Above Average

Life is a sea of statistics and I was interested to learn yesterday that among American women I have passed the average age of death. I think I know why. It’s because I’ve kept my childhood without being too childish. There is a difference, you know. Besides that, put simply, I’ve been lucky. I was born rich. Not in worldly wealth but in familial love and decency and in gratitude for daily supply and the joy of living. Above all, I am grateful to have had early instruction in the Christian way of life that does not get bogged down in dogma or blind faith. 

My daughter-in-law told my son, “I think I know why your mother always looks on the positive side. It’s because she’s good at letting go.” I was happy to hear that because I think it’s true. You’ve probably heard the story of how certain natives captured monkeys. They took empty gourds, tied them to trees and put grain inside them. When the monkey found one he’d reach in easily but with a fist full of grain he could not pull his hand out of the gourd. Being stubborn, he’d hang onto the grain until he was captured. My philosophy is to see good everywhere and in everything. Then I can let go of the good that traps me. 

Another reason I think I’m living this long is that I’m not afraid of what is called “death.” I’m not even afraid of the problem that might precede my demise. Why? Because I take life one day at a time and am so busy gleaning the good out of it I can't be bothered too much by what goes wrong. If the wrong can be righted, I’ll address it in practical ways. If not, I’ll let go of it and turn my thought to better paths. 

I know of a man who became totally paralyzed from his neck down. He was a Christian Scientist and asked not to be treated by the medical faculty. His wife hired a person to come in daytimes while she went to work to support them but before she left for work she would feed him and get him ready for the day. To occupy his mind he asked to have the textbook of his denomination, Science & Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, set before him. His wife propped it up on a book stand in front of him and opened to page one. Each day he’d study one page and memorize it. His physical condition continued for ten years but he kept mentally alert by the book. He never gave up. Then, after all that time, he began to see physical improvement. Soon he was able to move, and before long he was up, walking, and in full use of his faculties. This has been documented and you can look up his name, Peter J. Henniker-Heaton, on Goggle to see his testimony. 

No, I don’t believe in blind faith but I do believe that faith can see beyond the limits of what appears real to the five physical senses. I believe there’s a spiritual universe all around us, even a heavenly kingdom that we see and understand faintly at this stage of our development. We’re like infants, aware enough of heaven to recognize the difference between good and evil, but not comprehending the full scope of it. When we get it wrong or misinterpret, we cry. We stumble and fall, but we pick ourselves up and go on. We let go and we find new discoveries. We learn, sometimes through science, other times through suffering, to be obedient to the law of Love and we live because of it. In the end we find there is no end. No beginning either. Just the Infinite, the Only, the All.

As for today, a little poem my mother gave me when I was a child has served me well as a morning prayer. I don’t know the author but here it is:

Now I rise at the dawn of day

Knowing God is my only guide.

In thought or deed, in work or play,

I know that He is at my side.

He is my help in everything.

He goes with me and rules my day,

No matter what the day may bring

Since I reflect my God alway.

I cannot claim great achievements in life or brag about anything, for that matter. I’ve been lucky, (fortunate is a better word.) I’ve focused on the good and let go of what seems bad, and I’ve treated each day as a little child would, with joy, gratitude and a mind full of wonder. Tragedy, war, fear, may spook me at times, I may fret and cry over both the trivial and serious, but this child in me just gets up, dusts herself off and marches on. That’s why I can say I’m a little above average in longevity. In other things I'm not so sure, but I do keep attending this school of life. I'm not ready to drop out quite yet, let alone graduate. I regret not striving more for perfection in all things, but at least I can claim to be above average in age. That's something! 

Occupation: Retired?

The first few months of Wally Ginder Wethe’s retirement from the U.S. Marine Corps were painful. He’d sleep in mornings, move to the sofa in his pajamas to sit and read, fall asleep there, and eventually wander around the house like a lost soul. If I tried to help by suggesting some task around the house or yard he’d say, “I didn’t get out of the Marines just to make you my commanding officer!”

It was hard on me too. That old saying, “I married him for better or for worse, but NOT for lunch!” rang true after the first few days. I was reminded of how pleasant it had been to see him all clean-shaven, breakfasted, and looking snappy in his bright-buttoned uniform and polished shoes as he left the house for a day of flying a fighter plane or "flying a desk." Then I could do my own thing at my own pace and happily be my own boss. I had no more college homework, no outside job where I had to please someone else, and if I got bored studying recipe books or shopping for groceries or house-cleaning I could go over to visit Liz, a friend and another officer’s wife, and play with her baby. A year and a half later I had my own baby, two years later another, and six years after that our third and last child. I had plenty to do. Later I kept busy in my own ways, but with my husband at home all day? That changed the picture.

Not long after his retirement Wally G. got another job working for his church in various capacities. That was satisfying to him and he kept at it until the day he died. Proving, I’d say, that there’s little in the word “retirement” to recommend it as a satisfying state of living. I looked up the word in my dictionary and found most of the definitions to be negative, like "loneliness, reclusiveness, aloofness, apartness, separateness, solitariness, isolation, inactivity." Sandwiched in with these were a few words that spoke positively such as privacy, tranquility, serenity, and inactivity. I included that last word in the positive sense too because it turns me off to read about seniors who attempt to counter their age by doing things like sky-diving, long-distance running, motorcycling, bicycling through traffic, playing strenuous tennis games, mountain-climbing and other youthful pursuits. Why can’t they just do normal things, leave youth to the young and grow old gracefully?

Inactivity, I’m finding, can be an art. When I sit and look around my little creekside patio, listen to the waterfall, the birds, watch the sunlight glint amidst the trees and send dancing reflections of the creek up the neighborhood walls, I find a kind of bliss that silences the old work ethic nags. I say to them, “Enough! Been there. Done that.”

Sometimes I wonder what I could have done with my life to make more of a mark in the world. I haven’t been too self-indulgent and I’ve spent ample time looking for real answers to life, occasionally sharing my “finds” with a listening ear. I’ve pursued some talents and intend to do more of that in the near future. I’ve been helpful to my friends and family whenever I can, and I treat life as an open school, myself a willing student if not an over-achiever.

When I need to fill out a form and they ask my occupation I always have to think about that a minute before I answer “retired.” That word seems deceptive to me. Now if I could re-define “retired” to mean the state of working and playing on my own terms at my own pace, in other words a kind of do-what-I-want-when-I-want-at-the-pace-I-choose, then that’s my idea of an honest "retired" answer. Could there be another term for it? How about this; 

Occupation: optional 

I wonder when I’ll get my next chance to write that on some form. It might make someone smile. It works for me.

My Fireplace

I’ve had quite a few fire-places in my life. The first was the kerosene kitchen stove in the little Minneapolis house on Russell Ave. N. It had white porcelain handles to turn on the gas. My first four years were lived in that house and I learned well the meaning of the word “No!” which was spoken whenever I’d try to play with those pretty handles. We had a coal burning furnace there too, but it was in the basement and I don’t remember getting acquainted with it.

The next fire place I knew was in my country grandma’s kitchen. You’ve seen, no doubt, replicas of those black wrought iron creatures in second hand and collectible stores. But you haven’t really known that kind of fireplace unless you’ve seen the real thing in use. I didn’t need the cautionary word “No” with this stove. It was hot and scary to look into, but when I was held in someone’s arms I could feel it enough to understand I must keep my distance. Still, it was exciting to look at the glowing contents when Grandma lifted the lid with her right hand and held me with her left arm.

In the early 1930‘s before rural electricity came to her home Grandma’s house was lit by candles in any room that was occupied. Candles were no-touch-by-children objects too but Grandma would carry a candle up the stairs with me at bedtime. When more light was needed a kerosene lamp on the kitchen table did the trick. I didn’t like the glare or smell of that thing. Besides it hissed!

I heard about real fireplaces at Christmastime when I saw pictures of them on Christmas cards and in children's books and wished that we had one in our own country home. I worried that Santa wouldn’t come to our house since we had no fireplace but Mother assured me that Santa would be glad to find a house where he wouldn’t be obliged to jump into a sooty chimney. We’d leave the door unlocked that one night of the year and put a plate of cookies and a glass of milk on the table for him.

What we did have in the way of a fireplace in our own country house was a genuine pot-bellied stove with chrome bumpers and foot rests. I was not allowed to touch it but I could watch Daddy feed it and enjoy the comforts it offered, especially when I bathed in the laundry tub set next to it on winter Saturday nights.

When I was seventeen I went to live with my other grandmother in a little adobe tile-roofed California house in Riverside, California. It had a real fireplace. We had to buy firewood at the corner grocery and carry it home so we used the fireplace sparingly, but it was fun to tend the fire, using a long poker to move the logs, then sit and watch the flames leap and sputter until they turned into golden shimmering cities of coals. 

After I was married we moved frequently and had other fireplaces in houses too numerous to mention but the fireplace experience never grew old. It was always special. On camping trips we had many a fire outside our tent at night to cook on and roast marshmallows. When we lived on the ranch in southern Oregon our fireplace was a Franklin stove, a free-standing fireplace invented by Benjamin himself. 

In my present home I do not have a fireplace but early mornings before dawn I often light up the collection of candles spread over my secretary-desk. Candlelight, like firelight, moves unpredictably like something alive and autonomous. I often have a hard time concentrating on what I’m reading because of the fascination of dreamy dancing little flames. I call that corner “my fireplace.” (Don’t worry, dear reader, I never leave it unattended.) This morning I nearly drifted back to sleep sitting across from my "fireplace." Then Katie woke up and we went shopping. 

I’m done transferring this blog to my computer now and I feel a nap coming on. I’ll wait until morning to re-light my fire-place. I’ll tell it about the blog I wrote and it will give me, no doubt, a happy little light show in honor of its going public.

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!