April Fools

Happy April Fools Day

When the kids were younger we made a big deal of April Fools Day.

I'm not sure Oldest Girl has forgiven me yet for my first real trick on her.  She was 3 years old.

I made lentil loaf in two round cake pans then frosted it like a birthday cake with mashed potatoes.

hello-julie via photopin cc

She knew something special was happening because I had the professor keeping her out of the kitchen.

When I carried the "cake"in  on the special cake pedestal, her eyes got big.  This was the best thing that had ever happened to her.  Birthday cake for dinner.

Then I served the cake and she was mad.  Really, really mad.

In retrospect, things would have gone better if I had included in the meal a real dessert, although nothing really makes my family happy about lentil loaf.

Now the tricks in the house are played by the kids.  Music girl tinted the milk blue this morning.  The most entertaining part of this was watching her try to convince everyone to have milk.

"Imagination boy,  do you want me to get the milk out for you for your cereal?"

"Oh, you're having a bagel today.  Are you sure you don't want cereal?  You're sure?  Would you like me to pour you a glass of milk to go with your bagel?  You want juice instead?  Are you sure you don't want a glass of milk?"

Then she watched very closely while her father got his morning coffee to see if he was going to add milk.

Thankfully the Professor played along and she headed off to school satisfied.

The best pranks cause no harm and no lasting hard feelings.  My advice, if you are going to make a child think lentil loaf is cake there better be some real cake in the picture too.

Broken

Broken.

My Dad's body was broken.  Cancer, beginning in the colon.  Traveling to the liver.  And the lungs.

The lungs had been broken for awhile.

And the chemo drugs broke it more.

The heart began to break.

And our hearts broke to watch the breaking down of his body and the thoughts of continuing on without him.

And then he wasn't broken anymore.  His body lay on that bed.  Still. Quiet. Empty.

I sit in church and hear the familiar words, "This is my body broken for you."

Jesus was broken.  For my dad.

And because Jesus was broken, my dad is no longer broken.  He is whole.

Here on earth I still feel broken, some days more broken than others.

Jesus was broken.  For me.

I will be whole.  And I will be with my dad again.

Memories or Junk

One of the hardest parts of any move is sorting through all the stuff that you never use but somehow find it hard to part with.

And how do you decide which of the kids artwork and handicrafts make the cut?

quinn.anya via photopin cc

My mother and my mother in law neatly illustrate two opposite ends of the spectrum on this issue.

When we were newly married and trying to furnish an apartment, my MIL offered us a dresser that was  in her basement.

"You just have to clean it out first," she said.

It turned out to be full of the Professor's school papers.  And I'm not talking interesting stuff like stories he wrote or drawings.  It was full of ditto master worksheets like circle the object that starts with the letter "C" and old spelling tests.

My mother, on the other hand, had to be watched carefully or she would throw away a book I was reading that I had left sitting on the coffee table.*

As a mom now myself I can emphasize with both approaches, the desire to hold on to tangible evidence of a time now past and the desire to have a clean slate and live in the present.

So when the kids were 7, 5, and 3, and we were facing a downsizing move, I decided to turn some of the decision making over to the kids.

I started with Oldest Girl.  I gathered up all her artwork, school papers, etc. and made a huge pile.

"I want you to sort through all these things and decide what is important to you to keep.  See this trash bin?  Throw away anything that isn't really important to you.  See this big bin?  This is for artwork that is special to you that you want to keep that we will put into storage so you won't have it now but will have it again someday.  And see this little bin?  This is for those few things that are so special to you they need to move with us so you can have them near you."

Oldest girl took the job very seriously.  She sat down and carefully considered each piece of paper.  Some items moved from the storage box to the keep box and back several times as she weighed her options.  In the end, there was an overflowing trash bin and full storage and keep bins with their lids on.

So I moved on to music girl and gave her the same instructions.

Music girl looked at the situation.

"You have these sizes wrong," she said, switching the larger storage bin for the smaller keep bin.  She then got down to work.

In the end, there was nothing in the trash bin, a couple items in the storage bin and a completely overflowing keep bin.

I didn't even try with Imagination boy.

Sometimes it is hard to part with the objects that spark memories.  I'm greatful that I never have to part with the memories themselves.  And thus this blog.

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*This was especially true if the book had a scantily clad woman on the cover, which happened a lot since I read a lot of science fiction as a teenager and it was practically a requirement to have a scantily clad woman on the cover whether the story included any women or not.

Eulogy

Here is the eulogy I gave at my Dad's funeral.

Image courtesy of topstep07 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Giving good gifts was not one of my dad’s many skills.   I think all of us kids who were alive at the time can remember the Christmas Dad gave mom a pair of scissors.  

She was not impressed. 

One of my jobs growing up was to make sure Dad bought Mom a poinsettia at Christmas time and a lily at Easter time because he just couldn’t be trusted to remember on his own no matter how many times Mom told him this was a requirement.  And although every birthday and Christmas gift I received from my parents said love Mom and Dad I knew Dad really had nothing to do with it.

But even though Dad may not have given me tangible gifts, he gave me something much more valuable.  

He gave me the greatest gift any parent can give their child.  

My entire life I have known without question that three things were true.  

Number 1, Dad loved me..  

Number 2, Dad loved Mom.  

And number 3, Dad loved God.  

This is the gift my Dad gave me.

But as you may have noticed, I am not an only child.  Dad also gave this gift to his other 10 children.  But even more than that Dad gave this gift to the world.

Dad loved me.  He loved me for who I am and not just who he wanted me to be.  All of us kids have done things and made choices that disappointed Dad.    Dad could and did get angry, not often, not quickly, but it did happen. 

But he never stopped loving us, not even for a second.  

And that doesn’t just apply to his children.  Dad loved people this way.  My parents are the most loving, forgiving people I know.  Through all of his life my dad loved and reached out to all people around him but especially to those people that others overlooked, the poor, the powerless, those with special needs.  Dad saw past skin color, IQ, worldly wealth and importance and just plain loved people where they were at for who they were.

Dad also loved Mom.  

My parents were married for over 53 years.  On their second date my dad told my mom he was going to marry her.  She immediately replied, “Oh no you are not!”  I think we can all be glad she eventually gave in.  In today’s world where so many elements fight against solid marriages, my parents set an example of give and take, of compromise and cooperation that we all can follow.

And last but definitely not least, Dad loved God. 

Dad loved God with all his heart, soul, strength, and mind.  And he loved his neighbor as himself.  Dad didn’t just say he loved God, he lived it.  Sometimes this made life hard for Dad.  His ministry career had lots of bumps in the road because the fact of the matter is that lots of us say we love God but not many of us really live it.  And it makes us uncomfortable when someone challenges our comfort zone by not just saying they love Jesus but actually living like Jesus.  That was my Dad.

When I reflect on Dad’s life and all the people he had an impact on, I pray that I can give my children the gift he gave me, to love my children and others, to love my husband, and to love God.  And I know that Dad’s prayer for all of you would be the same.

One Year Ago

One year, one week and a couple of days ago I got on a plane and flew across the globe to be with my Dad and Mom as the end approached.
...

One year, one week, and one day ago, my Dad said, " I don't know why all you people are traveling to visit me."

"Dad, you do know."

"Yes, I do.  And I appreciate it."

"We just want to spend what time we can with you because we love you."

"I love you too"
...

One year and one week ago I sat with my Dad and my oldest brother and his wife and daughter and watched a DVD of another brother preaching.  My sister in law and I had a conversation on the protestant versus the Catholic view of communiion.  Dad didn't engage in that conversation.  Clearly he was dying.
...

One year and six days ago I did the dishes while Mom sat next to Dad and held his hand.  They didn't talk.  They didn't need to.
...

One year and five days ago live continued on in the house while Dad started to slip further away.
...

One year and four days ago I sat at the computer and tried to complete some work long distance.  Dad asked me about it and we ended up discussing church budgeting priorities.  It was the last real conversation we had.
...

One year and three days ago Dad couldn't really walk anymore.  He still wanted to join the family at the dinner table.  We put him in the chair and wheeled him to the table.  He seemed totally out of it.  The children were bickering. Mom asked Dad if he wanted to pray.  He did.  He prayed that the family would be able to pull together and support each other.  It was his last clearly lucid speech of any real length.
...

One year and two days ago Dad spent the day in bed.  Random things came out of his mouth at random times.  He spoke of flying and looking for a luggage cart.  He saw things that weren't there.  He worried about things from his childhood.
...

One year and one day ago we walked around the house in hushed tones, waiting, knowing it couldn't be long, not wanting it to end but not wanting it to continue either.
...

One year ago today I stood around the bed with my mother, my brother, and my sister and we all touched Dad as he breathed his last.

One year ago today Dad died.

It was too soon.

One year.

Tomorrow I will write happy memories.  I will write of my Dad and my children because everything I am as a parent is due to the love and training my parents gave me and they gave me so much.

But today...today I am just sad.

Duct Tape

My dad could fix just about anything with duct tape.

Your prom dress needs hemming.  Duct tape will solve that.

Image courtesy of Grant Cochrane / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Muffler falling off.  Duct tape to the rescue.

Textbook falling apart.  Duct tape again.

If it wasn't duct tape, it was clothes hangers or paper clips or old shoe laces.  He was good with his hands and it made him happy to fix things using just the supplies he had to hand.

Dad was also an optimist.  He believed nearly everything could be fixed if you just put a little time and effort into it.

So his garage and basement were full of all the broken things he intended to fix someday and the tools and odds and ends he intended to use to fix them.

During one of my visits near the end, the dryer stopped working.  Dad had some suggestions for repair but eventually I solved the problem on my own.

The problem was excess lint clogging up the exhaust system.  I gathered all the wire coat hangers I could find, bent them out into a line and duct taped them together.  I then went outside and used my improvised snake to clean years of accumulated lint from the pipe.

Mission accomplished.

Like my dad I can use duct tape to give a bit more life to items that are on their last legs.

But it doesn't last forever.

Duct tape doesn't fix cancer.  Duct tape doesn't hold life in a body when it is time to go.

But every time I pull out a roll of duct tape to fix something or solve a problem, I'll think of my dad.

Am I Like My Dad?

I enjoy telling stories about my dad that gently poke fun, but how much am I really like him?

I wrote about my Dad's attempt to teach me to drive.  His approach was basically to throw me in way past my comfort level.  I would never do that to my kids. Would I?

irina slutsky via photopin cc

So yesterday I'm driving my van with Oldest Girl in the front seat.  I had to roll the window down to show my ID at the gate.

Since I was driving the car the Professor normally drives, I forgot that it is important never to completely roll down the window since the automatic window motor is old and tired and doesn't like to work that hard.

(The fact that I drive a car with a worn out but not replaced window motor is yet another sign that I am like my Dad and an even bigger sign that I married a man who is very much like my Dad.)

It isn't that big of a deal because you can always get the window back up if you pull up on it while the motor is working.  Just giving it a little help so to speak.

The only problem is this requires 2 hands which is a problem if you are continuing to drive.

Now Dad could have solved this easily as he was skilled at steering with his knees.  I remember him folding newspapers and delivering them while expertly driving hands free.

I am not that much like my Dad.  I apparently lack the knee steering gene.

So there I am driving along with the window stuck down and cold air rushing in.  Other people might have pulled over to fix it but not my Father's daughter.

"Oldest girl,  Grab the steering wheel.  I need you to steer while I pull up the window"

Oldest girl did not think this was a good idea.

"Come on Oldest girl.  You will be learning to drive soon.  This is good practice.  Just steer for a bit.  What could go wrong?"

Oldest girl still did not think this was a good idea.*

"How are you ever going to learn to drive if you aren't willing to steer a little bit?"

Finally Oldest girl reached over and grabbed the wheel.  I turned my attention to the window and managed to get it pulled up while Oldest girl very carefully steered us.

"See I told you this was a bad idea," Oldest girl said.

"You did fine," I assured her.  "We didn't hit anyone or anything and the window is now up."

Oldest girl was not amused.

So maybe I'm more like my Dad than I like to think.  But maybe being like my Dad isn't such a bad thing to be.

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*For the record, Oldest girl wants it pointed out that I drove right past a perfect opportunity to pull over. and in addition, her arguing with me about steering was not due to fear but rather that this was not the best way for her to learn to drive. In fact, she mantains that she was never steering the car but merely touched the wheel to make me happy.