Curiosity Killed the Cat

 

  A blogger friend, Marian Beaman, recently wrote a post entitled: Too Much of a good Thing. She asked the question: What do you have too  much of?

The answer to that is pretty easy for me. I have too many books! And if you wonder why, it's because I'm a curious person who wants to know things! Even as a child I was like that. I knew that adults had secrets they wouldn't share, because they stopped talking when I came into the room! They did, however, share a Low German saying with me, and I translate:

 "Curiosity has ruined the world, and our Elly has inherited some of it."

I didn't like that saying because it made me feel like I was a bad person just because I wanted to know things. Kind of like Eve in the garden of Eden. She would have been a reader if books had been available in Paradise! Instead, she listened to a snake!

The English equivalent of that saying is "Curiosity killed the cat." Now I'm wondering about its origin  and from what exactly  did the cat die?! Maybe some rat poisoning??

So, I have too much curiosity and that's why I have too many books! They are like friends and I want to keep them all. A former professor of mine had a big library as well, and at his memorial service his children placed a table full of his books in the foyer and people could choose to take books home. By the time I got to that table almost all the books were gone. Some have found a new home in my bookshelves. It spared him the grief of parting with his books and gave his friends back a part of him to keep. (I hope my children are reading this post!). 

I have been going through my  husband, Hardy's things and was delighted to discover a book in the cubby of his office that I had been searching for after he passed away. It was the first present I gave him when we began our courtship. He was in Congo and I was in Canada and we corresponded after he left. I worked in a bookstore and I saw a book that I thought he would relate to. I sent it to him for Christmas. It was written by a young American Mennonite who served a term in Africa (Tanzania) as well. I'm not sure I read it before giving it to Hardy, but I read it again recently, feeling Hardy's presence .

 

Another book in that same cubby which I had not seen before was published in 1955 by the Swiss neurologist and marriage counselor Theodor Bovet (1900-1976) . Bovet wrote it for young men entering puberty.  I was amazed at the insights this author had, including his explanation of homosexuality. I loved reading Hardy's  notes pencilled into the margins! It's written in German originally, but there are English translations of Bovet's books.

My Mennonite readers might be familiar with the book Up From the Rubble by Peter and Elfrieda Dyck. It tells the story of how a large group of Mennonites (including my family) escaped being sent back to Russia by boarding the Dutch ship the Volendam and choosing to go to Paraguay instead.  I have read the book several times. Someone alerted me to a book called Hero for a Hundred: the Story of Herbert Bergen. I had not heard of this man, who also, single handedly, took it upon himself to rescue many people who would have suffered immensely had they been returned to Russia!

Recently my daughter and I attended a book reading about the life of the Jewish poet and musician, Leonard Cohen. I have long been fascinated with his music and how it relates to both the Old and New Testament. The book is a gem.

Those of you who have grandchildren and are interested in saving our planet will enjoy Suzuki's book written for his grandchildren. I found it in my granddaughter's bookshelf and she graciously lent it to me with the words: "I haven't read it yet, Oma, but I intend to one day. Let me know what you think of it". It's a book I read slowly. put away for a while, then picked it up again.

Last, but certainly not least, is a wonderful novel I could not put down. It's not from my bookshelf but was lent to me by my daughter's friend, so it will go back to her. This is a gentle story  about a young boy who is dying. His sister helps him to go through the Valley of the Shadow of Death by talking to C.S. Lewis and reading his Narnia books. This book helped me through my grieving.

After our return from Congo,  I studied and taught German Literature. One day I had a conversation with my mother in which I told her that now I got paid for reading books. There was silence at the other end, then a surprised "ne oba!" (Low German for "no, really!") and "well, you must be getting rich then, because you read a lot!" I didn't tell her that I enriched my knowledge more than my pocket book!

"Be Prepared For Each Season."

In my February blog post, I featured a picture of a wall hanging titled Think Like a Tree, with several options about how a tree might think. I decided to choose one saying each month for myself. The quote I chose for this month is "Be prepared for each season." I like it because I am waiting for spring. The winter has been so long and so cold! 

My small backyard has a large maple tree in the corner.  Looking out my kitchen window one evening, I was surprised and delighted to see a gorgeous sunset, flaming orange and gold. I thanked my tree for reminding me of the beauty of each season, even though I am tired of winter! Since this photo was taken, the snow has mostly disappeared.  Spring is on its way!

A long time ago, a daughter gifted me with a rainbow ceramic, which I recently set on the ledge of my bedroom window. When I walked into the bedroom one afternoon, the colors were reflected on the pillows of my bed. It was stunning!

 

I was reminded of God's promise to Noah that although there are disasters for which we are not prepared, there will be new beginnings. I cling to that promise as I prepare myself for what lies ahead. 

Last year my daughter and I visited Folklorama. I was looking forward to seeing the Japanese pavilion where a friend participated. My daughter wanted to purchase something in her dad's memory so we decided on a fan. We chose the words and my friend painted them on the fan. I kept it for a while and then passed it on to my daughter. She had forgotten the words, and I couldn't remember them either! Neither of us can read Japanese so I texted my friend and she reminded me. The word in the center is spirit and the word on the right is his name, Hardy. His spirit is still with us!

 

"...Gladness may come to us in surprising ways even in our grief." 

(B. Regier, Rejoice, March 3, 2025)

"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?