It's the little things

Like the bear hug of your 22-year old son, smelling of camp fire and mud, but so glad to see you!

Like the moment when your teenager affectionately leans up against you -- in public, no less!

Like the cheerful email from your adult daughter who is living half-way around the world.

Like the way your dog wiggles so hard he almost falls over whenever you come home (even if you were gone only 10 minutes).

Like the way your spouse steals a kiss at just the right moment.

-Cath

Downhill

"On the downhill side" is how my Mom described her condition today. Her doctor concurs. As I feared, she is not long for this world. The pain started last week. There will be another round of chemo this summer to help alleviate the symptoms and make her more comfortable, but it won't slow the growth of the cancer itself.

She may not even last through the chemo, actually. She is dying and we all know that. But she's ready. She's cheerful and peaceful; she knows where she will be going -- home to her Lord and Savior. It's me who's not ready.

But I am going to try very, very, very hard to be my mother's daughter now.

-Cath

Memorial Day Weekend

So, today is a day I’ve looked forward to for the last month – the Annual Planting of the Annuals. We’ve finished the deck, but now we have about 125 geranium plants to be bedded out all along the front of the house and curb. We don’t have that large a yard, actually – just multiple flower beds. The geraniums are a cheerful sight all summer, so we do it up big.

The photograph below is my barrel planter with snapdragons.


The plants at the front door.



My newest planter (found it on sale at CAL Ranch today).



There are 5 of these flats left to plant!



Thunder is starting, so I guess I'd better get moving here!

-Cath

Let's try for something positive

Okay, here are some positive things:

>> Apple Cider Vinegar. I started using it for my gall bladder problem and my stomach is definitely improved. Also, my hot flashes have decreased and the dermatitis on my hands is going away. ACV seems to be good for whatever ails you. Google it! I'm using 2-3 Tablespoons per day (in divided doses), sweetened with an equal amount of honey and diluted with plenty of water. I sip it throughout the day and find that it tastes like a tart apple cider. I'm guessing the effect of ACV has something to do with the ph of your body chemistry, but I'm no scientist. I can only say that I like it, and I like the results!

>> Haan Steam Mop. My Haan has changed the way I clean my house and it is nothing short of amazing. No more chemicals on my floors, which is good for our allergies and environment, and my wood floors haven't looked this good in years (no more dull finish). After I steam clean my kitchen floor, I can walk across it in white socks and not pick up any residual stickiness, dirt, or chemical. Nice. Before purchasing the steam mop, I checked the Internet for product reviews -- that's why I spent the money on the Haan. And I do not regret it.

>> Spring planting this weekend - I can't wait. I love our deck and I'm ready to liven it up with color for the summer!

>> Family history fun -- I've found a few VERY distant cousins through my genealogy work (you know, like fourth cousins, once removed). Interesting to see how families spread out over the generations. I have a copy of photographs of my great-great-aunt Lydia and her husband, Charles -- and I've just been informed that the original of those photos is hanging in the home of someone in Minnesota (who is descended through Charles, so not actually related to me). Interesting stuff.

-Catherine





3.

When will it end?

I am struggling today with the hypocrisy exhibited by so many people in the Christian culture – where this is a particularly ugly sight, given that there is supposed to be love and mercy among Christians. (Matthew 5:7, Matthew 6:12). I wanted to blog on something positive, but I'm finding it hard to get past this issue today. Will keep working on it...

-Catherine

No particular focus -- just continuing to be random...

Springtime in the Rockies is a truly beautiful process. Everything is greening up nicely, and after the drab brown of the long winter, it is a glorious sight! I’m itching to plant flowers, but it’s too early; we could still have freezing temps at night, thus I am patiently waiting until Memorial Day weekend. And then…. we will have a planting marathon of 125+ geranium plants in the flower beds plus all the lovely things I’m going to put in my deck planters this year. Yay!

I took my friend’s advice and cut the remaining tulips after the Unintended Tulip Massacre last weekend. The blooms are nearly spent, but they still make a cheerful display in a vase on my deck.

This weekend Tim and I will be involved in the annual “Prison Invasion” with the Christian Motorcyclists Association. Upwards of 50 or so CMA’ers will visit the minimum security facility of the State Prison, where we will bring a whole lot of cool motorcycles, some Christian music, and the Gospel message. This will be the fourth year that Tim and I have been involved, and it is an amazing experience every time. I sing and play keyboard with the band, and Tim is the sound technician. There is always serious spiritual warfare going on around this ministry, given the venue -- so if you are a prayer warrior, please keep us in your prayers through Sunday. There are desperate souls inside who need to hear the message of God’s love and mercy, and Satan is equally desperate to make sure they don’t hear it.

Yesterday I got to have a mocha and a chat down at the local coffee shop with one of my daughters. Thoroughly enjoyed that time! Watching your adult children grow and move through their lives can be hair-raising in ways that I never imagined, but there are amazing compensations that God provides for us at the same time – like a mocha and a chat.

-Catherine

Mother's Day 2009

Some random stuff:

When you reach our age, you have to take assistance when it is offered. Darren offered to prune our trees today, and this is a job we can no longer do ourselves, so the pruning was done. Unfortunately, it was done at the cost of my beautiful tulips. If you look on my Facebook page, you can see cell phone photographs of the Unintended Tulip Massacre. Oh well – the trees are pruned and that’s what was needed. A friend suggested that I get out a vase and cut the remaining tulips. Good idea!

Cowhide leather ladies garden gloves are, without doubt, the best piece of gardening equipment I own. Amazing! Worth every penny I spent on them (not that much, really, but certainly more expensive than regular garden gloves). I did two days of major yard work with nary a callous, blister or splinter in sight.

My arms broke out in a rash because I wore short sleeves while clearing brush and clippings yesterday. What fun. Back to long sleeves when digging in the bushes and leaves.

Tim took me to lunch today, which was really fun. Our Ruby Tuesday had some definite start-up problems when they first opened last Fall – slow kitchen and hit-or-miss food – but the service has always been good and now the food is, too. Plus, there is not another salad bar in Pocatello that is as good as our Ruby Tuesday’s. And the staff person who monitors and replenishes that salad bar is a real treasure. He’s friendly without being over the top, and he clearly takes great pride in his work. The salad bar items are super fresh and the bar and dishes are beautifully maintained. What a pleasure! I hope they pay him VERY well. He’s worth it.

I’m thankful that my mother is still alive for this Mother’s Day. I don’t know what next year will bring, so I’m treasuring each day that she’s still in my life. Rather than send flowers, I sent her a present this year – a mystery book entitled “Maisie Dobbs” – which I think she’ll really enjoy.

My daughter sent me a beautiful arrangement of roses and daisies situated in a pink teacup. When the flowers are gone, I’ll still have this beautiful China teacup to remind me of my beautiful daughter. I like that.

And now, it’s evening and I’m done. Time to put my feet up and enjoy our serene and green yard.

-Catherine

The Bed in the Living Room

In my mother’s tiny house, the front room, a.k.a. the Sun Porch, is where she and my stepfather entertain friends, read, nap, or watch TV of an evening. The home's living room, on the other hand, is tucked away behind the kitchen and is mostly unused. It contains one small love seat, an antique rocking chair, my mother’s piano, the computer, and a filing cabinet.

I received an email today from my mother, telling me that her bed had been moved from the second story bedroom down to the living room so that it would be on the main floor. She doesn’t really need it to be there yet, but they are anticipating the inevitable day when she will no longer be strong enough to manage the stairs. And since my stepfather cannot move furniture on his own any longer, a friend offered to help them do the move today so that they wouldn’t have to scramble at the last minute when Mom’s strength finally gives way.

My mother, ever the trooper, told me that she is looking forward to being able to sleep in her own bed during the hot summer nights. You see, in their un-airconditioned house, it gets mighty hot in the summer. Mom often went downstairs to the main floor, sleeping on a sheet on the thickly padded rug of the living room. This summer she will have her own bed right where she wants it. And she’s happy about that.

And, still, I can hardly breathe when I think about what lies ahead of her.

Travels with Cath Part III

I am finally home after 2 weeks away, and it is very good to be here.

That said, I had a grand time with my cousins at the end of my trip. I spent the weekend at the Virginia home of my cousin Jim and his wife, Carrie. They have a very nice house on some very nice acreage – and a primo back deck, which is where we sat and talked most of the time. The weather was warm and the hospitality even warmer.

We spent quite a few hours with Jim’s parents, too (his mother, Dot, is my Dad’s first cousin), and it was wonderful to see them again and to enjoy their company. I’d forgotten how much fun that family is! I think we laughed most of the time that we were together.

For part of Saturday afternoon we stood around Dot’s beautiful grand piano and sang the beloved old hymns that we grew up with. There is nothing like the harmony of family members, and that was really a treat for me.

Over the course of the weekend, Dot graciously opened up her treasure trove of family history and photographs, which had been left to her by our Aunt Ethel (who was truly the keeper of the family history during her lifetime). Both Jim and I inherited the family history “gene” from Aunt Ethel, and we came away with a lot of information for the family tree. Aunt Ethel, God bless her, labeled nearly all of the photographs that came her way, and she had some photos that dated back four and five generations of the family. Jim and I spent a few hours scanning those photos into the computer so that they’d be preserved for posterity.

We also discovered that the more things change, the more they stay the same. There were unexpected pregnancies in the family, divorces, lost family members, an invalid (Civil) War veteran – you name it, we had it. In a way, it’s comforting to know that life really is something of a continuum, from generation to generation. Everyone has mishaps and screw-ups. And by the grace of God we can triumph and thrive in spite of them.

We have lots of leads for the family tree now, and I’m enjoying the research. There is so much online! I even found my great-great grandfather’s Civil War pension record; cost me $1.95 to download a copy – cheap, when all is said and done. It’s not just finding out the names of the folk and filling in the family tree -- it’s more about filling in the events of their lives and getting a flavor for how they lived. That’s the exciting part of family research! That’s the essence of the connection with people we’ve never met but with whom, for better or worse, we share the family traits and traditions.

Travels with Cath Part II

So, now I’m in DC – one of my all-time favorite cities. And it’s raining – just like it was in NJ.

In the interim between Jersey and DC, my husband and I traveled to what I affectionately call “the middle-of-nowhere, Pennsylvania” to see my mother. Mom moved to Lock Haven in the mid-70s and has lived there for the last 35 years. In that time, I have seen the town change and grow more charming as people have moved in and renovated so many of the lovely old houses. The architecture in this small town is actually first-rate, and a walk in the neighborhoods is very pleasant and very interesting. The addition of the picturesque walking path along the river’s levee adds to the attractions of the town. And we thoroughly enjoyed our stay at the truly beautiful Carriage House Bed and Breakfast, just a half-block from the river.

Mom lives about 10 minutes outside of town – in a tiny, tiny house on the side of a mountain. The place is modest but becomes quite beautiful in the Spring. (I took pictures and will upload them when I return home to Idaho next week.) Our April weather was gorgeous – cloudless skies and warm temperatures – her property never looked lovelier to me.

The visit was bittersweet, though. Mom has pancreatic cancer and is losing weight. She isn’t in any pain yet, thankfully, but if she doesn’t stop losing, I don’t see how she will last past this Fall -- at 5’2” and 95 pounds, she’s very underweight. Having said that, I also know my mother’s legendary will power – she could live for a very long time yet, conceivably, on will power alone.

My brother and his wife made the long drive out from New Jersey for an afternoon, too – so Mom had both of her kids in the same place at the same time for the first time in 12 years. My sister-in-law made Bolognese sauce and I supplied the gluten-free pasta so that we could have a spaghetti dinner together. Afterwards we walked up the hill to see the neighbor’s horses and walk off our dinner. Mom turned back about halfway because she was tired, but she insisted on returning home by herself. So my brother and sister-in-law, my husband and I continued on up the hill, turning around frequently to watch my mother’s tiny figure disappearing down the road toward her house. Of course she is still completely capable of walking on her own, but we worried anyway. Later we all just sat around talking and looking at some old photographs (I took a bunch home so that I can scan them into my computer).

My mother joined my husband and me for breakfast at the B&B on our last morning. She eats like a horse still and she relished the scrambled eggs, bacon, potato pancakes and muffins that were served up by Sharon, our wonderful host.

And now I’m in DC, after a rotten Amtrak ride from Newark, NJ. I guess Sundays are a busy day on Amtrak – but if that’s the case, why don’t they run more trains and run some express service rather than just the regional trains? Our train was an hour and 15 minutes late, and the on-board personnel were anything but friendly or even courteous. Amtrak on the East Coast needs improvement.

I’m here for a week of workshops, sessions, and meetings. At the end of the week, I’ll be visiting my cousins in Virginia before heading home to Idaho.

‘Til next time,

-Catherine

Travels with Cath Part I

Well, here I am in good old NJ again. And it’s raining. But then, it seems to be raining everywhere right now (they tell me it’s raining at home in Idaho, too -- when it’s not snowing, that is).

The plane ride was uneventful – no massive amounts of turbulence, no screaming children sitting behind me (or even anywhere near me, for once). I watched the movie, Marley and Me, without sound. I have a hard time hearing through those airline-purchased headsets, plus they hurt my ears. As it turns out, this was one movie where I’m glad I couldn’t hear the dialog -- because I cried a wee bit at the end anyway. If I’d actually heard the actors speaking the story, I think I’d have been bawling copiously and loudly, which would have been embarrassing on a plane full of people in business suits.

I’d like to hug my own dear pup right now, but my arms don’t reach 2,000 miles. If you see Marley and Me, make sure you can get at your own dog when the movie is over – you WILL want a canine hug.

Had dinner with a long-lost niece (long story – too long for this blog), which I enjoyed immensely. She’s bright and engaging and very articulate. AND… she is the one other person in the family who chews on the inside of her cheek, just like I do.

On the way to dinner I stopped by the family cemetery in Tennent (at the Old Tennent Church). I know my Dad isn’t really there, but it’s nice to stop by his headstone and say hello. One of my cousins tends the family plot and it is looking quite lovely right now -- even in the rain -- with the daffodils in bloom.

While there I checked the death date of my great-great-grandfather, Alexander Trotter. I’m working on the family history and trying to fill in all the puzzle pieces that I can. His wife, my great-great-grandmother Annie (Anna) J. Collins, must have been a pretty terrific woman because at least two of her granddaughters were named after her; one went by the name Annie and the other was known as Ann – but both were named “Anna J.” I knew one of them as my “Aunty Ann.”

Annie and Alexander were immigrants from Ireland in the 1850s. I wish I knew more about their Irish roots, but so far I’ve been stymied in that search.

Their daughter, Sarah, was my great-grandmother. She’s the one whom I most resemble, by the way. Her nickname in the family was Sadie, and that’s a name you almost never hear anymore. Judging from Sadie’s little autograph book (which is in my possession), she was a pious woman from a pious family, with a pretty good grasp on a true Christian faith. I’d liked to have known her, I think. She birthed seven babies, one of whom was my grandfather. She died in 1945, as WWII was coming to a close, and I’m guessing that my grandfather probably missed her funeral since he was in Europe for most of the War. He probably missed his father’s funeral, too, for the same reason – William Henry died in 1943 and Grandpa was already in Europe by then. Sadie and William Henry are buried in Tennent, in a large plot that was reserved from the farm they deeded over to the Cemetery Association. I believe that farm actually belonged originally to Alexander and Annie Trotter, although I don’t yet have proof of that (am working on it).

I won’t be home for another 10 days, so the next blog update will also be from “the road.” ‘Til then….

-Catherine

Six months to a year

“Well, there’ll be no more chemo,” she said to me, and the flat tone of her voice gave away the rest of the news. “The doctor says six months to a year,” she added. Honestly, I couldn’t take it in at first.

“Six months to a year for what?” I stupidly asked. “For life,” she replied. “Wait," I said desperately, "I’m not following you. Six months to a year before the cancer becomes a problem again, or…?" and my voice trailed off. “No. Six months to a year is all I have,” she said quietly. And just like that, my mother is in her final journey.

The tumors on the pancreas did not respond to the five months of chemo. Instead, they grew a tiny bit. According to the doctor, this is a slow-growing cancer and that's why he estimates six months to a year.

I still can hardly take it in.

Some musings for this morning

"Always be humble, gentle, and patient, accepting each other in love. You are joined together with peace through the Spirit, so make every effort to continue together in this way." Ephesians 4:2-3 (NCV)

Ironically, this Scripture came to my attention at the same time that I was watching a TV show about setting healthy boundaries to keep you safe from toxic people. I should say here that the people on the show had some good ideas (and good Scripture to back up what they were saying about fear and gossip). But it was kind of ironic that the Scripture placed in front of me by my computer was actually about getting along in peace through the Spirit.

The reason this verse really struck me this morning is because there has been some strife in a certain quarter of our lives (mine and my husband's, that is, and from external sources). And maybe, just maybe, we are seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. And that light really is NOT a train but truly is some kind of peace. We continue to pray.

And the other reason that verse struck me is because of how it ties into my recent ah ha! moment about forgiveness, about deferring justice to God. That, I think, is part of the key of getting along in the Spirit.

Just my 2 cents for today.

Coming apart at the seams

Actually, it's not all that dire. I'm just so exhausted that I can't keep my head up much longer. I got exactly two hours of sleep last night, for reasons still unknown to me. I simply was awake most of the night. And then I spent ALL day cutting fabric and sewing.

Our church looked like a sweatshop today, honestly. Six sewing machines set up on six folding tables, with six people sewing plus two people cutting fabric (it took us 4 hours to cut everything), one person pinning the fabric in preparation for the sewing, and one (one-armed) guy catering lunch to the hungry workers.

We're preparing the structure for our Good Friday prayer walk, and my husband dreamed up a series of movable room dividers that would be hung with drapery. Lovely. Except he's not the one doing the sewing! We have to complete 75 of these panels.

So, this morning we set out the M&Ms (very practical when you're sewing since they melt in your mouth and not in your hands), made a pot of coffee, and snacked on homemade peach coffee cake. I made Tim bring us a yummy lunch from Costco, and then he came back later in the day to help us put everything away.

This was, in essence, a modern day "sewing bee," and we had a blast. I think we laughed all day and I would definitely do it again just for the fun of it. We certainly got to know each other better, and that's always good in the church community. Plus, I'm a novice sewer, and I had many patient and willing mentors to help me today.

I learned a lot today - and not just how to sew a straight seam.

Thoughts on Forgiveness

I’m listening right now to Amy Grant singing that she believes in “simple things… the miracle of forgiving.”

I don’t know about the rest of you, but there are one or two situations in my life where it really will take a miracle for me to forgive -- and it is in no way simple. In these particular situations, the people apparently never stop trying to find ways to do harm, always on the lookout for a way to trap someone – they don’t do it just to me, because I see them doing it to others, too. It seems to be their modus operandi.

It’s said that hurting people hurt people. And that’s true. But that doesn’t make things any easier when you’re on the receiving end of someone’s vile and venom. And you know that, deep down and despite their protestations to the contrary, they intended it to hurt.

I’ve struggled to forgive them over and over again. No sooner do I think that I’ve managed to give it over to God then I find that I’ve taken it back again. Why? Because. I. Want. Justice. And I want it now, where I can see it and feel the glory of it.

Counter-productive, I know.

And definitely not how God would have His daughter (that’s me) behaving.

I’ve started reading a book called What to do on the worst day of your life, written by Pastor Brian Zahnd. I’m not recommending this as a replacement for Scripture, of course. (Nothing replaces Scripture.) And I don’t agree with everything Zahnd surmises. BUT, he did point out something very important that I’d not thought about. And it’s this:

Forgiveness is not the “abdication of justice. Instead, forgiveness involves deferring justice to God.” (page 26 of Zahnd’s book).

This is another ah-ha! moment in my spiritual journey. Because that means I don’t have to feel it. I just have to do it. It’s an objective thing and isn’t based on what I’m feeling. In fact, any lingering hurt feelings will be a whole separate issue to take up with God. The main thing is to defer justice to God. I can’t bring those people to justice anyway – so it's useless to keep worrying over the situation. Better to just to get on with it. Then, if there are still hurt feelings – well, I’ll process those feelings with God as many times as it takes for them to leave. At least I will know that justice will be appropriately served – in God’s time and by God’s choice and His means, not mine.

This is a struggle of many years that I think just might be coming, if not to a close then at least to a better place. What a relief! And no, my forgiving them – deferring justice to God -- probably won’t stop those people who deliberately hurt others, but it does open up the place where I can stay close to the Lord in the midst of the storm.

More family history

I've been digging into my family history lately. I find family research fascinating -- I did quite a lot of it in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Back then I had to trek to the National Archives or the State Archives or wherever else I could find historical records. Nowadays we have ancestry.com, which has done a lot of the legwork (not all -- I still have some treks I'll need to make).

I haven't found any nuts on the family tree, but I did find one stunningly beautiful young woman: my great-grandmother, Luella (for whom my mother was named). This picture fascinates me. The intensity of her eyes and the intelligence in her face make me want to sit down and have a conversation with her.

I never knew my great-grandmother, but she and my mother were very close throughout my mother's childhood (Mom was 18 when the elder Luella died suddenly of a heart attack at age 78). Great-grandmother Luella lived with her daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren in the city of Newark; she helped to raise her grandchildren, and that's one reason she and my mother, the baby of the family, were so close. Each summer she would take all the grandchildren to stay with her at the old family farm out in "the country" (the hills of northwest New Jersey). My mother and her sisters still talk about those summers, where they played freely in the woods and meadows for almost three solid months every year.

I recently asked my mother to tell me what her grandmother had been like as a person. My mother surprised me completely with her reaction to my question. She smiled and looked far away for a moment, and then she said, "She was a very special person." And that's all she would say. I tried probing, but to no avail. The smile remained on Mom's face but she just wouldn't or couldn't say anything more. Clearly the deep bond she felt with her grandmother has not diminished in 50 years.

This is my great-grandmother, Luella, in what I think was probably 1898 or 1899. She would have been about 28 or 29 years old then, and it's no wonder my great-grandfather fell in love with her.

A new blog to follow

The Totally Together Journal blog is new from my favorite CrockPot365 blogger, Stephanie. She finished her full year of using her Crockpot every day (and blogging the recipes, which you can find here), and now has moved on to some organizational stuff. Cool!

John Fischer's "Catch of the Day" entry -- The Gospel for Little Brown Birds -- is magnificent. Please read it here.

The two sentences that really got me are these: "We gravitate towards sameness and find comfort in the familiar. But the gospel of Jesus Christ is big and wide and messy."

And how. Jesus didn't come just for the beautiful Christians and those who always have it right. He didn't come just for the "in" crowd in the Christian culture. He came for everyone on this planet. Everyone.

- Catherine

Comic Relief of Life

I’m cleaning this morning. Every time I march outside with more garbage or recycling, the dog greets me with his ball in his mouth as I come back in. It’s clear from his prancing around and his ears up that he REALLY wants Mama to go outside and play with him….... now!

Hank provides a lot of comic relief in our house. As I reflected on that, I remembered some other moments of comic relief, canine and non-canine. It’s moments like these that bring a smile to your lips when the rest of life seems to be a bit too thick for comfort.

+++++++++++++++++

Hank on the back steps, excitedly anticipating a ride in the car with us:

Catherine: “Sorry, pup, but you cannot go this time.”

Hank looks straight at me for a long moment, heaves an ENORMOUS sigh, turns around and walks back into the house.

Question: Does our dog understand English?

+++++++++++++++++

Heard while riding in the car with a 16 year old who was clearly daydreaming:

Tim: “What do you think, Darren, should we stop and get some lunch?”

A moment of silence, and then, from the back seat: “What do you mean?”

+++++++++++++++++

A discussion about a morning’s proposed activity:

Catherine: I really feel underwhelmed about that

Doug (all of 5 years old): We can get you whelmed up, Catherine!

(I still marvel that his 5-year old mind got the sentence sense exactly right, even though there is no such phrase as “whelmed up.”)

++++++++++++
In the car, passing the gargantuan picture window of a very busy, very fancy, and very well-lit restaurant one night:

Catherine: Wow!

Abbi (all of 4 years old): Look at all those people DINING!

+++++++++++++++
And the most recent was this one, when I came home from a long business trip:

Catherine: “The floors are actually crunchy underfoot. Couldn’t you have vacuumed once while I was away?”

Tim: “I didn’t bring the dirt in, the dog did.”

(I confess, at the time I didn’t think this was funny, but the more I consider Tim’s completely serious answer, the funnier it gets.)

+++++++++++++++++

Cousins Redux

I just realized that I wrote this blog a couple of weeks ago but never posted it. So, here are my musings about my most recent "cousin reunion." (My first blog about a cousin reunion earlier this year can be found here.)

------------
I’m glad I took a few days to digest this second reunion with a cousin before I really blogged about it, because something unexpected clicked into place in my brain during the wee hours of this morning.

Sarah and I are the daughters of two men who were brothers – I am Ed’s daughter and Sarah is Bob’s daughter. Our dads hardly spoke to each other for most of their adult lives -- indeed, these two brothers hardly had anything to do with each other at all; not so much out of hostility as, we surmise, out of antipathy. They simply seemed to have nothing to say to each other and could see no reason to stay in touch.

But the thing that really struck me in my conversation with Sarah was that her experience growing up with her dad seemed very much like my experience of my dad; i.e. rather distant. We both felt as though our relationships with these men had stayed at a somewhat superficial level. Thus, when I lost my Dad, the major part of my grief had to do with what “should” have been. Something had been missing between us and, as children usually do, I blamed myself for the problem. I must have been either too [fill in the blank] or not enough [fill in the blank] or I reminded him of [fill in the blank].

So, what clicked for me at o’dark-thirty this morning was that it wasn’t me. My conversation with my cousin revealed that the problem wasn’t confined just to Dad and me. Apparently, this is how the sons of Ed and Elsie Schanck are, because both of these men were rather distant fathers to their daughters. And the knowledge that they shared this characteristic suddenly brings something new to me: my dad really did love me, just as Bob really did love Sarah. Shining the spotlight of his brother’s life onto my own father’s life has brought a whole new sensibility to the situation.

Relief? You bet! The enigma of my father is now several puzzle pieces clearer than it was before, and that’s HUGE.

And I’m glad to find a kindred spirit in my cousin, Sarah, and see the similarities in our lives. Because it feels so much like home!

And now let me tell you about Sarah.

Hee Sun Park, born in Seoul, South Korea, arrived in our family in the Fall of 1969. My aunt and uncle named her Sarah after our paternal great-grandmother. I was 11 years old, she was 5 months old, and she was the only female first cousin I would ever have. My parents and brother and I traveled to visit her for the first time on the occasion of her christening, when she was 7 months old. I remember being very excited about this event – not only did I finally have a girl first cousin, but I was going to be among those who stood up with the family when little Sarah was christened.

I tell you this because of the thread that continued on from Sarah’s advent into the Schanck family. That thread went deeply into my own life because had there been no Sarah, there would have been no Abbi – my own cherished daughter, adopted from Korea when she was 3 months old.

I’ve blogged about adoption before. It is a real relationship that is in no way “second best” to a blood relationship. I know this. Abbi knows this. Sarah knows this. We have the empirical evidence that it isn’t just DNA that makes a family. And, in a backward way, that is proved again by my father and Sarah’s father. Brothers by blood, but, for most of their lives, hardly brothers at all.

For various reasons, Sarah and I went 19 years without contact. But, as our parents’ generation passes away, we cousins are all we have left. I don’t think we’ll ever go another 19 days, let alone 19 years, without at least a hello between us. That will be a better record than our fathers’.