Day 365 - Final Reflections on Mom's Assignments

fifteen cents

The topic of Mom's fourth assignment was the role of money in her life. I had never thought of Grandpa, her dad, as being wealthy, but a few years out of college when I volunteered as a translator and driver for a man from Bolivia who was brought to the Red River Valley to minister to the migrant workers in sugar beet country, the people on the farm where the Bolivian lived referred to Grandpa as the man who owned half the county. An exaggeration, I'm sure, but Grandpa provided valuable lessons to his children on how to live frugally.

Mom and Dad taught me the value of money and how to use it when they first gave me a weekly allowance of 15 cents. A dime went into my piggy bank, a penny went into my church envelope, and I could spend the remaining 4 cents any way I wanted. In order to buy a candy bar, I had to save at least a penny from one week into the next week. Others might have concluded my allowance was only 4 cents, but no one could have convinced me of that. When I got my first paycheck with money deducted for taxes and social security, I was already used to the concept of withholding.

Camp Fire buddies Sherry, Sandy, and Mary

Camp Fire Girls provided an opportunity to learn to budget -- even if it was really just recording how I spent money. I learned the difference between fixed and flexible expenses, a valuable lesson when I returned to graduate school and had to survive on an income that just barely exceeded my monthly rent.

The values of those early lessons weren't always obvious until much later, of course. A sharp contrast makes an image appear clear. Neither Don nor John had ever learned to manage money. Don was used to taking money from his Mom's wallet when he wanted it, so that's what he did with my wallet -- always without telling me. One Friday, the only day of the week that I needed more than 15 cents to buy lunch (a dime for a day-old ham and cheese sandwich and a nickel for a snack-sized bag of Cheetos), I was ready to leave with Kris, the woman I worked with, when I found my wallet was empty.

John was used to handing over his entire pay check to his father -- with great resentment -- and then getting from his father whatever he asked for, no matter the cost. The misalignment of earnings to costs was never clear to him, much to the detriment of our relationship. I thought it would work for the two of us to agree we should live on an allowance, so we each took a specific amount from our checks to spend however we wanted. When I used mine on a blender, John accused me of making the decision to use "our" money without consulting with him. He spent all his allowance on lunches. He couldn't comprehend that I would put money from my allowance aside to spend on something tangible. Eventually we settled on using different checking accounts. He had his, I had mine, and we had ours. The allowances went into our personal accounts. When John's checks bounced, he always declared it was the bank's fault.

And I also have felt through all of my life that I needn't worry about money -- when I need it -- if I truly need it -- it will be there. The fact that I won just over $2,000 two months before I planned to quit my job and return to school, with no savings to fall back on, was probably the most dramatic example. I am sure I would have managed somehow without that source, but it made the transition from full-time work to full-time student less intimidating. And then, the fall after the summer I volunteered to drive the Bolivian around Cass and Clay counties, I was diagnosed with mononucleosis and couldn't work so I didn't even have that meager income to cover my rent. Just when I didn't know what I was going to do,  the church group that sponsored the Bolivian sent me a check for $100 to thank me for my volunteer work - just enough to pay the rent.

The fifth assignment topic was the meaning of life, aspirations and goals

by  readerwalker  I don't know if I'll know what the meaning of life is until I have finished living it. But I believe there must be meaning in the living. And I believe that I have the power to choose to live so that the effect on myself or others is positive. I try to learn good lessons from every person I meet and from every situation I am in. I sometimes get distracted, and then too often disappointed, by the aspirations others have instilled in me -- promotions or assignments others recommend, for example. But after reflection, it is always clear that these external goals are not important. Knowing that I have caused no harm or maybe even contributed some good is what is important.

Alex recently told me that one of my previous bosses in the Foreign Service told him I would never get promoted into the senior levels because I cared too much about my staff. Given those options - promotion into the Senior Foreign Service or caring about my staff - I think I made the right choice.

I didn't always want to go to church every Sunday. There were plenty of Sundays when I felt that having to get up early was punishment for having had fun by staying up late on Saturday -- not the best motivation. We older kids felt the twins were getting off too easy by being able to play in the nursery instead of having to sit still and be quiet for a whole hour with us. I didn't think about the fact that handling two toddlers in the pew would have taken away the quiet Mom needed.  The end result was worth it. I have amazing siblings who all have amazing kids.

Day 364 - My Assignment 2: Family

Dudrey Court beauties

I loved growing up in a neighborhood full of kids about my age. And I loved having so many cousins. There seemed to be so many relatives that I had a hard time reconciling that some people we used to drop in on didn't fit into the relative category. They were called friends, like Ruby and Stanley in Fargo. But even they seemed to be connected to the concept of family and relatives because they were from Hawley or Hitterdal.

I loved all the family reunions we seemed to go to several times each summer. Even if the range of relatives extended beyond those we saw often, there was comfort in knowing we were all related. Remembering this has probably helped me when I moved to places in the Middle East where clan and tribe are still strong ties among the community.

At the same time as I had all these positive feelings based on being part of a family, I didn't want my world limited to the scope of my extended family. I wanted to see more and get to know people whose lives followed unfamiliar paths. So my moves to California and then Iran and Romania came with efforts to recreate a family from the friends I met in those locations. My lack of success in marriage to both Don and John may have been in part because I wasn't able to reconcile being part of a couple with my desire to be surrounded by a larger family at the same time. Both Don and John were trying to separate themselves from their families while I was trying to extend mine. Don once told me I had to choose between him and my family. John used me as the excuse for his withdrawal from his family. Neither offered a very auspicious beginning for forming a new family unit.

Part of my Tehran family

The "family" that I acquired in Tehran was both most unusual and most intense. Of the 25 of us in the University of Southern California English teaching program, about half became close enough to celebrate all holidays, birthdays, and anniversaries together -- all the things that I had associated with family events. And because doing anything in Iran was just a little bit more complicated than anywhere else, we also had the bonding experience of having overcome obstacles together. We didn't just have to stuff and cook a turkey for Thanksgiving, for example. We also had to finish plucking the feathers from it the night before. So Thanksgiving became a 3-day holiday: Wednesday we got together with bottles of wine and conversation as we surrounded the bird and plucked or burned the last of the feathers off. Thursday we prepared and ate the meal. This meant mashing potatoes for 15 with just a fork and making squash pies in place of pumpkin pies. And Friday we got together again to finish off the leftovers.

My birthday dinner

Even going out to a restaurant wasn't a simple matter. We celebrated my birthday one year by going to the Polynesian restaurant in one of the city's big hotel. They had a special show that week so in addition to good food -- and wine again -- we also were entertained by musicians from Hawaii who dragged several of us onto the stage to learn the hula. At the end of the meal, the bill came. We knew the bill would be higher than usual, but it was really high: so high that one of our group took a close look at the details and he found there were significant discrepancies in the amounts for the same items: a few extra zeros had been added here and there. But even more surprising was the fact that the grand total at the bottom didn't match the result of adding up the individual amounts -- and the bill was done on an electronic cash register, not by hand. We pointed out the discrepancies and asked for a corrected bill. Instead of a new bill, we got a condescending lecture from the restaurant manager who pointed out that the cash register they were using was an American brand, so how could we possibly question its accuracy. The director of our program offered to leave his American Express card with the restaurant as our assurance that we would pay the bill, but only after we had received a corrected version. The manager refused that option but said he would straighten out the bill and contact us later. For the next year, the couple who had made our reservations received a monthly phone call from the hotel to ask us to pay the bill. But the restaurant never produced a corrected bill. The last phone call came when the couple was out of the country on leave and I was staying in their house. I answered the call and told the hotel that Neal and Shirley were out of the country, but they would be back in a week. The hotel never called again. So the 15 of us had a very handsome time, probably paid for by all the other patrons at other tables who were likely similarly scammed by the operator of the American cash register.

With challenges like that facing us every week, the bonds we developed were very strong. Thirty years after our Iranian adventures, I went to California to celebrate the summer solstice (a tradition that one couple introduced to all of us during our days in Tehran) with several of that group and we all agreed that none of us had ever found a similar work environment again.

Gayle

Life in Romania was much the same. One of the elementary school teachers in Bucharest, Gayle, became the central character in the lives of many of us there. Whenever I made my way from Iasi to Bucharest, I stayed at Gayle's. And every Sunday evening I was there, Gayle and Roger (now her husband) and I would cook dinner for anywhere from 8 to 16 people -- as close to the tradition of family reunions as I had come since moving from Minnesota nearly 10 years before. Is it all that surprising that I misread the signs of John's attitude toward family in that environment?

After marriage to John, I think I had expected that we would continue to have the kinds of frequent gatherings of family members and friends but this time in the U.S. with my family or in Canada with his. Slowly I began to realize, however, that my role in the relationship had shifted. Before the wedding, I was outside his family which put me in the position of being his ear as he complained about how overbearing his aunt was, how domineering both his father and grandfather were, how backward his mother was. He had very little respect for any of the women in his family: his grandmother let his grandfather walk all over her, his sister allowed his parents to arrange her marriage. He resented the fact that his aunt had attended parent/teacher conferences in place of his parents because they didn't speak much English. And suddenly, after the wedding, I was also just another female relative. With no positive models of how to relate to a female relative, he fell into the patterns he was familiar with -- and I therefore deserved no respect.

When I finally realized how many internal conflicts he had with the many members of his family, I decided the only way I could hope to maintain our relationship was to make a commitment to myself that I not have children. As much as John loved other people's kids, I could not risk putting a child in the position of having to deal with his anger, especially if the child were a daughter. But as much as I was convinced this decision was necessary for our marriage to work, it was also probably the decision that led John to realize he no longer wanted to be married.

The years between the end of my marriage to John and my meeting Alex were often filled with thoughts of guilt about my selfish life choices. I often wondered if my choices were evidence that I was running away from or avoiding something. I hope that I will eventually accept that my choices have been moving toward, not away from, something. Those choices eventually led me to Qatar and therefore to Alex and Simon. And finally my life-partner choice fits with my image of, and my need for, family. So, even if selfishness was a factor, even if I might have been just a bit looking to escape from something, Alex has brought me back to a place I want to be -- inside a family every day, not ever feeling like I'm on the outside, always able to look in.

Day 363 - More Reflections - On Family and Careers

The subject of Mom's second assignment was her family. As I read that piece, I was surprised at how much about her family - my family - that I didn't know.

Great-Grandma Tangen and six of us oldest ones

I still don't know when or where our grandparents were born, but Mom knew details about hers. I didn't even know where my parents were born, whether on the farm or in a hospital. I just remember that Grandpa and Grandma Wenner lived in the big house at the edge of Hitterdal, at the top of a long drive up a hill that leads away from Hitterdal Lake, which used to be a potato field. And Grandpa and Grandma Dauner lived in Hawley, in a house with a screened-in porch that became the bedroom for Lois, Diane, and me when we all got to stay at Grandma's house in the summer.

The Dauners

I remember Great-Grandma Tangen when she lived in Hawley with Grandpa and Grandma. And I remember trying to figure out a way that she wouldn't have to go to live in Eventide when it became too difficult for Grandpa and Grandma Dauner to continue to take care of her at home. I couldn't understand why she couldn't come to live with us if she had to move from Hawley to Moorhead. Great-Grandma had tried to teach me how to crochet, but I didn't catch on until years later when Maryann from the other end of Dudrey Court taught me. All I was able to learn from Great-Grandma was how to do the chain stitch. But I wanted to learn how to crochet because she made so many beautiful things -- lace for pillow edges, bookmarks in the shape of a cross, doilies, and even ladies' high-heeled shoes that were starched to stand up by themselves.

So many cousins

I knew we were lucky to have so many cousins. And since so many of them lived near one another, I never knew whose house we were going to stop at when we went visiting on Sundays until we drove into the driveway. I knew that Mom and Dad didn't spend as much time with their cousins as we kids got to spend with ours, and I was always a little sad to think that as we grew up, we would probably stop seeing the cousins so often. But so long as Lois didn't have a sister, and Joan was so much younger than we were, I felt as though Lois was more like a sister than a cousin, so I was sure we would always remain close and visit one another often.

I remember the Lysne Christmas pageant as part of our family's Christmas tradition, even though I don't think we ever went to it. It is just that Christmas Eve was always spent at Grandpa and Grandma Dauner's house -- until they moved to Arizona -- and the cousins who attended Lysne always had to recite their "pieces" on Christmas Eve for all of us.

The Wenners

Christmas always meant peanuts and other nuts to me as a child, too. I don't know for sure where Dad got them, but it seems like it was somewhere near the river, and we only got nuts -- almonds, hazel nuts, peanuts, Brazil nuts, and walnuts -- at Christmas time. That's when we got to use the silver nut cracker and those other implements with the tiny, pointed scoops at the end which we used to coax out the bits of nuts that inevitably got smashed as we crushed, not cracked, the shells.

I remember Mom telling us that Grandpa always joked about getting married on the longest night of the year, but Grandpa to me was someone else -- Mom's Dad -- and I knew my Grandpa and Grandma got married on the day before Grandma's 18th birthday, which was in June, not December. For years I tried to figure out how a wedding in June could have been on the longest night of the year. It should have been the shortest night. But after reading Mom's assignment, after nearly 50 years, the mystery was solved.

One paragraph in this piece confused me for awhile:

The last two years [of high school] my sister, Madelyn, and I stayed with Grandpa and Grandma Tangen who had moved from the farm. It was during this time that I met Arthur. He and his uncle Bill came by to say goodbye when they were on the way to California to enter the Merchant Marines.

That paragraph tells when Mom and Dad met, although for some reason I thought it meant they met when Uncle Bill and Dad went to say goodbye to someone else in that house, but not how or where. I thought everyone could tell the story of when and where he or she met that special someone.  So I asked Dad, but he said he couldn't remember. He said he always knew who Mom was. If he did, he must have kept it to himself. But then, he was always the introvert; Mom was a bit further out on the introvert-to-extrovert scale.

The topic of Mom's third assignment was careers. Not surprisingly, she wrote of being a mother and later working for Trinity church. But I was surprised to learn she had wanted to be a singer or an actress. How little I knew of Mom's early thoughts.

I don't know if I ever really thought about careers. I grew up assuming that I would get married and have kids. When in high school, I wrote out my life's plan. When I found it many years later, it included steps such as:

• Finish college
• Have a career for two or three years
• Get married and have kids

Silk kimono

And when I finally did get a job after finishing college, it wasn't what I had expected. I expected to teach English in high school. But, having swapped the order of the first half of my third step with my second step, I had gotten married and we moved to California where I expected to start my career for a few years while Don finished his Masters degree. But California didn't need any more high school English teachers. It was difficult to reconcile having spent four years in college to get the magic piece of paper that was proof that I was qualified to teach, and instead spending my time at a desk in an office typing and answering the telephone.

But, as Mom said in her assignment, each step is really training for the next one. Because I wasn't hired as a teacher, I volunteered to teach English in Oakland's Chinatown, and that led to a return to school to get certified to teach English as a Second Language -- first in California, then Iran, Romania, and Illinois. And when there were no options for teaching in Minnesota, I had to switch again. The plan that has since evolved was a most unlikely one -- certainly not one I would have written in advance: secretary to teacher to software engineer to diplomat may look like an entirely serendipitous path, but the connection throughout was the fascination with people and places unlike me, a fascination that started very early in my life, with glimpses of kimonos and silk skirts in a wooden trunk in the basement of 307 Dudrey Court.

Day 362 - My Assignment 1: Major Branching Points in My Life

First, there was one

 As the oldest child, I am lucky to have memories of being the most important person in Mom and Dad's life. And those memories are likely the basis for the most fundamental branching points in my life: the addition of each successive child changed my life, four times, and I still learn more each year about the impact of each of those changes.

My earliest memories of Wayne don't include baby pictures. I remember that he had to go into the hospital for a few nights when he got pneumonia. I remember playing with an elaborate set of plastic farm pieces -- fences, cows, horses -- on the living room floor. I remember a Captain Hook puppet that we used to tell each other stories.  And I remember having to share my time with Dad at basketball games, baseball games, and fishing with Wayne. So, with the arrival of Wayne, I learned, perhaps not gracefully, that I had to share.

Then there were two

Joan's arrival is much more memorable for me. I even remember Mom being pregnant, and that I had to help her wash the kitchen floor when Joan's birth was near. I wanted a sister so that I could say I had a brother and a sister, so I was very pleased when Mom brought Joan home. I remember Joan's blonde blonde hair which contrasted strongly with the brown blonde that Wayne and I had. And I remember how cute everyone thought she was (I even thought she was). In fact, only recently I realized that Joan's arrival probably sparked my need for competition because Wayne and I didn't spend so much time with Dad once Joan arrived. I may not have realized then that I was jealous, but I realized since Joan was the cute one, I had to find some other way to excel -- and thus was born my need to win and be the smart one.

And then three

By the time Roger arrived, I began to think more of my being part of a family. I remember Mom telling us that we were going to have a new brother or sister. And I know I wanted another brother -- to keep the genders even I said, but perhaps I didn't want even more competition from another sister. Roger's arrival brought opportunities. I got to "help" Mom give Roger his daily bath. I don't recall doing much more than watching, but being in the room during the ritual made me feel part of it. And I even got to babysit on Saturday evenings when Mom and Dad went out, however infrequently. I felt that I had passed some magic point of growing up with Roger's arrival.

And then came the twins, the biggest impact of all up to then. While my role in taking care of them was really quite small, the impressions on me were enormous. Where taking care of Roger was an opportunity, helping Mom feed, change, and clothe the twins became more of a chore. Thank goodness they were both so cute!

And four

But their arrival also meant I couldn't babysit for all the kids alone. Mom always arranged for neighbors, not always that much older than I, to babysit and for me to help. From this I learned that all responsibilities are not equal and growing up was going to take a lot longer.

Those lessons -- the need to share, the desire to compete, the opportunity to accept responsibilities, and to recognize that I might need help now and then -- probably explain my decisions throughout high school and college.

The additional goal -- I wanted to find something special in myself -- was motivation that made me seek out the opportunity to go to New Jersey for the summer of 1968. That experience within a Cuban immigrant community so close to New York City brought me many life-changing decisions. First, I realized I already knew a foreign language that I could teach, so I changed my major from German to English. Second, I knew I wanted to spend my life in big cities so I shrank away from anything that I thought would keep me in Fargo and Moorhead, including the wonderful man I had promised to marry before those life-changing events.

And more

And that led me to meet Don, a symbol of anywhere else. Don became my means to get to the big city when we headed west to California. And for all the pain that relationship brought, Don ended up the most important influence for me when I needed to find confidence to stay in California. He told me I could stand on my own (not necessarily in a tone of voice I welcomed), so I dared to try. Joan's arrival later that summer was just what I needed to conclude that I really could continue my California life instead of returning to an old life.

Remaining in California made it possible for me to get the opportunity to go to Iran to live and work. And the evenings I spent while in San Francisco at folk dancing halls turned on my interest in Eastern Europe which led me to Romania. While these two events started out as adventures to spice up my life, they transformed into the goal for a new life. And I thought I had found a partner who shared that goal in John. I think the slow realization that his goals were actually so different from mine -- and from what he had told me when we met -- was the unraveling of that relationship. When he asked me why I couldn't just love him for himself, I could only respond that I had no idea who he was -- he changed his story in every situation.

With my entry into the State Department's Foreign Service, I had reached the most significant branching point. I realized when I got the phone call asking me if I wanted to be part of the January class or the March class that having the choice was more difficult than having no choice. Until that point, getting into the Foreign Service had been a goal that consumed an enormous amount of my effort. Once the call came, the dilemma was that I realized it didn't matter whether I joined or not -- I needed a new goal. And I spent the first four years questioning whether I had made the right choice.

And then I met Alex, who helped me realize that my personal life is more important than work. Of course, that has been a lesson long in the learning. We have had many discussions about why I have had to work so late -- or why I have chosen to work so late. But eventually we have both come to realize we each work in order to live, not live in order to work.

Day 144 - Father's Day

Father's Day cake by Jim, The Photographer,
via Flickr.com

This is the first Father's Day without Dad. It is also the first Father's Day with James in our lives. That's the circle of life, I guess.

At church this morning, Pastor Andy said in his sermon that he had been at St. Andrews Lutheran Church long enough that he has used up all the great stories of his father. So he told us one about a parishioner in his first church. Lilian* was in her 70s when she told Pastor the story, so he thinks the story took place in the early 1920s.

Lilian grew up in a very strict household. Her mother preached against playing cards, dancing, and going to movies, fearing that her daughter being involved in such activities would lead her astray. But Lilian, being a typical teenager of any decade, had a streak of rebellion in her. Not wanting to lie to her mother, Lilian stretched the truth a bit, telling her mother she was going to a friend's house for the evening. It was just stretching the truth because Lilian did go to her friend's house. But then she and her friends went to the cinema.

It was Lilian's first trip to see a movie, so she was very excited. Once she and her friends got settled in their seats, Lilian was surprised by a tap on her shoulder, but even more surprised when she turned around and saw her father in the seat behind her. In an instant, Lilian figured out what had happened. Her father had seen her with her friends as they were buying their tickets, but instead of approaching her outside the cinema, he decided to make the lesson larger by allowing Lilian to spend her money on the ticket and refreshments. Lilian didn't have much money, so when her father finally demanded that she pick up her purse and come out of the cinema with him, the lesson would really hurt.

But that's not what her father said. Instead, he said "I won't tell if you won't tell." Lilian remained in her seat in the row with her friends while her father remained behind her. And Lilian realized after that day that her father would always have her back.

Pinocchio by turbulentflow, via Flickr.com

Lilian's story reminded me of the first time I went to a movie. Dad took me to see Walt Disney's Pinocchio. I must have been about four years old. I remember the experience so well because I was absolutely scared to death of the  big waves and the storm in the movie. Instead of seeing Pinocchio learning the lessons that he should stop telling lies and start being kind and obedient to his father who carved him, I remember wondering why Dad would take me to see a movie that was so frightening.

Swiss Family Robinson book by
kayray via Flickr.com

A few years later Dad took several of us to see The Swiss Family Robinson. That one also had a few frightening moments in it, like a scene where one of the boys was caught in a giant spider's web, but I was old enough not to let the the frightening scenes distract me from the rest of the story. After we got home from the movie, Dad teased us about the movie. He asked us if we thought it was a good story or a true story. We all said it was both. But Dad insisted it was either a good story that wasn't true or a true story that wasn't good. I think I realized he was right, but I really wanted it to be a good story that was true.

I asked Dad not long ago how he met Mom. I expected him to tell me about the moment he first saw her across a room because I thought everyone would remember that point in time when they saw their love for the first time. Instead, Dad said he couldn't remember. He said he had always known who she was. Both his family and hers used to go to watch movies that were projected against one of the buildings downtown in Hitterdal, a precursor of outdoor movie theaters like the Starlight and Moonlight in the Fargo-Moorhead area.

Dad used to take us to movies at an outdoor movie theater now and then, especially when the entry price was per car, not per person. I always enjoyed those nights, even though I heard Dad complain to Mom about what went on in the other cars. I didn't know what he was talking about. I always watched the movies. I never looked at what went on in the other cars.



*a name, not necessarily the right one

Day 134 - Keepers

Image by Elvert Barnes, via Flickr

I knew right away that Alex was a keeper. He can't keep from telling me what he thinks, even when what he says may not be what I want to hear. He just can't help himself, almost like Jim Carey in Liar, Liar. Now that doesn't mean I don't get annoyed with what he says. But it is a refreshing change from my previous attempts to find a life partner. The two before Alex couldn't help themselves from telling me either what they thought I wanted to hear or what they preferred reality to be like. So Alex's approach to the truth is petty darn wonderful.

And Alex brought Simon into my life. It isn't that I decided not to have children. It is just that I was never in the right circumstances when biology was on my side. By the time Alex came into my life, there was no possibility of my having a child. But then, there was Simon. Alex was worried that I wouldn't want to share my life with a teenager. Once Simon arrived, I had no doubt that having him in my life would expand it, not crowd anything out.

And when Simon was ready for his last year of high school, he ended up living in Fargo, ND, just across the river from my parents. His presence in the area expanded my parents' lives, too. When Dad told us he was going for a drive in the countryside, we would jump in the car to join him, but he didn't even turn the key to start the car until Simon was with us in the car. When Simon graduated from high school, he stayed in town for four years of college. Alex and I were half way around the world for most of those four years. Dad would run into Simon at basketball games at Concordia and nothing made him happier than telling his friends that that English kid was his grandson.

Now Simon has lovely Sarah as his wife and together they have James. The two of them have expanded my life even further. They are definitely keepers. But they are just the beginning.

My sister-in-law, Julie, Wayne's wife, is another keeper. Throughout Dad's health challenges during the past two years, Julie has been our medical translator. But she not only could translate the medical situation, she can also translate nursing home situations for those not familiar with that system. When Dad ended up in the Transitional Care Unit at Eventide, Julie explained the possible consequences of first the gangrene and later the infection, helping us all to prepare for all eventualities. She was also the first person to mention that hospice might be appropriate for Dad. While most of us thought of hospice as something that meant there was no hope, Julie helped us recognize that hospice care is in fact a hopeful step since hospice services ensure the best possible quality of life when additional treatment has little hope for improvement.

Julie was Dad's advocate in the medical and nursing processes throughout his final years. And thst meant she was also our advocate, something that I can't adequately express my thanks to her for in words. She is a keeper.

My brother-in-law, Dick, Joan's husband is another keeper. Dick made nearly every trip between their home and Moorhead that Joan made to spend time with Dad. Dick was with Joan and me when Dad died. Most often quietly remaining in the background, Dick provided solid support to all those around him. Dick has always taken excellent care of my baby sister and their two children and their children. His hobby, photography, ensures that we all, even those of us half a continent away, keep informed, visually, of the changes in all those precious grandchildren. Dick is a keeper.

My sister-in-law, Kathy, Bruce's wife, is a keeper. When Bruce married Kathy, her three beautiful daughters joined the family. All little girls then, they are all grown up now, with beautiful little girls of their own. Kathy makes my brother Bruce happy, the best gift possible. Bruce and Kathy have had more losses recently than seem fair. While we all lost both Mom and Dad, and we lost Brian, Bruce's loss was greater because Brian was his twin. And then last Christmas, the family lost Cole, Bruce and Kathy's grandson, their daughter Ashley's son. Through those losses, we have gotten to know Kathy's family, a gift to all of us.

Last, but far from least, my sister-in-law, Lori, Brian's wife, is a keeper. When Brian sent me an email message in Sana'a, Yemen, to tell me that he and Lori had again begun dating, my first thought was, "Yippee!" And that was even before I could see the smile that Lori brought to his face. Being half-way around the world makes it hard to check out facial features. But somehow I think the smile came through in the words he used. Lori and Brian had dated years before, and even though destiny didn't keep them together, Lori really did remain part of our world. Many times when I was back in Moorhead, Dad would tell me to join him in the car because he thought it was time to go see Lori. We would drive to where Lori worked to say hi. I now realize it may have seemed to her that Dad and I were shopping and just happened to run into her. But she was the reason for our trip.

Once Dad had to give up his apartment at River Pointe, Lori opened her home to me when I traveled to Moorhead to see Dad, giving me much more than a bed to sleep in and a roof over my head. Many times I recalled the saying that fish and guests begin to smell after four days as my stays often doubled or tripled those lengths. No matter how long I stayed, Lori always made me feel welcome.

Each time I stayed with Lori, I had the opportunity to spend time with her kids - Erik, Alex, and Megan. They are all keepers, too.

Day 127 - Grandma genes

Alex and I got to take care of James this evening, so his parents could go out for dinner for the first time in many months. When they dropped him off, Sarah showed me what was in the bag that we used to call a diaper bag when Mom carried one around, although there are so many more things in it than just diapers. In addition to diapers there was a change of clothing, in case more than a diaper needed to be changed, and a bottle of milk, although James hasn't adapted to getting his nutrition that way.

James is big on smiling these days. He smiles all the time at Simon and Sarah, naturally, and even gave Alex and me a few as well. Even after Sarah and Simon left, he gave us a few smiles while the two of us sat on the floor around James' car seat ooh-ing and ah-ing and goo-ing while shaking rattles in his face.  Alex finally got his dream - reading a book to his grandson.

But after about an hour, James stopped smiling, stopped playing with his toys, and started fussing. So we took him out of the car seat to hold him. We took turns having James sit next to us on the sofa the way we had seen him sit next to Simon in Facebook posts. In another 30 minutes, that stopped satisfying him and he became even fussier. I pulled out the bottle of milk and heated it the way Sarah explained. She didn't expect James to drink it, but it couldn't hurt to try, right. Alex moved the car seat to the sofa so neither of us would have to get all the way down on the floor again - because getting up is so hard these days - and rocked James while I heated the bottle. He wasn't interested in the bottle, of course. So I tried the next item on the checklist - James' diaper. Changing it was a good thing. For a few seconds, I thought it might be enough as I saw that smile again on his face. But once I got him bundled up in a clean, dry diaper and snapped his onsie back on, the smile disappeared and the fussing began again.

For the next hour, James cried. We tried rocking him in his car seat, carrying him around the house, turning off all the lights so that we would walk him around without lights, we turned off the TV and turned on the music on Alex's iPod. We had to trade off carrying him because my arms, shoulders, and back ached after a few minutes.

We even tried lying down on the bed in a dark bedroom with him. After 10 minutes, Alex picked James up and walked with him some more, at which point he finally stopped crying.  A few minutes later, we thought it was safe to put him back into the car seat, and it was. Five minutes later, Simon and Sarah arrived to pick him  up.

Because James didn't stop crying for so long, I started wondering if I have any grandma genes. While walking with him, I couldn't think of any lullabies. I just carried him, rubbing his back in the hope that it would comfort him. Maybe because I didn't have any of my own babies, the grandma genes just weren't kicking in.

We get another opportunity on Saturday.

Day 74 - Mom's Last Gift

Mom and Dad

I am going through Tivo withdrawal. We had Tivo in Virginia to record programs to watch later. In addition, Tivo would record programs similar to ones we had recorded, so we always had something to watch. We also had On Demand so that if we missed recording something, it was still possible to catch up. But here, we have no Tivo, just cable DVR which doesn't record anything unless we request it, and On Demand seems limited to premium channels which we don't subscribe to.

In desperation, I ended up recording a long string of Lifetime movies the other night. The first two had a similar theme. Daughters, estranged from fathers, leave home or are sent away, as adults achieve a level of success bringing with it connections with important and influential men, and then their fathers died. The death of their fathers meant the daughters reluctantly returned to their homes. And in the course of the days that followed, each daughter discovered how she had misjudged her father. In the case of the first, her father's friends showed her all the letters he had written to them about how much he loved her and how he had fallen so short of what he promised her that he didn't dare reach out to her directly, thus bursting her illusion of his abandonment of her. In the case of the second, her mother explained that the letters the daughter had found from her father to "Betty" were in fact letters he wrote to his wife. Betty was his pet name for her. The second daughter's illusion that her father had been conducting an affair behind her mother's back was also shattered.

In both cases, the daughters regretted all the time they had spent despising their fathers. Those two stories reminded me of what I call Mom's last gift to us kids: the gift of getting to know Dad.

As a child, I considered both Mom and Dad quiet and shy, just like me. When I learned about the scale of introversion to extroversion, I pegged both my parents as introverts, although Mom was a little closer to extroversion on that scale. When we went visiting, whether friends or relatives, Mom was the one more likely to talk than Dad. When we visited, Dad described it as going to see people.  That seemed to be enough for him - to see people.

Over time Mom's confidence grow. It's not that I noticed it, but Mom completed five assignments in an autobiography class and shared them with us. In one of them, she described reaching the conclusion that she should volunteer to teach Sunday School. When she told her parents, her father's reaction was "what makes you think you can do that?" Maybe the question wasn't as full of cynicism as I took it to mean when I read Mom's assignment. But it seemed Mom understood it that way as well. Of course, I always assumed Mom could do anything. Through reading her assignments, I  grew to appreciate what changes she went through as she grew in her own ways while we kids grew up.

Mom was the spokesperson for Dad. I can recall many conversations that began "your father isn't very happy about. . . " Dad never told us; Mom spoke for him. And there were many times when Mom told us something about Dad's health that came with the warning, "Dad didn't want me to tell you because he doesn't want you to worry."

When Mom died, Dad no longer had a translator. He had to tell us himself how he felt. He had to tell us his news himself. He had to tell us himself what he wanted or needed us to do. And in the course of those conversations, we all got to know him a little more.

I recall when Dad called me just to talk. I connected with Mom through email, but that option didn't work for Dad. Eventually he said he had something to tell me, that he had a date. It felt like a good friend sharing his news with me and that felt wonderful. That date was with Dolores and therefore the beginning of her becoming an important part of Dad's life, and ours.

Dad had a much younger special friend, Amalia, from Romania. He and Mom met her at a Sons of Norway meeting in Fargo when she attended with her Norwegian language professor from Concordia. He told me that when he met her, he decided to be the friend for her he hoped I had found in Romania while I was there. Amalia graduated from Concordia and with a lot of help from Dad made her way to Seattle for an internship year. The following year, Dad called to ask me to help Amalia get settled in Virginia as she had received a full scholarship for a masters degree program at Georgetown University. Since he rarely asked for help, and in this case the request was even rarer because Mom was still alive, yet Dad made the phone call. I was happy to do what I could. In the first few months after Mom died, Dad came to visit us in Virginia. For the first time, he was more a guest than Dad. Dad used to find things in the house that needed to be fixed and he'd get busy fixing them. But Dad the guest let us take him around town to see the sights. He came to attend Amalia's graduation, and together the three of us attended a Sons of Norway meeting. Years later as we kids moved him from his apartment to the nursing home, we found documents indicating how much more help Dad gave Amalia than we had known. How would have learned this wonderful fact about our father if he still had Mom as his translator?

Even now when Dad's short-term memory is weak, we have been able to get to know more about him as questions about his childhood (we should have asked them years ago) are now some of the only ones that he can answer. Even what he tells us about what I think are his dreams - he is always traveling these days, at least in his mind - gives us some glimpses of what is important to him.

Thanks, Mom.

Day 73 - Alex's Rehabilitation

Alex and I are getting very familiar with the physical therapy needed after total knee replacement and the process of recovery. His first two surgeries were in Virginia where his recovery involved climbing lots of stairs as the bedrooms were on the top of three floors, the dining room on the middle floor, and the TV on the bottom one. As a result, I don't recall him getting around so much in the earliest days of his rehabilitation. When his physical therapist came to see him in Virginia, he would head upstairs to the bedroom where Alex spent more time resting than he thought he needed, but probably not as much as he should have, and the two of them worked on the exercises together. When the therapist left, Alex did the exercises on his own. I don't know what exercises he did then because he didn't need my help.

This time, however, is very different. Because of the extent of the repair needed to the knee, Alex is not supposed to lift his leg at all. But he still needs to strengthen the muscles in his leg. That means that each of the exercises his therapist here has given him require that I help. I lift his leg so that he can get strength back as he lowers his leg down to the bed. With a pillow under his knee, I raise the lower part of his leg to extend the knee joint and he lowers his heel down to the bed, to regain flexibility in the joint. With his leg flat against the bed, he extends his foot to point his toes and then bends his foot back toward his knee and I give his foot just a little extra push to stretch out his calf muscles. My arms are getting a pretty good workout as well. And I know that he is doing all of his exercises every day because I'm doing them, too.

toddler image by glenmcbethlaw, via Flickr

In contrast to our Virginia home, the whole house here is on one level, and that means Alex is almost unstoppable when he gets up to move around. Observing Alex getting around with his walker is good practice for when our grandson becomes mobile. I can just see the little guy in one of those wheeled chairs with the round tray in front and attention-grabbing colorful plastic thingies (that's a Geordie word, the equivalent to thingamabob) that rotate or make noise that allow pre-toddlers to get around before they can walk. Alex's walker makes about the same noise as he rolls it along the hard wood floors. So long as I hear a steady noise from it, I know he is making good progress. If I hear the noise start and stop, I worry.

One comparison with a toddler that doesn't work quite so well, however, is that toddlers try to do what they haven't been able to do yet while Alex needs to refrain from trying to do everything he used to be able to do until his knee allows him to bend down again.  He is so stubborn that he refuses to ask for help. Even when I offer help, he doesn't wait for me. And he just can't give up his compulsion to clean up every surface in sight. My explanation - which he hears as an excuse - is that I can't be everywhere at the same time doing both what I need to do and what he wants me to do. Something just has to wait. Alex is determined that it not be what he wants, so in the absence of my doing the laundry or the dishes or picking up a glass from the coffee table in front of the TV just as soon as I have finished drinking from it, he does those things. Occasionally he will apologize that he can't do something for me, like carry my dinner plate to the table, when I never expected him to do that in the first place. He has never made me feel that he does things for me because I am incapable of doing them for myself. He does things for me because he wants to; it's his job, he says.

Today is his ninth day at home after the surgery so he has begun to venture out without the walker. Even with a cane, I consider that his stealth mode. Unless he starts dragging his leg behind him, I can't hear him moving around. It is a good thing that I am usually in the same place for most of the day - at my computer for the eight hours I work Mondays through Fridays and then still in the same place while I complete my day's project. I don't want to round a corner and run into him, something that is entirely possible since he is in places I don't think he should be going yet, like the laundry and the garage.

Yesterday he went to the back yard and saw someone working on the neighbor's yard. He asked the guy if the lady next door was OK because he hadn't seen her for a few days. The guy said she was fine, but she was in the house recuperating from knee replacement surgery. And wouldn't you know it, Alex told him to tell her that if she needs anything, she should just call him.

Day 68 - Baking Banana Bread

Banana bread image by RobynAnderson, via Flickr

I made banana bread today. It reminded me of a number of lessons Mom gave me that she would probably have considered home economics lessons, but I consider them life or work lessons,

For example, Mom told me I should gather all the ingredients needed before beginning to bake or cook.  That way I wouldn't get half way through mixing the batter and discover I am missing an ingredient. I thought of that lesson the day I watched Judy make Rice Krispies® bars. She didn't gather all the ingredients together first. She just started with the first ingredient - butter - which she melted in the pan. Since the marshmallows were not out, there was no cue that they were needed, so she continued with the ingredient she did have out, the Rice Krispies.

Much of my work life I have managed projects, or been the primary interested party in someone else managing them - software development projects, access control projects, renovating an old building to turn it into an embassy projects, implementing the Department of State's student loan repayment program - and making sure I knew what all the pieces were and when they were going to be available was very important in each of those instances.

The next relevant lesson Mom taught me was never to break eggs directly into the batter. Instead, she taught me to break each egg into a cup first and then pour it into the batter. I thought it looked like an extra step, but she explained that sometimes eggs aren't fresh and if each egg was broken directly into the batter, a rotten egg would spoil the whole mixture. I don't think I have ever found a rotten egg, but I appreciated the scientific method approach to ensuring nothing invisible spoiled the batter when it was made visible. And identifying potential risks in order to mitigate them is a key step in any project management effort.

Mom also taught me that when I used one of the ingredients, I should put away the container it was in so that I would know when I was done that I had used everything. That's the lesson that was important for me today as I was mixing up the banana bread. When I was nearly done, I realized the butter was still on the counter. I had started out mistaking the first instruction - which called for a mixer - to involve the eggs. One of the eggs had a tiny crack so I was wondering it if was going to be my first experience with a bad egg. So that's what I put into the bowl first which I mixed until it it was a light golden color, just as the recipe said. Everything made sense next - I added the white sugar and the packed golden brown sugar and continued beating the ingredients.  I followed the recipe until I reached the point where there were just two bowls of ingredients left: the flour mixture that also had the salt, baking powder and baking soda, and the milk, to be added alternately. I was ready to add the first when I saw the butter on the counter.

But another lesson I learned from Mom is that there isn't just a single way to do anything. I could follow a recipe - or the instructions for a pattern - and I would come out with the desired result. But Mom also taught me that I didn't have to lay out pattern pieces on a piece of fabric the way the instructions showed; instead, I could fold the fabric to cut the pieces one at a time and end up with leftover fabric when I was done. Leftover fabric is good.

Likewise, there is no single way to mix banana bread batter. So I had forgotten the butter. I knew I couldn't leave it out, but all I had to do was put the butter into another bowl, turn on the mixer again, and then when the butter was a light golden color, I added it to the mixture. Voila! Banana bread batter was fixed.

A final lesson in this home economics series is the proper way to clean up spilled milk. My instinctive response to seeing spilled milk was to head for the lowest point, where the majority of the milk pooled, in order to clean that up. But Mom pointed out that it was more effective to start at the source, where the milk first hit something it wasn't intended to hit, like the kitchen counter or table surface. She told me that unless I cleaned up the milk at the source of the spill, I would never get everything cleaned up. Even worse, if I concentrated on the end point of the spill, I might not even be able to see the path the milk traveled to get there as the quantity eventually slowed to a trickle, almost evaporating from sight.

Mom's lesson for cleaning up spilled milk comes to me often at work. For example, when I worked as a software engineer, our testing team ran every new version through a series of tests and assigned a priority to any issues they uncovered. Priority 1 issues were those that caused the system to crash. Priority 5 issues were cosmetic. We addressed priority 1 issues first and sometimes made it to the priority 5 issues.  

One day I was ahead of schedule and I started on the priority 5 issues. One described extra spaces being added to the status message that scrolled across the upper right of the screen, depending on which floppy drive was selected. With drive A, the message was perfect. With drive B, one extra space was added. With drive C, two extra spaces were added. And so on. Extra spaces in the message were cosmetic, not meriting much time to address.

Except the reason for the extra spaces being added was found within the code that displayed the message, not the message itself. When I discovered this, I realized that if a user requested drive G, our priority 5 issue would become a priority 1 issue. We found the issue and corrected it.

That's cleaning up spilled milk from its source.

Because someone asked, here is the recipe for banana bread.

5 Tbsp butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1 large egg
2 egg whites (if I have them, I use egg whites. If I don't have them, I use whole eggs.)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups mashed, very ripe bananas (I find 3 bananas is usually about right.)
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup heavy cream (I use milk)
1/3 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Spray bottom only of 9 x 5 x 3 inch loaf pan with non-stick cooking spray.
2. Beat butter in large bowl with an electric mixer set at medium speed until light and fluffy. Add granulated and brown sugar; beat well. Add egg, egg whites and vanilla; beat until well blended. Add mashed banana, and beat on high speed 30 seconds.
3. Combine flour, baking soda, salt, and baking powder in medium bowl. Add flour mixture to butter mixture alternately with cream with flour mixture. Add walnuts to batter; mix well.
4. Pour batter evenly into prepared loaf pan. Bake until browned and toothpick inserted near center comes out clean, about 1 hour 15 minutes.
5. Cool bread in pan on wire rack 10 minutes. Remove bread from pan; cool completely on wire rack. Slice and serve with butter and jam.

Day 66 - Dropping Out of Kindergarten

Kindergarten graduation image by SFA Union City via Flickr

 I was a kindergarten drop-out. I didn't know it at the time. It wasn't my choice. No one asked me if I wanted to stop going to kindergarten. It just happened. But I didn't notice at the time.
When I did learn that I only attended kindergarten for the first half of the year, I thought the reason was that Mom needed me at home to wash the kitchen floor. I have memories of being on my hands and knees with a sponge washing the floor from water in a pail. Mom was pregnant and couldn't get down to wash the floor that way any longer. I don't know why there wasn't a mop on a stick in the picture. I don't think I'm so old that they hadn't been invented yet. And I don't know why I thought attending kindergarten Mondays through Fridays was incompatible with making sure the kitchen floors were washed.

Recently, after watching our daughter-in-law go through her pregnancy, it struck me that my washing the kitchen floor was not all a consideration in my early departure from kindergarten. There were three other more significant considerations, and one right behind those three.

The first of those three is that the location of my kindergarten was across "the highway." I was four when I started kindergarten and I was not allowed to cross the highway, 4th Avenue South, by myself. The highway was the street that divided two-block long Dudrey Court so that those of us who lived on the north end didn't get to play the kids on the south end until the highway was rerouted several years later. Going to kindergarten therefore meant Mom had to walk with me until I had crossed 4th Avenue on the way to kindergarten, and then I had to wait for her to meet me at noon when I came home.

The second consideration is that winter requires a different style of dressing for that walk. The extra clothes and boots required added several minutes to getting ready for that walk.

The third consideration was I also had a younger brother who couldn't be left home alone. While I don't recall details of those walks, both Mom and Wayne must have walked me across 4th Avenue. And that meant winter required Mom to dress two of us plus herself for that walk in the morning and then once more with one child for the walk back at noon.

And the consideration that followed was the birth of my sister. The first three considerations alone probably would have ended my kindergarten career on their own, but the addition of the baby was the icing on the drop-out cake. Mornings were now the time for bathing the baby, feeding the baby, changing the baby's diapers, dressing the baby, and just spending time with the baby. Kindergarten was a poor second in the competition with the baby, even for me, even if I had known there was a choice.

Kindergarten was optional in those days, so attending only half a year of kindergarten was more than most children got. In addition, I had the oldest-child advantage:  I had more parent time before the age of 5 than any of my siblings. Mom had time to help me write letters to my cousin Lois. I told Mom what I wanted to say, she wrote it down for me, and then I copied what she wrote so that I could say that I wrote the letter even before I had learned to read. I didn't need to be able to read because Mom read stories to me and Dad told me stories, stories I thought he had read somewhere but later learned he just made up.

I didn't need to attend kindergarten for a full school year. I had Mom and Dad or five years before first grade started. I had Wayne to learn important socialization skills through playing together indoors. And I had all the rest of the kids on the north end of Dudrey Court to join me for "recess" aka playing outdoors.

Day 63 - Surgery for Alex

Alex had surgery again today. He was extremely apprehensive about it, while I was confident all would turn out well. But there were some tiny hints that this might be more serious than merited my confidence.

First, there was just a hint of surprise in the nurse's voice when she read the papers that said the doctor had scheduled 5 hours for the operation. That wasn't a surprise to us because of Alex's past experience with scar tissue build-up during surgeries, and for this one the surgeon was going right back to where Alex had had surgery before, guaranteeing that there would be scar tissue to deal with.

Then there were the number of times I heard the staff in the waiting room tell others that the doctor had scheduled 45 minutes to an hour for their surgery. I don't think I heard anyone told their surgery would take more than 2 hours. In fact, because family members were waiting in the same room as the patients waited, and there was no monitor for those waiting to look at to see what the status of their family members or friends were, nearly everyone walked up to the desk to ask how much longer it would be. And that meant I heard even more times that surgery for others was expected to take much less time.

After two hours a man came over to me and said he noticed that I was still waiting, too. He and his daughter had come in at the same time as Alex so he knew I had been waiting just as long as they had. I had already overheard the two of them talking about how the doctors should know that family members would be worried if they didn't get some word of encouragement when surgery took longer than originally scheduled. The daughter tried to reassure him that a delay probably just meant that the surgeon found something more to repair and that was a good thing. I explained to the man that I knew my husband's surgery would take a long time, so I was still waiting.

More people came into the room to check in for their surgery. I heard Lawrence, the man at the desk, make a phone call to ask about the final appointment for the day for one of the doctors. It sounded like the day was being wrapped up.  And that's when the worrying began. I started to remember what it was like to be in the family room of the hospital when Mom had her surgery. There were probably four or five families in the room with us. After about two hours, someone had come in to talk individually with each family, including us, about what to expect when the family-member patient came out of surgery - more along the lines of encouraging us to help after the surgery than a status report. I don't remember specifics any longer, but I recall that each family had a similar conversation with someone. It was on the schedule. And in the other cases, someone came to get them to tell them their family member had been moved into the recovery area or to a room and the families all left, one by one, except for us. Someone came in to tell us the surgeons were taking her off bypass and it would be another 30 minutes.

But 45 minutes later the same person came back to say they had to put her back on bypass because they needed to do some additional repairs. And another hour passed when we got a little bit more news. But the person wasn't smiling at us as much now. Another hour passed and someone came in to ask if we had been given any more news. Hours passed until the surgeon came into the room - ours was the only family still left - and gave us the news that Mom didn't make it. Later my sister-in-law Julie, a nurse, told me how she had started worrying long before we got the news because she knew what would likely be happening to Mom's body with all the delays.

Today those thoughts began to go through my mind while I waited for news from Alex's surgeon. My mind starting going into unthinkable territory, posing the question of whether I should stay in San Diego or move back to Virginia or to Minnesota if something happened to Alex. While we have our wills, durable powers of attorney, and advanced medical directives done, there are still so many details we haven't even discussed together.

With a little more than an hour left before I expected to hear anything from the surgeon, I told Lawrence that I would be going to the cafeteria around the corner from the family room to get something to eat. But just as I walked out and the door was closing behind me, I heard Lawrence call out my name. The surgeon had just called and would be coming out to talk with me. The news was good. Surgery took less time than he had planned, he had found just what he expected to find, and he repaired it. But since this was repair to a previous surgery, it was more complicated than the first surgery and Alex's recovery will likely be slower. I still had another two hours to wait while Alex was in the recovery room before he would be brought to his room. After another two and a half hours, Lawrence gave me the room number where Alex had been moved, and I went up to see him. He appeared to be sleeping and his face was quite pale. His leg is all wrapped up and immobilized. And the room is pretty stark compared to what we got accustomed to in Virginia. But he is there and I expect he will begin joking with the nurses within a day.

Alex was probably right to be apprehensive, but I'm glad I was right to be confident. Now we just have to wait for the healing and recovery.

Day 60 - Dad's Guardian Angel

With enough time, the hand of a guardian angel becomes visible. This week I saw the hand of Dad's guardian angel. Someone else might refer to it as a silver lining. The name is less important than its impact.

When Mom died, Dad told us he lost half his memory. Mom is the one who had an address book tucked away in her mind. When she died we learned that she had been sharing her knowledge with new neighbors when they moved into the neighborhood. Shortly after newcomers moved in, Mom would visit and bring a list of who lived at which address in the neighborhood, including the names of the children and their ages. In another time and place, people might have worried about Mom not being concerned with their children's privacy. But it was a different time and a great place, so Mom's sharing the list of neighbors was well received by all.

Mom also had the family tree tucked away in her mind. She knew the names of who married our cousins and the names of all their children. She knew the names of the parents of all husbands and wives of the cousins. And she probably knew the birthdates of them all.

Mom also knew the names of nearly everyone the six of us kids went to school with. When my high school reunions came around, I knew that I could give Mom a list of those who hadn't been contacted and she would be able to cut it at least in half.

And then there are the people she knew in the church. Hundreds of people.

So when Dad said the loss of Mom meant the loss of half his memory, that was not an insubstantial statement.

We were all very pleased then that Dad reconnected with a friend from his youth, Dolores. They had dated in high school. And Dolores had lost her husband four years earlier. Dolores brought companionship to Dad, perhaps even purpose. For six years Dad and Dolores went to dinner, to movies, to plays, to Sons of Norway, to church together. Dolores moved from the small town she had lived for years to Moorhead to be closer to Dad, to end their long drives.

In the past two years, both Dolores and Dad faced health challenges. We children of Dad have worried what would happen to the other when one of them dies. They have been so close. Dolores began dialysis two years ago, and Dad ended up in a nursing home because of the amputation of the toes on one foot, followed by a stroke and a serious infection. Dad gave Dolores his car since he could no longer drive. Dad no longer wanted to leave the nursing home when we asked him if he wanted to go out for a meal. Dolores was not able to help Dad get into a car on her own. But she made the trip to see Dad faithfully every day.

Four months ago Dolores was finally able to move into an apartment in the same facility, making it much easier for them to spend time together. We were all pleased for both of them.

Since December, however, Dad has lost a lot more of his memory. He can remember his early life, including when he was born. But he can't remember how old he is. Some days he can't remember what happened to Mom or how many children he has. It has been painful to have to answer his questions each time he asked them, especially when it has meant telling him unpleasant news, such as that Mom or that Brian died. Because Dolores is a part of his early memories, Dad remembers her, although at times he seemed not to recall the closeness they enjoyed over the past eight years. When they were together, they both smiled broadly. I missed the opportunity to get a photograph of the two of them sharing a kiss while leaning over their wheelchairs when I was in Minnesota last week. I can still see it when I close my eyes.

I will never get another opportunity for that snapshot. On Wednesday we lost Dolores. That is the way my brother gave me the news, and she is a big loss to us. But the fact that we didn't lose her until six weeks after Dad lost his short-term memory is, I believe, the hand of Dad's guardian angel. Her loss will be less devastating to Dad now than it would have been just two months earlier. And that means we may have Dad for a bit longer, too.