I'm BAAAAAAAACK.

Oh, internets. I know I've been gone a long time. Not a single post in August? How is this possible? Ah. Well, I've been busy. Let's sum up, shall we? 

First, Jess and I have been working on helping Myra empty out her house. Mostly what's left is the bits and pieces of spending 38 years in one place: dust bunnies, her massive jigsaw puzzle collection, some canned goods that are too old to recognize, much less eat. 

And then there's this. A mason jar full of ammunition. This is the kind of thing the basement used to be full of, in various ways, but most of that got cleaned out after the flood of '97. So here we are, ten years since Dad died, 26 years since he used any sort of gun, with a mason jar full of bullets & shells. You can't just throw this stuff away, you know.

So we brought it to Mike, Hendrum's lone police officer. The thing I love about Hendrum is it's pretty simple. Got a jar full of live ammo? I know just the guy to give it to. When we showed up on his doorstep, offering him this odd, potentially dangerous gift, he just grinned at us and said he'd take care of it. "Some of these are still good, I think," he told us. "Have fun," we told him.

 V and I have spent as much time as we can out at the lake. Here we are playing Bingo in Nevis, wearing our "What Happens in Nevis Stays in Nevis" shirts. It was a good day.

 And we've enjoyed the company of V's cousins. Pictured below is Jake, who has decided that as a superhero, he wants to be ToiletMan. You don't want to know ToiletMan's weapon of choice. (And I can't explain why he's holding a stuffed fish, either, so don't ask). Jake is just 6 months younger than V, and hilarious and strong-willed. That may run in one or all of our families.

 In unrelated news, Shaun got a new job several weeks ago, so he's no longer working nights! It's good to have him back in the land of the living, and it's really the best job he's had in over a decade, in terms of the work & hours. Perhaps that's why he looks so dang happy.

I have other posts in mind, and though it was an unscheduled and prolonged break, I hope you'll forgive me, gentle readers. It's good to be back.

Death, be not proud

with apologies to John Donne, et al.

So part of my mean reds, by no means all, but a good portion, has to be related to the fact that today marks the tenth anniversary of the death of my father. Ten years. More than a quarter of my life now, without him. It takes my breath away to even think of it. I...ach. I could blither on, but I decided months ago that I wanted to reprint an article from the paper version of Languishing (Winter 2004, Issue 1, Volume 8) today. I wrote it just a month or so after he died, and I print it here mostly unaltered.

Mighty and dreadful indeed.

Death Be Not Proud
One woman's story of losing her daddy.

Wednesday, 24 July 2002: 7:30am: Mom called this morning. Seems dad's chest pains from last night didn't go away, so I'm heading over to Hillsboro. I talked to Jess, told her not to come. I know she feels so far away in the Cities, but this is just chest pains. She'll be home this weekend, and can see him then.

8:30am: Dad looks gaunt, almost skeletal. He always looks this way, though, in his hospital gown, when he's had a ride in the ambulance. How many times have we been here? Since I was twelve, after those first 6 months of rehab after the stroke, I've seen him like this....half a dozen times? A dozen? Too many, but it's not like any of us chose this life. It just is. I smooth his hair; what I feel towards my father, what I have felt for almost 17 years, is very much typical father-daughter love. But also motherly, because he needs care. I clip his fingernails, clean out his ears when they're dirty. I cut up his steak for him. Rustle my fingers through his beard when I try to convince him to trim it. But he is always my father. He wheels his chair out with me to the parking lot, checks my tires, makes sure the headlights work, makes me use my seat belt. He is comforting, familiar, strong. He tells me everything will work out, that I can do what I am afraid to do, that he loves me.

In this little hospital room with uncomfortable chairs and a television mounted on the wall, I talk to Jess again. Should she come? I ask Dad. No, he says, shaking his head emphatically, as if to say, Don't be silly. The nurse is in the room with us, and after a few minutes, he starts coughing, waving his hand at her, raising his voice. She doesn't understand him, and I'm still on the phone with Jess. "He's going to throw up" I snap at the nurse, frustrated that she doesn't comprehend our secret code of gestures and inflection. Jess says, "I'm on my way" just before I hang up on her, because the black bile is seeping through Dad's beard onto his faded gown. The nurse apologizes, and I do, too, because she couldn't know that this time "Deelo...deelo!" meant "I need an emesis basin."

9am: The doctor comes in. Mom is really worried, but I'm not. Jesus, he survived a massive stroke, the amputation of both legs: some little heart palpitation's not going to kill him. The doctor is short, shorter than me, and other than that he reminds me of my cousin Chad, with olive skin, dark, thinning hair, and a laid-back way. His news is not good. There's been a heart attack, of significant size, it seems. Dad's asleep now, because the nurse gave him medicine to help with his nausea. We stand over him, talk around him. Mom strokes his bald head. I ask what we should do. I get frustrated, because I feel like the doctor and we are speaking two different languages. "It's up to you," he says. Yeah, we know that. What should we do?? "Well, he has a DNR order..." Yeah, we know that too. What does this mean. How bad is it? WILL HE DIE? "We don't know yet. We could find out the extent of the damage, but he'd have to go to Fargo for that." He's sleeping now. I don't think he wants to go to Fargo. I don't know. So if we don't find out the extent of the damage.... what happens? We know strokes, we know gallstones, we know prostate and cancer and bladder infections and amputations, but we don't know heart attacks. "He could recover. The next 24 hours will be important." I'm glad Jessica is on her way. I call her cell and tell her so, and tell her that Dad's comfortable now, snoring lightly. She's scared, but our Aunt Shirley, Dad's sister, is with her. I'm glad of that too. They just left the city, and it's almost 10 am.

12 noon: Brenda, our friend and the wife of our pastor in Hendrum, stops by. She's an RN, and looks at Dad carefully. I show her his vitals, which I've been recording in my journal. Blood pressure: 90/40; pulse 120; temp 99.2; oxygen 84%. She talks to Dad, although he's not really awake at all. Tells him she's here, says a prayer with us. The Lord's Prayer hurts my chest when I say it. "Our father, who art in heaven." Brenda does a healing ceremony, instead of communion, and it involves anointing with oil. It feels too much like last rites and Mom and I both cry.

Dad's kidneys aren't working much. He's been in the hospital since 7:30, and he's made no urine. This is very bad, Brenda tells us. Her seriousness scares me. She takes mom out for lunch, and I sit with Dad, tell him about work, Shaun, our dog, our house. I tell him I love him over and over and over again. I know he knows: it just helps to say it. Beverly, Dad's other sister, who lives in California, calls. She wants to know how he is, and I tell her, as he sleeps. Dad and Bev were so close as children, practically twins. As she's about to hang up, he opens his eyes, and I say, wait, here he is. I hold the phone to his ear, and though he's groggy, I tell him it's his sister Bev. He hears her voice, and responds. He knows it's her: I don't know what she says to him, but he says "yeah," a few times, tells her he's okay, I think. I take the phone and tell her he knew it was her, and she says she knows. She's looking into flights to Fargo.

2pm: The doctor stops by again. The kidney thing has him worried. Why aren't they working, we ask.  His blood pressure is so low, they're not getting enough blood. His heart has been damaged, so it's pumping where it can. Will that get better? Maybe. Let's inject him with some saline, and some medicine to make him urinate, and see if that helps. Okay. C'mon kidneys. Mom is really quiet. I don't see why everyone has to be so solemn. It's been bad before.

3pm: Jess and Shirley arrive. They stopped in Moorhead and picked up Shaun. Dad wakes up and knows Jess, certainly, and she kisses him and cries and cries. He's hardly awake at all any more, from the medication or the effort his heart is making to pump what little it can. Mom, Jess, and I talk with Dad, who won't wake up, about how we won't resuscitate. No breathing tubes, no surgeries. If the kidneys work, they work. If not, we'll have to let him go. Dad agreed to this years ago, but we tell each other again that this is what he wants, what we all know should happen, if it has to.

The doctor comes back, and as the saline and medication have not jump-started the kidneys, he recommends we bring family in. This is the first time I'm really startled. He says "If there's family thinking of coming, you should tell them to come. Now." We use Shirley's cell phone to call relatives. I call three of mom's siblings: Bev, John, and Sharon. "This might be it, the doctor says," I tell three people, and for some reason it gets harder every time. I can't call any one else after that. Jessica calls the others, and we let Shirley call Dad's side of the family. We are very, very tired.

6pm: We go eat supper in shifts. Shirley and I and Shaun go first, to the Wagon Wheel Restaurant in Hillsboro. It feels like a VFW hall, kind of, with industrial tables and chairs. I eat fried shrimp, and the three of us talk, and sort of look at each other, surprised, kind of, by what seems about to happen. i feel like my eyes are wide open, insistently watching, waiting. Shaun feels helpless, afraid for us, and doesn't know how to help. When we get back to the hospital, Uncle Harry, Dad's older brother, is there. They have been fighting with each other for about 10 years, or maybe 15. It feels like forever, but we're glad he's there. Even Dad, I think, knows how much Harry loves him this summer night.

7pm-on: Through the evening, we have lots of company; Pastor Tim comes, and Shaun's dad, and Carla and Darrell and Janice, friends of our family. Lots of people, it seems, and we are all grateful. Most everyone is gone by 11pm, when the nursing shift changes. Our night RN must've been in the military, I think. She is all business, and her gruffness worries me a little, because Jess and I will push back if we need to, but we're not exactly strong right now. Instead, she insists on just a few things. "He must be kept comfortable. Tell your mother to get some sleep. I'll let you know if it gets close to time." Now I know there's no going back. This nurse makes no pretense of recovery, and it is just the waiting. Because the hospital is nearly empty, we get the room next to Dad's, and mom goes to sleep for a few hours. She's been up, by our count, nearly 40 hours straight. Aunt Shirley dozes in the lounge, and Jess and I stay with Dad.

The next few hours will remain forever some of the most memorable of my life. Sitting with my father and my sister, knowing that time is so literally almost out, I feel desperate to stay awake, to soak in every second we have left together. Jess and I cry, even sob, at times. Finally, we decide to make the best of it. First we talk about our favorite memories with Dad. She remembers things I'd forgotten, and vice versa, So we tell him we love him, and why, and tell him what he's taught us, and what we'll remember. At some point, we shift, and talk about the future. Jess tells him what she hopes to name her children, and I do the same. "We promise to tell them about you, Daddy. We promise to take care of each other, and of Mom." We recognize out loud that if we'd been a TV movie, we'd have changed the channel by now.

2:30am: After taking Dad's pulse, Army nurse says we should wake Mom, so we do. But Dad has no intention of dying yet, so we sprawl around his room...in hospital chairs, across the foot of his bed, on the floor, and take turns dozing. When morning comes, he is still with us, and we joke, wearily, about his stubbornness. Sometime in the morning, Brenda comes again. She tells us an amazing story about letting go, about the path toward death as a journey, and we all cry. Brenda, Mom, and Jess go out for lunch, and Shirley goes to pick up Bev at the airport.

While they are gone, Dad's breathing gets more sporadic. He has a kind of apnea, it seems, and stops breathing for a second or two or ten...and then breathes again. Brenda told us this would happen, And that it would indicate the end was coming closer. She said it would get worse until finally the space between breaths was greater and greater...and eventually, he would just stop.

2pm: Mom and Jess come back from lunch, and walk in with Uncle Harry. Harry says, "I'll go," and we tell him he has to say good-bye. So he does. "We'll see you, Dewey," he says, shaking Dad's hand. It is one of the saddest moments I've ever seen.

Jess has to run to the bathroom, just down the hall. Mom and I sit, listen to Dad breathe, then stop. Breathe, then stop. When Jess gets back, Mom has to go. While she's gone, Jess and I watch Dad wince twice to draw breath: it really seems to hurt him. Finally, mom gets back. She sits with Dad's good hand, on his left. I sit on his right, and Jess sits on the foot of his bed. We tell him we love him, that he can go...and he does. He just...stops.

Again, if it were a TV movie, it would be too ridiculous. But that's how it happened, how we got to say good-bye, and be with him. How we watched him die. I don't have a moral to this story, and I'm not telling you this for pity, or to make you sad. It feels good, somehow to share it. It was a gift he gave us, being able to be with him. He was a good man. I miss him.

Ten years

Jess played "You are My Sunshine" on her guitar as my parents and I walked up the driveway into our backyard. Beth and Steve read for us, and Pastor Tim performed the ceremony. Afterwards, we all went out to  dinner to Timberlodge Steakhouse, and Shaun and I stayed in a Honeymoon Suite at Expressway Inn that I'd won at the wedding expo in January.  It was a fantastic day.

We all look like babies to me, now.

 Ten years ago today. It really doesn't seem like it's been a decade at all.

Then again, it feels like we've always been together. In a good way, I mean. I can't really remember life before. 

So much has changed for us, and our families. And marriage is hard, hard work sometimes. But this photo here, my favorite of them all, is still who we are.  Two dorks who really love each other very much. He is my sunshine, indeed.

For more photos and nostalgia, see here, or here. Or come on over and look at our photo albums.

Our song (Today is the 23rd of May)

My dad loved Bill Cosby, the Smothers Brothers, and Allan Sherman records (and other racier ones that we weren't allowed to listen to, as you can imagine). Still, it was my little sister who noticed, circa 1978, that both of our birthdays are in this Allan Sherman song. Twice a year, one of us calls up the other and sings our birthday song. I like it.  

Our song starts around 4:42. And the video is just a shot of the album cover and the vinyl, but I'm just lucky I found it online at all, peeps. 

I'll probably post more later today. Until then,and/or if not, happy birthday to me, Jeff Kolness, Diane Nelson, Barney Selzler, and the rest of us May 23rders. I think I'll go find me some liverwurst.

Crafty Blitz

As we adjust to a schedule where we see very little of Shaun and we juggle care for V (especially on Mondays), I have lots of papers to grade that I'm avoiding, and my favorite way to avoid things is to sew. And sew and sew and sew. 

 Last weekend, we had a little family-esque craft retreat, where I made 3 appliqued t-shirts (V's and Emmy's, above), and pinned a long-finished quilt top (below, Em and Meagan doing my dirty work).

 I also worked on crocheting a uterus, because I love  combining my political beliefs with crafts. My uterus is complete now, but the oviducts (also, but inappropriately, called Fallopian tubes) are causing me some headaches.

(That's right: I'm using an earring as a stitch marker, so I've pierced my uterus. That's hardcore. )

And then I made quilted duffles. Above are mine and V's on the steps of our cabin at Campfire Bay Resort (awesome place! We're totally going back there!).  V picked her colors (the blue and green polka dots + the firefly fabric) and I picked mine, because that white fabric reminds me of the floor of the Rio in Vegas.

Here are all four of them together: Myra's is on top, and left to right it's mine, V's, and Jess's. Jess' has little yellow stars on a green background. These bags are my new obsession, and if it weren't for my pesky job, I'd have made another dozen by now. They're lightweight, come together quickly, and hold lots and lots of stuff (plenty for a weekend). Plus they provide a good home for all those lovely 1-2 yard cuts of fabric that I buy without having a plan.

I've done more than this, even, but I think this post is lengthy enough. Besides, now I'm just using blogging to avoid grading, and that's not helping, either.

Gnometastic

When my sister moved into her little house, long before she met Brad, and long, long before either of us planned to become mothers, I told her that the little door under the stairs in her new little house was where the gnomes lived. She laughed politely, then went on with her life, painting over the little door.

Soon after, the gnomes started appearing.

 Most of them live outside, in the garden. A few live in the mini-van. For awhile, they sent her letters, imploring her to find them girl gnomes they could date/court/play cards with.

 I've given her books on how to survive gnome uprisings, histories of gnomes, and so on and so forth. Mostly, I think, she rolls her eyes at me and hopes I'll give up soon, stop defending the gnomes.



I just want her to coexist peacefully with her gnomes. I'd hate for them to start getting mischievious again, showing up in unusual places, rummaging around in places they don't belong...

I'm just saying. Gnomes are serious business.

"I come from a town, the kind of town where you live in a house 'til the house falls down, but if it stands up you stay there."

My mama has moved. If you go to her house in Hendrum, she can't make you waffles anymore. She's gone south, two blocks south and one block east, to the apartment house across the street from the church which is across the street from the elementary school. She'll probably make you waffles over there, though, if you ask nicely.

I get inordinately attached to places. I always have. But I was surprisingly cool with my mom leaving the house where I grew up. People are more important than things, of course, and moving is a good choice for her. The house is heated with fuel oil, which can cost her up to $400 a month in the dead of winter. That's insane. And she swears it hasn't had a new roof since the late 1970s. The garage needs to be painted again, and the basement gets a little water (or more) every spring. Add in property taxes and home owner's insurance, and it's cheaper for her to rent (I blame Tim Pawlenty, but that's not the point right now).

To top it off, she never chose this house. My dad came home one day when she was 8 months pregnant or so with Jess and said "I bought us a house. It's next door to my mother." And Myra's been there since 1974.

So here we go. Bear with me on a little nostalgia, a little history, and a lot of photos, won't you?

 Above, a corner of the bedroom Jess and I shared for most of our childhood (here it's acting as Myra's craft room). The walls were unfinished, but Dewey had the materials to do the finishing, so we and our friends were allowed to draw on the walls (in crayon, marker, whathaveyou). The stroke (and skillful procrastination, earlier) kept the panelling from ever going up, and we just kept writing on the walls.

 Below, sorry for the blurry photo, but it's all I got: in high school, a couple of talented friends painted me a zodiac mural. I love it, and slept under it for years. The unfinished pine below the mural was part of built-in storage Dewey had framed up before the stroke.

 A copy of the first money I ever made for writing poetry. $10.

 A wall in the hallway that became my room, then Jess', when we couldn't stand sharing a room anymore. My dad had a way of using up scraps, and this flowered paneling is evidence.

See how worn the wood is here? All the edges smoothed off. My grandfather built this house & my grandmother's house next door (with his brother? I can't remember who helped him) with wood from the original Hendrum School, torn down in 1925.

 This photo doesn't do the stairs justice. Most people find them the steepest steps they've ever climbed, but the stairs at my grandmother's are even worse. Ours are uncovered wood, though, and falling down the stairs takes on a whole new aura of danger when you can get a sliver in your butt.

 One of my first household chores was washing these steps, edge to edge. I've been slacking lately, as you can see above...

Above, the hallway on the way upstairs. I love that wallpaper. Actually, I think it might be contact paper. I remember when my mom put it up, when I was very very small.

The stairwell coat-hanging area. My dad built that red shelf. This is the wall he had to cut into when I was six and Bambi, my elderly hamster, got out of her cage and scratched here until my dad woke up and decided he'd have to find her or not sleep until she died.

 Above and below: my mom's kitchen. After Dad's stroke, we had to add on a bedroom and make the kitchen wheelchair accessible, but the house was still not really "hers." A few years ago (7? 8? I forget), Jess and I gave her a kitchen makeover with the help of our friend Carla and other sneaky collaborators. We did a mosaic on the backsplashes, painted and all those fancy things.

 Below, the only window in what was my parents' small bedroom. After the addition, it became a piano room, and after the piano, it became a guest room. In the mid-90s, Myra decided she wanted a room with floor to ceiling fabric on the walls, and this was the winner. It's hard to tell, but this room is yellow with white lace trim.

The front door, inside the porch. I will always remember the feel of that doorknob. My uncle Harry added the deadbolt after my dad's stroke. Before the stroke, we never locked our doors.

Below, the hallway to the backdoor and the basement. Isn't that gingham wallpaper awesome?  

 The light to the basement is up above the stairs, and when I was too small to reach it, I would lay on the landing, stick my arm through the spindles, and flip it on from above. I tried this method again when I was seventeen and almost got stuck there permanently. See the ledge above the stairs, to the right in the photo? That was a favorite place to hide puzzle boxes to keep guests from "cheating."

 The view from the back entryway. That green carpet used to go all the way through the kitchen.

Our little house on the prairie. We'll miss it, but not too terribly much. It was a pretty good place to grow up, overall.

  

*I have another post on this subject, but this was getting ridiculously long.

**Quote in the subject line from the song "Mira," from the musical Carnival!  It's a great little song.

***If you know someone looking for a little house of their own, 28 miles from Moorhead, we hope to have it on the market by May. It'll need a new roof soon, and the garage needs paint, but I'm pretty sure it's not haunted and I know it was filled with love for many years.

The First of October

October 1, 1974, I was fourteen months and one week old. Sixty-one weeks, to put it another way. I didn't know what that meant, exactly, until I had my own sixty-one week old child, and suddenly I came to understand my mama in a whole new way. Because when my mama had a sixty-one week old daughter, she brought home a second, brand spankin' new daughter. And oh sweet holy moses that must've been hard.



For me, though, it meant that I would never remember the world before my sister. I will never run out of vintage photos of us together. By the time I could say full sentences, or even walk without a wobble, she was already here.

For me, it means deciding to raise an only child (and I recognize how fortunate we are, to get to make such a choice, and I don't take that fortune lightly) seemed almost unthinkable for many years, because my childhood is so tightly bound to hers. I nearly mourn the baby sister V will never have, largely because I can't picture my life without mine.

We spent this past weekend in Minneapolis, with our mother and her sisters (and their brother), and we got to spend the entirety of her 37th birthday together.

There is no one I would rather near 40 with (well, sixty-one weeks before) than you, Sissy.  Maybe next year we should go to Vegas. Or Sweden. Or at least Hillsboro. Wherever we are, we'll have a good time, so long as we're together.

Birthday Post 2011!

Despite V's insistence for the last year that she definitely, certainly, surely wanted a Star Wars birthday this year, two weeks ago she switched her vote to Phineas and Ferb. I was not going to allow this, until Shaun pointed out it is not MY birthday. Phineas and Ferb Birthday, here we come.

There was a jumpy thing (Thanks Jenn B!). And a wagon full of presents.

 The clothesline, which is practical and beloved in everyday life here, but not very pretty, was transformed into Dr. Doofenschmirtz's Mazinator of Doom with a dozen sheets, strategically placed.

 There were platypus bills and Secret Agent hats. Here's Shaun modeling with V's good friend Parker.

 We played "Pin the Heart on Candace," because she's always mooning over her beau, and Candace is V's favorite. Here's me, spinning dear Tilda, who's grown up so much from last year.

 And here's Dana, with whom I graduated 20 years ago, and who was in Texas last year but this year could bring her beautiful daughters right over the river to see us.

 Candace with all her hearts:

The theme song includes the line "Giving a monkey a shower!" so we did. (I drew that monkey! Freehand! Looking at a picture from the show, but still...)

The water balloons were a huge hit, not the least of which because some of them would not break, so the kids got to pick them up and throw them again and again, and even stomp on a couple. They played until the monkey fell down, and the balloons were all popped. Whee!

 Emmy got bored, so she went in the house to find something to play with. She was the only one, though, I think, so I call that a success.

WD, post waterballoons.

I bought these plastic fedoras at Loopy's Dollar Store, because they are the exact color of Perry the Platypus himself, and the exact shape of his fedora, and I like the idea of alternate party hats. We put out pipe cleaners and straws and ribbon and stickers and a hole punch and scissors for decorating, and the kids did cool stuff.

Here's Oscar's hat, as decorated for his little sister.

We also played "where's Perry?" with little Perries strategically placed all around the backyard. I think there are still a few in the trees yet.  And there was food, of course! Good food that we couldn't take the time to photograph because the wasps swarmed immediately after we brought it out. But we had tacos in a bag (the best. food. invention.ever) and the accompanying cheesey goodness, grapes, olives, and curly cheesey poufs. We also had cupcakes: strawberry and spice, both with pink frostings. (I am forever indebted to my sister for bringing the food back in before the wasps carried us all away).

It was really a lovely party, I think, because afterward I took a desperately needed three hour nap.  Most importanly, V said she had fun, and I hope she will remember it fondly. And hopefully next year we can just go to a movie or something. 

Something fishy (not suitable for mealtimes. Or anytime, really)

Minnesota, with more coastline than Florida & Hawaii combined, is full of wholesome outdoorsy goodness. We enjoy the weather with outdoor meals, splashing in the clear waters, and fishing for sport and food.

 And sometimes Mother Nature sends a little reminder of how things really are. Right into our idyllic vacation.

 All three of the kids were fascinated, and Jess and I tried hard to hide our complete disgust. Royal nastiness, this.

We still took the time to photograph it, though, so I could share it with all of you. Aren't you glad I'm always thinking of the blog?

My Little Sister

She inspires me to be a better mama. Her patience and creativity, her obvious love for her children and for my daughter, never cease to move me.

 She's on a new path, now, leaving her preschool teaching job to follow her true calling as a music therapist. Such a huge leap, but I know she can do this.

My brave, smart, patient, loving sister.