There's no such thing

It's the day after Christmas and the three of us are glad to have the holiday over.  It started out when we woke Christmas morning to near blizzard conditions.  There are those who sing of "dreaming of a white Christmas", but the truth of the matter is a different thing.  The weather conditions by themselves made for challenging holidays for most of the people in the plains, but our Christmas was of the Garrison Keillor kind...straight from the shores of Lake Wobegon.  My husband started shoveling out, coming back in every twenty minutes to warm up.  His cheeks were so rosy he looked like Santa Claus.  I thought it was going to be a merry day, so I started preparing our Christmas dinner, thinking about "Julie and Julia" the movie which we watched the night before.  I was thinking how much I resembled Julia Child, not because of my cooking, but my propensity to make such a mess that I have to mop the floor after preparing for any major meal before the guests arrive.  In the middle of the stewed tomatoes, the phone rang.  It was my 90 year old mother from next door, hysterically crying..."Felix is dead", she wailed.  "What?"  I asked.  Felix is her ten year old cat who has always been the picture of health.  "I went down in the basement and he was just lying next to the washing machine.  I don't know what to do."   That was the beginning of Christmas day.  She's sobbing because we can't bury him in the back yard...obviously not because there is over a foot of snow on the ground which is frozen solid because the temperatures are hovering around five degrees.  So I yelled at my husband to stop shoveling because Felix was dead.  That woke Corina who came running down stairs to see what was going on.  Anyway, Phil went over to mom's and did the only thing possible with a dead cat on Christmas day...he put him in a double trash bag and put him in the trash where his frozen corpse remains,waiting for the trash man who comes on Monday.  That crisis averted, Phil kept shoveling and I put in a load of towels because we kept having to mop up all of the snow we were tracking in.  The next thing we know, the washer is overflowing because the drain from the washer has frozen.  Fortunately, I was doing a load on the hot setting and after only dumping a couple of gallons on the floor, it began to drain.  And on it went...My brother managed to make the 100 mile trek down from the city, only because he is a truck driver and they are used to any conditions.  My mother insisted on coming over to our house even though she has to use a walker to get around and they don't work very well in ice and snow.  Her care worker last week had a cold and passed it on to her, as if a 90 year old woman with a failing heart would be immune to any germs.  She comes over without even her face being covered, but she's stubborn like that.  While we were exchanging presents and there was none for my brother, I ran upstairs and found I had forgotten to wrap his.  I wish I could say it ended there, but later that night, just before I went to bed, the toilet upstairs stopped up.  I had to wake my sleeping husband, and after searching all over the house, we finally determined that the plunger was next door at mothers, and it was definitely too late to wake her up so we could only hope that no one would wake up during the night and use the bathroom without thinking.. 
This morning the toilet was still full to the brim, but with some work once we got the plunger, it is now it's normal self.  We had more snow during the night, but nothing that could not be handled.  We took mother to the emergency room and it seems her cold has turned into bronchitis, but with modern medicine, she is back home in her cozy house next door.  I finally laid down to take a nap this afternoon, exhausted, and thinking that this would have been described as the 'Christmas from hell.'  But then it occurred to me, there is no Christmas from hell.  Hell would never have and never will give us anything to celebrate.  And that is what this day and this season is all about.  It's not the gifts, it's not the decorations, it's not the food, it's not even our families.  It is "The Gift"  the one thing, the only thing that makes our lives worth living.  the only thing that enables us to be givers ourselves.  That's it, that's what we celebrate.

First Day of Winter

Today would be Aunt Myrtle's 93rd birthday.  Sadly, she has been gone from our lives for almost three years.  I wrote the following in February 2005.


We went to the Lied Center in Lawrence last night to see the baritone, Jubilant Sykes. I have been a fan of his for two or three years, ever since Phil gave me his “Jubilant” CD for Christmas. It was announced in the spring that he was going to be in Lawrence as part of the concert series but we had to wait until August to order tickets. On the first day, we got them, center seats, first row back, and what a performance!

Although he has sung with the Metropolitan Opera and in various venues throughout Europe and the United States, it was not a sell out crowd. Most of the audience appeared to be season ticket holders and unfamiliar with him, but after the first song, they were mesmerized as well. The first five songs were in Spanish with only a piano for accompaniment, and no microphone, not that he needs one. Then he moved into the more familiar classics and spirituals. Although there is probably nothing he can’t sing, the spirituals were the audience’s favorites. One thing I admire about Jubilant Sykes that he doesn’t wear his faith on his shoulder where it can easily be knocked off, but in his heart. That makes a difference in the audience response to some passionate statements of what he believes. He spoke briefly about the personal heritage of some of the songs, of hearing his grandmother, Paul Robeson and Leotyne Price sing them as a child and how they affected his life and his career. Then he sang "Deep River” acapella and the audience fell silent.

The only down side to an otherwise extraordinary evening were two instances when I saw younger women helping elderly women to their places. Both times, the care and concern was genuine, and so appreciated that I was reminded of my favorite aunt, all of the concerts and operas we attended and how we can no longer do so.

Aunt Myrtle meant almost as much to me as my own mother. With three younger brothers, one of whom was developmentally challenged; my mother didn’t have much time to invest in me so my father and my aunt shared their lives with me instead. My aunt gave me my first sewing machine, taught me to sew, showed me how to garden, how to cook well, and how to be a lady. She gave me an appreciation for the arts, took me to my first museum and to my first opera. For years, we shared the season tickets to the opera where I learned not to fall asleep during the most boring arias. I took her to see Star Wars where she fell asleep when Luke Skywalker was flying through the canyons of the death star being chased by the minions of Darth Vader.

Even though she grew up a hardscrabble farm girl during the depression, she was refined, cultured, and talented. She had a wonderful, artistic eye and was a dress designer before she married my uncle and never worked except as a volunteer, again. She was the most giving person I have known. You learned not to say you liked something in her house or something she had on because she would give it to you on the spot. I once saw her stop what she was doing to take off the dress she was wearing and give it to the person who complimented her on it.

Like Jubilant Sykes, she was proud of her heritage and not afraid to tell you what she thought. We had hours and hours of discussions about my grandmother and grandfather, what it was like growing up in that era, and how many in my generation were not living up to the standards of previous generations. All the while, she encouraged me to be the best I could be. I know she was proud of my success in the business world. Although I would sometimes run to her for advice when I ran into difficult situations, she wouldn’t let me quit or take the easy road. She always reminded me of the heritage of earlier generations.

Now that is all lost to Alzheimer’s. I remember the Christmas a couple of years ago when she came to dinner in an outfit that didn’t quite match. That was the first time I realized that something was wrong and knew that she was slowly leaving us.

I’m thankful I was able to take her to the Metropolitan Opera at Kennedy Center in New York when she came to visit us when we lived in New Jersey. For years she listened to it every Saturday afternoon and it was a joy to be able to share a live performance with her. I remember her commenting that she always heard ‘the lights are going up’ on the radio and didn’t understand what it meant until she saw the lights recede into the ceiling as the performance started.

Those days are forever gone. Instead she doesn’t get out of bed until noon and has worn the front of her head bald from pulling at her hair. Her caretakers try to keep her active, but she continues to go downhill into that long sad goodbye. I miss her. I wish I could dote on her as she did on me, as the two young women with their elderly charges last night.

There comes a time when all that is left is the heritage, the heritage that Jubilant Sykes lives up to so well in his concerts. I only hope I can pass some of my heritage on to my niece as my Aunt Myrtle did to me.

Creativity

The following is a piece that I wrote years ago, but it is very appropriate for this season.

     Yesterday, May 17th, Sammy Davis Jr, and Jim Henson, both considered to be creative geniuses in their respective fields died and someone paid 82 million dollars for a Van Gogh at Sotheby's. As a fitting end to such a day, my husband and I watched "Dead Poets Society" and I am left to ponder the part that creativity plays in our lives.
     Do we have to be creative? Who is the judge of that creativity? Is it merely a fragile monument to our existence, or something more?
     For some reason yesterday, even before I had heard all of the news of the day, I kept thinking of my friend's father, Mr. Kannard.
     I hardly remember him. I met him only once, a long time ago in Wichita, Kansas. My friend and I had driven down one weekend in her brown '72 Oldsmobile as I recall, the only car she ever bought new and the one which found a premature death in some small Kansas town up by Abilene. I was going to spend the weekend with my college roommate, but on the way we stopped by her parents’ house to visit.
     He had retired from the post office by that time because of his emphysema. All I remember of that meeting is a dark room, even though there were sheer curtains at the windows, and a tall skinny man breathing through an oxygen tube in his nose. He had a care lined face, the kind of face that should be stern, but he wasn't...just quiet.
     From that meeting though, he remembered me. He would send gifts home with his daughter for me. Little things which he made in his workshop in the basement, since he could no longer do any work which required physical exertion. Little stone animals -- the stones polished until they shone. Carefully chosen smaller stones became legs, ears, and noses, larger stones, bodies and heads. He would finish them off with those little plastic eyes with black discs that wiggle around.
     And once, my friend brought me some Christmas decorations. Two carolers made out of acorns. Acorns from a Turkey Oak tree I believe. The shape of the acorns fascinated me so that I looked them up in "Trees of North America."
     They were large acorns with fuzzy, prickly, caps which he used for the heads of the carolers. He sprayed the caps white and painted faces; bright big, blue eyes and red lips on the acorns. Then he added brown cardboard cone shaped bodies with cotton trimming for fur.
     I don’t recall that I ever sat those carolers out except for the first year they were given to me. They were a little too simple for my taste. But although it's probably been at least 15 years since he sent them home with his daughter, I have yet to throw them out. I probably never will. They were one man's gift to me of his creativity...a precious thing indeed.
     He didn't live too many years longer with the emphysema. My friends’ mother is gone now too. But every Christmas, when I take out the ornaments, all the fragile glass ornaments, I find his two snow men made from cardboard, nuts and glue with cotton around the bottom nestled in the bottom of the ornament box, wrapped in tissue which yellows more with every passing year. I find them and I think of him. Occasionally I stumble upon the little rock animals which I have not been able to throw away as well. These too remind me of him. He was only a postman. A postman who's disability forced him to retire sooner than expected. He had nothing to do with his days, so he created. Not great things, not even good things, but cherished things none the less.
     And every Christmas as I unwrap those ornaments, I remember once more, a tall, skinny, quiet man who loved to create.
     Creativity is so fragile and fleeting. It resides in each of us, in such different ways that sometimes we don’t recognize it when we compare it to what we see in the world. Creativity does not have to be measured by the world’s standards, because it is ours, ours alone. 
     Often, we don’t struggle hard enough to protect it and it slips out of reach. People, even those we love, will take it away if we let them. Not from vicious motives, but by filling up our time so we can’t be creative, or by something as simple as not acknowledging our unique perspective, whether it be in art, music, writing, or even baking.  We don't even have to be good at what we love to do...we just have to love doing it.

I wrote the above almost twenty years ago, but I still have at least one of those little acorn ornaments.  It is still cherished.  This year, during this season of giving, let's resurrect creativity, both in ourselves and in others.  Let's give gifts that truly speak of who we are, not what our money can buy.  Let's give someone something they can cherish year after year...something that will keep us in their lives long after we are gone even if it's just an ornament made out of acorns.

Baby It's Cold Outside

It looks like winter is finally here.  We woke up this morning to nineteen degrees and frost covered cars.  It's snowing from Texas to Georgia, but hasn't made it this far north yet.  It would be a good day for curling up with a good book, but there are too many things to do for the upcoming holiday's.  The Angel Tree gifts still need to be purchased which means we will have to venture outside.  For the time being, the new furnace and windows are doing their job.  Inside the house we're warm and toasty.

Camilia and the kids

Camilia came to visit yesterday with her three children:  Hannah, Hudson and Ava.  What a wild time.  They are so beautiful, bright and curious.   Hannah, who is allergic to anything related to nuts, picked up a walnut shell that had been discarded by a squirrel in the back yard.  Then she rubbed her eye, and by the time they left, it was beginning to swell shut. She took it all in stride and it didn't stop her from climbing up in my lap and saying, "I love you".  Thankfully, there's Children's Benadryl. 

It seems like only yesterday that we offered a room, and what turned out to be our hearts, to a waif of a girl needing a place to stay to be close to her fiance while he was at ESU.  She was the first of quite a few beautiful long haired girls who have shared our home.  We have been so blessed by their presence and the relationships that have continued since.  When she left yesterday, Camilia took the Christmas tree that we decorated together some nine years ago.  She wanted it more for the memories than it's value as a Christmas tree which has dropped with every passing year....unlike our memories which continue to be made.

Pass the Drumstick, Please!

The table is set, we're ready for guests to arrive....wait a minute...that was a time long ago.  Long ago when I used to do the entire Thanksgiving dinner by myself, and threatened anyone else who dared to bring another dish as it would wreck havoc with my menu.  This year we've been texting, calling and e-mailing for a week to determine who is going to bring what.  I'll still be doing the turkey, dressing, and cranberry sauce, but the rest of the dinner for eighteen will be doled out among family who will be coming.  Today at rehab we were taking about our mothers and aunts preparing Thanksgiving dinner in the past.  All of a sudden I was back in my grandmother's living room waiting for my mother and her sisters to finish up the last minute touches so we could enjoy the fruit of their labor.  That generation, with the exception of my ninety year old mother is gone, and I'm not sure those of us that followed did a very good job of picking up the pieces.  I missed the holiday with family until we moved back to Kansas ten years ago.  That's when I hosted the first Thanksgiving dinner prepared by myself...just ten short years.  Now there are others, almost the age that my mother and aunts were in that memory, who are ready to do their part, and I'm ready to pass the torch, or at least the drumstick.

Oh, the Places We'll Go - part 2

When I signed on for this deal twenty-three years ago, I had such a dim view of the possibilities.  I don't know what I was invisioning other than the two of us in our little house on Mackey Street.  I must have thought we would grow gray together, but didn't give much thought as to how that would happen.  I couldn't see all of the struggles we would have, all of the disappointments and conversely all of the joys and thrills.  I didn't know we would be part time parents not only to your kids, but to a variety of others from all different lands and cultures.  I didn't know we would live in four different states in at least seven different houses.  I didn't know we would be constantly renovating, and when we were not doing that traveling.  We've seen the slums of Egypt and Mexico and the view from the Eiffel tower.  We've hiked, climbed, canoed, flown, cruised, and in deference to me,taken a train whenever we can.  You've put up with my love of animals, and I've put up with your love of anything sports.  We've loved, hated, discussed, argued, agreed, disagreed, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Maisie Comes Inside

It got cold and started to snow Monday, so by Tuesday morning, Maisie, one of the outside cats, decided she finally had enough and wanted to come in.  It's a bit earlier in the year than usual, as Maisie will stand the cold better than she will stand another cat.  Somewhere along the line, she must have been cornered by another cat and taught a lesson she refuses to forget...cats cannot be trusted.  Her forays into the house are usually accompanied by hisses and back arching even before she's seen another cat.  This of course arrouses curiosity in the three house cats, especially Emma Lee, who will come bouncing down the stairs from wherever she has been to greet the interloper.  A scenario that has repeated itself every winter for the past five years, with clawless Emma yet to harm Masie who still has all of her claws.  Emma usually doesn't get that close, but that hasn't stopped the hissing.  After a while the indoor cats lose interest and our dog, Ranger takes up his place guarding the door and Maisie in turn.  That she is being protected by her natural enemy does not bother Masie, in fact it makes her feel more secure.  It makes me wonder, are there any correlations between Maisies actions and our own, perhaps fearing the ones we should trust and trusting the ones we should fear?  Curious!

Oh, the Places We'll Go!

While I'm cleaning and re-organizing, I stop to look through old photo albums and come across the one from our wedding. There we are...surrounded by friends we haven't seen for years...and looking much younger than we do now, although we thought we were old at the time. There was so much ahead of us, many trials and tribulations, and more blessings than we could ever have imagined or dreamed of. We've been so many places. Around the block more than once, you might say. And yet here we are still. After twenty-three years, we're still best friends, companions, lovers, and brothers and sisters in the Lord. You're wiser than you were then, and just as handsome in my eyes. You're all I could have asked for and more. Happy belated anniversary, and thanks for taking this journey with me and for walking with me into the sunset.