by jphilo | Sep 8, 2009 | Family
In one week, I’ve experienced a book release, a balloon shower, Mom’s 81st birthday, and a Labor Day Reunion at our house with 30+ overnight guests. I ask you, can life get much richer than this?
All Sunday evening and Monday, while this aging body recovered from too little sleep, too much food, a creek stomp at the Ledges, and a perfect combination of conversation and fun, the blessings God showered upon our family weekend filled me with gratitude. Here’s another bulleted list that make this former school teacher’s heart go pitter-pat:
- The high school, college-age, and young adult generation wanted to come.
- The septic system endured.
- The weather was Goldilocks approved: not too hot, not too cold, but just right.
- None of the dogs had any fights.
- The little toads all over the yard were great entertainment.
- Ice cubes down the shirt and pants bonded us like nothing else.
- The Ledges captivated everyone who went creek stomping.
- Our neighbor let us use his beautiful old tree farm for family pictures Sunday morning.
- Somehow, though we only had three bathrooms for over thirty people, everyone was presentable and present at our Sunday morning photo shoot.
- The younger generation kindly and gently told the older generation that the end of the annual S.O. Weird Cousins TV videos has come. They broke the news with one last instructional video about how to become an adult. In case you’re wondering, the steps are drink coffee, read the paper, pay the bills, fold the laundry, and drink prune juice. (I think I left one out.)
- Both my children were present.
But since Sunday evening, I’ve also been wondering about how grateful I would have been if everything hadn’t been perfect. What if my son was still away from us, what if it had rained all weekend, what if the septic system had backed up, what if the younger generation had purposefully stayed away, what if Mom’s Alzheimer’s had made her mean and feisty, what if someone in the family had been in a car accident on the way here?
One day, one of those “what ifs” will happen, and our faith will be tested. How will we respond to the test? I hope that kindly and gently, my older generation will show the younger one how our good times have bound us together and prepared us to support one another. I hope they will see our tears will mingle with our laughter and learn what it really means to be an adult: to be as grateful in our lack as in our abundance, and to trust God to use our deepest tragedies for good.
by jphilo | Sep 2, 2009 | Family
Yesterday morning, I was tapping away at my computer when the doorbell rang. Surprised, I headed for the kitchen and spied the Hy-Vee floral delivery truck. “That’s weird,” I thought. “Who would send flowers to me?”
The friendly Hy-Vee delivery man waited at the door. “Does Jolene Philo live here?” he asked.
“That’s me.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Special day for you, is it?”
I thought a minute – no birthday, no anniversary, no windfall on Wall Street – before it hit me. “Well, my first book is being released today.”
“Congratulations!” He held up a finger. “I’ll be back in a minute.” And he was, carrying a huge balloon bouquet up our rather long sidewalk.
I went partway to meet him. “Thank you so much.”
Then, as I grabbed the bouquet and turned toward the house, he held up a finger. “We’re not done yet,” he said.
Surprised, I hurried into the house, set down the bouquet and ran outside in time to meet him halfway down the sidewalk and grab the second bouquet. “Thank you so much.”
He held up a finger. “We’re not done yet,” he said and headed for the truck.
By the time we were done yet, the two of us had met our exercise quota for the day, and he’d delivered five very large balloon bouquets from Mom, my sister’s family, my brother’s family, and my Le Mars relative. The kitchen was full to bursting, and having seen the Pixar movie Up not to long ago, I was a little bit worried. (How come my son didn’t have “house uprooted by helium balloons” on his worry list Sunday night?)
But I was more flabbergasted than worried. See, I don’t come from a gifty family. Now, we’re darn good at birthday cakes, because birthday cakes are dessert and our family is exceptionally gifted at consuming desserts. And over the years, we’ve gotten better at saying “I love you,” sending birthday cards, and the occasional hug. On the other hand, no one will ever engrave “Our beloved celebrated special events with hoopla and flair” on our tombstones.
So I stood in the kitchen for a long time staring at the balloons and wondering what on earth possessed them to spend money so frivolously and where on earth I will put the bouquets this weekend when the rellies – Mom, sister, nephew, brother’s family, uncle and aunt, cousins and their families and my kids – arrive for our Labor Day Reunion weekend.
And then, gone giddy with the scent of latex, Mylar, and slowly leaking helium, I lost my head and did a little happy dance. What else can a girl do when her family says, “We love you?”
by jphilo | Jun 5, 2008 | Family
Most extended families gather round the campfire to swap tales. But on Tuesday, June 4 several relatives on my mom’s side gathered round the tombstones instead. We made a $3.79/gallon of gas trip to north central Iowa. In one day we visited the cemeteries, houses and churches in Eldora and the surrounding countryside that constituted our grandparents and great-grandparents’ stomping grounds.
My mom and her sister and two of their cousins served as elder stateswomen and historians. The next younger generation, including myself, three of my cousins and two second cousins, followed them. What with the elder generation’s gimpy right hips (a family inheritance) and our younger one loaded down with cameras and notebooks, we were quite a sight, waddling through the wet grass like ducklings following their mothers.
Some of Mom’s cousins joined us at different points during the day. Some of them hadn’t seen each other in decades. My cousins and I met relations we’d never seen before. We heard stories untold for too many years, saw homesteads and churches too long unvisited, and paid our respects to ancestors too often ignored. We took our time, held precious and private for too many decades, and shared it across generations until our past came alive.
The rest of this week will be a blur, trying to catch up after spending the day gathered round tombstones with my relatives. But my cousins and I have hundreds of pictures and dozens of stories to write down and share with our families. It was a day well spent, even better than stories around a campfire.
For me, it is a shining memory, never to be forgotten. Thanks to all, living and dead, who made it so.
by jphilo | Jan 14, 2008 | Family
Grandma Fern’s old fur coat isn’t in our closet any more. All through my childhood it hid in the back of the closet, except when we snuck it out to play dress up or were given permission to use it as part of a Halloween costume.
Once Hiram and I moved to Five Mile Drive and had extra closet space, Mom gave it to me. I was close to Grandma Fern’s size and build. On a good day I could squeeze into it, as long as it didn’t need to be buttoned. It was part of an occasional old lady costume at school or church, but the years were hard on it.
So last summer Mom and I took it to Karla McDowell, a teddy bear artist, who lives in Adel. She turned the old coat into four jointed bears which were Christmas presents to Fern’s great-grandchildren. (Grandma Fern has five great-grandchildren, but one is the monk. The monk who took a vow of poverty can’t accept a teddy bear. He gets homemade biscotti and shortbread instead.) The bears were a hit with the great-granddaughters. I’m not sure if great-grandson Ben, age 26, was thrilled to get a stuffed animal for Christmas, but he had the maturity to accept it gracefully.
The other day I was in my daughter’s room and saw her teddy bear on her dresser. It looks at home there, but it’s glittering glass-eyed stare drilled right through me. It made me think about Grandma Fern, who died the year before I was born, and the stories my parents told about her, especially when the old fur coat made an appearance.
Fern graduated from high school and taught school, unusual accomplishments for a woman of her time. She loved books, gave dramatic readings and sang with more gusto than skill at church. She loved to cook and invite her siblings and their families to their house for meals. She and Grandpa Cyril had a loving marriage. She was devoted to her only son, my dad, and accepted his bride as the daughter she never had. The only one of her grandchildren she met, my older sister, was the apple of her eye. Fern was the strength of her immediate and extended family. They never quite recovered when she died of colon cancer in her fifties.
I need to pass the stories of that remarkable woman on to her great-grandchildren. They should remember her for more than a teddy bear. I want them to know her as a person who loved them before they were born. I want them to delight in the legacy and family traits passed on to them through her love. My daughter’s bear, a visible reminder of her presence, and it’s glittering stare won’t let me hide or forget the stories.
I’d better get busy.
