Category Archives: Uncategorized

“She’s struggling a bit right now,”
I say to Middle Daughter.
While reading a blog/post, I catch a worry line in my heart.

Middle Daughter, reading over my shoulder, says,
“Everyone has days.  But when you’re a blogger, everyone finds out.”

Dear Friend.  Tonight I pray for YOU!

We are heading to a funeral today.  Middle Daughter will hold down the fort at home.  This is the first of my Sweet Mama’s siblings to pass away.  Uncle Harold was one of her favorite people growing up.  They ran trap lines together, fished together, and shared happy moments together.  I caught this picture of them at the last reunion that their cousins had, back in 2011.  It looks conspiratorial, doesn’t it?

Here is the obituary.  I learned things about my uncle that I never knew before.  But I wasn’t surprised.  The people in my Sweet Mama’s family are an unusually gifted and resourceful bunch.

Harold William Wert, 87, went home to be with his Lord and Savior on Thursday, April 4, 2013 at Landis Homes, Lititz, PA. He was the loving husband of Mary F. Hepner Wert of Lititz, for over 66 years. Born and raised in McAlisterville, PA, he was the son of the late Michael W. and Alma G. Lauver Wert.

He will be lovingly missed by his wife, Mary and his children: Jeanne M. Witmer, East Petersburg, Janice E. wife of Ernest Miller, Elizabethtown, H. Thomas Wert husband of Grace, Manheim, Stephen L. Wert husband of Kathy, Mount Joy, and John D. Stahl-Wert husband of Milonica, Pittsburgh; 14 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren. Siblings: Orpha wife of J. Lloyd Gingrich, Richfield, Alene Yoder, Greenwood, DE, Gladys wife of Jesse Yoder, Dover, DE, Freda Zehr, Greenwood, DE, Alma Jean wife of Harvey Yoder, Harrisonburg, VA, J. Lloyd Wert husband of Beverly, Gap, and Ruth Ann wife of Allan Shirk, Neffsville. Preceding him in death is a son-in-law, Dale E. Witmer.

In 1943, Harold graduated from Eastern Mennonite High School, Harrisonburg, VA. Following their marriage, he and Mary moved to Lancaster. Harold was employed many years as a milkman for the former Queen Dairy, Lancaster. He then owned and operated a franchise of Archway Cookies and later worked for Horst Group in construction until his retirement. 

Harold loved the outdoors, fishing, hunting and spending time in the mountains. He was part owner of “Bushy Bungalow” cabin in Galeton, PA taking his family on wonderful vacations and going hunting there. He later enjoyed building a log cabin with a friend in Richfield, PA and spent many weekends there with his family and friends. These weekends always included his preparation and serving of his famous chicken barbeque.

Harold was a master craftsman in all areas of his life. He built furniture, retiled bathrooms, laid carpets, put on new roofs and did all engine and body work possible on his cars. He loved working with his hands and any job that needed doing he accomplished well.

He loved singing and music. He was a member at Erisman Mennonite Church, Manheim and participated as a song leader there and in other churches throughout his life.

Relatives and friends are respectfully invited to attend his funeral service at the Erisman Mennonite Church, 8 South Erisman Road, Manheim, on Monday, April 8, 2013 at 2:00 PM. Interment is in the adjoining church cemetery. There will be a public viewing at the Landis Homes Retirement Community WEST BETHANY CHAPEL, 1001 East Oregon Road, Lititz on Sunday from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM with additional viewing time on Monday afternoon at the church from 1:00 PM until the time of the service. Those desiring may send contributions in Harold’s memory to Landis Homes Caring Fund, Development Office, 1001 East Oregon Road, Lititz, PA 17543.

This day was the culmination of a couple of intense weeks as we made an old, familiar trek to Baltimore to see My Sweet Mama’s Cancer Doctor.

Ziv Gamliel, of St. Joe’s Medical Center performed an eleven hour surgery on Mama eight years ago yesterday.  And through that day and the unbelievably difficult days that followed, he developed a deep respect and resounding affection for this diminutive little woman, pulling out all the stops when it came to his expertise as a doctor, doing anything within his power and within his intuitive acumen to help her through a disease that was, at least eight years ago, fatal in nearly 85% of the cases.  In fact, on one of the first visits to Dr. Gamliel, he told Mama and Daddy that if this had been only a few years earlier, his advice would be that she should get her affairs in order, that there was nothing he could do.

As it was, there were some things he could do, but they would come at high cost to her and there were no guarantees. 

Mama wanted to live.  She was willing to do almost anything that Dr. Gamliel suggested.  I remember her sitting in the cubicle that was his office, and the look on her face was hope and longing and even supplication.  She wanted that cancer out and she wanted to be well again.

On the other side of the room, my Daddy sat.  His face was an entirely different study.  Profound sadness and resignation were there as well as a strange set to the jaw.  I was surprised by the sudden realization that Daddy did not want Mama to have the surgery.  

I’ve thought about that day often since then, wondering just why Daddy felt the way he did.  I think that at the very bottom of it all was the fact that he really didn’t think it was going to help.  He was sure that we would lose her.  And another factor that I am sure went into it was that he was always so proud of how pretty his wife was, and I really believe that he could hardly bear to think of her bald from radiation, sick from chemo and sliced up from front to back and up and down with an esophagectomy.

But Mama wanted to live and she wanted the surgery and she wanted to do it right — first a staging proceedure, then five weeks of radiation, two rounds of chemo and then a “cooling off” period for a few weeks, and then radical, 11 hour series of surgeries.  And when Daddy saw that she intended to go through with it, he jumped on the band wagon, and drove her to Baltimore five days a week for five weeks for her radiation therapy.  He was as pleased as she was when her hair didn’t fall out (Someone PLEASE tell me why!  This never has made sense!).  But when the day came for her surgery, April 4, 2005, he balked.  He didn’t want to take her.  So my sister, Sarah and I were the ones who took her.  We came into our Daddy and Mama’s house in the wee hours of the morning.  Mama was ready to go.  Daddy was in his long sleeved pajamas.  We stood there in the living room in a circle, and Daddy prayed for us, for Mama, for the day ahead. I wonder now what it felt like to him.  He told us later that he really didn’t expect her to live through surgery.

But she did.

And Daddy, fighting his own battle with lymphoma and fatigue began to believe that she just might come home again.  That was a big battle, too, as things suddenly went downhill and Mama ended up in ICU on a ventilator for a few weeks and then ended up with a tracheotomy before being allowed to come home, feeding tube in place, restrictions and round the clock nursing care needed.  I suspect that Daddy lost hope many, many times over the next few weeks, but he would get up in the morning, fix her coffee the way she liked it, and tried to keep things as normal as possible.

She got better and better, and he was quietly going backwards.  I remember him coming into the kitchen one summer afternoon and sitting at the table and barely eating a thing.  Then he put his head down on the table and sat there for a long time.  

“Daddy,” I said, anxiously. “Daddy, are you okay?”

“I’m just so tired, Sweetie,” he said wearily.  “I’m just so tired.”  And then he went to bed and slept.  My Daddy!  In the middle of the day.  In the Summer!

Somewhere in my gut a big old ball of ice began to form that day.  I knew something was terribly wrong.  We did everything we knew to do — changed his meds, saw some specialists in Baltimore, tried to get him to rest more.  But it was if he waited until he knew Mama was going to be okay, and then he went on HOME.

Days like today, I give grateful praise for the miracle of Mama — for Dr. Gamliel and his tender, watchful care over her, for his respect and love for her and affirmation and kindness. He readily says that it was not his doings that brought Mama through — that he was only the tools that God chose to use to help her.  And I look at his smiley face, and the beard that is turning grayer every year and see his obvious delight in the fact that she is showing no signs of cancer.  I am so grateful.

But on days like today, I miss my daddy acutely.  It probably has something to do with the fact that the first of my sweet Mama’s siblings (her oldest brother, Harold Wert) will be buried on Monday.  I feel the pensive weight of parting especially much right now.  It also is that trip to Baltimore, the memories that I cannot elude, the very voice of Ziv Gamliel and his gentle way of relating to Mama like she is his own sweet Mama.  He always catches her up on his five lively children, and who is doing what and he speaks of his wife and their Jewish home with a soft and appreciative tenor, making much of their traditions and family times.  (I think, “Daddy would enjoy this so much, but he isn’t here!”) But Mama enjoys the telling of it, her eyes sparkling, her smile genuine, and she goes away wavering in her resolve to not go back next year.  

And that is a thing to rejoice about as well.  She really doesn’t NEED to go back.  She is clear of everything.  She has no alarming issues, and today when she suggested that maybe she wouldn’t need to go through this anymore, we had reason to praise again when Dr. Gamliel said, “I cannot say if it would be okay or not.  We don’t have enough Esophageal Cancer Survivors that survive long enough for us to compile accurate statistics.  If you want to know what I think, I think that you will never have cancer again, and that it will be fine for you not to come back.  I will say that it is very gratifying to me to see that I was able to contribute in a small way to another year of miracle for you.  It gives me great joy to see you.  It is truly a great blessing for me.  But I also realize that it is monumental effort for you to get these tests every year and to make the trek over.  So, I want you to know that I will not be hurt or take it personally if you decide that it is something you just aren’t going to do.  We will make the appointment just like usual, and then see how you feel next year.  If you don’t want to come, that will be alright.”

Mama hugged his neck, told him again how much she appreciated him and all he has done for her.  And then he went into his office and shut the door firmly behind him.  And we got our papers and appointments and came home.

Whew!  Another year gone.  The last eight years seem like such a short time.  And when we are all finished for the year, it really does seem like it would be a shame to not go back.  We shall see what another year brings.

In the meantime, this is one tired gal.  But not even half as tired as my brave sweet Mama who got a clean bill of health for the seventh year in a row.  And not so tired as Certain Man who drove the car faithfully and well, and even now is out working on fence.  But still tired.  

Methinks a nap just might be in order.

April 3, 1979.  

Daniel and I took a bright eyed little girl who was two years and nine months old, to a big old courthouse in downtown Columbus, OH, and “got her papers.”  Adoption back then was very low key.  There were six people there.  Christina, Daniel and I, the caseworker, the lawyer and the judge. We went into the chamber and pretty much promised to love her forever, provide for her and protect her and they said we could be her daddy and mommy, all legal and proper. And suddenly, what had been a long time coming was all legal and proper and DONE. 

We told our girlie that she could choose where we went to eat lunch to celebrate.  There was no question in her mind at all.  

“McDonalds!” she proclaimed, and would not be deterred.  And that was fine with us.  Eating out was a rare occurrence for our little family, and McDonalds was special.

I looked at this bouncy little girl, thought of the joy she had brought into our lives, and realized that she was home to stay and somewhere in my heart, something settled into peace that had been a long time coming.  I looked across the table at Daniel and thought, “She’s our very own.  We have a child that is ours for keeps.”  There was an incredible wonder and joy and quiet rest. 

Christina had an unusual grasp on what was happening that day.  She had been in our home for almost two years, and had watched other foster children come and go, and “getting her papers” very, very big in her eyes.  

“Anna had to go away,” she told her Aunt Freda Zehr some months later, “But I got my papers and I get to stay for ever and ever!”

Christina couldn’t be more our own if she had our genes and chromosomes.  She has set the tenor that often defines our family in ways that are rich and full and even cohesive.  She has been the smiles and the music and the honesty that often makes us look better and calls us to act better than we might otherwise.  We are so grateful to God for bringing her to our family.

On days like today, I think of the fact that somewhere there are two people who gave Christina life, and I seldom think about them without a deep, deep sense of gratitude for this incredible gift.    

Where would our family be without her?  I don’t even want to think about it.    

Because I’ve been getting occasional requests, I am reposting this (from June of last year)for the gardeners who have been inquiring. 

Hope this helps!

Inquiring minds want to know just what and how it is that Certain Man does his tomato plants.

Daniel fashioned these steel “V” shaped things himself.  He puts them all along his tomato row.
This picture was taken last week before all the “suckers” were cut off.  He cuts the suckers off — mercilessly, actually.  
(That was what he was doing last night while his grandbaby was making mud pies.) 

This is what things look like now.

When he gets the plants all trimmed back, he goes through and lays fencing
that he has cut specifically to size along both sides of the “V”.  
As the plants get high enough,  he trains them up through the openings in the fencing.

He puts the white PVC pipe around the plants,
pushing it firmly into the soil and allowing it to protrude about a foot above the ground.
This greatly reduces the problem with bugs and worms.
As the plants grow, they literally fill the “V.”
The tomatoes are about waist high and I just reach in and around the plants,
through the fencing and under the fencing to pick the tomatoes.
They never rest on the ground, they get more consistent sunlight,
And the vines do not get trampled when I am trying to pick tomatoes.
Probably there are people out there that will think of something that would make this unsatisfactory.
Think away.
I happen to think that this is the work of a genius.
It wasn’t original with Daniel, (he saw something similar in an Amish Garden one time)
but he has refined it through the years,
(And I really do think he has a stroke of genius when it comes to this sort of thing!)
And it is so completely satisfactory to me. 

I will try to answer any questions . . .

onion snow
n. Chiefly Pennsylvania

Easter is getting closer and closer.  I’ve thought a lot these days about last year and how I wanted so badly for each of the children who attend Sunday School to have new Easter clothes.  They have so little when it comes to nice things, and I felt like it was one time we could buy clothes for them without offending their parents. (I can’t say that was one of my most successful endeavors.  But that is another story.)  At least we tried!

I mean, EVERYONE knows that people get new clothes for Easter.

The thing is, I’m not big on “new for Easter” for myself.  We seldom did it for our children either.  But then, neither were my parents.  In thinking about this, I may trace some of my indifference to new Easter clothing to a painful memory.  One of the many times I have wished for a second chance with my adolescent self.

My Daddy and Mama worked hard.  My Sweet Mama, especially.  Looking back, I know that there were many, many times when she felt inadequate when it came to some of the things that she considered important.  For one thing, she didn’t like to sew.  In those years, it was almost a mark of your Christianity that you sew all your own clothing.  If you had daughters, it was equally important that you sewed their dresses, too.

To be honest, Mama was a good seamstress.  Probably it was her perfectionist qualities that made her feel like it took too long, was too hard, and that she didn’t have time.  When she took time, there was always something phenomenal to show for her labor.  I think I was pretty hard on dresses.  For instance, I remember coming home from school in about third grade and overhearing my mama say to my daddy, “I think Mary Ann just might be growing up a little.  Her dress isn’t ripped every night when she comes in from school!”

But I loved new dresses.  And it didn’t escape me that some of my many cousins and many of my friends got new dresses for Easter.  I knew that Daddy and Mama held to the fact that new dresses for Easter was unnecessary, and while it wasn’t “wrong” it did border on “worldly.”

Mama worked out a LOT on the farm, helping Daddy with farm chores, feeding chickens, milking and such.  I remember that there was many a Saturday night when she would scrub and wax her kitchen floor after we children were in bed.  In addition to working outside, she liked for the farmhouse that she and Daddy had remodeled in 1958 to be clean for Sunday.  She often had company for Sunday dinner, and Daddy was so proud of his pretty wife, and the meals she would put on the table.  She just did so many things well.

But because she worked so hard, there were times when the tired lines in her forehead were deepened and the weariness would walk with her as she finished yet another thing, big or little, before she would let herself sleep.

I was often reading when I should have been helping.  Or pretending that I was some athlete, performing for adoring crowds, or writing letters to interesting penpals that seemed to always eventually disappoint me.  There were a hundred ways that I could have helped to carry the burdens if I had only been observant.  Or thinking.  But who is thinking or even observant, when you are in the throes of adolescence and self centered?

I remember as if it was yesterday, one Easter morning coming downstairs to find my Sweet Mama, working on the Easter meal that we would have after church.  I don’t think it was elaborate and I don’t know that there was company coming, but in those days, if you had six children and you went to church on Sunday morning, you always prepared– always made food for when the long sermons were over and people were hungry.

She was standing between the kitchen sink and the kitchen table, I was standing at the opening between the dining room and kitchen, by the little telephone stand under the tall, narrow mirror.  And I was feeling put upon and grumpy.

“Mama,” I said, standing there in my housecoat. (In our family, you never appeared outside your bedroom unless you were clothed (if you were a boy) or at least in a housecoat (if you were a girl).  “What dress am I supposed to wear today?”  I knew there were no new ones for me or my two little sisters.

She looked up from what she was doing, standing there in the morning light from the window.  “I don’t know, Mary Ann,” she said, and I remember that she looked tired.  “Maybe you can wear your blue one.”  (I’m not sure of the color, here, but let’s just use “blue.”)

“But, Mama,” I protested.  “I’m not sure that one is clean.”  In those days, you hung up your dresses after wearing them until they looked like they needed washing.

“It’s not dirty,” she said.  “I’m sure it will be okay.”

And this is what I will regret as long as I have memory.  I got angry.  “Mama,” I said, burst out spitefully, “you would think that if I couldn’t have a new dress for Easter, I could at least have a clean one!”

My Sweet Mama’s face!!!  I was sorry the minute the words were out of my mouth.  Hurt, sorrow, sadness washed over her pretty face as I stood there, miserable and ashamed.

“Oh, Mary Ann,” she finally said and her voice was quiet.  “You have it all wrong.  It isn’t about dresses.  It’s about what Jesus did for us on the cross and Him getting alive again . . .”  She may have said a whole lot more, but I don’t remember. 

What I do know is that something changed in my heart at that very instant.  I honestly would never again think that I needed a new dress for Easter.  The whole thing of getting new clothes just never held the fascination for me again.  And while there have been times when I will get a new dress on sale in the spring and decide to hold it for Easter, it hasn’t been often, and it has never been important.  

And while I may use it as an excuse to buy clothes or gifts for needy kids that I love, it is never about the new clothes or the Easter Baskets or Cadbury eggs.

I DID have it all wrong.  

It isn’t about dresses.  

It’s all about what Jesus did for us on the cross and Him getting alive again. 

And I have staked all that matters and my very soul on this one thing:

HE IS RISEN, AS HE SAID.

Sunday afternoon at Grammy’s house.  

Daddy and Mommy went to Virginia to see Daddy’s cousin, Matt, and his wife, Angela.  I get to stay with Grandpa and Grammy.   I took a (very) little rest with Grandpa on his chair.  

He was snoring, so I pretended to snore, too, and woke him up.
 I decided to get down.

Grammy napped on her chair, too, while I watched Caillou,
but then I convinced Grammy that it was time to do something more interesting.

So we mixed up some cupcakes and I helped a lot with that, and then I washed the dishes with lots of soap and water and splashing about.  
I had to wear my apron:

And then, Grammy gave me Grandpa’s big honey bear that is out of honey.  
She filled it with water for me and I watered the flowers.
They were really dry, though Grammy isn’t sure if at least one of them won’t need water for a week or more:

When I got done with that, the cupcakes were done, so we got them out of the oven:

“H-m-m-m-m,” Said Grammy.  “We need to make some icing for these cupcakes!”

“Yes,” I said.  “We do!”

“Since it is Saint Patrick’s Day,” said Grammy, “shall we make green frosting?”

“Oh, Yes!” I said, “We need to have green frosting!”

So we made green frosting.  I held the mixer and mixed it up.  Grammy helped me.

And then I licked the beaters.  It was so yummy!

Then Grammy put the icing on the cupcakes and I sprinkled the green sugar on them.

And I did it almost all by myself.  Grammy almost didn’t have enough green sugar.

In fact, when I was done, there was no green sugar left in the shaker.  At all.

But all the cupcakes had sprinkles.

So I ate one right away to see if it was okay.

It was.

And now, as soon as Grandpa goes out to feed the calves, I think I will beg to go along.  I got my farm boots that Mommy bought for me from the thrift store, and Grammy has a farm jacket for me.  After that, maybe I will get a bath, since I haven’t had one in a very long time.  (At least that is what I told Grammy when I was begging for one!  Somehow I’m not sure she believes me, but at least I haven’t had one today, I am sure!)

I am getting really tired, too.  It’s hard work keeping things going at Grammy’s house.

The Friday morning sunshine streams in the picture window that faces the southeast.  I’ve been trying to take some time to sit in the sun on sunny mornings.  I’ve heard tell that it is good for a person.  Especially in these months.  I don’t think it’s doing much besides making me lazy.  I feel almost addicted to this morning siesta.  Almost grumpy if I don’t have time or there is no sunshine.  I’ve been trying to talk Nettie into trying it.  She sniffs in the way that is characteristic of her when she doesn’t believe a single thing I’m saying and has no intentions of changing her views.  Sometimes I get her to come out and sit in the one chair and she looks the whole time like I’ve asked her to eat Brussel sprouts. Shifts around, acts put upon, and finally will say, “S’alrigh’ f’I go fee’ a birze?” (Is it alright if I go feed the birds?”) or “S’alrigh’ f’I go my roo’?” (Is it alright if I go to my room?) or some other such thing that will release her from sitting quietly in the sunshine.

I’m not sure why she resists it so much.  I’m of the opinion that it isn’t so much that she doesn’t like to sit still as she thinks that it isn’t right for me to sit still.  She thinks I ought to be doing something productive.

She’s a little like my Daddy on that score.  He liked nothing better than to see his wife or his children working really, really hard. “Hard work never killed anybody,” he would say with conviction and his characteristic grin.  Well, he wasn’t right on that score, but he really did believe it until the day he died.  And though I am forever grateful for the things I was taught, I believe that some of the things that were instilled in me as a child makes it difficult to feel worthy when I’m unproductive.  Not all of that is bad, though.  Our society could surely use a few more people who believe in the therapeutic value of hard work. (She says as she sits on her chair in the sun!)

I wonder if part of my current lethargy isn’t that there is so much to do that I don’t feel like starting.  Some people say they don’t know where to start.  I know where to start, for sure, but I just don’t feel like starting.  Taxes to organize and divide into columns and write down, computer room to clean, (AGAIN!)  book work for the casemanager, red Christmas bows to take off the upper deck railing . . .  I should probably start by just getting dressed.  I’m getting company at eleven.

The one thing that makes me want to sit on my chair is a painful cold sore.  I usually can head these things off at the beginning, but I think this one had every intention of turning into a plum size production.  My faithful applications of Abreva have made it more manageable, but I’m really tired of the ugly thing.  There has been some stress in my life (no kidding!) but it is very unusual for me to get a cold sore.  When I got to evaluating the different things that have been going on, a sudden memory flew up into my conscious thought.  Aha!  This might be Certain Man’s fault!  

Whenever Certain Man and I were expecting a baby, about the time the baby was due, he would come down with a mean looking cold sore.  I would sometimes worry that it was big enough to keep him out of the delivery room when the baby was born.  (It never did– I was just paranoid.)  It really did happen every time, if I recall correctly.  Now he’s the one that is headed for major surgery, so the other night I told him that it was my turn to get the cold sore.  I’m not so much worried about how things will turn out.  I am glad that this is available for him.  But I feel really, Really, REALLY sympathetic when I think of the hard work ahead of him — and the confinement of the first weeks, and yes, the pain.  Though it probably isn’t worse than what he is experiencing now, it is a different kind of pain.  Certain Man does not do well with pain or confinement.  Hard work is a different story entirely.  And that drive he has for working beyond what most humans consider possible will stand him in good stead when it comes to therapy.  In the desire for this to “just be over” I keep reminding myself that lots of good living lies between now and when he has surgery.  I don’t want to waste this!

That being said, I guess I better get along and get ready for my visitors.  Cecilia’s mother and her two sisters are coming “to talk.”  No explanation given, but this family has been the most supportive and kind and generous natural family that we’ve ever worked with.  So, while there are some heavy things that we may need to discuss, I look forward to the exchange.  And then, maybe I will feel like getting started on one of the several projects that are reproachfully staring me in the face.  Besides, the sun won’t shine on my chair much longer, so I’m left without reason to linger.

Blessed weekend, everyone.  It wouldn’t hurt for more people to sit in the sun.

You would think it would be easier.  After all, there have been lots of opportunity to practice saying good-bye to Youngest Daughter over the last few years.  She went off to Europe, then to Thailand, then to Guatemala, then to Uganda, and in between all of those escapades, there have been trips and trips and trips — to college and to visit friends and to see brothers and to go to conferences and weddings and such.

She came home last Sunday afternoon.  For some reason, she seemed inordinately glad to be home, and she meandered in and out of the house, washing dishes, loading and unloading the dishwasher, cleaning up the messes that were usually left for “later” and organizing what she didn’t know what to do with in little stacks of orderliness.  She spent a day helping me with preparing for the upcoming tax filing, and filled the days with studying, coffee runs to Dolce’s, being Auntie to Charis, and just filling our lives with presence.

But Saturday morning, she packed up her bags and headed out.  Overnight with Lem and Jess and then back to Ohio.

And this time it was harder again.  I have never liked to say goodbye to any of my children, but with all this experience it would seem like it should get easier.

Oddly enough, it still feels hard.  And today I feel sad and empty.  I’d like to just sleep.  But it’s a beautiful day, and a great day for washing sheets from the beds, catching up on laundry and doing all sorts of busy work while my thoughts tumble over each other in a strange, odd mix of ponderings.

“I’m coming home in three weeks, Mom,” she reminded me when I was protesting her going.  “And I’m coming home for the summer!”

Both of these are gifts.  Especially the summer business.  She had planned to take a job in Columbus, live with some friends, and just not be home for another long, hot Delaware Summer.  (Not that she minds the heat.  She sometimes says that she hasn’t been warm clear through since she came home from Thailand.)  She had warned us repeatedly last summer that it was probably her last summer home, like she needed to remind us.  But then plans changed radically for her friends in Columbus, and it looked like nothing was working out for her.  So she told Joe, the man for whom she has gardened four out of the last five years or so, that she would come back there on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and she told her cousin’s sweet wife that she would babysit their three children on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  It was interesting to this mama how relieved and happy she seemed when this was settled.  It was even more interesting when things turned around in Columbus (and she could actually have lived there after all) to discover that she was entirely satisfied and even pleased that she was coming home.  I tried not to be too obvious in my joy.

Just as I tried hard to hide my angst when she left this time.  I really have no right to expect her to be around for ever.  When I was her age, her Daddy and I had been married for over two and a half years, and I wasn’t exactly thinking about what my Mama and Daddy wanted or whether they missed me or not.  

And now it is Monday morning.  Weekend catch-up and laundry day for me.  Certain Man is home today, working on Farm Things.  He is getting hay out for his beef cattle, working on things in the chicken house, tilling the garden, and getting early things into the ground, moving dirt piles, and taking his mower in for its yearly servicing.  We are putting in another manure shed, and there are preliminary preparations that he wants done today.  

I watch him walk across the yard and my heart hurts.  A month from today, Certain Man gets a new left knee.  I watch this strong man, who holds my heart in those capable hands, as he walks with an almost stumbling limp when he thinks no one is watching.  When he thinks people are watching, he sets that jaw and tries hard to not let on that the pain is almost more than he can stand.  He hates to have this surgery done, but now that it is this close, I think that both of us just wish it were over.  I pray that it is every bit as positive an experience as I have had.  It seems unreal that my second total knee replacement was three years ago today.  I have never wished for a minute that I wouldn’t have had it done.  Even in the middle of therapy and rehab, I was just so glad!  I still marvel at the gift I’ve been given. 

And that is the news from Shady Acres, where Middle Daughter is reading to two little boys that she is watching for a few hours, the washer and dryer need changing and the telephone is ringing.

Happy Monday to all!