It's a good life

I woke up this morning to a good life....in a warm house, with floor heat no less. I am grateful.

I also woke up thinking of the stories my grandparents told about starting a family, living in a drafty and cold log cabin. 

How Grandma carried the babies all day long because the floor was too cold to let them crawl.  

How the rug by the front door would eerily ripple and levitate, lifted by the icy wind whistling under the ill-fitting door. 

How she worried during blizzards that Grandpa would become snow blind and get lost between the barn and the house. 

Tomorrow I'll wake up into my good life again, grateful for all the goodness and tender mercies that surround me, all made possible by the hard-work, sacrifice and love of family. It's truly a good life.

Grandpa Frank DeBoer

Sunrise Sunset

You were tired, but peaceful that night, eleven years ago. Into the hospital bed I'd nestled a basin of warm water so I could wash your feet.  I washed and massaged each of your cool pale feet until they were warmed to my satisfaction.  While I worked, you quietly asked where all of the kids were that night. Once I finished reporting on each family's disposition, your face held nothing but contentment that everyone was okay.  And just like each night at home, you said you were "ready to hit the hay", although you'd been in that hospital "hay" all day long. My heart ached knowing your own heart would not be able to beat much longer.  Kissing you good night I slipped the bar of Dial soap I'd used to wash your feet into my pocket. I still have it today.

Happy heaven Dad. There is joy knowing you are in good company. We miss you but live reassured we will be reunited again.

PTSD (Post-traumatic Santa Disorder)

 

It seemed to me that the more tired my Mom was, the earlier I was tucked into bed. When winter evenings darkened early, I didn't really mind the early bedtime.  On cold Minnesota nights, settling in to sleep first required warming the cold mattress and bedding up to a comfortable nesting temperature. After quickly donning pajamas in the chilly bedroom, I'd hop under the layers of thick quilts, quickly pull them over my head and tuck them around me. Then the wiggling would commence. I'd wiggle my flanneled self against the mattress to speed it's warming. Sometimes I would create enough friction and static to produce tiny blue sparks in the dark undercover. By the time I couldn't bear to breathe another stale breath under the covers, the bed would be warmed to my satisfaction. I'd then slip my head up just far enough on the pillow for my nose to draw the fresh chilled air.  My preheating ritual worked pretty well.  It stayed comfortably toasty under the heavy, wool-batted quilts.

 

Although cold wafted through the aged upstairs windows, I liked to have my bed beside one. Condensation caused a frosted layer of ice to build up on the glass inside the window frames. I have pleasant memories of how I'd lay in my bed and etch words on the frosty glass. The colder it was outside, the larger my ice tablet. 

 
My frosty Etch - a - Sketch was even more enjoyable after the Christmas lights were strung. This allowed for the window art to be back lit by the  1950's Clemco's primary colors. Some nights the window portrait held a thinly frosted sparkling layer of feathery swirls. On other nights the frost clung thickly creating a mossy white velour. Regardless of what the frost fairies painted, those primary colors glowed beautifully through nature's artistry. Some years you'd get a blue bulb outside your window. I loved the blue bulbs for the soothing hue they created. A green bulb was nice, as was yellow. If the lights were strung
j u s t  r i g h t, you'd get two colorful bulbs outside your window. That was the best!

Guilty of Terrorizing Small Children

As much as I looked forward to my lighted bedtime fun, there was one thing that caused major angst for me as a child.  When it came time for Dad to put up the Christmas lights, I would pray that a red bulb wouldn't end up outside my window. Honestly, a red bulb made me so anxious that I'd have to pull the thick quilts up over my eyes to get to sleep. As a small child I was afflicted with what I now call,  PTSD, or Post-Traumatic Santa Disorder. 

I attribute my childhood aversion to the color red as a result of being too young the first time I was sat upon the lap of a red clad, loud, smooshy bellied man wearing a ghastly white and pink stinky rubber Santa mask.  I can't recall any time in my childhood when I wasn't terrified of Santa.

There aren't enough adjectives to relay how frightening this character was in my juvenile mind. I remember looking up into Santa's awful face, that hideous mask sucking up into his nostrils when he inhaled. The molded and wrinkly rubber lips bubbling with each exhalation. 

Family Christmas 1964

 There's a few family pictures that captured this particular childhood anxiety. This photo was taken at a family Christmas party.   

I'm the baby with the red-rimmed eyes and pouting lips. 
Chances are that was the very night I experienced my first close encounter of the Santa-kind.
  It appears that my mother is trying to comfort me.  Dad must have been praying that the night would end quickly. 

From the looks of it, brother Tat tied his own tie. Brother Doodee and sister Kat appear to be experiencing holiday ecstasy. Lucky them.

Dig all that tinsel on the Christmas tree in the background.
It used to freak me out when static would make the wiggly tinsel jump off the tree and 
cling onto my nylon girlie tights.  
God knows that made me cry too.  My poor mother....

The snapshot below was taken at a 4-H Christmas party held at the old school house just down the road from the farm. I can still remember somebody giving the reluctant me a hearty shove toward Santa who eagerly scooped me up onto his lap. Stiffening with resistance, I quickly slid my feet to the floor, which left me leaning against him like a board. Whoever played Santa that year has no idea how close my 7-year-old bladder came to leaving him with a wet and warm memory. 

"All I want for Christmas is to get the HELL off your lap."

I think I was about 9 years old before I finally separated my Santa fears from reality. It happened one afternoon when I was bored and snooping around upstairs. Shoved deep in the back of the hallway closet I discovered an unfamiliar garment bag.  As I unzipped it, my heart began to race and anxiety grabbed my throat as a white-trimmed woolly red suit was revealed. I swallowed hard to stifle a shriek. In the bottom lay a lifeless, deflated mask with a grotesquely shaped nose and lips protruding between two cheaply rouged cheeks. 

In that moment it all came crashing together in my psyche. Santa was NOT real ! What a huge relief ! Bravely touching the stiff red fabric, I suddenly recognized the familiar garb.  It was a  the same "Santa" costume that was used to terrorize me annually at both the 4-H club and family Christmas parties. 

Good Lord in Heaven. My parents owned that awful getup? As an adult, I have no doubt it was purchased with the best of parental intentions to create a magical childhood experience. But on that day of discovery I was mortified to realize that for 363 days out of the year the macabre red shroud had been stored just a few feet away from my bedroom. That was just plum old sick and wrong.

Obviously many years have now passed. I'm nearly 50 years old. I have felt a tad bit embarrassed to publicly share such silly, but honest childhood recollections here. Nevertheless, I've received unexpected dividends from the responses of blog readers who have helped me realize that my humbly scribed stories have opened doors to to their own treasured memories. Thank you for the encouragement.

So let me bravely tell.....I still find wiggling about in a cold bed until it's warm a comforting routine.  Although now the cold leaves my aged fingers aching, I'm still inclined to stop and trace designs on frosty window panes. Christmas lights, even the red ones, still make me feel like a happy child.

As for the status of the old family Santa suit, I want to tell you that it mercifully "disappeared" around 1995.  The newest family Santa costume is made from lovely red and white velour fabric and did not come with a freakish mask.  

Nevertheless, even after all these years, I still give Santa a wide berth, even when I'm at the mall during Christmas.  

Heart-warming and humbling are the remnants of childhood.

Tom Mix & Tony Discovered

My Uncle & a couple buddies.

I love it when I find treasures hidden in old photographs. It's fun when you discover clues to history or a personal story embedded in an image. Take this photo of my Uncle (back right) and his playmates. It wasn't just the adorable expressions of three little boys posed in their dirty overalls that drew me in for a closer look. It was that the photo captured children playing. Photographs of children at play are a rare find in our family photo collection dating 1900-1940. 

While editing some of the damage on the photo, I noticed a Tom Mix and Tony emblem on the rocking horse.  My curiosity peaked, I did a little research.  Tom Mix starred along with his smart and handsome horse Tony in 160 western films which were produced in the early 1900's. Once having worked on an Oklahoma ranch, Mix brought his authentic cowboy prowess to life on the screen through his prize winning marksmanship, riding and roping skills. Tom Mix helped establish the western as a popular film genre in the decades before John Wayne and Ronald Reagan.

Even today, cultural references to this iconic figure still appear in music, television and film. All source credits - Wikipedia:

• In 1967, Mix was featured with many other 20th century celebrities on the cover of The Beatles' Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. 
•  In the "Mulcahy's War" episode of  M*A*S*H Father Mulcahy used a Tom Mix pocket knife to perform an emergency tracheotomy (1976). 
•  In The Beverly Hillbillies, Jed Clampett's reason for going to Beverly Hills was to live in the same place as Tom Mix. 
•  In the 2008 movie Changeling, starring Angelina Jolie, the mysterious little boy claiming to be Walter Collins finally confesses to the police that the reason he ran away to Los Angeles was in hopes of meeting Tom Mix and his horse Tony. 
•  In the 2010 Boardwalk Empire episode "The Emerald City", Nucky Thompson's servant Eddie Kessler offers to frisk someone who's come to see him. Nucky chides him: "You're Tom Mix all of a sudden?   

So now I know a little about Tom Mix.  I wonder if the youngsters in the picture pretended they were the sensational Tom Mix or if their playtime was grounded in the realities of working horses on the farm. I wish that the photographs could tell us more. If you can, I'd love to hear from you.
 

My Dad and a friend. Late 1930's.

 

Grandpa Frank: On Love & Hard Work

Folks today say love and relationships are hard work. 

I disagree. 

Let me tell you what hard work is…

…it is rising before dawn every day to care for livestock.

…sweating in a field thrashing wheat in the July mid-day sun.

…trudging to the barn through thigh high snow and milking cows with stiff frozen hands.  …hauling milk cans to town with a horse and bumpy old wagon.

…Ma wringing out soaked diapers between making meals and chasing kids.

…her gardening and canning to see us through the winter.

...carrying babies around the house all winter long because the floor was too cold to let them crawl on it.

Making a living and feeding a family was hard work. 

But love…

Love is what we lived.

It was our love that made Ma & I friends, helping one another throughout each day.

It was our love that bred the courage to bring us through the tough times.

It was our love that took turns rocking sick kids at night.

It was our love that provided a shared strength when we were weary.

It was our love that whispered to each other at night when we finally 

put our head on the pillow.

Sweat and toil defined hard work. Loving each other was not work.

And when we were reunited again beyond the grave, it was our enduring love that restored us to each other.

Love is what we chose. 

Maybe think about that the next time it feels like hard work to love someone.

My Secret Crush

Ever since I was a child, I have been drawn to gardening. A true introvert, I found the garden to be the perfect place for me to be alone and think.  My garden knew my thoughts and kept the secrets I'd whisper. And it was where I could play my battery-operated transistor radio as loud as I wanted. With the FM radio dial set to KKXL, I'd spend hours in the sun talking to myself, gardening, and listening to the day's top hits. It was a place where good things happened.

During the 1970's there was an abundance of love songs that filled the air waves. While I was awakening into adolescence I was also memorizing the lyrics to songs such as Olivia Newton-John's "I Honestly Love You", the Eagles "Fooled Around and Fell In Love", and Peter Frampton's "Baby I Love Your Way." Who can forget "Love Will Keep Us Together" by The Captain & Tennille?  Listening pleasures of the decade ranged from sweet love to the sultry and sexy. I'd croon quietly while I worked to thin carrots, pull carpet weeds and hill potatoes. Time would pass quickly as I sang my way through row after row of vegetables.

4-H was another reason why I spent time in the garden.  One of my 4-H projects was to bring a garden exhibit to be judged at the county fair. In anticipation, the entire 4-H club would tour each others gardens. To the same degree that I loved gardening, I dreaded any event that called for public speaking. This included the 4-H garden tour. Painfully shy, the mere thought of it made my palms sweat and stomach ache.

Listening to the radio helped me wrangle my overwhelming anxiety about the pending tour. Each afternoon, I'd carry my little blue Panasonic Rolling Tone radio out to the garden and place it in the shade under the apple tree. Music playing, I would mindlessly weed, memorizing song lyrics and wondering what hidden meaning they held. For example, what was the purpose of Donna Summer's breathless moaning in "Love to Love You Baby?"  Seriously, I didn't know. The only time I moaned in bed was when I accidentally rolled over on a miserable sunburn. The songs with the most cryptic lyrics really had me befuddled.  I could feel something behind Bob Seeger's gravely voice and the pulsating melody of  "Night Moves."  There was an intensity when Seeger belted out that he, "felt the lightening and waited for the thunder." In the context of the song, I knew lightening and thunder were definitely not meteorologic references but I was clueless as to the interpretation. Throw in a song like The Who's "Mamma's Got a Squeezebox" and I was even more confused.  All this love business made even less sense when I thought about the boys my age. There was nothing attractive about pubescent boys. They were gangly, greasy and stunk like BO. Seriously, somebody needed to talk to them about washing the important places. The music left questions jumbled in my mind like unconnected dots. Love was a mystery to me.

The warm days of June seemed to fast forward up to the date of the garden tour. Unfortunately, preparation for spending the day touring rural gardens required overdressing to prevent mosquito bites. In spite of the sunny 80+ degree weather, on this day I had donned a sweatshirt, jeans and cowboy boots. You'd sweat to death but avoided getting peppered with itchy mosquito bites.

A caravan of cars, filled with parents and kids carried us from farm to farm where we'd listen to a presentation and check out who had the cleanest garden with the straightest rows. By the time it was my turn the notes I had prepared were rumpled and ink smeared from the clutch of my sweaty palms. Nervously I watched the county extension agent as he quieted the chattering group and cued me to begin my presentation.

Sweat sprouted from all my pores, tickling as it ran down my back. I shyly kept my eyes on the ground, causing my heavy thick lensed glasses to slide down my nose. With a desert dry mouth and quaking voice I struggled to read the notes I'd prepared about the varieties I planted - Scarlet Nantees carrots, Blue Lake green beans, Big Boy tomatoes, sweet California Wonder green peppers, Green Goliath broccoli, Charleston Gray watermelon....
My blushing cheeks and shaking hands made me more self-conscious by the minute. I needed the torture to be over before I threw up.

Then a steady masculine voice said,
"There isn't a weed to be found. I can see you have worked very hard."
I peeked over the top of the glasses that had slid down my sweaty nose. The voice was coming from a tall myopic blur.
"Your potato hills are picture perfect."
His unexpected compliments pushed my blushing cheeks from pink to crimson.
I settled my glasses back onto the bridge of my nose and tilted my chin up to get a better look at the blur. The man who had spoken was our twenty-something county extension agent, standing just a few feet away. He looked at me with kind eyes and a big smile. My heart beat faster.
Hmmmm.
He wasn't gangly or greasy.
Unlike boys my age, he didn't stink. 
I was grateful for his compliments that settled around me like a life preserver, rescuing me from drowning in a pool of my own anxiety. With his smooth and deep voice he then diverted the crowd's attention by engaging them in pratter about early yielding vegetable varieties. Relieved, I took a deep breath.

With everyone's focus off of me, I took a closer look at this attractive man. He had long blonde bangs combed over from a side part ala 1970s style. Like all hard working men his sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. A plaid trim fit shirt was tucked in under a thick leather belt. My eyes moved slowly down his snugly fitting dark denim Wrangler jeans to a pair of scuff-toed cowboy boots. Even though he wore a gold wedding band, it didn't stop my heart from beating faster. Visually inspecting this handsome man created a circuit of warm waves which rippled from my head down to my toes. Hot and dizzy, my knees threatened to give out. I tried to anchor myself by digging the heels of my cowboy boots into the soil underfoot. 

Cuing me that it was time to move along to the next farm, he turned to me and said, "I see a blue ribbon in your future."  To a 4-H kid, it didn't get any better than that.

His last compliment switched up the voltage on my circuit, causing a surge of burning electricity through my body. Was this Seeger's lightening? Have mercy. The feelings of fond affection that I had while listening to love songs on the radio exploded into sensations much larger. If such strong feelings could be ignited by a near stranger, I could only imagine the intensity of what it would be like to experience true love.

Throughout the garden tour I fantasized about what a great match this handsome man would be for me. He personified the ideal farm boy -- educated, understanding of rural life, but unencumbered by the daily labors of a farm. All afternoon long my heart pattered as I watched him stroll about in those Wrangler jeans. Invisibly tethered together with a lasso of love, I followed him through garden after garden, oblivious to the hot sun and mosquitoes. Along the way I discovered that he had an endearing sense of humor. Sort of a northern Minnesota hybrid cross between Oliver Wendell Douglas and Hank Kimball.  Needless to say, I was a very happy teenager that day, full of new thoughts and wonderful feelings.

When I reflect back that first crush seems a little silly. All the while my sister was swooning over teen heart throbs Donny Osmond and David Cassidy, I had my own crush on the county extension agent. Is it any wonder why I kept that secret to myself for 37 years? 

Decades have passed since I experienced the emotionally charged excitement of that first crush.
As a teen I quickly learned that a crush has nothing to do with love and that a perfect partner is only an idealized image.
While I was married I learned much about what love is and what it is not.  
Not least of all,  life experience helped me to understand the mysterious meaning behind those veiled love song lyrics. Seeger was right. Lightening and thunder doesn't just come from a summer storm. And my heart still flutters when I think about that handsome guy from extension. 

Little Big Man

Napping on the couch with Grandpa

Your awake time expired

when Grandpa got tired

And if you were wired

napping was the last thing desired

But at midday we rested

On the sofa we nested

"Peace and quiet" Grandma requested

as squirrelly youngsters were tested

You see Grandpa's arms were a nook

Held on his warm lap you'd cook

With animated voice he'd read you a book

Soon you'd be fast asleep...
His gentle voice was all it took

His loving blue eyes so full of care

Of which my heart yet holds aware

Now all we see is that big empty chair

Oh how we wish that he was still there

I'm a man now but my mind still finds him at night

especially after the day's been a fright

His angel arms are there holding me tight

as I rest assured that everything will be alright.

The Grandpa Chair

Fish Jelly and Hot Dogs

As a youngster my son was fortunate to spend time "helping" around the  farm. He loved to do the same things as his Uncle and Grandpa, which included drinking out of the big guys water jugs and eating out of their lunch pails. Since the shop was the grand central station of the farm, it was common for a random water jug and lunch bucket to be sitting around. 

One summer day my brother discovered a bucket of minnows that he'd forgotten in his pickup bed for a few weeks. Busy with other tasks, he put the bucket up on the shop bench so he'd remember to clean it out at the end of the day. Mistaking the minnow bucket for a water jug, my son angled his mouth under the spigot and took a big gulp. When a glob of fish jelly plopped onto his tongue there was much spitting and sputtering. The summer heat had caused the minnows to disintegrate into a cloudy gray gelatinous mass. When my brother emptied the contents of the minnow bucket outside of the shop, there wasn't a minnow to be found. Yuck.

This story does end well. There were two heroes that day. One, my brother who convinced my son he would live and Grandma who fed him homemade molasses cookies and milk to get the taste out of his mouth. (Needless to say, this child still finds the smell of lutefisk particularly revolting.)

But not even drinking out of a minnow bucket would stop my son from jumping at any opportunity to go fishing. This enjoyment of fishing is shared by my entire family. Except me. I am the odd one out. The abstainer. The lone ranger of the shoreline. The kill joy.  Nobody wanted to take me in the boat and I didn't care to join them. I am the Pippy Pukestocking of my family. Even today, all I have to do is look at a lake, a boat, or smell fish and I am instantly nauseous. Count me out of any activity that involves catching or eating fish.

I'd rather have a hot dog please and thank you. Washkish 1969

To the contrary, this picture is evidence that I did catch ONE fish in my lifetime. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that this is the fish that bit my hook and someone else reeled in. My first and only fish ever caught was nabbed during a family fishing trip to Washkish. The seven of us were patiently bobbing around on Red Lake in our little aluminum boat, waiting for some action, when my fishing line jerked and with a great zizzing sound, the reel took off. I squealed. One of my brothers grabbed the rod and reeled Mr. Northern in for me before the rod could be pulled out of my six-year-old hands. Dad grabbed the net, and voila, the rest is history.  And that is my one-time-wonder fish tale.

Now don't think for a minute I'm smiling in this picture because I am proud of my first catch and dreaming of fried fish (gag). No, I was coerced into posing with that stinky, slimey, scaley Northern in my bare hands by a promise that I could have a HOT DOG, and not fish, for supper. I'm pretty sure my ancestors who fished for a living in the fjords of Norway would not be impressed.

  

Great Grandma's Window Garden

Recently I was perusing some archival family letters that were sent by my Great Grandma Genie to her mother in Iowa in the early 1900's. These letters were composed within the first years she and Great Grandpa H.P. established a farmstead a few miles north of Crookston.  

The excerpts here share the sense of humor she maintained in spite of relentless spring dirt storms.

May 18, 1915

Dear Mother -

I thought I knew what dirt storms were......when I started washing the wind was blowing a little....then it blew so hard I had to cover the clothes up in a tub in the house. Dirt blew in where snow couldn't. It came from across the road to the northwest. In one hour there was so much dust in the kitchen and pantry that when you walked, it was like it is when you walk on a dusty road. I hadn't gotten that cleaned all out of the southwest bedroom downstairs when a week ago Monday night we were treated to another hard rain/wind/dirt storm.......

Genie 

May 16, 1918 

Dear Mother - 

Am in the post office. Didn't have time to write before I left home. A week ago Sunday it was so hot - 95 degrees. Last Sunday it was so cold it even froze pie plant. It is just one dirt storm then another.

Haven't started to clean house.

 It's no use. 

I am thinking of having  
a window garden 

on the inside. 

When I get rid of my dirt,

 I am going to blow out  

of this famous Red River Valley.

Genie

Genie & H.P. 1901

My Jelly Grandma

This morning I was less than ambitious and decided to just make some toast. I topped it off with some jelly from a plastic bottle with the picture of a raspberry on the label. Compressing it up-side-down I squeezed out a ribbon of  "fruit spread", wrinkling my nose at the artificial smell that farted out of the decompressed bottle. The yucky synthetic smell was a cross between new plastic containers and strawberry Twizzler's licorice. For a moment I imagined my Grandma Anna was in the kitchen, watching me with a disappointed frown, worn hands on her apron-clad hips. I know Grandma would not be pleased that I eat crappy store-bought preserves. Nothing from the grocery store could ever rival the goodness and love that my Grandma cooked into her homemade spreads.

Grandma Anna died over a decade ago, when my children were still quite young. Although her passing was anticipated, I wasn't prepared for it. My own sorrow was stirred with anxiety knowing her funeral would be the children's first experience with death. During times like that I really missed having the support of a spouse. It would be up to me alone to usher them through the experience, all the while immersed in my own sadness. I couldn't help but think of how my Grandmother would understand my feelings. She had raised the youngest of her brood alone after Grandpa died unexpectedly.

Before I told the children I spent a few minutes trying to find the right words for telling them the news. Should I say their Great-Grandma had 'passed away', 'died', 'gone to heaven' or that she was 'with Jesus'? My mind churned as I rehearsed different explanations of death. After much angst, I decided to just give it to them straight. I called the kids to my side and simply said,

"Your Great-Grandma Anna has died."  I watched their faces for a reaction. All three of them stood quietly, watching the tears roll down my face. I quietly prayed they would understand.


Looking bewildered, my six-year-old asked,

"Was she my jelly Grandma?"

With a relieved smile I said,

"Yes. Great-Grandma Anna was your jelly Grandma."

The knot I had tied myself into unraveled as I realized the news had landed on them softly. To my relief they seemed to understand. Although we didn't see her very often, the kids knew Great-Grandma Anna for her 'uff-dah', lots of hugs and laughter, lefse, and the most amazing raspberry jelly ever created. 

When you opened a jar of her jelly it released scented memories of my Grandma cooking raspberries on the stove. I can still see a cheesecloth-lined colander sitting on her kitchen counter, holding a sieved glob of seedy dark pink raspberry pulp. The berry juice and sugar was cooked slowly, deliberately. A purple foam floated atop the bubbling liquid, splattering up the insides of the shiny stainless steel pot. When reduced, the concentrated juice emitted an extraordinary scent and produced a preserve with an intense raspberry flavor. Grandma Anna knew exactly how to cook it to perfection.  One could hold a jar of her raspberry jelly up to the sunlight and see clearly though the glass jar's burgundy lens. 

These memories of my Grandmother cooking in her kitchen, happily chattering and singing, comforted me. She was a fun, humble, kind and loving woman. I never heard her speak an unkind word about anyone or to anyone. Her strength and resilience spoke to the exponential number of hardships she had endured. At the age of three she lost her mother to cancer. She'd lived through the depression, worked hard on the farm while raising a family and experienced the untimely deaths of her husband and two of her seven children. Many times life had had been unkind to my Grandma Anna.

Years ago when I lived on the east coast, newly married and having babies, I missed seeing my family. Although miles apart, my Grandma Anna had her own way of staying connected. When my second child was born, my Mom flew out to see us, carrying with her a box full of homemade jelly. She lugged that heavy box through airport connections and held it on her lap in flight to ensure its safe arrival. Some might not understand, but to me those preserves carried with them the loving strength of my Grandmother's presence. I couldn't help but think of her as I placed jelly on the table every morning.

Even my daughter, a toddler with a limited vocabulary, was a connoisseur of jelly by the age of two. She could not pronounce "jelly", so she simply called the sweet red spread "more." It was a most appropriate name.  I remember hiding the last jar of Grandma's jelly from my husband when the demise of our marriage neared. There was NO way I was going to let him have one more drop of it. If my Grandma knew what he'd done to me she would have beat him silly with her lefse stick. That one remaining jar of jelly was MY sweet solace. It was the connection to my Grandmother's reassuring presence during long lonely days while I contemplated my future as a single mom with three children under the age of four.

 

Clearly what filled those jars was more than just jelly. 

To this day I keep an empty half-pint jelly jar

 in the kitchen windowsill. 

It's a symbolic reminder that my Grandmother Anna's spirit is ever present in my daily life. 

When life hands me sadness and trouble, 

I am confident she keeps my jar overflowing
with loving kindness and strength

 from her heavenly reservoir.

I am grateful that I will always have my jelly Grandma.