by jphilo | Mar 4, 2010 | Family
My father died thirteen years ago this day, though it’s more accurate to say he drew his last breath on March 4, 1997. The vibrant, extroverted leader who was my father spent thirty-eight years dying after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at age twenty-nine.
The course of Dad’s disease was cruel and merciless, swiftly cutting him down in the prime of life and then allowing him to linger for decades, slowly sapping him of strength and then of his ability to think, speak and remember.
For all the tragedy he experienced, and there is no kinder word with which to sugarcoat what he endured, my father’s presence was the delight of my childhood. How can I describe this complex man? Depression stalked his lonely days while we were at school, but he refused to burden my sister, brother and me with it. But if he didn’t hear us come home, we would see him staring at the wall, his face all blank despair, his thumbs twiddling aimlessly.
The minute he saw us, a grin split his face, and he was all joy. He wheeled his chair to the kitchen table and asked us to heat up his coffee, light his pipe, pour ourselves some milk, and grab the cookie jar. He cracked jokes so funny we snorted milk up our noses. Then he turned a blind eye while we watched the after school cartoons Mom declared off limits. He waited until we were absorbed in the show to wheel up behind us, then poke and tickle us mercilessly. When Mom’s car pulled up, the TV went off, the homework came out, and Dad went along with our charade with a wink and a smile.
By the time we all married and moved away, he was mostly bedridden. When I came home to visit, and then when he had moved to the nursing home, I would stand in the doorway of his room a minute. Dad would lay there, wide awake, staring at the ceiling, his face blank and despairing, his thumbs too weak to twiddle.
“Dad,” I would say, “It’s Jo. I’m home.”
In an instant, the despair was gone and joy wreathed his face. His eyes sparkled, even in his last years, when he barely spoke at all. Though we were adults ourselves, he refused to lay upon us the weight of his constant loss.
My father spent thirty-eight years dying until he drew his last breath on March 4, 1997. But in those decades of disease and loss, he did so much more than die. He showed us how to live with dignity, find joy in the midst of sorrow, and love with undying faithfulness and sacrifice.
I miss you, Dad.
In memory of Harlan John Stratton: May 11, 1929 – March 4, 1997
by jphilo | Feb 26, 2010 | Family
During my childhood, Grandma Fern’s postcard collection was stored in a shoebox in our parent’s bedroom closet. Now and then, Mom would take the box down so we could admire the beautiful cards, collected from about 1900 to the 1940s, sorting them into piles by birthday and holiday – Christmas, Valentine’s, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Easter, New Year’s, and Halloween.
Somewhere along the way, I put part of the collection in an album for a 4-H project. After that, the album and the shoebox lived in the same closet until Mom moved to Boone, where they lived in a different closet and eventually in a safety deposit box at the bank.
A few weekends ago, my sibs and I divided the postcards among us as keepsakes for our children. An appraiser told my sister that some of them are quite valuable – the ones with Santas and Kewpie dolls and Halloween greetings – and I am sure they are. But for me, their value lies in the link they create, binding my children to my father’s mother, the well-loved woman who collected them for decades and died a year before I was born.
One postcard is written in Grandpa Cy’s hand. He sent it to his wife and only child, Grandma Fern and my dad, while on a fishing trip in Park Rapids, Minnesota. Two cards remind me of my farmer son – one showing a 1908 gristmill owned by an ancestor and another from the Farmers Cooperative Produce Company in Des Moines urging farmers to increase their cream checks. One, with little girls wearing wooden shoes and traditional Dutch dress, makes me think of my daughter at college in a very Dutch town.
Will I let these treasures live in a shoebox for another hundred years? No. I plan to display some of them, carefully matted and framed, on the walls of our old farmhouse. Others will be framed gifts to my children, their spouses, and to grandchildren someday, with a little story about beside each one. It’s the least I can do with such valuable gifts.
Thank you, Grandma Fern, for leaving a legacy to connect my children and their descendants to your life.
by jphilo | Feb 22, 2010 | Family
My husband says the package of Fig Newtons I gave him for Valentine’s Day was the best gift ever. Lest you think Fig Newtons sound like a loveless, cheapskate gift, remember we have a daughter in college and two weddings in three months this year. And don’t think I had ulterior motives in purchasing them, like eating a few myself. I consider the chewy, figgy, gritty things a waste of good calories.
If you still think I’m putting both words and Fig Newtons in Hiram’s mouth, let me assure you I am not. He loves them as much as Hobbits love mushrooms, so I check their price at the grocery store every week and stock up when they’re on sale, which hasn’t been very often lately. They weren’t marked down on grocery day wek before last either, but it occurred to me that they didn’t cost much more than a Valentine’s card. I closed my eyes and imagined Hiram’s face when handed a card, and again when handed a package of Fig Newtons.
After thirty-two years of seeing this sweet man get a pained what-do-I-do-with-this-now look on his face whenever he’s done reading birthday, anniversary and Valentine’s cards, the cookie face won. I bought the Fig Newtons.
So you can call me cheap and unromantic if you like. But over the decades, I have felt most loved by Hiram when he does little things that thrill him not one bit, but he does them because they make me happy. This year, I followed his example and gave him, not what delights me, but what he likes instead.
Next year, once the kids are married and the daughter is almost done with school, maybe a more expensive present will fit into our budget. Hiram will get two packages of Fig Newtons instead of one. Nobody’s gonna call me a cheapskate.
by jphilo | Feb 17, 2010 | Family
As this winter stretches on and on, retaining sanity is becoming a full time occupation. To maintain it, I follow my doctor’s advice when he’s performing unpleasant medical procedures. “Jolene,” he says, “go to your happy place.”
Tell you what, the road to my happy place is getting worn out this winter, at least metaphorically. See, my happy place is the little clearing on our neighbor’s property, surrounded by huge evergreens, but it’s inaccessible these days because of two feet fof snow on the ground.
With our driveway iced over and the picnic table swallowed by snow, it’s hard to imagine Labor Day weekend, warm and sunny, when thirty of my closest relatives (I come from a big family) gathered at our house for a reunion. Tents filled the yard, sleeping bags covered every bedroom floor, the bathrooms were in constant use. In the deep of this winter, it’s hard to remember walking through the grass and assembling in the shady glen of my happy place where my friend Twyla Wisecup, owner of Impressions by Twyla, photographed our motley crew.
Patiently she arranged group after group: Mom and her sister and husband, my generation’s offspring – first the girl cousins, then the boy cousins, then all together – family groups, including the first picture with all four Philos in street dress since 2001. Most amazingly of all, Twyla corralled the bunch (and some of us are pretty independent cusses) into a cohesive whole and preserved us forever in a few formal shots, then several where we snuggled close, and finally letting us do what we like to do best at the end of every reunion – display our true personalities.
Every time I see that picture, I am in my happy place again, surrounded by a big family, comprised of people who love each other at their best, their worst and their goofiest. When we gathered for the photo, we had no idea this would be the hardest, longest winter in recent memory, with snowdrifts so high it’s impossible to reach my happy place on foot.
But thanks to our Labor Day gathering and Twyla’s talents, I can get there any time I want without a snow shovel or fear of wearing out the road. What a blessing the picture has been this winter.
Thanks, family and thanks, Twyla, for preserving my sanity and my happy place.
by jphilo | Feb 12, 2010 | Family
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 goes on and on.
But each time my children call, I’m reminded of a double privilege my husband and I never want to take for granted. We count it a blessing when they call, 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 a relationship 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 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. And during Allen’s monastery years, we lost our easy relationship with him and believed it was gone forever. God has blessed our family with restoration. We deserve this blessing no more than any other family. I fight back tears when our children, overwhelmed by the sweetness of God’s grace, acutely aware of families broken by strife, crippled by rebellion. I restrain 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 11, 2010 | Family
Our sweet daughter heads back to college on this bright, sunny Monday. The trip takes only 3 1/2 hours, and the temperature is in the low 20s, warmer than it’s been in two weeks. The forecast says no snowstorms, but she’s going northwest, to the snowiest part of our very snowy state.
My head says she’ll have a safe drive, but my crazy side is determined to worry. Anne can’t leave until mid-afternoon, after a doctor’s appointment which was rescheduled courtesy of last week’s blizzard. I keep thinking of black ice, the snow piles that make every intersection a blind one, and of driving on the worst roads after sunset. And when those worries run out, the memory of Anne’s pre-Christmas trip to Wisconsin with her fiance plagues me. I can’t stop thinking about the bad weather that forced them to spend the night in the car at an I-90 rest stop near Rochester, Minnesota.
Then I remember the years after college when Hiram and I drove from South Dakota to my parents’ home in northwest Iowa for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Bad weather accompanied every 12 1/2 hour trip we made. We didn’t have cell phones, and pay phones were few and far between, so the rellies didn’t get many updates. More than once we spent unexpected nights in hotels. I recall one return trip when the temperature started at -20 in Iowa, and never rose a degree. The heater in our VW Rabbit couldn’t keep up, and we shivered our way across the state of South Dakota.
Our travels almost drove my mother, one of the champion worries of all time, crazy. And her worry almost drove me crazy. But Hiram and I needed to drive into the unknown. By doing so we became adults, learning how to face challenges, assess risks, and solve problems. My daughter deserves the same opportunity.
So when it’s time for Anne to leave today, I’ll suck up my worries so I don’t make her crazy. I’ll hug her good-bye, have faith in her ability to overcome the unknown, and remind her to call when she arrives.
You can do this on your own, daughter. I know you can.
