A Perfect Gift

I was cleaning up in the garage, easily filling up the garbage and recycling bins long before the pick up day when I came across a treasure. I have no idea how it ended up in a box in the garage, but there it was; a beautiful writing pad. I found it on Canada Day, July 1. A writing pad with a Canadian theme!

"How long has it been since I've sent a handwritten letter in the mail?" I asked myself. It's just so much easier to send an email or a text. But this notepad was calling my name and I couldn't resist!

 

I found a nice pen and began writing a letter to my children and grandchildren in Ontario. The younger ones can't even read or write the cursive script which I learned in grade four, writing with a fountain pen that had a cartridge for refilling. I had already mastered the old German handwriting (Gothische Schrift) in my village school in Paraguay, writing on a slate with a "griffel" (slate pencil). Knowledge of this script came in handy when I was working on my MA in German and researching old manuscripts. Fellow students from Germany were surprised that I knew this script since they  no longer learned it in their schools.

I spent my Sunday morning writing this letter, which turned into my July blog posting. Until this morning I had no inspiration or joy to write a post, and thought it would not happen this month. But here it is, a gift to me and a gift to my readers!

"Father of Lights, you delight in your children...and every good and perfect gift comes from You."

https://www.letras.com/vineyard/525020/

From an Octogenarian

 

Yes, I am an octogenarian as of May 26, 2023 !  I'm grateful to have reached this milestone, and also quite amazed and somewhat shell-shocked. 

I am the oldest of five sisters. We gathered to celebrate and to reminisce -- to reflect on what life has brought to each of us. My youngest sister made a lemon poppy seed cake, a favorite of mine. My second youngest sister hosted the event and we had a delicious lunch of quiche and salad. She makes sour dough bread and gifted us each with a loaf. The sister next to her gave me flowers. 

Our mother has a birthday the same month as I do. She was an only daughter with five brothers and always longed for a sister. She loved it when we sisters got together.

The sister next to me in age, who took care of our mother in her last years, put together a display of some things she still has that were mom's. We each picked something from that display to take home with us.

        

My mother's hands were always busy. She was a seamstress, so there was her pincushion and her thimble, a wooden mushroom to put in a sock when she mended it. She loved flowers and plants. Children and grandchildren gave her jewellery, and there was a scent she always wore when going out. We breathed in the scent and reminisced. 

At home our celebration was a bit more subdued, due to husband Hardy's cancer diagnosis (see my May blog posting) which leaves us all with a lingering sadness. But there were some wonderful surprises that day as well. A young couple from Poland dropped by with gifts from their mother who was our tour guide when we took a trip to Poland and Ukraine. They hope to make Winnipeg their home and this was their last day. They didn't know it was my birthday. They only stayed briefly, just for ten minutes, because they came by bus and this was their last day in Canada. After they left, we reminisced with our grandchildren about that memorable trip when we were able to visit both Hardy's birth place in Poland and mine in Ukraine.

Hardy remembered flowers and a card.

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A dragon-fly brooch from daughter #3 reminded me to be strong!

Grandchildren Ivan and Sasha helped with garage cleanup. Best gift ever!

This wall hanging, bought at an MCC sale by my eldest daughter, now hangs at the entrance to the kitchen. It never fails to calm me when I feel stressed.

Celebration is only possible through the deep realization that life and death are never found completely separate. Celebration can only really come about where fear and love, joy and sorrow, tears and smiles can exist together. Celebration is the acceptance of life in a constantly increasing awareness of its preciousness. And life is precious not only because it can be seen, touched, and tasted, but also because it will be gone one day. Henri Nouwen

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?