Ann's email

I was at a friend's house this morning and she (Steffanie) was telling me and another friend about her parents. They've been called to serve a mission for our church in the Philadelphia PA mission, Spanish speaking. That's the mission where we live.

This prompted the other friend to ask, "Do they speak Spanish?"

Steffanie answered, "Oh yeah. We lived in South America for a while when I was growing up. And when he was young, my dad served his mission in Uruguay."

You can guess what I said, "My dad served his mission in Uruguay."

Steffanie, who is always amazed at everything you tell her, said, "No way. Do you know when?"

I told her dad was born in 1939. She said, "My dad was born in 1939." We talked for a moment about the fact that my dad died in 2003.

After asking me my maiden name, she got her phone and called her dad. She said, "My friend's dad served his mission in Uruguay, and we think it was at the same time you were there. Did you know an Elder Schiess?

He said, "Elder Schiess. Of course I knew him. I have great respect for Elder Schiess." This friend's father, a man named Rogers, told her that Dad had been a great missionary and had worked hard and had been a zone leader.

We already knew those things about dad, but it was still nice to hear them. Steffanie then told her dad about Dad's death. He was surprised.

As she talked for another minute with her parents about our dad, I sat there trying not to cry. I was happy and sad. Happy that all the people who knew Dad have great respect for him and sad because, well, I miss having my dad to call on the phone like Steffanie did. So easy. Just dial a number and there he is on the line.

I love you all and I am glad I have many family members who can know what it's like to miss Dad as I do.

Please overlook any typos here. I know I often send messages with typos.

Ann

It's as if

When our children were little, they hated the vacuum cleaner. Each child in turn.

When they were babies, they would cry when I vacuumed. I mean really cry hard. Or, if they could run out of the room, they would.

They were quite afraid of it.

Now, I think I'm afraid of it. Well, you know, it's as if.

Sing, Sing A Song

Most days I move about the house singing. Sometimes just a melody, but more often a song will get stuck in my head. And I'll sing it--we're talking out loud. I might even dance a little. Even in the night when I can't sleep, I'll sing. Out loud, I mean, why not? But maybe not dance.

Lately, I've been singing "It Had To Be You," an old song, like from the 1920s, I believe. Anyway, I know the words, I like the song, so I sing it.

This is something I have done all my life. Singing every day. Maybe it means a) I love music; b) I am a happy person.

Many songs rest in my mental repertoire--I used to say I know the words to all songs; never quite true, less true now, because who can keep up?--but, hey, I know a lot of songs. Anyway, some song will surface now and then and I will sing it.

Like "Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue?" and "Come In From the Rain" and "Splish, Splash" or "All the Things You Are" or "Hound Dog" or "God Rest You Merry Gentlemen" or whatever. You name it. Go ahead, you name it, chances are I've sung it.

Today it's this: "Oo-ee, oo-ee baby, oo-ee, oo-ee baby, oo-ee, oo-ee baby, won't you let me take you on a sea cruise?" I think that's the correct spelling of oo-ee. I have to confess to not knowing all the words, and that is frustrating for me because it means I might sing this annoying oo-ee thing for a whole day.

"September Song" has been on my mind. Seems appropriate.

"Oh, it's a long, long time from May to December,
and the days grow short when you reach September.
When the autumn weather turns the leaves to flame,
one hasn't got time for the waiting game.
And the days dwindle down to precious few.
September, November.
And these few precious days I'll spend with you.
These precious days, I'll spend with you."

I wasn't going to put all the words here, but I couldn't help it.

So here's another one I've been singing, and it has nothing to do with my widowhood, I don't think:

In the wee small hours of the morning
When the whole wide world is fast asleep,
You lie awake and think about the boy
And never ever think of counting sheep.

When your lonely heart has learned its lesson,
You'd be his if only he would call.
In the wee small hours of the morning,
That's the time you miss him most of all.

If you tell me that's from Sleepless in Seattle, I'll tell you, yes, they used the song, but it's really from the 1950s.

And, oh yeah, classical music and hymns, too. I'm versatile.

Something happy

Caroline's blood is free of gluten for the first time since they've been monitoring it.

THAT IS WONDERFUL NEWS.

They have been so careful, and it has paid off.

I am thankful.

Not Much

On these warm nights I open the bedroom windows. Except Alyce's room. I only open those windows if the day has been very hot. Today was 90, not as hot as very hot.

So I have just opened up the windows, and when I went in to open the window in Ann's room, I half expected to see her there. Only half expected. It has been many years since she lived here.

This house used to have every room full and busy. Alyce in the front bedroom, Ann in the corner, Richard in what I now call the guest room, and Paul down in the basement bedroom. We have a big family; even when two were married and one gone on a mission the family was big enough to fill this house. Which is why we built a big house.

Now those bedrooms don't belong to anyone, I guess. Sometimes it makes me sad to see them empty. But that is only a person looking back and half wishing for the past to come again. Half wishing.

I have given away at least four beds, and still there is a bed in every room but Alyce's. So that when family comes home to visit, they usually have a place and a bed for sleeping. Wayne's boys slept on the floor in Alyce's room this summer. He and Kimberli had the guest room. Richard's family slept in the basement on the bed there and a big air mattress they brought with them, except for Lena in Ann's room. So the house was full again.

Now it's kind of empty. Well, I'm here, and I go into every room nearly every day, but I don't really "use" them all. Not sure what the significance of that fact is, because I am here; I own the place; I like it here; I plan to stay.

Books

For a while after Wayne died--don't know how long, but it seems a long time--I couldn't read anything. Friends, family, acquaintances recommended books and some sent books for me. But I could not read them, especially those about grieving or coping with death.

I do read now, but I have reached a place where I can quit a book if I don't like it and not feel guilty. Well, almost.

Here's what I've read this summer.

Second Wind, Tom Plummer
The Lifted Veil, George Eliot
The Saint, Oliver Broudy
Understood Betsy, Dorothy Canfield Fisher
Rules for Aging: A Wry and Witty Guide to Life, Roger Rosenblatt
How Ronald Reagan Changed My Life, Peter Robinson
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
A Companion to Your Study of the New Testament, Daniel Ludlow
Making Sense of the New Testament, Richard Holzapfel and Thomas Wayment
The New Testament Made Easier, two volumes, David Ridges
The New Testament

Books I Started and gave up on.
Hamlet's Blackberry, William Powers (coulda been and shoulda been a pamplet)
A Walk Across America, Peter Jenkins (failed to live up to the promise in the title)
The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion (again, but I'll keep trying)

Books I'm in the middle of.
A Light in the Wilderness, M. Catherine Thomas
Being Wrong, Kathryn Schulz
Letters of a Woman Homesteader, Elinore Pruitt Stewart (this one I'm sure to finish)

Technology World

Some time in the late 1990s or early 2000s I bought two cell phones and set Wayne and me up with a cell phone company. I don't remember which one. Actually, I believe it was a 15-day free trial. I went for it because I thought it would be a handy thing for us.

But Wayne wanted nothing to do with a cell phone. Not sure why, maybe he didn't want to deal with learning the technology involved. Whatever the reason, he refused to use it, even once.

He was not a telephone person anyway.

So I took them both back. Hmm. Today I'd have to pay a $350 fee for stopping service early. Cell phone use for me had to wait a while. His never came.

I thought of this as I saw a young man walking along carrying his two pieces of essential technology: a cell phone in one hand and probably an iPod in the other. He had pockets in his shorts, but he carried these items in his hands. I suppose he would put one in a pocket when he needed to text someone. I use the word "needed" on purpose here and the word "essential" earlier because that is the way it is.

Digital, electronic, and probably newer terms I don't even know, these words and the things they represent have become essential to us. We need them, and some of us need to text someone at least 100 times a day.

I'm not poking fun, you know, although I do not text--or at least I have not as yet. I'm just saying it is the truth, because I have to admit that being without my cell phone service for 24+ hours was beyond inconvenient. It was the eve of my birthday and my actual birthday--and I had no phone. Couldn't make calls, couldn't receive calls. Therefore, I missed calls. Bummer.

I used to say I'd like to go back to the time when you left your house and thought absolutely nothing of leaving your phone in it. If someone called, you missed it. No big deal.

Today is different.

Wayne, however, never knew about it. He died in 2003, before this enormous techno takeover.

Poem

If I posted this before, hold up two fingers, and then, I guess, you'd better tell me.

Not Forever

Carol Schiess

The sky was dark and clear

this morning as I walked,

stars bright and white,

like on a winter night

when the moon and stars

seem fixed

in a blue-black sea of air,

never to move or fade,

always to blink out their lights,

always to be up there as surety and comfort

for sailing ships and airplanes,

for walkers in the early morning dark,

but, of course, we know they won’t.

They’ll dim, fade,

disappear, like first love,

like my mother

when she died.