Nonstalgia

I was considering things in life this morning and my parents came to my mind. My parents fell in love and got hitched at the ripe old ages of 17 and 18. That was way back in 1975 and they are still going strong... um... 36 years later? Math has never been my strong suit...  As I was thinking about their lives and legacy I was struck by the things in life that they endured together. They have had 9 kids together, 5 boys, 4 girls. My oldest brother Nathan was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor at age 2. The surgery to remove that tumor and the harsh treatments trying to get the cancer under control left my brother with mental and physical handicaps. My mom once told me, "They took my baby into the operating room that day and brought me out a completely different boy." I can't imagine... looking at my own little two year old son, how can you survive that? He was the brother I knew though, and I loved him, to me he was just "Nathan". We had a special game that we played together, it was just ours and I will cherish the memories of it forever. We called it "Bear and Nancy". :-) 13 years later the brain cancer returned, this time it was inoperable and claimed his life in 6 months time. Pearl Harbor Day, December 7, 1992 . I was 12. He got to pass away at home, on the living room couch surrounded by his family. I will never, ever forget the men that came and them taking his body away. I thought about what Nat had said to our dad weeks before, when he was still able to talk... "Dad, don't be sad, I'm not afraid, I'm going to be with Jesus." I didn't cry at his funeral, and made a vow to never cry again.

In the meantime my mommy's own health was deteriorating. She has some kind of undiagnosed autoimmune disease that has attacked every joint in her body. She has lived in severe pain for years. She did end up getting joint replacements in most of her larger joints and is able to walk fairly well these days but the toll that that has taken on her is irreversible. In spite of this she never really complained and choose to continue to homeschool all of us. I never doubted my parents love for me. I feel like it was very evident in the course of our daily lives. I will never, ever doubt that they did the very best they could to raise us.

Maybe, perhaps, I look at my growing up life through rose colored glasses but when I think about it these days it's mostly all warm fuzzies! I grew up on a "hobby farm", meaning it was more of a hobby, mainly to supplement our family, than to make a profit. I love to think back to working the farm with my brothers and sisters. I know I whined a lot back then, I never wanted to weed mile long rows of green beans in the blazing hot sun... but what would I give to do that right now? Having earthworm fights with my brothers and being covered in dirt from head to toe? I know I complained when the Saturday to "do chickens" (no, not that) came around. But seriously, how many of you can dress out 10 chickens in an hour? And my oh my, fresh fried chicken? NOTHING like it. We canned our produce together as a family, we ate dinner together as a family... we were a family, we were love.

I grew up on about 7 acres with two ponds. We ran barefoot and wild in those woods and fields all summer long. We'd hunt for snakes for hours. We'd have contests to see who could drag the biggest snapping turtle out of the pond muck... Wintertime meant family Friday's in front of the fireplace. Nearly every Friday evening when the weather was cold we'd stoke up the fire and roast hotdogs, followed by some old black and white movie...

I realize this is probably a pretty disjointed blog entry but I think really disjointedly most of the time. I guess that I just hope that someday my own children will look back as fondly on their childhoods as I do on mine. And yeah, I'm just going to say it, one of my biggest regrets in my life is that my own children aren't able to be near their grandparents and know them... Sunday's fried chicken dinner as one big family, all the marrieds, all the grandchildren... and that I'm so far away that it's hard for them to impart their wisdom to me. Lord knows I need it!