Archived posts from December 2006
I had left the boys and was several states away with Brian at a meeting. In the middle of the afternoon, my cell phone went off. I don’t usually answer it when I’m in a meeting, unless it’s my kids. They rate!
I left the room and took the call.
It was son #2, who was a young teen at the time. I knew immediately something was very wrong. He was upset, shaken, and was having difficulty telling me what was the matter. "I was outside mowing the lawn, and...." he hesitated.
"And what???"
"I....I think I found our cat." The words came out in a rush.
Now I was puzzled. "Our cat? What do you mean you ‘think’ you found our cat?" As far as I knew, our cat was not missing. I had been gone less than 24 hours, and I was pretty sure I had seen the cat before we left.
He didn’t want to talk about it, but I insisted. "What exactly did you find?"
"Well, just some fur and some bones."
I was having a hard time thinking that the cat I had seen just yesterday could so quickly be reduced to fur and bones. But I didn’t want to press my son any further. We were all pretty close to Mr. Jinks, our cat. My boy was traumatized, and I didn’t want to make him feel any worse. I told him to leave the mowing, and go do something else. I told him I would call him back in a few minutes. I hung up, and quickly called son #1. I explained what had happened, and asked him to go take care of the situation immediately. I told him I needed him to determine if our cat was indeed history, to take care of the remains, and to comfort his brother. I also told him to call me as soon as he could. He agreed and said he was on his way.
I went back to my meeting, feeling bad I wasn’t there for them. I was anxious to hear about poor Mr. Jinks. I waited and waited for the call from son #1, and it never came. I finally called him back.
"How’s your brother?"
"He’s okay," was the answer.
"Well, was it the cat?" I demanded.
"I don’t know."
"What do you mean, ‘you don’t know’???" I was getting upset.
"Well, I’m just not sure. The thing has an unusual skeletal system. I’m in here on the internet researching cat skeletons."
Researching cat skeletons? Now I was really upset! How could you not recognize the remains of your cat that couldn’t have been dead for more than twenty four hours? I was so frustrated that I was not there to handle things. #1 told me he would continue to work on it, and he would make sure that #2 was alright.
That night, my cell phone rang. It was my boy.
"Guess what I’m doing. I’m standing in the driveway, petting our cat!"
I was so happy to hear that Mr. Jinks was indeed still among the living. But what was that "thing" out in our backyard?
The next day, we flew home. When we pulled in the driveway, the first thing I did was to go investigate the great mystery. It wasn’t hard to locate the place—it was right where the mower had stopped in our half-cut yard. I approached the spot with some trepidation, and saw a pile of hair that was matted to the ground, yes, exactly the color of our cat, kind of a dirty white color. (He was actually a beautiful Burmese blend barnyard cat.) On top of the fur pile was a very clean intact skeleton, which obviously had spent all winter in that spot. The skeleton’s snout was long and pointed, unlike any cat I had ever seen. It was a dead POSSUM!
BZ preached last night on my space. Ha, not the other website, but the interface between heaven and earth that we inhabit. Angels are spirits, animals are bodies, but we humans are an amalgamation of the two, creating an exceedingly complex being. We are, all six billion of us who live here now, totally unique from other another!
Sometimes it’s appealing to think that we are spiritual beings and our bodies don’t really matter. It’s particularly appealing here after the Christmas season when we have gorged ourselves with holiday meals and goodie trays thrust under our faces every time we turn around. But the time of new beginnings is at hand--JANUARY--when everyone knows the gyms fill up and diets begin. I’ve got a few pounds to lose, and will increase my exercise regimen as well as throw out the leftover Christmas candy and junk food.
It is so much FUN to lose weight, especially when it’s a significant amount. Well, maybe not the self-denial and the exercise when you’re first getting started, but the gratification that comes when you start to see results, and then the startling revelation that you really do feel better when you eat healthy and exercise. I love walking my four mile route, sometimes running stretches to get my heart rate up. It revitalizes my energy at the end of the day, decreases the stress level. Sometimes when I come home after dealing with all kinds of issues, I feel so tired and crave comfort food (simple carbs--bread, pasta, SUGAR) but if I can muster up some steely resolve and will myself to put my tennis shoes on and hit the pavement, I’ll get the same gratification after a few miles that a handful of cookies would have given me.
That gratification is a chemical that gets released into our bloodstream, called ENDORPHINS, which is a feel-good hormone. When you stimulate their release by exercise, you feel good for the rest of the evening and you are motivated to go back in the house and eat a healthy meal. You lose that drop-dead feeling you brought home with you. When you stimulate their release by COOKIES, you create a boomerang effect with your blood sugar that wants MORE junk in a couple of hours. More and more I am learning to listen to that inner voice and say no to the cookies.
I’ve lost 20 pounds at two different times in my life. It was so much fun! I felt so good. Getting off the sugar initially was life-changing. I was a sugar junkie, and didn’t know it. I imagine someone reading this just now and rolling their eyes....but it was a life-controlling addiction. I used to get SICK if I missed lunch. I would sometimes feel so bad if it was an hour late that I would have to go to bed and sleep it off. I would get terrible low blood sugar headaches. A meal wasn’t complete if dessert wasn’t included.
I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me, why I would feel so bad. Was it a disease? No, I was just abusing my body and feeding it the wrong diet. I was having such huge swings in my blood sugars. My poor pancreas, anticipating the huge amounts of sugar I routinely dumped into my blood stream, was compensating by dumping huge amounts of insulin in to compensate. When I missed a meal, and DIDN’T make the expected deposit, my blood sugar plummeted. I may have been also setting myself up for diabetes to eventually set in.
I read a book that explained this phenomenon to me, and decided the only way to deal with it was cold turkey. I studied up on the Atkins thing, and one day jumped into a total protein diet. And as expected, I got sick. I felt HORRIBLE. But I was so desperate that I persevered, eating huge amounts of meat and cheese and just about nothing else, and feeling pretty lousy. But after five days, I suddenly woke up feeling GOOD! My pancreas had finally figured out it had to make some adjustments, and I felt an energy I hadn’t known in a long, long time.
I kept on the diet, and the pounds started falling off. I lost twenty pounds in a little over two months. It was amazing, and life-changing. After a while, I didn’t need the huge portions of protein--that was just until my blood sugars stabilized. I stayed on the total protein for about six months, but no one can live like that forever. After a while, I started adding back in the old foods, and after a couple of years, I found myself right back at the same old weight! Imagine! I think of that Bible verse that talks about a dog going back to his VOMIT!
So a few years later, I did it again. This time it was harder for the weight loss thing to kick in. I’ve read that other people have the same thing--you can’t just keep putting your body through this back and forth cycle, it wises up or something. It takes consistency.
I’m not an Atkins for life adherent. I believe that good carbs are vitally important! I’ll confess I’ve gotten back to eating those bad ones a little too frequently, and I have some work to do now. But it’s one of the lessons of life, quit falling off the wagon, because you get HURT when you do.
A beloved 86-year old man in our church died this week. He was a gentleman who loved God, loved people, loved serving in the church. And even though he had been in poor health, his friends’ initial reaction has been shock. As if it is a surprising thing for an 86-year old man with heart trouble to die.
He died in the hospital, surrounded by family. His heart just finally ceased to beat. Not a bad way to go, if you ask me.
Why are people always so startled at death? Is it not the most inevitable thing to occur to every man?
I have absolutely no fear of death. I am so confident of eternal life. I do have a fear though of PAIN at death. I particularly don’t want to die a MESSY death. Fear of blood? No. I used to be an OB nurse. That’s bloody. It’s not scary. That blood is natural, but the blood of trauma is not.
I cringe and look away when there is a deer lying by the side of the road. I took a walk with my sister recently, and she had seen one that had been hit near the drive to my parents’ house. As we walked that direction, she made a point of going over to look at it. I made a point of staying away. When she came back to where I was standing, she said, "Broke its neck and shoulder really bad—must have been going pretty fast." I wished she hadn’t commented.
I’m happy for Bill, the 86-year old. He loved God, he loved people, he loved serving as an usher, even at his age and in his frail condition. When I heard about his death, on the 21
st of December, I thought to myself, "Bill went home for Christmas."
But I know his poor wife of 65 years will be devastated. She will be lost without him. I’m so very sorry for her.
I just lost a pair of friends, a beautiful young newlywed couple on Thanksgiving evening, killed instantly when he lost control coming home from dinner at her parents house. They were 26 and 28, and had been married in our church only six months earlier. I loved them both, I was close to them both, and there was no joy in their death. It wasn’t right. I was and still am very sad, even mad. Yes, they’re in heaven, but they weren’t supposed to be there yet. The funeral home told us there was hardly a scratch on either of their bodies. That wasn’t much consolation.
Jesus himself wept at a funeral once. Kind of funny when you think he must have known he was going to raise his friend Lazarus from the dead in just a few minutes. Why weep? I think he was weeping for the billions of people who are touched by death throughout the ages, for those who weep at gravesides, for lonely widows and fatherless children. He was weeping for all of us, because death relentlessly hunts us all down and we cannot escape the pain it brings. Jesus went to the cross and conquered death, a mystery I cannot fathom, but believe because He said it.
If it weren’t for what Jesus did, what would be the sense of going on living, when you know the inevitable end?
THERE IS ANOTHER WORLD!!! One where death no longer reigns. Not just heaven, but the KINGDOM. A Kingdom we can live in and be a part of, even while we live here on the earth. A Kingdom that continues when our bodies wear out and leave this earth, an existence that is forever. Eternal life doesn’t start when we die, it begins NOW.
You can’t make these things up! I always marvel when I see a funky looking undersea creature or the intricacy of some insect, thinking what a good time God had designing those! I imagine Him chuckling to Himself, and then longing to share it with someone--so He made US!
He promised to provide for us, to take care of all our needs, but sometimes I imagine it gets dull and He wants to think of a especially creative way to do so, to show off His brilliant originality. Here’s a story of something special He did for me in 1984....
I was graduating from nursing school at last. I was 24 years old, with a husband, a toddler, and a little church we had started at the ages of 21 and 22. We were hanging on for dear life till that first paycheck, as my school loans had run out, and we frequently didn’t have any income from the church. It was hard enough to keep the lights on THERE, let alone at our little house.
I had considered going to nursing school after high school, but was more interested in being married to the love of my life. It was only after Caleb was born that the longing to go to school intensified, and my dream was to work in OB. I was one out of four hundred who applied for the thirty spots in the program, and was thrilled to be accepted as an alternate. This meant I didn’t know if I would really get to go until shortly before school started. Sometimes we call our Father "Jehovah Nick-a-time" for a good reason!
I had lots of college hours, and managed to finish the program the same month that Caleb turned three. I knew that nursing was a great profession and you could always get a job. That has always been true, except for 1984, the year I graduated. The local hospital has always had jobs for nearly every new grad from our local university, but that year only ONE girl was hired by the hospital. The rest of us were left stunned trying to figure out what to do.
My dream job was NOT to work in a nursing home. But the checkbook was screaming loudly. I knew nursing homes notoriously paid pretty low, but something was better than nothing. I was making $5.00 an hour now, working evening shift every other weekend at the hospital as a nurse’s aide. The nursing homes were paying $6.00 for registered nurses. I was a little dismayed as I thought about the $2.25 extra I could make if only I could work at the hospital, but a girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do. I trotted myself over to a local nursing home, and got an appointment with the owner/administrator.
The lady was a little eccentric. When I told her I was a new grad looking for a job, she literally started jumping up and down, saying "Praise the Lord!" (That, incidently, was the first and last time I ever heard her say that.) THEN she asked me what kind of money I needed. Her behavior sparked a boldness that shocked even me, as I heard myself say, "I can’t work for a penny less than what the hospital is paying--$8.25."
She shook her head and said, "I don’t know how I’m going to pay that, but you’re hired." We finished up some details, and I went out to the car and did some praisin’ the Lord myself. She later hired another girl out of my class and said, "Don’t tell her what I’m paying you, cause I got her for six bucks." I kept my mouth shut.
I worked there all summer. It wasn’t my dream job, but we were breathing a little easier at home. We were no longer needing to juggle the shut-off notices from the utility companies, which was so nice.
Then one Monday in August I went in to work my shift. The new schedule had been posted on the bulletin board, and everyone was crowded around looking at it. I put my finger on my name and followed the line over to the right--funny, there were no X’s on that line, and I said out loud, "What’s the deal? Are they trying to tell me I’m fired?"
Just then a hand reached into the crowd, got hold of my arm, and pulled me into an office. It was the Director of Nurses, who said, "I’m so sorry. Someone should have told you before now. We’re letting you go. We’ve hired someone else for less money. It’s not your work, it’s just a financial move. I’m so sorry."
I think I gasped, and then the tears came. I wanted to fall on my knees and beg, to say, "I’ll work for $6.00--I was just pulling your leg! I’ve got to have the job!" Instead, through the sobs, I said, "What about today? Do you want me to work today?" She said, "It’s up to you, you can stay or leave."
All I could think about was the $64 I would make if I stayed, but I was crying so hard I didn’t know how I would get through my shift. I called Brian and told him, and he said, "For Pete’s sake, come on home. We don’t need the money that bad. I’m on my way to pick you up." We only had one car, and it was a clunker. He had to pull Caleb out of bed every night at 11:30 to come pick me up.
So now I was unemployed. I may have taken the next day off, but by the next, I was out job-hunting. I went to the hospital, even though I had just applied there three months earlier.
It turns out that they were starting a brand new program just that week, designed to take care of the hospital’s needs when the patient count was up and they needed more help. Nurses working in this program would need to be available each day an hour before their shift was to begin, and they would receive a call if they were needed. There were no hours guaranteed.
This was not going to work for us at all, I needed guaranteed hours, but then I realized that the four week orientation program WAS guaranteed hours. So I accepted a position that started the next week, reasoning at least I would have four weeks of work and maybe something else would turn up in the meantime. And then I asked, could I be assigned to OB? I was thrilled when the answer was YES!!
And so I began my four weeks of work, and loved it. This was my dream job, if only I could have a real job there. I liked the director of the unit, Kathy. On the last day of my orientation, a Friday, I went into her office right before my shift started, and asked again if there was any way she could change my status and put me on the schedule as a regular employee.
She responded, again, that she would love to be able to do that, but that there were no positions available at that time. That was an understatement. The OB unit is the most popular place to work of all, and no one is EVER hired from outside the hospital, as any new positions first have to be posted for current employees to apply for. The nurses working in OB had all been there for years, and there were others who had been WAITING for years to get in.
I thanked her, and went to work. An hour or so later, I was sitting at the nurses station as we watched two hospital security guards escort Kathy down the hall. We were all shocked, and guessing what might have happened. No one realized that a major organizational shift was taking place in the hospital, that every manager at that level was eliminated that afternoon in the same way. They were told to clean out their desks and escorted to the door. We were all shocked.
But I was far more shocked early the next week when I found that my status had been changed, and the job I had so longed for was mine! Some of the other employees were shocked too, and some a little disgruntled. "What did you do to get that preferential treatment? There are others who have been waiting for years to work here."
I had no idea what had transpired, and still don’t. I never saw Kathy again. I often wished I could ask her. I worked there for over three years, and totally loved my job. I only quit when they began working twelve hours shifts (which were always closer to 14) and I had a new baby in addition to my kindergartner. The job just didn’t work for my family anymore, and I began to work in Home Health until the church grew to the point that I could give up my nursing career.
God is so good--He gave me the desires of my heart, but He did it in a way that was so special, a kiss from heaven to prove to me His love, and that with Him all things are possible.
Now I have a daughter-in-law who I dearly love. She, too, is in nursing school. She told me just the other day she wanted to work in OB, at the very same hospital I worked in. I started to tell her how impossible that would be, how it was so very difficult to get a job there. But then I remembered this story, and just laughed....
My husband Brian’s grandma was a nice enough lady, but we were never close. I know he has lots of good memories of her as a child, but she was old when I came to know her, and developed dementia shortly into our marriage and had to be put in a nursing home. She was there for several years, and couldn’t remember anything. She never knew us when we went to visit. We were so glad, however, that she was always pleasant, seemed happy, and laughed when you told her anything funny.
So therefore, her death was not a time of great sadness, but of genuine relief that her time on this earth was up and that she could be free of the haze and confusion that the deterioration of her earthly body had caused. We all knew she was in heaven with Jesus.
We all knew too, the story of how Grandma Mary was the first of her family to have a real relationship with Jesus. Her own mother had died in the influenza epidemic of 1917, and she and her sister had come to live with Aunt Elizabeth. Aunt Elizabeth, a spinster, was a strong Baptist woman, and she saw to it that her two young charges were in church every time the doors were open. And when Mary began to be courted by Lloyd, Aunt Elizabeth made sure he came to know Jesus too. Lloyd and Mary were married for many years, very active members of the local Baptist church, and Lloyd was a deacon there until his death. They had three young boys when Lloyd was drafted to go fight in WWII, and Mary ran the family clothing store, the Quality Shop, while he was away. When he returned, they continued to run the store together, and put all three boys through college, a Baptist college.
Lloyd had died unexpectedly a few years before Brian and I were married. Mary continued to run the store, until she no longer could, and the Quality Shop went out of business. Times were changing, there wasn’t much need for a smalltown independent shop specializing in overalls and farmer’s hats.
And so Mary’s life was over, and I was sitting on a pew filled with her progeny, listening to Mary’s pastor preach her funeral. The service was progressing just as I expected it to, the organ was played, the appropriate hymns were sung, the obituary was read, and now the pastor was giving the eulogy.
He said he hadn’t known Mary when she was healthy and active in the church, so there were not many personal stories he could tell. He said he had therefore gone back to the church records, and found she had made her Profession of Faith many years ago, on November 9, 1919. This information was to most of the hearers just a useless bit of trivia, but I was stunned. November 9, 1974, was the date that my husband, Mary’s grandson, had had his own powerful encounter with Jesus--exactly fifty-five years later! How significant--it was as if a door in heaven had been opened with Mary’s conversion, and that some kind of power was released for that date years and years later--a generational outpouring. I took my mind off autopilot and really began to listen to what that preacher had to say about Grandma Mary.
He talked about how the records showed she’d been on every committee and done everything a person could do to support the ministry of the church. She’d taught Sunday School--she’d been active in the Baptist Women’s Ministry, supported missionaries through the Lottie Moon program, had even had a missionary to the Phillippines stay with her for extended periods while she was on furlough. He talked about the three boys she’d raised--I was raising three boys myself. I began to think about all the things she and I had in common, things I’d never realized. He talked about how much Mary loved a good joke, how she had been known for her jokes. I began to see her as a woman who loved life, as someone I would have loved to have known, not the worn-out, senile old woman I had come to think of her as. I realized that had we not been separated by sixty years, we could have been good friends.
That’s when I began to cry. I still remember the startled look I got from some family members, the raised eyebrows from my sister-in-law sitting several places down on the pew. I hadn’t expected to cry at Mary’s funeral. And I wasn’t crying for Mary, I was so glad she was free, and once again living, really living, living as she’d never lived before. I was crying because I understood that heaven is really going to be heaven, and in addition to all the other unspeakable riches we’ll experience, we’ll have the chance to love and interact with people as we never have. I won’t know Mary as an old woman there, and she won’t know me as a young one. We will be women together, women who lived life on this earth, struggled through whatever we struggled through, and came through in victory. I will know Mary in another life, really know her! We can and will be friends--there will be no restraints of time or age or location or busyness.
I have a lot of life left to live here, but when my time is up, I don’t want to have any sadness or regret. I want to live a great, rich full life here, with an anticipation of even greater things to come. I’ll see you soon, Mary! I wonder who else I’ll meet, what else we’ll do, the places we’ll go, the adventures we’ll have......eternal life has begun!
my quirky creative boy (well actually they’re all quirkily creative, in their own ways) had to do a report on stress for his freshman health class. he worked for days at the computer editing a video he and a couple of classmates spent Saturday filming, and was often heard laughing hysterically to himself. he finished up at 10 pm the night before it was due. the teacher liked it so much she made him show it twice, and then showed it to every class she had that day. i want to give you the opportunity to watch it too. the third segment, the trash catapult, is the best. if you make it through that, watch the outtakes at the end.
Health--Stress video
For more films, check his
xanga site.
I was thinking last night about "kisses from heaven"--those special times you know Jesus had done something just to show His great love for you. I’m putting together a journal of many of those kisses.....most of which I can’t post here--too special, too personal! sorry!
This is a story of the woman I called "Thoroughly Modern Milly", my grammy who I lost at the age of 100 in 2003.
The Coolest Grammy in the World
I had the coolest grammy in the world. I adored her always. I spent many, many weekends at her house growing up, and always loved being there. She was fun—she was hip—she was cool. She wore shorts and flashy clothes. She had a great wardrobe, and let us play in her big closet and wear anything we wanted. It was a Narnia type closet, and you never knew what treasures you would find as you made her way to the back.. I particularly remember a long pink taffeta robe, belted with a very full skirt. When I wore it, it dragged the ground behind me in a train and made a swishing noise when I walked. I wore it with the white sandals with brightly colored rhinestones. She had plastic pop-it beads, and even let my cousin and me wear her perfume. She kept coloring books and a few toys for us, but her things were the most fun. She had an electric typewriter—what a machine! She had cable TV and a window air conditioner—it was hot at our own house and we only got three channels. She took us to the park and packed picnic lunches in a big basket. She took me and my cousins to the drive-in theatre. She had a fascinating attic we explored, part of an equally fascinating house and yard. I was shocked years later when I had the opportunity to tour it as an adult and found it was so small. I remembered it HUGE! She moved out of that house when I was 14, the home she had spent the entire 47 years of her married life in, moving the year after her husband died into an apartment she occupied for another 30 years. I spent the night with her at the apartment only a little, for I was growing up and changing. But I loved Grammy always. No one could be grumpy when Grammy was around—she wouldn’t allow it. She carried such a happy atmosphere everywhere she went. When I was a teenager and a young adult, and sometimes feeling disapproval from the rest of the family, I always knew I could feel loved and accepted by Grammy.
I was stunned to realize that Grammy had been 57 when I was born—I thought of her as a very young grandmother, when in fact she was older than most. But youth is an attitude, not always an age. Grammy was always trendy. I have pictures of her as a flapper in the roaring twenties, standing in knickers with a headband, hands on her hips leaning on an old Model A Ford. She didn’t much care for "old people", even when she was one. She was disgusted at having to move into a nursing home at age 95—"I don’t want to eat that old people food!" she told me. When I asked her what she wanted to eat, she said "pizza and tacos!" I would frequently take her Taco Bell, and she would be delighted to skip the lunchroom that day.
When her wealthy older sister was giving up her home, my grammy spented weeks helping her sort her possessions. She called me one night and said, "You’ll never guess what Eva wanted to give you—those old crystal chandeliers she had in the dining room. I told her you wouldn’t want those old things." "Yes, I would, Grammy! You go back tomorrow and tell her I’d be delighted to have them!" I told her pointedly. She called me back the next day. "Well, Eva had already given those chandeliers to someone else. But you’ll never guess what I got you!! A blender!" That was Grammy. Out with the old, and in with the new. I gave the blender to my sister.
Her given name was Milly, and her sister’s Eva. But when they were teenagers, they went to the courthouse and had their names legally changed. Eva became Evelyn, and Milly became Mildred Irene, because those names sounded "more sophisticated." Grammy HATED the name Mildred all her adult life, and regretted having changed it--why she never changed it back is a mystery. She insisted everyone call her Milly, and would grimace when a nurse in the hospital or someone else would call her Mildred.
She was a faithful babysitter to my boys. She was almost 80 when my firstborn arrived, and loved to have him whenever I could bring him. She watched the second one as well, and often. The boys loved their Grammy too. By the time the last one arrived, however, she was 92, and beginning to be frail. I wouldn’t leave him with her, even though she begged me to. Every year we would get together to make candy at Christmas—and always peanut butter balls. Those are hard to stir together, but I remember how Grammy would put her whole body into it. And I remember the Christmas she just didn’t have the strength, and how it broke her heart not to be able to stir the peanut butter balls. She had always worked so hard, and was now beginning to feel useless.
She resisted growing old, she fought it with everything she had. She told me many times, especially after being in the nursing home, "I never wanted to get this old." How do you respond to that? My heart hurt for her. She was becoming so frail, and for the last five years couldn’t get out of bed or out of a chair unassisted. She fell often, and I met the ambulance at the emergency room more than once. I watched her being x-rayed after a fall at the nursing home—in such pain with her hip. It was painful for me to see how much it hurt her to be turned from side to side, even gently. And I was so sad to see the actual x-rays, to be able to actually see that her bones had deteriorated to almost nothing.
The dementia was even harder to accept. I got a call once while she was still in the apartment—the manager said she was sick and needed some help. I dropped everything and drove as quick as I could to her apartment. Yes, she was sick, and confused. I had never seen that before, and had to take her to be admitted to the hospital. She got mad at me, and accused me of tricking her, and stayed angry for a long time. My grammy had never been angry with me for more than a few minutes. My beloved grammy was slowly dying, and I didn’t know how to handle it.
She hated the nursing home, at least most of the time. She was sullen and grumpy frequently, and other times told ridiculous stories, stories about her baby twin brothers, whom she had loved and been the best of friends until their deaths twenty years before. She was living some past life with them, and we weren’t much a part of that life. But visiting Grammy was so unpredictable, because sometimes she would be the old Grammy I loved so much. Those times became rarer and rarer.
When she was 98, I was planning a trip to Israel, and a couple of days before we were to leave, I went to visit her. I took my two youngest boys with me, probably 7 and 12 at the time. Grammy was asleep with her mouth wide open when we went in, and no amount of yelling or shaking her shoulder would wake her up. (Well, no amount of yelling ever would. She had become almost stone-deaf, and we kept a dry erase board handy to write her notes. That was a difficult way to hold a conversation. She would ask us why we wouldn’t just talk—she refused to acknowledge there was anything wrong with her hearing.)
The boys got spooked. "Let’s get out of here." They thought she was dead—never mind that she was snoring loudly. We finally left, and after supper I got in the bathtub and cried my eyes out, sobbing and grieving over my dear grammy. I was sure she wouldn’t be there when I got home from Israel. I was sure I’d seen her for the last time. I said my goodbyes as I cried in the tub, and later that evening I took the time to compose a letter that could be read from me at the funeral.
But she didn’t die. In fact, two years later we planned a 100 th birthday party for her. We invited everyone who ever knew her, even put an invitation in the local newspaper. It would be a good opportunity to see family we hadn’t seen in a while. Grammy hadn’t wanted to go to family reunions after she needed a walker, and after she was eligible to win the prize for oldest person present. She hadn’t wanted to acknowledge her age or declining health.
When the big day came, we saw to it that her hair and nails were freshly done, and Mom had a pretty outfit for her to wear. And lo and behold, for that day only, it was as if God gave her back to us. There was no senility that day, no confusion. She sat up in that wheelchair and was Queen for the Day. She told jokes; she entertained her visitors, who came by the droves; she was witty, the life of the party.
One woman approached her "throne", and introduced herself. Of course Grammy couldn’t hear her, and said she didn’t know her. My cousin Sandy and I got the lady to write her name down, and Grammy recognized it instantly. She was the daughter of a very close friend. Grammy looked at her and said, "You can’t be so-and-so, you’re OLD!" We all had a good laugh—the woman was 85!
The next day, Grammy was confused and talking out of her head, but the birthday had been so special—I was thrilled with it, and thanked Jesus for another "kiss from heaven", just something special He wanted to give us.
Just a few months later, Grammy got very sick and we were told she wasn’t going to make it. She lingered a few hours and then drew her last breath. The funeral was cold—it was February. Very few people came. That was perfectly fine—they had all been there to say goodbye such a short time before. I hardly cried at all....I knew Grammy was at peace, with Jesus, and I had done my grieving for the Grammy I loved so much that evening in the bathtub two years before.
Even now I sometimes forget she’s gone, and want to tell her something, or find out how to make her special pickles or homemade chocolate sauce. I do have those recipes, as well as many others. I have her coffee table in my living room, and a picture hanging in my entryway that was hers as well. But she does live, in my memory, and I know I will see her again. What a great day that will be! ![]("http://xca.xanga.com/1a9d24610053595617536/z66906184.jpg" "\"DSCF0048\"")
My cousin Sandy, Grammy, and me! October, 2003
I’m still trying to figure out Xanga World....I mean, I love to write, but there are all these other functions.....I finally figured out a hyperlink....woo woo! Very helpful when you’re referencing books and get the Amazon link to read further or to order.
But how do you talk back when people to talk to you? I mean, someone comments on a blog, you get notified by an e-mail and so you read it. But how do you comment back? It’s a bit murky to me...and I hope I haven’t just made you all think I’m a complete idiot, but then again, you may already! if anyone wants to give me a few hints, I’ll accept them with gratitude and humility. Another true confession, while I’m being so transparent--I’ve given serious thought to joining a blogring, but I don’t really know what they are, what they do for ya, or even how to join! ha--I AM an idiot!
So, more thoughts on Elie Wiesel and his book "Night", brought on by comments
you’re right, sovereignty/free will--it’s both. How can such a thing be? Only in God’s kingdom--his thoughts and ways are so much higher....his kingdom is full of paradoxes--and they are paradoxes because we exist in another, limited reality. (makes me think of Philip Yancey’s book, Rumors of Another World --a fascinating look at how we as Christians live in both worlds--the spiritual and the natural. Check out the HYPERLINK!!!!!)
You can’t read Elie Wiesel and not be broken by compassion for him...no one should have to suffer like the Jews did. There is a phenomenon that MANY Jews no longer believe in God because of the Holocaust.....the Bible talks about a partial hardening that has come over Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in....a MYSTERY we can only understand as God reveals it to those who have ears to hear.
I’m off to Borders now to do some Christmas shopping, I’m going to look at Wiesel’s other autobiographical books while I’m there and maybe treat myself....hmm wondering how my font just changed again, another great mystery of life.....i truly believe computers work by magic...
I loved/hated "Night" by Elie Wiesel, the story of his life as a teenager in the concentration camp of Auschwitz. It was haunting--the honesty in which he related how his father died and how he, as a young adolescent, did nothing to prevent it, was gut wrenching. I know I for one could never stone him for that sin--there but for the grace of God go I. Anything he would have done would only have made him their next victim.
I saw the interview Oprah did with Elie Wiesel, it is well worth seeing if you’re able to find it somewhere.
This young Jew, so devout as an early teen, said his experiences brought him to the knowledge that there is no God. Why do horrible experiences bring some to God, and push some to "curse God and die," as Job was tempted?
The Holocaust happened sixty years ago, in a world not very different from the one we live in today. Yes, it could happen again, easily.
Some of my favorite books:
The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank Was God on Vacation? by Jack van der Geest Night by Elie Wiesel Favorite Movies:
Life is Beautiful Schindler’s List The Pianist
I’m currently reading
Light Force by Brother Andrew, about persecuted Christians in Muslim countries, and the challenge to bring the gospel to hurting people, who because of being born in the Arab world may never have had the opportunity to really respond to the good news of Jesus.
This world is so full of suffering people. Israel essentially is a nation born of the intense pain of the Holocaust. But that nation, and the region surrounding it, continues to be the most troubled place in the world. There are no easy answers to the pain and tumult of the Middle East. The ONLY answer is a Savior.....
