Tag Archives: Death

Memories on Ice

20 Thursday Jan 2011

Posted by in Life at Home, The Great Outdoors

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Sleet danced on the rooftop last night.

But for the first time in years, it did not waken me.  Perhaps time has done its job in healing the wounds of Mother’s death.  Still.  While no longer linked to winter’s pounding ice, I suppose her December funeral and the crippling central Oklahoma snow storm that followed will live in memory until I die.

It is no small consolation that my memories no longer seem to reach out of a frozen past to startle me into sadness.  If there is winter ice sadness today, it will come from being housebound — from a fear of driving on slick roads, enough to keep me from my daughter’s side.  Today will be my first absence –  if one doesn’t count last weekend’s self-enforced exile, when I left my post as ‘New Mother’s Helper” to create space for my son-in-law’s parents to discover new granddaughter delights on their own — without benefit of any color commentary I would have struggled to contain:  “Oh, try this…;” or …. “Oh, no, she doesn’t like that….!”  –  all those sort of truthful remarks that hinder rather than help.

Yet the glad and sad-for-grandmother truth is that mother and child are weaning themselves away from true need of my help.  Yesterday, I mostly carried out a few household chores — laundry and more laundry –  while taking time to preserve Reese’s first days with still images.

With much to do, it’s hard to stand still — to allow these first moments near my new grandchild to swaddle me.  Yet, how easy it is to sit when Reese is placed in my arms.  Then and only then does time cease to matter as I rock away cares and chores and the tick-tock minutes.

I look down at her miniature features to watch the myriad expressions baptize her nose, eyes and Gerber cheeks — accompanied by a symphony of sounds rising out of her slightly parted lips.  My eyes water at mystery.  I wonder about what she is thinking — what memories she is even now this very minute forming that can never be shared for lack of words and images and maturity to convey them.

Words about a baby’s memory from a book I’m reading intersect with everyday life today.  They come from a science fiction novel — Orson Scott Card’s Speaker for the Dead — which I would never have read, but for urging from a close friend.  I am grateful for his suggestion and for several lines of Card’s thoughts which have invited deeper contemplations of life, like this:

A human child loses almost all the memories of the first years of its life, and its long-term memories only take root in the second or third year of life; everything before that is lost, so that the child cannot remember the beginning of life.

What thoughts dance at the top of my grandchild’s mind, especially when she flails her arms about startled?  Whatever they are, they cause me to respond with a soothing word.  With all the love that I am, I cuddle her close and console her with soft pats on her back.

As Reese dozed yesterday, time melted away to startle me awake with my own first memory.  What it is I may one day share.  But what interests me most today is not mine, but yours.  So I ask: What is your first memory, the first of many frozen in time?  When was it born?

A Winning Combination

29 Wednesday Dec 2010

Posted by in In the Kitchen, Life at Home

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No matter how it’s done, a meal followed by a game is a winning combination.

Tonight, while my husband and brother-in-law dined out before going to the Thunder game, Kyle and I did it our own way– by taking advantage of my husband’s absence to enjoy a meal my husband doesn’t like:  Red Swiss Steak, Re-baked Potatoes and Cream-style Corn.  And tonight I lucked out.  Because the potatoes turned out nice and creamy when usually I struggle to make them as good as Mom’s.

Kyle and I were lucky in other ways too, since we shared our meal with Bryan and Amy, who ended up bringing along Amy’s new board game to play after dinner.  We had so much fun — one minute eating good food around the table, the next wiping it clean to set up Amy’s game.

It made me wonder how many times my children ate this same meal at Mom’s –  followed by a game.  Too many to count.  Though usually the game was some sort of card game — the favorites being either Ten-To-One or Nasty Canasta, depending on how many card-players there were.

Life without Mom does get easier, though it doesn’t happen sequentially.  Because there are times — like this week –  when I really wish she could have been here to tell me “things were going to be all right.”   And maybe it was this desire  — to tell myself that “things” were going to be all right — that actually inspired tonight’s menu.

We take comfort where and how we can — and tonight, I took mine in Mom’s tried and true combination of Red Swiss Steak and Re-baked Potatoes.

Miss you Mom.

Red Swiss Steak

Feeds 4 to 8  Preparation time 20 minutes/Oven time 90 minutes

2 lbs cubed round steak
2 Tbs cooking oil
1/2 cup flour
1 onion sliced thin (microwaved 70 seconds on high to soften)
1 12-oz can tomato paste
2 cups water
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper

Preheat oven to 350.  Heat oil in skillet over medium heat; flour and brown steak on both sides.  Cook onions in microwave and mix remaining ingredients for sauce.  In a greased casserole dish with a lid, add a half cup of sauce, half the meat, all the onions topped with another half cup of sauce, followed by the remaining meat and sauce.  Cover and bake.

Re-Baked Potatoes

Serves 6 to 8  Preparation time:  15 minutes/ Cooking time:  1.5 hours

4 baking-size potatoes
1 Tbsp olive oil
6 Tbsp butter, softened
4 oz cream cheese, softened (I use the kind with chives)
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup milk
1/2 to 1 cup grated cheddar cheese
Salt and pepper (begin with 1 tsp of salt & 1/4 tsp pepper, then adjust to taste)

To Bake: Preheat oven to 425.  Wash and dry potatoes.  Pierce with fork, three times on each side and coat with olive oil.  Place in pre-heated oven (without foil) and bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes — or until potatoes are tender when pinched (using a potholder).  Remove from oven and cool for 5 minutes.

To Re-bake: Slice potatoes horizontally into two even portions.  Scoop potato into a large bowl filled with  butter, cream cheese and sour cream.  Place empty potato jackets onto a foil-lined baking pan.   Add milk, salt and pepper and mix with an electric beater, until smooth and creamy, having the consistency of mashed potatoes.  Add more milk if necessary.  Adjust seasonings.  Then scoop potato filling back into jackets and top with cheese.  Return to oven for final baking — 10 minutes at 350 or until cheese is melted.

Preparation Note:  These can be made in advance up to the point of re-baking — though if the potatoes are cool, the re-bake will take longer — up to 20 minutes.

Here I Am

29 Friday Oct 2010

Posted by in Home Restoration, Life at Home, Prayer, Soul Care, The Great Outdoors, Writing

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How is it that none of the month’s joys or sorrow have anchored the days?

So much has happened.  Engagement announcements, baby showers, my 55th birthday and last week’s unexpected short getaway to San Antonio.  And then there have been all the many mini-dramas and comedies which fill everyday life.  And though I touch upon it all in my off-line journal, it’s only here that I really work to get underneath the surface events — to explore and name my deepest feelings of the moment.

So its unfortunate (for me) that I have not written here this month.  Mostly, I have been uninspired to write here.  In part, the thought of trying to write beautiful sentences has exhausted me.  And if I’m being honest, maybe I just wanted to have a good pout — what my younger sister likes to call, the Pappas Pout –  where one goes off to sulk alone in a bedroom, after slamming a few doors to ensure everyone and the neighbors too, know that you’re mad and sad.

But today, as I sat in my favorite living room chair after writing three morning pages, I began to think that maybe I should just sit down and write a few lines of everyday sentences in my blog  — and not worry over making them their Sunday Best.

So.  Here I am.  And just writing these three little words — here I am — reminds me that the prophet Isaiah also spoke these words to God before God set his charred lips loose to say a few words on His behalf.

So what is it that causes me to sulk rather than write?  I can only point to my Aunt Jo’s death.  It doesn’t help to tell myself that she’s in a better place.  And all of this is mixed up with my own mortality, of course, as that older generation ahead of me falls one by one, like a row of dominoes, each one falling closer and closer to me.

But yesterday, I realized that this particular vintage of my favorite month is almost used up.  And on the most important level — the one which has me taking notice of glimpses of Reality –  the month has unfolded its goodness and truth and beauty without my notice.

I am sorry to have missed out on the the miracle of cool crisp nights and lovely fall foliage and the particular way the autumn sun causes my living room to glow and shimmer for a few minutes each October day.

This weekend, I will be in the cool sunshine days dipping a paintbrush into a bucket of paint at my sister’s house.  The plan is to finish what she and I began last April –  the restoration of her homestead inheritance.  And knowing myself as I do, knowing that I grieve best with a paintbrush in my hand, my plan is to finish with this grieving of Aunt Jo’s death.  Because I don’t wish to miss out on the deepest and best part of everyday life.

October, here I am.