After the Blizzard

Today we woke up to a revolution of snow,
its white flag waving over everything,
the landscape vanished,
not a single mouse to punctuate the blankness. . .

. . . In a while I will put on some boots

and step out like someone walking in water,
and the dog will porpoise through the drifts,
and I will shake a laden branch,
sending a cold shower down on us both.

                                     Billy Collins, "Snow Day"

Thunderhead Pine Trees

The Pond in Winter

(OK, so Henry David Thoreau said it first!) 

Mother Nature's sculpture on our deck

Where the Cimarron and Arkansas Rivers join

The driveway before the snowplow

David and Cooper take a walk.

David begins clearing the driveway.

Cooper, Happy Snow Beagle

Tema's Hats

These two hats symbolize the friendship between Temar K. Goodrich and me. The white crocheted one dates from the 1960s when Tema and I were college friends and roommates. She developed an interest in all things crafty and was teaching herself how to crochet. I love that hat. To this day, it's one of my favorites—warm, well-fitting, washable and durable.

Tema gave me the purple one in January, 2010, when I was visiting her in Brighton, Colorado. She had a stash of these hats she planned to give away. We were setting out for our walk on the levy behind her house and she had me choose a hat, since I didn't have a suitable one. I wore the hat on our two-mile walk that afternoon and also as we made our rounds of downtown Brighton. We had lunch and visited the library, where she was looking for books about "chemo brain." We also had our usual gabfest, talking about her battle with lymphoma, the latest diet or food or alternative medicine she was trying or her latest research and reading on lymphoma.

The hat went home with me and, like the white one, I love it. It, too, is warm, well-fitting, washable and durable. It's perfect for wearing in the woods.

Between the two hats, life happened. We both married architecture students who happened to be classmates at Kansas State. Tema and I had been roommates our sophomore year and when a group of us moved into an old house which had been turned into student apartments, she lived in the basement. I lived on the third floor with other roommates.

Because our husbands were in a five-year degree program, we stayed in Manhattan for another year after our graduations. We both went to graduate school; Tema for a Masters in Elementary Education and me for an MA in English. She and Bruce moved to Denver; David and I ended up in Tulsa. She and Bruce had a son, Jeremy.

Years, even decades, passed between our seeing each other. David and I stayed with her when we came to Denver for my sister Jolene's wedding. By that time, she and Bruce were divorced and she had met Gregg, who became her second husband for the next more than 30 years. Tema loved to drive to see friends and family. She'd call to tell us she was coming through Tulsa and we've have a reunion—an instant connection, as if we'd had lunch the day before.

She and Gregg moved to Texas for a brief time and I visited her there. The crocheted hat had turned into a full-fledged arts and crafts occupation. Tema was sewing, crocheting, knitting, quilting and turning odds and ends from garage sales into art. She had a booth at an antiques mall to sell her wares. One of my treasures is the antique handheld school bell she gave me.

We lost contact again. Then one day, a K-State alumni directory appeared in our mailbox. I looked up Tema, not expecting to find her listed. But she was. I called and again the instant connection. I began coming to Colorado fairly frequently for family events: weddings and reunions. Brighton is about ten minutes from the Denver International Airport, so she'd pick me up, we'd have a day together and she'd drive me to my sister's house.

The life that happened to Tema between the two hats included being the pedestrian in a pedestrian-car accident, which nearly killed her. She defied the doctors who said she'd never walk again. The blood transfusions gave her Hepatitis C and, about ten years ago, a routine blood test to check on the Hepatitis C revealed the lymphoma.

But Tema was not one to just let life happen. Not only did she fight the cancer with every weapon—conventional and non-conventional—that she could find, but she also continued with her sewing, knitting and crocheting. She loved sewing for babies and she found the perfect group—Warm Hearts, Warm Babies, which makes baby clothes and layettes and donates them to hospitals, shelters, homes—whoever might need them. Her basement workshop was stacked to the rafters with sewing equipment and supplies.

She used those supplies to make a third kind of hat—chemo hats. These were not ordinary chemo hats. The jester hats with bells that jingled were so much fun that she made several for other cancer patients who asked her about them. She also made beautifully decorated and intricately designed chemo hats. She was not about to let lymphoma interfere with her sense of humor or beauty.

In October, Tema picked me up at DIA. This time was different. She was so frail. She had recovered from pneumonia and told me that the oncologists had found a growth on her lungs. Instead of going to Brighton, we went to Denver West, near where my sister lives. We had lunch at Whole Foods, shopped for a baby shower for my niece—which Tema loved doing. We had our usual gabfest, but I could tell she was getting tired. My brother-in-law came to pick me up and we hugged our good-bys, promising regular phone calls.

In January, Gregg called to tell me that Tema was in the hospital. He was honest and forthright. "I'm calling you now so you won't be surprised when I have to call you later." Friday morning, January 21, the call came. Tema died at 11:40 p.m. January 20.

Her Life Remembrance January 28 in the First Presbyterian Church Fellowship Hall was filled with photos, memories, her beautiful creations and photos of creations she had donated through Warm Hearts, Warm Babies. Most importantly, it was filled with her family members: Gregg, her son Jeremy, her sister Dina, her brother, Kim; Jeremy's father, Bruce and his wife, with whom she had maintained an excellent relationship. Friends were there: her family doctor, the berry patch owner where Tema picked raspberries and blackberries and even maintained a row of raspberries for a while; other people who knew and loved Tema. We shared memories and laughter, tears and hugs.

The physical Tema has left—a reality that hit hard when I arrived at DIA and she wasn't there. But I have memories and those hats, which like Tema are warm, durable and as comfortable and well-fitting as our friendship.

Three Trees

Three years ago, my husband and I decided that we should take advantage of the abundant crop of Eastern Red Cedar trees in our woods for our Christmas tree. Eastern Red Cedar trees are considered an invasive nuisance because they steal water from other plants and they grow quickly on cleared land. The Nature Conservancy has sounded the alert: if something isn't done soon, red cedars will cover more than one-third of Oklahoma's landscape. We know that because of the number of tiny red cedars we see in the woods and because of the giant trees in an area we call the "cedar meadow" in a ravine behind our house.

Nonetheless, both of us like the pesky tree, enough that when we built our house, we cut a hole in our west deck so that a red cedar can grow through it. That tree was our first Christmas tree in our new house. David put lights on it and we put our gifts next to the glass wall that separates the inside from the outside. We had a live tree and a great first Christmas-in-the-house memory.

After that first Christmas, we reverted to our practice of buying a tree from a Christmas tree lot. Neither of us is a fan of artificial Christmas trees, no matter how real they look. We'd stop in Tulsa, walk around the lot and find a tree that we thought would look perfect in our house. The high school student working in the lot would give the trunk a fresh cut, wrap the tree and stow it in our car. We'd drive 30 miles home, put it up and decorate it.

But three years ago, we decided to cut our own tree. One November day, we set off to the woods to find a Christmas tree. We found a very tall one. We put it next to the spiral staircase in our game room. I had to stand on the steps to decorate the top and I loved it. For the first time ever, I could get our entire collection of Christmas ornaments on our tree--ornaments from our families, our friends, my students and ornaments that just seem to appear in the collection. It was a glorious tree. I spent hours admiring it.

When we started searching for our tree last year, I knew exactly what I wanted--another giant tree. I was overruled by the Man with the Axe. Too big and messy, he said. So, shades of my childhood (See Bossy Betty, Dec. 24), we ended up with a tree small enough to put on our pool table. We decorated it with maybe 10% of our ornament collection--pretty, but I didn't like it much. I thought of it as an old people's tree--the kind of tree people get when their kids and grandkids are grown and no longer come home for the holidays, but they feel morally obligated to put up a tree. Somehow a small tree sitting on our pool table in the game room didn't inspire the Christmas spirit.

The Christmas Spirit seemed particularly important to us this year, perhaps because of a Scrooge-like pronouncement from a family member: no Christmas presents, no Christmas cooking, maybe not even a Christmas tree at their house.

The Friday after Thanksgiving we headed into the woods to find our tree. We trotted, pulled by our two Beagles who love the woods, towards the back of the property, checking out cedar trees. We walked around each candidate, checking for shape and height, picturing it in the living room, not the game room, covered with lights, ornaments and tinsel. Near a rock outcropping, we discovered a grove of three perfect trees. We chose one, leaving the other two for Christmases 2011 and 2012, and dragged it back to the house.

The tree stood at the west end of our living room for a month, lights glowing, reflecting off my mother-in-law's antique ornaments, the ornaments from our first Christmases together and the collection given to us over the years from friends. I loved standing outside and seeing it through the glass on a dark night.

I know that the Christmas spirit doesn't reside in trees or gifts or cooking. I know that Christmas is a symbol for hope in the darkest time of the year, an affirmation of the belief that life will return. I know that Christmas is in our hearts and the love and warmth we find with friends and family this time of year.

And I know that our third home-cut tree--the most perfect tree so far--symbolizes all of that.

Happy New Year!

Turning the Last Page on the Calendar

I was at least a week late turning to December on the Bank of McLouth calendar I have on my refrigerator. Nothing unusual in that—I'm not prompt at changing calendars and sometimes I wonder how long calendars will be around. I'm more likely to check the date on my iPhone or iPad or computer than look at a calendar.

But this change was different. As I turned the calendar, taking it down from the refrigerator, lifting the year's photo of a herd of cattle staring straight ahead, and dropping December to cover November, I realized that this might be my last Bank of McLouth calendar.

Every year, Mom gave each of us a calendar as part of our Christmas present. Sometimes the photos are cute kittens or pastoral farm scenes, but often, as in the 2010 calendar and the cattle, the photo, captioned Crossbred Cattle, represents the business of farming.

The calendar itself is all about the business of farming. When I change the month on my other calendar, I lift the old month to reveal the new month. Not so on the Bank of McLouth. Instead of another pretty picture, the back of each month is an accounting form for the previous month. It's a working calendar. Lift the yearly photo and you can keep track of Cash Received and Cash Paid Out. The Cash Paid Out columns take up more space than the Cash Received ones.

McLouth, Kansas is my hometown. It's a tiny farming town in Northeast Kansas, population about 800. I graduated from McLouth High School in a class of 22 and I think I'm related to a majority of the population. My sisters and I went to college, married non-McLouthians and moved away. My parents retired from the farm and moved to Oskaloosa, but stayed faithful to the Bank of McLouth, an institution which supported them through good years and bad and their five daughters through college.

For many years, I made the four hour plus drive to Kansas to visit my parents once a month, help around the house, run errands and take them shopping in Lawrence and visit my sister, the Nearest Daughter, who has assumed with grace and dignity, the responsibility of parent caretaker. Every Saturday I visited, Mom and I would drive to McLouth to go to the bank. The bank is social center and Mom and I always had good visits with the people who work there and often with other people who came to do bank business on Saturday morning.

Five and a half years ago, my dad died and almost a year ago Mom moved into assisted living. We sold the house, built by my grandfather, where my parents had lived for more than 25 years.

Transitions happen. Some are easy; some are difficult; some take time to adjust to. The Bank of McLouth calendar tracks time and transitions. I wonder what transition the Last Calendar symbolizes. I suspect it's a significant one.

Cooper and Santa Claus

Our almost-two-year-old Beagle, Cooper, has an issue with Santa Claus—a particular soft stuffed Santa Claus from my late mother-in-law's collection.

Last Christmas was Cooper's first Christmas with us. He had come to live with us in September, a 7-month-old lively, lovable and loving, but untrained, Beagle. My husband and I decorated for Christmas, putting his mother's Santa collection on the dining room table: Santa Claus in a rocking chair; a Santa Claus candy jar and four matching mugs—more ceramic and glass Santas, except for the one soft stuffed Santa with a jingle bell attached to his hat.

Maybe it was the jingle bell that attracted Cooper or the soft texture of the body. For whatever reason, he loved Santa. He'd trot across the dining room table (a forbidden activity), pick up Santa and, head high and tail wagging, hop off the table. Sometimes he'd get to play Humans Chasing Beagle until he dropped Santa; other times, we'd find Santa on the floor, on the sofa or on a chair. Cooper would shake Santa and play with him, but Santa never showed any signs of injury, amazing since Cooper chewed on everything and left holes in everything.

This year, we put the Santas out again. Cooper wasn't interested. Then one evening we came home from visiting our neighbor to find Santa laying on the floor. No injuries, although a piece of velcro was loose.

The next morning, David asked me if Santa was ok. I picked him up, checked the loose velcro and noticed a switch between Santa's feet. I turned it on and Santa began to play "Rudoph the Red Nosed Reindeer," dancing around on the table.

Immediately, Cooper had his paws on the table, looking intently and curiously at the dancing Santa. It stopped; he barked; it started again. It stopped. David clapped. Santa started dancing and playing.

We put Santa on the floor to see what Cooper would do. Cooper was curious, but timid. He barked (which of course started Santa up again) and finally mustered enough courage to creep close enough to Santa to sniff him.

Several hours later, I was in the kitchen when I heard "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer." I rounded the corner and saw Cooper standing in the middle of the table, his mouth around Santa, his legs bent for a jump onto the floor. I reprimanded Cooper and retrieved Santa. Before long, I'd hear Santa again. We played the reprimand and retrieval game several times.

Santa is now safely out of Beagle reach.

Going to England!

Tomorrow my husband and I go to England! I've taught English for many years and I'm going to get to see many of the places I taught about and visit the areas where some of my favorite writers lived and worked. But more important, I'll be able to make some family connections. My mother told me about the place her grandfather left to come to the United States. It's a place called Barnstaple. I looked it up on the web and discovered that it's an agricultural area and very old--it dates back to the Saxons. Unfortunately, we won't get to go there this time. She's also told me that some of the ancestors were servants in Buckingham Palace. That one I'll get to see. We'll also go to Scotland, which covers the paternal ancestors, since my maiden name was McPherson. I'm about as Anglo-Saxon as you get!