Let Words be Your Weapons

 As I've mentioned in previous blog posts, Hardy, my  husband who passed away recently, kept everything. I did not want to burden others with having to go through all that some day, so I tackled it. I sorted, threw out, and packed boxes for the thrift store. I went through the boxes in the garage first, as I didn't want to work in there during the cold winter days.  Then I turned my attention to the store room in the basement. 

There was evidence of a mouse invasion and grandson Ivan set the traps. We caught five mice and I mustered up all my courage to dispose them into the garbage bin! The traps have remained empty since then, but I knew cleanup had to happen and I would have to go through the boxes. The recycling bin has been full to overflowing every week. Mostly Hardy  kept old newspapers, magazines, yearbooks, etc.;  things that no one else will care to keep and mice will claim for their nests.  Among all that, however, there are treasures. Below is one of them, and my heart broke as I read this document. 

My mother-in-law  told me the story, but here it is in black and white. The document below, written a year after the event,  is a copy of an appeal to the German government for compensation of accidental deaths of three family members during the bombing of a train on which they were travelling. Hardy's aunt, Kaethe Penner Schroeder,  three children and a friend were fleeing their farm  in  Poland in March, 1945, due to the Russian invasion. She was 47 years old, her daughter, Brigitte was 17, her second daughter, Hannelore was 11 and her son Eckart was three. 

 A bomb hit the train and Hardy's aunt states soberly that her eleven year old daughter, Hannelore, was beheaded and died instantly; her seventeen year old daughter, Brigitte, had severe stomach injuries and died ten hours later. Eckard, the three year old was uninjured. She, herself, received a slight head injury. Her friend also died at once. 

Although this is not part of the document, I believe there was a Downs Syndrome son who mysteriously disappeared earlier and was never found. 

My heart breaks for this woman who lost her children under such tragic circumstances. The oldest son, Reinhard, was not on the train, and later became a vineyard farmer in South Germany. The youngest son, who survived without injuries, became a medical doctor in North Germany. I have met them as well as their father, who remarried. Somehow they carried on. For Tante Kaethe it all became too much to bear and some years after this event she took her own life. 

This is just one tragic story of innocent civilians caught up in a war that has nothing to do with them, and everything to do with domination and power! It is not something that just  happened in the distant past, it is happening right now in Israel and Palestine, in Russia and Ukraine. Our world is at war! Lives are shattered, innocent children are paying the price! Do we just accept this as part of the human condition? What can we do?

If nothing else, we can educate ourselves, we can read! I just finished reading The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, and realized that I'm reading it for the third time! My last reading was in November, 2013. The story takes place in a small village in Germany where a little girl finds a home after she has experienced a similar train bombing as the one described above. She loses both her mother and her little brother who dies in her arms. She struggles with nightmares but overcomes them as she listens to her adoptive father's accordion music and learns to read, stealing books first from a grave digger and later from a wealthy woman who has a library in her home. 

Death is the omniscient narrator in this book, but Death is not depicted as cruel and someone to be feared. Rather, death is the one who tenderly takes the departed home. I am comforted by that image as I recall Hardy's peaceful passing. 

"Let words be your weapon, stories your shield, and hope your stolen treasure. Remember, when in the grip of a book, a story can set you free". (From a book review of The Book Thief.). 

In Transit!

The Winnipeg Free Press, which I read daily, caught me by surprise recently. I noticed an article entitled In Transit  which happens to be the title of my blog. However, they were not publishing my blog postings but beginning "a special series on the state of the city's public transportation system." 

Although I haven't used the bus  for years, after graduating from high school, I used to take it quite regularly to my work at a Christian book store . Now my oldest grandson takes it to his university classes and wherever else he needs to go. 

Here's a quote from the newspaper article that caught my eye and tugged at my heart  strings: 

"It's the route that exists to break your heart on the darkest of mornings and the coldest of evenings, in the pounding rain and cold wind. You see the shape of a bus in the distance heading towards you, and you can't make out the number to see if it's yours. It passes. It isn't yours. The only thing worse is watching the lights of your bus pull away from the curb before you can get to it. . . The bus has 10,000 stories, both inside and out, and a front-row seat to every one of them. 

Here's one of my bus stories:

I remember going home for Christmas, by Greyhound bus from Winnipeg to Alberta the year I graduated from high school. The song "The Little Drummer Boy" was playing at the restaurant where we stopped. When I hear that song I'm always back there again. 

At home everything was different. My teenage brothers, who picked me up at the train station, had grown lean and lank. My middle sisters were approaching their teen years and my baby sister was about to enter grade one. The sister next to me was graduating from high school in spring and would join me later in Winnipeg. Dad promised me that the whole family would be moving there soon. 

Back in Winnipeg after Christmas, I got off the Grayhound on Main Street around midnight and tried to get a bus back to my relatives where I was staying. I finally did catch a bus which proved to be the last one. By that time I  had no feeling in my hands and feet. Just numbness. And my mind felt numb as well. There was no one to welcome me back as I quietly slipped into the house and into my room. That was the coldest and loneliest time of my life. 

Here's one of Hardy's bus stories:

It is a sweltering hot Sunday. Hardy is boarding a bus on a busy street in Kinshasa, in the Republic of Congo. He plans to attend a church service together with his African companion who will preach the sermon. It seems everyone is getting on this bus and there are no rules about overcrowding. People are packed in like sardines.  Some are still trying to get on as the bus leaves and hanging on wherever they can get a grip. A Congolese Mama towers over Hardy, on her head a bowl full of market produce . She manages to balance it there without effort until he accidentally steps on her foot. "Mundele, sambu na inki nge kele awa na bus? Nge fweti baka voiture!" ("white man, why are you here on this bus? You should be taking your car!") She scolds him, but then  laughs, raucously, at the sight of this short white man on the bus, speaking her language!  Hardy got a new name that day. "Mundele ya bus." White man on the bus."

Hardy returned from that tropical steam bath to marry the girl who tried, half frozen, to catch a bus at midnight. They were married mid January, fifty six years ago today, and the weather was as bad as that night when she almost froze trying to catch the bus! But for the next fifteen years, living close to the equator, which was almost like living in a sauna, she was never cold or lonely again.

This anniversary year will be different. Hardy has gone ahead of me again.  

I didn't know much about the Congo, and when I arrived it was totally different from  anything I could have imagined. 

I suspect that when I join him  where he is now I will be surprised ! 

But I have a feeling that, like in the Congo, there will be music, and dancing, and light. 

 

"All That We are is Story"

 "All that we are is story", according to late Ojibwe author Richard Wagamese. "From the moment we are born to the time we continue on our spirit journey we are involved in the creation of the story of our time here. It is what we arrive with. It is all we leave behind. We are not the things we accumulate. We are not the things we deem important. We are story. All of us. What comes to matter then is the creation of the best possible story we can while we're here; you, me, us together. When we can do that and we take the time to share those stories with each other we get bigger inside, we see each other, we recognize our kinship--we change the world, one story at a time..."

The quote above is from a book by Edith and Neil von Gunten which we have been discussing in our adult education class at church. 

The more I think about that quote, the more it makes sense to me, especially in light of our family just having lost someone very close to us (my partner of 55 years, the father of our daughters, and the grandfather of our eight grandchildren). We tell each other stories, and we delight in them, because it is what we have left of him. We can no longer touch him, or see him or hear him, but we remember...and we share our memories. We look at old diary entries, we read old letters, look at pictures...anything to bring his memory back to us. 

December is a celebratory month. The celebration is about someone who is no longer with us, physically. His life on earth ended over two thousand years ago but the stories about him have not died! 

What stories do you think people might share about you when you are no longer on this earth?

Wishing everyone a Christmas filled with joy, laughter, tears and stories

In November I Remember

 In November I remember:

Husband Hardy, looking out the window at the birds on the feeder while the first snow fall appears: "Elly, take a picture!" 

My response: "It's the same as last year!"

And he said: "No, every year is special and different. Take a picture!

And I did.

 This picture is for Hardy, this post dedicated to him, because "every year is different!"

It took me a long time, but now I've started to go through the basket of cards we received at Hardy's memorial service and from friends and relatives by mail. I'm amazed and overwhelmed by all the love expressed there. So many people touched Hardy's life in so many different ways!

A friend sent a photo of a memorable trip we took to Poland and Ukraine to get in touch with our roots. Here we are at Hardy's place of birth. It's a poignant memory!

I also want to remember my dad, the other favorite man in my life.  He had a birthday in November  and lived to the age of 92.  (above, dad with brother Bernie).

The Winter Bird

Thou sing'st alone on the bare wintry bough,

As if spring with its leaves were around thee now;

And its voice that was heard in the laughing rill,

And the breeze as it whispered o'er meadow and hill,

Still fell on thine ear, as it murmured along

To join the sweet tide of thine own gushing song.

Sing on - though its sweetness was lost in the blast, 

And the storm has not heeded thy song as it passed, 

Yet its music awoke in a heart that was near,

A thought whose remembrance will ever prove dear;

Though the brook may be frozen, though silent its voice,

And the gales through the meadows no longer rejoice,

Still I felt, as my ear caught thy glad note of glee,

That my heart in life's winter might carol like thee. 

                                                                         --Jones Very

Winter has arrived with a vengeance here in Winnipeg and I decide to walk to the dentist and hairdresser for my appointments. Thankfully, I have retrieved winter jackets and boots from last year's hiding places before the snow arrived. Suddenly everything seems to have changed and there is a different landscape...so strange...kind of like my life now, since Hardy left...

The tree with its silver branches standing alone, reminds me of how I feel these days--lonely and cold. Then I see another tree and the autumn leaves shining red and yellow against the snow laden branches show me that I have also experienced lovely and beautiful things that give me joy. 

The best gift of all is one I received from Hardy. I was going through the boxes he stored in the garage and to my surprise, I found all the letters I had written to him when he was in Congo, two years before we got married. Ours was a courtship by correspondence, after we had been introduced to each other and had one date. "the ones he wrote to me must be in my possession" I thought. I went to look for them, and found them in one of my file folders. 

The letters I sent to Hardy have a hole in them because he is a stamp collector and wanted to keep the stamps. He carefully rewrote the words he had cut out while retrieving the stamps. So typical of him! There are a lot of letters, (we wrote two or three letters a week for two years!) so I have a date with Hardy almost every evening after supper, reading his declarations of love for me! I feel like we are talking together again as I carefully read the letters according to the dates in which they were written. I was a student at Canadian Mennonite Bible College (Now Canadian Mennonite University) at the time and working at a Christian bookstore on Saturdays. Most of what I wrote to Hardy has escaped my memory, probably because of all the momentous events that happened after these letters were written. I share some things with my sisters when we get together for coffee and we have a good laugh.  Some words I share with my daughters and we shed some tears. Among Hardy's letters I also found a letter my mother had written to him without my knowledge! She asked him not to tell me about it and he never did!! Gotcha mom!

Hardy had a lot of sweaters and the grandchildren each picked a favorite and took it home with them. It was so much fun to see them prancing around in Opa's sweaters and sharing memories of him. My sister, the amazing quilter, is going to make us a quilt using some of Hardy's shirts. That certainly will help me get over the winter blahs!

Shortly after Hardy's passing, when my heart felt broken, the neighbour's cat came and looked at me through the door leading from the kitchen to the deck. This happened about three times, when I felt most vulnerable. He has never come back since!

How thankful I am for all the love shown to me during this heartbreaking, heavy time of loss. Hardy's former coworker in the Bible translation work, John Mwanga, who now lives in London, England, grieved with me, the African way, when I told him in a phone call that Hardy was no longer with us. Then he flew in for the funeral. It was so good to see him, and also Hardy's encourager and long time supporter and friend, Nancy Fehderau, who flew in with her daughter Becky from Ontario. They were the family Hardy lived with during his first year in Congo. 

Beautiful flowers and cards fill my house from friends far and near. I keep wanting to share them with Hardy, to tell him, "oh, look, here's a card from..." 

Gifts of delicious food came in abundance and it was so good not to have to cook for a while!

I felt like I needed to somehow acknowledge all this love I received in such abundance and to give something in return. I noticed that our little neighbour across the street had a birthday. I decided to give her a birthday present and went downstairs to the crawl space where my children's and grandchildren's toys wait silently for someone to play with them. The first thing I saw was the perfect gift for her, and she received it with a big smile!

Hardy would have approved!

 

In the Silence

 The poet, Karen Brodine, once said, “When you write things down, they become true.” 

Earlier this year I wrote a series of meditations for the devotional Rejoice. The  one I had written for September 6, on Hardy’s birthday, was entitled “God Will Take Care of You.” At the time I wrote this I had no idea what would take place in early September. The cancer that we had hoped was contained in the bladder had spread, and Hardy passed away peacefully, September 3, surrounded by his family.

 When I read the devotional, on the day of Hardy’s birthday, three days after he passed away, I felt it was a promise sent to me by God for that day, even though I had written it myself!

Below is the conclusion to my devotional.

In our scripture reading today, Elijah finds himself in a dangerous position just after experiencing a victory over the prophets of Baal. Despite God's mighty display of power, Elijah falls into a deep depression when Queen Jezebel promises she will kill him in an act of revenge. Taking refuge in the wilderness, Elijah meets God- not in the hurricane or the earthquake or the fire, but in the silence that follows. Elijah is able to relax under God's care and follow God's leading.

Elijah finds God’s leading in the silence that comes after the turbulence.

The silence can be deep and long and as Henri Nouwen writes:

“Real human grief means allowing the illusion of immortality to die in us. When those whom we love with an “endless love” die, something also has to die within us. If we do not allow this to happen, we will lose touch with reality, our lives will become increasingly artificial, and we will lose our human capacity for compassion.

I find solace in nature, this beautiful season when the leaves turn color, the geese prepare for their long journey south, the sunset is brilliant and the harvest moon a golden globe. I want to enjoy my own autumnal years and have them reflect the beauty we see in nature. I need to grieve the passing of this season, but I can also choose to enjoy its beauty.

 

One Day at a Time

 The much anticipated annual family week at a cottage finally arrived and is now already a thing of the past. We knew ahead of time that we would not be able to participate the way we had in other summers due to Hardy's illness. As his main caregiver, I could not leave him for a week. However, the children made a plan for me to spend one full day there, while one of them stayed with him for the day.  I enjoyed every minute and will live with the memories now.

Above are the "twin" cousins (one month apart) who have worked so hard to finish high school this year and now are on the cusp of life's new adventures. My advice to them is to "live one day at a time." Their Opa's advice has always been: "Every day is not the same!" Hmmm--seems like that is not working for him right now, as his days are pretty much the same!

The youngest grandson (and youngest in the family) is great at entertaining us all. He decided to dress up as Oma with her cool hat and shades!

A boat ride down the river was absolutely wonderful

Of course I had to visit the garden, which was as beautiful as always, but no milkweed this year, which was too bad. I have a Vexierbild (picture puzzle) for you. Can you spot the insect? It's not hard once you know it's there.

My project for the afternoon was to make a batch of "Rollkuchen" (a type of Mennonite bannock eaten with watermelon or Borscht). I recruited my two faithful helpers from last summer to do the deep frying while I rolled and cut.

The hours and the days flew by, and now our Ontario family is on the road back to their home after tearful goodbyes to their dad and their Opa. 

Aufwiedersehen