Arrived today with enough time to explore Lisbon a bit. It's roughly the size of the Twin Cities, or just under 3 million in the grater area. The temperature was 85 this afternoon and predicted to drop to 62 overnight. It has a bit of the feel, weather wise, of southern California.
And, oh yes, I won the lottery...the rooming lottery. When I signed up for this Road Scholar trip I checked the "double occupancy box" because it saves a few hundred dollars. No, I'm not cheap, I'm frugal. Reasoning that there aren't many single geezer, males traveling alone, I'd likely get a room to myself for double occupancy price. Bingo! 😃 There are 22 in our group, one from Canada and the rest from a variety of states.
There's a lecture about Portugal scheduled for after breakfast tomorrow....jet lag anyone? So, do I sit in the front so I can hear? or in the back so my sleeping is less obvious? Ah, the dilemmas I face!
One of the gifts of my frequent trips to Asia is making a flight to Europe seem brief. My flights today took me through Paris, where it was raining and featured some very long walks in both that and the Lisbon airport. Can someone explain why a trip though security is required when one is simply transferring airplanes? Security in Paris was particularly demanding.
Dinner tonight was in the 8th floor dinning room of the hotel. The views of the city, with the sun setting, were stunning. Floor to ceiling glass allowed full appreciation of the spectacular view. The food was delicious and the service superb.
I think I will sleep well tonight.
My flight to Portugal via Paris leaves at 4:11 p.m., today. Numerous friends have had good experiences with Road Scholar trips so I'm trying it out. The itinerary will travel Portugal from south to north, Lisbon to Porto. On October 7, I will return to Minneapolis. The big question? Can I play well with others? 😊
While I'm gone my blogs will continue but likely a bit earlier. Portugal is six hours ahead of Minnesota time.
There were many gifts I received from my family of origin; a love of reading, a work ethic, critical thinking, a positive outlook, compassion and much more. One thing I did not learn was to discuss decisions in the making.
Joanne and I began our relationship on a young adult trip to Holden Village early in September 1963. As our relationship developed from September into December, Joanne would have loved to have known what I was thinking about the future of our relationship. In December she was offered the position of Dean Of Women at Wartburg College in IA. It was clear that I was headed to Luther Seminary, St. Paul., MN., in the fall of 1964. Paralyzed by the fear that discussion might imply more commitment than I was ready to make I was mute. Uffda!
Plans were in place for us to spend Christmas with my parents in Sinai., S.D. When I picked Joanne up at her dorm apartment for the trip to Sinai she came with poinsettia plants, from some college events, she was bringing to my mother. On the pretext of forgetting something we stopped at my apartment in First Lutheran Church. There I presented her with an engagement ring. After she'd been silent for an hour I asked, "Does this mean yes?" Ever after we joked about this being the longest she'd ever been silent.
Meanwhile the poinsettias were freezing in the car with the air temperature minus 20. Joanne brought the plants into Mother's house to discard but Mother thought it was so sweet she displayed them as if they were healthy. When she called home to report our engagement her brother asked "To whom?"
Yes, I remain a work in progress but Joanne taught me much about the value of conversation.
The consistency of experience in land of grief remains. It is that even as my life continues, and even in some ways expands, Joanne is not present with whom to process the events, the experiences, the interactions with others in this life. Therein lies much of the pain of the presence of absence. Her position in relationship to me was unique. There is no one else who can understand all the implications and nuances of what I might have liked to report.
So I come back to the same old theme...the hardest part is the 'after'...after seeing someone. after an event, after a news item, after an occurrence; not having her present for the report and the processing of what has occurred. In this vein I came across this quote which captures my experience and my feeling.
“The pleasure of remembering had been taken from me, because there was no longer anyone to remember with. It felt like losing your co-rememberer meant losing the memory itself, as if the things we'd done were less real and important than they had been hours before.” ― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars
Life in the land of grief is good even as it has a terrible void, the loss of my "co-remeberer" and as Green says, that even effects the memory itself
Today I checked in with my spiritual director after a summer apart. In the course of our hour together, my home congregation's, Sinai Lutheran, Sinai, SD., gift to me at my ordination came up. Toward the end of the ordination festivities two representatives of the congregation approached Joanne and me. They said "We know you likely will move around during your ministry, so we are giving you two plots in the cemetery, should you even want to use them, because this will always be home." As far as I can tell Sinai Lutheran is unique in this regard.
This gift was a significant factor in Joanne's decision to be buried there. So she rest's next to my Negstad grandparents, Lars and Sigrid. The congregational representatives were correct, we did move around and it will always be home. The roots I have in that community are deeply meaningful to me.
It's been awhile since I visited The Little House On The Prairie and I'm missing it. My incompetence at managing my calendar is partly to blame. During the summer my pattern of travel is go there the first part of the week. With that in mind, I scheduled a number of things for Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays this fall. Oops! In the fall I teach school (volunteer) Monday-Wednesday so with the things scheduled later in the week there was no time for The Little House On The Prairie. Perhaps I should hire a secretary or a scheduler!
But, since school has been mentioned allow me to report that I'm back at Noble Academy for my 9th year. It's a tough assignment; reading with small groups of accelerated students in grades 5-8. There are a number of students in my groups from previous years, 3 eighth graders are in their 4th year with me. The 5th graders are new so I'm making more relationships. Reading books together allows me to dispense my wit and wisdom. 😛They all know the mantra "Children are not for hitting." The 8th graders know the difference between cement and concrete....now isn't that earth shattering? If they enjoy half as much as I do..............
Even knowing that it's a work of fiction and both mother and son are fictitious, the interchange between them haunts me. The Sympathizer, Viet Thanh Nguyen, winner of the 2016 Pulitzer, is narrated by the Eurasian protagonist. His father is a European priest and his mother a poor, Vietnamese peasant girl. Based on merit he is awarded a scholarship to an American university. Terms of the scholarship allow one annual trip back to Vietnam for a visit. His mother dies when she is 34, poor and alone, rejected by family for her son out of wedlock. Sometime after his mother's death he is reflecting on his last visit with his mother. He writes:
"She smiled bravely and called me her petit `ecolier, after the chocolate-covered biscuits I loved so much as a child and which my father blessed me with once per year at Christmas. Her parting gift to me were a box of imported biscuits--a fortune for a woman who only nibbled on the corner of one once and saved the rest for me each Christmas--as well as a notebook and a pen. She was barely literate and read out loud, and she wrote with a cramped, shy hand. By the time I was ten, I wrote everything for her. To my mother, a notebook and pen symbolized everything she could not achieve and everything that I, through the grace of God or the accidental combination of my genes I seemed destined for." p.154
"A notebook and a pen" this gift of a loving, impoverished, mother to her university student son, while in a work of fiction, struck something deep with in me. The poignancy, the pathos, reflects the experience of multitudes of real life mothers aching to provide for their children; think of the desperate mothers at our southern borders risking everything to find safety and sustenance for their children. "A notebook and a pen" given to a student at a foreign university. There is something about that image that reaches deep into a tender place in me. Yes, that gift haunts me.
Joanne loved flowers and she loved to give flowers. The flower shop in Golden Valley had her credit card on record so it was easy for her to phone them with instructions to whom they were to be sent. Over the years I bought many flowers for her often in twos or threes with increased frequency. Leaving flowers at her grave is meaningful and I ordered a marker with a large platform for the ease of holding a vase. She liked to leave flowers on her parents and grandparents graves so I know it is an appropriate gesture for her now.
Remembering is the important part and how could I forget? Between the condo and The Little House On The Prairie I am surrounded by myriad tokens of our life together. Staying on where she lived has been a blessing for me. She smiles back from the pictures I've placed under the glass top of my desk and, even as I write, my eye falls on those visages.
There is no one right way to remember those who have died. The obituary reprinted below speaks eloquently to a beautiful mixture of methods of remembering. Perhaps it might strike you adopt one of those scenarios and reflect on Joanne and who she was to you. Certainly she was a gift to many.
2. In Lieu of Flowers by Shawna Lemay
A few years ago I read a friend’s father’s obituary on Facebook. His father had requested in lieu of flowers, please take a friend or loved one out for lunch.
Although I love flowers very much, I won’t see them when I’m gone. So in lieu of flowers: Buy a book of poetry written by someone still alive, sit outside with a cup of tea, a glass of wine, and read it out loud, by yourself or to someone, or silently. Spend some time with a single flower. A rose maybe. Smell it, touch the petals. Really look at it. Drink a nice bottle of wine with someone you love. Or, Champagne. And think of what John Maynard Keynes said, “My only regret in life is that I did not drink more Champagne.” Or what Dom Perignon said when he first tasted the stuff: “Come quickly! I am tasting stars!” Take out a paint set and lay down some colours. Watch birds. Common sparrows are fine. Pigeons, too. Geese are nice. Robins. In lieu of flowers, walk in the trees and watch the light fall into it. Eat an apple, a really nice big one. I hope it’s crisp. Have a long soak in the bathtub with candles, maybe some rose petals. Sit on the front stoop and watch the clouds. Have a dish of strawberry ice cream in my name. If it’s winter, have a cup of hot chocolate outside for me. If it’s summer, a big glass of ice water. If it’s autumn, collect some leaves and press them in a book you love. I’d like that. Sit and look out a window and write down what you see. Write some other things down. In lieu of flowers, I would wish for you to flower. I would wish for you to blossom, to open, to be beautiful.
Poetry is far from my area of expertise. Of late I've found some poetry helpful in expressing my feelings in the land of grief. All I knew of Edgar Allan Poe's poetry was The Raven. A bit of biographical information about him rattles around in the far reaches of my memory. The cemetery in which he's buried in Baltimore, Maryland, has been pointed out to me. Then, the poem below appeared in today's Writer's Almanac, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover he had written a love poem from his 'land of grief.' Again poetry has the means to capture the depth of feeling over the death of one who was loved. Annabel Lee
by Edgar Allan Poe
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea:
But we loved with a love that was more than love —
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me —
Yes! — that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we —
Of many far wiser than we —
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:
For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling — my darling — my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.
"Annabel Lee" by Edgar Allan Poe. Public Domain Takk for alt, Al
Ruminating on my possible next move has been helpful to me. Joanne got us moving out of the house we occupied in Golden Valley for 31 years. She had been instrumental in selecting the house before we bought it. The split foyer arrangement was not ideal as a house in which to age. She tired of the steps and she was prescient because we moved before the stairs became very difficult for her, as they were the last years of her life. It was her motivation that caused us to sell, downsize and move to the downtown condo I still occupy. The skyway system, the enclosed second story walkway that connects downtown Minneapolis, became very important for her, more that she realized when we first moved here.
Thinking about what's next has helped me to see the positive aspects of this location. It is always easy for me to take too much for granted and that has been true of my attitude about my life here. In thinking about a future move I've looked carefully at my current situation and have come to realize how good it is.
This realization leads me to one more reason to be deeply grateful to Joanne and her leadership. Without her initiative we would likely have lingered in our house too long. Little thinking that either of us would die so soon, hospice care for Joanne here worked well. It was very helpful that we could do the downsizing together with the myriad decisions that were necessary.
Life in the land of grief is also life in the land of gratitude. What a great gift it was to have 55 years of relationship with Joanne. Gratitude for that suffuses my life, even as I live with the presence of absence, in the land of grief.
Once upon a time, not so long ago, before my husband died of cancer, I was a capable person. I could multitask the heck out of 14-hour workdays and juggle dozens of to-dos with efficiency.
I would go to the hardware store for item X and, while there, also remember to get items Y and Z.
I could form sentences and find all the right words. I could follow a logical argument and question the gaps.
I am no longer this person. I hope to have a functioning brain again someday, but right now I’m learning to live with this constant fog in my synapses.
At first, I thought it was lack of sleep, like in the baby-brain days after our son was born, but I’m clocking nine to 10 hours a night. And it’s not life exhaustion, like when I was balancing farm work with a full-time job. My kid and I have it pretty easy these days.
Then I read some grief books, and we talked about physiological grief in my bereavement support group, and I realized my brain hasn’t stopped working. It’s just preoccupied.
At our most basic level, we are animals, and even though I know Brock has died, my brain is having trouble grasping this.
Apparently, my brain has put a big pot of “Where’s Brock?” on the back burner of my thinking stove. It’s trying to reconcile more than 11 years of memories where Brock was always nearby with the present reality of no Brock.
Making the Connection
For months after we lost Brock, I couldn’t get past my memories of his last four days. In some ways, those days were beautiful and perfect. But it was horrible to know that he was trapped inside his paralyzed body, unable to communicate. I can still see his eyes, always slightly open and glazed. I kept feeling like he was trying to tell me something.
These memories terrified me. What if that was how I would always remember Brock? What if those final four days overwrote all the happy memories of our decade together? What if instead of remembering a brilliant, funny, energetic man, I could only hold onto the weak, helpless, dying man he’d become?
So I fought against those memories of the end.
All my energy is going into solving this riddle of why Brock isn’t here.
But maybe my brain kept bringing me back to those four days because it needed to understand that Brock had died. It was the connecting memory between Brock being alive and present and Brock being dead and gone. I was consciously avoiding thinking about that time, but my brain needed to relive and dissect the experience in order to reconcile the loss.
With my brain busy wondering where Brock has gone, I am operating at half capacity. This leads to the brain fog—and also to constant exhaustion. I’m not tired. I just don’t have much energy. All my energy is going into solving this riddle of why Brock isn’t here.
I find myself saying (usually to cashiers when I mess up when paying for things) that I haven’t had enough tea yet or I didn’t get enough sleep. It’s easier to offer these excuses than to say, “My brain is confused because my husband died.”
Memory Therapy Can Help
One way I can help my brain reconcile itself to Brock’s death is to share memories. This reminds my brain that the past is not the present. But it’s not always easy to share Brock-related memories. Reminding people of his death brings down the mood. It makes me feel vulnerable. If I cry, that’s healthy for me but causes others to feel uncomfortable.
Here’s the process:
Something reminds me of Brock.
I decide whether I’m comfortable enough with the people/situation to cry, should that happen.
Assuming I’m in a safe space, I share the memory.
There is a moment of awkwardness for all involved. Others wonder what to say next. Do they change the subject or respond to the memory? I half-regret sharing and feel very sad about Brock’s death.
They usually change the subject. I don’t cry.
For the record: I’m no better than anyone else when it comes to these situations. I’ve been on the receiving end when someone in mourning shares a memory, and all I want to do is give them a moment of silence and then move on. It feels cruel to dig deeper by asking questions or to risk saying the wrong thing.
But know it’s a compliment to have someone share a memory with you. They feel safe with you. They’ve risked feeling vulnerable with you, knowing they might cry.
Sharing memories is important to reconciling the loss and helping a brain focus on the present. You help by listening. As for how to respond in a way other than changing the subject, I’ve come up with some ideas: Share your own memory of the person, if you can. “Do you want to talk about that more? I can listen.”
And, for bonus points, if you want to help someone you love who is grieving, create a safe, private space with no time pressures and share your own memory. Open the door and see if they’re ready to walk through it."
This blog, that Lisa forwarded to me, is congruent with my experience. As a case in point is my reading pattern after Joanne's death. For months I was reluctant to read and mostly read under the pressure of preparation for one of my book clubs. About six months ago reading became attractive again. Her argument that the mind is busy processing the loss, i.e., the death, and doesn't have the wherewithal to attend to other issues makes sense to me. So I didn't have the capacity for sustained reading,
"And I am a baseball writer now. I really have learned a lot about the
game after all this time. I don't know everything. But I know a few things. I
know what to look for. It's a great game for writers because it's just the
right pace. You can watch the game and keep score and look around and take
notes. Now and then you even have time to have an idea, which in many sports
you don't have room for." Roger Angell quoted in the Writer's Almanac Yes, this is why televised baseball is so compatible with reading. As I wrote recently, "baseball is waiting for something to happen that seldom does." Now days I sit in Joanne's chair, the TV tuned to the baseball game, the sound low, while I read my book. When the announcers voices rise I look up and watch the replay for the thing that 'seldom' happens. If one is actually watching the game as Angell says "you even have time for an idea." 😉 OK, OK, while I might have time for an idea it doesn't men that I will. Today provided a delightful opportunity, perfect weather and time, to visit Dennis at his place on St. Olaf Lake, near New Richmond, MN. Dennis, and his wife, the late Maryann, became our friends when we arrived in Sioux Falls at the same time, i.e., 1975. On the principle I espoused earlier, that it's often easy to form friendships with others, who like you, are also new in the community. Now we share notes on life in the land of grief, Maryann having died a year previous to Joanne. Filling out the group today were Les and Carolyn, who have been friends of the Negstads since Augustana days in the early 60s. However, Les, was also pastor to Dennis and Maryann when he was at Our Savior's, Sioux Falls. Interlocking friendships makes the connections even better. Trygve, too, loved being at the lake. Takk for alt, Al
Who else would blog about a cow? Life on the farm of my childhood, in the 1940s, was relatively primitive, at least by today's standards. Our farm was electrified when I was three so I don't remember a time without it, though outages were fairly common, especially in the winter. A trip to town was huge deal, and that was to Sinai population ca. 140. School was one room with 8 grades a mile away. Farm chores included watering the calves, feeding the chickens, milking cows and other sundry duties. The sleeping rooms in the farmhouse were on the second level heated only by heat rising through floor registers. For a significant period of time we didn't even have a working radio. (A small excurses here: my older brothers, as teenagers, bought a cheap, used radio and put it in the barn. Dad thought that was very foolish. Before long the radio died and Dad went to town and bought a replacement; he'd discovered he could hear the news in the barn.😊) A sleep over was big deal with my classmate Lloyd Hope, at either of our farms. Now I live on the 15th floor in downtown Minneapolis with radio, TV, internet, microwave, air conditioning, central heat, running water........In childhood all of this was unimaginable. When I read the poem (below), in The Writer's Almanac, it evoked childhood memories. The poem's description of the cattle, water tank, cold well water, moss on the water,
was almost exactly as it was on our farm. The decades have flown but the memories remain.
After Reading John Clare on Thoughts of A Cow
by Tom Hennen
There are deep hoofprints in the soft ground around the
wooden water tank. A steel windmill with its fan blades spin-
ning free in the summer wind. No water pumping because the
connecting lever is not in gear and the tank is full. Thick green
moss floats here and there on the water's surface. Blue sky and
white clouds reflect in the pool, pulled out of heaven in a piece
just the right size to fit the old round wooden tank. The cow
yard is empty, the cows in the far pasture, strolling its hills for
grass, slowly, with quiet pleasure as if on a boulevard in Paris,
France. Nothing about a cow yard enters their thoughts until
late afternoon when I come with the dog to fetch them home.
Then they amble, dust stirred from its summer stupor by their
hard hooves that kick up the smell of dirt and powdered dung.
After the long walk from the pasture they remember they are
thirsty. Now in a hurry, they crowd around the water tank.
They drink and drink. When one raises her head, water and
setting sunlight drip from nose and muzzle. With a tin cup I
drink icy water from the pump and pour some into a pan for
the dog. The cows are dry of milk until fall. Now all they need
do is sleep. From the east dusk is sliding across the fields. Frogs
and crickets are tuning up, fireflies cannot wait and are air-
borne before the sun is completely down. The summer night
settles weightless as a feather on the grass. The windmill turn-
ing, cold water running out of the iron pipe into the tank, far-
off bells, and the murmur of starlight falling on water.
The clocks are steadily ticking away, see last night's post, and I'm enjoying that and the chiming. Perhaps, as has been suggested, it's a new time even though in the land of grief. Three mornings of teaching a week put me in touch with young people which I enjoy. The groups at school are a mix of students new to me, 5th graders, and many I've had in previous years for a happy reunion. Three students I now have as 8th graders I've had for four years.
Tonight I was with three women who have stayed in touch with me since they were students in confirmation. Between them they parent seven children so it is difficult to find a time to meet. The difficulty makes the time we do have together even more special. It is humbling that they still have interest in spending time with me but I am deeply honored.
Joanne would be both surprised and pleased that my social calendar remains full. As previously explained, I need to look outward to fill me people needs because, though Trygve is a wonderful presence, Joanne is not here to provide companionship and conversation.
The company I keep is a steady source of blessing for me and I am very grateful.
My parent's had an old fashioned, black mantle clock. When it proved unreliable, perhaps in the 1950's. they purchased a new, Seth Thomas Clock (see picture below) for their buffet...they didn't have a mantle. At my mother's death, my father had died 20 years earlier, this clock passed to me.
When I left Zion Lutheran, Davenport, IA., my farewell gift from the congregation was a beautiful wall clock. (See picture below.)
Perhaps a bit like the grandfather's clock which "quit, never to run again when the old man died' both clocks stopped after Joanne's death. The cause of their stoppage is no mystery, I quite winding them. Why did I quit? Who knows? But quit I did so they've sat quietly for months neither telling time nor chiming the hours.
Now they are tick tocking again because I wound them. Why did I wind them now? Who knows." But I felt like doing it, I'm glad I did, and I'm enjoying their sounds. Could the clocks be like the chair? A marker of some threshold I've crossed? Dare I say, a metaphor 😮? Have I entered a new place, a new time, in the land of grief?
What's your opinion?
Joanne's twin Laz-E-Boy recliner are one of the more poignant reminders of her and the presence of absence. The one, in which she fell asleep in the showroom, graces the condo, and the other purchased on a farm sale, lives in The Little House On The Prairie. Her condo recliner perches in front of the TV where she regularly watched MSNBC's Rachel Maddow and CNN. These chairs were also her place for reading those 3 or 4 books a week in her latter years. Sometimes they were also a place of refuge when she battled her persistent cough.
Recently I discovered that the condo recliner is comfortable for me, with a strategically placed pillow. It's good place for me to read while a baseball game is on, with the sound turned low. Baseball is a game of waiting for something to happen that seldom does. As I read a book my ears perk up when the baseball announcer's voice rises. When that I happens I look up to watch the replay because the thing that seldom happens has happened for once.
Could this late occupation of Joanne's chair be a metaphor for my life in the land of grief? Does it symbolize all the ways that I now live life for both of us, thus "occupying her chair?" As I have recognized the terrible loss her death caused her children, our children, and grandchildren I have consciously tried to be more present in helpful ways. Frequently I've referenced our wonderful friends. Of course, they too have suffered the grief of her death. Their continued relationship has been a great source of sustenance for me. Hopefully I have also been there for them as they too grieve, as Joanne would have cared for them had I died.
Through our moves to different localities I've discovered that often our new friends were people who had also recently arrived in the community That was true in Mohall, N.D., where Mick and Sharon, recent university graduates, were new teachers in the high school who arrived shortly before us...this was in 1968. Quickly we became friends and that friendship has only grown over the years with a variety of shared experiences.
Friendship with Mick and Sharon has also provided a marker to measure my recovery from losing Joanne. About a month after Joanne's death we met at the Clearwater Exit on Interstate Highway 94, for lunch. It's about an hour drive for me. It's farther for them to drive from their lake home on West Silent Lake near Dent, MN. My memory of that lunch was that I felt like a basket case. Sharon had flown from AZ to visit Joanne while Joanne was in hospice but they weren't able to attend the funeral. So this lunch was first time seeing them after Joanne's death. Grief then was powerful, palpable, over powering, and raw.
Yesterday, we met again at the Clearwater Exit. Yes, I miss Joanne terribly and the presence of absence was profound. She loved Mick and Sharon would have been tickled to share that two hour lunch. Now, while grief is still present, it's much more muted. and an ache more than a pierce. The lunch was a helpful marker for me to measure my relative position in the land of grief. Naturally it was also a gift to be with long term friends...so much wonderful shared history!
Takk for alt,
Al
PS I'll include a poem from The Writer's Almanac, which articulates how I felt when I met Mick and Sharon 16 months ago.
Funeral Blues
by W.H. Auden
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
My 'reading switch' flips on and off. Recently it's been on which Facebook Friends will perhaps recognize. Joanne read little during her working years and then she retired. Suddenly she was reading 3 or 4 books a week. Her 'reading switch' flipped on. She wasn't very patient, if a book didn't engage her in the first chapter, she moved on. Perhaps that was particularly wise give her untimely death.
Here are some of the books I've read recently and would recommend: Flames of Discontent: the 1918 Iron Ore Strike, Gary Kaunonen A Surgeon With Stillwell; Dr. John H. Grindley and Combat Medicine in the China-Burma-India Theater of World War II, Alan K Lathrop Blindness, Jose' Saramago (Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature 1998) My Life With Bob; Flawed Heroine Keeps a Book of Books, Plot Ensues, Pamela Paul Once Upon A Town; The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen, Bob Greene Little Fires Everywhere, Celeste Ng Martin Marten, Brian Doyle A Woman of no Importance; The Untold Story of the American Spy who Helped Win World War II, Sonia Purnell The Perfect Horse; The Daring U.S. Mission to Rescue the Priceless Stallions Kidnapped by the Nazis, Elizabeth Letts.
Participating in two book clubs does help to keep me reading. Likely the 'reading switch' will flip off again one of these days. Time, opportunity and eyesight are great gifts.
Takk for alt,
Al
Posting early today because we're celebrating Lisa's birthday tonight. 😊
When the value of writing this blog,for my life in the land of grief, arises in conversation I point to two distinct values, though there are more. First, I point out that writing has caused me to recognize what I am feeling with enough clarity to be able to articulate it in writing. That is not the most natural thing for me. 😁 But, it is therapeutic.
The second value that I identify is that it has created a community, largely on online but not totally. The comments posted on the blog, emails in response and the conversations in person about what I've written are very meaningful to me.
An example is this quote from Sojurners online emailed to me by a friend:
""VOICE OF THE DAY"
"We need to grieve the ones we have loved and lost in this lifetime---not to sustain our suffering, but to sustain our connection to love." J.W. Now isn't that the truth? The depth of the grief is the measure of the love that existed with the departed. Joanne may be dead, she is, but that does not end my love. The pain of her loss, the pain of the presence of absence, is in direct proportion to the strength of the bond of love,
Sharing that loss with a community, many of whom are online, sustains me in ways that I did not anticipate. When, as I often do, I express my gratitude for friends it includes the many who are online.
Many of the responses to my blog come via email, as did the two
quotes below from WORD FOR THE DAY, sent by a friend. Nightingale is correct, "life life when you have it." That is what I have tried to do since Joanne died as I've moved into the land of grief. It echoes, in some part, the mantra that Lowell shared as reported in the last two blogs.
The second Word For The Day requires more contemplation. The first sentence, "walk into the house of mourning," is something I have tried to do and I think I am better for having done that. " For grief is love squaring up to its oldest enemy"...I guess I hadn't thought of death as "love's oldest enemy."
In what way is "love up to the challenge"? Memory? Continued living? Hope? Enduring love? More to contemplate..........
WORD FOR THE DAY
Live life when you have it. Life is a
splendid gift--there is nothing small about it.
Florence Nightingale
WORD FOR THE DAY
Walk
fearlessly into the house of mourning. For grief is just love squaring up to
its oldest enemy, and after all these mortal human years love is up to the
challenge.
Though some might think it heresy I confess it troubles me that though He said to those He led that a grapevine can’t grow figs, isn’t that just what we did, having turned His skin to white and changed his sight—our blue-eyed boy grafted to a Christian tree so even though He did decree we love our neighbors as ourselves, once we claimed Him for our own, we turned His people into “them.”
We missed Joanne. As we reminisced about our connections in the late 60s and early 70s last night there was a profound sense of the presence of absence. Joanne would have loved being with us and the re-connection with persons who were important to us in those early days of marriage and ministry. Is part of missing her at a time like last night survivor's guilt? Knowing how she'd have loved to participate, is part of my grief in her absence guilt that I get the opportunity that she is denied? Joanne was a very important player in those relationships and now she misses out. We can't even talk about it. Yes, survivor's guilt makes sense to me. It is in this context that Lowell's 'mantra',"In honor of those who have not lived to see this day, I pledge to live this day as fully as possible," helpsme. There is nothing I can do to bring her back but I can 'pledge to live this day as fully as possible.' Clearly she'd want me to move forward living in the best way I can. That I can do, and will continue to do my best with the time that is given me. Takk for alt, Al
At a delightful dinner tonight I was reunited with Joyce Rosengren for the first time since the early 1970's. Joyce and Stan had been in Kenmare, N.D., for about a year before we arrived in Mohall. Shortly after we moved in, in 1968, I have a distinct memory of them coming to welcome us. A kindness remembered these 51 years. Joyce and Stan now live in The Dalles, OR., and she was in town for her 61st, St. Olaf Nursing Class, reunion.
We were hosted by Lowell and Linda Brandt who were at rural Kenmare during the aforementioned time. On the Luther College campus in Decorah, IA., stands Brandt Hall for women, where my Lisa lived her freshman year. Brandt Hall is named for one of Lowell's ancestors which I've known for a long time. Tonight I asked him the family connection, assuming it was a grandfather, uncle or some male relative...such was my patriarchal assumption. Lowell said "It is named after my great-great grandmother!" She had been the "college mother" for years, thus the honor when the dorm was dedicated in 1950.
They all knew and loved Joanne so she was much a part of our reminiscing. Lowell has suffered the death of several of his siblings and, he too, lives in the land of grief. In this context he shared his daily "mantra." "In honor of those who have not lived to see this day, I pledge to live this day as fully as possible." Now, isn't that a take away from a delightful evening of remembering with long time friends? Blessed, blessed, I am so blessed!
Davenport, IA., is a holdout. While other cities on the banks of the Mississippi through flat lands have built levees to control flooding, Davenport has not. The primary argument against levees is that the river is "lost" behind a huge earthen wall. Levees also speed the water to the detriment of communities downstream.
Given the heavy snow pack and extensive spring rains Davenport was flooded for several weeks in May and June. None of that is visible now. Ed and Mary Jane took six of us for dinner at a riverside restaurant in Davenport which was flooded but shows no effects of it.
They reserved a table with a great view of the river. However, when we arrived the paddle-boat, The Queen Of The Mississippi, was tied up next to the restaurant. It is five decks high and totally blocked our view of the water. The waitress informed us that it had been there all day. No river view? Fifteen minutes after we were seated it departed. 😃 The river is 30-40 feet deep and almost a half mile wide, flowing east to west. (Look it up in your Rand McNally Atlas.)
It was a 'fruitful' evening of good conversation and good food...the best blue cheese potatoes I've ever had!
Tomorrow I return to Noble Academy for my 9th year of volunteering. Some students I've had before and I'll also meet some who are new to me.
