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Fall is here. Clear, humidity-free days, bright sunshine, gorgeous sunsets and my adventurous friend is back in town.
Janet, along with Deb, went to West Chester with me tonight to pick up two tickets for Lynn and I to see the President tomorrow morning. Sacrificial love is what I call that!
Janet and I have traveled many miles together. I love to drive, she loves to navigate (nice way to say “back seat driver). When she was in California she navigated me around West Chester from her lap top computer. That day, though miles separated us, I felt like we were in the same car. Pure fun.
My life would go a lot smoother if I would stick to a schedule. I would say no to the opportunity of hearing the President of the United States because tomorrow is one of those killer days with very little margin. I had to call and make arrangements for three of my children. When I wake up, my feet needed to hit the road running. Lunches, baby bag to pack, children to distribute, food to purchase for the women who are casting this year’s play.
This day is no picnic and I have just begun to list the tasks to be accomplished. I should say "no" to a friend calling, asking if tonight is all right to hang out and then staying to watch the season finale of the “Amazing Race.” It would make more sense to just say no. But I said "yes."
Some people can actually manage a scheduled life and still be flexible. I can’t seem to swing that. I would rather go to bed with a messy house, exhausted from good fellowship and enduring memories.
One thing makes my life go smooth and only one thing. It is this…waking up at a decent time and crying out to God, “HELP!” Lately I feel at the end of myself. My resources have long been used up. My natural good nature has run dry. My six children have given me a clear mirror to look into and it’s not pretty. This woman is in need, we’re talking bankrupt.
I know this is the “sweet place.” This is the place where Jesus smiles and shines. Lynne is gone ‘cause she can’t keep up and Jesus takes over. Why do we try to clean up to come to Him? Our soap is just rank. There is nothing that we can use to clean us up. It is only Jesus who can do the clean job. It is only Him that can take my conscience and make it clean.
The thought that has captivated me these past couple of days is this: This is the “now” when my children need me. This is the time to snuggle, to talk, to listen, and to give, and to be. This is the easy time. If I don’t do it now, this time will face me again and I will have to look at it with regrets that will last a lifetime. The damage takes more work in the cleaning up than the preventative sacrificial love of now. Putting aside what I want to do to be with my children is like a good low risk investment.
Going to bed early with teenagers in the house is like sticking my head in the sand. They talk at night. Why? I don’t get it. But I'd better be losing some sleep over this because there will come a time when I will be able to sleep endlessly. At that time I want to enjoy it rather than be hounded by regretful memories.
Sundays are effortless days. We rest and relish in people on these days. Today is no exception. We accompany my in –laws to my mother-in- law’s home church in Intercourse where she grew up. The day is clear and the town of Intercourse is one of ceaseless farmlands.
The church is a Beachy Mennonite Church; the women on one side, the men on the other. I have wondered how this arrangement works itself out. Are the men sitting comfortably with no distractions on their side while the disgruntled-worn out women are caring for crying babies on the other side? Not at all, the scene is endearing. Little girls are sitting on their daddies' laps and I see a small infant sleeping soundly on one man’s shoulder.
There was a pervasive persistent peacefulness in the church. The hymns are sung using shape notes in four part harmony. The bishop asks the congregation to kneel. In a flash I am faced by kneelers in the row in front. This is orchestrated better than synchronized swimming. This is community and the fellowship meal in the basement nails that point home.
The anniversary of September 11, 2001 is coming. The three older children and Lynn and I watched a documentary on PBS tonight. This was well done. The footage of the twin towers burning is chilling. I remember the day well when it happened three years ago. I was on the “john.” It’s true that a mother can never go the bathroom in peace!
I hear my husband racing down the stairs and yell for me to come into the T.V. room. (I hate calling it that, I want a more euphemistic word, like library, sitting room, thinking chamber etc..) A friend called to alert us. Thank you, Cindy Swartz. There we all were huddled on the couch watching the events on a ten-inch television set.
“Those towers are going to come down,” I said. Physics is not my forte and my husband quickly informed me that those towers were built to withstand pressure and force. But intuitively I knew they were coming down.
To watch, actually watch, those buildings crumble was something my mind will never forget. We have all watched such horrendous things on TV that I believe we are desensitized to tragedy. But watching them crumble, there was nothing desensitized in my body then. Watching those buildings fall was as surreal as surreal can be. (Surreal: one of those words that when asked to define you wished you wouldn’t have used it) I remember thinking, ‘I can’t believe this, they came down, Oh my goodness, Oh my goodness.’
Such a sunny beautiful September day, it made you wince. It was like a fast ball coming out of nowhere and before you knew it was coming it was there. We were stuck. We couldn’t move. We were together watching the events unfold. We were sitting ducks. The planes were flying near. We were in the middle.
Just three weeks earlier we had picked up our daughter coming in from a trip to Ireland at the Newark Airport. Three weeks ago. You spend countless amount of time talking yourself out of hounding thoughts such as; What if the plane goes down, what if someone harrasses her etc. Then you realize something far worse could have happened.
The tea would go on. My friend was fighting for her life, there was nothing any of us could do but simply wait and pray, wait and pray, wait and pray. The reality of Janet’s struggle hour by hour for life was foggy for me. Had I totally grasped it I probably would have been immobilized. Shock is an interesting state of being, a buffer zone so to speak. I should have been howling, bawling, heaving but instead I was looking around the room and assessing what needed to be done.
The air was electrified. Women who before the news were there to just provide company started rolling up their shirt sleeves and getting to work. The decorations were coming together. Janet was indeed the reason. This was irony at its best. The woman is not present but present. The behind-the-scenes-decorator is still behind the scenes decorating.
Finally it came time to leave the church and go home. As I was driving away from the church so many memories came rushing to me all looking for a spot, a place to relive. I had to think of the countless times Janet and I had driven away from the church after a function long after every one else had left. Would there be more times like that or was this it? Was the party officially over?
My son,Geoffrey, who is a rough and tumbly fellow with a heart he wears on his sleeves, hopped in bed with me that night. I decided to read the birthday/book card that Janet had sent to me just two weeks earlier. He was all ears as he snuggled up to me. This book had made me cry the first read through and now I wondered if this was the last birthday card I would ever receive from her. If it was, what a winner!
When I finished I looked down at Geoff. He looked up at me and said, “That was really sad.”
On any other given day that book/card would not have been sad but I knew what my little man meant. He said, “ I have had some special times with Janet. She can’t die. She’s so far away, Mom. Remember she would come and pick me up and not even bring Johnny?”
This little guy was feeling the feelings, no denial going on here. We cried ourselves to sleep that night, Geoff and I.
What do you do when tragedy hits and there is an annual tea with one hundred and fifty woman signed up to attend and it is tomorrow? Do you cancel it? Do you go on as planned though it feels a bit insensitive to carry on as normal? What to do?
We had all learned what to do from a couple years back. There was once upon a time when just a couple days before the tea a woman who normally attends had her own share of tragedy. Jeannette Blank woke up early in the morning to find her husband unconscious. For twenty minutes she did CPR on her him and kept him alive till the paramedics were able to take over. He had suffered from a brain stem stroke. Few survive this kind of stroke.
We on the committee were confused then as to what to do with the tea. Someone brought to our attention the opportunity that it provided. The opportunity to gather in one place and with one voice cry out to the only Physician who could perform a miracle. It was decided, the tea must go on. And it did.
I had spent the day of the tea preparing a mini tea for Jeannette and her sister, Sherilyn, a close friend of mine. We wanted them to have their own tea in the waiting room. An antique shop in town provided pretty teacups and we packaged up the tasty tea food and sent it down to Philadelphia. There was sweet spirit that night of the tea. I will never forget how electrifying the air felt as we prayed collectively with one voice asking for one request, "Heal Ivan, Lord."
Ivan was healed, miraculously. Today he works, is a father to his children, and husband to his wife, and has an amazing testimony. He went to sleep a carpenter and woke up a preacher. There is a sweetness about him, an unearthly sense that is refreshing.
From our experience with Ivan and Jeannette we knew what we were to do.
Somebody walked by Lynn and I sitting on the couch. I don’t remember who it was all I remember is telling them, “Janet has been in an accident and she might not make it.”
It wasn’t long before we were all huddled and Dale Cupo had us praying. The prayers were all focused, all the same. “Lord, please spare Janet’s life. And please spare her leg. Please restore her."
Deb Kurtz came in and joined our prayers not knowing that we were praying for her dear friend. She was shocked, stunned.
The imminent tea was suddenly on the back burner. The decorating that was in desperate need of attention was still desperately in need.
The reshuffling of priorities when tragedy hits is surprisingly refreshing. The expectations of life return to a nonstress status. The nonessentials remain nonessentials. People come into focus. You count your blessings. Your material possessions count for nothing. You squeeze your children a little tighter, kiss your spouse a little longer, and love your God a little deeper.
Our prayers stopped and everyone began the networking process that technology afforded us. Everyone who knew anyone was on their cell phones to California asking their friends if they knew where Santa Clarita was. Overnight a town in California became a household word in the Morgantown area.
Brenda Goss came close to me and put my face in her hands and said, “It’s going to be all right, Lynne." That was it. The plug came out and the tears poured.
“She can’t die. She can’t die," I uttered helplessly.
There was no control factor with the sobs. From the depths my cry came. But there was also a knowing that came. The knowing that God was going to spare her. She wasn’t going to die. This was Janet. Janet would fight. She wouldn’t let go of Him pulling her through.
California seemed like Mars. So far away. The boys needed comfort, Jerry needed comfort, so far away.
The decorating of the room for the Spring Tea was not coming together. I knew it would, but right now it was not.
My husband walked in a side door and sat down beside me. It didn’t seem out of the ordinary until he started to talk, “The Oberholtzers have been in an accident.”
Everything stops. Everything. If everyone in the room only knew what I know right now they would stop, they wouldn’t be so carefree, so energetic, so unaware.
He talked slow. I wanted him to speed up, give me the bottom line. Who’s hurt? It’s got to be someone because he was looking at me funny and it was taking him long to spit it out.
“The boys are not hurt.”
Thank goodness. My children would be devastated. But he only said the children. I’m waiting, seems like forever.“
Jerry is fine.”
Of course I’m very happy that Jerry is not hurt but Lynn is sadly looking at me and my mind knows that something is desperately wrong and I’m not able to put it all together.
I creep to the thought…is She dead?
“Janet might not make it…” my husband finally says.
There it is, the gavel is raised, but the gavel has not been struck. I swivel on my heels to God, “God she can’t die in California, we have to be able to see this woman."
Janet, hold on!!!
There are settlers and pioneers in every generation. Some have put ruts in the ground with their covered wagons and others put tire tracks on the pavement with their rubber-covered wheels. Janet and Jerry definitely have the pioneer blood in them, a desire to travel to new parts.
For the settlers left behind, it just stinks. You want to be adventuresome but you’re not so you end up feeling like a wimp. Now to the pioneer all of the settlers’ thoughts are just crazy. The pioneer doesn’t need company, they are not trying to sign people up to follow them. They are fine with the settlers staying put, leaving wouldn’t be leaving if everyone was following…
They left and we all were sad but we were also interested in their sojourn. I knew Janet would keep me updated along with all her other close friends. She’s good at that. Their adventures were going to be interesting.
Now had I been the one leaving, not much contact would have happened. I’m present minded. If you come to my house I’ll serve you tea and sit down and drink some cups with you. But if you are not in front of me, writing a letter requires me to schedule time to write and scheduling is not one of my finer points.
Any time any of my friends go away on trips I ask them to do something for me. I ask them first to say my name in the wind and then to bring back a small colorful stone or a seashell. My name has been spoken in many foreign places and that’s just fun for me to know. I vicariously live through their fun; but this was not fun for me.
I had told Janet that it would have been easier had it been a job transfer. A job transfer is something you can’t control at least if you want to keep your job. Whereas selling your business and leaving the community is actively choosing to leave.
The actively choosing to leave left me feeling not just sad but also empty. What could I have done to make this community more attractive, more exciting, more what Janet wants?
They don’t like it here and we do, are we missing something? Call these crazy, insecure, neurotic thoughts and I would have to agree. My insides were jumbled.
As a child I had lived in many different communities. I had chosen to move to this area from Rhode Island after college in 1985. I eventually married and settled in the Morgantown area and have now lived here the longest. This community was by far the best, hands down. This area is definitely child friendly. I love raising my children here with peach festivals, apple festivals, corn mazes, fresh fruit stands in every direction, rolling hills, etc.
Janet was a fixture in Morgantown; born and raised right in the same place. She had not chosen this community, it was chosen for her. If you know Janet, you learn quickly, she likes to do the choosing. She was akin to a racehorse in the gate waiting to be let out to run. Sure she enjoyed this community but her and Jerry wanted to explore. When the offer was right for their property, I gotta tell you, they sold it with seemingly no regrets.
December fifth, 2003 they left. I told people that they were sun chasers and rain dodgers. They were looking for warm weather and it clearly was nowhere to be found around December in Pennsylvania. I honestly didn’t think they were going to return to live here. I knew they would return to visit but to live, no. Other people thought Janet and Jerry would return but I never did.My friend was gone and it was work for me to be joyful. I didn’t want to be a killjoy but I was seriously getting close to being a good one.
Maybe could they just put their dreams on hold, wait till retirement?! Not them. They didn’t want to be like those couples who put off their dreams till their children are gone. They wanted their children to tour America. Janet fetched information from who knows where and she had places for them to see and things for them to do that were unique and memorable. So off they went on a snowy blustery day like geese who were headed south, but really late. It was two weeks before Christmas, a lousy present to say the least.If I could have stood in front of that motor home and begged them to stay I think I would have. I did not want to see them leave. My son Chris was trying to be tearless saying goodbye and my heart was breaking. He was saying goodbye to his best bud, Joe, Janet’s son. My little boy, Geoffrey, was saying goodbye to his second family and my little girl, Nicky was doing the same. I had told Janet earlier that I wanted her to intentionally say goodbye to my children. I had known how she hated saying good-bye but these children needed to know from her that she was leaving.Boy did she ever say good bye to the children. As I was listening and having a hard time holding back the tears, I was regretting having prompted her. It felt like she was taking forever. I hadn’t meant for her to make it so sad. Little did I know then what I know now, it almost was her last goodbye to them.Weeks before she had left she had gone to a restaurant with three other very good friends and me. She gave us all beautiful teacups to remember her by. In my card she was thanking me for having been a very good friend. I told her it sounded like she was leaving and never coming back or that the friendship was done. The never coming back is what she almost did, the friendship was far from done.
This summer has been one amazing summer. It all started in the spring. Something happened that totally redirected any plans, any schedule, any goals that I might have had for this summer.Every year I am involved with a "Spring Tea." The night before the annual tea we were all busy working at preparing the tables, decorating the room, and organizing ourselves for the big night. It was May 20, a day I will never forget. I had just plopped down on a nearby love seat that we had placed in a corner for effect. As I took the time to nurse my baby, I was looking around the room. The pulling together of the room that happens when you decorate was just not coming together. I was frustrated. I called out and said, "Janet, where are you??? I need your eye to pull this all together." She didn't answer. She wasn't there. Little did I know where she was. I knew this much, my friend Janet was on a trip around the United States. I also knew that she was in the Los Angeles area. But where exactly, at that very moment…I didn’t know. Janet and Jerry had sold their Garden Center and purchased a motor home. This was a dream of a lifetime. Their three boys were not as excited about this dream, but after a few theme parks, tours of interesting factories, paint ball wars, the boys had turned the corner, they were having fun. For well over two years, I knew my buddy was leaving. Talk about a long goodbye. It was too long. The month before she left, all she would have to do is walk in my house and I'd start to cry, bawl, sob. It didn't come at a good time. I had just had my sixth child and my hormones were doing gymnastics inside of me. I didn't want her to leave. Of course I wanted them to follow their dreams but...
What to do when someone offers you two hundred ears of corn to freeze and it has to be done now, tonight?Freezing/canning food and death are related -- the timing is never right. Going to bed early was what we had in store for our family tonight. But freezing corn is what we really did. Or at least some of us did. Maybe just two of us. It should have been all. But there were two watching television. Oh to be Laura Ingalls...The upside about two doing corn...we achieved our goal within an hour and a half. The downside...I'll get back to you on that. I keep opening my freezer and looking at all the neatly stacked freezer bags. Lynn loves to put the corn in the bag because he can do it flat. He doesn't prefer my round, random bags of frozen corn. They are not stackable. Who cares? They are eatable. Speaking of round and random, it reminds me of someone I see every morning when brushing my teeth. Lynn, don't tell yourself this but I really like your flat bags. And you do do it so well. You're just one amazing corn bag filler.
Life just got claustrophobic. I was wishing my father a Happy Birthday with an attitude of never ending horizons until he told me what he will be turning next year????? All of a sudden at the sound of the age seventy, I was in a four walled compartment that was getting smaller by the minute. Wait, I want to go to Europe with my father. Wait, I want to do this and that with him. Seventy. I'm not having a hard time with me getting old, I'm having a hard time with everyone else getting old. So, am I having a hard time with me getting old????... My children, will they really know him? I hardly knew my grandfather who died at the age of seventy-seven, but that's way different, right? My son, Jesse, age nine months, oh no, the math is depressing. When he is twenty my father will be eighty-nine. Oh, Lord, please grant my father good health right up to the end. It really is not all about here, because there is just not enough time here! Eternity. All right, now I think I can breathe. I've just been let out of that compartment. The moments with my Dad and my Mom in heaven will be heavenly. The chat sessions with them along with Abraham, Moses, Sarah, whomever we can have an appointment with. Jesse will be able to hang with his grandparents forever. It truly is true that all you can bring with you to heaven is your loved ones. Lord, please save my children and my family members who are not a part of your family!
Last night we went to the movies. We saw "The Notebook." Lynn asked me if I knew what it was about. I couldn't remember. A few minutes into the movie I leaned over and said that I did know what it was about -- a couple's enduring love while suffering from Alzheimer's. Yikes, who's suffering?? I once was playing the piano and singing for an Alzheimer unit in Reading. I had been playing about a half hour and was having a hard time finding songs. I finally landed on one and commented to the audience that I knew they would appreciate it. It was special to me and I hoped that they would enjoy it as well. Half way through the song I had a niggling suspicion. At the end I discovered what was niggling me. With any other audience I would have been mortified. But with this audience I figured it was par for the course. This song was the first one I had played for them that day. Pathetic. We brought Jesse to the movie last night. He loved the movement on the screen and after a discreet feeding fell fast asleep till the end of the flick. "The Notebook" is excellent. It seemed non scripted, so natural were the conversations. The acting was captivating. It felt like you were a fly on the wall. I should remember Allie and Noah's real names but I don't. I don't think I've seen them in anything else. That doesn't mean they haven't been in others, I just haven't seen them. I was caught up into their summer romance. The scenes of love were sweet and refreshing. ( I can't believe I'm saying this..) I told Lynn today that I want to see this again. He surprised me, he does too.Tonight, no movie, but I'm hankering for popcorn and a good coke. Where are you Maggie?
