Christmas Vacation

It is just as it should be. Christmas week has been a time of visiting with friends, reconnecting, baking and eating. Yesterday after baking gingersnaps, I spent the afternoon visiting with friends, sharing their good news and company. Then too full of caffeine and sugar I watched TV for a time, catching part of Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking on one of my local PBS stations.

This is not an original Conan Doyle, and it didn't seem like it was. Too dark, not noir dark but macabre. It was creepy and seemed like Sherlock Holmes meets Law and Order Special Victims. I do not find psychopathology entertaining. I do not find sociopaths interesting characters. I have long thought that it is a major flaw of our culture that we have become obsessed with these things as entertainments. (I find the fact that people watch these things on TV and or watch the news and then can't sleep without "sleep aids" to be so obvious. We wouldn't need the sleep medicines if we'd turn off the TV!)

Anyway, no one but Jeremy Brett can be Sherlock Holmes as far as I am concerned. The original stories had the finesse of Victoriana. I won't look for more of these new ones. (But I did double check to make sure that I had locked the front door before I went to bed.)

My daffodils are starting to poke through the dirt. The older ones will remind me of a neighbor who died Christmas morning. She had organized caroling in the neighborhood for many years and for the last several, while she fought her fight against cancer, there were no carolers. She was a passionate gardener who generously shared her skills, knowledge and plants with the rest of us. One year she bought a bag of daffodil bulbs, one hundred King Alfred daffodils, from our local Costco and emailed our list that she had bulbs to share. I was the lucky one who bought the extras so as they bloom each year I will remember her. I had not known that daffodils where fragrant or that they are a symbol of the resurrection. I have her to thank for that for these daffodils are fragrant and having them led me to research on the web. She will be missed and remembered.

I hope there will be something similar for people to remember me by when the time comes. It is up to me to make sure that there is, another reason to practice kindness, generosity and gratitude--perhaps selfish, but it is those acts that will keep our memories alive to others.

Today I give thanks for the neighbor who shared her music and daffodil bulbs and for the friends who are making my holiday season busy and joyful.

Birthdays and Remembrance

September has always been one of my most favorite times of the year, partly because I went to school for so long that it is etched in my being that Fall is a time of beginnings. It is also a month of family birthdays.


The matriarch of Papa's family (even though she never married, she was the one who held everyone and everything together) was Rose Ellen Manor, known as "Aunt Dade" to all of us. Her birthday was September 6, and I believe the year was 1874.

Today, September 10 was Mama's birthday. She was born in 1910. I wrote about her on February 19, this year on the anniversary of her death. She was born just as the Victorian era had ended and the Edwardian era began. I remember that she told us about the wood burning stove in the kitchen, the parlor and the Christmas customs. When she died, I thought that era truly went with her and a friend of mine agreed, then added sagely and kindly, "Peggy it will live on in you."

The youngest member of our family joined us last year on September 17 and my first cousin and his wife also both have September birthdays.

A cake with candles and flowers were part of birthday celebrations and they are still part of mine. September is completed for me with my own birthday at the end of the month. This year I am looking forward to family members visiting to celebrate it with me.

I am looking forward even as I remember and I am grateful.

Friday at Week's End

A feeble pun on wit's end. I have been busy this week setting up a new watering schedule and devising a new way to do some of the watering chores myself. Two half gallon milk jugs and a watering can come into the kitchen sink and are filled then hauled to the porch to do the honors. People are away this weekend and so I want to see if I can manage this myself before finding more friends to help. So far so good. I have also potted up the irises a friend brought over in holding pots before someone can plant them in the ground.

The larger of the yellow roses that I posted Tuesday grew to be six inches across. A truly large rose. Three Mr. Lincoln's are fading on my counter now. As they fade they turn an almost purple not quite magenta color that I can't quite capture with my camera. (I probably need filters that I don't have. As well as knowledge that I don't have.) The camera is such a gift. My digital camera was preceded by a 35mm camera, a gift from my parents when I graduated from high school.

This week I have been scanning slides from that time into my desk top computer. It is amazing how many Christmas tree pictures my family took. As though we would never have another Christmas tree, we snapped shot after shot of the trees. The shots with the lights on never turned out. Then as I was laughing at myself for having expended so much film on the trees, and wishing also that I had taken more shots of the people, I found it: the magic Christmas tree.

One year in the eighties when a tree truly wasn't in the household budget and I had not expected to have one, Papa came into the house on Christmas eve day with a scrawny, not terribly beautiful tree, the last one in the grocery store lot. He went to the garage and brought in the boxes. He set it up where I would be able to look and look and look at it and even helped me decorate it. I hadn't thought that I had any pictures of it at all and the slides had turned a funny color, magenta like the roses on the counter. With the help of the computer, I brought it back to green again. It was such a joy to see it again. I spent hours that Christmas, in the evening with my feet up on a stool just looking at the tree. That was the first time, too that we did not put lights on a tree. It was so dry that I did not think it was a good idea to put the light on it. Papa was grateful. I have never put lights on one again. Symbol of the Light as it is, it doesn't need electricity to make it work for me. Everything on it is shiny and catches the light. I take better pictures of it this way too.

Somehow I think the picture taking is an attempt to fix the object. The picture is never quite the same. It doesn't capture the magic. It is why I keep taking pictures of the flowers too, I think, turning the ephemeral into something that lasts longer; holding on to memory that I don't quite trust to do the job without the visual cue.

Memory too is an elusive thing, not as fixed as we think it is, the memories change as we go forward in time. The way that I remember my childhood is not the same as the way I remembered it in my twenties. My memory of the Christmas trees, or the roses, is not the same as the trees or the items themselves. I will still try to hold the moments in time making memories by taking pictures for as long as I have the gift to see well enough to use the cameras. For the art, the technology and the gift of sight, I give thanks tonight and am grateful.

In Remembrance

Nine years ago today my father died. He was 79 years old and a few months. He had just been to his doctor and he assured me that the doctor said he was continuing stable in his COPD and Emphysema. He was looking forward to celebrating the millenium and his 80th birthday that would have occurred shortly after, in February of 2000. He didn't make those milestones.

I remember coming home from the hospital after we had the respirator removed and he was truly gone to see my hollyhocks, which he had planted for me, gloriously in bloom. They were so effulgent that they seemed to billow over the "easy-riser" steps leading up to the house. A Monarch Butterfly was alight on the top most spire and it took my breath away with its rare beauty.

I have never liked butterflies as religious symbols or as resurrection symbols and for a while (particularly in the seventies) they seemed to be everywhere mostly in a way that was gaggingly, cloyingly sentimental. Death, like joy, is austere, but somehow the butterfly, maybe because it was a Monarch and they are not frequent visitors to our yard, took me by surprise and gave me joy and comfort at the same time when all else failed.

Papa planted those hollyhocks for me during my rampant gardening phase. The flowers are purple, glorious flowering and the plants are, fortunately, self-sowing. I hope they will continue as long as I remain in the house for they are a tribute to the kind and steadfast man who planted and tended them as a gift even though he did not particularly care about flowers or enjoy gardening all that much.

He has been in my thoughts a good deal this past week and this weekend especially for he loved me unconditionally. He did not see my disability, as unfortunately, others sometimes have done. He accepted me as I am and shared his life with me. He was an exceptionally bright, perhaps even brilliant man and our conversations ran deep.

I remember that when I was studying history in college he wanted to know what I was learning and told me that he was glad to have me share with him the things that he had not had time to study when he was in college. (He simply triple-majored in physics, chemistry and math and then took an electrical engineering degree.)

We miss him today, my sister and I. Heaven is home and we trust and believe he is there along with our mother. It is a long way away still for those who remain behind and I wish they could come visit.

Requiem aeternum, Papa mine. Frederick James Manor, February 16, 1920-June 8, 1999. I am so grateful for the privilege of being your daughter.

Mother's Day, 2008

Today I miss my mother even though she has been gone for twenty-five years. It is a day for remembering and giving thanks for mothers. And for grandmothers. I think of my great-grandmothers too.

For the last few days, gratefulness.org, one of my favorite web-sites, has been featuring a link to the proclamation of 1870 by Julia Ward Howe for a Mother's Peace Day. This is the beginning of Mother's Day. I like this concept of a Mother's peace day even more than our current, rather commercial one. She urged women to come together for a gathering to "take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace."

The link to her entire proclamation can be found here

http://www.chiff.com/a/mothers-day-origins.htm

Julia Ward Howe also wrote the lyrics to the Battle Hymn of the Republic.

Let's think of having a Mother's Peace Day. Peace activities could include planting flowers, sending money to CARE, making sure that everyone has health care that includes dental and eye care (as our current Medicare does not); making sure that seniors are not consigned to lives of poverty.

Tomorrow is nurse's day. It is fitting for me to remember my Mama on that day too for she was a nurse. Her beautiful graduation picture taken of her in her starched white uniform and cap, hands folded in her lap sits on the buffet across the room from where I sit typing on my laptop. She was a care-taker and care-giver par excellence and I remember her competence and service to others, as well as her love and laughter.

She would enjoy the flowers that I have been reveling in these last few days and the chocolate cookies I baked this morning.

Requiescat in Pace, Helen Rose, and Agnes Elizabeth, Mary, Rose, Marguerite Ann, Margaret Ann and Rose. Mama and my grandmothers and great-grandmothers who rest from their labor now. I hope you are all, starting with Mama, rejoicing in heaven and that flowers bloom all the time there. I am grateful for you all, for the memories of your lives, good cooks all, devout women and mothers without whom I would not be here enjoying modern technology--and flowers and chocolate cookies.

Anniversary of a WWII Battle

May 4, 1945 a destroyer mine-layer named U.S.S. Shea was on duty off Okinawa when the peaceful morning quiet was shattered by the appearance of a baka bomber that quickly attacked, decimating the ship and killing twenty-six men and one officer. Ninety-one more were wounded. My father, Lt. j.g. Frederick James Manor was one of the wounded, although not severely. (I have his purple heart.)

After he died in 1999, I found accounts of the Shea and the battles it was in on-line. He would have been amazed, I think, by all the information and the pictures. The Shea was not a large ship and the men and officers lived at close quarters.

While I was growing up, Papa never spoke much about the war. He would tell funny stories occasionally, if someone pressed him. When I asked him about that years later, he said, "I did not think that war was a suitable topic of conversation for children."

Once, when I was in my forties, he spoke at greater length about that day in May. His job was to see to all of the storage areas on the ship that included the area where the bombs and ammo were kept. After the baka bomb raked the ship, and after the fire had been put out, Papa had to descend into that area to see if anyone had survived. It was hardly likely that anyone could have, but he had to make sure. He said, in his beautiful, quiet, grave voice, "I have never forgotten the smell of burning flesh."

Post traumatic stress syndrome had not been identified then, but I am sure that he and all who returned from the war suffered from it to a greater or lesser degree. I am sure that he smoked because of it, and the smoking eventually killed him. He died from emphysema.

He counted his blessings for he was as he said one of the fortunate ones who returned. The story of his ship is quite exciting and heroic even after more than sixty-years. They plugged holes in the side with mattresses and listing she made it to Haushi and then Kerama Retto where she underwent repairs and left behind most of what was left of her ammunition along with much of her gear. She was headed home. First to Pearl Harbor and then San Diego through the Panama Canal and home to, I believe, Newport News, Virginia for extensive repairs. By the time she reached the Atlantic the war in Europe was over, and as Papa said, they were able to travel at night with lights on and doors open for fresh air. They were safe and it must have been a surreal experience to have been safe, in this damaged ship that still bore the scars and probably the smells of battle, especially since the war in the Pacific was still going on.

I have always felt so blessed to have had this man for my father and as the daughter of a World War II Navy vet, I feel a special connection to the Navy. I hold them in my heart today along with all those serving in our military now.

Prayer Boxes and Prayer Journals

Today I found myself visiting and updating one of my Squidoo lenses on prayer journals and boxes which can be found here,

http://www.squidoo.com/prayerjournals

When I set it up last year I had just begun using one of the boxes as a prayer box. This is a receptacle for all of the requests that people were making for me to pray for them. The requests are written on slips of paper and placed in the box. I can take them out one at a time or lift the box (even physically in my two hands) to place the requests before the Lord for His consideration. It is a nice concept and a nice use of the cafepress Keepsake boxes.

At the same time I wrote about using the little journals, which are nicely made from quality paper for pray journals. I have one for a gratitude journal, which I particularly try to use when I am feeling down so as to keep depression at bay. It is not a cure, but it does help. I have another one for my Christmas inventory and other seasonal notes. They would also make nice presents if filled with family recipes, pictures and anecdotes, or favorite prayers or quotes in the handwriting of the person presenting them as gift.

As I read through my lens I found that I had written about my mother's prayer journal. This was a collection of prayers that she had copied from various sources in her high school days and had kept hidden away in a drawer. I found it after she died and just before I returned to graduate school to take my doctoral qualifying exams (which I passed). I copied the prayers and put some of her holy cards and photos into a beautifully bound blank book so that I could take it with me without risking the loss of the original. (When I look back now, I am surprised I took the pictures with me, since there were no copies. There was one of me on her lap and another of me at three with a favorite doll. Her first communion photo is there and several others that are priceless family heirlooms. Fortunately, I still have them. Now of course, I could scan and load them into any number of online sources for an album I could look at anytime anywhere. Such is the marvel of modern technology.)

Today is good day to write about this, not only because it is a shameless plug for my Squidoo presence and cafepress designs, but more importantly because today would be Papa's 88th birthday, if he were still alive, and Tuesday will the be twenty-fifth anniversary of my Mother's death from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. She made a valiant fight and we mourned deeply. We still miss her. Papa's birthday was always colored by this afterward, for Mama lay in a coma in the ICU for ten days before he died. It was hard to celebrate for several years after and I thought that God's timing was more hard than perfect. Today, I think of them both with gratitude and joy. Remembrance is an act of the will and the intellect as well as the heart. I am grateful to remember.

Daffodils are Almost Here!

Finally, we are having a mild day so I poked my nose outside. The little Christmas tree doesn't appear to be making it, which makes me sad, but isn't surprising. It was charming while it lasted. The daffodils are shorter this year than in the past--they need to be separated, replanted and fed. The buds are swelling into yellow though, which means there will probably be flowers soon. Daffodils are one of the most beautiful flowers in the world in my opinion, and these, being King Alfred, are fragrant as well. I did not realize until last year that daffodils are actually grown for the perfume industry. (So it is never too late to learn new things--as my keyboard demonstrated to me yesterday.)

The roses need trimming and so do most of the potted herbs on my porch. That will wait for a slightly warmer day. Today, I could almost feel spring coming, but I think it is still a fairly long way off.

A friend stopped by with persimmon cookies--very yummy, so I must ask for her recipe!

Reading one of my favorite blogs, Seraphic Singles, yesterday, I realized that I had missed the feast of St. Agnes. January 21 is her feast day and my maternal grandmother was named for her, so I have her name as my middle name. A twelve year old virgin martyr is a little bit difficult to live up to when one is a teenager--but since that time is long past, I guess I can mellow a bit toward St. Agnes, who has caught the eye of poets and artists for many centuries.

How many Catholic women have been named Agnes down through the ages? Not as many as have been named Mary or Ann or probably Martha. Still it would be quite a few. And how many Catholic women, entering religious orders, took the name Agnes? Quite a few more. My favorite religious sister, and one of my favorite teachers, during my grade school years was named Sister Catherine Agnes. She taught catechism in my fourth, fifth and sixth grade years. She prepared me for confirmation and fostered my love of reading. I remember her with fondness and hope she is well--most probably in the next life now.

Peace Cards, Remembrance

Making cards is tedious, but also pleasant work. The tedium stems from the repetition. The pleaseure from sitting in a sunny space enjoying the day. I am reminded of the admonition of my childhood to "offer it up". Good advicie that turns the most mundane and repetitious tasks to grace. One can offer it just generally, or one can offer it for a specific intention. Peace would be a good intention.

The prints came from Adorama so quickly that I almost wasn't able to obtain paper as swiftly. Fortunately, that problem was solved by a dear friend who made the paper store run. Now that I know what color I am using I can re-order from the net if no one is available to go to the store. Life sometimes does get complicated!

As soon as I figure out how to accept money through PayPal I will begin selling the cards here through this blog. There are Christmas designs and many flowers as well. (I think that I have never met a flower that I didn't think deserved to have its picture taken. We have also been the same way about Christmas trees.)

So back to work and trying to turn the work into a prayer. It was a good childhood, and it is good to remember what my parents taught me, especially in this month of remembrance.

November Remembrance

November is the month of remembrance. All Saints, the very first day of the month begins the sequence of remembrance. The next day, All Souls, continues this cycle, as we remember those who have gone before us but are not named in the Canonized Saints list. I like to think of my family as my private saints--when I ask for them to pray not too many other people are asking at the same time, so my needs are heard immediately. Shortly after my mother died, I discovered that she, who had been a lifetime devotee of St. Anthony, was a great person to ask to help me find things. I reasoned that most of the things I was looking for where here in her house, so who better to know where they were? I think Papa was a bit shocked at first, but he joined in--now he gets some of the same prayers. This is a strong connection for me, since I believe in the after-life and believe and hope that these good people whom I still love and miss, and who loved me, are truly in heaven. It is comforting to turn to them.

At the same time, I send there names to the Church to be remembered on the Altar for the month of November. Prayers should be acknowledged by prayers, I think.

For me there is a cycle to grief that ends with remembrance. Remembrance is a work of our hearts and souls that continues after grieving (which is organic and unavoidable) and mourning (which is a great psychological and spiritual work of our lives) have finished their cycles. Remembrance remains and it is our work too for it helps us stay grounded in the values of our lives, connected to those who taught us and who gave us those values and lives, as well as allowing their names, their faces, and their stories to continue.

I do this gladly for my family now and hope that someday they will do it for me.

Veteran's Day

Veteran's Day is a day of remembrance. I think first of my father who served in the Navy in World War II. His picture, in his uniform, is on the buffet across sthe room from me as I type this. A handsome young man. I can look at pictures that he took of me when I was approximately the same age and see the resemblance. I remember him, his service and his devotion and miss him today. I think next of my Grandpa, Papa's father, who served in the Army in World War I and fortunately was not shipped out. He spent his time in Newport News Virginia where he was joined by his wife, Marguerite, and where my father was born in 1920. I found Grandpa's record in the genealogy files online some years ago when I was doing research and the internet was so new to me. Marguerite's little brother, Gordon, who looks out of another family picture as a small boy in knee pants and Little Lord Fauntleroy curls, did see duty in the trenches in France and family memory says he was injured by mustard gas. His record, that I found online, did not mention that. But a letter Marguerite wrote to her sister Cecelia, which I am fortunate enough to have, inquires about him and mentions "terrible injuries". Before them, two generations farther back, Grandpa had a grand uncle who served in a Michigan Cavalry unit in the Civil War. He died comparatively young, in his early forties of lung problems and tuberculosis. He was on Sherman's march to the sea. His name was Frederick, too, like my father, grandfather and great-grandfather.

We are not a military family, but I am proud of thesew men, good Catholics, fathers, ordinary people full of kindness who served their country when she called and doubtlessly carried the shadows with them for the rest of their lives. Would we could do away with war, that the price of freedom was not so high. Simply today I give thanks, and I remember. Thank you, Papa, Grandpa and great-grand uncle Frederick.

My thanks as well to my friends who madee their careers in the military, not a popular thing to do. I have respect and gratitude to you; you know who you are.

Murky Monday

The sky is completely overcast, the air is damp and the temperature is 63 degrees. Feels much more like a day in late October than one in early August!. It doesn't normally rain in my part of the world at this time of the year, but today looks and feels like an "it could rain day."

Why is Monday so difficult and why does it feel so different from other days of the week? It is the beginning so it should feel good. A whole new week, all fresh and new. Instead, for most of us it feels, "oh no, five more days until the weekend."

Today the painting of one wall, a strip behind a door, will be finished and that will be the last of the "Maypole Green". We will switch to the last wall, a small "island" that contains a closet and separates the bedroom from the little attached dressing room. The way this is laid out is quite elegant and adds grace and charm to my 1950's tract house. The dressing room is Paloma with woodwork in Whisper Pink. These colors will be used on the island wall. The colors are complementing one another nicely. Eventually, I hope to have the long, long living room wall painted the same green as we are using in this room. Even more eventually, because it would mean boxing up (or downsizing) a couple of thousand books, my office could do with a re-do too.

So the makeover projects, something new, are progressing nicely and I am pleased and excited that life will go forward.

Soon I hope to be an Etsy seller and to be posting links! The space will be there, clean and new for me to play and work in.

While my life proceeds with quiet joy and charm, I also reflect on the date today. This is August 6, 2007. Sixty-two years ago today a terrible bomb was dropped on a city far away whose name has become synonymous with horror and survival. Hiroshima, Japan. I grew up in the shadow of that bomb, that war and the Holocaust in Europe. Will we ever live in Peace?

Today is a day then for hope for peace and remembrance of those who died so horrifically. And those who have died so terribly in all the wars. We have a long way to go to make peace. But we can hope. A friend and I are folding paper cranes because they are beautiful and because they make us remember the story of the girl who, hoping that if she could fold 1000 cranes she would not die of the radiation sickness that had poisoned her from the detonation of that then new bomb on her city. She did not live, but worldwide, whenever people make paper cranes, we think of her and pray and hope for peace.