by jphilo | May 7, 2012 | Family, Out and About
Life takes unusual turns now and then. We’re reminded of this daily during this visit our daughter and new son in Ohio. Every day, when we drive from the relatives we’re staying with (they have a big house) to our daughter and new son’s digs (a tiny apartment), we drive by an impressive, three story, turn-turn-of-the-century brick building. A prominent “for lease” sign graces the large, grassy front yard, and another proclaiming “office space to let” covers the space where I suspect the original name of the building is engraved in stone.
After driving by a few times, I asked Hiram, “Do you think that’s the old orphanage where your grandma took your dad and his brother Cassius to live?”
Neither of us were sure, so we asked Hiram’s step-mom when we saw her. “Yes, she said. “That big three-story building on Wooster St. That’s where those boys lived when their mother didn’t have the means to care for them.
This morning, when we drove by the former orphanage, the words from “It’s a Hard Knock Life” came to mind…
It’s the hard-knock life for us
It’s the hard-knock life for us
No one cares for you a smidge
When your in an orphanage
It’s the hard-knock life
It’s the hard-knock life
It’s the hard-knock life!
…and thought the lyrics aren’t nearly as carefree and humorous when you know someone who was an orphan. Like Hiram’s father. Who had a hard time his entire life demonstrating love to others. Partly because he was a quiet, non-demonstrative man. But also, perhaps, because he was sent to an orphanage when he was ten. And he felt like no one cared for him a smidge.
I think of my father-in-law, and I think of our children as we drive the few short blocks between the orphanage he entered at age 10 and the grad school apartment where my daughter and new son live. My heart aches to think of that lonely man who felt unloved. But it delights in our children who know we love them dearly.
Why this strange turn of events?
Perhaps to remind us of the blessings God has rained upon our family.
Perhaps to create compassion for a man who never knew them.
Perhaps to make me realize “widows and orphans” aren’t theory but fact.
Perhaps to make me cry.
by jphilo | Sep 1, 2011 | Family
Here it is more than a week after our daughter and new son’s move to Ohio, and I’ve yet to do more than address it in passing. Perhaps that means that I move much slower than my daughter who is the blur zipping around the kitchen in this picture.
The move was fairly uneventful, except for the part when the first apartment was so gross that Anne – along with Hiram’s step-brother – went to battle with the rental agency and got out of the lease. But we weren’t there yet and never saw the inside of the gross apartment, only the inside of the one they moved into. It’s nice, in a poor graduate student kind of way, clean, with lots of light, and much bigger than the basement apartment they lived in last year.
You should know that I did not cry once, not even when we left and I knew our daughter would be 10+ hours away from home. Oh, I wanted to cry. But I kept the vow I made in 1978 when Mom, my uncle and two cousins helped Hiram and I moved to the wilds of South Dakota, 12+ hours away from my childhood home.
My mother’s reaction to our tiny, wild town was more than over the top, even after taking the neighbor’s six half-wolf dogs chained to posts across the street into consideration. Mom and I shared a bedroom the night before the moving crew headed home. (Hiram was working at the boys’ ranch overnight.) Every time the neighbor’s wolf dogs barked, and they barked about every five minutes, she sobbed, “Oh, I can’t leave my little girl here,” or “Jolene, what have you done?” or just, “Oooohhhhh, no.”
Not pretty.
Not the encouragement I needed.
Not a good memory.
Hence my vow.
Which I kept.
And am still keeping.
I have yet to cry, even though
the first job Anne found turned out to be not so great,
her job search is frustrating,
she misses Iowa’s landscape horribly,
she and her hubby are finding the adjustment to a big university harder than expected,
and their neighborhood is noisy at night,
what with the police and fire stations down the street.
Not quite barking wolf dogs chained to posts, so I will not cry.
Instead, I’ll remember how much we learned our first year far from home. I’ll think of the lifelong friends we made. I’ll be thankful that Anne and her hubby are less than a half hour from Uncle Mike, Aunt Brenda, and Grandma Glenna. And I’ll call now and then, to encourage them.
“You’ll be fine,” I’ll say.
“God has a plan for your lives, and this is part of it,” I’ll say.
“You’re going to make it,” I’ll say.
And because those words are true, I will not cry.
by jphilo | Dec 6, 2008 | Family
It’s snowing here in Ohio today. The weather is a perfect backdrop for the task of the day. Mike and Brenda are taking down Thanksgiving decorations and putting up the Christmas ones. Mike said Brenda talked me into thinking it will be fun, but she didn’t have to convince me. It is fun, and I can’t wait to do it.
Once Brenda and I get started, Mike and Allen want to play some World War II games on the computer. Somehow, Mike talked him into thinking that’s fun. But Allen says it is fun, and Mike didn’t have to convince him.
Life feels a bit more normal today. We have constant internet access and my phone should arrive around noon. Hiram arrived in Boone safely this morning. His step-mom Glenna, who is Mike’s mom, will stop in to visit today.
Tomorrow, we’ll drive to Morgantown to settle in. The weather sounds like it will cooperate, but we’d appreciate winter travel prayers. For now, Allen and I will bundle up (it’s only 16 degrees this morning) and take a little walk before the Christmas decorating and war game fun begins.
Today is a wonderful day.
by jphilo | May 18, 2008 | Reflections on the Past
The best thing about going on vacation is not doing laundry. The worst thing about vacation is all the dirty laundry afterwards. But a recent trip through Ohio’s Amish country changed my wash day paradigm.
The weather in Ohio was gorgeous last Tuesday, a welcome relief after a rainy, cold weekend. As we wound along country lanes, every farmstead boasted a full clothesline. Our favorites were the single, long line variety. A clothesline was strung from one regular-sized pole to a distant high pole with a pulley on top. From the looks of things, the owners pegged clothes along the reachable section of line, then cranked the pulley and moved the laundry towards the high pole.
My outer adult loved the method’s efficiency. My inner child hated the problem posed by one, long line: a week’s worth of family underwear is visible to God and the neighbors.
Now don’t write me off as Miss Prim and Proper. Consider my childhood history. The number one clothesline lesson I learned way back then was simple. HIDE THE UNDERWEAR by hanging towels, sheets, and outer clothing from the outer lines and both ends of the inner lines. Then, hang undergarments to the inner lines so the UNDERWEAR iS HIDDEN. Doing so, we were told, was VERY IMPORTANT.
My childhood reasoning couldn’t make sense of the importance of HIDING THE UNDERWEAR because my parents said wearing underwear was also VERY IMPORTANT. So I thought it might be better to hang the underwear on the outside lines as proof that we ALWAYS WORE UNDERWEAR. My argument didn’t convince my parents, and being an obedient kid, I HID THE UNDERWEAR. No wonder my inner child couldn’t reconcile copious quantities of Amish underwear blowing in the May wind.
When we got home from vacation, I did laundry. The weather was as beautiful as it had been on our day in Amish country so I hung the clothes on the line. I even took a picture to prove how industrious I was. As you can see, I successfully HID THE UNDERWEAR on the inner lines. Or we DIDN’T WEAR UNDERWEAR for an entire week. WHAT WILL THE NEIGHBORS THINK?
Single laundry line, here I come.
by jphilo | Dec 3, 2007 | Family
Life is punctuated by defining moments, moments when life changed so profoundly that you can never forget where you were or what you wore or who you were with when they happened. My most recent moment came yesterday.
Hiram and I were talking to our son Allen on the phone. We were making plans for our pre-Christmas visit to his monastery. I can’t tell you where that is because the monks don’t want hoards of sightseers invading their quiet world. It takes them long enough to recover after the Philos drop in for a few days. So you’ll have to settle for an uncaptioned picture because other than that my lips are sealed.
Anyway, after a short discussion Allen said, “You know, we’d make the best use of our time if we go to Glenna’s Monday and then to Wooster on the way back. And if we take the interstate south, we’ll make much better time. Now, is the car going to be big enough for all of us?”
“Our son is an adult,” I realized as he took our itinerary into his own hands and tweaked them. Our son, who during high school hated to sit down for Sunday afternoon logistics meetings and sniffed disdainfully at anything that was not wholly spontaneous and free spirited, had become an event planner. For me, this was the mother of all defining moments. For the rest of my life I’ll remember it with delight. I’ll picture the black office chair, the oak desk, the thick coat of ice on the grass beyond the window.
And for the next few days, I’ll anticipate our upcoming visit with delight, too. I can’t wait to meet the young man I spoke to on the phone. My son, the adult.
