If at first you don't succeed, maybe you'll get the prize on second try!

A true story about not giving up.

"It's the birthday of Canadian children's writer L.M. Montgomery, (books by this author) born Lucy Maud Montgomery in Clifton, Prince Edward Island, in 1874. Her mother died when she was a toddler, and her father sent her to live with her mother's parents. There were no other children around, just Lucy and her grandparents, and she spent a lot of time reading and writing poems. She left home for a few years to teach, but when her grandfather died, she came home to live with her grandmother, and she stayed with her for the next 13 years. And during that time, she wrote her first novel, about an orphan girl with bright red hair who gets sent to live with a couple from Prince Edward Island who were hoping for a boy instead. It got rejected over and over, so she put the manuscript away in a hatbox and turned to other things. But eventually, she got it back out, read it, decided it wasn't that bad after all, and sent it out again. This time it got accepted, and in 1908, Anne of Green Gables was published and became a classic children's book."

from today's Writer's Almanac.

     College took me two tries and as I've written previously that turned out much to my benefit. High school in no way prepared me for college. After five unsuccessful quarters at South Dakota State College I transferred to Augustana College. While, that semester at Augie was academically satisfactory, I still had no vocational direction. That's when I enlisted in the Marines.
     With one successful semester at Augustana re-enrolling after my discharge was easy. In the summer of my second year there I met Joanne, and the rest is history. How different my life would have been had succeeded in my first college attempt. Much of life can only be understood in the rear view mirror!   Perhaps I should write a litany thanking God for failure. 😀

Takk for alt,

Al

Mystery

"It's the birthday of the writer who said: "When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." That's C.S. Lewis, (books by this author) born in Belfast (1898), the author of the seven-volume children's series The Chronicles of Narnia, which begins with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950), the story of four children sent away from London because of wartime air raids. He also said, "Someday you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again."

Besides fairy tales and children's classics, he wrote theological books, including The Screwtape Letters (1942), a novel in which a demon writes to his nephew; and The Great Divorce (1945), where residents of hell take a bus ride to heaven, and Mere Christianity (1952), based on talks he gave on the BBC during World War II.

C.S. Lewis said, "Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see."  Today's Writer's Almanac

     Isn't that a sweet quote from Lewis?  "...letters too large for us to see...." So much of what is outside of what I expect passes me by.  Will I ever learn to be open to what is in front of me?  "When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." 😊

On a much lighter note: the American Kennel club has come up with a much better way of comparing a dog's life to that of a human. One issue is the relative length of life for dogs depending on their size. Using the formula below Trygve, the wonder dog, appears to be 64 in human terms. This makes sense of my observation. He hunts as hard as ever but not as long and needs more time to recuperate. I don't hunt as hard........

• 15 human years equals the first year of a medium-sized dog’s life.
• Year two for a dog equals about nine years for a human.
• And after that, each human year would be approximately five years for a dog.

Takk for alt,

Al

Snow "fall"?

  There are those who have tired of my posting on Facebook "Snow sure is pretty from the 15th floor." Now, why would anyone tire of hearing that? So I wondered as I sat at breakfast and saw snow going horizontally past my window.  When, as a child, I saw New England pictures of snow piled on fence posts I thought to my self "naw, snow always comes sideways" because that was my experience of prairie snow.  Snow going horizontally past my window is something to which I can relate.
   The recent storm left something like 9" of snow but is accurate to say snow "fall"? Well, I suppose it has to land someplace. There's a saying among farmers contemplating spraying their fields on a windy day "it has to land someplace." This would also be true of the snow streaking past my window, "it has to land some place." thus, I suppose it is snow "fall" even though that seems a misnomer to me. And, yes, blowing, falling, blowing and falling, or having fallen, it is pretty from the 15th floor...so there!

   HAPPY THANKSGIVING to you all. It was another fine family gathering, which Joanne would have loved. Not only was it Thanksgiving but also Charlie's birthday and she loved both Thanksgiving and birthdays...both fit in with her love of live and abundant gratitude. The hardest part for me was coming home alone but that's life in the land of grief.

Takk for alt,

Al

See, it is pretty!

The elephant in the room!

"What we did Friday night, if you want to know 

"Friday was a dark day though we didn’t talk about it because we had dinner with two young newlyweds and a friend who recently lost her husband, so we kept it light....

"It was a happy dinner party. The young wife is French and we got talking about American colloquialisms and she was fascinated by “don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater” and “easy as pie” for which she offered “mettre les doigts dans le nez,” (sticking fingers up the nose), meaning: no big deal, nothing to brag about."  Garrison Keillor

    Keillor mentions in another paragraph he'd recently at lunch with the friend who died. "It was a happy dinner party."  No need to be tiresome and acknowledge the pain or the grief of the widow...let's just be happy and gay and never mind about the widow, recently thrust into the land of grief.
   How often is the bereaved, the new, or long term, denizen of the land of grief, ignored with her/his grief over the departed the "elephant hiding in the room?' "We kept it light..." How was the widow feeling as she left? Did she want her beloved mentioned, her beloved who had presided at the wedding of the young couple? Who get's to decide that it should be kept light?  Would the widow be spoil sport if she brought up the death of her husband?

   Such are my thoughts as I read this article from Keillor.

Takk for alt,

Al

Roots

    Thursday we'll gather for Thanksgiving at my son's place in S. Minneapolis. Thanksgiving falls on November 28, this year, and that will be the 90th anniversary of my parent's wedding. They were married in 1929 at my mother's parent's house on Carter Ave., in the St. Anthony Park area of St. Paul. Mother's father presided at the wedding, on a bitterly cold day.
    Their wedding was a month after the huge stock market crash and my father lost a significant sum when the banks closed. He'd been fairly affluent for a South Dakota farmer. He purchased his first car in 1914, an Overland, later 1919(?)  a Buick touring car and then a 1928 Model A, Ford. This was the car they took on a two month honeymoon to Washington, D.C. and on down the coast to South Carolina. In Chicago they stayed at the Palmer House. In spite of his loss he did not scrimp on the honeymoon. With the depression settling in, the mid-west drought years, and four children born in the thirties this would be my parents last trip for many years.
    Ironically the house of my grandparents on Carter Ave, which.was purchased by my aunt and uncle, was only a block from Joanne's parent's home on Como Ave. That's how my cousin Louise and Joanne were childhood friends.

    Here's wishing you all a Happy Thanksgiving and of course we can never be too thankful. Much of what I'm thankful for is the blessings of good parents and family.


Takk for alt,

Al

Perhaps I'm guilty?

     Many times I've told the story of 92 year old Erma asking me ho old did I feel 'inside?'  After I replied 19, I asked her and she said "Perhaps 21." In the Science and Health section of Sunday's Minneapolis Tribune appeared an article, You're only as old as you feel. "Feel younger than your age? Your brain my be healthier and you may be more resilient than same-age peers."
     "When scientists ask, 'How old do you feel most of the time?' the answer tends to reflect the state of people's physical and mental health...."
      "Scientists are finding that people who feel younger than their chronological age are typically healthier and more psychologically resilient than those who feel older. They perform better on memory tasks and are at lower risk of cognitive decline."
     The article, by Emily Laber-Warren, reprinted from the New York Times, goes on to say cause and effect is unclear;
     While I've felt younger than my chronological age for many years, the article raised a concern. It made me wonder if my pride in feeling younger than my years is a subtle form of ageism?  How much of my self-perception is a prejudice against elder-hood?  The initial satisfaction in reading about the benefits of a self perception of "youngness" gradually turned to the discomfort of seeing my bias of ageism.
     So it goes in the land of endless self-discovery.

Takk for alt,

Al

"A Dr. Spock for death"

   Now there's a headline that caught my eye, "A Dr. Spock for death, 'A Beginners Guide to the End' helps people prepare for a life stage that many wold prefer to deny."  Star Tribune, Sunday, November 24, 2019, p. E10. Shoshana Berger and BJ Miller are co-authors of A Beginners Guide...
Shoshana "My sister and I ended up literally sitting down at a computer in the room where my father lay cold and Googling, 'What do you do when someone dies?' That encapsulates how little preparation we have, and how little we know about this experience...." "Q. Why is our culture so hellbent of avoiding death?" BJ "Death is scary. We're wired to run away from it, so there's no shame in that. But you can tell America is a young culture by the way it handles  aging and dying--that it's something you fight, not come to terms with...." "Q. How and when should people start preparing for death?"  Shoshana "Creating a When I Die file. You can put all your stuff in a shoebox, or a file, or a cloud drive that's going to make it so much easier for the people you love to deal with it when they lose you. Because they are going to be in the thick of grief themselves and then to have to call Verizon and sit on a phone tree for an hour is just adding insult to injury.
    "So having all your passwords in one place, your advanced directives, your will and trust, and then some softer things that you can add, like writing a letter to the people you love.
    "This is not a book for old people. This is a book for everyone. It always feels too early until it's too late."

    So, we all have our will and trust, right? Advance directives are properly prepared? Passwords and information clearly organized?  Well, what ARE we  waiting for?

Takk for alt,

Al

Recommended Reading.

     Sitting in Joanne's recliner one evening I glanced up at the bookshelf above the secretary. "What's that" I wondered as opened the glass door and pulled out a book with which I was not familiar. In it was an undated note to Joanne and also book notes dated October 2017, both from M.J.V. Did Joanne ever read the book? In October of 2017, Joanne was undergoing radiation treatments and in less than six months she was dead. It's very possible she never read it.
    The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty In The Nation's Largest Home, Denise Kiernan, is much more than the story of the Biltmore House. It also covers much of the history of The Gilded Age and major players in that milieu.  The ca.12 million that George Vanderbilt was worth in 1888, would be translate to ca.325 million today. So he built a house, with 250 rooms and 175,000 square feet, not to mention bought 100s of thousands of acres of forest, and, and.... The book is so much more than the house. George's wife, Edith, is the real heroine of the story in many respects. George's and Edith's descendants have been able to preserve the house against all odds.
    Several years ago I attended a week long theological conference as continuing education at Montreat Conference Center near Asheville, NC. Joanne accompanied me using the week as vacation and occasionally sitting in on lectures. During the week we drove the Blue Ridge Mountains and onto the grounds of The Biltmore Estate so I could see the house. Joanne had toured the mansion previously so we decided not to do it this time as ticket prices then were $50. per person. Perhaps had I to do over I'd spend the money. Reading this book would be great preparation for a visit,or, of interest for those who have visited but also of interest for all the ancillary information...well written, too.
    The book covers a significant length of time so characters with whom I found myself engaged were followed until their deaths. The reports of their deaths caused little pangs of grief in me which was a measure of my engagement in the story.

Takk for alt,

Al

The Conspiracy of Silence.

       Why are persons often silent when with the bereaved?  "I'm sorry for you loss." "You have my condolences." And then?  Often silence and on subsequent encounters with the bereaved the deceased is almost never mentioned as if he/she never existed.

     Why?  Perhaps its a variety of discomforts. A person may fear intensifying the grief of the bereaved by mentioning the one who has died. It may be feeling at a loss of what to say. In some cases it's likely there is general uncomfortableness with death and dying.

     This avoidance is not helpful to a dweller in the land of grief. It isn't complicated. Something as simple as "Tell me a story about Joanne?" or, "What was Joanne's favorite season?" "How did you meet?" "When do you miss her the most." "I remember when she...." etc.

      Recently the Washington Post, carried a story about man who went public with his grief about the death of one of his twin sons ten years previous. It opened a floodgate of grief stories from others who were moved to tell their stories of loss.  I'll reprint it so you can see for yourself.

A comedian wrote about his baby’s death on Twitter. Then hundreds poured out their own grief.

Add to list

Michael Cruz Kayne and his wife, Carrie Kayne, in 2017 with their children, Truman and Willa. Truman’s twin died when he was 34 days old. (Michael Cruz Kayne and his wife, Carrie Kayne, in 2017 with their children, Truman and Willa. Truman’s twin died when he was 34 days old. Michael Cruz Kayne)

By

Allison Klein 

November 20, 2019 at 6:00 a.m. CST

New York comedian Michael Cruz Kayne decided to write about his infant’s death, on the 10th anniversary of losing his son, who was just 34 days old.

“This isn’t really what twitter is for,” began Kayne, “but ten years ago today my son died and I basically never talk about it with anyone other than my wife. it’s taken me ten years to realize that I want to talk about it all the time.”

He wrote on Monday that since his son, Fisher Daniel Kayne, died — and Fisher’s twin survived — he’s found grief is a taboo topic “even in the era of the overshare.”

“It’s all very *sorry for your loss* and tilted heads and cards with calligraphy on them and whispering. we’re all on tiptoes all the time,” he wrote.

But grief is a “galaxy of emotions,” including anger and even some things that have made him laugh: “the funeral home handed us a receipt after our son’s funeral that said 'thank you come again’ at the bottom.”

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He added: “I bet you have a friend with a sad story also wants to share the not sad parts.”

One of his “not sad” parts is that his wife became a pediatric intensive care nurse after Fisher died of sepsis. “Can you believe it?” he wrote. “being around sick and dying children all day? healing/caring for them? she does that because of my son.”

Kayne offered “a plea: *ask your sad friend about the sad thing that you never talked about.*" He added: “grief is isolating, but not just because of the sadness. also because the sadness is the only part about it that anyone knows.”

He ended with, “if you are grieving, you are not alone.”

Twitter responded in full force with more than 140,000 people reacting, many sharing their gutting stories of loss and grief, and offering support for one another.

“Sending you love,” wrote one person. “That was a brave thread. We lost our eldest son, aged 10, 15 years ago in December and our youngest son, aged 12, 9 years ago in December. We need to talk about them and keep remembering them.”

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“Fisher is beautiful,” wrote another. “I’m sorry for your loss and your pain. My son died when he was 17. His name is Nick and he has been gone for 15 years. The wave of pain sweeps me away at the strangest times. We are in a special club, I guess."  The Washington Post

    Marilyn Sharpe added another powerful poem to our "geese collection."  Thanks Marilyn.

The Journey

Above the mountains
the geese turn into
the light again

Painting their
black silhouettes
on an open sky.

Sometimes everything
has to be
inscribed across
the heavens

so you can find
the one line
already written
inside you.

Sometimes it takes
a great sky
to find that

small, bright
and indescribable
wedge of freedom
in your own heart.

Sometimes with
the bones of the black

sticks left when the fire
has gone out

someone has written
something new
in the ashes of your life.

You are not leaving
you are arriving.

~ David Whyte ~

(House of Belonging)

Takk for alt,

al

Geese on the wing.

     Wednesdays I finish my volunteering at school at noon.  So, today, done at school I headed west to The Little House. It's a four hour drive so I arrived in daylight and before going to The House, Trygve and I drove to the cemetery to visit Joanne's grave. Lake Sinai is about a mile north of the cemetery and as I passed I notice a huge flock of  geese on the water. As I stood by Joanne's grave an endless flock from the lake passed overhead flying south and too high to be looking for a place to feed. Are they migrating before the inclement weather predicted for tomorrow?
    The geese flying over reminded me of my mother and I'll explain that soon. But first I want to follow up with another thought about 'ambiguous loss' which I wrote about yesterday. There seems something wired in us as humans that wants to rank things, maybe everything. This is certainly true of me. While it seems silly and is likely unhelpful I've found myself wondering "what's the worst loss?'  Are ambiguous losses the worst?  A switch that I could flip to stop such odious comparison would be welcome. Feel what one feels and live into it and stop evaluating...

   My mother was born January 7, 1900, it was always easy to track her age! She grew up in a time when students memorized and I suspect memorizing came easy for her, but it is not my gift. One of the poems I remember her reciting is the  To A Waterfowl, and that is why the geese overhead reminded me of her.

To a Waterfowl

BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

"Whither, 'midst falling dew,

While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,

Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue

Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler’s eye

Might mark thy distant flight, to do thee wrong,

As, darkly seen against the crimson sky,

Thy figure floats along.

Seek’st thou the plashy brink

Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,

Or where the rocking billows rise and sink

On the chaféd ocean side?

There is a Power, whose care

Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,—

The desert and illimitable air

Lone wandering, but not lost.

All day thy wings have fanned,

At that far height, the cold thin atmosphere;

Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,

Though the dark night is near.

And soon that toil shall end,

Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest,

And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend,

Soon, o’er thy sheltered nest.

Thou’rt gone, the abyss of heaven

Hath swallowed up thy form, yet, on my heart

Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,

And shall not soon depart.

He, who, from zone to zone,

Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,

In the long way that I must trace alone,

Will lead my steps aright."

Takk for Alt,

Al

Ambiguous Loss

www.youtube.com

Ambiguous loss is a loss that occurs without closure or clear understanding. This kind of loss leaves a person searching for answers, and thus complicates and delays the process of grieving, and often results in unresolved grief.

There are two types of ambiguous loss:

• Type One: Occurs when there is physical absence with psychological presence. This includes situations when a loved one is physically missing or bodily gone. Catastrophic examples of physical ambiguous loss include kidnapping and missing bodies due to war, terrorism, ethnic cleansing, genocide, and natural disasters such as earthquake, flood, and tsunami. More common examples of physical ambiguous loss are divorce, adoption, and loss of physical contact with family and friends because of immigration.
• Type Two: Occurs when there is psychological absence with physical presence. In this second type of ambiguous loss, a loved one is psychologically absent—that is, emotionally or cognitively gone or missing. Such ambiguous loss occurs from Alzheimer's disease and other dementias; traumatic brain injury; addiction, depression, or other chronic mental or physical illnesses that take away a loved one's mind or memory. Psychological ambiguous losses can also result from obsessions or preoccupations with losses that never make sense, e.g., some suicides or infant deaths.   (Pioneered by Pauline Boss.)

  

   So little I know.  In conversation with a friend when the topic turned to loss and grief she talked about the difficulty of the grieving process with 'ambiguous loss.' While I recognized the difficulty in such situations I'd never really focused on the syndrome nor used that frame, 'ambiguous loss.' 

   Everything always loops back to Joanne, for me. In her last years she suffered some memory loss, while not severe it was very frustrating for her, i.e., a cause of grief. This women who could call a phone number once and recall it accurately weeks later, now once could not remember the the pin number of her ATM card...yes, she grieved. She was aware enough of her new limitations that she could compensate by writing notes to herself, but it was very frustrating.  We both grieved the new reality though we didn't know to call it 'ambiguous loss.'

   "Loss and grief, loss and grief, go together like a horse and carriage."  These are my thoughts today from the land of grief.

Takk for alt,

Al

Our least compatibility!

     There were tons of shared values and in so many ways we were delightfully compatible, Joanne and I.  There was one area where we were miles apart and growing farther the more we aged. Time was not going to solve this issue as time only drew us further apart. The late model car I was loaned while my car was being repaired had a solution for our divergence but only Trygve and I got its benefit.
     Temperature comfort zones for the two of us? Never the twain shall meet. Seventy-five degrees is pushing the bottom of my comfort zone while that temperature topped out hers. She was often out in the cold of winter wrapped comfortably in a windbreaker that I'd find too light at seventy degrees.The loaner car from the body shop had individual temperature controls for each side, right and left. Perhaps that would have been even better than the compass and temperature gauge she desired in her next car.
    All this came to mind when I read the poem copied below.  Joanne loved autumn and winter, but summer? not so much. As we passed from summer into autumn and now approach winter it makes me sad that, once again, she is missing it.
   "How have I set the thermostat in her absence" you ask? At a 'chilly' 72 degrees lest the contrast be too great with other environs. As I write this I wear two shirts, a sweater and a corduroy shirt-jacket. No, I don't need gloves.

"Finally fall.
At last the mist,
heat's haze, we woke
these past weeks with

has lifted. We find
ourselves chill, a briskness
we hug ourselves in.
Frost greying the ground.

Grief might be easy
if there wasn't still
such beauty -- would be far
simpler if the silver

maple didn't thrust
it's leaves into flame,
trusting that spring
will find it again.

All this might be easier if
there wasn't a song
still lifting us above it,
if wind didn't trouble

my mind like water.
I half expect to see you
fill the autumn air
like breath --

At night I sleep
on clenched fists.
Days I'm like the child
who on the playground

falls, crying
not so much from pain
as surprise.
I'm tired of tide

taking you away,
then back again --
what's worse, the forgetting
or the thing

you can't forget.
Neither yet --
last summer's
choir of crickets

grown quiet."   Kevin Young

Takk for alt,

Al

Loss in all its forms!

      Two nights ago I posted a quote by Dean Koontz. A friend thanked me for the quote and reported how he planned to use it in addressing persons grieving the loss of a beloved institution. Death provokes grief but so does any loss, large or small, the depth of the grief related to the value of who or what was lost.
      Miscarriages, still births and infant deaths, and the grief they cause, can be complicated by misunderstanding and the private nature of the loss. A picture of Kao Kalia Yang, who is one of my favorite authors, caught my eye in the Minneapolis paper today, StarTribune p. E12. This is in the book section and a huge headline said Delivering untold stories of loss. Yang, who is Hmong, and Shannon Gibney, who is African American, have produced a book entitled What God is Honored Here?:Writings on Miscarriage and Infant Loss by and for Native Women and Women of Color.  Their purpose they said "...'creating a container to help folks process trauma,' and how it can make readers feel less alone."
    Gibney is a new writer to me but I know that Yang can write powerful prose of deep emotion.
    On the same page of the Strib is a review of The Big Book of the Dead, Marion Winik, the article about it is entitled A big book of praise songs for those who have left us. The article begins "Why do we listen to songs that remind us of lost friends and lovers? Why do we love to hear stories of family members who have died? In 'The Big Book of the Dead,' Marion Winik argues that we find comfort there,..."
     That certainly is true in my experience. Hearing stories of Joanne, my late sister Lucille, my late brother Richard, my deceased  parents...is always gratifying. It runs counter to the caution people often exercise "I won't bring up the deceased because I don't want the bereaved to feel bad.." The reality is we feel bad already and the grief is exacerbated by the silence avoiding mention of the deceased.  It makes my day when someone says to me "I remember when Joanne..."
    Grief, abounds, both large and small so let us listen to one another that hope may be found.

Takk for alt,

Al

"We know more people...."

   As the deaths of family, friends and acquaintances added up Joanne and I remarked to each other "I think we know more who have died than we know who are still alive."  This would be a factor of our age because the longer one lives....... When a friend sent me the Billy Collins quote below I was reminded of the remark that passed between us.

"Last night we ended up on the couch
trying to remember
all of the friends who had died so far,

and this morning I wrote them down
in alphabetical order
on the flip side of a shopping list
you had left on the kitchen table.

So many of them had been swept away
as if by a hand from the sky,
it was good to recall them,
I was thinking
under the cold lights of a supermarket
as I guided a cart with a wobbly wheel
up and down the long strident aisles.

I was on the lookout for blueberries,
English muffins, linguini, heavy cream,
light bulbs, apples, Canadian bacon,
and whatever else was on the list,
which I managed to keep grocery side up,

until I had passed through the electric doors,
where I stopped to realize,
as I turned the list over,
that I had forgotten Terry O’Shea
as well as the bananas and the bread.

It was pouring by then,
spilling, as they say in Ireland,
people splashing across the lot to their cars.
And that is when I set out,
walking slowly and precisely,
a soaking-wet man
bearing bags of groceries,
walking as if in a procession honoring the dead.

I felt I owed this to Terry,
who was such a strong painter,
for almost forgetting him
and to all the others who had formed
a circle around him on the screen in my head.

I was walking more slowly now
in the presence of the compassion
the dead were extending to a comrade,

plus I was in no hurry to return
to the kitchen, where I would have to tell you
all about Terry and the bananas and the bread."  Billy Collins

     Markers happen! While I was in The Little House yesterday I came across a 'marker.'  Arlington is a town near The Little House and there is a restaurant called 14/81 because Highways 14 and 81 run past it. 14/81 is one of the favorite spots to gather the family for dinner. The 'marker' was a sales slip from there dated 4/18/2016. Itemized on the receipt was "grilled shrimp," something I never would order.  A quick check of the log book in The Little House revealed that Joanne and I were staying there that weekend. When we had that dinner we had no clue that in less than 2 years Joanne would be dead. It's a marker of how quickly like can change.

Takk for alt,

Al

PS. I picked my car up at the  body shop in Marshall as I drove back to Minneapolis today...and they refunded the dollar they charged for the loaner. 😃

To Be, Not Destroyed.

“Grief can destroy you --or focus you. You can decide a relationship was all for nothing if it had to end in death, and you alone. OR you can realize that every moment of it had more meaning than you dared to recognize at the time, so much meaning it scared you, so you just lived, just took for granted the love and laughter of each day, and didn't allow yourself to consider the sacredness of it. But when it's over and you're alone, you begin to see that it wasn't just a movie and a dinner together, not just watching sunsets together, not just scrubbing a floor or washing dishes together or worrying over a high electric bill. It was everything, it was the why of life, every event and precious moment of it. The answer to the mystery of existence is the love you shared sometimes so imperfectly, and when the loss wakes you to the deeper beauty of it, to the sanctity of it, you can't get off your knees for a long time, you're driven to your knees not by the weight of the loss but by gratitude for what preceded the loss. And the ache is always there, but one day not the emptiness, because to nurture the emptiness, to take solace in it, is to disrespect the gift of life.”
― Dean Koontz, Odd Hours

       Even in the crushing first hours, days, weeks after Joanne's death, at some deep level, I knew I'd survive and find meaning again. And, I have. Koontz is correct "...you can recognize that every moment of it (relationship)  had more meaning than you dared recognize at the time, so much meaning it scared you, so you lived, just took for granted the love and laughter of each day, and didn't allow yourself to consider  the sacredness of it."

    Living absorbs our energy and , while we value relationships, the depth and sacredness escapes us in the moment. When death intervenes we then realize the depth of experiences in their loss. Visible from my chair as I write this is a picture of us, Joanne and me, taken in the lounge of the Hurtigruten as we traveled  down the coast of Norway.  We'd agreed that it was one of our best trips and hoped to repeat it, which we cannot do. The full meaning of the moment only now fully appreciated as the sacred time it was.

Takk for alt,

Al

The gift of age!

    The 'significance of friends' is a theme which I've often touted on this blog. Today I've been reflecting on the intersection of friends and age. The last few years have brought me a number of new friends which seems a special gift, especially as I hear of elderly who are isolated. All friends are a gift never to be taken for granted.
    But, as I mentioned above, this writing will focus on the nexus of age and friendship. Currently in the environs of The Little House, today I had the pleasure of spending much of the day with a friend with whom friendship goes back to 1976.  Over the years we've had many memorable occasions  together building a shared history that is deep and rich.
    While I was reading the Minneapolis Paper online this afternoon, a childhood friend saw my car outside The Little House and stopped for a chat, as he does with some frequency. This acquaintanceship goes back so far I don't remember a time that I didn't know him. With him conversation can go to people, places and things that very few others can reach. Were I to guess, I'd think I knew him as early as 1941!
     Email is another form of connection with friends. Today I had emails from two of Joanne's friends. One is a friend from their college days which means in the mid-50s. They kept up their relationship, lunching regularly, until Joanne's illness. Another email was from one of Joanne's colleagues from her days at Lutheran Services in America. 
     Age and friendship...growing old together...Yes, there are many gifts.

Takk for alt,

Al

Living Wisely and Well, Part II.

   Sunday's Adult Forum, referenced in yesterday's blog, and ably led by Tom & Becky von Fisher, focused on helping us think about the last portion of our life, with specific attention to housing; where and how might we live in our old age. Their underlying premise is that "There is seldom a satisfactory outcome when new living arrangements become a requirement rather than a choice."

   Another quote they shared resonated with me: "To ripen into an elder, into being that is more than simply elderly and more  than only self, is a deliberate, thoughtful, sustained choice that arises from the intention to see things as they are."  Kathleen Dowling Sing, The Grace In Aging. 

   Seeing things as they are, is my goal. How well I do that is perhaps best judged by others. But, I strive for honesty...honesty of perception, which is not easy but critical to the examined life and, as we all know, '"the unexamined  life is not worth living."

   Then Garrison Keillor came with this reminder of mortality...something about which we must needs be honest.

"It turned cold and gray in Minnesota last week and snow fell, which some people talk about as being depressing, but it’s not, it’s reassuring. The talk is ritual complaint, an attempt by people living comfy lives to acquire the dignity of suffering. Genuine suffering is on its way sooner than you think. One day we’ll be hit by a winter heat wave like the one that melted half of Greenland and then our real troubles will begin. One day I’ll step off a curb and my legs will buckle and strangers will call 911 and I’ll be hauled unconscious to a crowded ER and when I awake, I won’t be able to remember the words to “Abide with me, fast falls the eventide” or “Minnesota, hats off to thee.” It’s out there, waiting to happen. Snow is nothing."

Garrison Keillor.

Takk for alt,

Al

     

Living Wisely and Well

    Most Sunday's Grace Lutheran has an Adult Forum between the first and second worship service. Last Sunday, Tom & Becky von Fischer presented on the topic Living Wisely and Well. It was an adaption of a presentation they did for a reunion of Tom's Seminary Class. Filled with wit and wisdom it included this quotation from Life Reimagined, by Barbara Bradley Hagerty.
    " Invest in friends The more friends you have the healthier, happier and more mentally acute you will be now and in later years. We are wired for friends. Research indicates that robust friendships are more important that close family re;relationships. When these relationships involve helping other people, reaching out, being actively engaged to do things for others that is an added bonus."
     Well wouldn't you know, friend Tom (see above) emailed me this quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer with some very kind words about me.  Moved to comment on it I resist because it is so profound in its expression there is little I could add. I will repeat what I've often said "one of the best things about me are my friends."

"There is nothing that can replace the absence of someone dear to us,
and one should not even attempt to do so.
Once must simply hold out and endure it.
At first that sounds very hard, but at the same time it is also a great comfort.
For to the extent the emptiness truly remains unfilled
one remains connected to the other person through it.
It is wrong to say that God fills the emptiness.
God in no way fills it, but much more leaves it precisely unfilled
and thus help us preserve – even in pain – the authentic relationship.
Furthermore, the more beautiful and full the remembrances, the more difficult the separation.
But gratitude transforms the torment of memory into silent joy.
One bears what was lovely in the past, not as a thorn, but as a precious gift deep within,
a hidden treasure of which one can always be certain." 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Takk for alt,

Al