Margaret Philbrick

Letters to My Mother During Covid19

April 8, 2020 by Margaret Philbrick Leave a Comment

Dear Mom,

All of this Coronavirus calamity started in the U.S. in January so it’s been going on for some months now. I believe I’ve been locked out of Wyndemere and unable to see you since March 11th, hoping that the week after Easter I might be allowed back in, but I doubt it because President Trump has asked that all Americans Stay at Home until April 30th, except for essential visits to the grocery and pharmacy and gas stations. So, if the virus lifts we will be celebrating a BIG Mother’s Day together this year.

Mother’s Day. Charlie calls this the “high holiday of the Midwest,” because his family never celebrated Mother’s Day out in Philadelphia. Isn’t that strange? How could Pinkie Philbrick not care about Mother’s Day, or her family not care about it? I guess that’s possible if her mother was no longer living and I believe Pinkie’s mother died when Charlie was young.

We LOVE Mother’s Day and I cherish my memories of celebrating with you. Last year, our Jessie surprised us by coming home from St. Louis! I brought you a surprise, flowers, raspberries and quiche breakfast in your apartment that morning, took you to Christ Church and over to Uncle Jay’s for brunch. This delighted your Mama heart because one of your New Years resolutions is to see Uncle Jay more, that 90 year old rascal! Kind of hard to do during the Coronavirus, but if the virus quarantine lifts we might try to do the same thing again this year. How about that idea?

I remember some highlights from Mother’s Day celebrations of the past:

Eating homemade chocolate cake and drinking champagne at 21 Highgate Course with Charlie and Goggie and Aunt Jessie, when Charlie and I were dating.

Eating chocolate cake and drinking champagne in Lilac Park in Lombard with all our kids and some friends. Jessie made Goggie’s cake and surprised me.

Eating chocolate cake and wanting to drink champagne at Uncle Jay’s with Jessie last year, but we never opened the bottle of champagne that Jessie brought so Uncle Jay gave it back to her. Jessie again made the chocolate cake surprise. Thank you!

Celebrating with brunch at the Mill Race Inn on the Fox River after church at the Lutheran Church and eating those grainy “Margaret’s Chocolate Sundaes.” Pastor J’s sermons bored me to tears, but I loved Mrs. Margitan’s singing. Sorry, I know you gleaned encouragement from his sermons, I was a little too young for all those Corrie Ten Boom quotes.

Picking almost ALL of our next door neighbor Mrs. Downs’ tulips and giving them to you. I was little then and would not do that today, as an adult. You made me apologize. Now I buy your tulips at Andrew’s Garden or Marianos.

Serving you breakfast in bed when we were little and trying to make the tray look as pretty as the one in one of my favorite childhood books, Bread and Jam for Francis.

This included a vase of violets which Francis somehow managed to have inside her lunch box.

Creating homemade cards with lots of decimated paper doilies pasted and then glued on to make them look fancy.

Chocolate cake, chocolate sundaes, chocolate fudge, chocolate kisses…chocolate.

I want to thank you for corrupting me with chocolate. I remember you making Kappa Alpha Theata’s hot fudge sundae sauce (Prissy’s sauce) and bringing us hot fudge sundaes after we’d gone to bed. This happened in the summer when you put us to bed at 7:00p.m. despite the bright light outside. We hated going to bed so early, thankfully you improved our lives by bringing us those sundaes in bed. Also, dad would make his chocolate fudge at night and bring us pieces of fudge in bed. This is a bit unusual since parents tend to worry about the state of their kids’ teeth and cavities, but this was back in the days of our baby teeth so I guess you figured it didn’t matter— they’d fall out anyway. Thank you for doing us this incredible kindness. It must have made quite an impression since I remember it. The JOY of waking up in the morning with a dried up hot fudge smeared glass bowl on my nightstand or crumbs of chocolate fudge on a small plate. Thank you, thank you!

We can also thank Goggie and Jessie for our love of chocolate. They began the tradition of making the “Brown Beauty” birthday cakes with the melted hot icing poured over them. Goggie used to serve the cake with icing in her dining room at the Valencia, but always with a pitcher of Aunt Jessie’s hot icing on the table so we could pour on more! She also poked the cake with a toothpick before icing it to help the one-of-a-kind chocolate seep inside the cake.This is the recipe we all use today and when our Jessie brings us those surprise cakes she uses it too. Do you remember the secret ingredient in that cake? If not, I’ll tell you when we have it for Mother’s Day this year, and we will have champagne and we will toast ALL the healthcare workers and staff at Wyndemere who are going way beyond the normal reach of their jobs to keep you healthy and safe.

When I left a bottle of face lotion in the bins stacked in the hallway outside the front door, because it must sit for 24 hours before they can bring it to you, I had to use a pen from the ziplock bag labeled “clean pens” and then place the pen in the bag labeled “used pens” to avoid any germs getting to you. All of this takes careful management and creativity and your healthcare workers are overseeing every detail so thank them today when you see them! Don’t hug them until the quarantine lifts, but thank them!

All my Mother’s Day love every day,

Letters to My Mother During Covid19

April 3, 2020 by Margaret Philbrick Leave a Comment

Dear Mom,

Just wanting to keep you tuned into the outside world and what’s happening as a result of the Coronavirus. Jessie’s dance company is not able to offer classes, rehearse and perform because people can’t be near each other during this time. Nathaniel’s climbing wall where he works is also shut down because no one can enter an entertainment facility due to the threat of germs spreading. Everything that draws a crowd or entails close contact is closed. You may remember that this time of year we love to come over and watch the N.C.A.A. basketball tournament, “March Madness” on your TV with you but that isn’t happening either. Your oldest grandson, Caleb is holed up in his tenth floor apartment working on his projects from his computer and eating “tomatoe based” foods that he is preparing himself. Lots of time for everyone to work on upping their culinary skills. All schools are closed and The Greenhouse School where I taught for years, has quickly shifted their classes to computer platforms like Zoom, or recording lessons and posting the links on the computer for students to watch. These are new days in education. I just talked to dad on the phone and he said, “I couldn’t be in school today because I don’t know how to work the computer.”

Imagine what it would be like to teach under these circumstances? Nathaniel’s drum set teacher is collaborating their drum lessons on-line and that doesn’t sound pretty because the delay in the transmission makes the music sounds like mashed potatoes whirring in your Kitchen Aid mixer. We listened to Caleb play a Chopin piece on the piano the other night via FaceTime, (on our phones), but the it sounded like Schroeder’s piano from the Charlie Brown comic strip -plink, plink, plink, plunk. Nonetheless, technology is what’s keeping the world running right now and even I, can only be grateful.

Think back to your days teaching first grade at Willard School in River Forest.

You were using a chalkboard, books and workbooks for everything. Your classroom didn’t have a computer. I believe you used the “mimeograph” machine to crank out copies, turning the handle while vinegar smelling purple ink spilled over the pages and you walked down the hall to the main office to use it. Charlie prints these letters to you in his office and walks a few steps to pull them out of the printer. I love the picture in your wedding album of you standing with several of your students. We still laugh at how one of those little boys looks like Caleb’s good friend, Tate.

You loved teaching and that is one of the reasons you are a great mom and grandmother. Before any kids came into your life, you already loved to teach —especially snot-running nosed, crooked teethed, little kids. Mr. Clum (principal of W.C.G.S.) once said to me that, “early childhood teachers are a special breed.” That makes you a special breed and how we benefited!

Without preaching, everything proved an opportunity to learn. Counting the steps up to our first apartment in Oak Park taught me numbers and you stood patiently as I knocked on the doors of residents on each floor for a visit, a flaming extroverted toddler. We traveled to stream-side and country field picnics and you taught us about grass, trees, rainbows, photosynthesis, refraction of light, how things grow – What Shall I Put in This Hole That I Dig?—a favorite Golden Book. You laid the foundation of the Bible in our souls with stories and songs and sat us down to watch Charlton Heston part the waters of the Red Sea, scary!

As in so many families, the gift of teaching passes down the line. I’ve taught writing and literature for many years, Jessie teaches ballet, Nathaniel teaches kids how to play drums and climb steep rocks, Caleb teaches his piano teacher Karol Sue how to use technology because she now must teach her piano students using available technology. Because of the virus they can’t meet in her piano studio until things clear up.

Thank you for being a loving, patient, informed, wise teacher. In your memory care wing you are the only one who knows all the words to the songs. Keep teaching those words to the other residents.

Sing time in Memory Care with our friend Hannah

Keats said, “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.” Your gift of teaching is a joy forever and it’s a part of your legacy that lives on.

With gratitude and love,

Letters to My Mother During CoVid19

March 31, 2020 by Margaret Philbrick 2 Comments

March 31, 2020

Dear Mom,

I’m wondering if you realize that all “non-essential” businesses are closed due to the Coronavirus? Even if I could pick you up and take you to Barone’s for dinner on Wednesday evening, it would be closed. Please pray for our favorite businesses which are really suffering right now because they have been forced to close, even The Little Traveler in Geneva. Try to imagine all of Oak Brook Mall closed, including Neiman Marcus, no popovers with strawberry butter, no steaming cups of hot chicken soup.

As I sit here in work-out clothing, my hair in a top-knot and no make-up, I’m thinking about your effortless style. You would never be sitting in these clothes, even in the midst of the Coronavirus. What are you wearing right now? As kids we were truly unaware of your awesome sense of fashion and how you always took great care of yourself. Just like we assumed every backyard bordered a Stations of the Cross walk though the woods, we also assumed that every mother looked as good as you did. One of the blessings of being a child is that you are too busy building forts to pay attention to how people look.

Let’s take a moment to pay tribute to one of our favorite fashion forward providers, The Little Traveler https://www.littletraveler.com which is also closed right now. This business has been incredibly kind to us in numerous ways so we have to brag on them in the midst of shut-down life with the hope that even more people will share our joy in sitting down for lunch in the Little Traveler cafe when the doors re-open.

We just ate lunch there right before the coronavirus BLEW UP! As usual, we had our “petite luncheon” because we can’t get enough of the cheese spread on those sandwiches. As a little girl we’d “get fancy,” i.e. dress up and I’d order three of those pimento and creamy cheddar cheese triangles with my cup of soup. I loved them so much that you asked for the secret recipe from the chef and he gave it to you! I enjoyed these Little Traveler sandwiches in my rainbow lunchbox all through grade school and middle school. I’ve turned your recipe files inside out looking for that recipe and can’t find it — painful! Nick and Victor still work in the cafe and whenever I’m there with out you they always ask me, “How’s your mother? When is she coming in again?” They turned backflips when you walked through the door last time and I tipped Victor ten dollars because he loves you so much.

2/27/’20 Lunch at The Little Traveler before CoVid19 takeover

I always wanted you to be one of the middle-aged models who visited our table telling us all about their chic suits and handbags. I thought they were middle-aged, but now that I’m middle-aged they don’t look nearly as old. You thought it would be more fun if we both modeled together. Instead of modeling we created a Christmas book, Back to the Manger, detailing the journey of their one-of-a-kind Neapolitan nativity scene. It took you a year to complete the oil paintings for this book. Remember, persevering through eye strain from painting using a magnifying glass? All those illustrations of the nativity figures are no bigger than a pinkie fingernail and so much detail, down to Mary’s blue and red robes. I hope you realize that Back to the Manger is still selling, ten years later and The Little Traveler and The Geneva History Museum are strong supporters. Most books don’t last even five years so kudos to you, artist mama. This picture features a darling little boy who stopped by our signing table last December, eager to “read” the book, even though he couldn’t read.

Unlike you, dad never devoted himself to shopping. This proved a boon to The Little Traveler on Christmas Eve as he raced through all 35 rooms of the store, hoping to fulfill his entire Christmas shopping list before they closed at 5:00 p.m. Stressful! Dad bought the precious Santa Claus music box sleigh that we set-up on your secretary desk every year. No one can keep all of the Christmas decks a person packrats in their basement when they move, but this sleigh is so unique and special that we haul it over from storage.

Please know, as an adult who finds it an extra chore to look nice in these days of casual Covid closet living, I respect and admire your commitment to taking care of yourself, taking vitamins, using night creams, and not sunburning your face. All of it resulted in you being the “hot little grandma” strolling the halls of memory care at 85. Just ask Vito, he’ll tell you it’s true!

All my love,

Margaret

photo credits:

boys building forts – Missouri Department of Conservation, med.mo.gov

boy looking at book: Margaret Philbrick

Letters to My Mother During CoVid19

March 30, 2020 by Margaret Philbrick 2 Comments

March 30th, 2020

Dear Mom,

If you look on the wall to the right of your front door you’ll see a picture describing your Irish heritage. Featured in this picture are some important details about who you are and who we are. If your caregiver takes it down and brings it over to where you’re sitting on the couch you’ll see that your McGreevy family came from County Roscommon (I think, or was it County Clare?), in the middle of Ireland. The picture describes your family crest and the tartan pattern of the McGreevy clan. Did you know that the name McGreevy means, son of the red- haired youth? Thank you for making me part-Irish! Dad recently sent in his saliva to be analyzed and he found out that his ancestry is from Ireland, England, Germany and Sweden so both of you contributed to my Irish, “Where there’s a will there’s a way” nature. Frankly, dad was disappointed when he learned this. He thought for sure he was Jewish because his mother, Grandma Lehwald was adopted and Aunt Marge once told him that Grandma Lehwald’s parents were German Jews. My dad thinks of all Jewish people as the smartest people in the world so he intentionally grafted himself into their line, only to be disappointed.

When we were growing up, you made being Irish fun! We always looked for four-leaf clovers and pressed them in books You served us rowdy St. Patrick’s Day breakfasts, complete with trad-Irish music, green pancakes or my favorite, Lucky Charms cereal even on a school day. The kitchen looked like a birthday party with giant green cut-out shamrocks hanging from the light fixtures. Our front door decked out in some gaudy, shiny, overly metallic green thing you could spot while driving by on Batavia Ave. You read us the story of St. Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland and saving his people. Somehow you managed to make being Irish more than a badge of grit and steely character, you made it cool.

Every January when the two of us sit down together and make our goals for the year, one keeps recurring on your list— to go back to Ireland. Fortunately, in your later years we did make the trip, the two of us and our Irish lassie, Jessie went to Ireland in June of 2011. We arrived in Dublin and drove across to Galway that first morning. I was the appointed hauler of our giant suitcases and the driver on this trip which made for a harrowing arrival as we found ourselves cruising on the opposite side of the road before we barely had our eyes open. The tiny cottage in the town of Spiddal was our first stop, and legendary because there I drank my first pint of authentic Irish Guinness which caused me to actually cry in my beer—delicious to the point of tears. There is not a craft beer in America that holds a candle to Ireland’s Irish Guinness, but you don’t even like beer so let’s move on.

We picked up quartz speckled pink and green rocks in Galway Bay and shopped the alleyways of that lovely town. Brown Thomas was our favorite store and you bought one of my most beautiful dresses, the black linen dress with the vertical white ribbons—to die for! Stopping at the Cliffs of Mohr made us feel like we were stalking a gothic novel – so windy! By the time we arrived in Eenis the sun came out – for the rest of our trip. Blessed, so blessed to enjoy sun day after day in Ireland. When we came home you painted the painting hanging to the right of your TV which depicts the Irish landscape in its multi-layered green hues, but the addition of the purple tones and pinks is what gives that scene its true colors. I love that painting and I’m claiming it right now, when you die— oops, this letter is supposed to be about you, not me, sorry.

We drove on to Killarney and Kinsale, the pastel town by the sea with the seahorse door knockers, through Dungarvan – every man wearing a lavender dress shirt long before it was trendy and then, Waterford for the crystal and the cute dog we met at our BnB. I snapped one of my favorite photos of you in your golden years standing along the Wicklow Way. Leaning on Goggie’s cane, looking into the golden light. Gazing toward heaven, you look like you know the path ahead. We finished in Dublin by eating the best steak of our lives at https://shanahans.ie Shanahan’s on the Green thanks to Uncle Jay.

O Come Ye Back To Ireland, you gave me this book long ago and I hope we get back. Thanks for being a loving Irish mum from a clan in the western suburbs who passed on her love affair with Ireland to me and to your Irish lassie girl, Jessie. If we don’t get back we can always go to the Irish Shoppe in Fish Creek and live out our fantasies there.

Ta gra agum duit (I love you in Gaelic),

Here’s a picture of your Irish granddaughter Jessie dancing:) Remember when were there, everyone thought she was from Ireland:) xo.

Letters to My Mother During CoVid19

March 28, 2020 by Margaret Philbrick Leave a Comment

March 27th, 2020

Dear Mom,

A poem by Amy Carmichael seems fitting for today. So many of the wonderful nurses down in memory care and in assisted living are working longer shifts and filling in for people who are sick to help you stay healthy. Please be kind to them, always.

A Nurse’s Prayer

Let not routine make dull my quickened sense

Of Thee, Lord Jesus; give me reverence,

That in each wounded one I may see Thee,

My Lord, my Love, Savior of Calvary.

In dusty foot thorn-pierced, I would see Thine

Pierced by a nail for love of me and mine;

In each sore hand held out so piteously

I would see Thine, Redeemer, bruised for me.

For me be hallowed every common bed

Because Thou hadst not where to lay Thy head;

In common flesh, Lord Jesus, I would see

Thy sacred body laid upon the tree.

Should some I serve, unruly toss and fret,

And tire my patience, then, lest I forget

All that I owe to Thy agony,

Show me once more, my Lord, Thy Calvary.

You gave me the collection of her poems, Mountain Breezes back when our children were young. On the inside cover you wrote, “I hope you enjoy this amazing collection of poems by Amy Carmichael as I did her biography, A Chance to Die.” Love, Mother x Mother’s Day, 2001.

I just cracked open this collection last year, sorry it took me so long. I was leading a creative writing workshop around the theme of RELEASE and her poem, “To Higher Things” has a line, “Oh, lift our souls to higher things.” What is it that you would want to release to God today? (Caregivers, please write down her answer.)

Thank you forever for teaching me to love poetry! My bookshelves are filled with books by poets you taught us to memorize on our endless summer vacation car trips to the Olney, IL Holiday Inn and the ElDorado, AK Holiday Inn. Know that we didn’t care what motel we stayed in as long as it had a pool and if it had a pool with a slide we never wanted to leave.

Many of these poems you called out to us over the front seat while we played “car mountain” with our Hot Wheels. You’d say a line and we’d repeat it back and then you’d add on. I still know them. Once, I recited “Little Orphan Annie” by James Whitcomb Riley to my classes and terrified them to the point of almost tears so I had to apologize! I loved the scary mystery of his poem, “There were two big black things standing by her side.” What did those black things look like? Riley left it to our imagination, I’ve always pictured them as giant black hoods.

We’d sit with Goggie and Jessie and Grandma Lehwald at our fancy Mother’s Day table and you’d recite “Somebody’s Mother” by Mary Dow Brine. This poem still makes me cry. How many little old ladies have I walked by and not helped across the street? Your oldest grandson Caleb, does the sweet things this poem talks about. On his birthday this year (March 15th), he bought breakfast at Suzettes Creperie for a homeless person. Your youngest grandson Nathaniel goes into memory care facilities in Nashville and leads worship and he says some people sing with him from their beds. He can hear them because the piano is in the center and the beds are arranged around it in a circle. Your granddaughter Jessie is part of a program in St. Louis called “Senior Embrace” where her dance company goes into retirement homes and care facilities and dances with the residents. Without knowing it, the legacy of this poem, caring for the elderly, is alive in your grandchildren.

One of my favorites by Emily Dickinson, “There is no frigate like a book to take us lands away, nor any coursers like a page of prancing poetry—This traverse even may the poorest take without oppress of toll—How frugal is the chariot that bears the human soul.”

This little gem demonstrates what you know and value, what you taught us. No matter how poor, our souls are carried, even buoyed by books and lines of poetry. Thank you. Thank you for reading to us, even when you were sad and didn’t want to…

“Caps for sale, 50 cents a cap, who will buy my caps?”

“The woman was old and ragged and grey, bent with the chill of a winters day.”

“We hear of the Easter bunny who comes each Easter Day before sunrise to bring eggs for boys and girls, so we think there is only one.”

“Baby’s boat’s a silver moon, sailing in the sky.”

“There was a crooked man and he went a crooked mile, he found a crooked sixpence against a crooked style.”

“In Dublin’s fair city where the girls are so pretty…cockles and mussels, alive, alive oh.”

I know one line is enough to jog your memory and get you singing that last one. I miss Ireland. I miss you.

Much love to you today,

Letters to My Mother During CoVid19

March 27, 2020 by Margaret Philbrick 2 Comments

March 26th, 2020

Dear Mom,

As I mentioned in my first letter, I’m truly sorry that I can’t come and visit you. They’ve locked family members out of your retirement facility and are only allowing outside paid caregivers to come in and be with you. Since this change we’ve chosen to employ additional caregivers so that you have plenty of visitors.

I meant to tell your caregivers that you LOVE to sing songs from the musical “The Sound of Music” so if they want to try doing that —- go for it! A funny one would be, “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?” Because your caregiver Maria isn’t a problem at all! They can pull these up on their iPhones and sing them with you in the apartment or while you two are walking the halls. “Edelweiss,” “The Hills are Alive,” “So Long Farewell,” “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria” are all great tunes that you could teach them, since you know all the words! When the weather warms up they can sing with you out in the courtyard under the blooming crabapple tree.

I’m not sure if you realize that blooming crabapple trees have followed us all our lives. A white blossoming baby tree grew tall off our flagstone patio at 935 Batavia Ave. and every spring morning for almost 30 years I’ve awakened to the sight of two mounded giants outside the dormer window of our bedroom, creating a jungle gym for our squirrel friends. You loved walking your neighborhood at 1945 Wexford Circle, wreathed in yellow locust petals in the fall and pear and crabapple snowy petals in the spring. Right around Mother’s Day, Caleb and Nathaniel could sit on the edge of their bed, look left and see their dormer window filled with fuchsia crabapple petals and look right, every pane filled with white crabapple petals which actually started out light pink and then turned to white. We learned over the years their official name, Snowdrift Crabapple. Even now, we drive down Shady Lane to take in the alternating quilt of pink and white petal patches.

Thank you for teaching me everything about plants, trees, shrubs and flowers which of course includes cultivated and wildflowers, both of equal value which is why you insisted I carry both in my wedding bouquet. What would a summer wedding be without Queen Annes Lace? You’ve taught me the value of dirty hands, aging fingers encrusted in dirt even after numerous before dinner hand washings. It’s a good gardening year when the dirt never completely escapes the crevices of my index finger. Your 1945 Wexford Circle home featured the perennial border on the west side with the most enormous English Munstead Lavender plants in front of your Rudebekia which we know better as Black Eyed Susans. When I transplanted a few of your Lavender plants to my own border they failed to return to their former size and vigor. My soil didn’t have the same type of drainage of your newer development clay— which you amended with the help of Mary LaBuddy, your gardening helper, each year. “My soil is terrible,” you would complain, but there are benefits to weaker soil and lavender is one of them. When we moved everything out of your garage I found shoe boxes FULL of dried lavender bundles. You trimmed them evenly across the bottom and tied each one with raffia and stacked them neatly in boxes. What were you saving those lavender bundles for? (Please write down her answer, I’d love to know.) Perhaps, Jessie’s wedding someday?

You taught me to stand in awe and reverence before the queen of perennials – delphinium, especially the delphinium of Door County. Remember the tallest and best inside the cedar hedge at the Blue Dolphin shop between Sister Bay and Ephraim? Sir Galahad, Black Knight, Guinevere, Blue Lace— I tried to grow all these delphinium varieties from seed and in some years succeeded, but they never wintered over. Far more delphiniums lost than gained in my garden which brings me to your appreciation of the seasons. Life indeed has it’s seasons and true, palette colors, “A time to reap and a time to sow.” Gardening is about gains and losses and seeing the beauty in fallow soil as well as a flora-abundant border.

Last fall when we walked through St. James Farm, you referred to the River Birch trees, “Look at that mustard yellow, just beautiful.” Mustard yellow, ochre, these colors from your paint palette still exist in the recesses of your cognition and trees inspire the release of those words. Can you guess what is the one word I hear you use more than any other, not counting the names of people, “beautiful.” Thank you for helping me see the beauty in soft landscapes, the weathered lines of aging faces, eyes locking over a handshake, snow laden pines “shagged with ice,” (stealing from Wallace Stevens there.) It’s visible in the seen and the unseen and we need to keep looking, even amidst the virus there is beauty everywhere.

I love you my forever beautiful mother,

Letters to My Mother During CoVid19

March 26, 2020 by Margaret Philbrick 13 Comments

Dear Mom,

I’m sorry I can’t visit you. Your facility has locked down because of the Coronavirus and only outside, paid caregivers are allowed. This is unfair, but Aunt Mary always said, “Life isn’t fair.” Have you noticed how you can’t recognize anyone because of the colorful bandanas over their nose and mouth? That’s not weird, but intended to protect you from outside germs. So far there are no cases of the virus in your retirement home! This is a gift from God and demonstrates how hard everyone there is working to keep you all healthy.

I woke up this morning from a dream where Miss Washington, the kids’ grade school gym teacher, approached me and said, “Your mother has no pulse.” Shocked and confused that this random person would be telling me such important news, I said, “What does that mean, is she dead?” She shook her head and responded, “I’m sorry.” Startled awake, I made coffee and walked the dog down our deserted street. Out by the lake, a mama robin flew by with bits of dried grass in her beak. I thought about this dream and how I might bridge the enforced gap of connection we are experiencing and I thought of the beautiful nest you’ve built for me over the course of my entire life. In an effort to bridge the gap, I’m writing you a letter every day.

One of the things I do in my haphazard writing life is curate a blog for a website called Patheos. I won’t try to explain what “curating a blog” means, just think of it as a piece of writing on the computer and I pick out what gets put on that website. I also won’t try to explain what a website is because in your 85th year, it doesn’t matter. A recent article I posted talked about a daughter’s estranged relationship with her mother and all the questions she wanted to ask her but didn’t get the chance to ask before she died. https://www.patheos.com/blogs/redbudwritersguild/2020/02/questionnaire-for-an-estranged-mother/

Sadly, the mother and daughter never reconciled their relationship. I’m thankful we are not in that situation! Instead, you’ve been the most wonderful and beautiful mother in the world. It’s important that you know before you die the legacy of love you will leave behind. If I think of questions that I need answers to, I’m asking your caregivers to read these letters and write down your answers. When I’m free to re-enter the front door of your facility, I’ll grab those precious answers from the drawer of your desk. In the meantime, enjoy these bits of memory. May these letters bless you and sparkle the remaining memories in your mind.

If you do die tomorrow, (hopefully, you will get my first letter and it will be after that) I need to thank you for the most important thing you’ve formed in me, faith. Although you are somewhat of an introverted artist, probably the most introverted person in our entire family and definitely a four on the enneagram, you’re a quiet evangelist. When we moved all the furniture out of your townhouse, some into your cozy apartment, some into storage and some to our kids’ apartments, we decided to keep the tall end-table with the middle drawer. You know the one that stood between your two checkered chairs facing the TV. I found one of your Bibles inside the tiny drawer, covered in pencil markings— underlined passages, questions, cross-references, quotations — a worked over King James. I knew you spent many hours sitting at the feet of Lilian Weaver as she conducted Bible studies, but I’ve never thought of you as a student of the Bible, until I opened this book. Thank you for forming my faith by teaching me the songs and stories when I was little — “Jesus Loves the Little Children.” The first vacation Bible school I remember attending was at the First Presbyterian Church in River Forest, the one you’ve always called “Dr. Ball’s church.” This is the same church where you led me by the hand into the sanctuary to see “Goggie’s window,” the stained-glass window on the your right as you enter from the back. Mounted beneath the glittering glass is a plaque with her name on it, Mary Jane McGreevy. How impressive to a five year old! She must be rich, I thought. But it was more than rich in money, both of my grandmothers overflowed with kingdom riches. I didn’t know what that meant back then.

Thank you for forcing us to sit through Handel’s “Messiah” sung at Rockefeller Chapel every holiday season. Just so you know, we were bored out of our minds by this ritual of torture which felt like it lasted three days, but now the melodies are inked upon my soul. Thank you for making us do things we didn’t want to do. Hanging from my charm bracelet is a tiny church and when you peer through the window you can see the Lord’s Prayer. Either this charm came from the V.B.S. at “Dr. Ball’s church” or you and dad gave it to me. I still love it and wonder about this miracle. How can the Lord’s Prayer be visible all these years later in microscopic print, through a window less than a quarter of an inch in diameter?

I know you hated renting our house on the river, but we loved it! Renting instead of buying a house means nothing to kids, but living in a house backed up to “real” woods on a river means everything! We sailed our bathtub boats in “the creek” and picked fistfuls of narcissus and “wild” tulips every spring. Thank you for making me go over to Mrs. Downs and apologize when I picked every “non-wild” tulip out of her garden to give to you on Mother’s Day. We met God in those woods amongst Lily of the Valley and the Stations of the Cross walk created by the brothers of the Sacred Heart. I thought everyone lived in a house with the Stations of the Cross in their backyard. Studying those bas relief plaques mounted at the center of each cross, my two hands stuffed full of periwinkle vinca, forced me to stop and think about suffering. I’m thankful that despite losing your memory, you are not suffering.

You sang to us and you still know the words to every hymn—may I be so fortunate. After setting up our nativity set on the front hall stand of our 935 Batavia Ave. house, we would sing “Away in the Manger” in our pajamas as you lit the candles. Now, we do this as we set up our own nativity scene. Also, I want to remind you how incredibly cool and artsy it was that you and dad created your first nativity set out of plaster during the early years of your marriage. You painted one of the angels, but all the other figures were left a pure, white plaster, an art project unfinished. If this bothers you that you didn’t paint the rest of the figures, no worries, they look better all white.

And I can’t forget Honey Rock Camp! You sent us to “sleep-away camp” when we were probably too young, but I get it. Two weeks away from your kids in the summer to do what you want to do sounds like a good idea. Well, it wasn’t just good for you and dad. I thrived in that rustic space with my friend Stephanie. We tried new things (like sailing) failed miserably and laughed. I sang the song, “How Great Thou Art” for the first time and never forgot it. We worshiped in Cathedral Pines and left with splinters in our bottoms from the rough pine benches. My counselor, “Q” showed me that you’re never too old to wear a bathing suit and make fun of yourself acting in ridiculous, campy skits. Thank you for trekking up to Family Day when our kids attended the same camp thirty years later. I know that sitting on a soggy log and eating cold fried chicken and watching your grandchildren fall down in the “ski show” isn’t the best way to spend a rainy summer day. You could have been getting your hair done.

Faith is the greatest gift you can pass on to a child. When something like a virus comes along and has the power to strip everything away, it will be the last thing standing. I love you and I thank you!

Building 2020

February 24, 2020 by Margaret Philbrick Leave a Comment

Often my husband and I walk our dog Snuggles and talk about the next thing we want to build, lately that conversation has centered around how our baby church plant is growing up, a new garage or filling the massive potholes where we park our car. Building is tangible, it takes vision and resources and you can touch it when it’s done. Yet, there is something satisfyingly intangible about this process. You can’t be entirely sure how it’s going to turn out and unplanned obstacles interfere along the journey, causing a shift in thinking and dollars. This requires flexibility and creativity on the part of the builders. “How could we value engineer this to get the same result, but not incur the significant up-charge?” A question forever plaguing and refining the building project.

When we built our home in northern Wisconsin the power generator established by the developer sat out on the road and it turned out we needed to add an (unplanned) new junction box closer to the house. The power was too far away since we chose to put the house in the back of the lot. This meant that the limestone apron we hoped to wrap around the entire base of the house got axed. The money for the stone now went to the new power source, an aesthetic sacrifice for a practical reality. Our creative minded general contractor said, “Let’s still put in the extra thick foundation and that way if you want to add the stone apron in the future, you can.” Problem solved, with an eye to the future solution.

My first experience with the joy of building things hit me in sixth grade at Jill Oddy’s slumber party. Jill lived in my favorite house in our neighborhood a couple of blocks from ours. Her parents gutted it, kept every rich historical detail and updated the color scheme with tons of Swedish blue and yellow florals, toile wallpaper, and painted tiles featuring peasant village scenes around the fireplace. Her birthday party occurred between the old wallpaper coming off and the new wallpaper going up and her parents let us write ALL OVER the stripped down walls. Profound quotes by Oscar Wilde, the Bible and Shakespeare would underlay their new decor. Just kidding, “I LOVE MICKEY AND MICKEY LOVES ME,” written inside giant hearts conveyed the sentiments of these pre-teen girls. Just as Snuggles marks her territory on our morning and evening walks, we long to do this as well.

When our church bought a 98,000 square foot warehouse to convert into a gorgeous, post-modern sanctuary, we held a candlelit assembly to worship in the emptiness and mark the old concrete floor and steel girders prior to renovation. We covered that decrepit Alcoa factory in Bible verses written in permanent ink Sharpies. Beneath today’s creamy, ceramic tile those unseen verses undergird the congregations’ walk with Christ. Twenty years after Jill Oddy’s slumber party we wallpapered our own dining room walls in floral yellow and blue and my husband and I wrote life-changing messages all over our own stripped down walls, “C.P. + M.P. – True Love 4-Ever.”

All of this takes me to Nashville a couple of weeks ago. Our youngest son is about to graduate with a music degree from Belmont University and he is involved in a couple of bands who record at “The Basement Space” studios. This start-up began literally in the basement space of a home the brothers lived in during college and beyond. The business grew and they are about to christen their trendy looking, take-your-breath-away recording studio behind the house. We toured this work in progress and took in the writing on the walls…

The owner’s face beamed as he told us about how the builders, a father and son team had experienced a significant growth in their faith since working on the project and they also wanted to contribute messages to the walls. He talked about all the enhancements and expansions the new space will bring to their recording work and I could see energy and light wash over his face and our son’s smile as they contemplated future opportunities.

The new Basement Space Studio in Nashville

A dizzying amount of preparations take place prior to breaking ground and that is what Lent is all about. We are on the cusp of a season where the Lord wants to build new things in us prior to the celebration of Easter. When we submit to his desire to write on the walls of our hearts he builds new light and life into us, often by revealing the decaying darkness of our own hearts. Lent is a building work and it starts this Ash Wednesday. Come and break up some ground and prepare a room for him these next 40 days. The master builder is looking for people to take up his trowel and his towel.

This Angel…

January 21, 2020 by Margaret Philbrick 4 Comments

“What happened to your foster daughter?” We hear this question often, for many people knew and loved the Liberian princess who disappeared from our lives unexpectedly.

The short form of the story tells the facts, without the emotional toll. She returned to Boston in the summer of 2018 because that was the agreement we had with her Liberian step-family living there. In July, both of her brothers journeyed by car several hundred miles to retrieve her from her Liberian family and take her to a different home in the town next to ours, rather than bringing her back to us. Their motivation for doing so was their desire that she attend a more prestigious high school, the one where her older brother graduated. Sadly, we learned about this via a phone call from the high school she attended while living with us. They requested that her records be transferred to the more prestigious high school and they needed our permission to do so. We had no idea what was going on. Why did this happen? The whole affair blind-sided us. We thought she would happily live out her high school days in our home and we would help get her to college, but her brothers had different ideas. This is one of the painful realities of fostering a child, you have very little control.

Fast forward to sitting in the musical “Hamilton” this past December. I waited in line for six hours to get tickets and as the date approached, I began to grow skeptical that it could live up to the hype. When the evening rolled around to see it, I found myself exhausted and didn’t really want to go. Watching “Hamilton” felt like a self-inflicted cultural obligation, which left me feeling guilty. The money could have gone to much worthier causes. I fell asleep during the first act. It is entirely possible that I’m the first person in the world to doze off in their seat while witnessing this blockbuster. After a caffeine laden intermission, we headed in for the second act and alas, one of those unsolicited, transforming moments that can only happen in theatre came over me. It happened during the song, “It’s Quiet Uptown.” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjEoOeXId1k The song is a poignant number in which Eliza Hamilton forgives Alexander of his marital infidelity. During the scene, the chorus narrates the event while we watch them stroll in an uptown park, and we see her take Alexander’s hand. In unison, the chorus sings the word, “forgiveness – can you imagine?” and Eliza extends herself in this simple, but significant gesture. When this music streamed into my heart, I realized that I needed to forgive our foster daughter and her brothers for their betrayal. It was time to emotionally move on, rather than hold onto the hurt.

So, the Liberian princess now lives with her younger brother in a beautiful apartment which I visited shortly after seeing “Hamilton.” She invited me to help her with a project she’s working on for an entrepreneurial club she attends in the city. We sat together at the high top table, just outside of the recently cleaned kitchen discussing product benefits, target market, distribution vehicles and all those juicy aspects of launching something new. She showed me her drawings and designs and asked if she could call the product, “Margaret’s Child.” (Insert here – emojis of shock and awe and yes, how delightful!) I can’t say what the product is, but if she wins the competition she will get the funding to actually launch the product and then you’ll find out ALL the details. Please pray that she wins:)

She looked so grown up sitting at that table with her newly embraced natural hair and enormous smile. I gave her the Christmas present which I add to every year, another piece of the African nativity which is handmade by our neighbor, (see here for details of this beautiful business http://margaretphilbrick.com/your-artistic-corner/) When she toured me around her immaculate bedroom, I saw the zebra from this set on her desk. This year’s piece was an angel, because she is an angel whether she lives with us or not and forgiveness causes the angels to sing (or at least get their wings) not just at Christmas, but every day of the year. May we extend much grace and forgiveness during this election year — 2020 — to those who’ve hurt us and to those we’ve hurt as well.

p.s. I know this post will probably come back and haunt me so if I’m being a jerk to you or you see me being a jerk to someone else, please remind me that back on a freezing cold, snow- laced January night I wrote this and that I need to keep leaning into forgiveness and get over myself. Thanks!

This is the final post in the four part series discussing the tangible and intangible aspects of life that last…”This Couch,” “This Bear,” “This Bed,” “This Angel.”

This Bed…

December 16, 2019 by Margaret Philbrick Leave a Comment

Did you make your bed this morning? Do you have an attachment to your bed which causes you to look at it as your safe zone, safe haven, safe harbor? How would you describe your bed to someone who’d never seen it or been in it?

Over the past seven years we’ve entertained many overnight guests and we’ve noticed that very few of them, as in less than five percent, make their bed. This is puzzling to grownups whose parents taught them to always make the bed period, anytime, anywhere and especially if you are a guest in someone’s home. My qualitative mind is wondering, is this evidence of a mobile millennial culture that holds little regard for their bed as a sacred, rooted space? How do people under 30 think about their beds? At the end of a long day, my husband and I let loose a contented sigh as we settle in and one of us whispers, “Ahh, we made it back.” The cares of the day set aside.

I grew up sleeping in the first bed my parents bought when they married— a green, double canopy bed. It’s the first bed that Ted and I slept in together, (read last week’s post to find out about Ted.) After my parents said, “goodnight,” my brother and I would play tag on it, the equivalent of the playground game, “Man on Woodchips.” We would chase each other around the posts, leaning out as far as possible without ever touching each other or the floor. We didn’t have air- conditioning and I remember falling asleep sweaty from our bedtime romps.

Painted this oil painting of my childhood bedroom when I was 10?

When I got married, it became our first bed. We ditched the canopy after I decided to cover it in grapevines and bird nests. Charlie grew tired of waking up with bark and twig fragments in the sheets so it became a four poster bed. Our children climbed up with their stockings each Christmas morning and we opened up their gifts (whoopie cushions, kazoos), crammed together on the bed. When they were little, we played “soccer barbies” with our daughter’s tiny dolls, molding the comforter into an apartment building where they all lived their miniature grown-up lives.

Later in life, my dad bought this “cathedral window” stitched quilt from a quilter in Arkansas. I’m not a quilter, but I do appreciate the hand-work that’s gone into each intricate patch and the years of collecting fabrics that make them. It’s a quilt worth studying. Era’s of style and color are represented, the 60’s psychedelic fabrics line up next to the 50’s cotton calico apron fabrics that the quilter’s grandmother probably wore. We sleep under the story of this country quilter’s life. A single decorative pillow from my college roommate speaks, “A bouquet of Love and Friendship” with a teapot of pansies in the center. I think of her every time we make the bed.

Wish I knew the woman who made this quilt so I could thank her!

All of this adds up to a reflective ritual with a dose of discipline. The bed means something to us so we make it and look forward to our return knowing we prepared the way for another night’s sleep when we accomplished the first task of the day. “If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed,” U.S. Navy Adm. William H. McCraven shared in a speech at a U. of Texas commencement, “If you make your bed every morning, you will have accomplished the first task of the day,” he said. “It will give you a small sense of pride, and it will encourage you to do another task, and another, and another. And by the end of the day that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed.”

On a broader platitude, perhaps making the bed suggests the value we as a culture place on rest. We don’t just flop down anywhere and take a nap, unless we’re a toddler crashed out on sugar, strung out by the holiday season. We rest and perhaps rest best when the place has been prepared for us. My husband and I love Holiday Inn Express because of their beds. Those beds are so comfy, the sheets tucked in just right, the four pillows marked with “soft” and “firm.” Even if we accidentally book a smoking room instead of non-smoking we’re going to sleep well, just because of those beds.

In this Advent week of rushing around finalizing holiday preparations, think about His bed. A manger bed, fluffed with straw or a shawl arranged on the ground prepared for him. It wasn’t Holiday Inn Express pillows and 300 thread count sheets, but it was a simple bed prepared for the King of Kings. Prepare the way, make your bed.

Caravaggio’s Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawerence

Part three in a four part Advent series on the tangible and intangible things in life that last.