The journey was one I didn’t want to make. But the reluctant obedience had brought blessings and happy, happy times. But now it was over and I was heading home. The travel was not without it pitfalls, not without its anxiety, and not without its danger. But I was purposefully heading home. The anticipation was real
I came home to a familiar driveway. Thankful to be safely here, I came into the place that I have called Home for 35 years. It was familiar and warm and someone I love the very most on this earth wanted me here. This morning, I woke in my own comfortable bed without a worry or concern about who was already awake in the next room or who I may disturb if I start stirring around. It was restful and comforting and sweet.
It makes me think about that other Home. There will come a day when I will come home yet again to another place. I believe that it will feel familiar, that I will be astounded at how beautiful and sweet it all is. There will be people there that I love and the one I love best, my Savior, Jesus, will be there.
I love to think about that home, about what it will be like (and there is so much I don’t know) but to think about how I feel getting home here makes me know that getting Home there will be even better.
I was on my way home from Millsboro after a doctor’s appointment this morning. As I came North on 113, suddenly the sign announced, “Stockley Center” with an arrow pointing right. It would be hard to adequately articulate the memories crashing around my head and heart at the sight of that sign.
For over 35 years, Stockley Center was a familiar institution to me as I provided care for disabled adults. I took my initial training there in 1984-85. Training sessions, educational meetings, paperwork drop off, Dental appointments for my individuals, first aid and medication classes, etc. were common. In the last 15 years of my tenure, when I went to the Center for other required classes or meetings, I would drive back
the long, long lane to The Cemetery where we laid our beloved Gertrude’s body to rest in November of 2005. At first I went often. I would stand at the stone that marked her grave and sing to her.
“Knowing you’ll be there.” “Jesus loves me.” “Suppertime.” “Sojourner’s Song.” She would sing along with me during her years at our house. She had perfect pitch, knew the melodies of almost all the old hymns, even though the words were all jumbled up.
I would often shed tears at that Holy spot, remembering that my Daddy did the graveside Service for her and a short seven weeks later, on a cold December day, we covered his grave in another cemetery beside the church where much of his life history resided.
I don’t think I have been to Gertrude’s grave since Covid, but I made a quick decision and made a quick turn into the road leading to the grounds that were once so familiar to me. There is a new guard house at the entrance where everyone has to stop, and two friendly looking black guards were on duty.
“Good morning,” I say, and smile. They return the greeting cheerfully, and I say, “I’m just on my way back to the cemetery.” Their faces are immediately soberly compassionate, and they nod. “Do I need to do anything? Do you need my name or anything?”
“No, nothing,” they say, almost in unison. “You are free to go.”
I head back the long road and around the corner and head back another long, long road. There have been so many changes to this place since Gertrude and her two brothers, were brought here in 1932. (Thank God)! There have been so many in just the last five years that it blows my mind. Even the cemetery has changed. There is an adequate parking place, and the western part of it has become a veteran’s cemetery. On this eastern side, there are probably a hundred graves of indigent disabled persons who died in state custody. One of them was our Gertrude.
She hated Stockley Center. In those early years, whenever we would travel down 113 to “The Colony,” (as she always called it) she was usually fine until she caught sight of the water tower and she would immediately become agitated and fearful. My heart ached for her. She had suffered much there, and for most of her life, all decisions were made for her. Daniel and I had tried to start a fund for her burial so she wouldn’t have to be buried at Stockley, but it seemed futile. In the end, all that was available to her was a pauper’s grave. She did not have a pauper’s funeral, though. The undertaker said, “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything like this. You cannot imagine how often in this place, it is a graveside service with a preacher and me and no one else.” The chapel on the grounds of Stockley Center was packed out, and our family and our church planned a funeral for her that was full of love and memories and laughter and song. Some of her natural family, case managers, supervisors, nurses and aides joined us. There were printed programs with her picture on the front, and she would have loved it. Our church planned a meal afterwards, served in the basement of the church where she often went during her 19 years in our home. It was comforting and affirming.
In the months following her funeral, I often felt sad to think that on the resurrection morning, Gertrude would find herself rising from the ground of the place she hated so much. It just didn’t seem right or fair. It felt like one more injustice to this incredibly sweet songbird who loved Jesus, babies and Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. And she loved our family . . . But as time went on, my thinking got itself “righted” again, and I thought about the fact that not only will it not matter then, it doesn’t matter now. The first thing she will see on that resurrection morning will be Jesus, and everything will be good.
I looked out across the graveyard as I came through the entrance and was startled to find a flat field. All the tombstones had been lowered into the ground so that a mower could pass over the field without weed eating around the stones. I hated it. Certain Man said that is the way it has always been Maybe. But the ground was still not gobbling the markers up like it is now.
I searched for Gertrude’s grave and finally found it. I am not sure that it is where it was, but the familiar marker was there, and I decided that I would never know for sure.
I stood for a while, thinking about all the years, about this precious lady whose mannerisms, peculiar sayings and actions are a part of our family to this day. I felt something prickling my leg and I looked down and there were sand burrs firmly attached to my stockings. I thought about things that prick and irritate and wondered at the prolific crop of these tiny burrs that attach and try their best to get a ride out of where they grew. I picked them off, and they pricked my fingers and held on until I managed to dislodge them. They hurt! But then, so did my heart in this October cemetery on a perfectly glorious day. So many heavies right now, but so much hope. I decided to look around, trace the names of people who we gave respite care to, and who had homes with friends. I was astounded to realize that in this particular section, the graves stopped abruptly around 2012. I saw that there were some that were recent in a small section between the veterans and the Stockley Center Cemetery. Curious, I walked over to check it out. I thought my heart would break. Apparently this is the cemetery of the babies of documented immigrants. Baby after baby, most with merely a small marker and name, some with the name bleached off by the sun, and a very few with a stone. Like this:
The one matchbox car was lying off to the side. I picked it up and thought about a Mama, far from home and family, afraid to seek adequate pre-natal care, who loved and lost and buried here, in an indigent cemetery, a part of her heart. Yet another injustice in our current world.
I traipsed back to my car, started it and made the trip back to the entrance. At the end of the first stretch, as I made the corner, the tears came, hot but sweet and releasing. I wound my way up to the exit, and didn’t need to stop. The window on the exit side of the Guard house was darkened and shut. It was a relief. I gave a perfunctory wave at the window as I went by, and then I was on my way home.
It has been a week of miracles for this Delaware Grammy. There have been moments of “reluctant obedience” that have resulted in affirmation and peace. I’ve been so blessed with warm memories, happy moments, people who love me, and hope for the tomorrow that awaits people I love. I do not always like the diagnosis. I sometimes chafe under the circumstances. And I am not always satisfied with outcomes. But I have a promise from Jesus that I cling to and He has never failed me yet. He never will.
“Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age.”
“He has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
I do not need to be afraid, grief-stricken of discouraged.
Sunday morning. I was in that almost awake state that usually precedes the decision to get up for me. I often have strange dreams of concerning situations in those minutes (i.e. Company coming and nothing prepared, church starting in 10 minutes and my hair is still not doing what it’s supposed to do while the family waits in the car, or people standing around at a social gathering and I’m not properly clad). I’m actually often entertained by these dreams once I’m awake enough to realize that they are, in fact a dream!
This morning was different. We were in church, everything was very proper, and the meeting was appropriate except that we were sitting in the pew we usually occupied when the children were young. About the time that the service was dismissed, I looked across the auditorium and sitting midway back, alone on a bench was My Sweet Mama! She was young, healthy and happy. Her smile was absolutely radiant, and I said, “There’s Mama!!!”
Nobody else seemed to see her, and in that strange, dream reasoning, I somehow knew that I was the only one who could see her. I felt strongly that I didn’t have much time, and I tried to get over to where she was now standing, smiling at me. “She can’t stay,” I told myself. “This isn’t where she really belongs!”
Just about the time that I got to her pew, she disappeared into thin air, leaving me with one last glimpse of that smiling face. And I awoke, freshly bereft of the best Mama I could have ever asked for.
Sunday. Monday. Tuesday. The image of her face is constantly with me, and I miss her fiercely. Certain Man took me to see Uncle Jesse and Aunt Gladys last evening, and it helped to dull the intensity of what has felt like fresh grief. I am grateful, but still somewhat melancholy. What would she think if she were here? What would she say to me? To my beloved siblings and in-laws? To these grandchildren who have grown and multiplied and are the parents of adult, adolescent and younger children? Would she be proud of her family? Maybe. Maybe not.
But she would listen and she would love us. That knowledge is enough for me to begin to turn the grief into gratefulness. Right now, that fills a lot of cracks in this heart that is holding some hard, sad stories for which there seem to be no viable answers.
Covid has reared its ugly head again at Shady Acres. Both Certain Man and I have caught it for the third time. Certain Man has not made out too badly, but I lost my sense of smell and taste and my head feels like it weighs at least 30 pounds, my ears are plugged, and I am just so tired! Thankfully, I’m not short of breath, but the congestion in my head certainly makes me feel like I am in a fog.
I went to bed last night feeling so grumpy and discouraged. I didn’t even kiss Certain Man good night because I just didn’t feel like it. He laughed at my reasoning, but promptly fell asleep and didn’t seem to0 be too offended. I could hardly think through the fuzziness in my brain, but I was pretty sure I was miserable. All of a sudden, I felt a sharp prick in the side of my leg like something bit me, and I absentmindedly moved my foot up to rub the spot. I knew nothing was biting me because I am accustomed to these sudden unexplained neuropathic twinges in my lower extremities.
But then I got to thinking about all the things I have for which to be thankful. For one thing, that twinge! I had no need to throw back the covers and look for a spider or an asp or a bitey bug. And I didn’t need to worry about Malaria-causing mosquitoes to be flying about my room. I didn’t need to light a candle or an oil lamp or primitive light source in the event that I did want to check it out. My bed was comfortable, and I wasn’t alone. My husband does not snore offensively. The fan was moving the air and making sleeping easier. It wasn’t long until I drifted off and I slept well.
This morning, the electric was off, the generator was running and I slept through it. I finally bestirred myself at 8:30 to discover that two neighbors had asked about the outage, my husband had been out working for literally hours, and that, even though I still couldn’t smell or taste, I wasn’t feeling quite so grumpy. I decided to comb my hair, wash my face, get dressed, make my bed and walk out to see what Certain Man was up to. He was washing down a manure spreader that he had borrowed from a neighbor, so I picked 4 or 5 ripe peas and checked on the garden, and suddenly felt very hot and tired. He said that he was going to come in and sit a spell, and that sounded pretty good to me. We came in, I made him breakfast and we both “sat for a spell.”
I’m not happy we got Covid, but I keep thinking about how this is probably the best timing for us to have it. We had houseguests from May 7-29th with a day off in between to change sheets, and it would not have been very fun to be sick while they were here, (although we didn’t have much interaction with the one couple). Besides, even if they didn’t care, we would have! And even though we missed some fun things (visits with friends and family scheduled for last week, the GMS school festival, a Yoder family gathering at the old home place, hymn sing at church) yet we did have time to rest, (still do!) and the potluck planned for “First Sunday” at our church got postponed a week because we aren’t the only ones who are sick in our congregation. How’s that for making people feel important?
The days have been nothing short of gorgeous. Cool, breezy, and colorful. Someone said, “It’s a shame to waste such pretty days on being sick!” Well, to be honest, these beautiful days are such a gift to me. I can go outside and sit on the upper deck, or lazily swing on the porch swing, or just sit in a lounge chair on the lower deck and the birds are singing, the Humming Birds are flitting about, there’s probably even a butterfly if I watch close, and I am content.
Below is the one view from our upper deck.
And here is a cheery hanging basket that my friend, Krista Sweigart gave me about a month ago. It convinced me to buy begonias for my deck rail planters!
It flashes on the Skylight Photo display on my kitchen counter. I see it every single day.
I see it, and I pray that somehow, sometime, somewhere, someway the storm will abate, the tide will turn, and the last chapter will gladden my heart, and be the answer to this Grammy’s prayers.
It’s all there.
The hugs, the smiles, the triumphs, the dreams, a strong body, a fine face.
The losses, the reversals, the disappointments, the charades, the squandered investments of love and time and materials.
The sounds. Some hard, some good, so many circling in my head. The laughter, the words of love, the affirmation of faith, the promises made and believed, but broken.
But now it feels like the only sound I hear triggered by the sight of this face is the breaking hearts of the people who have loved him. The silence of breaking hearts is unbearably loud.
There really are no words for grief that has the flavor of finality mixed with failure and fear. But over these last tumultuous months, and as we’ve entered into this empty place, this song has become a reminder of how we can go forward.
Most of you know me well enough to know that I am happiest in my kitchen. I love making ordinary food for the people that I love. I am not a fancy cook. I don’t do gourmet. I like meat and potatoes, soups, casseroles and even Jello salads. I hear that’s “Mennonite.” I’m also advised that it might actually tell the rest of the world how old I am. (I’m 70, thank you very much. I can make all the Jello Salads I want to).
One thing I developed a love for as a child was banana cake. A recipe came with My Sweet Mama’s first Sunbeam Mixer, and it has been a family favorite for years. It’s a good way to use up those bananas that got away from me on the cupboard. This happens to me with great regularity, unfortunately, but I always like to think that I can use them up in banana cake or muffins or something!
Now, I have a husband who is one of the kindest men I have ever met, and even brown bananas on the countertop, drawing sour flies in their season, do not often ruffle his feathers. He may tell me about his desire for a banana cake when he sees them starting to send a brown puddle out from under them, but he does not scold. However, it does embarrass me, causing me to scramble for a recipe that I can use, or else peeling and mashing and freezing them for later use. (Sometimes, depending on the state of decomposition, I will look around to see if anyone is watching and wrap up the offending fruit in a discarded plastic bag and tuck it way down in the trash can where no one will see it).
I have an unwritten rule that says I cannot buy new bananas when there are some at home on the counter. However, early last week, I realized that my stash of Fruit Slush was getting a bit low. I use a lot of bananas in fruit slush and I was hungry and there were some really beautiful bananas in Food Lion when I went in last week. I knew there were three bananas turning black on my counter but they were not terribly far gone. I purchased the new ones, resolving to make something with the three at home. And I did! I have a recipe for a banana streusel muffin that Daniel and the rest of my family really like that calls for three ripe bananas. So I made the muffins, and don’t you know, they were gone before I turned around twice! So one night when the local family was coming for supper, I inquired as to whether any of them had some overripe bananas they wanted to get rid of, and sure enough! Deborah had exactly enough at Ambleside Cottage and she brought them over and I made another batch.
It was the same story. They disappeared just as quickly! I was a little nonplussed because, having given up candy (Not sugar, just candy– and believe me, for this old gal, that’s a sacrifice!) for Lent, I was kinda hoping to have them for some legal snacking! Then I remembered that I had some mashed bananas in my freezer. I scrambled through the assortment of containers and found one that I could actually tell had bananas in it, so I hauled it out and left it on the counter to thaw. It was a bigger container than I had remembered using for mashed bananas, but I did see bananas! When it was thawed, I transferred it to another container and put it in the fridge until I was ready to use it. It had more liquid than I remembered, but freezing does strange things to fruits and vegetables, so I didn’t think much of it.
Our friend Flori, from Guatemala was here yesterday afternoon, and I asked her if she wanted to help me make some more banana streusel muffins. She eagerly mixed the streusel while I made the batter. I reflected again that the bananas were pretty juicy, and there was more than I needed, so I put them into a strainer and let some of the liquid off before adding them to the batter. Everything went fine. They mixed up well, and looked great. Flori put the muffin papers in, I put the batter in and she sprinkled on the strudel crumbs. All done! And then, as we cooks do, I licked the spatula.
H-m-m-m-m-m-m. Something was not right. The flavor, while good, was off somehow. I scraped some more off the side of the mixing bowl and had another lick. This definitely had something in it that was not banana! It wasn’t big, and it was tasty, but it wasn’t banana!
Well, I’ll be a worm in the mud!!!
It was pineapple!
“We might have a problem!” I said to Flori-girl.
She looked at me wide-eyed. “Problem?” she asked anxiously.
“Yes,” I said, ruefully. “I’m pretty sure we just made a batch of banana streusel muffins with Fruit Slush instead of banana!” We both tasted the batter again, and it definitely had a banana/orange/pineapple flavor. It struck Flori’s funny bone and she laughed and laughed and laughed. I had to laugh, too, just watching her, but I wondered just how this was all going to turn out.
“That’s what I get,” I told Flori gloomily, “for not labeling my containers when I put them in the freezer! The thing is, I don’t remember ever putting a container like that of Fruit Slush into the freezer EVER! It just doesn’t make sense!”
We put them in, baked them according to directions and when we hauled them out, they didn’t look too different from usual. Not quite so puffy (probably too much liquid) and a little more brown (higher sugar content, maybe) but they didn’t look like a total flop. And the taste was also acceptable. Not as strongly banana, so I’m not setting forth the discovery of a new recipe, but in spite of such a mistake, they are still getting eaten.
And maybe next week, I will find the right container, and all will be well!
The best blessings of this happy season to all of you! It’s that time of year again, and I’m sitting down to write yet another edition of the Yutzy Family Christmas Letter. I wrote another one, but it wasn’t right somehow, so here goes again!
As you may have guessed from the accompanying picture, we’ve been married for 50 years! Half a century! That’s a pretty big chunk of time. The adult offspringin’s wanted to throw a big party but we asked them instead for time together as a family. So, the 17 of us gathered in a big house in Canaan Valley, WV, and had a noisy, happy couple of days together. We played games, interacted with our adult offspringin’s, their spouses and the grandchildren. We visited a remote park where almost everyone tried to give themselves hypothermia by swimming in a creek that surely came straight off a glacier. We walked on scary places, saw impressive scenery, laughed, ate, talked (had normal family conflicts!), shopped in local shops, and had a most satisfying time together.
In November, (Only 3½ months late) Daniel and I took a trip to celebrate these 50 years. We visited The Ark and The Creation Museum in Kentucky, then meandered our way through Missouri, Nebraska, back to Missouri and Iowa, visiting a sister’s family and numerous cousins on Daniel’s side of the family. A high point of the trip was that several of Daniel’s Amish cousins have a weaving business and they took clothes of Daniel’s late sister, Lena, and made them into a handbag and a couple of rugs for Deborah and Christina. We came home by way of Ohio, sharing Thanksgiving with our son Raphael and his wife Regina’s family. Another high point of the trip was that Daniel was able to visit with the two remaining siblings of his birth mother; his Aunt Lucy Mast in Bloomfield, Iowa, and his Uncle Chris Kauffman in Eaton, Ohio. We were gone 14 hours near two weeks, and as most of you can probably guess, this old Grammy was good and ready to be home! (I might not have been the only one, but the other party probably wouldn’t admit it)!
I’m aware that our world is full of a lot of turmoil and strife and unanswered questions, and I am not ignoring that, but when I went back through family pictures of this last year, I realized that our family, while having some hard and disappointing times, have had some sweet times together, and there have been triumphs and joy mixed with the failures and sadness.
Christina and Jesse built an attractive chicken house and are the proud proprietors of a small flock of laying hens. Jesse holds a pretty detailed record of numbers and production. Christina loves her “Babies” and they respond to her call. However, the rooster, handsome though he may be, is not her favorite. Charis, 14, and as tall as her Grammy, started attending church with a friend and was recently baptized upon confession of Faith. #myheartgivesgratefulpraise
Deborah has had another eventful year. She finished her BSN last year, walked in June of this year and we celebrated! She has two new cats (Bella and Baby) that brighten her days and keep her entertained. The birds at her feeders, and her yard and garden have been a good diversion in a year that has had some unexpected twists and turns. The best news is that she is healthy!
Raph and Regina are still in Canton, and Raph has gotten a promotion at NuCamp while Regina has begun a full-time job as an insurance authorizer that allows her to work from home. The children are growing up, and the youngest is in school this year. The boys are active in sports and Ellie is always busy with something. Her scans are still at every 3 months, but the outlook is promising.
Lem and Jessica, still in Washington, DC, are both at their same jobs. Jessica’s health has improved somewhat over this last year with occasional setbacks. It’s been a joy to see her delight in being able to be more engaged with life. The year ahead holds promise for them and it’s exciting to watch. Stella keeps them busy, and she’s growing up at an alarming rate.
Rachel and Rob, also still in DC, are continually surprising us with something else that they are going to do. Rob has a new job at a fancy restaurant, and hopes to finish his Master’s in the spring. Rachel continues as a therapist while looking at advancing her education. They are presently planning a trip to Guatemala in January for the 15th birthday of our family’s “other daughter,” Lupe’s oldest daughter, Nicole. We considered accompanying them, but this Grammy is ready to stay home for a while!
So, our children continue their pursuits. Job challenges can be daunting, but they have persisted and none of them have asked to move home because they can’t make it out there. We never see enough of those who aren’t here, but we do enjoy spending time with our local family. They have been faithful in looking out for us (and bossing us betimes). The family plans to be home for early Christmas this year (the weekend of the 15th-17th — which may account for this letter getting out earlier than the usual last minute) and we are certainly looking forward to seeing the beloved faces and hearing the cacophony of familiar voices.
But most of all, let’s not forget the message of the angel to the world that long ago night:
“Fear not: For, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, which is Christ, the LORD.”
THIS, We BELIEVE!
Merry Christmas!
Daniel and Mary Ann Yutzy
(Edit) The family coming home for Christmas did not happen, as COVID hit the Ohio Yutzys, nixing plans for travel. So now we have plans to have our family Christmas the weekend of January 12th, Lord Willing, and this household is somewhat on hold until then. The Christmas we did have was sweet with the locals coming for Shrimp Chowder and “Little Christmas,” and that will certainly hold us over for now.
Blessings, Dear Friends. May the season hold abundant sparkles of joy, even in the ruins of family plans, marred relationships and even funerals. Jesus came to bring us Salvation. He also came as a Redeemer, and in these closing days of 2023, I choose to remember that when things are too broken to fix, our only hope is in Redemption – that He can redeem the broken for something beautiful, strong and good.
It was such a happy day, full of friends and family and texts and phone calls and mini celebrations and all sorts of good things.
It was a happy week leading up to it
Last Sunday evening, my brother, Nel and his lovely wife, Rose came with their friends, Patty and Martin to spend the night on their way home from vacation and later in the evening, my “almost a twin cousin” Gloria came as well. That day, (the eighth) Gloria turned 70, and she came straight to our house from biking 70 MILES to celebrate her birthday. That girl has a totally different thing going on than most 70 year old women! “It really wasn’t all that much,” she said to our exclamations. “It was almost all down hill!” Yeah, right. I know about “down hill!”
Anyhow, Gloria came because there are five granddaughters of David and Savilla (Bender) Yoder that turned 70 in less than 10 months, and we took the occasion to get away together for a little bit. Judi Morgan, Shirley Miller, Karen Miller, Gloria Diener and Mary Ann Yutzy. As a group, we could make a formidable foe if we really wanted to do anything but we just wanted to be together and catch up on each other’s lives It was a marvelous time. We laughed and cried and sang and laughed and cried and sang some more. We ate some wondrously good seafood in various forms, according to our individual tastes, and walked briefly on the beach.
Gloria, Shirley, Me, Judi and Karen
We went home to our various places with memories that will last as long as we have our right minds. (Which, unfortunately, I know may not be that long!) Shirley and Gloria to Virginia, Karen to Indiana and Judi and I back to Delaware. We got home on Wednesday afternoon and the days clicked by. We had small group here on Wednesday night, and then Thursday, more friends came. Jim and Ruthi Gochnauer, from New York C,ity came for the Region 1 MDS meeting that was held here in Greenwood last weekend. Jim and Ruthi are old friends, but we rarely get to see them. They visited us in 2019, and, unlike this weekend, got a picture of them then when we took a trip to Tangier Island.
Jim and Ruthi Gochnauer
The weekend slipped by before we knew it, and Sunday settled in with a surprise donut celebration at church, provided by daughters Christina and Deborah, in honor of my birthday, and the whole church sang the traditional birthday song for me.
“A happy birthday to you, a happy birthday to you Every day of the year, may you feel Jesus near A happy birthday to you, a happy birthday to you May God bless you the whole year through”
This song has been sung for birthdays at our church ever since I can remember. When I was a little girl, we would give a dime for every year that we were old, and the accumulative moneys from all the church birthdays for the year would go to a special project. Somewhere along the line, that song was chosen to sing while participants paraded to the front to put their dimes in a designated container. Years ago, as I recall, it was a glass jar with a screw on top with a slot in it. Children could put their dimes in one at a time, revealing their ages. And then we were given a birthday pencil. Older people had the privilege of the top being taken off so that the right amount of dimes could just be added. I remember a year when a particularly opinionated older person went to put in their dimes, and the superintendent wanted to know how old they were and feigned being unable to open the lid. He was quickly brought into submission and the lid came off and the sum total of dimes clinked to the bottom and that was that. As the years have passed, the dimes have given way to quarters (inflation hits the birthday bank, too) and those of us that are older tend to write a check or give bills. We usually give a check, but Daniel forgot the checkbook and so he said I should just give cash. He rounded the donation up to a twenty dollar bill which he had in his billfold, and so I went on record this year as being 80 years old! But that’s okay. It all goes to a good cause.
The week since then has been quite an incredible week. It’s been heavy with extended family things; sickness, grandchildren heartache, Guatemalan family crisis and things that weigh heavy on this 70 year old heart. I find myself lying awake in the night hours, singing to myself and praying, and trying to solve all the problems of all these people that I love.
You know what? I can’t.
But I can lay them down, and I’ve found again that there is a place for the burdens that are too heavy for me. It’s the foot of the Cross. “Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows . . . “
This I believe, and my heart gives grateful praise.
It was Saturday evening, and Certain Man and I were having dinner at Bird-in-Hand Restaurant, waiting for the musical, The Home Game, to begin. We had bought the meal+performance ticket that came with the unlimited food/salad bar, and I was on my first trip to the Salad station. It had been a lovely day, and we had made memories, gotten really tired, and I was looking forward to a peaceful evening. But far off, somewhere in the restaurant, a child was crying. The child wasn’t throwing a tantrum but was fretfully and insistently crying.
An older gentleman was filling his plate beside me. I was building my salad and said, just to make conversation, “That child is rather unhappy!”
I was totally unprepared for his reaction. “I hate kids!” he said vehemently. “That kid needs someone to smash it over the face. That’s the trouble with kids these days. Doesn’t the Bible say, ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child’?”
My mind went scrambling. He had caught me flatfooted. “No,” I said, rather tentatively, “I’m pretty sure it doesn’t!”
“Well, that’s what it means,” he said pointedly. He went on about modern day discipline and how terrible kids are these days. “I wouldn’t ever been allowed to act like that! Would you?”
That was a whole different story, one I didn’t want to get in to. The truth was, I probably wouldn’t have been allowed to act like that, but the truth also was, I don’t remember our parents ever taking us to a restaurant to eat. When we traveled (which was seldom) we packed lunches or waited until we got where we were going. But here was this irate person wanting an answer.
I said something to the effect that I would not have been allowed to act like that, but though I believe in discipline, there are better ways of dealing with children than “smashing them across the mouth,” and I fled to my seat, far more troubled by the exchange I had with him than I was over the (still wailing) child.
Sometimes I wonder at the coincidences of my life. We had been seated for maybe half an hour when the table behind me was vacated, and a new set of diners came in. It was a grandmother, her daughter, a boy that looked like he was maybe 14 and two younger boys. The tirade started before they ever got settled.
“No! Get out of there! The two of you may not sit together! All you will do is fight!” The tone was raucous, and the words penetrated my heart. The daughter, evidently the mother of the younger two boys, obviously had one that she was fed up with. She was constantly fussing at him. Then there was this bit of a scuffle and suddenly I heard him quietly sobbing.
“Stop it!” She said harshly.
“But it hurts,” he said while crying softly.
“I said to stop it!” she again spoke in an unkind tone.
“But my arm really hurts!” he sobbed, still quietly.
“If you don’t stop, I’m going to do it harder,” she said, and the child fell silent.
I know that I do not know what happened. I know that this child may have been getting on her last nerve all day. Maybe she wasn’t feeling good (She didn’t look amiss, but still!) I know that I’m getting to be an old softie about so many things. But can’t we discipline our children without anger? Without “smashing?” I will always believe that there is a time and a place for discipline, but it needs to be done in love, and it shouldn’t be done with harsh words in a public place. And yet, my heart aches for parents who have so little to guide them and so much criticism and are floundering in the “dos and don’ts” of our world’s current opinions.
My heart aches even more for the children who seem to be growing up without a healthy balance of discipline. The thing is, our children are going to need it to make it in this world. There has to be discipline and instruction and example and, above all, LOVE. My Daddy had a saying, “It’s never wrong to be kind.” I wonder why so many parents divorce kindness and firmness. The two are not incompatible, and a child that knows they are loved is going to respond better to correction. I didn’t get it right all the time. Believe me, I didn’t. And hindsight is better than . . .well, you know! But I tried! I loved our children intensely. And I’ve asked for forgiveness where I failed. I wish I had spanked less, and I wish I had understood better. In spite of my failures, and even our disagreements about child discipline today, our adult offspringin’s haven’t disowned us and seem to love us.
And I can honestly say that the five of them grew to responsible adulthood without ever, not even once, being “smashed across the face” by either of their parents. Which is definitely more of a tribute to Grace given by our Heavenly Father than it is to our parenting or (Sorry, Yutzy Five) their behavior. Which brings me back again to something that we found integral in raising children that’s missing in so many families today. The understanding that there is a God who deeply loves them as well as us, gave His Son for our salvation, forgives and redeems, but also has a standard for behavior that cannot be ignored. (I’m not talking about childishness, here. We often expect our children to behave like born again adults when they are children and they are going to act like children. That’s an unrealistic expectation and it will discourage).
Parenting is hard work. It’s sacred. It’s scary. It’s impacting. There are no hard and fast, sure-fire rules. But we cannot give up. There’s too much at stake. So make it a point to know your children. Hug those little ones, pray for your children and grandchildren, and go easy on judging. Encourage if you can, and if there is a child whose crying/behavior is irritating you, extend grace to the parents as well as the child.
It was Wednesday, six days after I landed on my face over in Dorchester County, Maryland. I had been fighting a chest cold for almost a week at that point, and it had gotten progressively worse after the fall. Nurse Daughter Deborah had kept a check on my lungs, and that morning had said, “Mama, you are sounding tight. It isn’t pneumonia yet, but you should probably have something for bronchitis.” I had checked twice to make sure it wasn’t COVID (it wasn’t) but I didn’t like the sound of a bumble bee in my chest when I laid down. Besides, we were supposed to go to Ohio the next day for a high school reunion, as well as to catch up with family.
I tried to get an appointment, and actually had two appointments with my PCP that had gotten cancelled because he was out with COVID. I asked if he could call something in for me, but he was pretty sick and wasn’t able to get to it before we planned to leave. I decided to take a cough suppressant and go to lunch with my sisters. It’s something we seldom do, and it was last minute, but things came together, and I decided that I could make it.
I was on my way to the lunch gathering when Certain Man called and asked about my availability to run the steers into the back pasture as well as run some water for them in the watering trough back there. He sounded upset, and I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. When I told him that I wasn’t home, he rather abruptly said that he would call one of the girls and see if one of them could do it for him. I said that I would be home before too long, but he seemed a upset and ended the conversation. It was puzzling, but I decided that he must be having a bad day at work and decided not to take it personally.
It was after 3:00 and I was home, but on a phone call when he came in. I said that I needed to get off, and that we were planning to leave in the morning for Ohio. I heard him mutter something about “We might have to see about that,” and thought that he was having second thoughts about taking me to Ohio with bronchitis. This bespoke an inflated evaluation of my importance because, this time, I had nothing to do with it!
I got off the phone and said, “What’s up, Sweetheart?”
He got serious right away. And a wee bit defensive. “I want you to look at something on my head. I think there is a toothpick in there.”
“ A what?!?!?!”
He looked at me like I should know. “A Toothpick!”
“What happened, Daniel? How in the world did you get a toothpick in your head???” I was sitting him down on the kitchen chair and looking at an abrasion on his scalp. It didn’t look catastrophic, but there was definitely something amiss.
The man was clearly unhappy. “Well,” he said a bit reluctantly. “You know how I keep two toothpicks in the header of my work car, just above the door. So today was so hot, and I had trash on the passenger’s side that I wanted to get out. So instead of climbing in and starting it, I leaned in, pushed the brake and started it so it could start cooling down. Then I grabbed the trash and ducked back out and both toothpicks went right into my scalp. The one was sticking out so I tried to pull it out. It was really stuck but I finally just grabbed it and yanked it out. There were no more sticking out that I could feel, so I looked up at the header and there was only a half of one up there still in the header, and a small piece on the floor. I couldn’t find the rest of it, so I figure it is still in there. I had ice water and a paper towel in my car, so I wet the towel and dabbed the spot. It hardly bled.” THEN it came out that it had happened at 11 o’clock in the morning. No wonder he wasn’t himself when he called me earlier in the day. This guy not only had finished all his inspections, but he had dropped by the Dairy Queen on his way home to pick up a Blizzard for one of the office birthdays. And he hadn’t told a soul. Nobody. It had been a long, hard day.
I gingerly felt over the area and got the shivers. It definitely had a ridge under the skin.
“Just pull it out,” he repeated numerous times. “Get a tweezers or something and pull it out!”
“Daniel, you need to go to urgent care! I can’t even see the end of it, and you need to have a professional get it out!”
Eldest Daughter was here and she was on it in a minute. “Dad! Listen to me! There is no way that we can get that out. You HAVE to go to urgent care.”
“For cryin’ out loud, it’s not that bad. Just take a razor blade and cut it out. If I could see it, I would do it myself!!! I am not going to go to Urgent Care!!!” He sat down on his LaZyBoy with a most determined look on his handsome face. I knew that look. I needed reinforcements. I called Nurse Daughter.
“Hey, Deb! Daddy got a toothpick in his head today, and he wants us to dig it out. Could you come over and look at it? He needs to go to Urgent Care!” This girlie knows her daddy pretty well, and she was immediately on the alert.
“I’ll be right there!” she said. And she was. She came breezing into the family room, and looked at the offending hole in his head, and the ridge beneath the skin and immediately said, “Dad! You need to go to urgent care. I’m pretty sure that they are going to lance that to get it out!”
“Just get a razor blade and cut it and take it out!” He reiterated. “Honestly! If I could see it I would do it myself! It’s just an old toothpick!” There was immediate loud, indignant objections from his two oldest daughters. Experience has taught me that in such situations, it is better to keep my mouth shut and stay out of the way, and let Daniel’s daughters handle things. But there came a time when I felt that I needed to interject some added fuel to their fire.
“Daniel, You might say that it’s ‘just’ a toothpick, but you had an uncle that died from ‘just a toothpick!’”
He snorted. The girls stopped mid-sentence.
“WHAT??? Mom, you never told us that! Who??? When??? How???”
“It was Grandma Sue’s oldest brother, Eli William. He lived alone and one day he ran a toothpick into his toe. I guess he thought it would be okay, but it wasn’t. Gangrene set in, and he got septic and died!!!
That did it! There was no more arguing. He was going, that was that, and I was so grateful – Until they started in on me!
“Listen, Mama! You need to go and get checked out for that bronchitis! If you are going to go to Ohio tomorrow, you need to at least make sure that it isn’t pneumonia!”
I was not interested in going. I was still badly bruised in my face, and a huge bruise had appeared on my right side and I knew that there would be all manner of inquiry and remonstrations and grave warnings and those piercing looks that make you feel like they really do think that your husband has been beating you, and I didn’t want to have it. But I hadn’t heard back from my PCP, and I was feeling a bit poorly, and they insisted, so I finally agreed to go. Our fair town of Milford has one of the best urgent care facilities I’ve ever been in (and probably the poorest Emergency Room connected to the local hospital that I’ve ever been associated with). So it was with a great deal of joy and confidence that Certain Man and I arrived at Urgent Care a little before 4:00. We both were promptly seen, and Daniel’s procedure was initiated without delay. Yep! There was still a toothpick between his scalp and his skull. Yep, they were going to hustle it right on out of there. Except they weren’t. The crazy thing was resistant to all the efforts to latch onto it and pull it out.
Finally the doctor said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Yutzy, but I cannot get this thing to budge. I’m going to have to lance it to get it out.” There was a spirit of good-natured camaraderie in the room, and Mr. Yutzy was past objecting.
“Go ahead,” he said, without rancor. “Go ahead and do what you have to do.” And so they made a small cut, grasped that sliver of toothpick and out it came!
What a relief! Two stitches later and he was ready to go home.
Except his wife was not. As predicted, they seemed to diagnose the bronchitis without any hesitation but beyond that, it was a crazy ride.
“We cannot treat two conditions at once, and you really need to have those bruises, especially the facial bruises, evaluated!” “Do you feel safe at home?” “You are on an aspirin a day, and you should always have an eval if you have a bad bump on your head.” “When did you say this fall happened?” “You really need to go over to the emergency room to have CT scans done. If you went there, you can have everything treated at once, but we cannot do those here!” It went on and on and on.
I finally said, “Look, I’ve lived in this body for a long, long time, and I’m not saying that nothing at all happened six days ago, but I am saying that I’m quite sure that nothing serious happened. I mean, I didn’t lose consciousness, I had no nausea following the fall, did not get sleepy, and there have been no intestinal or bladder changes. I’m quite sure that I’m fine! I wouldn’t mind having my ribs x-rayed since I’m having so much pain in my right side, but if you are x-raying my chest for pneumonia, won’t the rib be on there and couldn’t you tell if it’s something like that?”
They were unconvinced. Daniel was ready to go home and they still hadn’t done anything diagnostic on me except to listen to my lungs. Then Oldest Daughter, who had brought us in, decreed that she felt that I should be sent to the Emergency Room just for everyone’s peace of mind.
“Besides,” she said, pulling into her bag of tricks she uses to get me to do what she wants me to do, “If this was turned around and it was Daddy, what would you want him to do?”
Oh, Boogey-schnett! Okay then! I decided to go. Daniel took the car and went home, and Christina took me in her car to the ER. We pulled up to the entrance of the Emergency Room and my heart sank. It was wall to wall people. 4:30 on a Wednesday afternoon and it was packed out. Christina and I went through security and drug some chairs out of a corner and sat. And sat. and sat. We did stuff on our phones, we talked, we watched people and we waited. People watching was the best. There were people there who had been there since noon and were getting very unhappy and vocal about it. As the hours went on and on, I realized with a sinking heart that bronchitis and a 6-day-old injury had no precedence over almost everything else. I finally told Christina that she might as well go home and I would call her when I was ready to go home. Reluctantly, she took her leave and I was there by myself. My cough was such that I tried to stay away from other people, and my phone was running low on battery. By choice, I sat on the far side of the room, where I couldn’t see the television, but it was blaring on and on and on. As the hours passed, I became more and more uncomfortable with what I was hearing. It was Law and Order (?) and it was a dark and twisted episode involving a school teacher who molested little boys in the school restrooms, and I felt sick to my stomach and miserable. I was texting with Christina and she suggested I speak to the security guard and ask him if it was possible to have the channel changed. I was loathe to do it, but I finally decided that I should do something. I gathered my courage and approached the burly guard at the door.
“Excuse me,” I ventured in what sounded like a weak voice, “but can you tell me who decides what channel the television is tuned to? I’m really troubled by the content of this program, and wish it could be something else.”
“Of course, of course,” he said, acting like he agreed with me 100%. “I’ll change it right away!” And he did.
How was I supposed to know that the program was only five minutes from being over? How was I supposed to know that there were people engrossed in the plot and wanted to see the end? How was I supposed to know that the guard was friends with the most vocal of the watchers? My heart sank as exclamations were made and dark looks thrown in my direction. But I didn’t know. I watch almost no television, or I probably would have realized that the darkest, dankest, and dirtiest details are reserved for the final moments of a program, but I didn’t know. I only know that the longer I had sat there, the worse it had become, and I finally felt like I couldn’t take it anymore. I sank down into my chair and tried to be invisible. My phone was really dead now, and I had been there four hours with no end in sight.
Then Christina and Deborah conversed, and Deborah decided to come in and spend the rest of the evening with me. She brought me a phone charger (and lively, diverting conversation) and before we knew it, it was 10 o’clockish and they took me back to a room. My blood work came back pretty normal, the CT Scans came back clear, and yes, I did have acute bronchitis and they gave a prescription for an antibiotic and around 11:30, I was free to go home. Deborah dropped me off at the house where Certain Man was already sleeping, and I crawled in beside him, so thankful to be home.
There have been people who have voiced the opinion that I “must have been pretty mad about having to go to the ER and waiting such a long time only to have them tell me that my original assumptions were correct!” Honestly? I’m so glad that I went. Certain Man and I left the next morning for Ohio and I don’t know if it was the hours in the car, or what, but this Delaware Grammy was not only coughing and coughing, but there was a significant amount of pain in my right side pretty much continuously the whole trip. I felt really useless at Raph and Gina’s house because pretty much all I did was sit on a chair! If I hadn’t had a clear CT scan before I left, I probably would have asked Certain Man to take me to an ER somewhere along the way just to be sure that I hadn’t done something really bad to myself after all! Plus, I did get the antibiotic, and without it I probably would have ended up with pneumonia. This bronchitis is nothing to play around with. In fact, four weeks since the onset, I’m still coughing! I’m a lot better, but I’m really tired of this cough!
And that’s the story of A Toothpick and a Cough. I’m very grateful to be this far in the journey!
Delaware Grammy 