Two weekends ago When I was clearing the yard I noticed that a bunch of the dead flowers had been removed from the planter out front on our steps.

Last weekend we spotted four eggs in the planter:


On Monday I spotted a mallard couple wandering around in our front yard, and this morning I was able to spy through the sidelight on our front door and actually see the hen, sitting in our planter. Now there are 7 eggs.

These waddling squatters are a welcome addition to our yard, especially after what happened last year. In the mean time, the planter can wait.

Another pleasant surprise this spring were the hostas that I transplanted from my parent's place last summer. Out of the middle of one of the plants sprung up four royal purple tulips, which had obviously mingled into the hosta's root system and been transported unwittingly by me. So mom has been gone for a year and a half but she is still sending me surprises.

Labels: Ducks, Flowers, House, Mom, Yard

I visited my mother's grave last night for the first time since winter. The summer drought had yellowed the new sod. I weeded the crabgrass and the creeping charlie away from the headstone and considered how pleased she would be that I was spending my visit gardening, even in this limited form.

My mother was a simple person. She didn't have much to say about politics, war, crime & punishment, or the multitude of social issues that we face in the dawn of the 21st century. But weeding crabgrass was something that she could really get behind.

I wanted to talk to her but I admit that my own lack of understanding in the way of how this world and the next interact with eachother left me feeling unsure of myself. I began speaking as though I were leaving a message on an answering machine belonging to someone I did not know.

"Just thought I'd stop by," I started, testing the water. It seemed no more ackward than talking to her when she had been alive and unconscious, so I continued. "I know that you're not here, but on the off-chance that God lets you listen in, I thought-"

My disclaimer was stopped cold when by chance I glanced up at the nearby cross. It is actually a bell tower, about a three-story high structure. Perched on the head of the cross was a huge crow, looking down at me. He was holding his wings away from his body in order to regulate his body temperature in the heat of the summer evening. It gave the appearance that he was cupping his wings to his ears in order to hear me better.

I opened my mouth to speak and then closed it again and swallowed. The whole scene left me speechless.

After a momentary staredown another crow flew by. My would-be eavesdropper hopped off into the air and flew away with his mate, leaving me at the foot of the cross, to write this down.

Labels: Life, Moleskine, Mom

I dreamed about my mom last night.

The conversation was one-sided and brief.

"Don't worry about your life -
Everything is going to work out fine."

"Take good care of my grandson."

"The food here is great."

"See you soon."

She looked young and thin, like she did in her wedding pictures. All the age lines were gone from her face, except for her laugh lines, which were profoundly deeper.

When she moved she didn't walk. She ran, like the wind.

Labels: Dreams, Life, Mom

(This is an expanded version of the Eulogy that I delivered a week ago today.)

The Original North Dakota farm girl
You can take the girl off the farm, but you cannot take the farm out of the girl.

Eileen was probably the original North Dakota farm girl. Born in 1928, she was a child of the depression and knew what it meant to live simply and be content with what she had. She completed an eighth grade education and then left school work on the family farm full time. Because of this upbringing she always carried herself with an honest and down-to-earth demeanor, forged with a hard work ethic. She loved plants and growing things. Even after she moved to the city she maintained a large vegetable garden and planted flowers everywhere she could.

She was a WIFE
This North Dakota farm girl first met her husband-to-be in a field behind an M&H gas station, just after he had finished working on a tractor. Covered head to toe in grease Vernon hardly looked like the man of her dreams. They met again in Breckenridge. Eileen had caught a ride with her sister and watched a movie. She was killing time in the "Beer Blue Garden" waiting for her ride home when in walked that same brash little grease monkey. He made a beeline to her booth and tried to sit across from her. She put her foot up and blocked his advance. Always a practical woman, she only let him sit down next to her after she saw another fellow who she wanted to talk to even less start to make eyes at her. Their first real date came the following Saturday, when Vernon took Eileen to a dime store, bought her a rod & reel and took her fishing. Being ever the romantic sort he is, dad had also invited along his Uncle Henry. It must have been quite an outing, because three months later they were married.

Mom always loved being married to dad, and no piece of jewelry that she owned made her prouder than her wedding band. Last year at the nursing home she lost her wedding band and was very upset about it. This past Christmas my dad gave her a new one while she was in the hospital. Her trembling hands couldn't open the package and dad had to help her. As he guided the ring on to her finger he asked her if she would marry him again, "because the first time was so much fun." Even though she could not speak, the wonderful thing about true love is that in such times words are not needed. She knodded and accepted his proposal without a word. That ring became her one remaining peacock feather, which she strutted proudly for anyone who came through the doors of her room.

The three stones on the ring symbolize past, present and future.

She was a MOTHER
Like most North Dakota farm girls who lived through the depression, it's no real secret that my mother was a little bit of a packrat. Unused sheet sets from the 70's in her bedroom, shopping bags full of magazines from the 80's under the dining room table and cans of festal pumpkin pie filling dating back to the Eisenhower administration in the basement - This woman had it all. Yet for all of the stuff that she accumulated in her house, never once was there any doubt that to her the important things in life were not things. Her real treasure was her children. Time after time she would tell me, "I just love it when I have all six of my kids together!" This woman may have stockpiled Tupperware in her basement, but she surely stockpiled love in her heart. We had years and years of joyful family gatherings. If you examine the family pictures, you will see that Eileen loved a good laugh. Her smiles were the largest and her laughs were the loudest when all of us were together.

Part of her North Dakota farm girl wisdom was that not everyone that you love gets to grow old and sometimes you lose people before you are ready. In 1965 our house in Fridley was devastated by a tornado. It happened 3 years before I was born and still the stories from that event are so powerful that when I was younger and I heard them I could see the scenes so vividly that I actually thought that somehow I had been there. One particular story that stands out is that for a short period of time Cheryl was lost to us - She had been visiting a friend and somehow ended up at a church where my parents eventually found her. Every time my mother would tell that story you could see her emotions seeping out around the edges, and it was as if she had lost and then found her little girl all over again. When I first started reading the bible and read the story of the prodigal son, the father's reaction of joy and humility made perfect sense to me, because I had already seen it in practice.

If there was any wisdom, any knowledge that I could presume to speak to you on my mother's behalf, it would be this: Tell each other that you love each other now. Don't wait another day to tell someone how you feel about them. Tomorrow might not ever come, and "Someday" is not a day of the week. We are all like morning dew drops, that are burned away by the sun. Don't cheat the people you love out of your tender feelings by burying them behind a gruff exterior. The opportunity may never come again. Nor should you squander it on pride or grudges that cause division among you. Set those things aside and focus on the things in life that really matter.

(There were several readings offered by my brothers and sisters that I won't post here out of respect for their privacy.)

She was a GRANDMOTHER
If us kids are mom's crown, then her grandchildren and great-grandchildren are her crown jewels. These are the children that she was able to spoil without worrying about having to change them or put them to bed, although many times she did. She loved to watch the little ones grow and develop.

(There were several readings offered by the granddaughters that I won't post here out of respect for their privacy.)

I would like to conclude this eulogy by saying that in addition to all else, during her lifetime Eileen's North Dakota farm girl wisdom also afforded her a faith in God. She confessed with her mouth that "Jesus is Lord," and believed in her heart that God raised him from the dead, and as such was saved. She trusted in him and was never put to shame, for "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."

Eileen is no longer a North Dakota farm girl, because she was only passing through this world. She is now in her permanent home, in Heaven. Revelation chapter 21 describes Heaven as being a new city, made from pure gold. Something inside me thinks that my mother passed by those streets of gold to instead walk in a beautiful garden with the Lord.

Because you can take the girl off the farm, but you cannot take the farm out of the girl.

Labels: Life, Mom

A warm thanks to everyone who reached out to our family during the visitation and funeral last week.

This week we find ourselves trying to get back to "Normal" -- Whatever that means.

I for one have lost a wise and trusted advisor and in that much things will never be the same again.

It was overwhelming to see how many lives my mother has touched.
I am grateful to all of you for making a difference in Eileen's life as well as my own.

Thanks again and God Bless.
Terry

Labels: Life, Mom

I visited Mom last night. The breathing tube is back in her mouth, not a tracheostomy like I was originally told. She was pretty alert but obviously couldn't talk. That's OK because I talked for both of us. There were some things that I needed to tell her, the sort of things that I would kick myself over forever if tomorrow came and she were gone. You'd be surprised how much can be communicated through eye contact and a squeeze of the hand. Even though she is frail now, the bond between mother and child is strong. I think that's probably one of the greatest gifts that having a child of my own has given me. Watching my son and my wife together has given me better perspective on the relationship with my own mother. Comfort does not come from spoken words. It comes from the other hand squeezing back. It comes from the touch of a hand on a troubled brow. It comes from the other's eyes looking back and wordlessly saying, "Yes, after all these years you and I are still in this thing together."

I told her how much I admired her strength and how I regretted not telling her more often about what a good job she did of raising me and my five siblings.

I told her about my earliest memories, of spending afternoons out in the boat watching her and dad fish when I was not much more than a baby, sitting in the bottom of the boat wrapped up in indian blankets with my books and my toy cars.

I told her what happy memories those were and how I remember the loving look on her face as she would tend to me. I told her what a blessing it was to have known for my entire life that I am loved, and I thanked her for giving that love to me.

I told her that her love lives on in how I am raising my own child because I learned from the best, and that if I do half as good a job as she did my son will turn out just fine.

Before I left I prayed with her as she held my hand and listened. I thanked God that no matter what His will is in the matter of my mother's health that a day will come when we will all be reunited and will be together forever in His grace. She knodded and squeezed my hand to voice her affirmations.

It felt good to tell her some of those things that only words can express. But it felt better knowing that the things that words can never express are right there in the open, and that in that sense at least there is nothing left unsaid between us, nothing to regret later.

Labels: Life, Mom

My mom is back in th hospital again. She was just fine a couple of days ago, and then she started running a fever and not being able to keep food down. The nurses thought that she was just coming down with the flu. This afternoon they found inflammation on her legs and running up her body. She was running a 104 temp and they could hear fluid in her lungs so they sent her off to the emergency room.

I hung around the ER waiting area with two of my sisters and my brother in-law while they prepped her to move up to the ICU. Apparently they had a lot of trouble with the big IV that they are running into her neck, because they were trying to run it for the fifth time when I finally went home at 1AM.

I did get to see her for a couple of minutes around midnight, after they had got her up to her room in th ICU. She was pooped and could barely keep her eyes open. She was wearing the oxygen mask that goes over the mouth & nose so she couldn't really talk. I don't know about my sisters but I was flashing back to spring when she was there with the breathing tube and eventually the tracheostomy. None of us said much about it but I think that we're all worried about mom having to go through all that again.

OK, need to turn in and get some shut-eye. I plan on getting up early and buying a snow rake (Tool for getting snow off the roof). I promised my dad I would stop by and take care of his roof for him, plus I need it for my own roof too. Oh yeah - I gave my sisters & brother in-law the URL to this web site - Who knows I may have just increased my readership by 75%.

Labels: Family, Mom

Summer is wizzing by at breakneck speed. I have not gotten out fishing again and August is halfway over. I spent part of yesterday afternoon visiting with mom at the hospital. There are rumors that she may have recovered to the point where she can be placed in a nursing home. It's hard to imagine that as an improvement on anyone's circumstances but in her case it is. The isolation and the amount of time she is spending alone is making her fuzzy around the edges, in a mental sense. I helped to sharpen her up by quizzing her on her sister's family. Who married who, who had what kids, which ones went to jail for writing bad checks, etc.

Well, I didn't ask about that last part, she just offered it up. The message is loud and clear to me that every day we have this woman around is a gift. She is not going to be able to answer these questions later, they need to be asked now, today. I have always been a bit of a genealogy buff, but this latest onset has come with a greater sense of urgency. The clock is ticking. And really there is no better time than when she is laid up with nothing to do. For a couple hours yesterday my mother had some purpose and was able to feel useful, which is something that she has not been able to do for quite some time.

I didn't get all the answers I wanted. There was a lot of grey area, but then again many of the facts I can get from my sisters. The point was to hear it from the horse's mouth. It is sad that the American cultural norm is to stick our elderly into storage, with little or no real mental stimulation. The mind dies off first, and the body lingers on like an unwelcome guest. I married into a culture that reveres their elderly and looks to them for wisdom and guidance. I get so caught up in my day to day life that more often than not I find myself more an American than the 'Filipino with a skin condition' that I boast of being. When I think of how much time I have let slip by, how many unanswered questions there are that I would like to ask my parents, I feel ashamed.

I thanked her for sharing and I promised to visit her again soon.

I meant it on both accounts.

Labels: Life, Mom, Summer, Tagalog

I have been doing a bit of off line writing which I may post later. It's been a heck of a month for any of you familiar with my mother's health issues. Hopefully I will have more later.

Labels: Mom, Web_Site, Writing

I cannot think of a good starting point.

I have been trying to define my current emotion and I cannot do it. Concerned for my mother? Yes, even worried. But at her age and at this point in her life I know that her recovery depends on both her will and God's will, far more than the army of nurses and Doctors that are tending to her. Does that comfort me, or put me at ease? Not really. Firstly I don't know about mom. I get the feeling that she has about had it and is ready for the next step. I suspect that she felt like her number was up back in '89 when she beat breast cancer. 'Beat.' Ask anybody who has survived breast cancer (Specifically via mastectomy) and you'll know that you don't really 'beat' breast cancer. Even if they get all the cancer, once those lymph nodes are gone your life changes forever. Mom has had a good life and has been pretty much able to do whatever she wanted for most of it. But now with thetracheostomy it is like the curtain has been pulled back and everyone can see the remainder of her life laid out for her. Assisted living at best, quite possibly a nursing home. But that's assuming that she makes it through the pneumonia. But that's up to God. And mom.

My current emotion is "Helpless."

Labels: Life, Mom

Mom came out of surgery OK yesterday. She now has a tube that goes directly into her windpipe through the front of her throat. What I didn't understand before was due to ignorance and lack of observation. The woman's mouth was open for 10 straight days with a friggin tube going down into her windpipe - Some pretty uncomfortable stuff. When I saw her after the surgery I could see inside her mouth. The whole thing looked like one big wound. One of her teeth broke in the ordeal so there was talk of bringing in an oral surgeon to make sure that she doesn't have any infected teeth. Anyway she is resting today, still heavily sedated.

On top of all that I replaced the water pump on my truck yesterday. GM made it look deceptively easy - Just remove the cowl and the fan and you're home free -- Except that they made the hoses a real bitch by sticking them real close together. Plus the manifolds are obscured by the mounting brackets for the alternator and the air conditioner. I had to clean them off using a mirror. The whole job was so messy that I couldn't really tell if my work was leaky or if I was simply dripping some of the antifreeze that got everywhere while I was doing the job. This is pretty much why I never go into details when the wife asks me how my day went.

Speaking of the wife, she has a huge project launching at work and will be working late tonight, which means that the child and I will be bachelors.

Labels: Car, Life, Mom

Mom has been in ICU on a ventilator for 9 days now with no real change - Her lungs are still congested. Tomorrow at 4:30 she is going to undergo a tracheotomy so that they can get that tube out of her mouth.

Labels: Mom

Sheesh. Another week goes by. March is practically shot, isn't it?

Mom got out of the nursing home last week. She's at home with dad. I don't think things will ever be back to the way that they were, but at least now they are back together. I don't think I could live away from the wife for three months. I think that would be worse than the stay in the nursing home.

We were supposed to get the motherload of snow today. Apparently down south they are, but here in the western suburbs (I'm at work right now) nary a flake. I suppose by tomorrow we will be lucky to find a hard frost on the ground.

After work tonight I am dropping by Mama & Papa Olojan's and dropping off Papa's La'ud. Last night I restrung it for him so that he can sound good at Philipine day at the Landmark Center this coming Sunday.

Mama & Papa are going back to the Philippines in April. When the come back they are bringing me a laud of my own. Hopefully Papa will teach me a few songs.

Have a great weekend.

Labels: Family, Mom, Snow, Tagalog

Talk between the siblings continues of what to do with Mom and Dad. Dad really cannot be alone right now and those of us who can be with him cannot meet the challenge on a long-term basis. Mom has problems too big for any of us to handle. My sisters are jumping through all the hoops and making all the calls to help them. It's looking very unlikely that they will keep the house much longer.

It cannot be an easy thing to work your whole life, to save for your retirement and collect so many possessions just to find out that however much you saved wasn't nearly enough and oh by the way, you have to get rid of all your stuff because there's no room for it where you're going.

Dan Nygaard was the only one of my grandparents fortunate enough to avoid a nursing home. I wonder what my parents thought, what kind of anguish they felt when they watched their parents be slowly stripped of their pride, their independence and all of their worldly possessions. Were their eyes opened to what lay ahead for them? Do they deep down in their hearts know the dilemma that us kids are facing?

I suppose that they never thought old age would be like this. That money that they were saving was not put into the bank with hospital bills in mind but rather to enjoy on whatever they wanted.

We were born into this world naked and penniless, and we depart from it the same. The state certainly sees to that.

Labels: Dad, Life, Mom

The high today is supposed to be something like 3 below. It's the kind of cold that freezes the boogers right in your nose and splits the ends of your fingers like 300 year old bamboo shoots. It's great news if you are an ice fisherman. It's lousy news if you have a baby that needs to be loaded and unloaded from a car. I wrapped him up tight in his blanket this morning, something which he usually won't stand for. He wailed like a shanghaied sailor all the way from the car to Mama Olojan's doorstep.

Mom is in the nursing home, recovering from the leg that she broke shortly before Christmas. She is healing very well and in spite of everything is in remarkably good spirits.

Dad on the other hand is another story. He has been hit hard with rheumatoid arthritis and is having a tough go of it. I will be spending the day with him tomorrow.

That's it for now, maybe more later.

Labels: Dad, Mom, Winter