Flower Memories

Many of my memories of people are cemented in as association with flowers. In the olden days, we got Mother's Day corsages for our grandmas to wear to church on Mothers Day. Grandma Getty loved softer things and we got her pink and Grandma Theresa loved brighter bolder things and we got her deep red. It was often a white carnation with accents of the color in baby roses with a matching ribbon or the carnation was the color with white baby roses. Grandpa Getty grew tiger lilies in the corner of their house and I remember standing under them and looking up at the flowers. There were those tiny white clover flowers in their lawn and we would pick them and take them in and Grandma would put them in a tiny bottle, maybe an old perfume or medicine bottle. Grandma Theresa had tall yellow flowers, Golden Glow, in the corner of the house where her rain barrel was and she would flick the water beetles off the surface and get us a dipper of cool water to drink. I don't think mother knew about that. My sister and I went rogue and abandoned the florist's book of photos to draw up our own designs for Mother's funeral flowers, shamefully abundant in yellow roses and lilies that we knew she loved. The cashier cried when she found out whose funeral it was because she would save out deliveries of flowers to Mother for last so she could go up and visit with her. We didn't know that about our mother until then. I made my sister's gardenia bouquets for her wedding and almost passed out from the fragrance in the cooler when I bent down to put some things into the big box. My friend's bridesmaid bouquets were pink roses and daisies and we all tucked Kleenex into our bouquets so they would be there when we cried during the service, but they touched the floral foam in the holders and absorbed the water and became sodden useless masses which we each discovered one at a time during the service and tried not to laugh as we caught each others' eyes.I weeded for a woman who had cancer and wasn't supposed to work outdoors due to lowered immunity from chemo and I took my toddler along to play in the grass while I worked.  She came and got him and played with him on her patio, probably totally negating the whole "stay away from germs" thing, then took me on a tour of her garden when I went to collect him and showed me her double flowering white trillium.  Dwight has the awesome crabapple that we gather under.  Enid was fond of my various magnolias and asked their names.  I dug celandine poppy and wild ginger with Katie for her yard.  Sherri and I rescued green dragons in a dramatic last dash to the development site after it was technically closed to our group.  I cleaned and spaced geraniums in the greenhouse for Ivan on my first after school job.  My high school friends went together and bought me a cyclamen plant and the "War is not healthy for children and other living things" pendant for my birthday.  My mother in law put peonies in these glass water filled globes and later gave one to me.  My friend from landscape design school decided I was a better designer than he was. so he hired me to design things for his clients and he always made me include a Rose of Sharon.  I think of him when I am surprised by their bloom in the fall.  Pat Armstrong protects her prairie smoke plants with wet newspaper when she lets us help burn her prairie garden.  My sons and I would go on the ritual skunk cabbage hunt right after our spring break trip to Arizona every year, to reassure ourselves that coming back from the warmth of the desert was not a mistake.  What flowers memories do you link to people you love?

How To Weather A Storm

First, you have to live on a farm. Then you have to notice that it has gotten really dark in the middle of the day or that the sky is kinda a funny color and that the tops of the trees in the shelter belt are bent over about ninety degrees. Someone should say loudly "We should probably go to the basement." Someone should root around the junk drawer for candles and matches while someone else roots around the tool drawer for flashlights and spare batteries. Someone should go to the shop to get the men and someone should go to Grandma's to get her and hold her elbow while they rush across the lawn to the house. They should stop with her to comment on the trees. Everyone should convene in the basement. Discussion should ensue as to which corner they are supposed to be in. Someone should attempt to figure it out scientifically based on which direction weather patterns generally travel and someone should counter that with how it comes from every direction at some point when the tornado spiral is passing over. There should be discussion of the strongest part of the basement structure and dangerous things like the fuel oil tank and the gas water heater. One of the men should get curious and go upstairs to take a look-see. The other men should join after he doesn't come down after a bit. One of the women should dash upstairs for the camera and go out and stand behind the men and ask if they can see anything yet. The other women should get curious and go up. This leaves the kids and Grandma, who is just as curious and powerless to stop the kids from joining the rest in the front yard. She should make one kid stay back to help her get up the steps so she can see. When everyone is in the front yard watching, if there is or has been hail, someone should find a couple of the biggest pieces to put in the freezer. After it dies down, everyone should get in the car and drive around to look for crop damage and watch the water rushing through the ditches along the highways. The final stop should be that one place where the slope of the highway is misleading and it looks like the water is flowing uphill in the ditch. Then everyone should go home and have snacks. Remember to offer that Grandma should come in for snacks too and remember to help her back home afterwards. Go check on the hail stones in the freezer in the morning.

You Never Forget Your First Love

A blue VW convertible passed me the other day and I was reminded once again of my very first love. I am not in general a fan of blue, except in my babies' eyes or maybe a blue Hawaiian shirt on a salt and pepper haired man of a certain age, but your first love never stops triggering a certain feeling. My license to drive was just fresh in my wallet and we were on a family boondoggle to Watertown, South Dakota, when we stopped in to kill time at the Dodge dealership. It was my first inkling that my parents had been entertaining privately the idea of getting me a car, and I was too naive in the ways of car dealing to know that we were unlikely to actually walk, er, drive, out of the showroom with anything new that day, so I allowed myself to fall in love. It was a little sporty thing, and those more wise in the popular models of the time would know exactly what it was, but it was baby blue with navy blue accent trim and an ivory interior. They had me get in and try out the fit. Yeah! I could SEE myself cruising main street in that baby, I could SEE myself pulling into the school parking lot in that baby. I could SEE me in MY new car! And so, even though baby blue is far down on my list of favorite colors, always forevermore, a certain size car of a certain sweet pale blue will always make my heart flutter, just a little.

This Isn't About You Unless You Think It Is

It was in high school. We were on a bus, probably a "pep bus" waiting to leave for a basketball or football "away" game somewhere. Some of us were horsing around and joking back and forth and she turned back in her seat to face me and said "Oh, Karma, you are soooo dramatic." And with that statement, she shut me down. I flushed red with embarrassment and shrunk down in my seat, the joke forgotten and all joy taken out of the moment. Others were uncomfortable, some annoyed at the both of us for wrecking their fun and some just at her for being so mean, but that was no consolation to me.

Ever after, I was careful to "keep it in line", moderate the drama, when she was around, or even when any of her friends who might talk were around. I was stifled, inhibited, leashed, under her steely nasty sarcastic patronising control. I hated it. I hated her. I see her photo now and then or come across an article about her, at least I used to, she seems to have faded into obscurity lately, and every time, I felt the shame, the embarrassment, the sharp sting of the put down.
What was it? Was I getting more attention than she was or was I just too over the top and it irritated her calmer demeanor? Was I really offensive in some way? It does not matter. It is not right, and certainly not kind to shut someone down like that.
So don't you do that to me. Don't ask me to be less than I am. Don't tell me to keep it down, don't tell me to relax or calm down. If I want to be over the top happy and joyful, you can either join in my delight or shut up and let me be. If I am sad and carrying on, don't dismiss me and tell me I am over reacting. You don't know how much it hurts me because you can't feel what I feel, so don't tell me it is not as bad as I am making it. Maybe it is a terrible big deal to me. Support me and care about me but don't put me down. If you can't be there with me and share the drama, the ups and down, then get away. Don't tell me to be less, feel less, express less, love less, care less, feel less joy and less sorrow. Don't make me be less of the whole me just to suit your comfortable blandness and social decorum of calm and polite. Let me be all of me or get out of my way.

Loved

It was one of those family holidays where we were gathered with the cousins and aunts and uncles at Grandma's house, which was the rural equivalent of about a block away from our house on the same farmstead. In the usual way of childhood fickleness and temporary allegiances, for some reason unremembered, my sister and my cousins were refusing to play with me and I was nearly hysterical with sorrow and frustration and shame. My mother saw me crying off in some corner and rather than lecture and force the issue with the errant cousins, merely took my hand and walked me out the door. We walked to our house, where she took me into the living room and picked out not just one but a whole STACK of books, and settled me in next to her on the sofa and began to read to me. No pointless questions about why they were shunning me or who did what, but merely showing me maternal attention that was a pure and true form of affection, and showing it to me exclusively. Nestled there next to her, hearing her calm and smooth voice reading stories to me, I have never felt more loved. That moment would never leave me. No matter what happened ever, that day or for the rest of my live MY MOTHER LOVED ME. At that moment in time in fact, my mother loved me most of anyone or anything in the whole WORLD.
That is all you need to know, that one person loves you and will be on your side when you need it.
Soon, we grew a bit bored with the books and a little curious what was going on back at Grandma's house, maybe a little hungry for the lavish banquet of holiday foods, so we set back off down the path. And having established such lovely rapport with the reading, we chatted all the way and were still chatting when we walked in the kitchen door to find the family engaged in the usual chatter and laughter and banter. The cousins who had wanted nothing at all to do with me previously now realized me for the valued celebrity that I was and wanted to know where we had been and what we had been doing and suddenly wanted, needed desperately to include ME in their games and activities.
All was right with the world and I hope I gave my mother one last smile of thanks before I ran off to play with them.

Spring Along The James

There was a pasqueflower in the pasture behind the house. We lived between the James River and Highway 1, and that my parents oriented the house toward the highway and not the river testifies to their values, which were typical of their rural farming neighbors: Access was more important than natural beauty. In fact, the 'dump' was down by the river, a pit just high enough onto the shore ridge to never be messed up by spring high water, where we dumped anything that could not be burned. It was not even buried to hide it; it was merely an open pile on the ground. And my mother was terrified of water, certain we were going to drown, so there were strict instructions to stay away from the shore. Still, I would go for long rambling walks back there, in the thigh-high grasses and short shrubby bushes. There were occasional swales where water drained from the land and had carved down a bit into the prairie, and on the near side of one of these, there was pasqueflower. I would ramble aimlessly back there day after day when I sensed it was about the right time, looking at the ground. When I found it, with its amazing fuzzy ruffled leaves and its soft purple glowing flower, I would try to count swales and judge who far back from the river bank it was, how near to the pasture fence it was, so that I could find it again the next year, or even the next week. But those judgements were never as accurate as I wished them to be, and inevitably, it would take much more searching to find it again. In that day, the way to knowledge was the World Book Encyclopedia. If it could not be found there, it remained a mystery, and since I knew it was a pasqueflower, it must have been in some entry there, maybe under flowers or prairie or spring flowers. I remember trying to memorize its features the first time I came upon it in order to look it up, then later finding a picture that was close but not exactly how it appeared in my memory. That was my first attempt to find it again, so that I could better compare the image in the book with the real plant, and be certain of its name. It gave me hope and joy to find that little promise of spring out there, just as it does today when I see the snowdrops and winter aconites along my driveway and the skunk cabbage at the local forest preserve. Yes, I has turned cold again since my muddy foray out there last week, and yes, we could even get snow again, but at least those early plants offer the promise that whatever bad weather is yet to come, it will not last. This winter WILL give way to the frothy pink days of summer then the golden yellow days of summer!

Influences

We probably remember them as greater than they are, because we are certainly shaped by a lifetime of subtle influences. And maybe even more than that, we are probably shaped by the basic temperament, as defined by our inherited brain chemistry, with which we are born. But I remember certain influences as being the most significant ones that shaped me.

Hearing my mother praise the community services of a local woman who volunteered for every this and that and baked and sewed and gave to every charity, I thought even as a child that I wanted to be good and kind and do things for other people like this woman. I was surprised in later years to learn that my mother did not actually like her all that much, and in fact, often found her annoying and aggravating! But still, did that in any way diminish her service to the community and the individuals in need? Not to me, and I often find myself inspired to do-gooderness by some remembered image of her bouncing into the church basement with a covered cake pan in each hand and sending someones child out the the car for more tins and dishes and casseroles.

Watching Dr. Seuss's The Lorax on television certainly was not the first I was introduced to environmental concepts, for our agricultural state taught us in science class from the very beginning about conservation of soil and water. Yet, the first I remember of becoming really riled up and motivated to DO SOMETHING about keeping nature natural was from the feelings of loss and then of power at being able to FIX THINGS that I got from that story. Nature needed ME to protect and preserve her!

Surely she was not the first or the only woman to participate in farming, but I remember my parents talking about her as though she were some rare and exotic creature because she didn't stay in the house in a supporting role but got out there and drove the tractors and the trucks. She went out to the barn morning and evening to do the chores. She helped the calves get born and actually did the artificial insemination! My one chance to steal a look at her as I invented reasons to pass up and down the hallway past the kitchen doorway was when the flying club met at our house. Not only did she farm like a man, but she was the only woman member of the local flying club, whose members shared interest in a couple small planes and jointly hired the services of a flight instructor. She was beautiful to me and her very face exuded power and I wanted that. No rules were going to tell me what a woman could and could not do just because of her gender.

Even as the conversations of parents and neighbors reflected a general suspicion of motives, I listened to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on the radio and just KNEW that the color of a person's skin should not be cause to treated them poorly, just KNEW that people were people no matter the color of their skin or the language they spoke or the type of clothing they wore or what they believed. Dr. King just made sense to me and it made me MAD that some people used those outward physical signs as reasons to treat other people badly. I found such racism to be especially counter to the 'love one another' message I was getting from the Lutheran preacher and my Sunday School teachers. I vowed to not ever treat anyone differently due to the color of their skin, and to fight for equality as soon as I got old enough to DO something besides sit on the floor and listen to the radio about it.

Never content to leave well enough alone, I often ponder my motives and the reasons I do the deeds I do and think the thoughts I think. I look back through my history for the influences that challenged or inspired or motivated me. Such reviewing is good for us. What if we look back and discover that some influence is not in sync with the values we now have? We should become aware of the power and effect of that influence and work to negate it. But if we look back and find people and personalities that are important and meaningful to us, we can rededicate ourselves to the values and actions embodied by those influences, and purposefully work to be more, do more, become more like them.

Packing for Trips

We'd put the suitcases up on the guest bed, open and ready, a week, or maybe more, before the day of departure. We'd count out our days of outfits and swap things in and out as we changed our minds. We'd add jackets or swap long sleeves for short as we watched the temperatures on the weather maps. I'd run though my day, adding things with each new task to make sure what we needed was in there: Toothpaste, toothbrushes, shampoo, medicines, and so on. Jammies, blankies, bedtime books. When the kids were little, it mattered so much more that all the right props were there and that planning for various circumstances was covered. I was of the opinion that I could never be one of those people who took last minute trips or did spontaneous travel because I needed at least that week to pack.
My dad was sick: Sick with some intestinal bug due to his system being weakened by his last chemo treatment. Just as soon as he got well and got his blood counts up, he and my mother were loading up the RV and heading to Arizona, where the boys and I were going to join them. We already had tickets, but had not yet begun to pack.
I called my dad around noon, and was very encouraged. He sounded so much better, he was sitting up and he'd eaten a little solid food at lunchtime. He was looking forward to the trip and to seeing the boys. We had a nice chat before he went off to give a nurse some sample or submit to some test and I went back to whatever mundane January off-season putzing I was doing.

Then mid afternoon, the call that you all your life dread came in. It was my mother: "They are moving him to ICU. They are putting him on dialysis, something about the infection shutting down his kidneys. You better come."
"You better come."

Yes, you can find a flight and arrange for limo pick-up and tell your kids the scary news and pack for 4 people in 45 minutes. And yes, you will forget some things when you pack that fast, but missing those things will not matter in the overall scheme of the far far greater loss that you are about to endure.

January Cold

Some people leave a really big hole in the world when they go.

Birthday Memories

When I was very little and my grandmother still lived in town, she would come out to the farm and we would go out to dinner at the Riverside Supper Club and we would get to order dessert.

One year when I was fairly young, I had a birthday party at my house with cousins and second cousins. The house was built when I was three years old, so it was maybe my 4th birthday. My cousin, born the May before me, was my greatest hero, after my dad. I remember informing him that now that I had my birthday, I was the same age as him. He insisted he was still older by a half year. I said there were not half years, that I was the same number of years old as he was, and we fought and I screamed at him and cried and I remember being so upset that my dad had to come pick me up and hold me above the fray to try to comfort me and tell me that, yes, we said our ages in full numbers, but that Lee was indeed born in the summer before me and would ALWAYS be truly a half year older.

On my twenty first birthday, I lived in a house with three other girls and there were goings on that I didn't put together and several times, they needed to borrow my car and once I found a cake pan under the bed when I was looking for laundry but still did not put things together. My boyfriend took me to dinner and then wanted to 'stop by the house' that I shared with the girls and STILL I was clueless and there they were to surprise me with a party. They brought out the cake and there were looks exchanged. Finally the story came out that they had made an elaborate layer cake with frosting decorations and had stored it in the oven but then one of them had turned the oven on and ruined it, so they had to secretly repair it before the party.

On my thirtieth birthday, I was traveling for business to Columnbus, Ohio, where a favorite cousin lived and learned that her son and I shared a birthday. So on his sixth birthday and my thirtieth, I went to a party with little kids and his mom and I drank too much wine and played pin the tail on the donkey.

One year after 30 and before 40, my friend Dorothy had us all over for dinner. I had talked of a white layer cake with lemon filling and white frosting with lemon zest that my mother had made for me when I was too old for angel food with confetti baked in, so Dorothy called my mother for the recipe. Apparently having repressed my teen years, mother had no recollection of that sort of cake and poor Dorothy was embarrassed to have called and bothered her. But she looked up recipes in books and made her approximation of the lemon concoction and it was grand. But mostly, I was touched at all the effort she went to!

On my fiftieth birthday, I was in South Dakota at a nursing home with my mother trying to rally the forces and get her motivated to be more mobile so that she would eventually get out of there. A giant box arrived, which I assumed was get well flowers for her, but was actually three dozen alstromeria for my birthday! They lasted the entire 2 weeks I was there and I rearranged the last stragglers to leave for her in a smaller vase just before I left: It was one last little thing I could do for her before I left her to her caregivers.

This year, I am at the lake house with 11 Boy Scouts and 5 of their dads. We chatted and they played games until past midnight last night and this morning, got up around 6, when I had to open my gift which was a griddle so that we could make pancakes for them all for breakfast. They are ice fishing and I am making chili for their dinner. The views are lovely of the snow covered ground and the bare trees against the snowy lake and all is well at 52.

Persistance of Mean

It took only two days into the new year to get one of those emails that has a title like "Help from you I need!" where I am supposed to help someone get their money by giving them access to my bank account where huge amounts of it will be transferred and in manifold gratefulness, they will leave me a generous portion when they take theirs out. Who could be stupid enough to fall for these things? Yet someone must, or it would not be worth their effort to keep trolling for fresh victims.
Why do these things persist? They appeal to two strong universal desires: We as humans instinctively want to help each other and we want to get somethin' for nothin'. An opportunity to do both these things at once combined with our eternal human optimism leads us to think that yes, there MUST be something to this one. Ah, but rest assured there is not. There is not, never has been, and never will be, an actual situation where such a money transfer to a personal account could or would be a good way to get funds unstuck from somewhere. There would be other ways not involving a stranger, official ways, ways to do it through friends or relatives or hired services or government services or aid services. Don't we all know that?
Yet, back before we all had cell phones in our pockets and the way we learned about what was going on in town was a tiny weekly newspaper instead of email and facebook, I knew a woman who was scammed. Nice lady, took walks around the neighborhood and we'd talk if I was out and about and met her, or if I saw her down the street when I was getting my mail, I'd wait for her and we'd chat a bit. She never admitted it to me, but a friend who knew her daughter told me. One day when she was walking, a car with a pretty younger woman pulled over and asked her if she could help. She claimed to have been paid several hundred dollars by someone in town for doing work for them. She had tried to cash their check but the bank didn't know her and would not cash it for her. The people had left for vacation, so she wanted the woman to go with her to her bank and deposit the check in her account and then withdraw it and give it to her, and in exchange, she could keep $100 of it. Now I am sure you can all see where this is going. The check was bad but that didn't show up right away and the scammers got away with their cash and her account information and cleaned more out of the account later and she was left with an emptied account and bad check fees in the end. And she was too embarrassed to admit to it for many weeks after, until she came up short paying some bills at the end of the month and had to ask family for help. They went to the police and the local paper ran an article that didn't name her but sought to warn others against such a scam in the future. Which led a couple other victims to come forward and talk to the police and the newspaper.
It all made me sad and angry. When I get these stupid emails, I have to read through the subject lines to make sure no good emails got filtered into my spam folder before I can hit "Delete all", but mostly they remind me of the scum who scammed my neighborhood friend and that makes me a little sad and angry all over again.

Writing My Own Ending

A customer came back to show me the bracelet she bought from me last year and was hopeful I had found the artist and stocked up. She said she loved her silver bracelet and I believe her, because I'd had him make me one many years ago and loved it so much that I asked for more like it for the gallery, which is how she came to have hers. She was hoping for another with maybe a stone or maybe one of the narrower designs. I did not have good news for her.

You never know when you are seeing someone for the last time. You never know when it is your last phone call with them. I remember the many times at the powwow when we stood at his booth, watching him work, for longer than anyone else ever did, he said, and that earned us his respect and some stories and tales and maybe even some extra care when he made things for me. My boys were like that, though, interested in how things were done and willing to invest time in learning the process of an art. Every year, he had some gripe about the committee or the set-up or the way things were being run and said it was his last and every year, he was back again anyway. I never mentioned that last year he'd said that too, about not returning. But one year, there was no pow wow and so, he could not return, but that was not him sticking to his threatened boycott, exactly. And so, I called him and arranged to have some jewelry sent and later, called to tell him it had arrived and thank him for it. Once, when I complained of our winter weather, he told me how the snow was so deep, the bears had discovered his birdfeeders hung high in trees because the snow had moved the bears up to their level. I learned never to complain about the weather here, for he could always best me. Summer was hotter in Sauk St. Marie than any summer in Illinois and winter there was colder than any winter here and his springs wetter than any springs anywhere and mosquitoes were larger and ticks more blood thirsty and well, there were bears. Once, early in the war, he told me how they'd tested out some sort of military bridge on the shores of his island and how since nothing ever happened there, it was big entertainment and people set up lawn chairs to watch and left them there to go back the next day and it sort of stopped all usual activity on the island for a few days. And then one year, my order letter was ignored. I sent another and included a check just in case he was low on supplies. It was never cashed. Then I started to get calls from people who saw his name on my website and had tried to call him: They said his number was disconnected. Well, I have my theories and they are not happy ones and I don't want them to be so. I want him to be alive and well and happy somewhere. So here is what I am going to say: I am going to say that my silversmith witnessed a crime while rescuing a victim of that crime. I am going to say that as a result of that rescue and witnessing of said crime, he was called to testify against serious bad guys, resulting in their being put away and more lives being saved. I am going to say that because of his heroic efforts, he had to enter the witness protection program, and under his new identity, had to change the design of his silver so that he would not be recognized, identified. I am going to say that he is happy in his new off-island home in his new government-supplied digs with his art studio attached to his home and that he is thriving in the challenge of his new designs, which he is selling in some other galleries perhaps on the east or west coast. That is what I am going to say: He has entered the witness protection program after carrying out a brave rescue of a crime victim and I am not allowed to have contact with him, so that is the last of his work in that style.

Glam

Aunt Alice was my maternal grandmother's exotic glamorous sister. She was tall and thin and had long wavy hair. She wore pants. In the 60's. She had modern eyeglasses and separate prescription sunglasses. Her smallish efficient house in town was furnished in snappy new modern curving sweeping chrome and glass assemblages. It was not a particularly warm place, nor was she personally, at least not compared to my grandmother and her big house with wooden and upholstered furniture and wood floors and wide arching doorways and cooking smells that constantly radiated from Grandpa's kitchen. Aunt Alice and Uncle Melvin took exotic vacations, probably on airplanes. They talked of their children who lived far away because of exotic jobs. Uncle Melvin had slicked back hair and I remember his clothes as being rather glossy somehow. He had some of those cool shirts that you didn't have to tuck in from some exotic foreign country. Ah, yes, they were the most glamorous couple I knew. And Aunt Alice herself was the keystone of that glamor, I was certain. And one of the most glamorous things about my glamorous great aunt was that she smoked. She had crystal and chrome ash trays everywhere. Enormous wonders that were more a shrine to the glamor of smoking than functional, for she would never ever let any but the tiniest bit of ash accumulate in their massive bowls. Some had lighters build into them. Best of all, next to her sleek accent chairs, even in her kitchen next to the dining table, she had smoking stands. A little shelf or perhaps a small drawer held cigarettes and the top was solely dedicated to the holding of the resting cigarette and the collection of the ashes. I remember a chrome and black smoking stand and another that had a chrome base and chrome bowl separate by a sculptural exotic wood stand. I remember the crystal and silver bowl of another. I remember her gesturing, sometimes broadly, sometimes in little quick movements, with a cigarette in her hand, smoke curling and twisting and rising. I remember her telling some story and the measure of how upset or excited she was about the goings-on could be had by how much her hand shook when she went to flick the ashes into the ash tray. I have vague memories of my sister and I sitting cross legged on the floor, our elbows on our knees and our chins in our hands, doing nothing but watching this exotic creature do her glamorous exotic things with rapt attention, but I am sure we were never quite that blatant in our astonishment and admiration. Ah, it is a wonder I am not a smoker just to emulate Aunt Alice. What accumulation of effects in my childhood made the desire to be good and healthy, to refrain from smoking, overcome the lure of the glamor of Aunt Alice?

Mother

We were at my grandmother's house for some family holiday with all the aunts and uncles and cousins and I was feeling sad and alone because the older cousins would not play with me. She took me home and read books to me alone and talked to me about how hurt I was by the cousins' snub and discussed with me things I might say when we got back that might get them to include me. It was obvious that day that my mother loved me dearly and greatly and would do anything to make me feel happy and secure, but it was also implicit that I would get back out there and take responsibility and do my part to make things better for myself. I don't remember what books we read nor what specific advice she gave or what the issues with the cousins even were, but I know it worked when we rejoined the gathering and I know that my mother has always loved me and given me her best so that I might find my way and make a good and happy life for myself. Today I am old enough to have been on my own for most of my days, yet she still supports and guides and encourages me; she is still there for me just as she was that sad and lonely day so long ago, kind and wise and there for me, my mother!

Same But Not

In Minnesota with my sister and my mom, did a little shopping, talked and talked, ate too much at dinner, talked more until we couldn't keep our eyes open, doing my nails, eating fresh fruit, reading a magazine, even a little solitaire on the old laptop. It sure has a lot in common with the old days at Star Lake, on fabulously fun and restful annual vacations. Except this time it is different. We are in a different Minnesota town for a different reason. Rochester, in a hotel a pebble's throw from the Mayo hospital where she will have major surgery in two days. We talk, we laugh, we enjoy stories about the kids and relatives and current events. It is just the same as always. But different. Can you still have fun when you are scared? Is that an okay thing to be doing?

Letting Go

My friends lost someone this week. Their family had a nanny from far away who went back home. They are sad. They 'bonded', learned to love her and she them. I am sad for my friends. And it made me remember caregivers that my children had in their daycare. One, a quite elderly lady, was a favorite of theirs. She was from South Dakota and I, from North Dakota, so we talked many times when I was dropping off and picking up my kids. She wanted nothing more than a piano for her room, and was too shy to ask management for one, so I mentioned to the director that she had once started and lead a band at school where she had taught, and wouldn't it be wonderful if she could teach some music to the kids? That lead to her getting her piano! She loved it and the kids loved it. But not long after, she was gone. I asked about her and the director told me she had been diagnosed with fatal throat cancer and had quit. I missed her and so did my kids so I made a decision to try to find her. I had an idea of where she lived, because we had talked about how when she had car trouble, she would just walk to work. So I went driving around that neighborhood a couple times until I saw her car. She had a unique license plate so I knew it was the right car. I took a chance and knocked on the door. Oh, she was so glad to see us! She had not actually quit, but been let go as they did not trust that she would have the energy to teach during cancer treatments. It seemed unfair to me that they did not give her a chance and wait to see what happened. We had a lovely visit.

But I had a decision to make. When you purposefully guide your children to develop relationships with people, you usually assume they will last forever. That might be an incredibly naive assumption, yes. But rarely do you know that if you allow your kids to get close to person, you will be setting them up to soon deal with a death and the mourning that follows. I decided it was more important, for her sake and ours, to keep seeing her. We visited every couple months, dropping in if we saw her car there, until finally, she no longer answered the door. Turns out she had been taken to a son's house because she was too sick to live alone. We called there and they said they would call us if she was strong enough for visitors. They never called. I doubt that was her choice. Then one day, I read a local newspaper that I hardly ever read and there was her obituary and notice of her funeral on the following Saturday. Our family went to 'say goodbye' and I encouraged the boys to tell her son how much they liked his mother. It was a very sad day for us.

And one I could have certainly prevented, by just not continuing the relationship with her, by not taking my kids to visit her. Was it worth it? Is it worth it to bond with people that you know for certain you will have to say goodbye to? Was it fair of me to let my kids love her, knowing she was going to die soon?

I am pretty sure the answers to those questions are all yes.

My Last Post Ever, Really

Stuffed up head. Sinuses clogged. Ears full. Eyes gooey. Too much for you to hear? TRY LIVING IT, WIMP! Fever. Sore throat. Losing voice. Cough. Sleepy. Can't sleep.
Had a prescription 'in case' this happened, but that only works if you can FIND the damn thing when you need it and you could get a replacement if only your doctor was not on VACATION. What was she THINKING? NOW!!! "Go to the local ER." Yeah, Get dressed, walk to the car, drive, cough and hack, wait and wait and wait, explain the symptoms to a strange doctor and lose voice again and cough. Until it looks like I am faking it to get meds? I don't think so. I hate this. I want my mommy. She would put a cool clean sheet on the sofa to keep the upholstery from scratching me and put a fresh pillowcase on my own bed pillow and bring me orange juice with a bendy straw and aspirin and chicken noodle soup with those tiny puffy crackers. Bring me a Trixie Beldon book to reread or close the curtians so I could nap. I hate being sick! I think I am going to die. Or worse. So this will probably be my last posting here. Will you miss me? Did I spell everything right?

Independence Day Memories

When we were kids, we drove into town and lined the streets with all the other cars to watch the fireworks. We kids usually sat on the hood and leaned back against the windshield. Sometimes, black specks would rain down on us if the wind was in a certain direction.
I saw fireworks in 1976 from grandstands in Rugby, North Dakota, the geographical center of North America.
When my kids were little and loved sparklers, I spent the entire time they played with them terrified that someone was going to drop one on the ground and someone was going to step on one of those burning hot sharp pointy wires or worse, fall and put an eye out on one. I hated those damn things!
When the park where they are usually shown was torn up due to renovation, the fireworks were shot off about a block from out house and we sat along a street near that vacant lot. They were so close, we had to lean back to see them. It was the most amazing display ever. We were right there under them!
Fireworks in Mineral Point, the pyrotechnic capital of the world, are simply grand.
One year, we watched them from a boat in the middle of a lake, which was fun, but churning through the water with other boats less than an arm's length away in the dark after most of the drivers had been drinking for hours was one of the most terrifying times of my life.
When one of my kids was little, he loved to look at them but hated the noise, so he sat on my lap with one ear against my chest and my hand pressed over the other. So that he could see them straight on, I had to sit sideways but I did not mind one bit!
In later years, when they were young teens, they would wander off with friends at the park, but when they returned to our blankets to sit on lawn chairs in front of us and exclaim to each other over the best ones, I was happy and proud. I spent as much time watching them as I did the fireworks, my dear boys who, even on Independence Day, put family over friends.

Too Damn Hot

The 16 house guests hit the road and I settled into for a good day's work. I was gathering up the towels, upstairs and down, kitchen and bath, to start the laundry to run while I planted those shrub and trees, when the phone rang. My friend was on her way through and wanted to stop. We spent a while sitting on the deck, rocking in our chairs and talking about friends and family and events of the day. And complaining a bit how it is hot, too hot to do anything but sit, and it was nice. Made me remember taking 'lunch' to the fields on a hot July afternoon back when the farm still had some hay fields that had not yet yielded to the plow and it seemed to me there was nothing to do hotter than haying and no place on earth hotter than that hayfield. We went back home to the luxury sitting with our books in front of the humming droning fans, while the men went back to the hottest job in the hottest place. And now after an unusually cool and long spring, 'seasonable' weather is finally hot upon us and we have a new thing to gripe about, how it makes us sweat and makes the work seem twice as hard. Or, we could just sit on the deck and drink iced lemonade and plant when it cools in the evening.

Questions for Daddy

One of the most common memories I have of my dad is when he would be doing improvement or repair and I would be hanging around aimlessly and ask questions. Like we are in the basement and he is working on something and I hear water going through this big pipe along the ceiling joists and I ask "Daddy, what's that pipe for?" His answer would ALWAYS be "To make little girls ask questions." Damn, damn, damn, I certainly did HATE that. Even though the books were not written yet about such things, I was pretty sure that if you had a kid inquisitive enough to ask such questions you should encourage the curiosity by providing a good and cheerful and honest answer. Yet, I am pretty sure I phrased those questions such that he could use the easy canned answer. For example, instead of saying "Where does that pipe come from?" or "What does that pipe do?", I would remember to ask what it was "for". "What's that hole in the floor with the motor over it for?" I would ask about the sump pump. "What is that tool for?" I would ask of the big wrench with the screwy adjustment. "What is that wire in the wall for?" Or he would be reloading shells and "What's that part for?" Or he'd be tinkering with some engine: "What's that belt for?"
And so we would play the game. I would ask using the right phrasing, he would answer with a great big grin, I would get a little annoyed, I would keep asking only maybe in different ways, now that I had afforded him the privilege of the annoying jokey family-traditional answer, and after a few rounds, the number depending on his project deadline and frustration level, he would put down his project and give me a damn good and thorough answer. Lead me to the spot under the kitchen where the pipe came down from the sink and lead me around to where it turned the inside corner with the basement wall and explain how that sharp ninety degree turn shoulda been a couple more gentler turns because egg shells from the garbage disposal get stuck there and lead me to where the pipe goes under the stairs and along to the point where I had noticed it and asked and along further to where it joins a larger pipe that goes out the basement wall and into the septic tank. Or regarding the sump pump, he might take the flat lid off so I can see down the hole and run the shower next to it and show me how the float rises and eventually triggers a switch that turns on the pump that pumps the water to the big pipe to the septic tank. Yeah, I had a pretty good understanding of the bowels of a house and the workings of a farm shop and the mechanics of some farm machinery and how to load shells and how a watch worked and how a car was put together and an odd and varied assortment of how things worked and what was inside things and what caused what to happen by the time I was old enough to not think it was cool to hang out and watch my daddy do stuff.
And sometimes even, when my kids were little, I'd take a crack, just once in a while, at answering their questions with "To make little boys ask questions" though I didn't have the heart to carry on quite as long as he did, and I had all that book learning about fostering curiosity and all. Daddy, I miss you. Thanks for all the 'splainin' you did. Even if I had to put up with the "joke".