A Vulnerable and Holy Place

Here it is already a week into May and I'm having difficulty beginning my monthly blog post! That is unusual, but our family is finding itself in a situation that seems indescribable. Words elude me!

When the cancer specialist's secretary called and asked us to confirm our decision to have palliative care instead of chemo for Hardy, I lost it. It felt like I had just confirmed a death sentence!

So I keep busy and it helps me to regain my equilibrium, to manage my fear and uncertainty and my grief at what is to come. There is so much to do!  Husband Hardy (whose second name is hoarder--note the alliteration!) never throws anything away, so I have been in the garage filling the garbage and recycling bins to the top every week.

When I'm not cleaning out the garage, I'm in the backyard raking leaves, stuffing them into bags, composting. The other day there was a dead mouse just lying there in the middle of the yard. Normally I would have freaked, called Hardy and he would have taken care of it. Instead, I just stood and looked at it. It was so perfect. I wondered how it had died, as it had no marks on it. I marvelled at how beautiful it actually looked, before I scooped it into the garbage bin. 

Writing is usually a healing process for me, but I had no words, except one: The word palliative, repeating itself in my head. My sister took me out for lunch and I told her about it. She looked at me and said, "We are all 'palliative.'  I could die tomorrow, you could die today. None of us are exempt from that process, we just don't think about it."

I needed to hear those words to get my equilibrium back.

She also gifted me with a book that day. This book released something in me and helped me write about how I feel.

"When people allow you to know about their pain and talk about it, take your shoes off. You're standing in a holy place. Be humble, be kind, when someone shows you vulnerability."                                    [Amani Gohar]

"Hope is the Thing With Feathers"

We knew it was coming, but when it arrived we were still shocked. Our snow shovelling team quits at the end of March, and here we were with this huge dump of snow everywhere!

The Easter bunny came like he was supposed to, right onto our deck, but no Easter treats for us! He was eating all the bird seeds that had fallen from the bird feeder. He lives under the deck in winter. In summer he enjoys living under the two tall pines in our front yard  with his ever growing family, nibbling on things he's not supposed to. We are well into April, but it feels like midwinter in more ways than one.

I looked out our window at these two beautiful trees in our front yard and I was suddenly overcome by sadness. Subconsciously I think I always compared them to us, Hardy and me, a couple who has weathered many a storm and come out the stronger for it. We have sheltered our young and watched them outgrow their shelter, watched them as they raise their own young, our precious grandchildren. We have counted our losses, but together we have not been overwhelmed ... until now, that is.

We hear the doctor tell us that Hardy's cancer has spread from the bladder to other parts of his body. He gives us some options. We hear his words but they don't really register properly. We go home and have some Easter bread and coffee. We enjoy being together. We take a nap.

The next day it hits us like the winter storm. We are overwhelmed by grief. We tell ourselves that love is stronger than death, that there is a resurrection. But we grieve our separation and we are afraid. Afraid of death, afraid of being alone ... .

Last night I dreamt that Hardy told me he was going on a trip. I said I wanted to come along but he said I couldn't. 

Still in my dream, I got up to go to the washroom. My dad was in there (he passed away in 2005). He accompanied me back to the bedroom and sat on the bed with me the way he always did when I was a teenager and got into trouble with Mom. It was comforting.

I had another dream. Mom was in it (she passed away in 2008). She was preparing for a family dinner and we were late, a trait not tolerated well in our family. She was telling Hardy that he needed to be better prepared so he wouldn't always be late!

I felt like they had both come to tell me everything would be alright. I hang on to that.

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune without the words,

And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;

And sore must be the storm

That could abash the little bird

That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land, 

And on the strangest sea; 

yet, never in extremity, 

It asked a crumb of me. 

                                                               Emily Dickinson

                                                      

We gave this yellow gerbera to our daughter for her birthday last March. It thrived all summer but then languished and almost died when it was brought inside. Grandson Ivan looked at a gerbera I had taken into the house, which was doing well. I told him I gave it lots of water. He said he would try that. It worked like a charm.  He sent me the picture above. 

"The process of life demands that some things pass away to make room for others. The leaves fall, to be replaced, next spring, by new buds. Generation succeeds generation. Last year's dying fruit is this year's seed. It is the pattern of creation." 

                                                                      Saint Augustine

"Entering the House of Love"

Those of you who are familiar with my blog postings will realize that the theme of "home" looms large in them. My first blog post introduces the topic, and there are at least a dozen posts in which I write about it. Probably this has to do with being uprooted from my original place of birth in Ukraine when I was just a few months old, and then travelling for four years with no place to call home. 

I think "home" became the place wherever my parents were, where I was loved, accepted and protected. I always had that, and am ever so grateful for it, especially as I realize so many in our world don't. 

People should not have to fight for their right to be appreciated and loved! 

Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021, raised in Soviet-controlled East Germany, realized this in her political career. Frequently referred to as the "most powerful woman in the world," the 61-year-old chancellor met a 14-year-old refugee girl with cerebral palsy who just wanted to stay in Germany and have a normal life. The young girl wept as she said this to Merkel, and something in Merkel resonated and responded. In 2015 Merkel announced "Germany will not turn away refugees". She was told that "to allow one million strangers into Germany is to endanger German civilization." Merkel replied, "I had no choice." Daughter of a Lutheran pastor, this was "her Martin-Luther moment," writes Kati Marton in her political biography The Chancellor.

Merkel took a risk, jeopardizing her political career. She never turned back. 

"In the house of God's love," writes Henri Nouwen, "we come to see with new eyes and hear with new ears and thus recognize all people, whatever their race, religion, sex, wealth, intelligence, or background, belong to that same house. God's house has no dividing walls or closed doors."

What "dividing walls" and "closed doors" have you encountered? How did you deal with them?

I Lost It !

Years ago Hardy gave me a big Bible -- Good News, Colour-Reference Edition. I bought a leather cover with a zipper for it. It has always been my "go-to" Bible for help when I prepare for Bible studies, Sunday School teaching, worship leading, or preaching.

Recently I used it for writing  a set of devotionals. The topic was the prodigal son who wasted his inheritance in extravagant living, was "lost" and returned home to be "found" and welcomed by his father. Just before the story of the prodigal son, Jesus tells several other stories about lost things: salt that has lost its flavour, a sheep that is lost, and a woman who loses a coin (Luke 15).

After spending some time pondering the meaning of these stories, I replaced the Bible on the bookshelf and went on to something else. I soon realized I had left my phone in my office and went downstairs to get it. I saw the charging cord lying on my desk, but the phone was not there. Like the woman looking for her lost coin, I looked in every room of the house, but to no avail! Finally I called husband Hardy who is usually better at finding things than I am. Nothing turned up! 

I finally realized that there is a call button on the phone, which I can activate with my iPad. Sure enough, I heard a faint "ding-ding" downstairs. It was coming from my bookshelf. Both Hardy and I moved books back and forth, but I told him I know for sure I didn't have the phone near the bookshelf. Then I touched my Bible and felt a vibration. "What??" You guessed it, dear reader! My phone had been lying on top of the open Bible. Not realizing this, I had closed the Bible, zipped it shut with the phone still in it and replaced it on my bookshelf!

My blogger friend, Marian Beaman, once wrote about finding her glasses in the freezer, a long time after she gave up looking for them. This is one of those stories. I'm tempted to extrapolate a meaning from this event but I won't! Instead I will point you to several books I'm reading to chase away the January and February blahs. They are also about what is lost, but much more traumatic in the losses they describe than the one I experienced.

                         

I went to hear Sarah Klassen read from her newly published book (The Russian Daughter, which I received as a Christmas present) and was quite amazed at this ninety-year-old retired English teacher, fielding questions with clarity and insight, never mind that she had just written a novel! Her interviewer, a fellow teacher, must have been about the same age. These two women give me hope!
Klassen shared with her readers that her novel was inspired by a story her mother told her when Sarah was a teenager. She hadn't been that interested at the time but the story stayed with her.

Like Klassen, Wiens listened to and collected many stories while preparing to write To Antoine. He carefully researched them and produced a novel that is searing in its recounting of a life first lived in a Mennonite village in Ukraine during the Stalinist era. He goes on to describe his protagonist's young adulthood among genocidal Nazis, his sojourn in Paraguay, and his later judgement as a war criminal. This is a book not easily set aside!

I wish you, my dear readers, the ability to live graciously with the losses you experience in life; to listen to stories and tell them to those nearest and dearest; to live with love in your hearts, not only during this month of love, but throughout the year!

Bring it On

I came across a poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) recently that I had not read before, entitled The Death of the Old Year, thought to have been a precursor to his lengthy In Memoriam.

Full knee-deep lies the winter snow,
And the winter winds are wearily sighing:
Toll ye the church bell sad and slow,
And tread softly and speak low,
For the old year lies a-dying.

Tennyson goes on for several stanzas to grieve the loss of the past year, begging it to stay with all the gifts it has given him and fearful that those gifts will be taken away in the new year. But the old year is over, and Tennyson must resign himself to face what is about to come:

Step from the corpse, and let him in
That standeth there alone,
And waiteth at the door.
There's a new foot on the floor, my friend,
And a new face at the door, my friend,
A new face at the door.

For Hardy and me the past year has had its challenges and we are glad it's behind us, although we are not convinced that things will change, just because there is a different date on the calendar! But we celebrate the beginning of a new year because we have hope.

We know another spring is coming and we hope to meet it and greet it.

We know that two dear friends have recently made a commitment to each other after losing their spouse and we will celebrate this joyful union in spring.

We know that whatever comes our way, the Spirit of God will accompany us and light our way, whether it is new beginnings or endings.

So in the midst of winter, we celebrate the new year that is to come! 

Bring it on!

Visiting with friends and sharing our stories

How have you celebrated the passing of the old year and the coming of the new one?

The Spirit of Christmas

Seniors love to reminisce and I think this must be especially true during the Christmas season because there are so many memories attached to this special time. I am no exception, and, like the people in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol (published in 1843, a hundred years before I was born), the ghosts of Christmas past come to visit me. In Dickens' novel, kindness, generosity and compassion embody the spirit of Christmas.

It was late November 1984. Our family had returned to Canada from Congo, and we were looking forward to the first Christmas we would experience in the land of ice and snow! We had settled in Ontario so Hardy could continue with Bible translation work (with the translations team of the Canadian Bible Society), but for Christmas we planned to be in Winnipeg where our extended family lived. 

Before we could plan for those days, a church in Port Rowan asked us to come for a visit and tell them about our work in the Congo. We always did this together as a family, our three daughters providing the music. Until now, that had worked out well, but not this time. Our older two were teenagers and they had a laughing fit as they were eyeballed by the teenagers of the congregation! Heidi, age five, saved the day by singing her little part with gusto: "My God is so BIG, so BIG and so MIGHTY, there's nothing my God cannot do, for you" (at which point she pointed to the people in the pews). She was wonderful!

Following the service, a member of the congregation asked us if we would like to have a Christmas tree as he was cutting down several large trees on his property. We happily accepted and went home with the tree attached to the top of our car. Even though it was only mid-November, we put the tree up immediately because we wanted to enjoy it before we left to spend Christmas in Manitoba. One morning we had an early snowfall and when I looked out the window I saw that the boy who delivered our newspaper had written these words in the snow: 

"I LOVE YOUR CHRISTMAS TREE !"

This has been a rather difficult year for us as Hardy has been dealing with some medical issues, However, we have felt the kindness, generosity and compassion Dickens writes about in his Christmas story. Some things that have already touched our hearts with joy this Christmas season:

My youngest sister Marge brought supper and a beautiful ice candle while Hardy was in hospital. She also came with me to bring him home.

 

         

Our nieces Andrea and Miriam in Calgary decided to make the Christmas cookies my mom (their Oma) always made and sent around at Christmastime. They contacted their great-aunt who is an expert at making these cookies and then made them together with her. Then they sent a package of these cookies to their five aunts (my sisters and me) in Winnipeg! We look forward to eating them together and reminiscing about past Christmases!

 

Our grandson, Heidi's Ivan, helped us set up our tree.

We did our part by feeding the critters in our backyard. This little rabbit just loved the rose hips poking out through the snow!

                           An old card I found when going through my parents' memorabilia

How are you experiencing the joys this season brings? What can you remember from past Christmas seasons that make your heart sing?

A Ghostly Story: Now You See Them, Now You Don't!

Two days ago we celebrated Hallowe'en and in keeping with the season, I have a ghostly story to tell you. It happened many years ago, not long after we arrived in Congo, in the provincial town of Kikwit where Hardy was working on a translation of the Old Testament. I don't know what time of year it was because there are only two seasons: dry season from April to October and rainy season from November to March. It could have happened in October!

After we had company one evening, I quickly rinsed the dishes and left them on the counter for our house helper, Tata Mbukapindu Simon, to wash more thoroughly the next morning. He usually arrived quite early, so Hardy had the habit of unlocking the kitchen door when he got up, and then returning to whatever he was doing.

 

That morning Simon didn't come to work. When I arrived in the kitchen, there wasn't a dish on the counter. What happened to my dishes? To this day I don't know. Our neighbours said they had seen a man with a sack walk across the yard. Did he quickly sneak into the kitchen and fill it with our dinnerware? Did he know Simon was absent from his work that day? I had other dishes that I used for every day.
The ones that disappeared were special; Hardy and I had received them as a wedding gift. 

I grieved the loss for a bit, then remembered that most of the people around us ate from a common pot because they didn't have enough dishes for each family member! Why should we have two sets? Perhaps whoever stole our dishes sold them at the market and was able to buy some food for his family. I learned quickly that Congolese share what they have and taking something from someone who has more than they need is not considered stealing! The bad thing is to have more than your neighbour and not share it!

Our wedding dishes looked like the dish above.

Collecting a good set of china was something young women in our culture back in the 1960s did before they got married; or china was often received as a wedding gift. I had started my good set before we left for Congo and had six cups and saucers and bread and butter plates (above). I did not take them along to Congo. When we returned to Canada, I was disappointed that this set was discontinued and I was not able to purchase the dinner plates or the dessert bowls.

The women's group at Kitchener MB church (in Ontario), where our family worshipped when we returned to Canada, wanted to do something special for us and gave us money for a set of dishes. I chose Corelle again but a different pattern than our stolen wedding dishes. This set has lasted us for many years.

Hardy and his brother bought the above set of German china as a gift to their parents on their 25th anniversary. Hardy's brother passed away in his early forties, so we inherited these dishes when Hardy's parents died.

 

Interestingly enough, my Dad, quite the romantic, loved pretty dishes. There was a store within walking distance of their house that specialized in things Dutch. Dad bought the above tea set for my Mom and I inherited it from her. 

One day when my parents came to Ontario for a visit Dad asked me to choose a set of dishes. He wanted it to be a good set. I told him we didn't need any more dishes but he insisted. We walked to the mall near our house and I chose a set of French glassware that we use all the time. It always reminds me of Dad and puts a smile on my face!

When I took stock of all the dishes I owned I was amazed! I guess I inherited my Dad's penchant for them. We do love to host and our dishes have served a good purpose. I hope they will continue to do so long after we are gone. I recently asked our three daughters to choose any of the dishes they would like to inherit and I hope some will stay in the family as a reminder of the good times we had together around our table. 

I pray that  the dishes that disappeared mysteriously so many years ago have been of good use to someone in need!

 

HAPPY  NOVEMBER  EVERYONE !