My Kingdom for a Pen!

Here I sit waiting in the car in a parking lot beside a jail.   I may be here for a while and I’ve brought plenty to read but I want a pen! Any paper will do. Purse? No. The car’s glove compartment? No. Ah, here’s one. Not like my good pen but it will have to do.

Now, a few days later I must transfer what I wrote that sunny cool day. Here goes:

Such a pretty place to park. Such a tall and formidable building next to it! This grandma never knew what kind of drama her youngest grandchild would bring. Katie is 23 going on 24 and I’ve brought her to visit the young man of 26 she has promised herself to, one Jeffrey Allen Smith. 

The others in our family, aside from Katie’s parents and me, do not know Jeff. All they know is that he’s behind bars. They don’t know the history, the story of why, the reasons. Too complicated to explain even here, but we who know the story are not blinded by obvious mistakes to the confidence of these two young people in love. We have seen the pain of wrong choices our children have suffered and now we see the hope and the way circumstances have separated these two physically but are uniting them in spirit and soul. Letters and phone calls and weekend visits behind glass through telephone are the only tangible connections for six more months. The intangibles, the “getting to know you, getting to know all about you...” part, is coming in a way that most courtships cannot know or benefit by.

As Grandma, sitting on the sidelines, making a home for Katie until Jeff can do it, I support them both. I believe in their love and commitment, in their hopes and plans for the future and in their present preparation for a good life together. The past, having served its purpose to show wrong choices and harsh consequences, will be, (I pray!), left in the dusty road behind. 

Plans are being made now to seal their love with a jailhouse wedding. It will be simple, without any one of the families there. (That's the way they do it here.) A formal wedding with friends and family where they will renew their vows will come later. It will be lovely too. 

Marriage may not be easy. It seldom is. But it will be a testing time, a new path of sharing the good, overcoming the bad, and loving each other every step of the way. Marriage is, I believe, a chance to demonstrate the oneness of two people in love as a preparation for our oneness with God, divine Love. Where else but on this exquisite blue planet can we better prepare ourselves to launch out into Heaven and explore the Infinite? 

Well, I’m glad I found a pen. Now, a bit of editing. Maybe others will think me foolish, addled by old age. They may look more coldly on the scant view of Katie and Jeff's youth years. They may say, “Prove yourselves first, like we did.” But I say, No, when you get to be my age you can’t let go of hope in the good we see only through faith. By the way, Faith was my mother’s name. Katie bears her name second, Kathryn Faith. It seems appropriate for us all to have faith now. There’s really no other choice. I'm asking you skeptics out there to join me in supporting these two children. After all, we're all children in one form or another and in the schoolroom of life we'll all graduate soon or late. And then we celebrate!

Going Back Home

3450 Prospect Avenue, Riverside, California was my home with Grandmother Darling from September of 1943 to April of 1945. The thought of it always brings a smile to my lips. Small, adobe, tile roof, with arched wooden door and windows with flower boxes. Set on the crest of an arroyo and nestled beneath a large shady pepper tree it presented a perfect picture of California to the seventeen year old Minnesota girl I was when I arrived. If you put my white-haired, blue-eyed smiling grandmother on the front walk coming toward me with open arms you'll get the picture. My first home away from home. I hadn’t seen this little gem of a house in all the years since. Lately I've been afraid to go there for fear of its having been over-run by the freeway that came later, or crumbled down in disrepair from old age. Last Sunday, however, I thought it was time.

The family, those of us living nearby, met at The Mission Inn for Sunday brunch. It was a kind of anniversary celebration in remembrance of the marriage of a young Marine fighter pilot and his bride in the Flyers’ Chapel dedicated to famous pilots such as Amelia Earhart, Charles Lindbergh, Jimmy Doolittle. I wanted our grandchildren and children to see the place. I wanted to remember the day sixty-eight years ago this month when CaptainWallace Ginder Wethe and Joyce Darling Hahn became one.

First we went to the all-you-can-eat buffet. It was a feast fit for kings and queens. (About as expensive too!) Then the concierge opened up the chapel for us to go in. Small, narrow, darkly lit by stained glass windows, it didn't look the same as when white candelabra glowed at the ends of each pew and on the altar. The gold plated altar still gleamed however. I alone could hear organ music in memory, the scent of orange blossoms in my bouquet and the tall vases of Easter lilies on the altar steps. Still, the sun shone outside by the fountain and I pointed out to the family the balcony where I threw my bouquet out to my college girl friends.

Afterwards we drove the few blocks to find Grandmother’s house. It was still there. I was delighted to see that it had remained unchanged and was obviously loved and kept up. I wept in joy as I stood there, memories flooding over me like sunbeams and shadows. I didn't go to the door. It was enough. I wanted to remember the inside as it had been, charming with a fireplace flanked by French doors, a spinet piano, cozy pillowed sofa and arm chairs. Grandmother's bedroom always smelled of her violet perfume and the bathroom had a large white claw-footed tub. In the roomy kitchen a pretty breakfast nook served as the dining room in order to free up the space at the end of the living room for the piano Grandmother had bought just for me. A screened-in laundry porch with a Dutch door led to a postage sized back yard graced by a canopied swing overlooking the arroyo toward the city college I attended. Here we had a full view of sunsets with Mount Pachapa on the south and Mount Rubidoux in the west. Even today the heady fragrance of pepper seeds and geraniums always remind me of that spot where I'd sit with Grandmother and ply her with questions about her own youth. 

Sometimes going back home can be a sad occasion. Like when I went to see the corner of highways 52 and 16 in southern Minnesota where I grew up in the family gas station home my father had built. It was gone. I mean gone to the point of my not finding one single evidence of there ever having been anything there at all. My childhood home reverted to farmland! The whole place as if it had never been; as if Daddy had never planted a tree, dug a well, built a house, waited on cars at the gas pumps. If I could have found one single tangible sign I'd have treasured it, framed it, put it on the mantel, but there was nothing.

Wally G. and I once went to see his childhood home in Minneapolis and what was once a charming neighborhood of large Victorian homes had become run down and neglected. Hippies hanging out the windows, littered lawns and peeling paint. We couldn’t leave fast enough.

Once when we went back to see the large country estate in Northbrook Illinois where Robin, our youngest child, was born we had to drive by several times before we realized that tract houses had taken over the site. 

Some people stay in their childhood homes all their lives. That sounds sweet and nostalgic, but in thinking back of all the places I’ve loved and called home since my first one, I'd have to erase many other fond memories. Home is more than a place. I can’t imagine my next home, if there is to be one, nor do I try, but I am quite sure that wherever I go, even into the hereafter, I shall be blessed with home.

One of my favorite things to do is drive around strange neighborhoods and imagine what it might be like to pick out a house, move in and call it home. I don't think I'd ever go back to a former home though. Well, maybe to Grandmother's little adobe house, but without her? No, there's no going back home. As sure as a turtle's shell it always goes along with us in some form. 

Wallpaper Riches or Bing Cherries?

I stood in the market looking at bags of Bing cherries, remembering. Yes, I think of it every time I partake of those big fat black luscious cherries, the time I was thirteen and got to climb up into a cherry tree to pick them. It was a luxury I’d not known before or since to gather and partake of Bing cherries at their best with no limitation, no price to pay. We were visiting distant cousins in Oregon. The girls were my age and, though I’d never known them before, we chatted like old friends,  giggled like birds in the leafy red-clad boughs as we picked and ate.  After piling our bags onto the table where our mothers stood canning in the steamy kitchen the girls took me into their bedroom and in the dim light of half closed shades they sat me down and began to tell me about fairies. They were true believers of those tiny winged marvels and said I had only to believe they exist to actually see them and be welcomed into their world. I did too, but only as I do today, in imagination's eye. 

That day was re-lived in my mind’s eye those many years later as I stood there in the market. Then I picked up one of the net bags and weighed it. Quick calculations of the price I’d pay at the check-out stand made me put the bag back, but I stood a minute longer staring at it and thinking this: “Sweet berries, you are so beautiful. You’ll taste so good to someone else who will come along today and take you home, but I mustn’t pay $8.00 for you. Sorry!”

Then I heard another voice. It said, “So you think God loves that "someone else" more than you? 

“No!” I protested. “I know God doesn’t play favorites. I know He is impartially loving and giving to all His children, including me.” I picked up the bag, put it into my cart and, well, you can paint in the rest of the picture. Far more than the tasty enjoyment of those cherries has been the lesson they taught me that day. It said, “You are just as loved as anyone, but you need to stop penny pinching and spend! Not unwisely, of course, but grant yourself the pleasure of luxuries once in a while when you can do it without borrowing or stealing. To be rich, be rich in more ways than money!”

Watching a savings account grow in early life should mean relaxing in senior years to enjoy the fruits of  our labors, but often older people can’t release their grip on the pocketbook. By the time they should be spending their hard-earned savings on a few luxuries it’s become a habit to skimp and save, this time for that scary spectre of nursing homes and such. The sight of a fat bottom in the bank is, to some, more pleasant and secure than the things they might spend it on. They go without only to find that inflation has made the intended purchases more expensive and the interest on their money will have been eaten up by the passage of time, not to mention the years of going without those things they might have been enjoying all along. I say those people ought to cash in, take newly printed bills and wallpaper the walls with money. If the sight of greenbacks is that pleasant, why not?

Fear plays a leading role in the penny-pincher’s heart. Afraid to spend for fear of being caught short by some emergency? Likely then you’ll have that emergency and say, “See? I’m so glad I saved for it!” I’m not saying one should be foolishly unprepared for the worst, but there’s also foolishness in being miserly. If we don’t allow ourselves to enjoy some luxuries in life, that is foolish, in my book.

Wally, my husband and the father of my children, had a healthy respect for cash. He liked to have a lot of it in his wallet, bills all neatly uncurled, matching corners and pressed evenly. He was not much for credit cards and he did like to see a goodly sum at the bottom of his bank statements. But he did not deny himself luxury whenever he could afford it. At least once a year, usually Christmas time, he’d take the whole family out to the fanciest, most highly rated restaurant he knew of. He'd have reserved a large table and after everyone was seated and presented with a menu he’d say, “Don’t look at the right side of the menu, kids. Get exactly what you like the most. I’ve saved for this." Then we’d all be glad to do as he said. Those dinners were luxurious love feasts and they remain precious memories,.

Near the end of his life on earth this dear man told me that he had been saving for the next dinner out with the family. He said, “We haven't been with the whole family at once for a long time and my dinner fund is getting big, so be sure not to give that old checkered jacket of mine to the Goodwill without getting the money out of the inside pocket, Joy.” Some friends came over the day he died and when they were leaving one said, “Do you have enough ready cash to take care of things untill the bank opens on Monday?” I said, “I think so,” and went to look in the checkered coat pocket. There I found $1,800.00 in neatly folded bills! They came in handy but I kept aside enough of them to start building for another Christmas dinner at Gulliver’s. I wasn’t the least tempted to bank those bills or use them for wallpaper! 

P.S. The last time I bought a bag of Bing cherries I over-indulged and got a stomach ache. It’s no wonder that super-rich people are often not as happy as many poorer people. Luxury, like Bing cherries, can be enjoyed more keenly in moderation. And that first dollar bill framed on the wall for a business that made it speaks louder than thousands of greenbacks on the walls! 

"He'll See To It"

I was told recently that one of my blog readers has been disappointed not to find new blogs on my site for a while. I said to tell her I’m waiting for a sunny day. Like the sun dial who says, “I record only sunny hours.”

Not fair, I thought, to have to admit that all is not sunshine and light in my life. I’m dedicated to proving that getting older is getting better.  But challenges have come along to dispute that and I need to see through them, get everything resolved and then I can resume writing my blog. That’s it in a nutshell. Unlike some in our writing class I don’t fancy spending my energy on articulating distress. Oh, it makes good reading, I suppose, when the problems are not one’s own. 

However, lately my life could be described as a tabloid of strange adventures not usually connected with little old great-grandmas who do nothing but read, knit, sew, clean house, watch old movies, put together jig saw puzzles and remember to be courteous to those marketers on the phone when they’ve un-lodged her from her favorite chair just as a nap was coming on. 

No, I cannot agree that “No news is good news.” Not always, anyway. Not when you haven't heard from your brother and call to learn that he has been declared by his doctors as not long for this world. Not when your granddaughter’s sweetheart is in jail. I won’t continue; these things turn others off. They have enough problems of their own and don’t relish reading about others’ miseries. So no news for publication has kept my blog site cupboard bare of late.

Problems most often focus on others. Have you noticed that? Well, my friend, Suzy, (who doesn’t mind admitting she is 101,) pointed out something to me yesterday that I’d never thought of before. She said, "In the first book of the Bible it says that God gave man dominion over the fish of the sea and the fowl of the air, over the cattle, etc. but nowhere do we read that He gave us dominion over each other."

What a load it would take off our backs if we knew we are not responsible for others! The best we can do is take care of ourselves and help others by setting a good example. Of course we are not told to disregard the needs of others. We can help in wise ways. We can love, be charitable, kind, etc., just not dominate our neighbors, our family members, our friends and foes. Be sparing with advice. Let God plant the right idea in each one's mind.

Someone told me once that she puzzled over the Bible’s admonition to trust in God and “...He shall bring it to pass.” Looking it up in a Bible Commentary, she found this explanation: 'Bring it to pass means God will see to it.' She knew exactly what that meant because as a child she’d been a worrier. Then, when she’d finally take the problem to her mother, her mother would say, “Oh, is that all you’re worrying about? Well, you can stop worrying, my dear. I’ll see to it.” Then the load would slip off her little child's back and she’d feel wonderful relief.

Just the knowledge that God is responsible for each one of us and our only responsibility is to respond to that fact puts everything in perspective. We then begin to see through every problem. So, a dear young man you know has been sent to jail. So, your granddaughter came back to live with you until she gets a job and enough to marry her sweetheart when he gets out. So, you’ve been told that your brother is dying and there's nothing anyone can do. So, the newspaper says the world is going bankrupt. So, some rogue nation's crazy leader says he's declaring war with his neighbor nation, our friend.You count your blessings. You choose not to ruminate over bad news but focus on what you sang as a little child: “He’s got the whole world in His hands, He’s got the whole wide world in His hands.” And you trust the Father-Mother of us all that He knows His business. He will iron out all your problems and all the problems of others when we keep watching to see it. Then you go your way, put worry aside, do whatever you can for the good of all and wait to see how God's dominion wins out in the end. Yes, He is seeing to it!

I'm No Cliff Climber!

“It’s not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.”

Sir Edmund Hillary

“Just write about this whatever comes to mind,” MaryAnn, our writing teacher, said as she put down the marker pen on the ledge of the easel. 

Here’s what I wrote:

This quotation spikes my unanswered questions about people who attempt to do dangerous things. In the case of Sir Edmund Hillary I'd think, (but not venture to say,) Is the conquering of oneself by doing something that dangerous that rewarding? For being first to make it to the top of the world and spend fifteen minutes there you no doubt gained a unique feeling of some sort and a mountain of praise and well-deserved high regard later. No doubt you think it was worth it.

What turns me off about stories of people like this, like Sir Edmund Hillary, mountain climber, Charles Blondin, the man who crossed over Niagara Falls on a wire, and others who have become famous for their feats of daring, is that they were willing to risk life itself to achieve their goals. Why? 

My reaction is probably due in part to an experience I had when I was a young mother. I left our three children at home with their father one late afternoon to walk down to the beach in Laguna and watch the sunset. I was curled up in a little lagoon alone savoring the whole experience until I began to notice that the breakers were getting higher and closer. Soon I realized I was trapped in that lagoon! If I didn’t get out in a few minutes I’d be swept against the rocky cliff behind me. There was no other way out, I had to climb that cliff! And I am no cliff climber! Never was. But my life depended on doing it then. No cell phones in those days. It was getting dark and sane people had gone home. Even if they were up there they probably would not see me. No one would come so close to the edge, and with the noise of the surf no one could have heard me if I yelled. I was completely alone, on my own.

I knew instinctively then the truth of Sir Hillary’s comment. I’d need to conquer myself and my fears. Slowly and deliberately I picked out a way, though I could barely see by then. I put one foot on a ledge, the other on another, making sure the outcroppings were secure and would bear my weight. I needed to use my fingers too. I had to trust each step I chose. All the while breakers came in rapidly, fiercely lapping against my feet and ankles and spraying cold salty water against my whole body. I prayed like never before, 'Please, God, help me!' 

I felt an inner voice telling me, “Keep calm. Don’t panic. Your life depends on getting up to the top, so do it.” And I did. When I got home I didn’t tell my husband at first. I just went to the bathroom, cleaned up and got into my pajamas, slippers and robe. Then I went to the kitchen to prepare spaghetti dinner. After we were nearly through and there was a break in children chatter I said, 'Oh, by the way, I had a scary experience at the beach.' 

I didn’t get much in the way of praise. The kids knew the beaches. It must not have seemed a big deal to them. No piece appeared in the local paper like it would have if I’d failed. Just one reward for my careless outing and the conquering of myself. My life. My life!  I’ve lived probably fifty years or more since then. Was that little lonely escape from home to view the sunset worth it? No! Not in the least!  I’ve viewed many a sunset since. They were worth it, and I didn't risk my life for them. 

Reading about Sir Edmund Hillary since leaves me glad that he achieved this honor. He was a man in other ways also worthy of his fame and accolades. He had a spirit of humility, grace, generosity and bravery that made his life worth it. I’m truly grateful he lived to enjoy a less risky life long into his advanced years. I’m glad, too, that he made it safely home. And that prompts me to give another of his quotes: “...it's always good to be going home.”

Over the Rainbow

When most of us remember Judy Garland we recall her role as Dorothy, the little Kansas farm girl in the movie The Wizard of Oz. How she sang the song Somewhere Over the Rainbow! It is hard to describe the sweetness, the hope, the pathos that simple melody evoked when Judy sang it. 

Next to life itself there is nothing quite so compelling than the desire to have a happy life, a life where all the positive, pleasing conditions one can imagine are ours. Do we need to bake the cake of life without all the required ingredients? Must we always have something missing? Are we required to be ignorant before we get smart? Those who declare we wouldn’t be able to appreciate good without its opposite might have a point. I’ve bucked that theory in the past. It seems like the old pinch-yourself-because-it feels-so-good-when-you-quit theory. Yet I’m willing to wrestle with the idea a bit more. 

Is that why we find in the Biblical story of creation a “darkness...upon the face of the deep?” After God had created all did He have to cover it up with darkness and then add the essential ingredient of light to illumine it so He could see and enjoy what He created? No, it doesn’t say God created the darkness. All it really says is that perfection needs to be seen, understood, made plain, sometimes earned and sometimes received and accepted by the grace of God in order to be enjoyed. 

“There she goes again,” my readers who’ve put up with me this long may be saying. Always asking questions, always trying to figure things out. Well, yes, without apology I admit it’s what I do most mornings. Here I’ve been given another beautiful day and I wonder why I’m so fortunate. I think it’s because of the gift of gratitude. Without gratitude the gifts we’re given slip out of view and only darkness remains.

I haven’t before thought of gratitude as light but, like light, gratitude shows us what we have to be grateful for and doesn’t get discouraged by the darkness of what we think we lack. It knows it can shine anywhere in that darkness and reveal more of God’s perfect creation, just as much as we can handle. Wow! 

As the song implies, there’s a reason why we don’t enjoy more of that sweet land of light and love Dorothy sang about. We picture it as being “somewhere over the rainbow.” We are plagued with the lie of limitation that would always keep us short of our desired end. We have to go somewhere else. We have to get something more. We are always reaching, reaching. Often we think the something we want is impossible. Even in the midst of agony we can be grateful. How? By letting our light shine on something good. I believe gratitude is not just a means to an end, it is the end itself. Dorothy found this out. She found her over-the-rainbow-home right there at her little Kansas farm home. 

I remember my childhood wonderings. As I lay in bed looking up at the bare ceiling and wondered what was in store for me, as I spread myself out in the little red wagon and looked up at the sky, wondering what was out there, as I first felt the longings of love with songs coming over radio waves in the darkness of my bedroom, I’m still wondering. It’s more fun to spend my mornings that way than listening to the latest weather report or the news of some shooting or other “newsworthy” commentary. 

I’m wondering lately why old folks seem to remember the distant past so much better than the near past. Maybe it’s because we are coming home to the place where we started wondering, the place where we first wanted to know, where we first tried to peek into a future. Maybe we’re making it around the cycle of life. Wondering about life, looking at the future’s blank ceiling, the sky’s endless blue, it is a very good thing to wonder at any age.

No, I’m not looking to fly over the rainbow. I’m just glad to be home, standing on my own two feet, sitting here at the computer, eating my once a day half piece of candy, and listening to the music station of oldies. Come to think of it, that’s what started this whole discussion today. I went to sleep last night with music from that station, so naturally when I clicked the remote it went there this morning, and the first thing I heard was the clear instrumental version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” I  sang along with the words, remembering Dorothy and her adventure over the rainbow. 

Now I’m not saying I would turn down a trip to another planet, but I’d need a guarantee in writing that I could come home whenever I wanted to. Instantly. Then again, I might say, “No thanks! This is enough of heaven for me." For now I'll save seeing the whole round circle of the rainbow for some future airplane trip. I still need a good dark night's sleep every day.

Pick a Picture Puzzle

I enjoy putting together jig saw puzzles.  A good jig-saw puzzle takes time, but who cares? When I work on one I lose the sense of time. I’m in a bubble of bliss, safely exempted from the ruthless rules of conscience that would stand by and declare there are better things to do. 

First, I always pick my puzzle by the picture on the box and envision how good it will look full size when each piece is fitly snapped into place. There are many ways to work a jig-saw puzzle. Some like to make it more challenging by forgetting the picture on the box as they work on the puzzle. There are even some puzzles, I’ve heard, that have no picture on the box. I need to see what the end will be and I don’t mind taking a peek at the picture on the box now and then as it goes together. 

Like most jig-saw puzzle players I find the straight outside edges first. Getting the frame  together gives me a boost. Along the way I find myself setting pieces that look related in different areas and then I work on those, filling in by colors and patterns and shapes. When two larger groups have gone together and click into place, that, too, gives me a boost. 

Once I’ve set myself down for a spell by my jig saw puzzle I have already dismissed old finger-wagging conscience. I obey him most of the time, but this is a battle soon over when conscience gives in to reason. I do let him point to my watch at some time and agree to quit when he says, “Enough now.”  The “Just one more piece, please” ploy finally gives in to those so-called better things to do.  The nice thing about a big puzzle is that it is always agreeable. It is used to waiting. 

To me life in this world is, itself, like a giant jig-saw puzzle waiting for the pieces to find their unique places. The thing that keeps me working life’s puzzle is the assurance I feel that it will all turn out to be good in the end. I don’t judge it by the chaotic picture on the table. I know there’s a pleasant ending to it all.

Something tells me the whole picture of life as God intends it is right here and now but we don't see it yet. There's no picture on a box.  Like a baby, new to the world, we capture it, learn it, grow with it, and pursue it piece by piece. Guide books like The Holy Bible are great if we use them and don’t get bogged down with arguments or abandon them because we cannot completely believe.  

There’s something to be said, also, for the idea that at some point we see clearly enough that we simply give up the puzzle theory and break through to reality where we reflect the whole all at once, not in bits and pieces, but like a mirror, a big mirror. I don’t think that time comes until we’re ready for it. Maybe it will be like stepping onto a higher platform in space where we get a better picture. I like to call that platform Understanding.

While working the jig-saw puzzle theory, something tells me I, too, have a part to play in making the pieces of life fit, in painting the picture as well. We are artists, engineers, seekers of Truth, and explorers. We are not stuck in the puzzle. We have a part to play in this grand adventure. We’re given the challenge to work it out with the light that’s been given us. It’s God’s way of letting us engage with Him in the creation of His grand works. Like a father teaches his child how to swim or fish or play ball, or like a mother who shows her child how to make a lovely home and get along with others.

The puzzle now on my table is one of a farm yard, a farm with little buildings clustered around a farm house. Sheep wander around freely and there’s a goat and a cow and horse. Of course a dog and cat and chickens and ducks...you get the picture. I love the moments I spend with it and I know when I finish and the last piece is put in its place I’ll see it anew and say to myself, “How good it is! I’d love to come in. May I?” (I grew up in the country and I know a lot about farms, especially the small old-fashioned ones.)

Do you suppose God is still putting together pieces of His perfect heavenly creation, the one already created, already here, with the light He’s shining on it? If so, I don’t doubt He will again and again let us help, even insist that we help, to put the pieces together. Then we too will behold and declare the final picture to be “very good!” And it will not have taken any time at all because eternity doesn’t know about time. But that’s another story, another big chunk of the puzzle.