by jphilo | Mar 5, 2012 | Family
Yesterday morning’s date, March 4, kept niggling in my brain. But until an email arrived from my youngest cousin Dan, the significance of the date escaped me. It was the anniversary of my father’s death. The fifteenth anniversary, to be exact.
Fifteen years since Dad’s soul left the body that imprisoned him for so many years.
Fifteen years since his wide grin graced my day.
Fifteen years since his family said good-by to the bravest man we knew.
Fifteen years later, my cousin Dan remembered the loss by sending this passage. I hope resonates in you as deeply as it did in him and in me.
I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle each other.
Then someone at my side says: ‘There, she is gone!’
‘Gone where?’
Gone from my sight. That’s all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear the load of living freight to her destined port.
Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says: ‘There, she is gone!’ There are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout: ‘Here she comes!’
And that is dying.
~ Henry Van Dyke
In memory of Harlan John Stratton: May 11, 1929 – March 4, 1997
Here he comes!
by jphilo | Feb 24, 2012 | Family
One of the items unearthed during this winter’s sorting and purging binge was this Walt Disney child’s suitcase. It was given to Hiram’s mom, Elsie, in the 1930s. Her eyes shone as she told about receiving it from her parents during the Great Depression. The case was shabby and well-used, but to her it was still the treasure it had been she was just a child.
She gave us the case in 2003, a few months before she died. It’s been in the attic for years, and I don’t know what to do with it. For the past few months, I’ve been visiting every Disneyana (That’s the special name for Disney memorabilia. Kind of like calling the Disneyland employees “cast members” instead of employees, I guess.) trying to find out something about the suitcase.
Thus far, the search has revealed nothing. So, I’m going public with the case, hoping some expert will see this blog post and point me in the right direction. Or fill in the gaps. Or value the case at several thousand dollars even though the case is scruffy, the paper is peeling, and the bottom falls off.
The picture above shows the case from the top. The handle is leather. The clasp and all the hinges are metal and in good shape. The clasp has a keyhole, but the key is long gone.
Here’s a view of the bottom of the case:
The little luggage tag to the right of Donald has lines for name, street, city, and state. None have been filled in.
Here’s the inside of the case:
Here’s a close up of the interior. The “Having a Wonderful Time?” and “Forget Something?” pictures are repeated across the interior, as is the copyright which says “Walt Disney Productions.”
The top and bottom of this 1930’s Disney child’s suitcase are pressboard covered with paper. The sides are thin plywood covered with the same paper. Any information or resources would be appreciated! Otherwise, back in the attic it goes until Antiques Road Show comes this way again!
by jphilo | Feb 13, 2012 | Family
When Mom and I kept our standing lunch date last Tuesday, I mentioned that our next lunch would fall on Valentine’s Day. “That’s kind of fun, Mom. What would you like for Valentine’s Day?”
She thought for a few seconds. “Well, what I really want for Valentine’s Day I can’t have.” She fiddled with her coffee cup. “So I might as well not mention it.”
“Go ahead,” I encouraged her. “What do you really want?”
“What I really want is a few more years with your dad before his mind went…” She paused and moved her fingers in a circle at the side of her head. Her brow furrowed, and her blue eyes looked sad. “…you know, before he was…”
“I know,” I whispered.
“He wasn’t with me that way long enough,” Mom sighed.
I nodded, not knowing what to say. There are no words for Mom’s loss. Dad’s diagnosis of multiple sclerosis at age 29, less than 10 years after their marriage. The love of her life struck down by multiple sclerosis. The end of her dream of being the wife of a county extension agent and mother to an increasing brood of kids. The loss of the bread winner, the protector, and leader of the family she loved so much and taking on those roles for the next 38 years as Dad slowly failed and finally died at age 67.
Now, 15 years after his death, what does Mom want for Valentine’s Day?
Not chocolate.
Not flowers.
Not a card.
She wants a few more years with her husband as he once was.
I looked at her, across the table, and said, “We can’t know what life would have been like if he hadn’t gotten sick. But I do know the life you gave us was a good one. You raised us well.”
She nodded and smiled. “I did a pretty good job, didn’t I?”
“You did,” I agreed and helped her into her coat and out the door.
Hiram’s off tomorrow, so we’re going down together to see Mom. We’ll take her to lunch at Culver’s, one of her favorite places to eat. Mainly because she loves their frozen turtle custard.
Over dessert, we’ll tease her like Dad did. We’ll talk about his love of ice cream, his silly jokes, his infectious grin, the goofy songs he loved to sing, the cribbage rules he invented as he played.
Compared to what Mom has lost, lunch at Culvers doesn’t seem like much. But perhaps, sharing memories of Dad and indulging in the laughter and dessert he loved will bring him to her in some small way. Perhaps, over frozen custard, we can give Mom a memory of what she’s wanted for Valentine’s Day for years.
by jphilo | Feb 10, 2012 | Family
We’re off to cheese head country this afternoon to visit our son and new daughter, so time is short. Therefore, today’s post is recycled from February 12, 2010 when we were busy planning two weddings. With Valentine’s Day around the corner, both kids nearing their second wedding anniversaries, and my time crunch due to visiting one couple, this seemed like the perfect post.
Mindful – Recycled
I take so many things in life for granted: a warm home, a loving husband, more food than I need, education and job skills, freedom to travel, vacations, a functioning government, friends who stand by me, and the ability to pay our bills each month. These privileges are so commonplace I treat them as my due.
But each time my children call, I’m reminded of a double privilege my husband and I hope we never take for granted. We count their calls as blessings, their voices full of confidence in our love for them, eager to talk about the events of the past week and dreams for the future. The blessing multiplies when they ask for our advice, consider our words seriously, and heed what we say.
I never dreamed of such relationships with my adult children after growing up in the sixties watching the hippies and flower children denigrate and scoff the “establishment.” A bit young to participate in the rebellion, a bit of the ‘60s attitude still managed to rub off on me. My parents’ advice was considered suspect until after our son was born, and we needed all the help we could get to survive his first five years.
So we never expected our children would value our advice before they became parents. During Allen’s monastery years, we lost our easy relationship with him and believed it was gone forever. But God has blessed our family with restoration though we deserve this blessing no more than any other family. When I talk to our children, I am overwhelmed by the sweetness of God’s grace and acutely aware of families broken by strife, crippled by rebellion. I hold back the tears until after the good-byes and I love yous.
Then I let them flow as I pray, “Please God, make me mindful of your blessings. Don’t let me ever take them for granted.”
by jphilo | Jan 16, 2012 | Family
Yesterday afternoon, Hiram went for a run.
The event hardly seems worth mentioning when compared to news of the cruise ship that capsized near Italy, the secretary general of the UN chastising the king of Syria, the race for the Republican presidential nomination, or outgoing governor Haley Barbour pardoning more than 200 convicted felons during his last hour in office.
But Hiram’s run is worth mentioning.
Because this is January in Iowa, a month written off by most joggers as too icy and cold for running outdoors. But this winter, the roads are still ice free and the temperatures much warmer than usual.
But excluding the weather, Hiram’s run is still worth mentioning.
Because it is a grace beyond what many men my husband’s age have been granted. We are surrounded by evidence of this reality. Hiram cares for patients who can’t walk because of serious heart issues. The memory of my wheelchair bound, fifty-five-year-old father in the nursing home never leaves us. We are praying for friends our age and younger who’ve recently had knee surgeries and hip replacements.
But Hiram’s run is worth mentioning for another reason.
In the past year and a half, four friends have lost their husbands. One to cancer. One to suicide. One to the effects of Agent Orange exposure in Viet Nam. One to a brain aneurysm. Two of them were younger than Hiram. Two were older, but not by much.
But Hiram was alive yesterday and went for a run.
His run is worthy of more than a mere mention. It is worthy of thanksgiving, even when my alive-and-well husband who went for a run yesterday forgets to take out the garbage. It is worthy of gratitude, especially when his sweaty running clothes in the bedroom hamper make the room stink. It is an event for which I am usually not grateful enough.
Except for today, when I thank God for my husband who went for a run yesterday.
by jphilo | Jan 9, 2012 | Family
Until last week, I had no idea an SE Ledger could be cruel.
I didn’t even know the letters SE stamped in the bottom right corner of Mom’s old ledger meant “Single Entry” until last week. Not until it was time to purchase a new ledger to replace her old one. When she bought her old ledger, they could still be purchased at office supply and stationary stores.
But not any more.
Computer accounting programs may have rendered those cloth bound, sturdy books obsolete for the general public. But not for Mom. At age 84, she’s determined to record her monthly finances by hand following the same system she’s used since she started teaching in the early 1950s. Some months, her Alzheimer’s barely gives her the mental capacity to continue this routine that used to be as effortless as breathing, The disease certainly won’t allow her to adapt to electronic accounting.
So she had to have a new, Single Entry Ledger.
The saleswoman at our local office supply store showed me what they had in stock. “You could adapt it for single entry, ” she suggested. How do you explain to a stranger that your mother, who taught three decades of children to read and write and do math, that your mother, who showed you how to use her accounting system to you when you were but a child, that your mother who showed so many young minds how to adapt and change in preparation for the future, can no longer adapt to change, that she prefers to live in the past and do things as she’s always done them?
“No,” I said. “It needs to be a single entry ledger. She can’t adapt.”
Finally, we found a Single Entry Ledger in a catalog. But it cost thirty dollars. So I called Mom and asked if she wanted me to order it. “Thirty dollars!” she exclaimed. “Oh, my.” She paused for a moment and said, “Oh, go ahead and order it. I’ve got enough money, and I need a new ledger.”
The new ledger arrived a few days ago.
It’s been sitting on my desk, alongside the old one, until I take them to Mom tomorrow. The new one is a little bigger than its predecessor, but the rows and columns will be familiar enough to her. She’ll be able to record her income and expenditures, with help from me, for a few more years. I don’t like to look at the old ledger or the new one. They are cruel reminders of a cruel disease slowly destroying my mother’s fine and active brain.
Alzheimer’s.
