July 16, 2015 · 1:40 am

Slivers of Soap on the Matrimonial Sea

I dislike soap slivers.  It just isn’t handy to wash with a piece of soap that is almost done, but not quite.  But it also grinds my gears to throw away perfectly good pieces of soap when I know that if they were collected together, you would have the equivalent of a nice new piece.  Over the years, I’ve dealt with this in various ways.  I’ve had those hand-crocheted bags that are supposed to collect them and somehow meld them into one nice large piece.  That didn’t work for me somehow.  It probably wasn’t anyone’s fault but my own, but I just didn’t like how it was working.  Most of the time, I try to stick the small piece on top of the larger one and intentionally squish them together until they are imperceptibly joined.  This has enjoyed fairly good success, depending on location.

We are not shower gel or body wash kind of people.  That is, Certain Man and myself.  It just makes the shower too slippery for any kind of safety.  Also,  when we had our knees replaced, the doctor told us that the best soap for bathing/showering was Safeguard.  So almost six years ago, we began using Safeguard exclusively for the master bathroom, and it has been very satisfactory.

I had used expensive body wash for Cecilia, always getting the high moisture kind to keep her skin supple and and moisturized.  A few months ago, she was standing on the bath mat while I was showering her, and proceeded to lean back against the wall.  “Whoosh!”  Out from under her slid the mat and down she went.  The abrasions were impressive.  She didn’t break anything, but she surely did huff and puff indignantly at me.  I was really puzzled.  It was the kind of mat with suction cups under it, and should have stayed put.  When I checked things out, I realized that there was a sort of slippery film under the mat and it was just as slick as all get out.  I immediately took up the mat, and got those stick-on things that give good grip, and stuck them on that floor in a geometric pattern.  And I got rid of that slippery Dove Extra Moisture Body Wash.

I started using that good old Safeguard soap and it wasn’t so bad.  In fact, I began to notice an interesting development.  Cecilia had a significant blackhead right in the middle of her back.  It had resisted all ministrations intended for removal.  It only seemed to grow bigger and bigger.  When I started using Safeguard soap for her shower, that ugly, black pockmark on her back started to shrink.  Yepper.  Just like that!  Until it almost isn’t even there.  I like that!  But I digress.

However, now that Cecilia is also using bar soap, and Daniel, and I, as well, the slivers just seem to add up.  So I’ve been working on trying to combine the slivers into a soap that I can at least use in the sink.  Every now and then, I will notice that the one in the shower is miniscule enough that it will almost not stay in my hand, so I will take the sliver out and replace it with a nice, new cake of soap.  And when Cecilia’s is too small for my liking, I will haul the remnants up to my our bathroom and attempt to join it with the others. I tried for a while to just stick it on the top of the new bar.  In fact, I worked hard at getting it to stay.  I usually thought that I was pretty successful but almost always, I would come to the shower to discover that it was no longer attached.  I gave up on that one and decided to just use the slivers at the sink where I could do a better job of keeping things together.

For the past week or so, I’ve had pretty good success with three slivers, working at getting them to stay together, but then I noticed that the one in the shower was needing replaced, so I grabbed it the other morning, soaked it until it was just a little bit squishy, and stuck it tightly on to the other three.  Success!  I had a very tight fit, and I now had four slivers that almost were equal to a full bar.

But last night, I was brushing my teeth and getting ready for bed and I looked down at my soap dish and was dismayed to see this:

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“I can’t figure this out,” I said to my long suffering spouse.  “I keep trying to stick these things together and they keep coming apart.  I hate to throw away soap slivers, when I can use them, but they just don’t stay together!”

He came to peer over my shoulder at the offending soap.

“I know,” he said, without a trace of remorse.  “I keep prying them apart!  I hate how soap is when it is all stuck together like that.”

“But why???”

“Because it doesn’t fit in your hand right, and it just isn’t right.  I’d a thousand times rather have a little piece of soap than a great big one.”

“But Daniel, these are too small to really work right in the shower.  I just thought I would stick them together and that way the little pieces wouldn’t be wasted.  I had just stuck them to the big piece, but that didn’t seem to work so well –”

“I know!  I REALLY hate that.  I would take those off, too!” He paused as if he was thinking about what he just said, and then he amended, “I mean, they would come off when I was using them and that was irritating, too.  I just don’t like it!”

Alrighty then.  The Man has spoken.  I didn’t know.  I will mend my ways.  I think I will still stick small slivers of soap together for use at the sink, but maybe not more than two at a time.  Maybe I can get by with that.

And that is the news from Shady Acres, where I give grateful praise that the disagreements between Certain Man and his Wife are trivial and clean!

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July 14, 2015 · 1:33 am

Of Roses and Rainbows and Promises and Quit Claims

There has been a plethora of emotions almost every day.  And stuff keeps happening so fast I can hardly keep up!  In fact, I’m not trying to keep up.  Just kinda’ going around in my little world, doing my stuff; laundry, cooking, changing beds, taking care of ladies, talking to my husband and kids, loving on my granddaughter, missing the grandsons, and my absent male Offspringin’s and their wives.  Just living!

There is more than enough sadness to go around, to tell you the truth.  It almost seems like my Sweet Mama started some sort of maudlin march that has people joining in right and left.  Yesterday, another beloved and valuable and wonderful man, Herman Kauffman, folded his tent and went away to take possession of his mansion.  That’s all well and good (and GLORIOUS) for him, but what about the people who loved him so intensely that he suddenly left behind?  My heart aches for them and for this old world who needs more people like the four that have gone to Heaven in less than four weeks from our community.  Alene Yoder.  Richard Bender, Eli Bontrager.  And now, Herman Kauffman.

But life goes one.  Tomorrow, Certain Man and I will mark another anniversary.  42 years ago we married in the same church where some of these funerals have been held.  Tonight, I looked up from what I was doing to see Daniel come in with a gorgeous bouquet of yellow roses and baby’s breath and greenery.

“We had yellow carnations at our wedding,” he said.  (We did???) “But I couldn’t get yellow carnations, so I decided to take yellow roses.”  They were so beautiful it almost took my breath away.  And I would have much rather had the yellow roses.  We did have roses at the wedding.  I had worked for Warren Golde’s wife, Jane Ellan, and they had allowed us to come the morning of the wedding and pick roses from their beautiful rose garden for the bridal party to carry.  They were simple as all get out, and unadorned by anything except some narrow ribbon, but they were just fine.  We were still very married.  I looked at this bouquet today and the man that brought them for me and I gave thanks for the here and now and the living and breathing earthly editions of LIFE that I’ve been allowed to love.

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The Bouquet sits on the tablecloth that I bought for my Sweet Mama.  She professed to like it when she was talking to me, but when she talked to my siblings, she confessed that she was bothered by the fact that the bugs on it looked so real.  I always loved it, and when she went to Heaven, I brought the tablecloth home and put it on my table.  It makes me laugh, and it makes me pensive and it makes a wellspring of memories spring up within my heart.

And then, tonight, after a supper of fried squash and chicken casserole that didn’t turn out very well, Youngest Daughter went to pick up a few groceries.  She was barely out of the house when she called me, and like her father, implored me to “Go look!!!  There is a gorgeous, complete rainbow out here.  You’ve gotta’ see it!  But you better go quick, or you’ll miss it!”

I took myself out over the slippery side deck where the moss makes navigation treacherous, down the steps, and across the lawn to the edge of the trees.  The rain was lightly falling, but there was this ethereal light around me.  And then, I saw it!  Stretching from one end of the sky to the other.  Perfectly complete.  This summer rainbow of promise.
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I don’t profess to understand all this grief.  I know there is a time to be born and a time to die.  I know it is appointed unto man once to die.  And we all will.  But how that will be, or where Heaven is, I don’t know. And sometimes I could “lose my steady” when I ponder and wonder and imagine and think about all the things that I don’t know.

But I do know this:

A God who has always kept His promises is worthy of my trust. 

And here, with a grateful heart, once again, I offer up my quit claim.

The Promises are enough.  I choose to believe

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July 10, 2015 · 1:06 pm

Profile Pics and Penguins

It was just one of those crazy things on facebook.  “How old do you really look?” asked the headline, bold and insistent.  One of my younger girlfriends had taken the test and it declared her to look like she was 28.  Which she declared to be her actual age.  I’m not gonna’ say what her real age is (I don’t really know, Judi!) but I suspect that she is a few years older than that.

Anyhow, my interest piqued, I decided to take the same test.  I forgot that my flamboyant Coleus was what I was currently using for my profile picture so I plowed ahead with the little procedure.  Imagine my surprise when the results came back that I look 24!  Words were thrown around like “Absolutely Amazing!” “Confidence”  “Vitality” and I was genuinely puzzled.  What in the world was going on?  And then I realized that this was all based on a pretty plant.  Not my sensationally youthful face.

Alrighty then.

I should have known.  I mean, I really am not under any sort of delusions of grandeur when it comes to whether I am young or not.  I think being a Grammy helps me to keep a realistic view of things when it comes to my youth or my lithesome appearance.  I enjoy a relationship with our granddaughter that allows her to say pretty much anything she wants to say to me and this is what she said to me one hot day last week when we were walking together.

“Oh, Grammy!”  She said with a conspiratorial giggle.  “You walk just like a penguin!”

Indeed.

This morning my heart gives grateful praise for a container of “absolutely amazing” coleus, for a 61-year old body that still does what I need it to do, for penguins and for granddaughters who don’t mind walking with one.

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Our beloved granddaughter, Charis, reads to her Great-Grandma Yoder’s bird, Pretty Boy.

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The infamous coleus profile picture.

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July 8, 2015 · 1:49 am

Of Ruins and Hope

A sign sprang up on the front lawn of Laws Mennonite Church last week.  It is strategically placed so that it is seen by traffic at the corner of Carpenter Bridge and Canterbury Roads.  I looked at the bright red against the clean white siding and thought about how GOOD the outside of our church building has been looking.

Laws Mennonite Church Warfel Sign

Certain Man has been keeping the grass trimmed and has been weed eating and spraying the weeds and trimming the roses that he planted around the church sign last year.  To see the outside of our church, it would be difficult to tell how devastating the destruction was inside.

IMG_1598  IMG_1714I looked at the pictures, and thought that my heart would break.  But it didn’t take too long for people to get in there and get things cleaned up.

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The thing was, I didn’t go in for even a casual glance until about a month ago.  We’ve been waiting on insurance and blueprints and approvals and permits until it has seemed like a never ending battle.  And I really didn’t want to see it.  But when our offspringin’s were all home for our stay-cation, we decided to stop by the church one afternoon and see how things were coming along.  I had looked hard at the pictures, imagining how it looked, thinking about our empty church, but nothing could have prepared me for the wave of emotion as I stood and looked about the church.  The hardest thing of all was that, as I stood there that day, I felt so strongly in my heart that my Sweet Mama would not live long enough to see things put back to right and it made me almost sick.

It wasn’t the dirt and the smoke and the smell as much as it was just the barren emptiness and the lack of anything familiar.

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I stood in the emptiness and wept for all that had been lost and for all that was so uncomfortable.

The other day I was reading in Psalms in my Bible reading and in Psalm 74:3, I was stopped cold by these words:

“Make your way through these old ruins: the enemy wrecked everything in the Temple.”

I felt God nudging at my heart, and I thought about the ruins of my heart, and how completely devastated I’ve been feeling at times.  I thought about how the enemy seeks to steal and to kill and to destroy.  How he seeks to wreck everything in the temple of my heart.  I thought about how it can look like everything is okay on the outside, when inside there is this barren emptiness and ruin.  And so often the ruin of our hearts is not at our instigation or even the intention of others, but rather the enemy of our souls.  Just as the plan to torch our Church had less to do with Joseph Skochelak and Alex Harrington than an insidious master design that has left a lot more in ruins than a building.  Last week was the sentencing for these two young men, and my heart aches for them and their families.

“Oh Lord Jesus!  Make your way through these old ruins:  the enemy wrecked everything in the Temple.  In the ruins of my heart, in the ruins of our church building, in the ruins of the lives of Joey and Alex, may you make order and beauty from the chaos, devastation and destruction.  Even as the sign has gone up on our church property to indicate remodeling and repair, may Hope and Peace and Love and Forgiveness all be the signs upon Your Territory, our hearts, so that those watching may see that you are in the business of walking through ruins and bringing something new and strong and beautiful where there was only ugly emptiness.”

IMG_1634“. . . I will not leave you comfortless.  I will come to you.”  John 14:8

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July 4, 2015 · 1:04 pm

July 4, 1970

45 years ago, on a blistering Saturday in Delaware, a very young Clinton Yoder married an even younger Frieda Mishler.  Pictures of that day show a groom sweating so much that his hair is wet and not even properly in place. The bride is demure in a simple, long white dress There was no air conditioning in Greenwood Mennonite Church at that time.  I don’t remember much about that day except how hot it was.

These years have passed, as years are wont to do.  The young love gave way to carefully pondered choices that made for stability and strength and influence and opportunity.  Rocky at times?  Yes.  He was the proverbial stick in the mud and careful.  She was fire and adventure. But the bond they forged stood the tests of time and one hard day in late October, it finished strong.

Today he remembers.  This past week he has stirred around in his empty house and felt the sorrow heavy as his compounded grief settled hard on his heart.  Last night he went to his daughter’s house where he will be gathered to his family, loved on by the people who are his because of her, and they will talk of a Wife and a Mom and a Mimi whose first absence on this July 4th “Day of Celebration” will be keenly felt.

I don’t know why she had to go so soon.  I feel my brother’s sadness multiplied by the events of these past weeks, and hear a dirge rattling in my head that wants to quell the reminders of victory and joy and eternal life.

It’s not a blistering hot day Delaware today.  There is a promise of rain, and it feels like a good day to weep for losses and to do some serious grieving.  I sit at the counter in my well-lit kitchen, and talk to my sister and write and think and see the flowers outside my window moving in the breeze.  A Blue Jay lights on the woodpecker block and the blackbirds fight at the platform feeder.  I need to get groceries and the household is stirring around me.  Everyday banality in the face of grief that helps to occupy my hands and divert my heart.

There is so much to be grateful for in the mundane.

I will choose to be grateful, too, for the memories that comfort, the promises that sustain, and even the calamitous grief that won’t always hurt this much.  It is penance done for love.  And having someone to love is still a best gift.

My heart gives grateful praise.

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June 26, 2015 · 12:44 am

Life Goes on at Shady Acres.

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One of the things that is sometimes hard to assimilate is how life goes on after life changing events.  Things continue to happen, the world doesn’t stop turning and the sun comes up each morning. It’s strange how things can be so different, and yet life keeps calling our attention and it isn’t always gentle about giving us time to think about how different things really are.

Over the intense time of Mama’s illness and death, one of our little beef calves started to look a little peaked, and had intestinal issues.  Certain Man came into the house greatly concerned one morning and said, “It looks just like the ones that died last year.  I can’t figure it out.  They’ve been weaned for a month, on pasture for that long, and now this one comes down with something.”

He started right away to treat it with the usual treatment for calves with diarrhea, but nothing seemed to help.  Then the second one came down with the same thing.  Certain Man called the vet, and got medication, and continued to treat and worry and worry and treat.  All to no avail.  The first one died Tuesday morning, and the second one last night.  The third one, who looked great throughout it all, started with the same symptoms last evening.  This morning he wouldn’t get it up. He looked pretty good — alert and perky, but just lay in the isolation pen that Certain Man had fashioned for him, all comfortable in the straw.  As the day wore on, he seemed less interested in life around him.

Certain Man is greatly discouraged.

Somewhere along the line last night I realized that he was blaming himself for this whole scenario.  Daniel, who tries so hard with his animals and all of his farm, can just about not take it when something is wrong that he cannot figure out.  He goes over and over every possibility, tries to find the answers, thinks and thinks and thinks.  Sometimes he reads labels and tosses the bottles across the room in frustration because he just. cannot. understand. the jargon.  Or what it is that is needed, for that matter.

This morning he spent time on the phone with his farmer friends, the Department of Ag,  and the Animal Medic and then went again to try to find something to help.  He really wants to save this last calf, but he honestly doesn’t have a lot of hope.  I look at the slump of his shoulders, and see him sit with his head in his hands, trying to figure something out, but also dealing with what, to him, is more than a monetary loss.  Daniel likes his little animals, and he also likes to raise healthy, quality animals that he turns into an edible blessing for many others.  He has been raising calves for 20 years.  I can only imagine the frustration he is feeling with this situation.

And so, he is trying another recommended remedy.  The little one doesn’t seem much better this evening, but he doesn’t really seem worse.  That could be a bad sign, though,  The night hours are hard on sick calves.  At least it isn’t as hot as it had been.

And so life goes on at Shady Acres.  The trailer home that housed our friends who had rented from us for over 20 years was vacated over the time of Mama’s illness and death, and H. and C. flew out of the country to Guatemala.  It was a sad night when they came to say their final good-bye, and it seemed almost unfair that I didn’t have more time to give to them with their pending departure.  The last night, as they were leaving, I stood in the garage, the tears falling fast.  And then I heard my friend as she walked across the lawn one last time to her house.  She was sobbing out loud, the noise of her sorrow came floating back to me, and I felt as if my heart would break.  Ah, the memories we hold from their years as our next door neighbors are sweet and good, and I hated to see them go.  But Lupe and her husband, Ervin, have been making a place ready, and I know they will enjoy life there with their daughter and her husband and the two grandchildren that they have never seen. It will be okay.  I think.

We’ve been busy in the trailer.  About once a day, someone stops to ask if it is rented.  My heart aches to tell them that it has, in fact, been rented.  This evening a young hispanic mama with three littles stopped and asked about renting it.  I looked at the three little faces, so reminiscent of the faces of years ago and wished that there were five trailers that I could rent for the people that are so in need in our world.  The trailer isn’t livable right now, anyhow,  because there are renovations going on inside.  The thing is, some of these people would take it just the way it is and it would be better than what they have.  I’ve stopped over occasionally to take a look and it still is going to take some work, but it is coming along.  Our new renters,  Mary Beth Sharp and Preston Tice have a little over two weeks until their wedding, so we are really trying to stay on target and keep things moving.  What has been done looks nice, but there is some (lots) of old water damage that will take some work, floors to replace and painting to do. I was desperately discouraged at first because of the short time frame, but was reassured by the “about to be marrieds” that they, with help from their families, were up to the challenge.  It’s good to see young people with dreams and enthusiasm and starry eyes.

We are also planning for the annual Fourth of July picnic,  Certain Man says it will be on its regular day — July 4th, Saturday this year.  So everyone is welcome.  I do appreciate knowing who is coming — especially children so I know how to figure prizes and such.  (Oriental Trading Post, Dollar General and even Wally’s World, here I come!)

The one thing we really need for the picnic yet is someone with a lot more youth and a lot less creaking in the joints than this Delaware Grammy.to organize the games and relays  So if coming up with with these sorts of things is down your alley, let me know and we will certainly work something out.  It would be especially nice to have volunteers to fill the water balloons.  This task is one that provides enjoyment to so many people, (especially the children) but is not one that I can easily fit into the hours before the celebration.

The same guidelines apply as always have:  We furnish hotdogs, hamburgers, paper products, condiments and some of the drink.  We are also looking to crank or electric freeze some ice cream to finish things off.  Bring potluck picnic foods, anything that you would like to have at a picnic..

So come on out — bring your friends and the kids in your life.  We plan to have the little train, “the Jones Express” running for the kids.  There are horseshoes, and cornhole and whatever else gets brought along.  We’ll be glad to have people bring outdoor games for sharing.  Time:  anytime after 3pm for fun and games, with the eating around 5:30-6-ish.

. . . and so life goes on at Shady Acres, while my heart gives grateful praise.

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June 23, 2015 · 8:31 pm

Mama Day

Over the last few years, when I would get my new calendar for the year, I would go through the months and on every Tuesday, I would write, “Mama Day.”  I wanted it firmly in place so that whenever there were things that I needed to do, I could say, “Not Tuesday.  That is my day to go to my mother’s house.”  We often planned her appointments on that day so that I wouldn’t need to take another day out of my week, but most of the time, we spent Tuesdays together in her house beside the nursing home on Yoder Drive.

I honestly cannot say how long I have gone to her house one day a week, but I know that I started it sometime after Daddy’s death ten years ago.  I had tried to get out there without a set schedule at first, but I found that I just didn’t make it unless we had a set day.  At first, it seemed like Wednesday worked best, but as time went on, and I found things jammed up on Wednesday from small group meetings and other mid week activities, we agreed on Tuesday as the day that would be best.

“I don’t care which day you come,” she would often tell me, “but I get such a wonderful feeling inside when I realize that you are going to be there the next day.”  She never ever acted like it was something she took for granted, but she was always so disappointed when something came up to interfere that I decided early on that there was almost nothing worth making her sad.  Tuesday mornings I would often dash into Rite Aid for a prescription, on to Wal-Mart for a few groceries and some OTC meds and other supplies, then out to Mama’s house for the business of paying bills, organizing the medication box, and conversation and companionable silence.  Usually I would be at the kitchen table, and she would be in on her recliner.  In the last year and a half, she would often be sleeping in her chair, sometimes reading, sometimes talking on the phone, but always, always trying to make conversation with me, apologetic for being so sleepy, interested in any community news that she might have missed.

“Do you know anything new?” she would ask me almost every time I talked to her.  I would scramble over the news and try to think of something that she would be interested in.  It got so that I would listen for news that would be the kind of thing she would be interested in.  Where the newlyweds of the community were going to live.  What was growing in the garden already.  How Daniel had installed an irrigation system in the pavilion for my hanging plants.  How the last flock of chickens did.  Who had bought a new car.  What the grandchildren had said lately.  Who was or wasn’t at church on Sunday.  Who in the community was sick.  What our adult children were up to.  Sometimes the pickin’s were slim, but she always wanted to know.

She loved the Daily Guideposts, and kept all of her yearly editions.  When she got the new edition in the fall, she would read the short biographies in the back and catch up on all the long-standing authors’ lives.  She felt like she knew each one, and if she learned that they were sick, or if one of them died, or got divorced or had family problems, she felt deeply for them.  I would often come in and find editions from years back stacked up on her little chairside table, and she would talk to me like they were one of her family.

She loved to read.  Recently she was working her way through the whole “Love Comes Softly” series by Janette Oke.  When she found there was a sequel series, she wanted those to read.  She was in the middle of reading A Searching Heart when she had her fall.  A strip of paper, torn from some advertisement or magazine marked her place on page 115.  Often Middle Daughter was responsible for finding and bringing reading material to her.  Some authors just didn’t hold her interest.  “I just couldn’t get into that book (or author)” she would say ruefully.  “I hope Deborah won’t care, but I just didn’t like it too much.”  And once the opinion was formed, it was seldom changed.

The last five weeks have really run together for this Delaware Grammy, and even though Mama was in the hospital, I still tried to keep Tuesdays as her day.  Last week, Youngest Sister, Alma, needed to trade with me because she had something to do later in the week and wanted to be free.  It was afternoon when I decided that whether it was my day or not, I was going to go.  And thus, I got to spend the last seven hours of her life with her. She went home to Heaven on what my calendar says was a “Mama Day.”

Last night I was thinking about this morning, and planning my day.  I suddenly remembered that I didn’t have to go to Mama’s House today.  I mentally thought about the morning and things that needed doing and decided that I could still be doing things for Mama today.  And so, I have been working on the business of closing accounts, organizing some papers, reading some of the cards, and remembering a Mama who loved Tuesdays with all her heart and wasn’t afraid to let me know that she wanted me to come.

And I’ve spent some time very teary as well.  I expect that Tuesdays will be easier for me on many accounts, but harder on others.  I won’t be dashing out for prescriptions, groceries or supplies then hurrying to get to her house before too late.  But on every single square on the remaining Tuesdays of this year there is the notation, “Mama Day,” and I think this pang will always remind me of a loss that is too big for me to comprehend at this point.

When Daddy died, I had no idea of how things were going to be in the months that followed.  “We hadn’t had time to miss him yet,” said Youngest Sister one day when I was so confused by how the grief just seemed to get deeper and deeper.  I think of those words now and think about what may be ahead for me, for us.  Mama missed the woman she had been in her youth — the vibrancy, the strength, the abilities, the talents that shone.  And while we have missed the Mama that she once was, nothing could have prepared me for the finality of these days.

She won’t be coming back.

How dark this Tuesday seems without her.

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June 21, 2015 · 8:34 pm

On This Rainy Night

It was such a wonderful day.  The friends who came, the people who served by setting up, cooking, serving the wonderful food, those who were still cleaning up when we finally went home, all of these kind people gave us an inestimable gift.  They extended comfort in the form of memories, hugs, encouraging words and assurances of their prayers.

Tonight, at home, with some of the things (I felt) needed to be done finally finished, I sit in the comfortable circle of my family, some of the dear faces missing, some still here for awhile.  I feel bone weariness, soul weariness, and the sub-conscious grief that tugs at my heart.  I haven’t really had time to think clearly about much.

Today we buried my Mama.  I looked at her face before closing the casket for the last time, and put my cheek against her cold one, and told her once again, “Oh, Mama.  You were such a good Mama.  I will always miss you.”  And I know I will.

And then the rest of the day was a blur.  There was lots of music, and there were so many people.  Our cousins from both sides of our big family sang songs that brought back a thousand memories and gave me hope and comfort.  My brothers, nephews, a niece, a son, a daughter and a family friend all worked together and the essence of my Sweet Mama was captured in the laughter and the tears and the words of Eternal Life. Six grandsons carried her gently to the final resting place and another grandson spoke the final familiar words while we sang songs of triumph that exalted in the face of the loss that I could not think about.  And then, we covered the grave.  My mama’s body, the shell of the woman who gave birth to me, was at rest.  I shall never see that form of my Mother again.

Tonight, I sit in this comfortable circle and a sturdy thunderstorm has moved in.  It has rumbled and crashed.  The lightening has flashed, and the rain has poured down in buckets.  I think of that fresh grave and think of the rain pouring down and wonder about the dirt that our family carefully piled in and around and over the vault until it was full and even with the ground.  I think of my Sweet Mama’s body, there under the earth and wonder if the vault is waterproof.

And then I feel that searing, desperate grief as I think of the natural decay of the body that I knew as my Mama’s.  I think of the damp trickling in, and the pretty dress and carefully combed hair and even the perfume that we spritzed on her neckline when we did her hair, and I suddenly want it all undone. I sit in my chair, alone and quiet in my sorrow while I finally have time to think about how this all is, and the tears just won’t stop.  She hated to be wet and cold.  She hated to be alone.  She hated the dark.

I need to stop.  I need to find comfort and I need to think differently.

And then, clear as an angel’s chime, I hear my Sweet Mama’s voice in my head.  It is December 23, 2005, and we have just buried our Precious Daddy.  And someone asked Mama about how she felt about leaving the grave on that cold December day.

“It really was okay,” she said, even in her deep, deep grief.  “It wasn’t Daddy that we left there.  That was just his shell.  He isn’t there.  It isn’t something that he even cares about.”  And as the months and now years have passed, she has never had the need to go to his grave.  She went very occasionally at first but has long since stopped going.  She just hasn’t had the desire or the need.

I can’t say that I am like that.  I still go to my Daddy’s grave when I am troubled or sad or just missing him so much.  I know he isn’t there, but the physical remains of the Daddy I knew and loved are there, and I am comforted some how.  Mostly I talk to Jesus, but sometimes I will cry out my anguished heart and try to think how he would answer me.  And I know that I will do that some more in these next months.

One of the things that was hard over these last few weeks was that there were times when Mama seemed more reluctant to engage her children than she was (outside the family) friends or even strangers, and I found that so hard until the night that Middle Daughter, our resident Hospice nurse stopped me on my way out the door to go to Mama’s side.  I was so sad and confused and weary that night. I had just asked my husband to please pray for me, and he had held me gently and prayed for wisdom and strength and courage.  Most of all, I hated it that I was dreading the time with my Mama.  But Deborah stopped me.  She hugged me and she said something like this:

“Mama, you need to remember that Grandma’s emotions are still on ‘this side.’  She knows that she is slipping away and she is deeply grieving the separation from her beloved children. She cannot yet see Heaven and all the Glory that is waiting for her there, so she is living still with the emotions of this world.  And engaging with you all is a reminder to her of all she’s going to part with, and it is just too hard.  Don’t take it personally, and don’t think she is cutting you out.  She is just working through this business of leaving, and there is no set way that this happens. She loves all of us intensely.  She loved living so much and with the emotions from this life, all of this is probably giving her a deep, deep sense of grief.”

That helped me so incredibly much to believe that God would work in all or our lives to stay focused and steady and working towards the time when she could go HOME. That the less I expected or asked of her, the more she could concentrate on that other world.  It could be our gift to her in this time when it felt our hearts would break.  Truly a sacrifice of praise.  And so, we did.  We kept our heads and hearts where we knew that our Heavenly Father’s care could hold us tenderly and we found Him faithful, and our Mama did not disappoint us.

And tonight, Mama’s emotions are all on the other side.  She is home free.  She is not thinking about a deserted grave in a dark cemetery or the rain or the ones she left behind.  She’s alive and free and timeless and full of incredible joy.  The journey to Heaven was but a split second from that last peaceful breath, and she is only beginning this new adventure.

And this aching heart still offers grateful praise.

‘Weep not.  Weep not.  She is not dead!  She’s resting in the bosom of Jesus!”  (James Weldon Johnson)

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June 18, 2015 · 1:26 pm

Obituary for Alene Elizabeth (Wert) Yoder

Alene Elizabeth (Wert) Yoder died June 16, 2015 in The Country Rest Home near Greenwood, Delaware, surrounded by her loved ones.  She was 86.

Mrs. Yoder was born January 1, 1929 in Bunkertown, PA, to the late Michael and Alma (Lauver) Wert. She chose early to follow Jesus, and the rest of her life was defined by that decision.  At sixteen, she moved to Delaware to work, met the love of her life, Mark Yoder, married him and lived in the Greenwood area for the rest of her years.  She worked side by side with her husband, first as a farmer’s wife and then wherever needed in her husband’s business when he became the owner and administrator of The Country Rest Home.  She also served as a pastor’s wife, and provided care for handicapped adults in her home.  Through all the years, the thing she did best was being an incredible Mama and Grandma.  She loved life and babies and birds and reading.

She is survived by her six children and their spouses: Clinton Yoder of Wagener, SC; Nelson & Rose (Beidler) Yoder of Morris, PA; Mary Ann & Daniel Yutzy of Milford, DE; Mark, Jr. & Polly (Heatwole) Yoder; Sarah & Bert Slaubaugh; and Alma & Jerrel Heatwole, all of Greenwood.  Also surviving are five sisters; Orpha (Lloyd) Gingrich of Cocolamus, PA, Gladys (Jesse) Yoder of Dover, DE, Freda Zehr and Alma Jean (Harvey) Yoder of Harrisonburg, VA, and Ruth Ann (Allan) Shirk of Lancaster, PA,  a brother, J. Lloyd (Beverly) Wert and a sister in law, Mary Wert, of Lancaster, PA. She is also survived by 27 beloved grandchildren and 35 great-grandchildren, and a host of cousins, nieces and nephews.

She was preceded in death by her beloved husband, Mark Yoder, Sr., a daughter in law, Frieda Mishler Yoder, a great-granddaughter, Ariel Yoder, and her oldest brother, Harold Wert.

There will be calling hours at Greenwood Mennonite School on Friday evening, June 19, from 6-8:30.  There will be calling hours at the same location from 10 – 10:45 on Saturday morning, June 20, with the funeral following at 11.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Laws Mennonite Church Building Fund, 125 Schlabach Road, Greenwood, DE 19950.

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June 17, 2015 · 1:38 pm

She’s HOME

It was soon after lunch that I texted my sister, Alma, who was keeping watch with her daughter, Carmen, and said that I was going to come out to Mama’s room where our family has kept constant watch for the last two weeks.  Each of Mama’s children has spent time by the bed in the corner, speaking love to our Sweet Mama, spooning food into her reluctant mouth, giving drinks of ice water, adjusting the fan, and, along with the amazing staff at Country Rest home, doing all we could to keep her as comfortable as possible.  There was music, there was sunlight, there were clean sheets and fresh nighties, there were gentle hands and kind words, there were prayers and prayers and more prayers.

I left my house around 3:15 and got into the room soon after 3:30.  The noise of my mother’s labored breathing was the first thing that I heard.  There was the swish of the oxygen in the background as I leaned over her bed and spoke to her.  She couldn’t talk, her eyes were seeing things I couldn’t.  When they would catch and hold mine, the suffering there wrung my heart.  “Oh, Lord Jesus!  How long?”

Mama’s sister, Alma Jean, was there with our sister, Alma, and Carmen.  It wasn’t too long until our sister, Sarah came and our brother, Mark, Jr., and we, along with Aunt Alma Jean, stood around her bed.  She just looked so bad.  I looked at that lined face, so sunken and tired and thought about how much the Mama of better days would hate this.  She always hoped that she wouldn’t have to suffer, especially gasping for breath.  My heart ached for her in the hard, hard work that she was doing.  And on this day, it seemed that none of the usual remedies worked.  And I suddenly realized that this was probably home going time.  That this labor, so like the labor of birth, was the inevitable labor of death.  It was hard.  It was real.  It was wrenching.  But Jesus was with us and His presence and the Hope of what was to come, kept us steady, even while we often wept.

Throughout the afternoon, family came and went.  There was a time, after supper when it was Sarah, Alma and I, Nel and Rose and Mark and Polly, were alone in the room and we sang for her, songs of faith, songs of Heaven, songs of our childhood.  I listened to the full, rich harmony of our family, singing our Mama Home, and felt the comfort and the peace of the unity we’ve been so blessed to enjoy, and my heart swelled with so much emotion it felt like it would explode.  We started with the song she first taught us, “Jesus Loves Me” and worked our way through “Great is Thy Faithfulness,” and many other old favorites.  Then, again, family started coming in.  She had three nurse granddaughters in the room at one time last night, and their tears told me more about the gravity of the situation than anything else.

Through it all, the labored breathing went on and on and on.  When it seemed like she just couldn’t breathe another breath, it still went on. Occasionally she would be with us, it seemed, but as the evening wore on, she was clearly leaving.  We prayed for God to just take her home, to set her free and to give her the ultimate healing.

And then, soon after ten, with granddaughter Holly on one side, and granddaughter, Carmen, on the other, and the rest of us sitting around and waiting, some in quiet conversation, some in contemplation, her breathing changed.  Instead of the ragged, labored breathing, there was this peaceful, no struggle, easy breaths.  Her face was peaceful.

“I think she’s going,” said Hospice trained nurse, Holly.

“Really?”  Said Carmen.  “You think so?”

“Yes,” breathed Holly.  “She’s is definitely going.”

We gathered around and we held her hands, touched her where we could reach her, and watched in awe as a Saint of God made her final journey.  Peaceful.  Quiet.  Eternal Rest.

How very much we will miss our Sweet Mama!  She has been where we go for comfort and understanding and reassurance and unconditional love.  But how we rejoice in her triumph!  What a joy to think of her in Heaven with Daddy and the rest of the family that has gone on before.  She loved living here.  Heaven is so much more.

I can only imagine.

And this grieving heart still swells with grateful praise.

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