As Time Goes By

My fourth or fifth hand information advises me that my Uncle Dean in dying in Colorado. I got this from my mother who was contacted by her sister who heard it from their brother Bim who talked to my cousin David, Dean's son. (To the best of my knowledge I have never met my cousin David.)

My mother's family is a lot different from my dad's. Daddy's family has always been very close and stayed in touch, even the ones who lived out of state. They have a reunion every year and it is still well attended, even though my dad and his younger brother Don are the only surviving siblings. There are also two in-laws in addition to Mother and Don's wife Mary.

Mother's family, on the other hand, does not stay in touch and it is easy to assume that they do not care that much for each other. That is not the case. Dean has lived in Colorado for a long time, and he spent as much time there as he could before he actually moved there. Can't say that I blame him; given the choice of living in Colorado or Lewis, Kansas, I would take Colorado also, as long as it wasn't Eastern Colorado. Anyway, I think the last time I saw Dean was about 14 years ago. I didn't know him well before that. He just didn't seem to do "family" much, although he did not seem to dislike his family when he was around them.

Anyway, Mother feels a great deal of affection for her sisters and brothers and has made several visits to the Lewis area to see them. And she talked on the phone to Dean not too long ago. He was fine then, but apparently got pneumonia and is not pulling out of it. He is 2 years younger than she is, which would make him 80. (Sorry, Mother. It just slipped out!) That is not particularly old for Mother's family; Aunt Fern was about 92 when she died and Aunt Freeda will be 92 in October. Aunt June is about 85.

I often think my siblings and I learned our love of family from Daddy, but when I talk with Mother about her family, I think we may have learned even more from her. Daddy's family has always been easy to love. Intelligent, funny, literate, a certain amount of sophistication, and always connected. Mother's love for her family has required, I think, more acceptance, more tolerance, more forgiveness or even forgetfulness. And Mother has loved them. She is an amazing person, my mother, and not just because she can play the piano by ear. She has been an excellent mother, and good friend, a steadfast wife, and a constant sister. I want to be just like her when I grow up.

Oh yes, the title of this blog. Well, sometimes the passing of time just seems cruel. Things change. Time goes by. Maybe a better title would have been a reference to the Ray Price song - For the Good Times. I don't know. I'm tired. My heart hurts for my mother. I have yet to lose a sibling and she has lost 4 and is on the verge of losing another. And by lose I don't mean displace.

If I Were a Terrorist, a Terrorist, a Terrorist

Like all sane people, I am shocked and saddened by the bombings in London. As a person whose genetic history goes right back "across the pond", I cannot help but admire the Brit Grit in dealing with these.

I also cannot help but be appalled by the reaction in America by people who I would expect to do better. Now I am not an expert in international relations or terrorism, but it seems rather knee-jerk to me to get your panties in a bunch about our mass transit systems because that is what was targeted in Britain.

I would think any terrorist who had half sense, which I will grant you I don't think most do, would not strike at the same target everywhere unless it was being done simultaneously. Why would I hit mass transit in other countries while they are all tightening security on their mass transit systems? I would find some other place to strike - like churches on Sunday morning in the US of A.

Fortunately, I am not a terrorist, although in some people's minds I may be suspect since I am a liberal Democrat. But I am just a working middle class feminist who pays her taxes, obeys the laws, goes to church, (yes, on Sunday morning in the US of A) and backs up her beliefs and philosophies with her vote (for all the good THAT does her in Kansas!).

Back to London. In his book "Tuesdays With Morrie", Mitch Albom tells about Morrie Schwartz allowing himself to wallow in his emotions for a brief time, then saying "enough" and getting on with the business of life. It would appear to me that the Brits have had their wallow and now they are to the getting on part. It would also appear to me that we Americans, or a portion of us, are still in our wallow, and everytime we try to get on, our fearless leader encourages us to go back and wallow some more because that seems to be the only time we can tolerate him. Enough already. 911 was awful. But it was 4 years ago. Never forget. But no more wallowing.

A Long Weekend

Although we are not always allowed the luxury, we like to treat my long weekends like mini vacations. We like to get out of town, but not go so far that half of the three days are spend en route. This is difficult when you live in a city that is central to several others but not close to any of them. To further complicate the issue, we wanted to allow Kristy to go with us and she had to work Saturday evening. We were able to come up with a pretty good solution, I thought.

Saturday Harry and I went to Lindsborg, which is probably about an hour up I135 and has a strong Sweedish heritage. We visited some interesting shops and strolled the streets. At 1:00 the Burgher Sandzen art museum on the campus of Bethany College opened and we went through that. Although I cannot spell his name, he is one of my favorite artists and was teaching at Bethany at the same time my Uncle Loren was there.

I was somewhat disappointed in the food offerings in town. We ended up having pretty American stuff for lunch. I did, however, have an excellent piece of gooseberry pie. The crust was flakey like pie crust should be, and the filling was tart and tasted of gooseberries instead of just sugar.

After lunch we toured the old mill and the Heritage park. There is a building there that was built in Sweeden for the 1904 Worlds Fair in St. Louis. After the fair it was given to Bethany and was used as a classroom for many years.

We came back home and Sunday morning the three of us went to Topeka. Our first stop once we got there was the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Sight. This should be a must see for everyone, but especially for those who were born after the mid 1960's. I know a lot of younger people don't understand what the big deal is about race relations because they don't comprehend how things were from Reconstruction until 1965, especially in some of the South. Anyway, it is a really well done museum.

We got to swim in the afternoon and then got our search for fireworks pretty much flooded out by torrential rains.

Monday we went to the zoo. It is a nice one in a really pretty setting. One thing I like about going to zoos in different towns is that, no matter how large or small they are, each one seems to have something I haven't seen at any of the others. This one had a Palla Cat, one of the more unique and interesting cats I have seen. He was gray, and when he "spoke" his nose wrinkled up and the sound he made was like a combination of hissing, clicking, and meowing. He was quite vocal. They also had some younger ones in another area, but they were asleep.

We also visited the state capitol. What a lovely building! Too bad it is always full of Republicans. It really is impressive. I had not been there for years.

There were a lot of other things we could have done but we didn't want to put ourselves under a lot of pressure. Amazingly, we didn't do any shopping while we were in Topeka - didn't even go into the mall or any of the stores. Just were tourists.

My favorite 4th was when we went to Omaha; the worst was Tulsa. This one was somewhere in between, but closer to Omaha than Tulsa.

A Hole in My Life

Not too long ago I read a book titled "A God Shaped Hole". It was about a young woman who fell in love only to have her boyfriend die in a drowning accident. It wasn't really that simple, but for my purposes that was the plot.

Later at our annual conference one of the speakers talking about working with dying children described death as leaving a hole in your life. You could learn to live with it, but it would never go away.

Just a couple of weeks ago I learned that the man I had dated near the end of my senior year in high school and off and on for the next six years had died in 1985. I have spent a lot of my time since learning this dealing with the knowledge and have come to the conclusion that I now have a hole in my life.

I wasn't surprised to learn that he was no long living, but I was surprised to know that he had been dead so long - 20 years. I don't know how he died, and I probably will never know. But I do know that for me it is like he died 2 weeks ago. I guess in a sense he died for me when I became aware of his death.

It is hard to know how to deal with this kind of grief. Am I entitled to mourn someone whom I had not seen for 35 years and who has been dead for 20? I think I am, but I have also felt the need to keep my sorrow quiet. I am not sure how others would view it.

Although I do not regret the fact that we did not end up together, I acknowledge that he was a special person who has always occupied a unique place in my memories, and I don't think that will change. It does not alter the love I have for my husband and children; in fact, my husband took me to the cemetery to visit his grave. How can you alter the love you have for someone who would do that?

After not writing in my blog for over half a year I feel I should be more articulate, but this is my effort to examine and deal with this strange sorrow I feel. I must say to Henry the words that only he would truly understand - "So long, sucker."