It flashes on the Skylight Photo display on my kitchen counter. I see it every single day.
I see it, and I pray that somehow, sometime, somewhere, someway the storm will abate, the tide will turn, and the last chapter will gladden my heart, and be the answer to this Grammy’s prayers.
It’s all there.
The hugs, the smiles, the triumphs, the dreams, a strong body, a fine face.
The losses, the reversals, the disappointments, the charades, the squandered investments of love and time and materials.
The sounds. Some hard, some good, so many circling in my head. The laughter, the words of love, the affirmation of faith, the promises made and believed, but broken.
But now it feels like the only sound I hear triggered by the sight of this face is the breaking hearts of the people who have loved him. The silence of breaking hearts is unbearably loud.
There really are no words for grief that has the flavor of finality mixed with failure and fear. But over these last tumultuous months, and as we’ve entered into this empty place, this song has become a reminder of how we can go forward.
Most of you know me well enough to know that I am happiest in my kitchen. I love making ordinary food for the people that I love. I am not a fancy cook. I don’t do gourmet. I like meat and potatoes, soups, casseroles and even Jello salads. I hear that’s “Mennonite.” I’m also advised that it might actually tell the rest of the world how old I am. (I’m 70, thank you very much. I can make all the Jello Salads I want to).
One thing I developed a love for as a child was banana cake. A recipe came with My Sweet Mama’s first Sunbeam Mixer, and it has been a family favorite for years. It’s a good way to use up those bananas that got away from me on the cupboard. This happens to me with great regularity, unfortunately, but I always like to think that I can use them up in banana cake or muffins or something!
Now, I have a husband who is one of the kindest men I have ever met, and even brown bananas on the countertop, drawing sour flies in their season, do not often ruffle his feathers. He may tell me about his desire for a banana cake when he sees them starting to send a brown puddle out from under them, but he does not scold. However, it does embarrass me, causing me to scramble for a recipe that I can use, or else peeling and mashing and freezing them for later use. (Sometimes, depending on the state of decomposition, I will look around to see if anyone is watching and wrap up the offending fruit in a discarded plastic bag and tuck it way down in the trash can where no one will see it).
I have an unwritten rule that says I cannot buy new bananas when there are some at home on the counter. However, early last week, I realized that my stash of Fruit Slush was getting a bit low. I use a lot of bananas in fruit slush and I was hungry and there were some really beautiful bananas in Food Lion when I went in last week. I knew there were three bananas turning black on my counter but they were not terribly far gone. I purchased the new ones, resolving to make something with the three at home. And I did! I have a recipe for a banana streusel muffin that Daniel and the rest of my family really like that calls for three ripe bananas. So I made the muffins, and don’t you know, they were gone before I turned around twice! So one night when the local family was coming for supper, I inquired as to whether any of them had some overripe bananas they wanted to get rid of, and sure enough! Deborah had exactly enough at Ambleside Cottage and she brought them over and I made another batch.
It was the same story. They disappeared just as quickly! I was a little nonplussed because, having given up candy (Not sugar, just candy– and believe me, for this old gal, that’s a sacrifice!) for Lent, I was kinda hoping to have them for some legal snacking! Then I remembered that I had some mashed bananas in my freezer. I scrambled through the assortment of containers and found one that I could actually tell had bananas in it, so I hauled it out and left it on the counter to thaw. It was a bigger container than I had remembered using for mashed bananas, but I did see bananas! When it was thawed, I transferred it to another container and put it in the fridge until I was ready to use it. It had more liquid than I remembered, but freezing does strange things to fruits and vegetables, so I didn’t think much of it.
Our friend Flori, from Guatemala was here yesterday afternoon, and I asked her if she wanted to help me make some more banana streusel muffins. She eagerly mixed the streusel while I made the batter. I reflected again that the bananas were pretty juicy, and there was more than I needed, so I put them into a strainer and let some of the liquid off before adding them to the batter. Everything went fine. They mixed up well, and looked great. Flori put the muffin papers in, I put the batter in and she sprinkled on the strudel crumbs. All done! And then, as we cooks do, I licked the spatula.
H-m-m-m-m-m-m. Something was not right. The flavor, while good, was off somehow. I scraped some more off the side of the mixing bowl and had another lick. This definitely had something in it that was not banana! It wasn’t big, and it was tasty, but it wasn’t banana!
Well, I’ll be a worm in the mud!!!
It was pineapple!
“We might have a problem!” I said to Flori-girl.
She looked at me wide-eyed. “Problem?” she asked anxiously.
“Yes,” I said, ruefully. “I’m pretty sure we just made a batch of banana streusel muffins with Fruit Slush instead of banana!” We both tasted the batter again, and it definitely had a banana/orange/pineapple flavor. It struck Flori’s funny bone and she laughed and laughed and laughed. I had to laugh, too, just watching her, but I wondered just how this was all going to turn out.
“That’s what I get,” I told Flori gloomily, “for not labeling my containers when I put them in the freezer! The thing is, I don’t remember ever putting a container like that of Fruit Slush into the freezer EVER! It just doesn’t make sense!”
We put them in, baked them according to directions and when we hauled them out, they didn’t look too different from usual. Not quite so puffy (probably too much liquid) and a little more brown (higher sugar content, maybe) but they didn’t look like a total flop. And the taste was also acceptable. Not as strongly banana, so I’m not setting forth the discovery of a new recipe, but in spite of such a mistake, they are still getting eaten.
And maybe next week, I will find the right container, and all will be well!
The best blessings of this happy season to all of you! It’s that time of year again, and I’m sitting down to write yet another edition of the Yutzy Family Christmas Letter. I wrote another one, but it wasn’t right somehow, so here goes again!
As you may have guessed from the accompanying picture, we’ve been married for 50 years! Half a century! That’s a pretty big chunk of time. The adult offspringin’s wanted to throw a big party but we asked them instead for time together as a family. So, the 17 of us gathered in a big house in Canaan Valley, WV, and had a noisy, happy couple of days together. We played games, interacted with our adult offspringin’s, their spouses and the grandchildren. We visited a remote park where almost everyone tried to give themselves hypothermia by swimming in a creek that surely came straight off a glacier. We walked on scary places, saw impressive scenery, laughed, ate, talked (had normal family conflicts!), shopped in local shops, and had a most satisfying time together.
In November, (Only 3½ months late) Daniel and I took a trip to celebrate these 50 years. We visited The Ark and The Creation Museum in Kentucky, then meandered our way through Missouri, Nebraska, back to Missouri and Iowa, visiting a sister’s family and numerous cousins on Daniel’s side of the family. A high point of the trip was that several of Daniel’s Amish cousins have a weaving business and they took clothes of Daniel’s late sister, Lena, and made them into a handbag and a couple of rugs for Deborah and Christina. We came home by way of Ohio, sharing Thanksgiving with our son Raphael and his wife Regina’s family. Another high point of the trip was that Daniel was able to visit with the two remaining siblings of his birth mother; his Aunt Lucy Mast in Bloomfield, Iowa, and his Uncle Chris Kauffman in Eaton, Ohio. We were gone 14 hours near two weeks, and as most of you can probably guess, this old Grammy was good and ready to be home! (I might not have been the only one, but the other party probably wouldn’t admit it)!
I’m aware that our world is full of a lot of turmoil and strife and unanswered questions, and I am not ignoring that, but when I went back through family pictures of this last year, I realized that our family, while having some hard and disappointing times, have had some sweet times together, and there have been triumphs and joy mixed with the failures and sadness.
Christina and Jesse built an attractive chicken house and are the proud proprietors of a small flock of laying hens. Jesse holds a pretty detailed record of numbers and production. Christina loves her “Babies” and they respond to her call. However, the rooster, handsome though he may be, is not her favorite. Charis, 14, and as tall as her Grammy, started attending church with a friend and was recently baptized upon confession of Faith. #myheartgivesgratefulpraise
Deborah has had another eventful year. She finished her BSN last year, walked in June of this year and we celebrated! She has two new cats (Bella and Baby) that brighten her days and keep her entertained. The birds at her feeders, and her yard and garden have been a good diversion in a year that has had some unexpected twists and turns. The best news is that she is healthy!
Raph and Regina are still in Canton, and Raph has gotten a promotion at NuCamp while Regina has begun a full-time job as an insurance authorizer that allows her to work from home. The children are growing up, and the youngest is in school this year. The boys are active in sports and Ellie is always busy with something. Her scans are still at every 3 months, but the outlook is promising.
Lem and Jessica, still in Washington, DC, are both at their same jobs. Jessica’s health has improved somewhat over this last year with occasional setbacks. It’s been a joy to see her delight in being able to be more engaged with life. The year ahead holds promise for them and it’s exciting to watch. Stella keeps them busy, and she’s growing up at an alarming rate.
Rachel and Rob, also still in DC, are continually surprising us with something else that they are going to do. Rob has a new job at a fancy restaurant, and hopes to finish his Master’s in the spring. Rachel continues as a therapist while looking at advancing her education. They are presently planning a trip to Guatemala in January for the 15th birthday of our family’s “other daughter,” Lupe’s oldest daughter, Nicole. We considered accompanying them, but this Grammy is ready to stay home for a while!
So, our children continue their pursuits. Job challenges can be daunting, but they have persisted and none of them have asked to move home because they can’t make it out there. We never see enough of those who aren’t here, but we do enjoy spending time with our local family. They have been faithful in looking out for us (and bossing us betimes). The family plans to be home for early Christmas this year (the weekend of the 15th-17th — which may account for this letter getting out earlier than the usual last minute) and we are certainly looking forward to seeing the beloved faces and hearing the cacophony of familiar voices.
But most of all, let’s not forget the message of the angel to the world that long ago night:
“Fear not: For, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, which is Christ, the LORD.”
THIS, We BELIEVE!
Merry Christmas!
Daniel and Mary Ann Yutzy
(Edit) The family coming home for Christmas did not happen, as COVID hit the Ohio Yutzys, nixing plans for travel. So now we have plans to have our family Christmas the weekend of January 12th, Lord Willing, and this household is somewhat on hold until then. The Christmas we did have was sweet with the locals coming for Shrimp Chowder and “Little Christmas,” and that will certainly hold us over for now.
Blessings, Dear Friends. May the season hold abundant sparkles of joy, even in the ruins of family plans, marred relationships and even funerals. Jesus came to bring us Salvation. He also came as a Redeemer, and in these closing days of 2023, I choose to remember that when things are too broken to fix, our only hope is in Redemption – that He can redeem the broken for something beautiful, strong and good.
It was such a happy day, full of friends and family and texts and phone calls and mini celebrations and all sorts of good things.
It was a happy week leading up to it
Last Sunday evening, my brother, Nel and his lovely wife, Rose came with their friends, Patty and Martin to spend the night on their way home from vacation and later in the evening, my “almost a twin cousin” Gloria came as well. That day, (the eighth) Gloria turned 70, and she came straight to our house from biking 70 MILES to celebrate her birthday. That girl has a totally different thing going on than most 70 year old women! “It really wasn’t all that much,” she said to our exclamations. “It was almost all down hill!” Yeah, right. I know about “down hill!”
Anyhow, Gloria came because there are five granddaughters of David and Savilla (Bender) Yoder that turned 70 in less than 10 months, and we took the occasion to get away together for a little bit. Judi Morgan, Shirley Miller, Karen Miller, Gloria Diener and Mary Ann Yutzy. As a group, we could make a formidable foe if we really wanted to do anything but we just wanted to be together and catch up on each other’s lives It was a marvelous time. We laughed and cried and sang and laughed and cried and sang some more. We ate some wondrously good seafood in various forms, according to our individual tastes, and walked briefly on the beach.
Gloria, Shirley, Me, Judi and Karen
We went home to our various places with memories that will last as long as we have our right minds. (Which, unfortunately, I know may not be that long!) Shirley and Gloria to Virginia, Karen to Indiana and Judi and I back to Delaware. We got home on Wednesday afternoon and the days clicked by. We had small group here on Wednesday night, and then Thursday, more friends came. Jim and Ruthi Gochnauer, from New York C,ity came for the Region 1 MDS meeting that was held here in Greenwood last weekend. Jim and Ruthi are old friends, but we rarely get to see them. They visited us in 2019, and, unlike this weekend, got a picture of them then when we took a trip to Tangier Island.
Jim and Ruthi Gochnauer
The weekend slipped by before we knew it, and Sunday settled in with a surprise donut celebration at church, provided by daughters Christina and Deborah, in honor of my birthday, and the whole church sang the traditional birthday song for me.
“A happy birthday to you, a happy birthday to you Every day of the year, may you feel Jesus near A happy birthday to you, a happy birthday to you May God bless you the whole year through”
This song has been sung for birthdays at our church ever since I can remember. When I was a little girl, we would give a dime for every year that we were old, and the accumulative moneys from all the church birthdays for the year would go to a special project. Somewhere along the line, that song was chosen to sing while participants paraded to the front to put their dimes in a designated container. Years ago, as I recall, it was a glass jar with a screw on top with a slot in it. Children could put their dimes in one at a time, revealing their ages. And then we were given a birthday pencil. Older people had the privilege of the top being taken off so that the right amount of dimes could just be added. I remember a year when a particularly opinionated older person went to put in their dimes, and the superintendent wanted to know how old they were and feigned being unable to open the lid. He was quickly brought into submission and the lid came off and the sum total of dimes clinked to the bottom and that was that. As the years have passed, the dimes have given way to quarters (inflation hits the birthday bank, too) and those of us that are older tend to write a check or give bills. We usually give a check, but Daniel forgot the checkbook and so he said I should just give cash. He rounded the donation up to a twenty dollar bill which he had in his billfold, and so I went on record this year as being 80 years old! But that’s okay. It all goes to a good cause.
The week since then has been quite an incredible week. It’s been heavy with extended family things; sickness, grandchildren heartache, Guatemalan family crisis and things that weigh heavy on this 70 year old heart. I find myself lying awake in the night hours, singing to myself and praying, and trying to solve all the problems of all these people that I love.
You know what? I can’t.
But I can lay them down, and I’ve found again that there is a place for the burdens that are too heavy for me. It’s the foot of the Cross. “Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows . . . “
This I believe, and my heart gives grateful praise.
It was Saturday evening, and Certain Man and I were having dinner at Bird-in-Hand Restaurant, waiting for the musical, The Home Game, to begin. We had bought the meal+performance ticket that came with the unlimited food/salad bar, and I was on my first trip to the Salad station. It had been a lovely day, and we had made memories, gotten really tired, and I was looking forward to a peaceful evening. But far off, somewhere in the restaurant, a child was crying. The child wasn’t throwing a tantrum but was fretfully and insistently crying.
An older gentleman was filling his plate beside me. I was building my salad and said, just to make conversation, “That child is rather unhappy!”
I was totally unprepared for his reaction. “I hate kids!” he said vehemently. “That kid needs someone to smash it over the face. That’s the trouble with kids these days. Doesn’t the Bible say, ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child’?”
My mind went scrambling. He had caught me flatfooted. “No,” I said, rather tentatively, “I’m pretty sure it doesn’t!”
“Well, that’s what it means,” he said pointedly. He went on about modern day discipline and how terrible kids are these days. “I wouldn’t ever been allowed to act like that! Would you?”
That was a whole different story, one I didn’t want to get in to. The truth was, I probably wouldn’t have been allowed to act like that, but the truth also was, I don’t remember our parents ever taking us to a restaurant to eat. When we traveled (which was seldom) we packed lunches or waited until we got where we were going. But here was this irate person wanting an answer.
I said something to the effect that I would not have been allowed to act like that, but though I believe in discipline, there are better ways of dealing with children than “smashing them across the mouth,” and I fled to my seat, far more troubled by the exchange I had with him than I was over the (still wailing) child.
Sometimes I wonder at the coincidences of my life. We had been seated for maybe half an hour when the table behind me was vacated, and a new set of diners came in. It was a grandmother, her daughter, a boy that looked like he was maybe 14 and two younger boys. The tirade started before they ever got settled.
“No! Get out of there! The two of you may not sit together! All you will do is fight!” The tone was raucous, and the words penetrated my heart. The daughter, evidently the mother of the younger two boys, obviously had one that she was fed up with. She was constantly fussing at him. Then there was this bit of a scuffle and suddenly I heard him quietly sobbing.
“Stop it!” She said harshly.
“But it hurts,” he said while crying softly.
“I said to stop it!” she again spoke in an unkind tone.
“But my arm really hurts!” he sobbed, still quietly.
“If you don’t stop, I’m going to do it harder,” she said, and the child fell silent.
I know that I do not know what happened. I know that this child may have been getting on her last nerve all day. Maybe she wasn’t feeling good (She didn’t look amiss, but still!) I know that I’m getting to be an old softie about so many things. But can’t we discipline our children without anger? Without “smashing?” I will always believe that there is a time and a place for discipline, but it needs to be done in love, and it shouldn’t be done with harsh words in a public place. And yet, my heart aches for parents who have so little to guide them and so much criticism and are floundering in the “dos and don’ts” of our world’s current opinions.
My heart aches even more for the children who seem to be growing up without a healthy balance of discipline. The thing is, our children are going to need it to make it in this world. There has to be discipline and instruction and example and, above all, LOVE. My Daddy had a saying, “It’s never wrong to be kind.” I wonder why so many parents divorce kindness and firmness. The two are not incompatible, and a child that knows they are loved is going to respond better to correction. I didn’t get it right all the time. Believe me, I didn’t. And hindsight is better than . . .well, you know! But I tried! I loved our children intensely. And I’ve asked for forgiveness where I failed. I wish I had spanked less, and I wish I had understood better. In spite of my failures, and even our disagreements about child discipline today, our adult offspringin’s haven’t disowned us and seem to love us.
And I can honestly say that the five of them grew to responsible adulthood without ever, not even once, being “smashed across the face” by either of their parents. Which is definitely more of a tribute to Grace given by our Heavenly Father than it is to our parenting or (Sorry, Yutzy Five) their behavior. Which brings me back again to something that we found integral in raising children that’s missing in so many families today. The understanding that there is a God who deeply loves them as well as us, gave His Son for our salvation, forgives and redeems, but also has a standard for behavior that cannot be ignored. (I’m not talking about childishness, here. We often expect our children to behave like born again adults when they are children and they are going to act like children. That’s an unrealistic expectation and it will discourage).
Parenting is hard work. It’s sacred. It’s scary. It’s impacting. There are no hard and fast, sure-fire rules. But we cannot give up. There’s too much at stake. So make it a point to know your children. Hug those little ones, pray for your children and grandchildren, and go easy on judging. Encourage if you can, and if there is a child whose crying/behavior is irritating you, extend grace to the parents as well as the child.
It was Wednesday, six days after I landed on my face over in Dorchester County, Maryland. I had been fighting a chest cold for almost a week at that point, and it had gotten progressively worse after the fall. Nurse Daughter Deborah had kept a check on my lungs, and that morning had said, “Mama, you are sounding tight. It isn’t pneumonia yet, but you should probably have something for bronchitis.” I had checked twice to make sure it wasn’t COVID (it wasn’t) but I didn’t like the sound of a bumble bee in my chest when I laid down. Besides, we were supposed to go to Ohio the next day for a high school reunion, as well as to catch up with family.
I tried to get an appointment, and actually had two appointments with my PCP that had gotten cancelled because he was out with COVID. I asked if he could call something in for me, but he was pretty sick and wasn’t able to get to it before we planned to leave. I decided to take a cough suppressant and go to lunch with my sisters. It’s something we seldom do, and it was last minute, but things came together, and I decided that I could make it.
I was on my way to the lunch gathering when Certain Man called and asked about my availability to run the steers into the back pasture as well as run some water for them in the watering trough back there. He sounded upset, and I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. When I told him that I wasn’t home, he rather abruptly said that he would call one of the girls and see if one of them could do it for him. I said that I would be home before too long, but he seemed a upset and ended the conversation. It was puzzling, but I decided that he must be having a bad day at work and decided not to take it personally.
It was after 3:00 and I was home, but on a phone call when he came in. I said that I needed to get off, and that we were planning to leave in the morning for Ohio. I heard him mutter something about “We might have to see about that,” and thought that he was having second thoughts about taking me to Ohio with bronchitis. This bespoke an inflated evaluation of my importance because, this time, I had nothing to do with it!
I got off the phone and said, “What’s up, Sweetheart?”
He got serious right away. And a wee bit defensive. “I want you to look at something on my head. I think there is a toothpick in there.”
“ A what?!?!?!”
He looked at me like I should know. “A Toothpick!”
“What happened, Daniel? How in the world did you get a toothpick in your head???” I was sitting him down on the kitchen chair and looking at an abrasion on his scalp. It didn’t look catastrophic, but there was definitely something amiss.
The man was clearly unhappy. “Well,” he said a bit reluctantly. “You know how I keep two toothpicks in the header of my work car, just above the door. So today was so hot, and I had trash on the passenger’s side that I wanted to get out. So instead of climbing in and starting it, I leaned in, pushed the brake and started it so it could start cooling down. Then I grabbed the trash and ducked back out and both toothpicks went right into my scalp. The one was sticking out so I tried to pull it out. It was really stuck but I finally just grabbed it and yanked it out. There were no more sticking out that I could feel, so I looked up at the header and there was only a half of one up there still in the header, and a small piece on the floor. I couldn’t find the rest of it, so I figure it is still in there. I had ice water and a paper towel in my car, so I wet the towel and dabbed the spot. It hardly bled.” THEN it came out that it had happened at 11 o’clock in the morning. No wonder he wasn’t himself when he called me earlier in the day. This guy not only had finished all his inspections, but he had dropped by the Dairy Queen on his way home to pick up a Blizzard for one of the office birthdays. And he hadn’t told a soul. Nobody. It had been a long, hard day.
I gingerly felt over the area and got the shivers. It definitely had a ridge under the skin.
“Just pull it out,” he repeated numerous times. “Get a tweezers or something and pull it out!”
“Daniel, you need to go to urgent care! I can’t even see the end of it, and you need to have a professional get it out!”
Eldest Daughter was here and she was on it in a minute. “Dad! Listen to me! There is no way that we can get that out. You HAVE to go to urgent care.”
“For cryin’ out loud, it’s not that bad. Just take a razor blade and cut it out. If I could see it, I would do it myself!!! I am not going to go to Urgent Care!!!” He sat down on his LaZyBoy with a most determined look on his handsome face. I knew that look. I needed reinforcements. I called Nurse Daughter.
“Hey, Deb! Daddy got a toothpick in his head today, and he wants us to dig it out. Could you come over and look at it? He needs to go to Urgent Care!” This girlie knows her daddy pretty well, and she was immediately on the alert.
“I’ll be right there!” she said. And she was. She came breezing into the family room, and looked at the offending hole in his head, and the ridge beneath the skin and immediately said, “Dad! You need to go to urgent care. I’m pretty sure that they are going to lance that to get it out!”
“Just get a razor blade and cut it and take it out!” He reiterated. “Honestly! If I could see it I would do it myself! It’s just an old toothpick!” There was immediate loud, indignant objections from his two oldest daughters. Experience has taught me that in such situations, it is better to keep my mouth shut and stay out of the way, and let Daniel’s daughters handle things. But there came a time when I felt that I needed to interject some added fuel to their fire.
“Daniel, You might say that it’s ‘just’ a toothpick, but you had an uncle that died from ‘just a toothpick!’”
He snorted. The girls stopped mid-sentence.
“WHAT??? Mom, you never told us that! Who??? When??? How???”
“It was Grandma Sue’s oldest brother, Eli William. He lived alone and one day he ran a toothpick into his toe. I guess he thought it would be okay, but it wasn’t. Gangrene set in, and he got septic and died!!!
That did it! There was no more arguing. He was going, that was that, and I was so grateful – Until they started in on me!
“Listen, Mama! You need to go and get checked out for that bronchitis! If you are going to go to Ohio tomorrow, you need to at least make sure that it isn’t pneumonia!”
I was not interested in going. I was still badly bruised in my face, and a huge bruise had appeared on my right side and I knew that there would be all manner of inquiry and remonstrations and grave warnings and those piercing looks that make you feel like they really do think that your husband has been beating you, and I didn’t want to have it. But I hadn’t heard back from my PCP, and I was feeling a bit poorly, and they insisted, so I finally agreed to go. Our fair town of Milford has one of the best urgent care facilities I’ve ever been in (and probably the poorest Emergency Room connected to the local hospital that I’ve ever been associated with). So it was with a great deal of joy and confidence that Certain Man and I arrived at Urgent Care a little before 4:00. We both were promptly seen, and Daniel’s procedure was initiated without delay. Yep! There was still a toothpick between his scalp and his skull. Yep, they were going to hustle it right on out of there. Except they weren’t. The crazy thing was resistant to all the efforts to latch onto it and pull it out.
Finally the doctor said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Yutzy, but I cannot get this thing to budge. I’m going to have to lance it to get it out.” There was a spirit of good-natured camaraderie in the room, and Mr. Yutzy was past objecting.
“Go ahead,” he said, without rancor. “Go ahead and do what you have to do.” And so they made a small cut, grasped that sliver of toothpick and out it came!
What a relief! Two stitches later and he was ready to go home.
Except his wife was not. As predicted, they seemed to diagnose the bronchitis without any hesitation but beyond that, it was a crazy ride.
“We cannot treat two conditions at once, and you really need to have those bruises, especially the facial bruises, evaluated!” “Do you feel safe at home?” “You are on an aspirin a day, and you should always have an eval if you have a bad bump on your head.” “When did you say this fall happened?” “You really need to go over to the emergency room to have CT scans done. If you went there, you can have everything treated at once, but we cannot do those here!” It went on and on and on.
I finally said, “Look, I’ve lived in this body for a long, long time, and I’m not saying that nothing at all happened six days ago, but I am saying that I’m quite sure that nothing serious happened. I mean, I didn’t lose consciousness, I had no nausea following the fall, did not get sleepy, and there have been no intestinal or bladder changes. I’m quite sure that I’m fine! I wouldn’t mind having my ribs x-rayed since I’m having so much pain in my right side, but if you are x-raying my chest for pneumonia, won’t the rib be on there and couldn’t you tell if it’s something like that?”
They were unconvinced. Daniel was ready to go home and they still hadn’t done anything diagnostic on me except to listen to my lungs. Then Oldest Daughter, who had brought us in, decreed that she felt that I should be sent to the Emergency Room just for everyone’s peace of mind.
“Besides,” she said, pulling into her bag of tricks she uses to get me to do what she wants me to do, “If this was turned around and it was Daddy, what would you want him to do?”
Oh, Boogey-schnett! Okay then! I decided to go. Daniel took the car and went home, and Christina took me in her car to the ER. We pulled up to the entrance of the Emergency Room and my heart sank. It was wall to wall people. 4:30 on a Wednesday afternoon and it was packed out. Christina and I went through security and drug some chairs out of a corner and sat. And sat. and sat. We did stuff on our phones, we talked, we watched people and we waited. People watching was the best. There were people there who had been there since noon and were getting very unhappy and vocal about it. As the hours went on and on, I realized with a sinking heart that bronchitis and a 6-day-old injury had no precedence over almost everything else. I finally told Christina that she might as well go home and I would call her when I was ready to go home. Reluctantly, she took her leave and I was there by myself. My cough was such that I tried to stay away from other people, and my phone was running low on battery. By choice, I sat on the far side of the room, where I couldn’t see the television, but it was blaring on and on and on. As the hours passed, I became more and more uncomfortable with what I was hearing. It was Law and Order (?) and it was a dark and twisted episode involving a school teacher who molested little boys in the school restrooms, and I felt sick to my stomach and miserable. I was texting with Christina and she suggested I speak to the security guard and ask him if it was possible to have the channel changed. I was loathe to do it, but I finally decided that I should do something. I gathered my courage and approached the burly guard at the door.
“Excuse me,” I ventured in what sounded like a weak voice, “but can you tell me who decides what channel the television is tuned to? I’m really troubled by the content of this program, and wish it could be something else.”
“Of course, of course,” he said, acting like he agreed with me 100%. “I’ll change it right away!” And he did.
How was I supposed to know that the program was only five minutes from being over? How was I supposed to know that there were people engrossed in the plot and wanted to see the end? How was I supposed to know that the guard was friends with the most vocal of the watchers? My heart sank as exclamations were made and dark looks thrown in my direction. But I didn’t know. I watch almost no television, or I probably would have realized that the darkest, dankest, and dirtiest details are reserved for the final moments of a program, but I didn’t know. I only know that the longer I had sat there, the worse it had become, and I finally felt like I couldn’t take it anymore. I sank down into my chair and tried to be invisible. My phone was really dead now, and I had been there four hours with no end in sight.
Then Christina and Deborah conversed, and Deborah decided to come in and spend the rest of the evening with me. She brought me a phone charger (and lively, diverting conversation) and before we knew it, it was 10 o’clockish and they took me back to a room. My blood work came back pretty normal, the CT Scans came back clear, and yes, I did have acute bronchitis and they gave a prescription for an antibiotic and around 11:30, I was free to go home. Deborah dropped me off at the house where Certain Man was already sleeping, and I crawled in beside him, so thankful to be home.
There have been people who have voiced the opinion that I “must have been pretty mad about having to go to the ER and waiting such a long time only to have them tell me that my original assumptions were correct!” Honestly? I’m so glad that I went. Certain Man and I left the next morning for Ohio and I don’t know if it was the hours in the car, or what, but this Delaware Grammy was not only coughing and coughing, but there was a significant amount of pain in my right side pretty much continuously the whole trip. I felt really useless at Raph and Gina’s house because pretty much all I did was sit on a chair! If I hadn’t had a clear CT scan before I left, I probably would have asked Certain Man to take me to an ER somewhere along the way just to be sure that I hadn’t done something really bad to myself after all! Plus, I did get the antibiotic, and without it I probably would have ended up with pneumonia. This bronchitis is nothing to play around with. In fact, four weeks since the onset, I’m still coughing! I’m a lot better, but I’m really tired of this cough!
And that’s the story of A Toothpick and a Cough. I’m very grateful to be this far in the journey!
(I have several posts that didn’t get published before we left on a quick trip to Ohio. This was written a week ago – and isn’t exactly edited like I would like, but I do want to get it out because I have another story about a toothpick and a visit to Urgent Care!)
It’s been a rather tough week for this Delaware Grammy. In addition to looking like a zombie, I have this chest cold that causes me to cough and cough. Apparently, I pulled a muscle or dislocated a rib when I fell. In case you didn’t know, these two maladies do not mix well. There have been days when I’ve been clutching my side, stifling the cough and wishing for a rib belt or a girdle or something! I’m not sure it would help, but at least I would be doing something. Thankfully, the protest is subsiding somewhat, but the cough continues.
There has been grief this week. Around 1980, a family came to our church in Plain City. They lived at Dayton, Ohio at the time, and Certain Man and I decided that, rather than have them trek the 60 miles back after church and then miss the evening service, they could crash at our house and if they decided that they wanted to attend the evening service, they more easily could. Paul and Catherine Mast had four children: Iris was 8, Rosie was 6, Cathy was 4, and P.J. was 2, and many were the Sunday afternoons that our children played together. We moved away in 1983, but I watched from afar as Iris married the handsome young man we knew as Archie (Arthur Lyndaker) and they moved to Red Lake, Ontario, Canada where Arthur headed up the AquaChink Wilderness training camp, and Iris helped out wherever she could. She and Arthur had five children, and then several years ago, she was diagnosed with cancer. She fought valiantly and there was a time when, looking on from a distance, it appeared that she had won. But we all know the insidious nature of this disease, and it returned with a vengeance. Last week, Iris went home to be with Jesus. Cancer claimed another body, but her indomitable spirit is with her Savior. I promise you, she is there, whole and more alive than she has ever been. But she was only 50. A beloved wife, daughter, mother, sister, grandma. The Promises are veritable, but right now the loss seems too hard . . . and it’s not even mine to claim!
We’ve had heartbreak in our out of state family this week. The story isn’t mine to tell, but the hurt sits heavy on my heart with an impact that exceeds the bump on my head and the wrench to my side. “Surely He hath borne our grief and carried our sorrow . . .” This, I believe, This, I claim! For broken dreams, for reversal, for loss, and for decisions made by people I love that have drastic consequences, for family members whose health is compromised through no fault of their own, for surgery on an 11 year old knee, for the prospect of treatment for Ellie’s leg involving lots of discomfort, for fractured marriages and neighbors who grieve.
It’s been more than a bit difficult to live in grateful praise. I’ve not given up, but I’ve had to do some searching.
This past Sunday, (Today’s edit, this would have been September 3rd) as I came out from the Sunday School classroom where I had stopped briefly on my way in, I found a bag on my bench and the familiar writing on the card that is my cousin, Donna’s cheerful trademark. Donna sees to it that the sick and afflicted, the mourners and those who rejoice with new love and new life, all get the most appropriate and creative cards and gifts.
I couldn’t wait to see what the bag held! Listen you people! Donna did a fantastic job of choosing! She knows me pretty well, so I know she pulled from that knowledge to get me what she did, but this hurting heart was instantly feeling better.
Not only are these some of my favorite things, there was another hurt ministered to that Donna had no way of knowing about . . .
On July 4th, through hot and voluminous tears, I had written this to Daniel’s late sister, Lena- “I broke your cup. It was one of my favorites. My mama always said not to cry over spilt milk. And I’ve made a practice of not grieving over things, but this was the one thing I had of yours that I used almost every day. And I almost never took it off its hook without thinking about a sister-in-law who was beyond special. I miss you so much in these hot summer days that you loved so well. The other day I sliced the first round ripe tomato from our garden for your brother’s scrambled egg sandwich and I wished I could’ve shared it with you. I have made gallons upon gallons of sweet garden tea this year, and I never strip tea leaves and mix up this tea without thinking of our Lena girl who loved garden tea with a passion. Our neighbor cut their hay the other week and the smell wafted over Shady Acres and I remember you driving the tractor for Daniel to get the hay in. The smell of the hay brought those short memories back in ways I could not shake. I’m as committed as I’ve ever been to the fact that our Heavenly Father is the blessed controller of all things, but I still wish you wouldn’t have had to leave so soon . You are forever in our hearts and memories and often in our words as we say things that you would say. We never play a game of Shanghai without recalling your aggressive desire to win. It was one of the places where you really would cut off your nose to spite your face. Thank you for the gift that you’ve given us in so many happy memories that bring laughter and warmth to our days. It’s been three years, but I still sometimes still have to stop and remember that you’re not just off on one of your jaunts. It just seems like maybe , you’ll come in the door with your stuff, and all will be right again.”
But it won’t happen, and I cannot rely on that to set things right again. The memories will linger, as unpredictable as Lena herself, and if, on a hot summer day, I find her lingering in the corners of my heart, I will be glad. She loved us so well . . . and I am grateful.
Yesterday didn’t quite turn out the way I had planned!
We had gone over to the Dorchester County Visitor’s Center in Cambridge, Maryland, which is on the Choptank River, feeding into the Chesapeake Bay. We spent about a half an hour in the center, talking to the two delightful ladies at the desk, and had gotten information, maps, and uploaded a audio for the Harriet Tubman self driven tour.
The water was so beautiful, and the weather was so pleasant, so we decided to walk down to take a look at the water and the shoreline before we started the tour. It was a downhill boardwalk and we were just walking along, holding hands,laughing and talking, when just that fast I was flat on my face. Here there was a board that had warped up about an inch, with a nail, sticking up approximately eight inches in from the edge of the boardwalk and somehow my foot caught it and I suppose since we were going downhill, the force just put me flat down. I had no time to even think! It was like one minute we were happily walking along, and a millisecond later, I was flat on my face! I was immediately aware of a really sharp pain in my right side, just above my hip and a very bad bump on my head but my first thought was one of extreme disappointment and sadness. Intuitively, I knew that our golden day was going to be cut short.
“Lord Jesus,” I prayed silently through the tears that sprang violently to my eyes, “I’m in desperate need of grace!”
There was none of the usual, immediate jumping to my feet to see who was watching. I lay there, hurting, and feeling like something must certainly be broke. There was no blood, and I could move all my extremities, but there was a serious goose egg rising on my right eyebrow, although my glasses and my nose were unscathed. There was a kind man who came running over from the playground where he was playing with his son, and he and Daniel helped me get up. He was most concerned and kind. When we deduced that I could, in fact, walk, he quietly returned to his son, and Daniel helped me to the car.
(It happened on the partly hidden walkway that goes about through the middle of the picture, towards the right side! I know they were planning to fix it because there was some orange paint on the grass, but I never saw it, and besides, it wasn’t very noticeable)!
The first order of business was to get ice We found a ziploc plastic bag in the console of the minivan and Daniel drove around the corner to a gas station and got ice for the throbbing goose egg on my forehead. We debated about what we should do. I was feeling so miserable, but I really wanted to go on the tour. Certain Man was gentle in his advice and we decided to come home. So I sat in my chair with an ice pack off and on for the rest of the day, trying to keep from getting too black and blue (which may have worked better than I think, but I’m not impressed). I told Daniel this afternoon that I wish I could find a hole that I could crawl into and stay there! But anyhow!
I consulted with Deborah concerning the pain in my side and we think it is probably just a pulled keloid or adhesion or something like that. We are going to watch it just to make sure nothing else develops but I think it’ll be okay. It is much better this morning. (Maybe it has just melted into the “day after” aches and pains and isn’t as noticeable, but I’m sure that it isn’t nearly like it was)! Yesterday, I just wanted to cry, but today I am finding so many things to be grateful about.
Christina and Deborah have been so worried and solicitous, and Daniel has been so kind and helpful, even though I know he is disappointed, too. Yesterday was a day we decided we would finally use to maybe make something good out of a week that has gone so wrong. Our chickens went out, Daniel took the week off and we were planning a “Staycation” for the whole week. We had hoped to do any of a number of fun things locally, but I got sick with a bad chest cold so we’ve just stayed home. I felt better yesterday morning, so we decided to go. It was such a beautiful day and we were having such a lovely, happy time. We were both looking forward to the tour. But I guess it wasn’t to be.
Guess what! God didn’t make me fall on that old boardwalk stretch, however He wasn’t surprised (but I sure was)! And Grace was freely given to me, through kind words and helping hands and sympathetic murmurs, and the sweet, sweet comfort of the Holy Spirit.
So, Yes! There are many reasons for my heart to give grateful praise.
I help my adult daughter with her shower and see where the surgeon’s knife has cut into the beautiful skin of my child, and my heart aches. I want to cry out against the violation of this body, fruit of my body, but I swallow back the outcry and hold the drains while she pats the area dry. Her face is downward, as she carefully pats the myriad of stitches, making their double tracks across her chest, now flat as a man’s, and I catch a glimpse of her lips, pursed tight against the pain, and then I hear her muffled sobs, and I feel as if my heart is breaking.
“Lord Jesus! Have Mercy!”
Then with the resolve, a quiet calm comes into my heart as I feel the gentle presence of My Heavenly Father, and I do not cry. Not then. I try to speak quiet words of comfort that feel like they fall short, but she hears, and she regains composure, and we finish the task. She is finally back into the dressings, into her clothes, her hair and body clean once more. It is a triumph of no small import, and this girlie is a warrior. She’s wounded, but she is not defeated.
Late Monday night, Christina, our oldest daughter, took Deborah to the emergency room to check out a pain in her leg that felt reminiscent of the postoperative thrombosis that she had a year ago. She hated to go, but she also knew that blood clots are sneaky and deadly, and something just wasn’t right. Thankfully, she was clear (but this Mama didn’t sleep until the news was in). Yesterday was much better, and I’ve been pondering this whole journey because even though it is primarily hers, it belongs to all of us. It feels like she’s been stripped of parts so vital to who she is as a woman. And then, this morning as I motored about in her kitchen, her old ipod was playing on a shuffle and the song came on, “Complete in Him.” I listened to the music and remembered again that this adult child of mine is so much more than what has been taken from her. Her soul is intact.
Most of you know that I’m a firm believer in having a grateful heart. It truly has made a monumental difference in my life over the almost seven decades that I’ve been privileged to enjoy. But the last few months have been a challenge for me as I’ve watched the 16 other people in my family struggle with so many different things.
I started to list the things that have set my heart to sadness, but really, it feels like writing them down makes them more real, and frankly, I don’t need any more reality when it comes to the challenges of my family. The truth is, along with all the reversals, pain and loss, we have more than enough things for which to be thankful! Looking at the flip side of all the things going on, if I look closely enough, I can find ample reason to praise. Even more than that, in this current “dark night of my soul,” my Heavenly Father has given several specific answers to some desperate fervent prayers, sent unexpected words of encouragement, allowed me to find comfort in unexpected places, and provided meaningful contact with beloved family members and friends. I know who holds tomorrow and while that is comforting, I also know who holds today, and that is not only comforting, but enabling, quieting, and gives me peace.
And yes! My heart chooses the sacrifice of grateful praise.
The chair looked so familiar. How many times over the years had I gone into a room like this with My Sweet Mama and she was the one on this chair? I would get to sit on one of the small chairs by the side. This time I was in that chair. The side chairs were empty. I felt sad. Memories of her were crashing around my heart as I waited. Eight years ago we were waiting and watching as our indomitable mother lived her last weeks on earth. I looked down at my feet. The veins and the bumps and the shape of my own wide feet were so reminiscent of hers. And the pain.
The door opened, and Mama’s beloved Dr. O came in with his usual smile. We had many encounters in a room like this over the years, and he felt like an old friend. “It’s good to see you,” he said. “What brings you here?”
I look down at those offending appendages and say ruefully, “Well, Dr. O, I’m afraid I inherited my Mama’s feet.”
The X-rays had already been taken, and he casually went over to look at them while talking about one of his favorite patients. “Your Mom was amazing,” he said. “I could hardly believe how she kept going with the way her feet were . . .” his voice trailed off and then he spoke of how long she has been gone, and marveled over the length of time it had been, and talked about a number of different things, as he studied my offending X-rays before him on the screen. And then he turned abruptly.
“You are absolutely right,” he said. “You did inherit your Mama’s feet. They are really bad!” (yikes!) “And I hate to tell you this, but we cannot fix them The left one is exceptionally bad, and the right one could possibly be helped by surgery, but probably not because of how damaged the joints are in there. I wouldn’t even try it, really. So. What do you think we should do?”
My heart felt so heavy. The path my mother had taken was prednisone shots as often as she could get them and a heavy dependence on pain medications. I had purposed that I would not live as she had and though I did not want surgery, I wanted otheroptions!.
I guess that I knew things were going downhill over the last year. There was so much to occupy my heart and my hands that demanded much from my feet, and I often didn’t really take time to think about how I was walking or how often I was choosing to grab the golf cart instead of trekking to the chicken house to find Certain Man. I resented when people alluded to my “limping.” But what I couldn’t ignore was the comments from the little grands concerning how Grammy was walking. In the honesty of children, we sometimes can hear what adults aren’t saying. What they said was humorous, but sometimes I would see pictures of myself, and see that there was constraint on my face, or feel so clumsy and disabled in comparison to my peers.
. . . and then there was the very real component of the increasing pain. Pain and this Delaware Grammy have an adversarial relationship. I do have an exceptionally high pain tolerance. (I once had a doctor tell me that because of the high tolerance, I needed to pay better attention to pain because one day I would ignore it too long and it would have serious consequences). People, listen to me. I’m not bragging. There are no heroics here. The strange thing is, I honestly do not feel pain until it’s pretty high on the scale. Those rating numbers? They confuse me. I have to stop and concentrate to decide if I even have pain unless it’s about an eight. “What is your pain today?” puts my head into a tailspin.
“Well, maybe I’m not having pain today. Well, yes, I am. But it’s not too bad. It was when I was walking, though. I could hardly walk for a bit coming in. But it’s not too bad now! So maybe that’s a four! Yes, it’s a four. I tell them a four.” And so I would!
“And at the worst?”
This one was easier for me because there is a level that I reach when I would reluctantly take a stronger pain medication than Ibuprofen and acetaminophens. About two or three times a week, when things got hard and I needed to do something, or I needed to sleep, I would reach for it. That was when things were an “eight.” Sometimes I would be tempted to think “nine” or even “ten” but honey chil’, I’ve been there and this wasn’t that! Eight keeps you awake at night. Eight makes you want to sit on your chair during the day. Eight makes you want to not go away from your house. Eight makes you look at chairs with scrutiny before sitting down in them so that you will be able to get up without making a spectacle of yourself. Eight was happening entirely too often. I wasn’t increasing the use of the extra pain medication, but I often wanted to. And Eight makes me sad.
In these days I often talk to Mama as I contemplate this place to which I have come. I tell her “I’m so sorry, Mama. I just didn’t know. I didn’t understand how pain affects our personality. I didn’t understand how much you hated the things that could have helped you that felt like an admission of decline. I didn’t understand why you grasped at so many things to fix it. And I often felt like you needed to be more active and invested in the lives of the people around you. I just didn’t know.”
And I think of the physical and soul pain of people I love in my family and beyond, some younger, some older than me. The losses of loved ones, the inroads of chronic pain and disability associated with mysterious diseases, broken relationships, cancer, aging, and so much more. I’m suddenly aware that “I just didn’t know.” (But boy, howdy, am I finding out! Especially that aging bit).
This recalcitrant foot pain? It can be temporarily treated, but there is no long term fix. Dr. O put shots in both feet, and they definitely feel better. I finished my day happily doing some gardening, picking my tea bed, stripping tea leaves for concentrate and getting them steeping for the night. I took care of correspondence, and then finally went to bed around 11:30. At almost 2:00 I was suddenly wide awake. My feet didn’t hurt, but they were hit with what my Grandma Wert would call “the fidgets” (or Restless Leg Syndrome). Incidentally, my Mama inherited her feet from her Mama. My Grandma Wert often complained of her feet hurting her.
And I’m still wide awake. Prednisone, the all-purpose fixer upper does wonderful things for me. Usually, anyhow. The effects are rapid, and often last much longer than predicted as far as helping. The short term is not as pleasant. I do not understand how a shot in the foot can make me wide awake, have a flushed face, feel hot, and in general disrupt my equilibrium. I don’t have any anaphylactic reactions, just annoying. I really want to sleep. I don’t like getting flushed. I don’t like getting the “fidgets.” They make me feel like a four year old that wants to get into something, and I especially don’t like feeling restless. The symptoms are often less noticeable if I get up and do something. And so you got this very self-centered post that I wrote between 2:30 and 4:30am. Now you know.
But there are reasons for grateful praise. I’m realizing more and more that while this kind of suffering is not “suffering for Jesus,” how I respond to it can be a part of the perfecting of His image in my life. This “suffering” is because I am part of the Human Race, and life isn’t going to be perfect. There are sometimes miracles that fix things, and modern medicine has in its hands wonderful solutions to a myriad of problems, once unfixable and terminal. But there are some things they cannot fix. And some things God chooses not to fix. My response to this God who suffered for me, loves me even in my questions, and keeps His Promises cannot depend on whether He decides to do what I want, when I want it, how I want it and where. He is to be trusted, even when my questions don’t have answers. Someday, if it still matters, I will know why. But I wonder if, when I’m in the very presence of a Holy God, forgiven, clothed in the righteousness of Jesus, it will matter at all. I think not.
And so for Grace to figure out how to maneuver this journey, for the love of my husband and family, both immediate and extended, for a church that helps to hold me steady, a neighborhood full of people I love, a world as mesmerizingly beautiful as ours, and even for this moment when I wish I was sleeping, but am not–
Delaware Grammy 