grow and blossom, and we forget how vulnerable we really are. As teenagers, our changing bodies make us feel uncertain and scared. We are thrust into life -- life that calls for independent thinking and decision-making, where we choose the direction to take (or we just sort of drift along!).

In between youth and old age lies the 'filling of the sandwich': the time we raise our children, find fulfillment in our careers, work hard at living. We somehow feel this phase will last forever ... but suddenly it stops. Dependents leave the nest, parents pass away, loved ones leave us. Now what?

Robert Browning (1812-1889), in his long poem about life and aging (Rabbi Ben Ezra, 35+ stanzas), expresses it much more succinctly than I can:

"The last of life for which the first was made."

As I read these words by Browning, I'm gazing at a beautiful picture of a woman featured in the Winnipeg Free Press (of Friday, August 25) who is 111 years old. Sarah Harper is listed as the third oldest person in Canada on Wikipedia's list of Canadian super-centenarians. (Gerald Kuehl wrote her story in Portraits of the North, 2005.) In the Free Press article he is quoted as saying: 

"I remember what stood out was the quiet elegance of this woman with the dark intelligent eyes. She has much wisdom from now over 110 years of experience and reflection. She was raised in the traditional lifestyle of her people and did not attend residential school. She lived through very tough times with her people, a period when, as she said, 'it was always difficult getting enough to eat.'"

                                                Grow old along with me!

                                                The best is yet to be,

                                                The last of life for which the first was made:

                                                Our times are in [God's] hand

                                                Who saith, "A whole I planned, 

                                                Youth shows but half; trust God:

                                                See all, nor be afraid!"

A Grandmother's Love / A Granddaughter's Legacy

Recently my sister, who lives in our parental home, passed on to me a very special treasure. It is a painting done by one of my nieces in 2004, the year before my father and four years before my mother died.

Tamara, their twenty-one year old granddaughter, created this work of art as a Christmas present especially for her grandmother, or Oma as her grandchildren called her. 

I turned it over, and this is what I found: At the top of the frame she had written a dedication.

Tucked into the bottom of the frame was an envelope and it a card in which she explained the symbols in the painting, all significant in my mother's life. 

It was a message for Oma, about what the painting portrayed. Part of the message turned out to be strangely prophetic:

The shadow represents Opa, because he is now only a shadow of what he used to be and what he was meant to be forever. But in heaven he will be everything one could hope for. He is walking towards you, because he loves you.

Opa (Tamara's grandfather and my father) passed away the following summer. 

In the note she also explained that the eight stars were for her (Oma's) eight children and that the twenty small stars were for her grandchildren. 

She goes on to say:

The crab-apple around your neck is to remind you of how I used to pick the crab-apples in the summer; it brought me so much joy in your backyard.

The key in your pocket represents your faith; it has been the key to your life here on earth.

The flowers in your hair and hands are to remind you of God's beauty; rest in His beauty and love when you are sad or in pain.

The tiny flower in between the rocks is for your baby brother who died when you were young. I remember being so sad when I was younger and you told me that story, because I couldn't imagine losing Daniel (Tamara's little brother). So that flower is so you can remember him, and to remind you that you will see him in heaven.

BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD

The woman represents you ... see how still she sits knowing that God loves her. And I love you, too!

For the past three weeks we have been looking after Kathryn, our eleven-year-old granddaughter, while her parents are at work and she's enjoying her summer holidays. She noticed the painting hanging on our bedroom wall and asked about it. Of course she was more than intrigued, especially when I showed her the envelope tucked into the frame at the back. It became our bedtime story that night. 

Kathryn was only two years old when her great-grandmother passed away and cannot remember her, but she has heard the stories and treasures them in her heart.

My mother was a special Oma who loved her twenty grandchildren and was fiercely loved by them in return. Each of them "rises up to bless her" whenever she is mentioned. 

Spending time with our grandchildren on a rainy day at the cottage. What will they remember about us?

Heaven's Portal

A dear friend, who hosted us when we were visiting The Netherlands several years ago, recently sent us an e-mail about a book he was reading:

I am reading an amazing book, a page turner / cliffhanger / bestseller: Congo. Writer (Belgian): David van Reybrouck. Without doubt it is already translated into English. You spent so many years in Congo / Zaïre. Maybe you know that book, if not you must read it!

Then a second e-mail:
I finished the book. How was it possible for you to live in that Armageddon, that snake pit and spider hole, where a war was, everyone against everyone, homo homini lupus [man is wolf to man], where corruption was a virtue etc., etc.???  There must also have been something good, I presume.

This prompted me to write back:
We would not trade our experience of living in the Congo (1969-1984) for anything.

Our family in 1974

We learned so much about ourselves, about the incredibly messy, beautiful world in which we live, about people who are so much like us in their hearts, even though at first they seem like strangers and aliens.

We observed people living joyfully in spite of their suffering, sharing happily of the little they had, yet never hesitating to ask for what they needed. Above all, we learned to listen to God speaking to us, and learned to depend on God for all our needs.

The Congo is a beautiful country, full of smiling and generous people. When we arrived, its people had just gained their independence, and there was no major war until after we left. Mobutu ruled, corruptly, supported by the U.S. and France.

Yes, there is chaos now, but the people are still the same. It is war and tribalism that corrupts the beauty. That happens in all countries. One big problem in the Congo is their attitude toward those in power. Leaders are given total freedom, with no checks and balances; that is the breeding ground for corruption. Total power corrupts totally.

Shortly after this e-mail exchange I read an article written by Charles Buller in his newsletter for Africa Inter-Mennonite Mission (Congo Leadership Coaching Network). I sent part of it to our Dutch friend.

Now I must read the book which he recommended to us!

A Stitch in Time

When I was young I was constantly amazed at what my mother could do. Her fingers were nimble and it seemed to me she could do magical things with her hands. As I have mentioned a number of times in this blog,  my formative years (ages four to nine) were spent in Paraguay under conditions that make Little House on the Prairie look like a piece of cake. I'm sure Mom sometimes wondered if our family hadn't jumped from the frying pan into the fire, as she drew water from our well, scrubbed all our clothes by hand, mourned the destruction of crops by ferocious grasshoppers, baked and cooked all our food in a clay oven or over an open fire, and birthed two more babies.

My mother loved clothes and she enjoyed sewing. She had taken a seamstress-training course while still in Ukraine, just before she got married. Our village in Paraguay had one treadle sewing machine (probably donated by MCC) and everyone in the village took a turn at using it for a couple of weeks at a time. Mom usually sewed in the evenings, after the daily chore of caring for five children was done and we were all in bed. However, we had no electricity and she sewed by the light of a wick soaked in petroleum. Usually she ripped apart used clothing sent to us by MCC and remade clothes to fit us all.

The picture above was taken in Asunción, the capital of Paraguay, where we spent several months waiting for our visas and passports so we could emigrate to Canada. My mother sewed every stitch of clothing we are wearing, including the hand-embroidered flowers on my dress (I'm behind my mother, second from the right).

Because she  loved to sew, my mother wanted me to learn the skill as well. When I started school at age seven, our mothers decided that the little girls would have a sewing class one afternoon a week, taught by one of the young women in the village. Again, MCC had donated embroidery floss, and the women bleached flour bags for us to use in order to learn to make the different stitches. To hold my embroidery floss, Mom gave me a special little silk bag with gold draw strings and colorful sequins that Dad had picked up in Germany in exchange for cigarettes. It was beautiful, and I was excited as I trudged off to the one-room schoolhouse in the late afternoons.

Unfortunately, my experience in the sewing class was not that "beautiful." My thread tangled and knotted, my material bunched up in the wrong places, my hands were too sweaty to hold the needle properly, and I didn't know how to do the stitches. I much preferred the morning classes where we learned to read, write, recite, and sing. Worst of all, I felt that I disappointed my mother! 

I was not allowed to skip those sewing classes and they were the bane of my existence! When we came to Canada Mom insisted that my sister and I spend one hour a week embroidering. She provided the tea towels and we ironed on the patterns and stitched them. I did not enjoy that hour and was always happy when it was over.

Later, when I was in high school, we learned to use the sewing machine in home economics class. I was actually afraid to use it and figured out a clever way to stay away from it during class. We were also required do a handicraft and so I usually worked on an embroidery sampler during class (I had finally mastered that skill!). Then I would take my sewing machine project home and begged my mother to help me do it. She usually ended up sewing it for me, as both of us got impatient with each other!

Interestingly enough, when I left home to go to Africa shortly after I got married, I took up sewing. There were no clothing stores in the provincial town of Kikwit (Zaïre, now DR Congo) where we lived. I bought patterns before we left home and there was a period of time where I sewed the children's clothes and quite liked it. I also found that I enjoyed embroidery as a hobby, especially since there wasn't much of a social outlet for me. 

When we returned to Canada I began my university studies and did not have time for sewing projects. However, once the grandchildren came along, I found myself returning to my old hobby, by embroidering a crib quilt for each of them. I'm working on my eighth one right now. I also made one for my middle daughter at her request (above). She picked the pattern and asked me to sew tabs on it so she could hang it on the wall. That quilt was particularly challenging as it required every kind of stitch I had ever learned. I put it aside for quite a while. Recently one of my granddaughters, eleven-year-old Kathryn, found it as she was rummaging through my sewing project drawer and reminded me that I needed to finish it. Electronics had taken over my spare time!

I made a butterfly quilt for one of my grandsons that required some hand quilting, which became a family project. We took it to our son-in-law's grandmother who had a quilting frame set up in her living room. Even Hardy helped quilt it!

I stitched this counted-cross stitch for my parents' 50th anniversary in 1990. It now hangs in our home and reminds me of my Mom's perseverance, even in teaching a stubborn and impatient little girl something she later valued and enjoyed.