Grandmas and babies
Good evening y’all. I come to you this evening with some sadness, having lost my last Grandma just a few days ago. Grace Norby is my mom’s mom, after whom Jacinta Grace was named. My grandma was/is a strong Montana lady who set the bar high for a woman/farmer/mother/grandma/homemaker. She demanded respect just by the very excellence of everything she did. She was proud, and had much to be proud of: a great husband, thousands of acres of good farmland, five healthy children that grew up to have children of their own, good friends, a good education, fine handcraft skills, and a community in which she was loved. She lived nearly 90 years and decided she was ready to move on to another place where Alzheimer’s does not rule.
Her passing is a blessing in many respects. It seems sad that she had to live on without her mind for years, after such a proud life. My mind tells me to smile that Grandma is at peace now, but my selfish heart just aches that my last Grandma has gone. She and Grandpa were farmers. They worked hard and loved their way of life. They brought up five children, three of whom now live in cities. Keith, “Grandpa’s right hand” as Grandma called her son, worked their land alongside Grandpa for a long while but passed away a few years ago. LaRae, their youngest daughter still ranches with her family about an hour away from the farm. The land is being farmed by renters now. I said goodbye to their house and land a few years ago when Grandpa died, but it seems more final now that Grandma has left us. So much of life is come and go now, but Grandma and Grandpa had a place they never left. They had the community which I seek, they stayed. They poured their hearts and souls into one place and reaped the benefits of their permanence. They knew and loved the land they worked and made it through some hard times there. They gave us a legacy to follow, hard work and love.
Jacinta asked me why I was sad the other day. I told her that when it is time to say goodbye to our loved ones who have died, we like to be with people who knew and loved the departed. “Why?” she asked. So we can tell stories about them, laugh, cry and celebrate what great people they were. She seemed bewildered, as you are at age three. I am perhaps more emotional due to the sheer distance between my family and I right now. Knowing there is no way to return makes the distance seem terribly isolating. Although they do us a world of good, email and telephones lead me into a false sense of security. In reality we are incredibly far apart. It’s times like these that I just need to hug my mom, sister, aunts, uncles and cousins and letters just don’t cut it.
Given my inability to mourn with my family, I dove into some stories my Grandma and her sister had written about their childhood and their families. It was nice to journey back in time to the days when people would ride eight miles on horseback each day to school. Grandma talked about growing, canning and storing most of their food, taking care of livestock, riding in a real sleigh in the winter to fetch a Christmas tree, rolling tires downhill for entertainment, fetching water, warming water by wood fire, and doing laundry and ironing the long, slow way. She lived through the depression and came out alright. When I was a teenager I would have felt nothing but pity for how hard Grandma worked throughout her life. Now I feel nothing but awe for this amazing woman.
Spending the last few years of her life in a home where she hadn’t the capability or need to work or busy herself would have been hard, same for Grandpa. I guess some of us do get to an age where productivity is no longer an option. I used to scorn the Western answer to this problem: retirement homes, while idealizing the African way of having families take on the care of their respected elders. While I still admire the African way, I have come back to my reality now. I appreciate our way of life, given our fierce individualism and difficulty with compromise in our own living space. Mary, my mother-in-law manages a retirement home here. I have since learned that these homes also provide the chance for community. Each year it seems that life in the industrialized nations gets more isolating as we purchase more and more crap to spare us from having to depend on others. But if you can get to a retirement home when you are well enough to appreciate the help, you might end up in a place that cooks you a nice meal to eat with your friends three times a day. They plan card games, dances and Bingo for you to enjoy with your friends. They even clean your toilets! I don’t mean to idealize a difficult situation, I know Grandma and Grandpa were both lonely in this home. After a long life spent with loved ones, I don’t think they were very interested in small talking with new people. Thus Grandma is probably very peaceful now, bless her soul. She has joined those she truly loves in some other realm.
In my desire to “spend time with Grandma,” I began a sewing project I’d been contemplating. Grandma was a skilled seamstress, nothing like easily frustrated and sloppy me. I pulled out three old curtains from Jacinta’s room in Michigan and hung them from a wire hoop. I sewed two more and strung them on the hoop in order to create a little tent around Genevieve’s crib. The bedroom is overstimulating with all of the toys on the shelf and she already has a hard enough time turning off when she is tired. So after cursing the bobbin in my sewing machine, I took the girls out to see Mary in Kempsey and we used her new machine. Now with her billowy tent, Evie can fall asleep more easily.
Genevieve’s energy astounds me still. She would fall asleep mid-climb if she were allowed. She can pull herself onto Jacinta’s little riding truck now, more so to get up higher than to get around. I try to warn her that it is not safe to stand on rolling vehicles, but she is 11 months old. She loves pushing Jacinta all through the house on this little truck. Genevieve’s new favourite toys are children’s chairs, getting in them to lounge and also climbing on top of them to get higher and reach forbidden items. This evening before bed, she climbed up and down in this wooden chair about 25 times, standing on the seat proudly each time, then either diving off or climbing precariously over to me. Matt tried to block her from falling with his guitar while singing Jacinta to sleep. Another new fascination for Evie is belly buttons. She hasn’t yet discovered her own, but loves digging into Jacinta’s and mine while giggling.
Jacinta is very kind with Evie’s exuberance and rough play, but has a very low pain tolerance. The slightest little bump, hair tug, or bite causes major tears and trauma necessitating ice and our undivided attention while Genevieve sits there either silent or giggling. Sisterly love, my oh my. Sharing seems to be getting harder by the day for Jacinta, partly because she is going through a clean freak phase and partly because she is becoming more possessive. It depends on her mood. Just the other day she told us about the little blue truck, “That’s Evie’s truck now.” We smiled and asked why. She responded, “because she loves it!” I’m trying to teach her that the best things to share are her favourite things, not just the toys she no longer likes. After giving her silly lectures, I beat myself down inside for being so hard on a three year old. Then she comes up with giving Evie her special riding truck and I feel a little better.
Jacinta is very funny to talk to these days. She may talk a lot and make me long for silence, but sometimes she just cracks me up. The other day we met Matt at a new café in town for lunch. Matt and Jacinta were sharing a special “Iced white Chocolate” drink and I was having an Iced Chai. We don’t go out very often. Jacinta has never had a drink as special as that one, so she knew the privilege it was. Genevieve wasn’t as calm and collected as her older sister. Wriggling all over my lap, she grabbed my full drink and spilled it all over my lap and the floor. Jacinta had just tasted my drink and “it was deeee-licious.” All she could see was, “It’s gone!” She yelled out at the top of her lungs, “Lick it up Mum!” Although it was slightly embarrassing, I am still laughing four days later. I am also still laughing at one question she asked in the car last night. While driving on the highway we passed some wild dogs who almost ran out and got hit. Jacinta sat there for a few minutes in silence after seeing them and then inquired, “Mum, what does a squished dog look like?” I tried to be vague but she wanted detail. The curious mind of a child. A newer form of entertainment for Jacinta is asking our preferences on illusive things always using opposing adjectives. “Do you want it short or tall?” (her hands) “Do you want it dry or wet?” (she didn’t even know what was going to be dry or wet). She’ll insistently ask about five of these questions in a row.
Yet we can ask her a few questions about preschool, and she gets funny and doesn’t want to comment on the activities of her day away. We know she did have a nice day at preschool last week with her friend Lily, although she cried when I first left. The teachers were amazed at the difference in her from switching days. She was evidently comfortable enough to talk their ears off. She switched down to the little people’s room and it was a positive change. Jacinta and Lily also had their first dance class on Saturday morning. This was great fun for Anissa and I to watch, especially leaving all of our other children at home with family. I seldom go anywhere without Genevieve, so it was a nice change. Genevieve was better off anyway getting to accompany Mary to morning tea for the first time. As for Jacinta and Lily, they paid close attention and hopped around with a bunch of other little dancing girls (and one lonely boy) doing tap and jazz with a cute high-school girl as their teacher.
Matt worked a lot on his book this week and had two long conference calls with his Creation Spirituality comrades. He bottled some beer, cleaned up after my messy kitchen habits, and helped keep the girls happy. He began another subject of study for his counselling degree. While the sun was shining, he mowed the lawn and edged a new garden bed near the house. This will be a mosquito deterring garden, we hope. It has been raining constantly for the past three days so we’re feeling a bit confined. Our friends Craig and Anissa brought their three children over on Saturday for lunch, so this broke up the rainy monotony. At one point Keith and Mary had all five children in the other room and us adults were playing Scrabble. I had to take a picture just to mark the beauty of the occasion, the luck to live with family.
Although I’ve recently given up on the “routine morning gardening” idea, I did take the girls out a few times this week to play in the dirt. Getting Genevieve to take the morning nap she desperately needs before gardening delays our outing so much that we miss the cool morning. Jacinta is unhappy almost from start to finish, needing constant inspiration to enjoy herself. It is hot and there are mosquitoes, but she becomes “too tired to walk,” or “hungry” after just a few minutes. You’d think I was forcing her to dig out rock, but I encourage her to play, draw on the chalkboard, make flower crowns, eat tomatoes, and water anything she chooses. Perhaps she knows I want her enjoy gardening really bad, so she can not. I gave up on my delusion of happy family gardening by Wednesday and we then stayed out of the garden. I gardened a little bit at night. By Friday Jacinta was asking about the garden and Genevieve was clearly dirt deficient. Sunday we finally went out, psyched up by Daddy to get muddy, and got utterly soaked and muddy in the pouring rain. It seems insane but I gave the girls rides in the wheelbarrow up and down the hill to get the new garden bed composted and mulched. Evie actually sat still in Jacinta’s arms. We jumped in little “streams,” painted ourselves with ochre (red clay-like rock used as a natural paint), played in mud and mulch. Genevieve was in heaven, giddy in disbelief that she was allowed to play in all of this water and mud, without having some adult come and swoop her away. I can still see the water rolling down her forehead into her eyes, her face turned up to feel the most water from under her hood and her smile, pure joy. To finish off the fun, Matt set up a slip and slide on a big blue sheet of plastic. The girls had never done such a thing. I don’t think Matt and I had done anything so seemingly crazy in a long while, especially on this land here. Soaping up your bum and sliding down a muddy hill in the rain is so far from being sensible, and such a necessary activity if one becomes too sensible.
As I am always searching for more sanity, I decided French class would take place at a nearby park rather than at our house. We had our first class at “Dawkins Lake” (it seems like a pond to me), and it was awesome. There were no mosquitos, no extra dishes, and no food involved but still had all the good things: friends, children to teach and a beautiful place. Add in a load of beautiful birds, shady trees every twenty feet and a sidewalk. We had a lovely time, and the children soaked up a little more French soul, as they do each week. Another visit to paradise was to our favourite beach: Valla. Jacinta, Genevieve and I spent a few early morning hours playing in the shallow water, building castles, following hermit crabs, and hopping from one little warm pool to another. Genevieve particularly enjoyed jumping in each hole Jacinta or I dug. A highlight for me was finding the ochre and painting ourselves red, easily washed away by swimming. Jacinta’s highlight was probably having all of my attention and not having to wait around for me to finish cooking, cleaning or feeding Genevieve. Who doesn’t thrive on attention?
Jacinta tells everyone lately that, “there are a lot of babies coming,” speaking of all of our pregnant friends and family. Two weeks ago Matt’s sister gave birth to a beautiful boy. A few days ago, my Grandma passed away. A few days ago, our friends Anne Marie and Bernie gave birth to a beautiful girl, Sarah Therese, just two days after the one year anniversary of their first baby girl who lived only five hours. The circle goes round and round. Birth and death, sadness and happiness, insanity and sanity, sun and rain, hot and cold, tall and short, and waking and sleeping, they all go round and round.
I shall join the sleeping side of the circle. Take care :)
Peace,
Shana
Her passing is a blessing in many respects. It seems sad that she had to live on without her mind for years, after such a proud life. My mind tells me to smile that Grandma is at peace now, but my selfish heart just aches that my last Grandma has gone. She and Grandpa were farmers. They worked hard and loved their way of life. They brought up five children, three of whom now live in cities. Keith, “Grandpa’s right hand” as Grandma called her son, worked their land alongside Grandpa for a long while but passed away a few years ago. LaRae, their youngest daughter still ranches with her family about an hour away from the farm. The land is being farmed by renters now. I said goodbye to their house and land a few years ago when Grandpa died, but it seems more final now that Grandma has left us. So much of life is come and go now, but Grandma and Grandpa had a place they never left. They had the community which I seek, they stayed. They poured their hearts and souls into one place and reaped the benefits of their permanence. They knew and loved the land they worked and made it through some hard times there. They gave us a legacy to follow, hard work and love.
Jacinta asked me why I was sad the other day. I told her that when it is time to say goodbye to our loved ones who have died, we like to be with people who knew and loved the departed. “Why?” she asked. So we can tell stories about them, laugh, cry and celebrate what great people they were. She seemed bewildered, as you are at age three. I am perhaps more emotional due to the sheer distance between my family and I right now. Knowing there is no way to return makes the distance seem terribly isolating. Although they do us a world of good, email and telephones lead me into a false sense of security. In reality we are incredibly far apart. It’s times like these that I just need to hug my mom, sister, aunts, uncles and cousins and letters just don’t cut it.
Given my inability to mourn with my family, I dove into some stories my Grandma and her sister had written about their childhood and their families. It was nice to journey back in time to the days when people would ride eight miles on horseback each day to school. Grandma talked about growing, canning and storing most of their food, taking care of livestock, riding in a real sleigh in the winter to fetch a Christmas tree, rolling tires downhill for entertainment, fetching water, warming water by wood fire, and doing laundry and ironing the long, slow way. She lived through the depression and came out alright. When I was a teenager I would have felt nothing but pity for how hard Grandma worked throughout her life. Now I feel nothing but awe for this amazing woman.
Spending the last few years of her life in a home where she hadn’t the capability or need to work or busy herself would have been hard, same for Grandpa. I guess some of us do get to an age where productivity is no longer an option. I used to scorn the Western answer to this problem: retirement homes, while idealizing the African way of having families take on the care of their respected elders. While I still admire the African way, I have come back to my reality now. I appreciate our way of life, given our fierce individualism and difficulty with compromise in our own living space. Mary, my mother-in-law manages a retirement home here. I have since learned that these homes also provide the chance for community. Each year it seems that life in the industrialized nations gets more isolating as we purchase more and more crap to spare us from having to depend on others. But if you can get to a retirement home when you are well enough to appreciate the help, you might end up in a place that cooks you a nice meal to eat with your friends three times a day. They plan card games, dances and Bingo for you to enjoy with your friends. They even clean your toilets! I don’t mean to idealize a difficult situation, I know Grandma and Grandpa were both lonely in this home. After a long life spent with loved ones, I don’t think they were very interested in small talking with new people. Thus Grandma is probably very peaceful now, bless her soul. She has joined those she truly loves in some other realm.
In my desire to “spend time with Grandma,” I began a sewing project I’d been contemplating. Grandma was a skilled seamstress, nothing like easily frustrated and sloppy me. I pulled out three old curtains from Jacinta’s room in Michigan and hung them from a wire hoop. I sewed two more and strung them on the hoop in order to create a little tent around Genevieve’s crib. The bedroom is overstimulating with all of the toys on the shelf and she already has a hard enough time turning off when she is tired. So after cursing the bobbin in my sewing machine, I took the girls out to see Mary in Kempsey and we used her new machine. Now with her billowy tent, Evie can fall asleep more easily.
Genevieve’s energy astounds me still. She would fall asleep mid-climb if she were allowed. She can pull herself onto Jacinta’s little riding truck now, more so to get up higher than to get around. I try to warn her that it is not safe to stand on rolling vehicles, but she is 11 months old. She loves pushing Jacinta all through the house on this little truck. Genevieve’s new favourite toys are children’s chairs, getting in them to lounge and also climbing on top of them to get higher and reach forbidden items. This evening before bed, she climbed up and down in this wooden chair about 25 times, standing on the seat proudly each time, then either diving off or climbing precariously over to me. Matt tried to block her from falling with his guitar while singing Jacinta to sleep. Another new fascination for Evie is belly buttons. She hasn’t yet discovered her own, but loves digging into Jacinta’s and mine while giggling.
Jacinta is very kind with Evie’s exuberance and rough play, but has a very low pain tolerance. The slightest little bump, hair tug, or bite causes major tears and trauma necessitating ice and our undivided attention while Genevieve sits there either silent or giggling. Sisterly love, my oh my. Sharing seems to be getting harder by the day for Jacinta, partly because she is going through a clean freak phase and partly because she is becoming more possessive. It depends on her mood. Just the other day she told us about the little blue truck, “That’s Evie’s truck now.” We smiled and asked why. She responded, “because she loves it!” I’m trying to teach her that the best things to share are her favourite things, not just the toys she no longer likes. After giving her silly lectures, I beat myself down inside for being so hard on a three year old. Then she comes up with giving Evie her special riding truck and I feel a little better.
Jacinta is very funny to talk to these days. She may talk a lot and make me long for silence, but sometimes she just cracks me up. The other day we met Matt at a new café in town for lunch. Matt and Jacinta were sharing a special “Iced white Chocolate” drink and I was having an Iced Chai. We don’t go out very often. Jacinta has never had a drink as special as that one, so she knew the privilege it was. Genevieve wasn’t as calm and collected as her older sister. Wriggling all over my lap, she grabbed my full drink and spilled it all over my lap and the floor. Jacinta had just tasted my drink and “it was deeee-licious.” All she could see was, “It’s gone!” She yelled out at the top of her lungs, “Lick it up Mum!” Although it was slightly embarrassing, I am still laughing four days later. I am also still laughing at one question she asked in the car last night. While driving on the highway we passed some wild dogs who almost ran out and got hit. Jacinta sat there for a few minutes in silence after seeing them and then inquired, “Mum, what does a squished dog look like?” I tried to be vague but she wanted detail. The curious mind of a child. A newer form of entertainment for Jacinta is asking our preferences on illusive things always using opposing adjectives. “Do you want it short or tall?” (her hands) “Do you want it dry or wet?” (she didn’t even know what was going to be dry or wet). She’ll insistently ask about five of these questions in a row.
Yet we can ask her a few questions about preschool, and she gets funny and doesn’t want to comment on the activities of her day away. We know she did have a nice day at preschool last week with her friend Lily, although she cried when I first left. The teachers were amazed at the difference in her from switching days. She was evidently comfortable enough to talk their ears off. She switched down to the little people’s room and it was a positive change. Jacinta and Lily also had their first dance class on Saturday morning. This was great fun for Anissa and I to watch, especially leaving all of our other children at home with family. I seldom go anywhere without Genevieve, so it was a nice change. Genevieve was better off anyway getting to accompany Mary to morning tea for the first time. As for Jacinta and Lily, they paid close attention and hopped around with a bunch of other little dancing girls (and one lonely boy) doing tap and jazz with a cute high-school girl as their teacher.
Matt worked a lot on his book this week and had two long conference calls with his Creation Spirituality comrades. He bottled some beer, cleaned up after my messy kitchen habits, and helped keep the girls happy. He began another subject of study for his counselling degree. While the sun was shining, he mowed the lawn and edged a new garden bed near the house. This will be a mosquito deterring garden, we hope. It has been raining constantly for the past three days so we’re feeling a bit confined. Our friends Craig and Anissa brought their three children over on Saturday for lunch, so this broke up the rainy monotony. At one point Keith and Mary had all five children in the other room and us adults were playing Scrabble. I had to take a picture just to mark the beauty of the occasion, the luck to live with family.
Although I’ve recently given up on the “routine morning gardening” idea, I did take the girls out a few times this week to play in the dirt. Getting Genevieve to take the morning nap she desperately needs before gardening delays our outing so much that we miss the cool morning. Jacinta is unhappy almost from start to finish, needing constant inspiration to enjoy herself. It is hot and there are mosquitoes, but she becomes “too tired to walk,” or “hungry” after just a few minutes. You’d think I was forcing her to dig out rock, but I encourage her to play, draw on the chalkboard, make flower crowns, eat tomatoes, and water anything she chooses. Perhaps she knows I want her enjoy gardening really bad, so she can not. I gave up on my delusion of happy family gardening by Wednesday and we then stayed out of the garden. I gardened a little bit at night. By Friday Jacinta was asking about the garden and Genevieve was clearly dirt deficient. Sunday we finally went out, psyched up by Daddy to get muddy, and got utterly soaked and muddy in the pouring rain. It seems insane but I gave the girls rides in the wheelbarrow up and down the hill to get the new garden bed composted and mulched. Evie actually sat still in Jacinta’s arms. We jumped in little “streams,” painted ourselves with ochre (red clay-like rock used as a natural paint), played in mud and mulch. Genevieve was in heaven, giddy in disbelief that she was allowed to play in all of this water and mud, without having some adult come and swoop her away. I can still see the water rolling down her forehead into her eyes, her face turned up to feel the most water from under her hood and her smile, pure joy. To finish off the fun, Matt set up a slip and slide on a big blue sheet of plastic. The girls had never done such a thing. I don’t think Matt and I had done anything so seemingly crazy in a long while, especially on this land here. Soaping up your bum and sliding down a muddy hill in the rain is so far from being sensible, and such a necessary activity if one becomes too sensible.
As I am always searching for more sanity, I decided French class would take place at a nearby park rather than at our house. We had our first class at “Dawkins Lake” (it seems like a pond to me), and it was awesome. There were no mosquitos, no extra dishes, and no food involved but still had all the good things: friends, children to teach and a beautiful place. Add in a load of beautiful birds, shady trees every twenty feet and a sidewalk. We had a lovely time, and the children soaked up a little more French soul, as they do each week. Another visit to paradise was to our favourite beach: Valla. Jacinta, Genevieve and I spent a few early morning hours playing in the shallow water, building castles, following hermit crabs, and hopping from one little warm pool to another. Genevieve particularly enjoyed jumping in each hole Jacinta or I dug. A highlight for me was finding the ochre and painting ourselves red, easily washed away by swimming. Jacinta’s highlight was probably having all of my attention and not having to wait around for me to finish cooking, cleaning or feeding Genevieve. Who doesn’t thrive on attention?
Jacinta tells everyone lately that, “there are a lot of babies coming,” speaking of all of our pregnant friends and family. Two weeks ago Matt’s sister gave birth to a beautiful boy. A few days ago, my Grandma passed away. A few days ago, our friends Anne Marie and Bernie gave birth to a beautiful girl, Sarah Therese, just two days after the one year anniversary of their first baby girl who lived only five hours. The circle goes round and round. Birth and death, sadness and happiness, insanity and sanity, sun and rain, hot and cold, tall and short, and waking and sleeping, they all go round and round.
I shall join the sleeping side of the circle. Take care :)
Peace,
Shana
posted by Matt & Shana & Jacinta & Genevieve Henry at
11:38 PM
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