The Trailbreaker

     We were going to remove the Christmas decorations from Tracy's grave a couple weeks ago, but I just could not face that in the dreariness of days of inversion. Since freezing rain is predicted for our area soon, we decided to try it today, in spite of the recent snowstorms. Removing reminders of the best part of winter from the reminder of the worst part of our lives, is a grim enough task without slogging through snowdrifts to accomplish it. But the lesson the Lord had for us through that duty was as tangible as the wreath and light we brought home.

 

The Trailbreaker

 

Due to our recent winter storms,

the path to Tracy's grave today

was drifted feet deep in snow.

Reed held my hand as we 

struggled to walk through it

together, side by side.

 

But then he realized

the walk would be easier for me

if he let go of my hand

and walked ahead of me,

breaking a trail

for me to follow.

You, Lord, are the Trailblazer.

Your life lit the path

from birth to the grave.

Your death blazed the trail

from the grave to God,

for millions to follow.

And you, Trace, are the Trailbreaker--

the first of our family of five

 to walk the path to heaven.

Though letting go of your hand

has been the hardest thing

I have ever done,

 

the path to the grave

for our family, for me,

will be easier knowing

that you are just ahead

waiting, hand outstretched,

for us to follow.

Blurvana

   One of the definitions of Nirvana is a transcendent state in which there is neither suffering, desire, nor sense of self. In Buddhism, this state of nothingness is a blessed relief from the karma/reincarnation cycle. I, however, am not Buddhist. And though I want to be free from suffering, I think loss of desire would make life meaningless and loss of self would be dementia. Not my idea of heaven. Fortunately, this blog is not about Nirvana, it is about Blurvana. That is the state in which I am now living. Since I made up the term, I get to define it.

   Blurvana--the interocular interval between cataract surgeries in which the implanted lens can no longer focus through the glasses upon which the untreated eye is still dependent. I would like to transcend this state as quickly as possible. Since I chose lenses that will allow me to see up close without correction, I wake up with the ability to see with amazing clarity my messy hair, age spots, and every speck of dirt in the shower. But, since part of the first week post surgery protocol is not bending over, I don't have to feel guilty about not cleaning it. I'll have to come up with another excuse when the week is over. Following that first focused look at my fading looks, the rest of the day is a blur. 

   My left eye needs correction for both close up and distance. My right eye needs correction for distance, but not at the same strength as my current glasses. To misquote scripture, the right eye cannot say to the left eye, I don't need you. And the left eye cannot say to the glasses, I have no need of you. Though Blurvana does not qualify as suffering, I am not free of it. And I am certainly not free of desire. I desire to see ASAP. But my sense of self does not include wanting to see me. I want to see things like the book I am trying to read, the TV, perhaps even oncoming traffic. For now I must view in the same way they do cataract surgery--one eye at a time. Then I can transcend Blurvana.

Sorry, Sugar

    While I am biting my fingers (see how well I'm tying my posts together lately), my church friend promoting a "health" program on Facebook recently posted that what we call flu season is actually "sugar" season. The reasoning goes like this:

 

    Sugar lowers immunity. (The Montana Democratic party should fact check that). 

    + People consume more sugar over the holidays. (Not necessarily.)

    + Flu season occurs in the winter. 

    = Sugar is causing people to get the flu.

I was so tempted to post--Good thing my body doesn't know about that. I eat sugar in some form everyday and only get sick twice a year, rarely during flu season. My body has followed this pattern for more than 30 years, I get a cold when seasons change from summer to fall and spring to summer. From my fact checking it sounds like a little glucose is good for your immune system, too much is bad. How about that? Just like everything else we consume and do, too much of anything is bad for you. Also the effect of a glucose spike on the immune system is temporary and mostly affects those with weak immune systems. Besides, these "facts" were part of her sales pitch to sign up 5 more people for the diet program she advocates.

    By repeatedly telling myself Do Not Engage!, I managed to suppress my anti-illogic system from forcing me to respond. But I will engage now:

1) Correlation is not cause--just because 2 things happen about the same time, it doesn't mean one caused the other. This is one of the most prevalent and annoying logical fallacies of our current culture. Suntans fade in the winter, but that doesn't mean loss of tan causes the flu. Influenza is worse in the winter because people spend more time indoors with others. In Montana, subzero weather seems to decrease the spread because it kills the germs on shopping carts and other public use items. (But I have not had the Montana Democratic party investigate that.)

 

2) I just read that in Flathead County, peak flu season is late January through mid-February, after the sweet holiday treats are gone, and many people still have a faint flicker of faithfulness to their New Year's resolutions to diet and exercise. 

3) If sugar is why people get disease, millions died needlessly in medieval Europe because sugar wasn't available there until the 11th century.

 

4) God made man robust enough to survive in wildly varying climates, on diverse diets, throughout all ages. Do you really think an omniscient, eternal God did not anticipate sugar?

 

5) Everyone has their pet bugaboo, but human existence has far too many variables to decide this health factor causes that. People who eat sugar do not eat only sugar, are not equally exposed to disease, vary in age and strength of immune systems, differ in activity levels, as well as many other things. My brother Roddy drinks 6-7 cans of Pepsi per day, yet all of his health numbers: blood sugar, blood pressure, cholesterol, etc. are perfect. Between working hard as a janitor and the involuntary movements from his cerebral palsy, Rod burns everything he eats. Dr. Atkin's, whose diet is heavy on fats, theorized that it doesn't matter if you eat butter, bacon etc. as long as you burn all the calories in what you eat. Roddy seems to be proof of that. (But so far the Democrats are too busy following Tim Sheehy to check that out.)

 

    Besides not wanting to mar my testimony by disputing with her on Facebook, I knew that she would probably counter with the same technique used by many health scare tactitions, give a list of symptoms so broad every human alive has experienced them--diarrhea/constipation/tiredness/insomnia/headache, etc. and state those symptoms prove you have gluten intolerance/high/low blood sugar/dairy allergies or, in this case--"sugar" poisoning. So now that I have written another salvo of sanity out of my system, all I can say to her diet is, "Sorry, Sugar."

Biting my Fingers

    There is an expression for times when you are tempted to say something you know you shouldn't--bite your tongue. What about an expression for those times you are tempted to reply to something stupid on Facebook and know you shouldn't? I suggest--bite your fingers. I kept getting a sponsored post on Facebook from the Montana Democratic party "exposing" that Tim Sheehy's statement There are more bears than people in Montana is not true. I finally blocked it because I don't want to blow my testimony as a Christian over politics, and it is painful to keep biting my fingers so I don't reply.

    You know how at a business meeting there is that one person who feels the need to explain what has been said even though everyone else understood it the first time. (The Montana Democratic party should go to meetings to fact check that statement.) Or that one person in the group who is the last one to get the joke and/or feels the need to tell others it was a joke, but the rest of them already knew that. This article is like that. I haven't decided how I feel about Sheehy, but I long ago decided how I feel about people who cannot understand common usage of the English language. When someone says they are so hungry they could eat a horse, you do not need to report it to Animal Control. When a teenager has broken curfew and says my parents are going kill me, most people would not call CPS. For the benefit of those those who do not understand, that is called an expression. Exaggeration is a common element of communication in our culture. Only the anal retentive consider it lying. 

     Years ago, during an especially bad fire season, our democratic governor said, The state of Montana is on fire (One of you can fact check old newspapers for the quote). Did he mean every inch of the considerable acreage of Montana was ablaze? No. It was just a way of saying there were a lot of fires in our state. For some reason tourism declined around that time, but we don't want tourists who are that gullible anyway. They might set up their tent on the grounds of Glacier Park Airport, not realizing it is not actually part of the park. Tim Sheehy was not announcing census statistics. What he meant was--there are a lot of bears in Montana. 

    There are analytical thinkers, and there are anal-literal thinkers. The latter drive me crazy. (That is an expression, you do not need to search for mental health clinics near me.) Having posted this blog to vent my frustration, I can now get back to biting my fingers.

The Runaway Marriage Meets the Redeemer

    I did not realize when attempting cryptic endings on my last two posts, that I was writing myself into a corner. I now feel obligated to write the story of Reed's folk's elopement in a timely manner, just to finish the set. Though our marriage got off to an inauspicious beginning, we had a few things going for us: we were both of legal age to get married, 20, and our parents did not oppose our union. (At least not openly.) Not so for Reed's parents. If I started this story with the marriage of two young people in love who didn't know what they were doing, that would be most of us, so let's get more specific. Patricia was 16 years old and engaged to an older man, Delmar, age 20, whom she had known most of her life, but was at that time serving in the army. Pat's dad gave grudging permission for them to marry when Del came home from Korea. This turned out to be a loophole big enough to drive an elopement through when Del got a short leave and went home to Helena. Pat was not old enough to be legally married in Montana, but they had a plan. Del had a friend who could alter her birth certificate and they would drive to Idaho for a quickie marriage. We are gathered here today . . .

    When Pat's dad figured out what was going on, he tried to get the police to intercept them before they crossed the state line. He located and almost caught them, in Butte. If anyone objects . . . They worked their way to wedlock through a series of evasive maneuvers worthy of fleeing felons, involving multiple cities, transportation by car, bus, cab, and train, as well as disguising Del as a civilian. They caught a ride with a salesman in the jewelry store where they bought the ring, who happened to be going to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. He dropped them off at the courthouse where they got the license. Three wedding chapels were across the street. They chose the one without a line of servicemen and their sweeties waiting. In the presence of these witnesses  . . . Since there are no handbooks for sneaking away to get married, they didn't know they needed witnesses (and it's hard enough to plan an elopement for two people, much less guests). Ironically, after spending all that time fleeing law enforcement, their witnesses turned out to be a highway patrolman and a deputy. I now pronounce you man and wife . . . When they returned to Helena, Pat's dad's blessing on their marriage was, "I have put up with her for 16 years, let's see how you do it." After that unlikely joining, they made staying together even more unlikely by spending the first two years of their marriage apart, while Del finished serving in Korea.

     There is a popular column in the magazine "Ladies' Home Journal" called, Can This Marriage Be Saved? Or maybe, more appropriate in their case, Should This Marriage Have Started? But their marriage was saved because they were. They each trusted Christ as their Savior in 1963 and that changed the course of their lives and their children's lives--for which I am forever grateful, since I married their son. They were married 66 years before Del went home to heaven in 2020. Until death do us part . . . But only for a while, Pat, only for a while. God's plan for us does not require a good beginning, just a great Redeemer.

Our Ominous Wedding

     This is the follow up to my attempted cliffhanger ending of the last post. June 25, 1977 started out as just an ordinary day--Wait that sounds like one of those true crime shows on TV-- Our wedding day began with just the minor hiccups of getting hitched. Reed had camped out at our wedding site in the woods outside Missoula the night before, overslept, had one white and one yellow sock to go with his black tux. (If I cared how my spouse dressed, I would not have married Reed.) Reed's young, clueless cousin came into the trailer to change clothes at the same time I was trying to change into my wedding gown, so my maid of honor held my poofy slip between us as a makeshift privacy screen. Bugs crawled between the layers of my dress during pictures. I shook them out between poses and tried not to think about what might be crawling on the inside of the dress, especially on my body. 

     So much for the hiccups, now come the heaves. The pastor of my home church, where the reception would be held, did not make it to the wedding. We found out later it was because a stock car on a trailer had come loose as he followed it up the hill and smashed into his car. (Omen 1) As we headed from the woods to the reception, we saw a car had slid off the road and into a tree. It was our friend Ed, who was also serving as our wedding photographer, and his wife. He had lost control on the winding gravel road, both were injured. (Omen 2) We were the first car on the scene. Our best man, Dave, was next. Since both victims were able to move on their own, but their car was not, we decided to put them in our car and have Dave drive them to the hospital. Reed sent me up the road to flag down other wedding guests and warn them about the accident ahead, so I whipped off my veil and used it as a flag. Somehow, they didn't mention the veil's multi-purpose potential at the bridal shop.

    When we got to the top of the hill above the church in Dave's car, we noticed ours was at the church parking lot instead of the hospital. Next to it was an ambulance. In many circumstances it is a relief to see an ambulance, but your wedding reception is not one of them. Our car had died at the crest of the hill, Dave had coasted the rest of the way. (Omen 3) At this point we had no photographer for the reception, and no car to go on our honeymoon. But I didn't want a photographer right then anyway because I was crying. Thankfully, a family friend volunteered to take reception pictures. Meanwhile his father, the pastor who had married us, was visiting at our outdoor reception when he heard a crack overhead and stepped back to see what it was, narrowly escaping being hit by a large branch that broke off the cottonwood tree he was standing under. (Which omen are we on now? Oh yes, Omen 4) 

    If Reed and I had been superstitious, we would have skipped signing the marriage certificate and gone straight for annulment. Instead we borrowed his parents car, went to our honeymoon cabin (also borrowed), Ed and his wife were checked out at the hospital and my in-laws brought them (in their other vehicle) to their house to recover. Our wedding ceremony lasted ten minutes, but people remembered our anniversary for years to come because of the accidents, injuries, and expenses. Since our marriage, which began as such a memorable mess, has endured for 46 years, I'm glad we ignored its ominous beginning. Besides, our wedding wasn't nearly as complicated as Reed's folks elopement, but that story hangs on another cliff.

     

Our First Christmas Tree-saster

    When I recently posted on Facebook a Christmas blog I wrote years ago called The Perfect Tree, I realized I have never written the story of our experience as newlyweds getting our first Christmas tree--The Imperfect Tree, or more fittingly, Tree-saster. One December day before our first Christmas together, Reed was off aircraft school. I had stayed home from work because I had a cold so, since Helena had warmed up to a balmy 20 below zero, Reed decided we should go find a Christmas tree. After driving through the hills around Helena, we climbed a shale slope only to discover that the tree that looked good from below was more yellow than green on the side facing the hill. Since we had climbed up rock chips to reach that tree, and its neighbors didn't look any better, we decided to cut it anyway.

     My cold had drained most of my energy and climbing the shale hillside had depleted the rest, so I was having a hard time getting down the hill holding my end of the tree. Sometime during my sit/scoot descent and Reed's sideways slide, the tree made a break for freedom. It made much better time than we did in its downhill roll, and became even more aerodynamic when the branches snapped off from the cold. By the time the three of us reached the bottom, our tree no longer looked yellow because it was a limbless wonder. We left its nearly naked trunk and kindling at the bottom of the hill and drove back to town tired and treeless.

     When we arrived at home, there was a Christmas tree next to our trailer (it was not pretentious enough to call a mobile home). Reed's uncle had cut an extra tree while getting his own and left it for us while we were out not getting one. This event proved to be the first of several tree finding family fiascos that ended with us buying a tree from a lot three blocks from home. Eventually, we decided to skip the memorable mess of trudging through the forest to locate the tree my husband spotted when it served as a rest stop during hunting season, only to discover it was too scrawny to rest in the living room. Or the time it rained and Reed had to rock and push our stuck vehicle out with the deficient assistance of three preschoolers and a wife, all whining. 

    The little corner tree stands where people used to sell fresh cut trees for extra income during the holidays have been supplanted by a few expensive lots. Some of those support charities so at least the extra money goes to a good cause. When we moved to Kalispell, there were many tree farms where you could cut your own Christmas tree. Sadly, but understandably, most of those converted their properties to much more lucrative housing developments. In recent years we have bought Christmas trees at the same places we buy hardware. This year, the price difference between a 6 foot real fir and a 7 foot pre-lit faux fir was $9, so for the first time, we chose artificial for the traditional Christmas tree corner of our living room. It has both white and multicolor lights and nine program options for viewing them. That is a nice bonus, but the ad had me at $9.

     Holiday traditions are memorable, so are mishaps. When the two factors combine, those events become unforgettable--which is why so many people remember our anniversary. It is a good thing we were already married before we realized that our first Christmas tree hunt would be the pattern for more misadventures to come, otherwise the disasters on our wedding day would have had us running for our life, not becoming man and wife.