Time has passed and more than a whole year of being isolated during a world-wide pandemic, and finally, I am able to get back to writing. I think I was shut down for that and other reasons and the writing didn't happen. I made several weak attempts to get back to this blog, unsuccessfully. But, today is a new day and I am committing to writing more regularly.
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Sometimes I just cannot put my thoughts down. A jumbled mind and some depression, but here I am, wanting to start again.
I think this state of mind may be fairly common for people my age. There are so many unknowns for us. Losing friends makes our own death more a sure thing, in case we have been in denial about that. There are new aches and we are moving more slowly. We need naps more often (not a bad thing!) and for me, personally, there is this: I cannot pull up words, especially the names of things when I am in conversation. My anxiety goes way up, when I am talking with someone, that I won't be able to find the words I want, and I'm sure this makes the problem worse. I shared this with my daughter, and bless her (she is still trying to take care of me), she researched Alzheimer's and dementia and assured me that I wasn't there, but was experiencing the short-term memory problems that people my age struggle with. While this is somewhat comforting, I have to say, I really HATE this part of aging more than any of the other issues. I was articulate. I taught Shakespeare and Chaucer. I didn't misspell words. I was fairly intelligent. Now, even when talking with friends, they have to prompt me with words I am only on of the verge of saying. It is so embarrassing for me. I have to admit, this borders on pride and pride is a sin. (I don't like sin, either). Well, there is no changing of what my reality is, in this case. Acceptance is the only choice. I can add some humor, I guess, though it doesn't feel very funny. I did tell my classes, when I gave them the assignment of writing their own epitaph, that I wanted to be remembered for being funny. Well, there you are. My work lies ahead. Copyright 2018 One night I was feeling tearful about how fast life has gone by, the loss of youth and usefulness, and fears of getting older and maybe getting ill or losing Gary, the terrible things going on in the world---all normal concerns for someone my age. I haven't cried in a long time and I needed to, so that part was good. I was also reading a book called When Breath Becomes Air, a beautiful memoir which is inspiring and yet very sad. Couldn't sleep so I got up and found my dear Kingston on his bed with his head hanging on the floor. His blankie had somehow slid off the bed and he was trying to include it so his head was off the bed and on the blankie. I started laughing at how cute he is. Sure did lift my spirits! I love, love, love that dog!
Copyright 2017 I had neglected this blog for several months and time waits for no one, including negligent bloggers, so things were askew when I tried once again to put my thoughts down here. Thank goodness for the wonderful technicians who can talk one out of a mess when finally there is the motivation!
Why was I silent for so long? Not because there was nothing to say or that I had no thoughts. There were many thoughts; but the confusion was greater and the struggle too daunting. I am happy to be here again. Copyright 2017 Every now and then, I must take a day to be silent, to be with myself, so that there is time for listening to who I am way down deep in there, especially when I am feeling out-of-sorts because I have lost that me. Noise and the rush of life are the culprits in this loss. Since today is that extra day we get every four years, it seemed like just the right time to do this soul-reaching. I have come to believe that this core of ourselves is really the essence of God, and that is why it is so urgent that I go there. I am in great need of peace. Nothing on this plane can give that to me, and so I close my mouth, try to slow down the racing of my mind and give myself over to the process of just being, where I hear birds singing their joy.
Copyright 2016 It began on an auspicious day, our 47th wedding anniversary. We were setting out to follow up on some research my husband had done in regard to his family history in a town several hundred miles from our home. It was an overcast day, and as we drove along, it began to rain. It was to become a tragic day in ways I couldn't have foreseen.
We have thought and rethought what happened, over and over, considering that, if we had done this or something else, it wouldn't have happened. The dog was caught in the tight maze of traffic at a construction site. We didn't see him until he turned in front of our car. There were two bumps; he was healthy and round. I screamed with horror and cried and felt sick and hopeless and empty. We could not speak for the next few hours as we drove on. We were living in a nightmare...two people who love dogs as we do. I am very sure, as I have painfully processed it over the past hours and days, that the world is less because that particular dog will not walk the earth again. He was unique, as all beings are, and that, about him, is gone, never to bring its joy to the air we shared until that fateful moment. Maybe that animal was sacrificed so that I would wake to the truth that every being, every, every being, matters. We all, creatures of a Higher Maker, matter. Copyright 2016 Yes, she liked to talk. But, what made her special was the absolute joy she took in others. Her voice would rise a few decibels whenever someone called or came by. She heartily and loudly let them know how glad she was to see or hear from them. And so, when I ran across this, I was immediately reminded of this in her:
"Some people have a wonderful capacity to appreciate again and again, freshly and naively, the basic goods of life, with awe, pleasure, wonder, and even ecstasy." --Abraham H. Maslow Wish she had known how special she was. I finally do. Copyright 2016 I have realized some things about myself since that class reunion several months ago. Apparently, I was wrong. I DID want old classmates to think I had done OK, or maybe even well, in my life since those high school days. Proof? I heard myself listing my accomplishments and even those of my children when we went around the room to introduce ourselves! This, after another classmate, who has every reason to boast about his own life, so humbly expressed simply how good it was to be back and to see everyone and that was all.
It is so disappointing to see this blatant inadequacy within myself. Normally, I am uncomfortable to acknowledge my accomplishments or to accept the praise of others, and yet, the night of the reunion, I was trumpeting like a stampeding elephant in the jungle. I am approaching seventy years of age. I have worked very hard over the years at taming my ego, but there is still work to be done. Copyright 2016 It occurred to me that in the two years that I have been writing this blog that I haven't written about my mother. It is pretty shocking to me that I have left out this important part of my life, especially when cousins write about her and how they loved her hearty greetings and laugh. She made people happy with her glad welcome, which was always loud. She loved babies and fussed over them with the same loud joy.
She was also someone who toughed through the tragic death of her first son, a red-haired toddler named Tommie. She didn't talk about it until one day, when I was snooping in an upstairs closet and came across his toys. I asked whose toys they were; she cried a little and told me they were Tommie's. The unearthing of this secret gave me years of fear, knowing that children can die. It affected my childhood; I, too, could die, and so during some years of tonsillitis and the resulting anemia, I thought I was dying. It took tremendous will to get past that fear, but I was so miserable living in fear, that life wasn't worth living, so I chose to try to live. The discovery of the toys also affected my parenting much later in life; I feared greatly for the safety of my own children and it took many years, even after they were gone from the home, to "let them go". Now, miraculously, I trust their well-being and care as well as that of our grandchildren completely to God in prayer each day. How did she get through the tragedy of losing a young child? It wasn't by talking about it, that's for sure. She kept busy, washing, ironing, canning, gardening (when we didn't know where she was, we looked for her in the huge garden she kept ; it was probably a welcome escape from us), feeding the cows, chickens, or pigs, milking the cows, cleaning the milkers, mending our clothes, folding our clothes, making some of our clothes. I don't remember her ever really just relaxing. So being busy was one way she coped. Privately, she suffered. My dad said he drank because Tommie died, but the truth is, he started drinking at around 16 years of age and was already binge- drinking when they got married. She married my handsome dad, "Jimmie" she called him then, probably believing the drinking would stop. It didn't. And even though I knew she loved him, we also watched her become defeated. She believed, and led us to believe, that others "looked down" on us because of his drinking, so we all carried that heavy, heavy burden of shame. It was predictable that she, and we, came to resent what the drinking was doing to us. Strangely, most of us were angry with her. I didn't even understand why, but there it was. I know that I wanted to be free from the turmoil, the fights, the fear, his threatened suicides (we often hid the guns) and we took the car keys when my dad was having a bad drunk. I suppose we wanted her to get us away from it all, but she felt helpless to do so, with no training that would enable her to support us. There was nowhere to go. I didn't like that she was a "victim" . I felt sure that I would have done SOMETHING if I were in her place. Unfair as that was, those feelings followed me into adulthood. By the time I was 17, I was determined to have a better life; I took a job with a family member of the Farley Oil Company in Madison, Wisconsin, as a maid. That and other jobs, scholarships and school loans helped me to get through college with no real financial help from my parents, because they simply weren't able to help me. My mother had instilled that work ethic in me and my siblings, which meant we were all able to make it in life. My dad died at 53 and she survived him by 20-some years, passing away at 74 in 1990. During those years, she sold the farm to our oldest brother and moved into town, where she had a social life with old friends and was active in the Church and with the local historical society. She wrote her life story in about 20 pages, long-hand, six times (one for each of us). I was surprised to read how insecure she was and how she felt less than her sisters. She was a no-nonsense mother and I saw her as strong, mainly because she never quit. She just kept going. Little did we know how lonely and scared she was. I have made it a priority to resolve those feelings of judgment and resentment towards her that I have carried with me. She didn't deserve any of it. Yes, she was stubborn, and yes, she had faults, but she was pretty brave, too. Did she know about these feelings? Probably. That is the worst part. I must have hurt her in a hundred different ways, and even though I tried to be good to her, there was probably always that arrogance in me that would show through when I talked to her, like I had the answers that she didn't have. One of my favorite memories of her was when she invited two relative families who hadn't spoken to each other in several years to dinner at our house. It was a risky thing to do, and yet, when they all showed up, surprised to see each other, of course, but sensible enough to take her lead, there was healing. We ate that dinner together and had a good laugh after! She was mouthy when she felt she'd been taken or cheated financially. She could talk and she could let people have it! Though her mouth sometimes embarrassed me when I was a kid, I have recognized some of these traits in myself over the years. She took care of people. I remember her gathering up boxes of our clothing to send to the Indian missions in South Dakota. She took in her dad when he had nowhere to go in his last years. She became a caring grandmother to our brother's step-children. She fed people, oh, how she fed people! She was offended if people didn't eat heartily at her table. She was an excellent maker of the Czech pastries we grew up with. My husband was dear to her heart after he ate a whole poppyseed kolache once during the early years of our being together. She continued to mend the clothes of one of my brothers, then a bachelor. One of his shirts was under the needle of her sewing machine the day she died. So, today, when I think of her, I realize what a remarkable person she was. If only I could talk to her again! There would be so much to say, mostly," I'm sorry", to which she would say, as she always did, "Don't feel that way". Copyright 2016 I have been thinking about that one-room school in the country that I attended for eight years before I was "promoted" to the high school in town. I often dream about it. That school and so many of my memories left a profound mark on my life.
The teachers that taught the twenty or so of us farm kids were facing an unbelievable task: teaching phonics, reading, spelling, math ( we called it arithmetic in those days), history, and even music to each of the eight grades (there was no kindergarten). The prep time must have been overwhelming. Then there was recess. Sometimes, these same teachers would come out and play games with us. We were thrilled when that happened because our teachers were models of what we wanted for ourselves; they wore pretty clothes and they were organized and they seemed sure of themselves and they made me want to be a teacher. Recess was a time of wild running and and games and secrets we girls told each other. We were reckless on the old merry-go- round, pumping it back and forth, hitting the center pole and then swinging back out again. There was the day, when I was in sixth grade, that a friend and I were just sitting quietly on it, talking. Suddenly, the world gave out under me. The merry-go-round, which had withstood the punishment of at least three generations of children (my grandpa and my dad went to school there also), had rusted through at a joint and with the weight of a 12-year-old on it, had come apart. Down I went with it. At first, I was embarrassed. Then I felt pain. I went inside to the teacher, limping and crying. She checked me over and decided all was well because there was no swelling outside of some slight abrasion. I walked the mile home after school that day and for the rest of that week. ( My parents did not see any evidence of injury either, and besides, parents did not rush children to doctors in those days.) My continued moaning eventually led them to take me in and x-rays were ordered. Sure enough, a bone in my foot had broken, and I was put in a small cast. I felt a certain glee when my parents and my teacher learned that they were wrong, and that, I was to be believed. The merry-go-round is gone, and my foot remembers the pain of old injuries now, but I would love to have another turn on that great old friend. Copyright 2016 |
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