A Mother's Day Letter

Four generations . . . 

{The letter I wrote to Mother last year (2016) for Mother’s Day}

Dear Mother,

It takes no special occasion to say “I love you” and we both know how much that’s true both ways.  But today I just want to say it this way.

I’m sorry for the reason you are here in Tennessee already, but every day I thank God you are here.  I love being able to see you and to talk and laugh and cry and gripe with you, to know how human we both are and yet to see – shot through it all – God’s love and grace.

Thank you for your wisdom – all the more precious because you don’t pretend it isn’t hard to live it, hard to win it.  For all the grief I gave you when younger, you were always the Orion leading me back to the Lord you serve and love.

Thank you for your example of loving – family, friends, church, community.  You have given and given and given – and you still are, though you find it harder to see just now.  The staff there [at the assisted living home] love you, the people who come to visit you are blessed by your smile and your humor and the love that shines through you.  I want to be like you when I grow up!

Thank you for your love for Daddy.  You two showed me every day what love is – the ability to care for another more than for yourself, to set aside self to serve another, all that the Scripture tells us love is.  Not holding on to little irritations, but leaving them behind, working together to make a life of oneness.  I know you miss that so terribly, and knowing you will be with Daddy again will make it easier for me when it’s time to let you go.

Thank you for your good humor, and showing me how to be honest about difficulties with those close to you without losing the bigger perspective of God’s love, in it all, even in the hardest of it.

I have friends who have walked life with me, who have loved me and prayed for me, and I am grateful for them all.  But, Mother, you are the one who will always hold a place that no one else could fill – your love has shown me how to love, and your love will always be the most important guide on earth to me.  All that is good in me has come through you and Daddy and the One you have always pointed me to.

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Thank you, I love you, and happy Mother’s Day!

Mother and Daddy's wedding photo.

Children and Children-in-law and Grandchildren and Great-Grandchildren . . . (and missing a fair number of them, too!)                                          

Gratefulness

My wonderful mother lived at the Veranda (assisted living home) in Dayton after she moved to TN last year. (It's part of the Life Care facility north of town.) From the day she moved in we never had a doubt that it was a wonderful place for her. I can honestly say that we have had no significant complaint at any time, only praise.

The facility itself is beautiful, and is extremely well kept up. It's refreshing and calming just walking into it. I saw a number of the rooms, and the residents have furnished and decorated them with pride; it was so much fun to visit them to see and hear about a bit of their lives.

The nurses and aides and all the rest of the staff -- from receptionists to housekeepers -- didn't just do their jobs with excellence, they did them with love. My mother made friends with the other residents, certainly, but the staff became her friends too. They love the residents like family, making time for conversation and encouraging them every day. Every time I arrived to visit, before I could get to Mother's room I was met with stories of something she had said or done that had made others laugh or encouraged them, and when I got to her room, it was to hear stories of how they had made her laugh and encouraged her.

When Mother returned to the Veranda after a short hospitalization for her fall, the staff greeted her like a family member who'd been gone for months. Each one made her way to her room as soon as possible to let her know she was *home*. They told me they had hoped and prayed she would be able to spend her last days under their care because they had come to love her so much. I am convinced that hearing their familiar, loving voices made those days much more bearable -- not to mention the constant prayer with which they bathed her.

And they give that same love to the families of the residents; I am known by sight and name to many whose names even now I am unsure of, staff members I've only seen a few times. Their loving concern has been for me in these days as well as for Mother, and I have benefited so much from them. As I sat with her, they brought me meals, ice water, anything they could think of; they never left the room after caring for her without asking if they could do anything for me as well. They gave me hugs; they prayed for and with me. They cried with me when she was gone.

If you or someone you love has to have assisted living care someday, pray that you find a place with half the love and expertise of the Veranda and you will be in good hands.

Happy Birthday

Ninety years ago on Christmas Day my mother was born, to become the middle of three children. Six years later their mother died, and shortly after, their father was diagnosed with tuberculosis and spent years in a TB sanitarium, not expected to recover. Mother and her two brothers were raised by her father’s mother (who had already raised twelve children of her own), with the help of some of their aunts. Each sibling, separately, also spent some time in the sanitarium, for treatment to prevent their also contracting the dreaded disease. They slogged their way through the depression selling eggs and taking in washing and feeding hobos who were willing to work for a meal. Their father was returned to them, well at last, but not until Mother was in high school. Her older brother, a pilot, died in World War II; her younger disappeared after the war until after her own children were gone from home.

Because to recognize a Christmas birthday was too much for a grandmother trying to carry three more children through the depression, Mother’s first birthday party was given her by us when I was in high school, a surprise I’m still proud of pulling off. And on this day when we celebrate the Saviour sent for us, I celebrate too the woman who led me to Him through her daily example of His sacrificial love. Her early life was anything but easy – yet it molded her into a woman who learned gratefulness, who learned to love her Lord and serve her neighbors all her life.

Mother and Daddy had their trials and tribulations too, of course, over 67 years, but she had chosen to live in joy from a young age and so they worked together to make a home that was a miracle of love. She loved Daddy first and best, always, and she gave to us, her two children, of all she was. She taught us to love books by reading to us, keeping full shelves in the study and in our rooms, taking us to the library weekly. She taught us to work as part of a family with our various chores, and she made sure we were part of family life in the kitchen, the sewing room, the garden, the grocery store. The church was our second home, where we joined choir and youth group and went to the dinners and activities and contributed in various ways to the missions and charities. She participated in the church circles and made items for the yearly bazaar and volunteered in the local food bank. She welcomed foreign students, from the university where Daddy worked, for the holidays; she put together food and gift baskets for the local poor; she created a “Santa’s Cookie Tree” on which we hung the gingerbread cookies we’d baked and decorated for the community to enjoy. She took me to the Plaza in Kansas City to window shop and look at fashions, then we picked out patterns and material to make my clothes, as nice or nicer than any we’d seen in the fancy stores. She cried over us, rejoiced over us, daily prayed over us.

Her brothers both are gone, her brothers- and sister-in-law too, and now Daddy. But, despite sorrow and loneliness (what could ever fill the emptiness after 67 years of marriage), she still chooses every day to live in joy. She remains active in her church, she still read voraciously, she cries and rejoices and daily prays over us her children and over her grand- and great-grandchildren. She chooses joy and so her love lifts me up every day of my life, as it has ever done.

(The rose is one from the bush Mother sent us one year.)

Second Saturday Update

I just talked with Davina again, and she sounds wonderful. She has already graduated from a walker to a cane, though she feels very awkward, and they are sure she will regain the strength in her left leg with time and physical therapy; they've scheduled her to do therapy very near where she lives. She will be try tomorrow to see if she can get off the major pain medication, as she has to be off it in order to go home. If so, and if all else continues to go as well as it has, she could go home as early as Monday. Today's medical science is amazing!

The children got to come see her today so they are more reassured now that Mommy is really all right. Her church has scheduled meals for all next week, and her friend who is a nurse came today to wash the grunge out of her hair; she said it doesn't even look like they shaved it at all. A nice surprise!

I told her about all of you who came up to me today before and after commencement to ask about her, and she is so grateful. We appreciate you all more than we can say.

Saturday Update

Davina reports that yesterday was very difficult with pain, and they did an emergency CT scan to be sure everything was all right. The doctor said the scan was "fantastic." So it was just a matter of not having enough or the right kind of medication, and now that they've adjusted that she's feeling much better. She's frustrated of course with not being able to walk very well, but this will come with time.

Friday Update

I TALKED TO MY GIRL THIS MORNING!

She talked a little, laughed a little, sounded very much herself except extra tired.

Unsurprisingly she has a very bad headache. This of course will subside as the brain heals.

She says her left leg feels very strange; she can't move it much. But she can already feel improvement in it.

Again: thanks to all for your prayers. Now for, we hope, an uneventful recovery!

Update

Davina's surgery, according to the neurosurgeon, went very well. She has been moved to the ICU and has been waking up a bit now and then. They know that she does have some weakness in her left leg, but believe that will correct within a few weeks. I suppose they will be able to better see any other side effects after she is awake and aware.

Thanks to everyone for your prayers, and I will continue to let you know if there is more news.

Thursday: Thank you for your prayers!

Our lovely Davina

with Daniel & kids

with Devin, Abby, Emma, and Alex

Pre-op: 5:30 a.m. (MRI, brain-mapping, etc.)

Predicted Completion: late afternoon

Hospital Stay: 3-7 days

Recovery: 2 weeks - several months

Prayers: wisdom and skill for the surgeon

peace for the children

smooth recovery

Praise: for a wonderful church family and good friends

for the prayers of so many across the country

UPDATE: Surgery Date Set

Davina's surgery is scheduled for 5 May. Thank you for the many, many responses and we appreciate your prayers so much.

Prayer Request

I have posted before about our older daughter's difficulties with an angioma: a cluster of blood vessels in the brain that bleed occasionally and, in her case, cause seizures. She has had some grand mal seizures in the past year, and today she saw a neurosurgeon who strongly recommended that she have surgery to remove the angioma. It has enlarged and has been bleeding inside itself, causing the greater pressure on the brain tissue that brings on the seizures. The more times this happens, the higher the chance that the angioma will hemorrhage.

Brain surgery is a serious and frightening thing. Davina's angioma is located in the motor skills part of her brain which affects the left side of her body. Surgery could cause a loss of strength on that side of the body, and of course there are many possible side effects. We would so appreciate prayers as she finalizes this decision.

If you are interested in knowing more about angiomas, the Angioma Alliance site is very helpful.

http://www.angiomaalliance.org/

Congratulations to our Newly Graduated Sailor

From playing in the water way

back when to the Navy today . . .

SO PROUD OF OUR SAILOR!

Startin' 'em Young

Conversation this evening on the phone:

I answer: "Hello?"

Pause; I hear child sounds in the background.

9-year-old voice: "Who is this?"

Me: "I'm pretty sure I'm your grandma, but who exactly are you?"

Same voice gives full child name of suspected male grandchild.

Me: "Well, how are you, Nate?"

Nate: "I'm fine. How are you?"

Me: "I'm fine, too."

Slight pause.

Nate: "Can I speak to Grandpa?"

I call Grandpa to the phone and hang up my extension to try to avoid the static problems we had earlier. Grandpa's side of the ensuing conversation:

"How are you, Nate? . . . You did? . . . Did you get to shoot it? . . . Who went with you? . . . Did he get to shoot, too? . . . Did you like it? . . . How much did you get to shoot? . . ."

This is the male conversation in my family: guns and politics. God love 'em!

Morning Star

The empty sky turned from black to indigo as I drove to work this morning, a bare tinge of pastel orange rising on the eastern horizon. As I started from the car to my office building, I finally saw the morning star above the crenellations on the entrance tower, and thought of Keats' "bright star" "stedfast" in the heavens. And I thought of Alisa, our own bright star with her steadfast love, and her parents waiting to know what will happen, partial healing here for a time and our continued joy in her loving presence, or complete healing in heaven which is yet a loss for us that seems too hard to bear. And I thought of the star above Mordor that Sam saw, above the shadows of fear and hatred and violence and death, the star that reminded him that truth and beauty and love and goodness are always there and will always, in the end, overpower the brokenness.

Alisa, our lovely star, be well. We love you, and we pray for you to stay with us if your all-loving, all-knowing, and all-seeing Creator allows, but if you must go, if it is time for you to leave the valley and soar with Him, we will see you every morning in the stars and rejoice through our tears at your healing.

For my youngest

You have chosen a Navy career, at least for the short term, and tomorrow you begin in earnest. I’ve watched you embrace this choice over the last few months as you have waited to begin Basic Training, and I’m proud of the way you’ve prepared yourself mentally and physically.

For us, it’s the empty nest at last; you leave just a few days before your oldest sibling’s 35^th birthday. I tease about wanting your room and being ready for this new stage of your dad’s and my lives – but I will miss you, my tag-along who has brought so much joy, lifting my heart with laughter, offering words of encouragement on difficult days, offering me hugs and sharing photos and songs and films . . . making me grateful every day for the gift of your life.

Yes, I will miss you, however I may pretend otherwise.

I pray for you, my son, as you go into an environment containing – as all the world contains – so much of good and so many temptations. I pray that you will embrace every opportunity offered you to grow in honor and courage and selflessness and service, to become every day more and more the man God created you to be. And I pray that you will pursue wisdom above all else – wisdom that will protect you from the temptations to follow mere self-serving, momentary pleasures that will turn to ash; that you will be courageous to stand for that which is honorable in every area of life, unafraid to turn away – joyfully, and with a smile and laugh perhaps, never self-righteously – from that which would drag you down into behavior that will harm you and those around you, now or in the future. I pray for your mistakes – because we all make them – to be ones from which you can recover, having learned to be that much greater a man.

You will be different when next I see you. I look forward with joy to finding how you will have grown, to begin knowing you not merely as my youngest child, but as a man in your own right, becoming more a man after God’s own heart every day.

God be with you, son. I love you.

(And maybe I’ll let you crash in my new study when you come home. :))

photo credits: Keiller Impson; Steven Franklin

Maintenance

We are considering a new house and have been driving around seeing what's available. The other day we saw a lovely one which happens to have a swimming pool. I had noticed in the ads that the pool has been maintained by a professional company, and as I was thinking about the house as a possible new home, I thought, "Well, that's good, but we can just call Daddy . . ."

When they lived in South Texas, my parents had a lovely swimming pool in back of the house, above the bay. We all loved it, but the kids almost lived in it. Our oldest took apart the pool vacuum once, and when his granddad caught him at it explained, "I was going to put it back together." The second son got his one spanking from his granddad when he refused to leave the pool one afternoon, though his lips were turning blue and his teeth were chattering. Being sufficiently mechanically minded, Daddy did the pool maintenance himself, at least for the most part as I recall, learning what chemicals were needed in what proportion and when, how to clean it, and so on. The kids helped whenever they could and loved to glean leaves and trash from the water with the vacuum (when not taking it apart to see how it worked).

So Daddy knew pool maintenance, and when I thought about possibly having a swimming pool, I automatically thought that we could just call him to learn how to take care of it. But he hadn't remembered the swimming pool for a long time, and now I can never call him for anything again.

I didn't know how sharp and physical grief can be.

Eulogy

What I read at Daddy's memorial service: some of you have asked for this, and I've finally had time to get the changes completed. Thanks for caring!

Harold Eugene Blitch

3 August 1919 – 19 September 2010

“Dad has always been the strongest man I’ve ever known,” my brother remarked one day, and it was so hard to see him physically decline, after a lifetime of never slowing down.

Yet even now, Daddy’s strength is not really gone, not the important strength that has shaped, and will continue to shape, our lives. This strength cannot ever change, because it is the strength of love: love that derives from the love of God and has sustained his family and flowed out to friends and to innumerable people known and unknown.

Love of country led Daddy into the Air Force during World War II, and around the world flying transport. I grew up on stories of his flying “the Hump,” buying sapphires in India for Mother, dropping a monkey he’d adopted over the ocean because it insisted on trying to fly the plane, and the forced landing in a Brazilian jungle, where he spent his wedding day being paddled down the Amazon to a rescue ship . . . “It’s just what one does,” he said – serve your country in time of need.

That same sense of responsibility in his love of humanity led him to search for survivors in a massively destructive tornado in Waco and also to Mexico to help a sister church in their building and farming, as well as to his support of various charities over the years.

I’ve heard it said of many people that they never met a stranger. It was true for my daddy. There was never a person he couldn’t talk to, couldn’t develop a conversation with, couldn't make laugh. And so he had many friends over the years, friends he played bridge with, hunted and fished with, worked with, helped when they were in need.

But his love for us, his family, is of course the love that I know the best and that has been most important for all of us. Nearly 58 years of memories, plus the stories from his years before my birth, create a flood that is hard to choose from.

One of the few times I saw him cry was at his mother’s funeral, after helping his sister take care of her in her last years. He made the time and effort for fishing and camping trips with his younger brother, and was teasing and joking with his “baby sister,” as he always called her, into his final days.

Of course, I know him best as a daddy. The time he gave to Mike and me – hunting and fishing and Scouts and all those manly things he and Mike did together (most of which I couldn’t make myself love), but for both of us – setting up hay bales for archery and teaching us to shoot, flooding the garden for winter ice-skating, taking us to campus for sledding and skating when the pond froze hard enough, canoeing and camping trips, reading to us, playing croquet on summer evenings, chasing fireflies . . . simply being with us. As the consummate “daddy’s girl,” I shall always hold the memory of sitting curled up in his lap when he came home from work, and the knowledge of complete safety which has made it easier for me to trust my heavenly Father in my later years.

Oh, so many memories! But the most important gift Daddy gave Mike and me was his love for our mother. For 67 years, he made his wife the center point of his earthly loves and in so doing showed us what love is. I am sure I received my fair share of childhood spankings, but the only one I remember is the one that resulted from sassing my mother at the dinner table; the only time he ever spanked any of my children was for the same reason. He could tolerate a great deal from us – but absolutely not disrespect for the woman he loved. That was never tolerable.

He adored his grandchildren and great-grandchildren; even when he began having trouble remembering all those names, he knew them as family to be loved – just their pictures drew great joy into his eyes.

I am sure my daddy must have had his faults – he was human like us all – but this I have before me as clear as a cloudless noon: my daddy loved my mother, and therefore all is well in the world, no matter the suffering and brokenness that plagues us. Because nothing else, however pressing or difficult, is as important as this; only if Daddy could stop loving would the world end, and he cannot stop loving – even now . . . no, especially now, now that his love has been perfected in his Savior’s. What a privilege we have had.

Singing with the Angels

My daddy's name is Harold Eugene (he went by Gene). Every Christmas he would remind us, "My name's from the Bible, you know."

Eye rolls all around.

"Really. It's right there: 'Hark, the herald angels sing.'"

Groans and laughter and out the door to the Christmas Eve candlelight service.

We sang "What Wondrous Love is This" in church this morning as the closing hymn. When we got to the last verse, about singing through eternity, I started laughing so hard I almost choked. I leaned over to K and whispered, "I bet Daddy's singing with the herald angels right now!"

I keep trying to think of a spiffy line to end that thought with, but all I keep doing is laughing some more.

"High Flight"

Daddy was a WWII pilot, and he especially requested that this poem, a favorite of pilots everywhere, be read at his funeral. It was written by John Gillespie Magee of the Royal Canadian Air Force, who was killed in action on 11 December 1941. High Flight

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings. Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there, I've chased the shouting wind along and flung My eager craft through footless halls of air Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace Where never lark, or even eagle flew. And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod The high untrespassed sanctity of space, Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

Quick Update

Daddy's memorial service was lovely, and Mother is surrounded by friends who love her and will walk this journey with her (many have already made it, as men tend to die before their wives).

Thanks so much for the sustaining prayers of all of you. We appreciate your loving concern so much.

I will try to post a bit about the service and the week when I get caught up at work.

Death be not Proud

My beloved daddy passed away this afternoon while we were on our way to Texas. We are stopped for the night before continuing in the morning.

It's not real yet, of course, and I know the grief is going to be crushing at some point. But I know this too: death indeed has no reason to be proud, because he is nothing in the face of Christ's victory on the Cross.

I will see my daddy again, and meanwhile he is breathing freely once more, no longer bound by arthritic and stroke-riddled limbs, able to speak clearly his praises to his Saviour. What joy!