Grandma Ruthie
He who created the universe,
Willingly confined to bones and flesh,
Immortality became mortal,
Accepting frail humanness.
We, the product of his hands,
Allowed to touch with ours,
The very hands and face of God,
Who for us subdues his powers.
His visage could have struck us dead,
But instead, was marred by man,
For from the very dawn of time,
His death was his own plan.
How can I comprehend it?
A humble incarnation,
Design of an Almighty God
To bring to us salvation.
I just read an article saying that Hillary was right about “deplorables” and their desire to reverse Roe V. Wade and therefore, take away women’s autonomy over their own bodies.
Deplorables are depicted as uneducated right-wing Christian
fascists. Well, that’s pretty insulting
to someone like myself who has a graduate degree, typically scores in the 98th
to 99th percentile on tests, and does not consider my views to be
off the rails into extremism.
I have NOT wanted to vote for Trump in the past two
elections. It required “holding my nose.” I am appalled by some of his attitudes and
behaviors. However, I was also appalled
by the policies espoused by Hillary and now Joe.
I actually do not believe that all abortion is murder. I know that may be heresy to some of my
Christian friends. I think it is
warranted in certain situations…very few situations, but some. I can stomach the idea of early abortion,
particularly in cases of rape and incest.
However, if nothing else, abortion demonstrates disrespect for
life. That general diminishing of the
great importance of human life is behind other ills in our society. School shootings are one thing that come to
mind. Human life, including one’s own
life, must be significantly devalued to the point of mental illness for such
atrocities to occur.
I would argue that a woman gives up control of her own body
when she spreads her legs and allows a man between them. She is surrendering her autonomy either to
him or to her own passions. There are
natural consequences to our behaviors. The
risk of pregnancy is one of them. Either
you accept the consequences of your behavior, or you find some way out…perhaps
by terminating the life of your own child.
Whether Hillary et al. want to believe it or not, there are
moral absolutes. Our society has totally
abandoned that notion. When everything
becomes acceptable, we leave ourselves and our children drifting in a nightmare. To what will we cling? What hope do we have? What we do have is despair as exhibited by
most school shooters and large segments of our society, who feel oppressed and
misunderstood. They act out in rage or dull
their pain through substance abuse.
Trump was in many ways not a reasonable man. (I hope that he
does not run in 2024.) I am hopeful that his appointees to the Supreme Court
are reasonable people who will do whatever they can to restore some
foundational beliefs which have been flushed down the drain in recent years. If they can’t do that, our country is going
to go swirling down the sewer into chaos and complete moral decay.
“It’s all a matter of perspective.” I have heard that expression at times thorough out my life and have previously pondered it.
Today I am flying from San
Francisco, California, to Charlotte, North Carolina, and I am thinking about
how different one’s perspective of the topography is from a bird’s eye view as
from a walking or driving view. What
appears to be an insurmountable barrier from below, looks like nothing more
than a slight indentation from 30,000 feet above. As we drive along a highway passing through
cities and towns, we have no concept of the vast wilderness that is on either
side of it. We may stand next to a river
watching its flow, but we have no understand of where it comes from or where it
goes. A wind turbine looks like a bit of
a toothpick from the air, but having stood at the base of one, I can tell you
that they are enormous.
My granddaughter accused me this
week of not understanding what it is like to be a child. She doesn’t just think I have forgotten. She thinks I never was a child and went
straight to being a grandmother! She is
seven, so she can be forgiven for this total lack of logic. Actually, I do remember what it is like to be
a child, and that is why I bother to attempt to correct her behaviors. I also remember what it was like to be a
not-yet-mature adult, which is why I was not offended greatly when a grandson
told me that my ideas were out-dated and irrelevant. There is a perspective
with age. One might wish to impart a 70+
year old perspective to a young person, but unfortunately…or maybe
fortunately…we each have to live life and experience some pain and sorrow to
gain perspective from the passage of time.
Gender also impacts perspective. I have been better than most females at
understanding what goes through the male brain.
I generally get along better with a group of men than with a group of
women. I like women and have women
friends with whom I share a deep connection, but trying to function with a
group of women sometimes drives me a little crazy. It’s not that there is anything wrong with
the way men and women think…it is wonderful that both exist. But they come from different perspectives. Something which gets discussed in
mind-numbing detail by women would be quickly decided by a group of men. I was once part of an all-female committee
that spent three meetings discussing what color the napkins should be at an
up-coming event. I didn’t attend the
last of those meetings, because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to control the
words that came out of my mouth.
Perhaps, the most important
perspective comes from one’s worldview.
How did we get here? Do we have a
purpose? Do our lives have meaning? If so, what is it? I have been at social events where the
discussion has led me to believe that my worldview is quite different than that
of the typical middle-class white person.
I believe there is a God who is creator and sustainer of the
universe. I believe we are here to honor
Him with our lives. I believe He has a
grand design for the world and humanity, and that we each are to play a part in
fulfilling His plan. I believe
everything we think we own, really belongs to Him. It comes from His kindness to us, and we are
responsible to Him for how we use it.
That includes our time, talents, and material resources. I believe God sent His only Son in the person
of Jesus to pay the penalty for our sin and to restore our broken relationship
with Him. This is the perspective that
has impacted my entire life.
If you are reading this, spend
some time thinking about your perspective.
Veterans’ Day 2020 is a long way from the end of World War II in 1945. That was a very significant time in my young life. I was born just before the war ended. I was 7 months old before I met my father who had been serving in the Army in France. Today I am thinking about my family members who served.
My Dad worked in a grocery store as a butcher prior to the
war. After being drafted and going
through basic training, he was viewed as having leadership potential and was
sent to Officers’ Candidate School. While in the military, he tripped a mine,
but other than a ruptured eardrum, he was not hurt. He told me that the day I was born was the
last day anyone actually shot at him. He
came out of the Army as a 1st Lieutenant, and this gave him a leg-up
in job hunting after the war. He worked
for a time at Wurlitzer, a company that made juke boxes, and then began working
for American Standard as the foreman in the core room. He later moved and ended up as the production
manager in a small business. He spent his life as a “blue collar” worker but
always in management positions within the factory.
My Dad’s brother Roy was a conscientious objector, so he went
in the military as a medic. He was
stationed on a hospital ship in the Pacific and saw some pretty awful
things. He had one experience that
caused him to realize that he could kill someone if he needed to do so. Coming out of the Army, he used the GI bill
to go to college. He became an engineer
specializing in cooling systems. I knew
he traveled all over the world in the early 1950s, a time when such travel wasn’t
typical. Near the end of his 91
year-long life, he confessed that he had been working on cooling systems for
nuclear reactors and couldn’t really admit that or talk about it. He never married or had children. I was his only niece and was probably closer
to him than the nephews were. He
believed having to be in the military had negatively impacted my Dad’s life and
earning potential, so in later years, he would send Dad large sums of
money. Dad would turn around and donate
it somewhere. This annoyed Uncle Roy.
My mother had three brothers, all of whom served during WWII. The oldest brother Frank was already married
and had a child when he left for Europe.
He was wounded by a German sniper, had a metal plate placed in his elbow,
and recovered in England, before being sent back to the states. In his absence, his wife had an affair with
her boss. She left Uncle Frank, divorced
him, and took their son with her. He
tried to keep up with his son initially, although they were living in another
state, but eventually he gave up. He
remarried, but never had another child. I don’t remember his exact career path,
but he ended up as a Family Court Clerk.
Mom’s brother Chuck was my Dad’s best friend when they were
young men. That is how my parents
met. Chuck also served in Europe. When he came home, he had a fairly short
career as a fireman, but then went back into the military in the Air
Force. He made a life-time career of
this, so he was around the least of my uncles as I grew up. He sometimes sent letters and photos of
places he was stationed. He was in
Alaska in the 50s and was once stationed at the Pentagon. He was married but had no children. He died unexpectedly at the age of 50 as a
Lieutenant Colonel and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. I have visited his grave there.
Mom’s youngest brother Art was in north Africa during the war
and contracted malaria. He had some bouts
with this after the war. He used the GI
bill to attend college and law school.
He married and was into a promising career as a lawyer when his young
daughter died of cancer. He went through
several disastrous years of grief and not working. His wife supported them for a time. Eventually, he pulled himself out of this
time of despair and became a college professor.
He structured one of the first paralegal programs for a junior college. He had always been a heavy smoker and died of
lung cancer at about the age of 60.
In retrospect, I can see ways in which military service
benefited some family members and had a negative impact on the lives of others. No one talked about PTSD back then, but I
suspect they all had it. My parents said
that after the war, they went to a movie together. There was a scene at a party, that abruptly went
into a war scene with guns blazing. My
Dad flattened himself on the floor of the theater and was shaking so badly that
they left the movie.
None of these wonderful men are living now. I have fond memories of all of them. My uncles were very kind and encouraging to
me. Immediately after the war, all of
the men I have mentioned except Uncle Roy were living with my maternal
grandparents. I was the little princess
in the house, and my wish was their command.
I was spoiled rotten. My mother
thought she would never straighten me out.
Some of my first words were also their “colorful” language, but there was
a great deal of mutual affection with all of these guys. Uncle Chuck gave me anything I asked for,
Uncle Art taught me to tell my mother I was “standing on my constitutional
rights” if she scolded me, Uncle Frank was tallest and would bump my head on
the ceiling….I called him Uncle Bink, and Uncle Roy and I developed a life-long
secret word with which we greeted and admonished each other. My Dad was a sometimes harsh and difficult
man, but I loved him. We butted heads
right to the end, but we appreciated each other.
I am grateful they all made it home in 1945!
Now and then, an event in my past life comes to mind, and I have no idea why. This morning, I thought about a patient I took care of long ago. I think he was in his 50s or 60s. I don’t remember his name, but I think he was Scottish as he had a plaid robe that seemed to have significance for him.
I must have taken care of him for several days, because I
remember being with him on both the day and evening shifts. Typically, as students, we would work 2 weeks
of days, followed by 2 weeks of evenings and then 2 weeks of nights, on each
unit to which we were assigned.
I know I took care of him on the day shift, because I have a
distinct memory of discussing him with the Team Leader. She was a middle-aged lady with a European
accent, flaming red hair, and too much blue eye shadow. She had no sympathy for him. She was convinced he was just fond of
narcotics and didn’t need pain medication.
She paid no attention to my protests that I was sure he was genuinely in
pain.
I spent enough time with him to assess his pain…both intensity
and type. He described his upper
abdominal pain as “pulsating.” I
dutifully reported and charted this believing it was significant.
I don’t remember what tests were done or why it was that days
later, it was suddenly decided on the evening shift that he had to go to
surgery right then. I guess someone
finally figured out that the pulsating pain was a large aortic aneurysm
threatening to rupture. I helped to put
him on the gurney to go to the Operating Room.
He was clearly frightened.
As others bustled around him, I touched his shoulder, bent down, and
said quietly, “We will be waiting for you when you come back.” There was no family present, and I wanted him
to know someone would be there to greet him on his return.
With a trembling voice, he said, “I’m not coming back.”
He was right. When they
attempted to repair the bulge in his aorta, the tissue disintegrated, and he bled
to death right there on the OR table.
Would it have made a difference if someone had believed his
pain and my description sooner? I don’t
know. I do know diagnosis would be much
easier and faster now with MRIs.
Vascular surgery techniques have improved too.
I also know that he is
one of those patients embedded in my memory.
Was it a good thing or a bad thing that my father could sew?
When he was a little boy, my father had rheumatic fever. His mother was hard-pressed to keep him quiet
and avoid physical activity.
Grandma had been a tailor…not just an accomplished seamstress…but
a tailor. Prior to her marriage, she
worked at a clothing company that made men’s suits. When sewing for the family, she even made her
own patterns. She would take
measurements and trace out a pattern on newspaper. Due to her skills, I never had a store-bought
winter coat until I was in 7th grade. Also due to her skills, in desperation to keep
my dad inactive, she taught him to sew.
As a sickly child unable to rough house with the boys, he made
clothes for his sisters’ dolls. As an
adult, he could sew on his own buttons and do minor repairs. After my mother passed away, the problem with
this emerged.
Dad never had very good fashion sense. Years of my mother “dressing” him didn’t give
him the picture. After she passed, he
decided that she had encouraged him to wear his slacks longer than he thought
they should be. He was living with us
after she departed, so one day when I arrived home from work, he announced that
he had shortened all of his slacks. I
was horrified when I saw the results. He
had carefully hemmed his slacks into “high water” position.
So attired, he forged out into the world, happy with his
accomplishment and thinking he looked great.
I decided this was not a battle I wished to fight. I had enough trouble getting him to go to the
barber instead of doing a hatchet job on his own hair.
I hope my mother doesn’t scold me when I see her in
heaven. I think she will shrug it off
and be as glad to see me, as I am to see her.
What new book should I read,
What different place explore,
What question should I ask,
I should open…which door?
Is there something I’ve never
tried,
A path I haven’t walked,
A truly interesting person
To whom I haven’t talked?
Is there a song I haven’t sung,
A joke I haven’t heard,
A flower I haven’t smelled,
A previously unknown bird?
Is there a prayer I haven’t
prayed,
A task I’ve left undone,
Have I neglected God’s desire
That I glorify His Son.
Well then, I have good reason,
Another day to wake,
To continue to seek out,
The path I’m meant to take.
