Journal: Goodbye, Dear Brother

 

Last week our kids were in a debate about what day would work for our Christmas family get-together.

“You know,” I told them, “if we’d started parties after midnight, and partied and ate our way through the night until dawn, it would open up a whole lot more possible dates for everyone.”

My story about mothballs brought on a story by a quilting friend:  “Your story about the mothballs made me laugh, as a friend of mine had a house that smelled like mothballs.  She said it kept the bugs out; but I think it also kept her visitors from wanting to stay too long!”

That in turn reminded me of yet another mothball story:  We had an elderly friend years ago who every Sunday carefully removed his suit from a box full of mothballs, put it on, and came to church.  After each service, he would return home, and carefully fold that suit back into the box of mothballs.  Aiiiiyiiiyiiieee.  We all fought to sit at far corners from him in the sanctuary.  😅😂

Back when I cleaned out my brother’s house, I found an extra-wide Rowenta ironing board with oodles of height adjustments and a rack for the iron to sit on, tucked away in a cubbyhole under the wide entry steps.  It’s been in my basement for a while, because I thought it might be a bit too big to put in my quilting studio, which doesn’t have any excess of space.

But a couple of weeks ago while ironing the backing for a quilt, I thought, Just how bothersome would it be to have a few more inches taken up by a wider, sturdier ironing board?! 

So Larry brought it upstairs for me, and it’s enough nicer that I wonder why in the world I didn’t bring it up here in the first place.  A couple of extra inches don’t really cause any trouble at all.

I have now officially retired the ironing board I got for a wedding gift 45 years ago.

I sometimes watch (or mostly listen, when I’m busy) a channel on YouTube where a British family now living in France is restoring a chateau and an abandoned convent.

As they checked the big beams in the ceiling of the convent, Billy Petherick said, regarding his friend and coworker, “I’ve named Sean the chief engineer; so, mate, if the building falls down, it’s on your head!” 

He says stuff like that all the time, then looks surprised (I can never tell if he really is, or if he’s just playing for the camera), and laughs.

I spent part of last week making labels for quilts.  I’m so pleased that my embroidery/sewing machine is working properly again – though the man must’ve adjusted the thread cutter to cut a bit too close to the bobbin, so I have to extract the bobbin and pull out a bit of thread at every thread change.  Always something to test my patience, it seems!

My Christmas photo-cards arrived Friday around noon.  Soon I was running envelopes through my printer.  I keep a file of all the addressees on my computer, so all I have to do is adjust the size of the envelope and load the envelope tray.  155 of the cards will be taken to church on the 22^nd.  There will be labeled and alphabetized sacks on tables in the Fellowship Hall, so it’s a quick job to drop 155 envelopes into bags – so long as those envelopes are also alphabetized.  I have about 22 cards to mail.

I hope everyone doesn’t get as struck funny over our picture as we did once upon a time when someone we used to know gave us a picture – a studio picture, mind you – of himself in a Sherlock deerstalker and trenchcoat.

It was a good thing I found those photo-cards when I did, because they were on the porch in a box with no plastic around the inside contents, and we were expecting a freezing drizzle to start that afternoon or evening.  It was already down to 22° with a windchill of 10°.  

Victoria sent this funny picture of Baby Arnold, writing, “He’s forever standing on something.”

As soon as the cards were in the envelopes, I made a pillowcase for Grant.  His quilt fits in it perfectly.  Perhaps I’ll make him a decorative matching pillow for his birthday.

A little before 5:00 p.m., a male hospice nurse called to tell me that Loren was declining.  He hasn’t been eating for the last several weeks; probably the Ensure drinks were all that he was getting any nutrition from.  Now he was unable to swallow.  The man said they also had to up his pain medications.  He would be checking on Loren more often now, he told me, adding that he probably only had days to live.

I wrapped the rest of the presents that had come in the mail, along with the quilts I’d sewn labels on.

Why is it that when I get two robes, one for Joanna (teal) and one for Emma (purple) that I think are quite similar in quality, I wind up with one that feels thin and cheap (Joanna’s)?  Emma’s feels lovely and plush.  This isn’t the first time this has happened.  So... I ordered another one for Joanna.  I’ll return the first, if the second is all right.

That evening and into the night, a good portion of the eastern part of the state got about 2/10” of ice.  There were dozens of crashes and vehicles sliding off the roads in Omaha and Lincoln, and I80 between the two cities was shut down after multiple trucks were unable to make it up a hill, stranding a whole lot of vehicles behind them, some for up to six hours.  A couple of people reported seeing a semi get nearly to the top of a hill, then jackknife and slide all the way back down again.  Some areas got snow on top of the ice.  Roads had been pretreated, but the drizzling rain before the ice effectively wiped the pretreatment right off.

By Saturday afternoon, the roads seemed to be mostly clear, so we headed to Omaha to see Loren.  Our route was mostly wet and foggy, with visibility at about half a mile; we had no trouble driving it.

We found Loren with a lady – a resident of the home – who was trying hard to help him do... something.  Anything.  Her name was Mary Jo.  Judging by how diligently she was trying to get Loren to have a sip of his Ensure, or a drink of water, and how she worked at keeping the table nice and neat, I imagine she was a hard-working lady who took very good and loving care of her family, and kept her house spic and span.

“Someone has come to see you!” she told Loren, patting him on the arm and looking questioningly at me.

“I’m his sister,” I told her.

“I’m so glad to finally meet you!” she responded.  Then, to Loren, “Your sister is here!”

But he could not lift his head, or look up at us.

“Have you driven far?” asked Mary Jo.

“We came from Columbus,” I told her.  “It’s gotten quite foggy out.”

And then Mary Jo, after seeming normal as could be thus far, introduced herself.  “I’m his wife!” 

I, being fresh out of witty retorts, said, “Huh,” in as intelligent a tone as I could muster. 

She did have a ring on her fourth left finger.  The man who had actually given it to her would’ve probably been surprised – well, no, maybe not.

Mary Jo considered me for a moment.  “Am I his first wife?” she asked.

I debated (very quickly) my answer.  “No,” I said truthfully.

She looked a bit crestfallen, then queried, “Does he have children?”

“Yes,” I said.  “They live in Texas.”

“Oh,” said Mary Jo in a sad little voice.  Then she straightened her shoulders, gave me a bright smile, and said, “That’s good!”  And in so doing, she cheered herself right back up again.

I tried to talk to Loren, and showed him our Christmas card-photo that I’d brought him, holding it where he’d be able to see it. 

He looked at it and gave a slight little smile, but I don’t have any idea if he actually saw it. 

Larry patted gently on his shoulder and said his name, and Loren tried to turn his head, and gave enough of smile that I knew he heard and recognized Larry’s voice.  But there was no more response than that.  He did not seem to be in pain, though; I was thankful for that.

A little later, as we walked out of that room and across the commons, a lady in a wheelchair recognized me, and, lifting one hand in my direction, tried hard to make her wheelchair go toward me.  The only way she knows to do this is by leaning forward, then back, then forward, then back, then forward, trying to work up momentum like a child on a swing.  Sometimes she tries to use her feet on the floor, but she’s just as liable to propel herself backwards as she is to go forward, doing this.

I went and took her hand and greeted her.  She hung onto my hand for a bit, then held up her other one to Larry.  He congenially took it, while I withdrew mine and continued toward the door.

I got waylaid by another lady in a wheelchair.  This lady is bigger – not heavy, but taller, and stronger – than the other, and she brought her chair toward me at a surprisingly fast clip, considering the fact that she, too, does not know how to make the wheelchair go by turning the wheels with her hands.  Being longer-legged, though, and with rubber-soled shoes on her feet instead of slipper socks, she came along pell-mell, Flintmobile style, also holding out a hand and intoning, “I FOUND IT IT’S MINE YOU FOUND IT THERE YOU ARE I’M HERE I FOUND IT THIS IS ME—” and on and on.  Let’s call her ‘Jethrine’.

I saw a nurse going for the door-unlock button, and made a hasty retreat toward that door.

Larry, however, had evidently turned off his Survival Instinct mode, and he, having escaped the clutches of the first lady and not wanting to look like he was playing favorites, held out his hand to the second.

Trouble was, Jethrine’s hand was bigger, and by all appearances, tougher (though appearances can be deceiving) than his.  (“I think she lifted weights in her youth,” I told one of our girls this evening.)  Jethrine got a grip, and then she hung on, still muttering, “THAT’S YOU I’M HERE YOU FOUND IT IT’S MINE I FOUND IT THERE YOU ARE HERE WE ARE I FOUND IT—”

The nurse who had pushed the unlock button sized things up and hurried around the counter at the nurses’ station to help poor Larry get loose.  With some conniving and a few promises and a bit of gentle manhandling, (womanhandling?), the nurse got Jethrine to relax her grip, and Larry managed to extract his hand.

“IT WAS MINE I FOUND IT, IT WAS MINE I FOUND IT—” said Jethrine, increasing her volume exponentially, as we made a headlong dash for the door, managing to open it and escape before the lock clicked back into place again.

We decided to go to Bass Pro Shops, 16 miles to the southeast in Council Bluffs, Iowa, and then on to Cracker Barrel, another 2 ½ miles to the east, and make use of some of our gift certificates.  Accordingly, we headed through midtown.  It was quite dark by now, and very foggy.  There were Christmas lights here and there, giving everything a mystical quality.

Spotting a church that was all lighted up, we went around the block, lost track of the one we’d actually seen, and found this one instead:  Saint Cecelia’s Cathedral.

I was quite astonished a couple of minutes ago when I looked it up, and discovered that from the back, that cathedral looks five times bigger than it does from the front!  Now I need to go see it again, in the daylight.

Here’s the inside:

Below are the pipes for the organ:

At Bass Pro Shops, we got a jar of Wild Huckleberry preserves, Wild Blackberry preserves, a black and white houndstooth head-warmer with fleecy insides (it matches the gloves I got last year, when there was not a single matching head-warmer on the rack), wool socks and a tiny LED flashlight for Larry’s brother Kenny, whose birthday was a couple of weeks ago, Uncle Buck’s Garlic and Parmesan Biscuit Mix, and Uncle Buck’s Creamy Potato Soup Mix.

We watched the big fish (this is a catfish) in the aquarium, took the glass-walled elevator up to the second floor, and tried not to miss a thing in that big store.

There are many small, exquisitely-carved post tops on the upper floor:

Shortly after we arrived at Cracker Barrel a while later, Hester texted to find out if the roads were icy, and if we had made it safely to Omaha.

“Yes, and now we’re at Cracker Barrel,” I responded.  “Why did I get Sugar Plum tea??  It’s waaay too sweet.  😜”

“Lololol  Does it taste like plums?” she asked.  “I’ve never tried that.”

“Not.... really,” I answered.  “Hope I didn’t get the mimosa by mistake!”  (It wasn’t.)  Then I added, “Daddy likes it!  (He would.)  I’ve ordered coffee as an antidote.”

Here he is puzzling through information about a readout warning on the Mercedes, while we wait for our food.  

I had Rainbow trout, house salad, and fresh fruit.  Larry had meatloaf, fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, and fried, sliced apples.  There was a basket of hot biscuits to go with our meal, too.

By the time we left Omaha and headed home, it was foggier than ever.  The roads were wet but not slick yet, though that could change, as the temperature had fallen to 32°.

It wasn’t too bad until we got to our very own driveway, and then I had to put on my HiTec boots in order to walk even on the rocks.  I took to the grass rather than trying to navigate the shimmering front sidewalk.

At 5:33 a.m., a nurse called from Prairie Meadows and said that at 5:27 a.m., she was unable to find a pulse on Loren.  She had already called the hospice nurse, and he would be there soon, and would call me after looking at Loren.

He had to get dressed and drive slick roads in Omaha, so it was an hour before he called to verify that Loren has passed away.  He would call Gass-Haney Funeral Home here in Columbus, and they would transport Loren back to Columbus.

I will miss him... but more the person he used to be than as he has been in the last few years while he struggled with that awful disease, Lewy Body dementia.  I like to remember him as he was when I was young.  He and his wife Janice were good to me.

He believed in the Lord and Savior, and we believe, too; and we will see him again someday in heaven.  That’s the glorious truth of the gospel.

We have many loved ones who loved the Lord and are waiting for us on the other side.  I’m so thankful for the comfort this brings.

My friend Penny sent me a quote from Thomas Watson, an English Puritan preacher and author who lived from 1620 to 1686:  “The providence of God is a tapestry of grace, where every thread, even the darkest, contributes to the glorious picture of our salvation.  His providence is a rich treasure; He knows how to turn our trials into triumphs, our sorrows into songs.”

Mama died 21 years ago on December 12^th.  She, too, was 86.  She was 21 when Loren was born, and 43 – nearly 44 – when I was born.

Since I figured this would likely happen – Loren passing away right before Christmas, that is – I tried to be mostly ready for Christmas.  I had his funeral arrangements taken care of over a year ago, with just a few details to iron out. 

I went to Gass-Haney Funeral Home this morning to make arrangements for the visitation and the service.  Visitation was tonight from 6-8 p.m.  It was good to visit with family and friends who care.  We truly do have some very dear friends.

The service will be tomorrow.

Regarding the injured toe of last Monday:  Larry explains, as he always does in these sitchee-aye-shuns, how much better it is to wear boots; and I explain, as always, that I don’t WANNA wear boots.

It’s getting better, and I managed to put it (along with the rest of my foot) into my cute Sunday shoes yesterday.  Saturday, I wore the aforementioned HiTec boots, which have a nice roomy area and reinforcement for the toes.  I was glad I had those things, what with all the walking around in Bass Pro Shops!

Time for bed.

,,,>^..^<,,,          Sarah Lynn          ,,,>^..^<,,,