February 2023 Newsletter
Hello all!
This past weekend I have been in a nesting frenzy. If I was not turning 57 this month and if I had all my parts, I would question if I wasn’t, perhaps, with child. I am not. But it has brought me pure joy to clean out my home office desk. It is a desk my father (who was NOT a woodworker) made it for my mother, I think. I remember it under construction when I was a child, so it is over 50 years old. It seems to be made of pieces of wood my father found, it is stained a reddish brown (you can see the brush strokes) and has cubbies on top that you can access by opening the front slab of wood, which can rest on two pieces of wood you pull out to make it into a desk. I have never used it as such because I think if you put too much weight on it (like a computer and cup of tea) it might break. It sets next to my actual desk. It has two drawers that hold all the important things (wills, birth certificates, money from every country I have visited). Now it is organized. I did throw some things out, but I kept the hotel stationary from the Ramada Inn, The Mead Inn and the Howard Johnson’s that my father collected. You may get a letter sent to you on that with its matching envelope (do you remember when hotels gave you stationary?).
I also organized the other desk in the room which belonged to Tom’s family and is from the farm his father grew up on in Howard Lake. That desk holds a mash of electronics in the top drawer, house and gardening information in the second drawer and stationary and old cards (for repurposing) in the third drawer. All organized. I found three folded sheets of wrapping paper that my father kept and I used those today to wrap Sam’s birthday presents. I am sure my father felt a heavenly vindication for hanging on to that wrapping paper for 30 plus years.
This morning I pulled everything out of the bottom of my closet; it is in a pile at my feet now. On the top of the pile is a blue velvet bag. Inside that bag is a plastic bag with some ashes we held back when we buried my father. We held these back, as we did some of my mother’s ashes, but we have yet to do anything with them. We keep forgetting we have them. I do want to do something with them. I think for my father I could spread some at Mt. Morris and at his family farm in North Dakota. For my mother, I am determined to spread a few ashes at Valleyfair (but that is a commercial space, so you can tell no one—we would put just a pinch in a flower pot, not on some ride, I promise) and maybe the Lowry Nature Center. That is where she and I would walk and go cross-country skiing.
I do feel tears and a lump in my throat. I do miss my parents. The other day Tom and I both commented that is would be nice to have them over for dinner. But it is not an overwhelming grief. I know this is because of my faith, maybe also because of my vocation. I have the privilege of being with people as they are dying. I have the privilege of being with family members who have never gone through death before and reassuring them that all will be well. Death really does make sense. Knowing that there is eternal life, that makes sense to me as well. I am not hung up about what exactly eternal life looks like. I trust God and Jesus Christ with this.
All of this is to say, cleaning/organizing helps us to give thanks for the ones who have loved us and have gone home to God before us. Or something like that. Thank you for listening. I am exceptionally grateful for my parents and the faith they instilled in me. My life is very good. I pray the same for you.
Thanks be to God.