Written while flying across the Pacific, coming home for the funeral of my little granddaughter, Keren.
Dear Keren,
I first met you on a gray September afternoon six years ago. Your dad called me and said, “You have a granddaughter, Keren Elyse.” “How is she?” I asked. “She’s OK,” he said, and from the tension in his voice, I knew you were far from that.
My first glimpse of you was in the NICU of St. Joe’s, a tiny scrap of humanity stretched on a warming table, surrounded with doctors and nurses, dotted with probes, screaming bloody murder. A tiger. Those first weeks were tense but you hung on to life.
Your parents are my heroes - sweet, gentle and fiercely protective. Caring for you has never been easy but your parents are servants. Your mom comforts and soothes you and you dad, well, no task is beneath him or beyond his reach. You have been his little princess, his dance partner with him doing the steps and you the belly laughs.
I’ve learned much from you, little girl. Patience, for one. Your pushy sisters scream and yell if they are hungry, cold, or uncomfortable but you just sit and wait till someone remembers your needs. Because you couldn’t walk, you have taught me to sit still, not something I do well. Because you must be fed slowly, you have taught me that haste indeed makes waste, and things done slowly get done in due time. Because you have reached out in unconditional love to everyone around you and drawn them close, you have taught me to not be a respecter of persons.
Returning last summer after several months, your smallest sister was a little skittish of me. Your middle sister told it straight, “You’ve been gone long. It’s time you came home.” But you, my little one, just burst into sunlight grins and wrapped your arms around me. In my heart I heard you say, “Welcome home, Grammy. I knew you’d come.”
If you see me weeping, it is because I miss you, but don’t think I am sad for you. I have ached for your limitations and longed to have you tell me your thoughts. If your sisters talk too much, you were the balance, but always I knew you had much to say if you could have had words.
Yesterday I think your Heavenly Father reached down and said, “Come home, Keren. Leave that tight, stiff little body and come dance with me. I want to see you run and skip. I want you to pick flowers and hold water in your hands. I want you free.”
Your wheelchair sits in the corner. As wheelchairs go, it’s pretty slick. I love the big butterfly embroidered on the seat back in bright colors and your name, Keren - Strength, in blue.
It’s empty now. You don’t need it.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
The Little People
Our family has always called them “The Little People.” The Little People are in fact, in truth, quite short. “Small in stature, mighty in valor” says a plaque in their kitchen. Also quite true. We first knew them as students over thirty years ago, then as young marrieds, then as young parents, then as parents of teens, and somewhere along the journey we all morphed into middle age.
Like many people whose lives have intertwined with ours, our children know each other from occasional visits. In the back of my mind is a dusky memory of a summer evening years ago at their home on the hill. Looking out front I saw all six of our respective offspring ranged along the curb, in age rank: tall, short, tall, short, tall, short. Great Danes do not have Pekinese puppies, and Pekes don’t have great Danes.
Our daughters, of course, never had a ghost of a chance to be short.
In recent years the home of The Little People has become our B&B when we are visiting a college campus near them. Their kids are grown and the upstairs is all ours. We can come and go in the comfortable friendship of years.
The Little People’s home is large, but everything is designed for those who are small of stature. Brushing my teeth at a basin I look like a giraffe at a watering hole. Mirrors show a great view of my neck. Beds built for short people long ago led us to commandeer two rooms upstairs for sleeping.
We laugh at the differences.
But we recognize that size has no bearing on friendship, and minds are matched not by stature but by common goals and interests. Rousing games of Settlers depend on a cross of wills, not swords. Relishing sushi demands only a love of Asian food. Chopsticks fit any size hand. Friends are whole people.
Last weekend our tallest daughter joined us with The Little People. Great conversation and games. After she left, their second son came by for a visit. More conversation and games. One generation enjoying the next and vice versa.
Their post college daughter was home over Christmas break. When her parents mentioned that we were coming to visit, she asked a simple question.
“Do they know that we call them The Tall People?”
Like many people whose lives have intertwined with ours, our children know each other from occasional visits. In the back of my mind is a dusky memory of a summer evening years ago at their home on the hill. Looking out front I saw all six of our respective offspring ranged along the curb, in age rank: tall, short, tall, short, tall, short. Great Danes do not have Pekinese puppies, and Pekes don’t have great Danes.
Our daughters, of course, never had a ghost of a chance to be short.
In recent years the home of The Little People has become our B&B when we are visiting a college campus near them. Their kids are grown and the upstairs is all ours. We can come and go in the comfortable friendship of years.
The Little People’s home is large, but everything is designed for those who are small of stature. Brushing my teeth at a basin I look like a giraffe at a watering hole. Mirrors show a great view of my neck. Beds built for short people long ago led us to commandeer two rooms upstairs for sleeping.
We laugh at the differences.
But we recognize that size has no bearing on friendship, and minds are matched not by stature but by common goals and interests. Rousing games of Settlers depend on a cross of wills, not swords. Relishing sushi demands only a love of Asian food. Chopsticks fit any size hand. Friends are whole people.
Last weekend our tallest daughter joined us with The Little People. Great conversation and games. After she left, their second son came by for a visit. More conversation and games. One generation enjoying the next and vice versa.
Their post college daughter was home over Christmas break. When her parents mentioned that we were coming to visit, she asked a simple question.
“Do they know that we call them The Tall People?”
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
White world
The first time it snows, you notice. Everyone runs to the supermarket and buys bread and milk. Just in case. And the next few times there’s talk of closing the office or schools. Then the reality sets in that this isn’t going to stop. Get used to it. Life can’t afford to stop.
This is a different winter.
No more wondering what the weather will be tomorrow. You know. No more waking in the middle of the night to see if the predicted snow really did come. You know. You know the drill. The stuff is deep and still coming.
You wake in the dark and get ready for work in the dark. Gortex jacket, gloves, scarf, hat. Some mornings the night’s dump is a light enough drift to use the broom, but most days it’s the blower and shovel. House to car in the garage is easy, but the minute you hit the drive you hear the squeaking crunch of tires on dry powder.
Too cold to be slippery. Too cold to freeze and thaw. Yet somehow, a dash to the mailbox or across the yard in shirt sleeves doesn’t feel all that bad.
Life takes on a rhythm of black and white. Black road surfaces, white drifts. Black tree limbs, white etching. Black pine boughs, white frosting on every branch.
Some days it’s all you can do to keep ahead of the piles. The Tech, a Michigander to the core, takes on the challenge. Mikey, retired next door, also rises to the task. The blowers hit the drives simultaneously in a race to see who can clean it up fastest. Then two hours later they are back at it. Cell phone communication keeps on through the day.
“What do you think? Hit it again or wait an hour?”
“Maybe wait.”
“I don’t know. I’m heading out before then. Can’t let it get too deep.”
The guys who plow for a living are making a killing. And dropping over with exhaustion.
Sunshine eventually peeks through the drifts at some point most days, turning the world to glitter. Clouds scud across a powder blue sky tinged with pink by evening. Dark closes in early, ending the day as it began. Comfort food beckons from the kitchen.
Time will come when the temps will rise and a mere 40 degrees will feel like summer. Lawns and streets and trees will emerge and take on shape. Gingerbread houses, eaves deeply frosted, will melt into normality. The sun will rise before eight.
But for now, it’s deep and white. Cold and dark. And totally delightful.
This is a different winter.
No more wondering what the weather will be tomorrow. You know. No more waking in the middle of the night to see if the predicted snow really did come. You know. You know the drill. The stuff is deep and still coming.
You wake in the dark and get ready for work in the dark. Gortex jacket, gloves, scarf, hat. Some mornings the night’s dump is a light enough drift to use the broom, but most days it’s the blower and shovel. House to car in the garage is easy, but the minute you hit the drive you hear the squeaking crunch of tires on dry powder.
Too cold to be slippery. Too cold to freeze and thaw. Yet somehow, a dash to the mailbox or across the yard in shirt sleeves doesn’t feel all that bad.
Life takes on a rhythm of black and white. Black road surfaces, white drifts. Black tree limbs, white etching. Black pine boughs, white frosting on every branch.
Some days it’s all you can do to keep ahead of the piles. The Tech, a Michigander to the core, takes on the challenge. Mikey, retired next door, also rises to the task. The blowers hit the drives simultaneously in a race to see who can clean it up fastest. Then two hours later they are back at it. Cell phone communication keeps on through the day.
“What do you think? Hit it again or wait an hour?”
“Maybe wait.”
“I don’t know. I’m heading out before then. Can’t let it get too deep.”
The guys who plow for a living are making a killing. And dropping over with exhaustion.
Sunshine eventually peeks through the drifts at some point most days, turning the world to glitter. Clouds scud across a powder blue sky tinged with pink by evening. Dark closes in early, ending the day as it began. Comfort food beckons from the kitchen.
Time will come when the temps will rise and a mere 40 degrees will feel like summer. Lawns and streets and trees will emerge and take on shape. Gingerbread houses, eaves deeply frosted, will melt into normality. The sun will rise before eight.
But for now, it’s deep and white. Cold and dark. And totally delightful.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Generations
When I got word that the very elderly mom of friends had slipped into eternity, I realized there was no way we could attend her funeral six hundred miles away. But, I thought, the Driver is close by and maybe she’d go for us. After all, this is a family that has intertwined with ours for decades and she’d see people she enjoys from around the globe.
A phone call later I encountered skepticism. “But, I never even met the woman. How can I go to her funeral?”
“I’ll email you the details,” I countered. “Just think about it.”
The next day an email came back. “Yes, I think I will go. There are so many people coming that I know and they want me to bring family pictures.” The number of friends had been mentioned on the initial call, but funeral attendance is not the habit of 20-somethings.
The phone rang again yesterday with the Driver in fine form. “Oh, it was great. There were so many multiple parts of the family there. I caught up with the kids who are now in college, and with the old grandmother on the other side, and with all the family in from far away. They all send their love.”
“Funerals are not about the dead,” I said, “But about the living.”
“I know that,” she said. “But it seemed odd to go to the funeral of someone I don’t even know.”
“You do know her,” I pursued. “You’ve known her daughter and son all your life, you took care of her grandchildren in Hong Kong, her extended family through marriage are some of your favorite people in the world. You’ve been in their homes, sat at their tables, listened to their stories. These people are part of your essential fiber.”
Part of becoming a genuine adult is learning how to add up the pieces of life into a whole. Learning when it is appropriate to show up and be counted. Learning that a small effort one day pays huge rewards in life friendship on later days. Learning that people remember that you remembered and that they appreciate your presence far more than you can imagine.
Our funerals of late have been highly peopled with young people and children. It’s all about living and building the future.
A phone call later I encountered skepticism. “But, I never even met the woman. How can I go to her funeral?”
“I’ll email you the details,” I countered. “Just think about it.”
The next day an email came back. “Yes, I think I will go. There are so many people coming that I know and they want me to bring family pictures.” The number of friends had been mentioned on the initial call, but funeral attendance is not the habit of 20-somethings.
The phone rang again yesterday with the Driver in fine form. “Oh, it was great. There were so many multiple parts of the family there. I caught up with the kids who are now in college, and with the old grandmother on the other side, and with all the family in from far away. They all send their love.”
“Funerals are not about the dead,” I said, “But about the living.”
“I know that,” she said. “But it seemed odd to go to the funeral of someone I don’t even know.”
“You do know her,” I pursued. “You’ve known her daughter and son all your life, you took care of her grandchildren in Hong Kong, her extended family through marriage are some of your favorite people in the world. You’ve been in their homes, sat at their tables, listened to their stories. These people are part of your essential fiber.”
Part of becoming a genuine adult is learning how to add up the pieces of life into a whole. Learning when it is appropriate to show up and be counted. Learning that a small effort one day pays huge rewards in life friendship on later days. Learning that people remember that you remembered and that they appreciate your presence far more than you can imagine.
Our funerals of late have been highly peopled with young people and children. It’s all about living and building the future.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Taking it down
Tradition tells me to leave the trappings of Christmas up till Three Kings’ Day on January 6, but the calendar and time available dictate that Christmas comes down on the first Saturday after New Year’s Day.
Taking it down is a bittersweet experience. The gifts are long unwrapped and put away. The bubbling excitement in the eyes of the children has tempered into experience. The family gatherings are finished. The chocolates are eaten. The feasting has ended. Even the lights are looking a little passé despite the still dark of midwinter.
Each year I carefully dismantle what a month ago was unpacked with delight. Each piece is examined and repacked. The tree ornaments are once more tucked away as deep memories flash by my mind at each touch. The red and green and gold are packed into boxes, the lights stowed, the cookie tins tucked away. The last to go are the crèche, each one carved of wood in some distant part of the world, each one reminding me of the timeless story of Christmas.
Choosing a Galway CD as background music brings the same sort of satisfaction of a light desert after a rich and overwhelming meal. Much as I enjoy the music of Christmas, I am sated with brass and bells. A simple flute suffices.
Taking down Christmas is as much a ritual as putting it up. The snow glitters outside and the chimneys across the way steam in the late day of early January. Sun sets on Christmas but dawns on opportunities.
Time to look forward. Time to begin new projects. Armed with the life brought by Christmas, the new year begins.
Taking it down is a bittersweet experience. The gifts are long unwrapped and put away. The bubbling excitement in the eyes of the children has tempered into experience. The family gatherings are finished. The chocolates are eaten. The feasting has ended. Even the lights are looking a little passé despite the still dark of midwinter.
Each year I carefully dismantle what a month ago was unpacked with delight. Each piece is examined and repacked. The tree ornaments are once more tucked away as deep memories flash by my mind at each touch. The red and green and gold are packed into boxes, the lights stowed, the cookie tins tucked away. The last to go are the crèche, each one carved of wood in some distant part of the world, each one reminding me of the timeless story of Christmas.
Choosing a Galway CD as background music brings the same sort of satisfaction of a light desert after a rich and overwhelming meal. Much as I enjoy the music of Christmas, I am sated with brass and bells. A simple flute suffices.
Taking down Christmas is as much a ritual as putting it up. The snow glitters outside and the chimneys across the way steam in the late day of early January. Sun sets on Christmas but dawns on opportunities.
Time to look forward. Time to begin new projects. Armed with the life brought by Christmas, the new year begins.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Don't take my Christmas
No, I am sorry, but you cannot have my Christmas. It is not available for comment or optional changes. Somewhere in the last 40 years of my life my Christmas has been slowly taken away, piece by piece.
I want it back.
My Christmas is a deeply spiritual experience. It is a time to stop and reflect on the stillness and silence of winter nights. To breathe certain scents and listen to particular types of music. It may come wrapped in cold snow or the clear midnight sky of the tropics. It is warm, homey and totally mine. I share it freely with family and friends, but it is not for sale.
It’s not about nostalgia or traditions though both are part of Christmas, but about the stark realization that God wrapped His only Son in flesh and laid him in the arms of a common peasant couple in Bethlehem. And because of that birth, Christmas exists, and I am able to see God face to face in the person of Jesus Christ. The wood of the manger was a shadow of the cross to come; salvation was wrapped in cloth, enveloped in the tender softness of a little child.
I will not be sending Happy Holiday cards, or Seasons Greetings, because they cheapen and diminish the intense wonder of why Christmas was or is ever celebrated. Santa is welcome to enrich the festivities, as long as he too bows at the manger, worships the Child and remembers his roots in St. Nicholas.
Excuse me if the crèche and angels and shepherds and wise men offend you. I am more offended by a general malaise in society that tells me none of these are or should be part of the “holidays.” If you take away the foundation of Christmas, there simply is nothing left to celebrate.
If I took away Hanukkah or Kwanza or Ramadan, I would be severely chastised for not being pluralistically sensitive. Fine, anyone who wants to celebrate those holidays is welcome to do so. In fact, I will celebrate with them, but don’t tell me I cannot celebrate Christmas as I choose.
I will continue to put out my various creches and touch the wooden pieces with warm memories and wonder. I will sing and play carols that speak, not of holidays, Santa and elves, but of the Christ child. I will read the Christmas story again and again from Matthew and Luke, Isaiah and Micah. The words of scripture will echo back into my corporate memory of candlelit services and bells and organ. I will meditate on the drama and glory of it all. I will bask in the blaze of angel brightness. My Christmas will be flagrantly Christian.
I will sit in solitude beside my tree and reflect on the deep green of life, the red of blood shed for my salvation and the pure white light of a soul cleansed from sin.
Don’t even think about taking my Christmas. This is not a once a year celebration. I do not put Christ back into Christmas. I simply recognize that if I deeply love my Lord, He is the foundation of every day of the year. Christmas is not a holiday. It is my life.
I want it back.
My Christmas is a deeply spiritual experience. It is a time to stop and reflect on the stillness and silence of winter nights. To breathe certain scents and listen to particular types of music. It may come wrapped in cold snow or the clear midnight sky of the tropics. It is warm, homey and totally mine. I share it freely with family and friends, but it is not for sale.
It’s not about nostalgia or traditions though both are part of Christmas, but about the stark realization that God wrapped His only Son in flesh and laid him in the arms of a common peasant couple in Bethlehem. And because of that birth, Christmas exists, and I am able to see God face to face in the person of Jesus Christ. The wood of the manger was a shadow of the cross to come; salvation was wrapped in cloth, enveloped in the tender softness of a little child.
I will not be sending Happy Holiday cards, or Seasons Greetings, because they cheapen and diminish the intense wonder of why Christmas was or is ever celebrated. Santa is welcome to enrich the festivities, as long as he too bows at the manger, worships the Child and remembers his roots in St. Nicholas.
Excuse me if the crèche and angels and shepherds and wise men offend you. I am more offended by a general malaise in society that tells me none of these are or should be part of the “holidays.” If you take away the foundation of Christmas, there simply is nothing left to celebrate.
If I took away Hanukkah or Kwanza or Ramadan, I would be severely chastised for not being pluralistically sensitive. Fine, anyone who wants to celebrate those holidays is welcome to do so. In fact, I will celebrate with them, but don’t tell me I cannot celebrate Christmas as I choose.
I will continue to put out my various creches and touch the wooden pieces with warm memories and wonder. I will sing and play carols that speak, not of holidays, Santa and elves, but of the Christ child. I will read the Christmas story again and again from Matthew and Luke, Isaiah and Micah. The words of scripture will echo back into my corporate memory of candlelit services and bells and organ. I will meditate on the drama and glory of it all. I will bask in the blaze of angel brightness. My Christmas will be flagrantly Christian.
I will sit in solitude beside my tree and reflect on the deep green of life, the red of blood shed for my salvation and the pure white light of a soul cleansed from sin.
Don’t even think about taking my Christmas. This is not a once a year celebration. I do not put Christ back into Christmas. I simply recognize that if I deeply love my Lord, He is the foundation of every day of the year. Christmas is not a holiday. It is my life.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Tuesdays with Don
The book is called “Tuesdays with Morrie.” Morrie had ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, and Mitch Albom wrote a powerful story about his visits with Morrie on Tuesdays. It’s Tuesday, but I’m with Don.
Don has ALS too. That’s about where the similarity begins and ends.
Tuesday before Christmas Don has arranged a visit to the office staff. He wants to talk to us. Some say he wants to say goodbye and there’s a sense of finality to this visit. There’s a sniff of apprehension in the air.
The snow begins to fall heavily in the morning and by 11 o’clock it’s coming at a rate of an inch an hour. Still the staff gather to await Don’s arrival. His daughter Deb is driving him in from Lansing with four of her children. Other friends from the community show up, as well as retired staff who have shared life with Don for decades.
The weather delays the family’s arrival so we sing Christmas carols. Appropriate since Don’s granddaughters are coming to sing to us too. The van arrives on Angels We Have Heard on High, and Don rolls his wheelchair into the room as we finish O Come All Ye Faithful. One of the faithful has just come.
This is supposed to be about us sharing Don’s burden of impending death, isn’t it? Evidently not. Don reminds us that in his early life he was a counselor. He still is. Now he counsels the staff. He fills us in on how his ALS is progressing, what he can do, what he can’t do. How he’s learning to accept help. How the support group is pitching in. He bares his soul in his struggles, but with laughter and a twinkle that keeps us hovering between a smile and tears.
“I’m a man of action, and I’m learning to be still. I’m a man of crowds, and I am learning solitude. I’m a man of risk, and I am learning to be cautious. I’m asking God to keep me alive long enough to learn all the lessons I need to learn.”
At the end we gather around him, forty or fifty of us, hands on his shrunken shoulders. We pray over him and shoot some pictures. Maybe this will be the last time he comes in from Lansing, maybe not. But it’s Tuesday, and it’s Don’s day.
As he prepares to go back into the snow I watch his granddaughters help him with his coat, his hat, his gloves, and my mind races back a quarter century to my daughters doing the same thing for their own grandfather. Children learning to live with death. Children full of life giving their all to a man who is frail.
Yes, I need to spend another Tuesday with Don. There are more lessons to learn from the man who counsels his friends from a wheelchair.
Don has ALS too. That’s about where the similarity begins and ends.
Tuesday before Christmas Don has arranged a visit to the office staff. He wants to talk to us. Some say he wants to say goodbye and there’s a sense of finality to this visit. There’s a sniff of apprehension in the air.
The snow begins to fall heavily in the morning and by 11 o’clock it’s coming at a rate of an inch an hour. Still the staff gather to await Don’s arrival. His daughter Deb is driving him in from Lansing with four of her children. Other friends from the community show up, as well as retired staff who have shared life with Don for decades.
The weather delays the family’s arrival so we sing Christmas carols. Appropriate since Don’s granddaughters are coming to sing to us too. The van arrives on Angels We Have Heard on High, and Don rolls his wheelchair into the room as we finish O Come All Ye Faithful. One of the faithful has just come.
This is supposed to be about us sharing Don’s burden of impending death, isn’t it? Evidently not. Don reminds us that in his early life he was a counselor. He still is. Now he counsels the staff. He fills us in on how his ALS is progressing, what he can do, what he can’t do. How he’s learning to accept help. How the support group is pitching in. He bares his soul in his struggles, but with laughter and a twinkle that keeps us hovering between a smile and tears.
“I’m a man of action, and I’m learning to be still. I’m a man of crowds, and I am learning solitude. I’m a man of risk, and I am learning to be cautious. I’m asking God to keep me alive long enough to learn all the lessons I need to learn.”
At the end we gather around him, forty or fifty of us, hands on his shrunken shoulders. We pray over him and shoot some pictures. Maybe this will be the last time he comes in from Lansing, maybe not. But it’s Tuesday, and it’s Don’s day.
As he prepares to go back into the snow I watch his granddaughters help him with his coat, his hat, his gloves, and my mind races back a quarter century to my daughters doing the same thing for their own grandfather. Children learning to live with death. Children full of life giving their all to a man who is frail.
Yes, I need to spend another Tuesday with Don. There are more lessons to learn from the man who counsels his friends from a wheelchair.
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