best present ever

Miriam's birthday was Monday.

Monday was a holiday so grandson Ben was not working, and he called first. In his gravely careful voice he wished grandma a happy birthday.

Through the day all of the daughters checked in with the same message. Emily called in the evening and she and her mom talked to Miriam.

But there is one person who shares the day. Our oldest grandson was born on Miriam's birthday 27 years ago. If he does not call grandma the day of her birthday, he is totally forgiven, after all he has things to do on that day!

“David (he was named after his two grandfathers: David James) you are my best birthday present ever.”

I reminded her that I bought her a new car for her birthday one year, and though we all laughed at the comparison, she would not give in. “No, David James was my best birthday present.”

And that is true, of course.

He is a boy to be proud of. He has about 4 years of formal eduction, but has a couple of associate degrees, and has a very responsible job at the computer center of a hospital chain. He was promoted a while back because his superiors saw nascent managerial ability.

So, grandma was dutifully wished a happy birthday. She kept asking the same questions of them, but they understood.

Love you each.

Leo, who wanted to be a hero!

burnt beans

I put some beans on to cook yesterday morning.

Used the wood burning stove we heat the house – why not. In a few hours the beans were almost cooked, so I left them on the stove and went out to the shop to work.

After a while Miriam came out to tell me that the beans were cooked. I told her to set them off the stove and I'd finish fixing them for dinner.

A couple of hours later I came in the house.

It was full of smoke. Miriam, who cannot smell skunks in a closet, found nothing unusual. The heating stove was working well, no smoke there. I looked in the kitchen. My pan of beans was on the stove and it was emitting a steady cloud of dark smoke.

I turned the heat off and moved the pan. When asked, she couldn't remember.

This is the first time she has burned food so throughly, without having any memory of it at all. I am told that AD people do that. One more thing I have to watch.

A side note: when Miriam came out to the shop she had Leo who was not wanting to be in the house. She took him for a walk. When we went back inside, he cowered in the utility, then in the downstairs bathroom, with his head tight against the floor.

As the smoke cleared (thanks to the exhaust fan in the up bathroom) he came out of the bathroom. He has now ascended to be the smoke detector, he just doesn't speak english.

memories

This is an excerpt from an email from a daughter (I have edited it a bit): Mom says she's 73 today! This is a tribute to my good mother...
 
Does anyone remember LaVern, Marilyn and little Darla? Darla was Linda's age?  Well, LaVern and Marilyn are now members in the same church as us (our two congregations merged), and as it happened they came home from church with us for the evening the other day for visiting, games, supper and worship. So I get out pictures to show; a great conversation piece.
 
Suddenly Marilyn lights up! One picture sent her remembering us; we were neighbors, and she detailed one special 35-something-year-old story I will now share with you.
 
After we'd moved away, she said, Mom and Dad would come back for business, bringing Linda along and two little lunch boxes with lunch in them. (No one remembers for sure now, but perhaps Marilyn babysat Linda while the 'business' was transpiring?) She described how one time when Mom arrived with Linda, she didn't bring the two lunch boxes but one big bag of groceries, saying she didn't have time to make the lunches but they could make lunch from the groceries instead. Marilyn recalled that was a month they were very poor and didn't have enough money for much food. Mom didn't know that, but when time came for Linda to go home, Mom insisted Marilyn keep all the groceries, even what wasn't used. This stuck with Marilyn, recalling in particular a pound of much-needed margarine in the bottom of the bag. 
 
Now, I'm sure this was during the time we were living in Enterprise/Joseph. And of course we were wealthy and had lots of food and plenty of everything hahaha! No, this is our mother, who, even when struggling to provide for her own family, would give to others. She doesn't even remember this incident today (no surprise), but it made a huge impression on the younger mother and her family. Isn't God good!

Dave here again: A good shrink might untangle all of this. Miriam would give to help others even as she sometimes ignored her own family. My daughters tell of Christmas's when their mom would buy spendy fruit and nuts and put them in baskets to give to our photographic competitors (who did nothing at all for us), and there would be none of those goodies for the family.

My daughters don't tell me of many bad memories from growing up, but this is one sore spot.

There is something terribly disjointed here and I have never been able to really understand.
 

Happy Birthday Miriam

It has been 57 years this spring since we began "going together." I am sure we did not really know what that meant, but it was a bit exclusive!
We have lived way too long to die young, but these years are so precious. When she was diagnosed with AD, I had no idea she would be doing so well at this point.
If, more than money and fine things, a woman needs is to be loved and adored, Miriam has been rich indeed.
Even with the damned AD she is pretty wonderful.
We will celebrate by going out the Olive Garden to eat this afternoon.
I love you Miriam.
This picture was taken in '95. Andrew was 3 and Emily soon would be.
She has been a good grandma.

Aunt Barbara

In the spring of 1953, I was on a trip to San Francisco.

The school I attended had a choir that had been invited to sing at a conference. Miriam and I were “going together,” but she was not in the choir that year.

My Uncle Wayne (my middle name is after him) was a young pastor in the area, and he was to meet me sometime when we were there at the conference. Instead, he got in touch some way to say that he had to meet his girl friend and could not see me.

The next year he married the girl, and she became my Aunt Barbara.

So I did not meet her at that point, but I made her acquaintance, in a round about way!

Many years later we drove from Washington State to Massachusetts for my brother's wedding. We stayed, all 6 of us, at Uncle Wayne and Aunt Barbara's house. We arrived a day or so before the wedding, and later that same day Wayne and Barbara and family took off for a trip to Switzerland, leaving us in a state where we knew no one, but staying in an unfamiliar house.

Barbara was in nursing school at the time. I remember Miriam saying to her that she looked tired, and Barbara answering that she “was not as tired as she thought she was.” I think that meant she was not quite at total exhaustion, but close.

Through the years, our paths did not cross often.

Wayne was my father's youngest brother, but there was about 12 or 13 years between them. By the time Wayne was going to school, my father had left home.

Wayne was the young uncle I never really got to know. Even though Barbara lived here for a few years after he was killed, I did not really get to know here either.

No not really, and now they are both entries in my memory.

This is my sometimes goofy, and always a super grandson Griffy.
This picture was taken a couple of years ago.
He graduates from Middle School this spring!

sue and len

The local Alzheimer's support group met last week.

There were about a dozen people there, and if listening to others problems makes a good day, it was one. Some are handling the damned disease well and others are really not.

Among others, there were two people there. Len and Sue (not their real names). Her husband is still in the argumentative stage and Len's wife does not even talk any longer.

At break time, Sue approached Len. “Are you related...?” She gave a woman's first name and Len's last name.

“Maybe.”

Sue pressed on. She asked again but this time added the woman's middle initial. “Yes, she is my X wife,” Len answered.

“Well, she had an affair with my husband years ago and most of the troubles between us are because of that affair.”

“That is one reason why I divorced her.” Len grinned.

She did not say how long ago this was, but it seems to have been a good while ago, long after Len divorced her. But she had not forgotten for sure, and neither had she forgiven.

At break time, Len, Walt (the facilitator) and I were in the rest room at the same time. It was very serious business for Sue, but to Len it was really quite funny. His x wife and this woman's husband and he laughed again.

Len, by nature, is a happy person, he laughs deep and loud, he smiles a lot, even though his life is not all easy right now. Sue, on the other hand, rarely if ever smiles. She has been coming to the group meetings for a year or two, but I have never seen her remotely pleased.

The sad thing is that her anger at her husband was poisoning their relationship as well as her own mental and physical health.

I doubt it would do any good to remind her of that, though I should try some how.

Maybe.

On a personal level there was some good news and some bad.

A dear friend had a fistful of stints put into her heart related veins.
She is not young any more and is pretty delicate.
The good news is that she came through great.
I am so glad.

The bad news is that Aunt Barbara died this week. She was the wife of my youngest uncle. He died some years ago.
She and Uncle Wayne had planned to retire here, and they bought a house.
After he died, she stayed in our area, but last year she moved to be close to her youngest son.

haiti

Haiti is in my mind right now.

I know that when there is a flood or a monsoon in Bangladesh or an earthquake in China more people are displaced, more die and maybe there is more destruction.

But Haiti is not half a world away, it is not too farm from our south corner. A good friend of mine who has been a aid worker, spent a hunk of time in Haiti during another disaster. In Haiti he even had his appendix removed while there! In a MASH hospital yet.

I read analysis of why Haiti is what it is, and all are partly right and partly wrong, I suspect. What I know is that that poor country gets hit again and again by all sorts of natural calamities.

The “natural” calamities are increased by man caused evils.

There is no end. I am saddened.

Let's see:
4 or 5000 square feet for four people, two being children.
10 acres of farm land.
Ahh, just what we all need.
No?

another day

Watching an interview with Robin Williams is always wild.

Besides being a great comedian and interpreter of life, Robin has been through enough troubles to know more of life in his 50's than he ever did earlier in life. Last summer he had bypass surgery. It changed his life.

I remember reading a prayer that began: “Lord, for some reason you have given us another day. . . “

Another day. Wow. Maybe we don't get two, but one for sure. You live for the moment as Robin says.

At this age that is easier said than done sometimes. The real pushing things in life are not pushing any longer. My real goal in life is to take care of Miriam and to out live her so I can. That makes a lot of romantic sense on one level and is pretty shallow on another.

Right now, if it were not for the books and boxes I work on regularly. I would be climbing walls. Even with all of that I am still staring at that wall. That is what happens in the winter, I remember to tell myself.

Spring is coming, eventually.

Which brings up all sorts of questions.

Jay's trike

Brother in Law Jay's trike.
Powered by a Dodge Neon engine!

brothers

I once knew two brothers who lived across the country road from each other.

It was 24 years ago when I met them, in Texas.

The brothers and their wives were in their early 80's when I knew them. I only remember the name of one of them. I do remember them kindly.

Philip (the only name I remember right now) lived in a somewhat run down house on an equally run down small farm. He was tall, thin and somewhat bent over. His wife was short and bordered on plump. Both of them smiled a lot. Philip had worked for a local greenhouse and nursery for decades. The brother was a farmer.

The brother lived in a nice brick house. His out buildings were I good repair and the machinery was well taken care of. He stood tall and was a very dignified man. His wife was also very tall and almost regal in the way she carried herself.

They smiled a lot too.

The brick house brother had lost a hand in an accident on the farm years before and had an aluminum hook on that side. Farmers, are of necessity, mechanics, but he told me that a simple reair, like putting a nut on a small bolt, that two handed people could do in a few minutes, might take him a couple of hours.

He did not complain when he said that, it was just a fact of his life.

They are all gone now. The short wife died while we were there. The tall couple moved to be closer to their children a bit after we left Texas.

And I, who can not even remember their names, still am in admiration of those two brothers and their very different and very fine wives.

It is good to remember the good people whose lives have crossed mine, even if only for a short time.