"Hang tough through a cold spell"

 These days I have been at a loss for words. We are well into February and my monthly blog post has not been written. 

What does one say when the world as we have known it suddenly seems to be so threatening? I am a senior and my days are numbered, but what of the years my children and grandchildren have left? What will it be like for them? Will they lose their democracy and their freedom to be who they were created to be? Will they have to leave their home for a safer place? Many in our neighboring, democratic country are forced to do that right now.

I am reminded of a wall hanging I gave to a daughter for Christmas and I ponder the words:

I think about my maternal ancestors, the Epp family, standing under a tree for a family photo, before they left their comfortable life in Ukraine. It was the only home they knew and suddenly it became too dangerous for them to stay. They had lost their father to a typhoid epidemic a few years earlier. My grandmother and her young family chose not to join them on the trek to Canada. That decision caused a lot of suffering and loss for her family. She was reunited with them in Canada in 1944.

My grandmother, second from left in the photo below. She has my mother on her lap, her son beside her, my grandfather behind her.

It is good to remember the past and learn from it. I gave each of my grandchildren a memory box. Grandson Ivan is remembering his Opa with some of the memorabilia he has collected.

"Hang tough through  a cold spell"

How Did I Help?

 I'm walking through the snow with my grocery cart in tow, happy that almost everything I need is within walking distance. I feel like I'm back in my childhood, walking everywhere, and I feel good that I'm not contributing to pollution! I'm reminded of my dad who biked or walked and never owned a car. My kids are happy to purchase my car and I'm happy to be rid of it! 

There has been a lot of snow and the path across the field is uneven and bumpy as I plod along. When I get home my right leg muscle is sore. It doesn't get much better over the next few days. When I come home after an outing with my daughter it's worse even though we drove and I only walked in the store. We stop at the grocery store after our outing and I buy what I need, thankful that I won't be walking home. I know that I have family and friends who will help me if I need it, even though I wish I had my independence.

I like what King Charles said when he met with fellow cancer sufferers:

"All of us go through some form of suffering at some stage in our life be it mental or physical. The degree to which we help one another--and draw support from each other, be we people of faith or of none--is a measure of our civilization as nations." 

 

 Illustrator, Charlie Mackesy, shows a group of people walking through the snow toward the abbey with their arms around one another with the words "How did I help?" "You were by my side, which was everything." 

Happy New Year 2025!

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