45 years later

I recently returned from an amazing weekend in the Chicago area.  Forty-five years ago I graduated from the diploma program at West Suburban Hospital School of Nursing.  Our class had not gotten together in a very long time, so this past weekend we gathered at a hotel in the area.  Sixty-one graduated in 1965.  Six are deceased.  Of the remaining fifty-five, thirty-one attended, plus one classmate who started with us but left part way through the program.  Eight husbands also came to the reunion.


The incredible thing about the reunion was that the bond forged through our common experiences and faith was still totally intact.  Each person had the chance to share with the group an outline of her life's journey.  The direction of many of those journeys was unanticipated at the outset.  Professional and personal lives went in directions that could not have been foreseen.  Amazing opportunities mixed with heartbreaking challenges. 


The group included OR nurses, ER nurses, school nurses, OB nurses, medical-surgical nurses, a hospital administrator, several who work as resource nurses available by phone, and a few who have spent the majority of their lives as stay-at-home mothers.  Some have spent many years in foreign countries.  Others have repeatedly gone on short term missions projects.  Classmates have been all over the world using their skills to help hurting people.


But, classmates have also been deeply hurt themselves by divorces, miscarriages, the death of a spouse, the death of a child, physical and mental illness in the family, and personal health issues.  Three of the classmates who attended have had breast cancer.  One who was unable to attend is currently going through chemotherapy for lymphoma. Some have mobility issues and were unable to attend.  One came in a wheelchair with the help of her husband.


As each person shared, the love and support of the group was obvious.  Anything and everything could be poured out with no fear of anyone being judgmental.  We all have been battered by life and survived.  There was no reason for pretense.


Words are inadequate to describe the spirit that pervaded our time together. As we sang our class song,  I think most of us were amazed at how relevant it was to our lives, having been written before we stepped out into the world as nurses.  Our big sister class had chosen a verse for us on which we were to base our class song.


Isaiah 26:3  Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he trusteth in Thee.


During my nursing days, I pray,
Give me thy perfect peace each day.
Show thy love, thy strength through me.
May I always trust in thee.


When trials come and I'm afraid,
Lord, may my mind on thee be stayed.
Often hard my way will be.
Keep me trusting, trusting thee.


When blessing come, may I recall,
That thou, O Lord, art over all.
May my heart be humble still.
Keep me centered in thy will.


Then perfect peace, my heart shall know.
Then shall my lips, with praise o'er flow.
Where ere I am, others will see,
Jesus alone living in me.

The Strutter

She has been circling our block over and over again for the past couple of weeks.  Sometimes she is accompanied by two young children....perhaps younger siblings.  I have also seen her with another girl about her age and with a couple of boys close to her age.  She is probably about 13.


It's a free country, and she can walk around the block on the sidewalk as much as she pleases.  But, she concerns me, because she isn't just walking.  She is strutting her stuff..."her stuff" being those newly acquired curves that a girl her age often has.


I have seen this type of activity in a girl her age before, and I know it can lead to trouble.  Although we live on a lovely street with good neighbors, I have over the years been aware of unsavory characters on both cross streets for our block.  I don't know if she is trying to attract the attention of someone specific and would be smart enough to run from the advances of men of inappropriate age, or not.


Additionally, she has not confined herself to the sidewalks.  Our neighbor caught her in his yard taking apples off the trees.  I saw her in our back yard by the tomato plants.  It appeared that she was picking green tomatoes.  I banged on the window, and she ran away.  Yesterday my husband, who was sitting in the living room with the front door open, heard her outside our house bragging to some companions that she had messed around in our tomatoes.


So...what to do?  
Ignore her?  But then I would feel guilty of something happened to her.
Speak to her?  She will just think I am a foolish and clueless old woman.  Girls her age know everything, or at least, think they do.
Talk to her mother?  I have no idea who her mother is.  If she allows her daughter to "strut" maybe she doesn't care...or maybe she isn't home and the girl is supposed to be babysitting the young children who circle the block with her.


So I am pondering:  if I see her in the tomatoes again, what if I follow her home....don't speak to her...just walk around the block about 20 feet behind her, until she goes into a house or apartment?  Then I follow her in, knock on the door, and see if an adult is there and willing to talk to me.  Too confrontational?   Might just end in trouble?


Sigh....I know I can pray for her, but sometimes action is required.  What to do?

The Wallpaper Saga

Although I do like wallpaper, it is much easier to repaint a room than to repaper.  So, in redecorating our new house, I chose to only paper walls which already had paper on them.


When I hired the handy man to do the work, I asked if he painted and papered.  He said that he did, but over the next couple of weeks, I began to realize that I knew more about papering than he did.  He was planning to have his daughter help him, but eventually I figured out that she too had very little experience.


Meantime, I ordered the wallpaper necessary for the rooms that had paper on them....22 double rolls, over $1000 worth.  Most of the paper arrived in less than 10 days.  However, while the border for the kitchen was delivered, the paper for the kitchen walls wasn't.  A call to the store from which I had purchased it revealed that it was "back ordered," and would be shipped in a couple of weeks.  The couple of weeks passed and a further call indicated that the paper was not even printed, but was scheduled for printing this past week and was to be shipped on Friday.


By this time, most of the ceilings and woodwork had been painted, so it was time to begin papering.  I told the young lady who was working with her dad at the house, that I would do the first room with her and see how she did.  Although she caught on quickly to the actual application of the paper, I did not have confidence that she would be able to measure accurately and match the patterns.  I resigned myself to working with her.
First, we did a bathroom.  We were one piece short...my fault.  I knew when I ordered 2 double rolls that I was cutting it close, and that if things didn't match up conveniently I was probably in trouble.  Worst case scenario prevailed, and I had to order an additional roll.


I placed the order while home for lunch, then went back over to the new house and papered all afternoon.  When I got home there was a message to call the store.  The person I needed to talk to was gone, so I called again the next day.  They wanted me to come in and put a deposit down on the paper.  I was NOT pleased.  I have shopped at this store for 35 years and have an account there.  I had just ordered 22 rolls which were entirely paid for, although 6 were back ordered and not yet in my possession, but they wanted a deposit on one stinking roll!  If I wanted to be treated that way I could shop at certain other big chain stores.


The papering endeavor continued.  As of Thursday, we had done all of the rooms we had paper for...two bathrooms, a dining room, the entry and a long hallway with lots of doors requiring lots of cutting in.  On Friday, I came home from doing some school-shopping with my granddaughter and found a message from the store..."Your border is in."


I called the store.  The manager cheerfully greeted me and asked, "How are you today?"
I said, "I will be better when you tell me that you misspoke, and that it isn't the border you have, but the paper for the walls."
After a very long time on hold, he came back on the line and informed me that sadly the company had reshipped the border and it was now too late in the day to send out the paper.  It will be shipped on Monday.


Good grief!


I did tell him to hang on to the border, in the event, which I am beginning to believe is quite likely, that the color on the border I already have is not a good color match with the just printed paper. Sometimes dyes vary enough that one needs to be concerned about such.  That would be the crowning blow if the paper arrived and didn't really match the border.


It will be a long time before I want to paper again.

The World's Worst Mother

One of my nieces posted on Facebook that she is afraid she is "the World's Worst Mother."
Ha!  Don't give yourself so much credit!  I'm sure I had that title long before you did.


Every mother is the world's worst or the world's best, not by any objective standard, but by the moods and whims of her children.  This is particularly true when the children are teens, which her children are currently.


I have the distinction of having been reported for child abuse of which I was not guilty.  Lucky for me, the child involved went to the police who verified there were no marks indicating the abuse the child claimed.  Therefore, when that child the next week went to social services, which has to investigate everything reported, there was credible evidence in my favor.  This whole situation, however, filled me with terror.  Eventually I was cleared and all record of the accusation supposedly "expunged," but the anxiety of the experience is easy to recall.


We mothers have to set a standard for conduct.  Some children are going to be compliant and not rock the boat.  Others are going to take every opportunity to try to sink it.  We wouldn't feel so awful about this if we didn't love them so.


I used to tell the non-compliant ones, "I am standing next to the highway jumping up and down and screaming that the bridge is out ahead.  You are ignoring my warnings and zooming by with the accelerator all the way to the floor."  What is a mother to do when she sees disaster looming?  Is she suppose to stand idly by?  No, I say keep jumping up and down!  Maybe...just maybe...they will eventually get the picture before they go crashing over the cliff.


Here's a little secret.  If they do go crashing off the cliff and end up in pieces in the ravine, guess who they are going to call for help?  Be prepared to keep loving them and trying to help them patch up their lives.  Maybe someday they will understand that you are among THE BEST.

Dumb or Smart?

The question of the day is whether I am dumb for getting myself in a jam, or smart for getting myself out of it.


I took a break from the sorting and packing in preparation for moving and ran out for a few groceries.  After shopping I placed the groceries in the cargo area of my station wagon, slammed down the door, and came to the sickening realization that the car keys were now locked inside the car.  I had placed them on the edge of the trunk area while loading the groceries.  Although the remote control that opens the door electronically was the item on the key ring that was wedged in the door, there had not been a direct hit on the button which makes the horn sound incessantly.  That was the good news.  A resounding horn would have attracted attention to my bone-headed maneuver.  It also meant that although the door was locked and I could not open it, the thickness of the remote was creating somewhat of a gap.


After calling my husband to come with his set of keys, I decided to use the wait productively.  The keys were tantalizingly visible through the gap.  First I inserted a pen to try and fish them out.  No luck.  Then I remembered that I usually have a small screwdriver in my purse.  I wiggled the screw driver in and tried moving the keys into various positions, hoping that I could snag a key and somehow pull the whole thing out.  Several minutes of this proved futile.


Eventually I realized that I could pull the car key itself completely outside the door.  I then used the screwdriver to open up the ring that was holding it.  I could not grasp the entire ring since a good portion of it was under the door, but once I had it spread open, I was able to get a good enough grip to twist it until the key was free of the ring.


I opened the trunk and the car door and called my husband to cancel his emergency run.


I have no idea if anyone was watching me do all this.  I suppose it was amusing if some man was sitting in the car waiting for his grocery-shopping wife.  Glad to provide some entertainment.


I suppose I could spiritualize this experience and say how grateful I am that God allowed the gap in the door and enabled me to solve this.  I am indeed grateful for all the ways in which God watches out for me.  But, I keep coming back to the question:  Was I dumb to get into this mess or smart to get out of it?  I'm thinking both.

Dirty Little Work Gloves

Today I steeled myself against sentiment and threw out a pair of dirty little work gloves.


When my son was a little guy, he loved to be outside and "help" his Dad stack wood.  He observed that his Dad had a pair of work gloves that he used when engaging in this task.  So, one day he said to me, "Mom, I need a pair of dirty little work gloves."


I replied, "I can get you a pair of little work gloves, but you will have to get them dirty yourself."


He gave me a puzzled expression, but didn't ask any questions.


I found the smallest child size gloves that I could, but he was only 5 or 6 at the time, and they were a bit too large.  No matter...he was very pleased and proud of his work gloves and put them to use many times as he grew into them.


They laid around in his room long after he outgrew them and were, of course, left behind when he went to college.  The imminent move to a  smaller home is forcing me to make decisions about all sorts of things that have been cluttering up the place for years.  Today I finished removing the last of his belongings from his room.  Everything is either in storage for him or discarded or in the rummage sale heap.


I paused holding the gloves, knowing I should toss them out, but thinking about the hours of activity with his Dad that put the dirt in those little gloves.  It is the dirt that makes them valuable to me.  A pair of work gloves as pristine as the day they were purchased would have no meaning.


The work of daily life may get us dirty and leave us ragged, but that is what makes life valuable and meaningful.  

The Joys of Being Forgetful

Tonight for supper we had breaded pork chops, baked red potatoes and yellow beans.  I thought that the mixed berry applesauce I happened to have on hand would complement this nicely.
My husband looked at it and said, "Is this applesauce?"
Then before I had a chance to respond, he tasted it and said, "Oooo...that's good."
About 5 weeks ago, I also served this type of applesauce.  On that occasion, my husband said, "Is this applesauce?  Oooo...that's good."
He has no recollection of this prior and identical conversation.  When I attempted to remind him, he responded, "Well, there's an advantage of being forgetful!  You can be pleasantly surprised twice."
So perhaps I have discovered a test for early dementia.  I will wait five weeks, serve mixed berry applesauce again, and if we have this conversation a third time, I will be genuinely worried.  In the meantime, I will enjoy the fact that his taste buds were delighted with a "new" flavor twice.