Journals and Letters

I have been a bit preoccupied lately, living in two or three time periods.

When we moved my mother into assisted living a few weeks ago, I found letters and journals as we were cleaning out her house.  When she saw the bundle of letters she and my father exchanged before they were married in 1941, and again when he was in the Army in 1945, she said "oh, throw those away".  I quietly slipped them into a bag to take home.  When my brother found a drawer full of journals she started in 1990, he was about to throw them away.  I stopped him by saying I wanted those.

Over the last week or so I have been reading about my mother, in my mother's words.  Those early letters were love letters, from the time they first dated in September until they were married the following May.  The Army letters, only from Dad, are full of longing to be home.  By then he was the father of two children, baby me and my two year old sister.  Mom was left to care for the livestock, milk the cows, raise a garden and chop firewood.  It was then that she chopped off two fingers.  Dad tried to get released, but it was two more months before he got home.  The war was over, of course.

But as remarkable as these letters are, it is my mother's journals that amaze me.  In 1990 she was through raising seven children, two of which had already died.  She and my father were retired and leading busy lives.  Mom in particular was busy in service to others.  She delivered Meals On Wheels, served at the Senior Center and the Foot clinic there, was active in Grange, Extension, Kiwanis, A.A.R.P. and was a Hospice volunteer.  In addition, she frequently visited with the sick and injured, and provided respite care, as well as serving as a driver for taking the infirm to Dr. appointments.  She was always inviting people over for dinner or lunch.  It's no wonder we heard from so many people who love her when we were moving her.

Two other themes dominate these journals;  food and money.  Mom is a child of the depression, and money was not easy to come by for most of her life.  She itemized the cost of meals, items Dad bought that she thought were extravagant, and wages she earned through manual labor, like working in a greenhouse, berry picking,  or selling walnuts and filberts she had gleaned, dried, and cracked.  She was now 68-70 years old. She liked to be busy, and she was.

Then there's the food.  It's no wonder I have had a weight problem most of my life.  My mother was a wonderful cook of hearty, down home food.  In the journals she itemizes the food she took to the many potlucks and dinners they attended through all of those organizations.  There was always a main dish, like chicken or a casserole, a vegetable, rolls or bread, and always, always a home baked pie.  When we were cleaning out her kitchen, I took a pie plate for myself and one for Jill.  Mom was the Queen of Pies!

Reading these journals has been a humbling experience for me.  My mother lived through so much, yet she couldn't abide having anyone angry with her.  She always blamed herself, and not others.  She was most happy when she was giving to others.  She puts me to shame.  I understand better now why it bothers her so much to be "useless" now. She has lived a life of service to others. That was her purpose for living.

I'm up to 1995.  1994 was not a good year.  My sister-in-law's breast cancer returned with a vengeance, and she was gone in two months, leaving two young children and a grieving husband.  That was August.  By early November my father was gone, felled by a fatal blood disorder.  Mother joined her sister and sister-in-law as recent widows, a club that also included some good friends. Loneliness now is her companion.

Since then she has toiled on on her own, but with the support of a vast community that has tried to repay all of the love she has given them.

I am humbled.  I consider myself to be very fortunate be able to have this information while I still have my mother.  Too often we only learn about the real person after they are gone.