"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

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.

.

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