Margaret Philbrick

Author. Gardener. Teacher. Planting seeds in hearts.

Author. Gardener. Teacher.

Planting seeds in hearts.
I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow.   1 Corinthians 3:6
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Wet Dog Food, Love and Prolonging Life

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There are many things in life that we say we’ll never do. Serving wet dog food to our dog is definitely one of them. Alas, she is 16 and we are facing those dreadful declining dog years when we carry her down the stairs to go out in the morning. Sometimes we carry her back up, she only weighs ten pounds so this isn’t a big sacrifice, but wet dog food?

The home I grew up in had a “little kitchen” right off of the main kitchen, basically a pantry with a large white ceramic sink. When we skinned our knees, mom attended to our boo-boos in that sink and the blood dripping across the stark whiteness made me a little queasy — not as queasy as feeding the dog in this room. For most of her life “Duker,” our black lab ate dry dog food – simple, no smell, chunk it in the bowl and walk away. As she aged, my mom switched her to wet ALPO. Before the can opener dug into the metal I could smell it, a harsh combination of vomit and leftovers molting in the fridge. I held my breath the entire time I scooped it out and filled her dish. Often I couldn’t hold it long enough so I ran out of the room, took another deep breath and came back in. If the smell graced my nostrils I gagged or threw up. I swore then that if I ever had a dog I would NEVER feed it wet dog food scooped from a can. We all know the quote, “never say never.”

Fast forward to 16 year old Snuggles – roughly 112 in human years. Where do those doggie years go? I adore her, but I did not know that adoring dog owners should brush their dogs’ teeth. The groomer did it four times a year so I thought that I was absolved of this disgusting ritual, i.e. dog breath is always gross no matter how young or healthy the dog is. Now her teeth are in bad shape and it is time for easier to chew wet dog food. I scoured the store and came upon delectable varieties in the Ceaser Home Delights line which looked like something that I might eat for Sunday dinner and the dog on the front looks like ours, although Snuggles is cuter. This switch went well for me. The food does not smell disgusting and she loves it. Problem solved.

Grilled New York Strip flavor – delicious!

Fast forward to 16 and a half years. I decide to invest and I’m talking invest serious money in a professional vet cleaning of her teeth because my groomer tells me it is necessary if she is to “live out her full life.” Isn’t 16 and a half a full dog life? Before this can happen you need to pay for a chest X-ray and blood work to make sure your dog is healthy enough to survive the anesthesia needed for the vet to do the job, i.e. note – don’t neglect your dog’s teeth so that this does not happen to you. Several hundred dollars later I get the email, “I’m so sorry your dog is in stage 3 of kidney failure and she won’t be able to have her teeth cleaned until this is abated.” WHAT? Aside from taking more naps Snuggles does not act sick and she is pooping and popping along on her walks as usual. I am in a state of shock and guilt. Our guinea pig died because we quit feeding her alfalfa (it was already in her pellets), now this! We learn that there is special wet, canned food for kidney failure dogs and now I am flash-backed to the “little kitchen” of my nightmarish, bad smell event.

Friends, I am doing it! I am scooping gross smelling K/D healthy kidney stew out of a can. At this point I could launch into a diatribe about how American culture has gone off the deep end with their dogs because they are truly the only relationship we can handle due to the fact that they love us unconditionally and they don’t talk back to us, but I won’t. The bottom line motivation here is LOVE and my groomer’s “live out her full life” statement. Of course, we want her to live her best life, her full life. Our oldest son thinks that dog ownership is an enormous, inefficient waste of thousands of dollars. We who love dogs know this the farthest perspective from the truth. But the question remains, how far will we go? Should we give her a kidney transplant from the doggie organ donor bank – probably wouldn’t go that far. All this is to say that during this month of reckless love our dogs can teach us new things about the lengths of love. My engagement with wet dog food certainly speaks of the truth that “Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13. Obviously, I’m not laying down my life, just my nose for man’s best friend and that change in behavior doesn’t seem like such a big deal in the grand scheme of our world today. What changes for the sake of love are you making this month? Long live Snuggles the dog!

Seeing With Freedom in 2021

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As a writer I’m drawn to large projects that are years in the making. Yet, focused work on my current manuscript can feel limited: not all of life is contained in Renaissance Italy (hint, hint the manuscript for my new novel is done:)! For our anniversary, my husband gave me an iPod with the date of our wedding engraved on the back. This little blue baby allows me to take beautiful photographs instantly and capture the grandeur of God’s handiwork with clarity and presence. When I need a break from writing I wander the woods photographing moss or in this season, frozen fog.

Perhaps this might seem unproductive. Inefficient. Indulgent, even. 

We so seldom take time to rest in the world around us, a world marked by isolation and fear in 2020. It’s time to fight against those Covid practices and get outside. When was the last time you collapsed and made a snow angel, plucked an icicle and felt it melt away in your exposed hand? This childlike endeavor requires a willingness to stop, sit and see. 


STOP, SIT, AND SEE

These three actions may help us live a balanced life, but the Western ideal of success places no value on the virtues of stopping to take in what God may be wanting to show us. Instead, as author Anne Lamott describes it, our culture pursues “forward thrust, going forward, staying one step ahead of the abyss… and if we can’t stay ahead of the abyss then we go to IKEA and buy a throw rug.”  

We buy a throw rug to cover up the abyss because we don’t want to see it. Outrunning the abyss of a meaningless, unproductive life drives us onward. After all, in our short few decades on earth we’ve been convinced by our parents, our schools, our families and friends that we’ve got to make a difference in this world. The endless pursuit of difference-making is exhausting. Could taking time to stop, sit and see bear fruit instead? Exploring the lives of poets, artists and prophets tells us unequivocally, “yes.”

I recently led a poetic journaling event with young moms desperately in need of a night away from their kids. Instead of hanging out drinking wine and talking incessantly about their kids, they were longing for a creative and restorative activity. I used the German poet, Rainer Maria Rilke as my subject for leading these women because he knew the value of investing slow and significant time to develop a creative work. He tells us that, “to be an artist means, not to compute or count; it means to ripen as the tree which does not force its sap, but stands unshaken in the storms of spring with no fear that summer might not follow.” Oh, to have the confidence of a tree who does not count its rings. Gathering rings, rendering sap and bearing fruit takes time and God is in no hurry. To access his light we need to cease our hurry and see the small things which are often overlooked, like the cracking open of milkweed pods or the ever-changing color of water.
 

FINDING GOD IN THE WILDERNESS

On a chilly spring evening I attended a lecture at a local college on the life of artist Lilias Trotter. I’d never heard of this gifted Victorian era artist who gave up a career as the first renowned female painter in England to pursue life as a missionary in Algeria. She devoted her life to loving Muslim people, especially women and their children. Similar to the work of moms today, her work was arduous— hand washing laundry in rivers, feeding numerous children and forging friendships with women in sewing circles while learning Arabic. Her calling could easily have overwhelmed her. Yet, she chose to find daily sacred space by wandering into the desert to capture images of God in highly detailed, painted landscapes in her journal— precise images as small as a matchbook due to the scarcity of art supplies. She learned to “hold back everything that would crowd our souls” in order to access God’s light and, in turn, give that light to others. Her commitment to separating herself from the rigors of work to see God in the wilderness inspired me to do the same. My lens of wonder in all his works needed time to focus and a deliberate attempt to “uncrowd” my soul allowed open spaces for his light to come in.

“The daisies have been talking again—the reason they spread out their leaves flat on the ground is because the flowers stretch out their little hands, as it were, to keep back the blades of grass that would  shut out the sunlight. They speak so of the need of deliberately holding back everything that would crowd our souls and stifle the freedom of God’s light and air.” – Lilias Trotter, 1899 

Which brings me back to my walks in the woods collecting moments (borrowing from Heinrich Boll here). Some of these images call for a quick poem, a little nugget of carefully crafted words to describe what speaks in creation. This gift forces me to slow down and look for beauty unfolding, then rest and reflect on what I’ve seen and take the next step, create! When we create we become more like God because we are made in the image of the author of all creation, and our grand author is not scrolling social media counting his followers.

As Rilke said, we don’t need to “compute or count” followers, likes on Instagram, page views, or friends. We need to ripen as the tree and wave with the freedom of tall grass. Make time for God, look for him in icy crystals, listen for him in the cracking of milkweed. Stop, sit and see, and if you are so inspired, give him back some of what he’s shown you.

Milkweed

Irresistible winter cracker

temptress for fifty years,

your milky silk

flowing through fingertips, 

drifting where?

Unremarkable,

brown seed carried

on snowy thistledown,

to unseen kingdoms

where fairies ride

and race upon your 

feathery seats

like charioteers, 

monarchs in summer.

Milkweed— magic maker

earth’s clouds,

God’s laughter,

enticing hardened

grown-ups to play

jump, toil

and spin

in open fields again.

MARGARET PHILBRICK

This article has been amended from the original which appeared in Popel Women, 2019.

https://www.propelwomen.org/cmspage.php?intid=39&intversion=500

Letters to My Mother During Covid19

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.

Margaret, Jessie and “Nana”

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!

Avoid School Year Stress With Sacred Space

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Last May a friend who recently moved from Texas stopped me after a school concert to ask, “Why is it so crazy where we live? When I lived in Texas it wasn’t like this.” She’s right. It is crazy in our neck of the woods so here are a few strategies to combat that choking, stressed out feeling of back-to-school.

We live in a performance driven Chicago suburb. Here, like many other affluent burbs, parents can drown themselves and their kids in a thousand productive and good activities which will shape their kids’ future. In a single day dozens of “opportunities” float across my computer screen enticing parents to sign up. Everything from knitting clubs, piano lessons, in-home baking classes and the ever expanding list of club sports all of which are beyond the regular after-school offerings. Parents want their beautiful stars and starlets to step forward into the next  arena of dawn until dusk development. In our world, this is what good parents do. They provide experiences for their children which will hopefully capture their hearts and minds, enhancing focus and direction for the future. Overloading schedules can result in burnout with mom or dad in the drivers seat from 3:30 until 7:30. Dinner ends up being an already baked chicken from the grocery store and mac an’ cheese. No veggies, except for mini-carrots (which are packaged in chlorine F.Y.I.). I’ve lived this routine. Our daughter used to eat her dinner in the car on the way home from ballet at 9:00p.m., shower and head up to her room for hours of homework. Not exactly family time.

Another reason why it is so “crazy” here is that we live in America. This is an achievement driven culture that thrives on crossing off the to-do list and winning awards. If we are not doing then we are dying and I’m not talking about death to self. Yes, we are all dying but the doing somehow allows us to disguise the dying part. In our beautiful, green suburban enclave this is keenly felt. Almost every parent I know posts photos of their child’s current accomplishments on Facebook or drives them around on their bumper. “My child is an honor student at Hadley” the sticker reads. What is with those white stick figures that people put on their cars? Mom, Dad, eight children and four pet stickies which scream I AM SO BUSY. If we aren’t doing and now thanks to social media, PROCLAIMING to the world, we must be living dormant worthless lives. How can we stop the suburban spin and get off?

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I spent summer mornings running or biking in a variety of forest preserves. Along the trail I’d stop. Taking a pause in the middle of my run, and look out at a vista and pray there. Right in our own crazy neighborhood, a quiet, morning beauty. I was running, but also resting. Seeking out spaces without cars, just crickets and birds. Saint James Farm overflows with giant oak trees, pastures, hidden creeks and trails. Along one of these gravel paths lies the Horse and Hound cemetery. Mr. McCormick, the creator of Saint James, loved his animals and laid them to rest amidst etched crosses reflecting an era all but gone in our county. This is a great fencepost legacy to lean into. Loving animals. Creating sacred space. Allowing others to partake and enjoy the bounty. Just a place to thank God for the day we’ve been given and all the people who’ve gone before us to make our lives more beautiful and rich.

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If running isn’t your thing, take a walk and grab a Starbucks. Sit by a fountain with your journal and make a list of all the things you are NOT going to do this fall. Close your eyes and drink in the spray mixed with the waning sun on your face coupled with that burned coffeebean taste of your latte. Resolve to seek quiet, seek beauty, rest in faith. The less we succumb to our external realities the more space we create for cultivating our internal reservoir. Remember to tell your children as they gulp down their mac n’ cheese how and where you found your quiet, holy order today (which hopefully spills over into theirs.) We can resist the crazy culture of overload if we give value to cultivating sacred space and sharing it with those we love. Sacred according to Merriam-Webster means “dedicated or set apart for the service or worship of a diety.” Churches are a blessing, but what other sacred spaces are in your own back yard? Go there this fall and breathe.

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Laughter in Summer

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Summer should free us up to take deep breaths and engage in some silly fun that we might not have the bandwidth for during other times of the year.  Our dancing daughter is definitely the diva of our family and this article explains how we gave her a sweet scented surprise during her recent yoga class. What might you do this summer to spice up the life of a friend or family member? I’d love to hear your ideas. This article first appeared in the June issue of the Redbud Post magazine.

https://www.redbudwritersguild.com/laughing-with-you-not-at-you/#comment-16174

Yes, this is the victim of my prank described in the article:)

Why I Care About the Marvel Cinematic Universe

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It’s easy to say with a cavalier pride in my own erudite literary interests that I have no time for and do not care about the Marvel Cinematic Universe. My typical quest continues to lead me in search of ether writing or reading the next great novel. Right now, I’m reading the Art of the Heist by Myles Connnor. Myles is a convict who is the likely mastermind behind the Gardener Museum Heist, but I digress. My kids begged and dragged me to see the Avengers movie in our basement on DVD, remember Guardians of the Galaxy? I confess to actually staying awake through the entire movie AND spending time thinking about the characters in this movie long after the sequel enticing credits rolled on, and on, and on, and on.  This weekend we are all going to see Infinity Wars. Yes, we are going to pay to see this movie which has now grossed over a billion dollars. I just wrote that sentence, a movie about galactic superheroes has grossed over a billion dollars. Our world is truly desperate for escape on a massive scale.

I’m actually excited to simmer down in my cushy seat at Studio Movie Grill and munch on galaxy nachos while watching the green goblin Gamorrah curse Thanos and fall in love with Starlord, Peter Quill. But their doomed love affair isn’t the main draw, it is GROOT! I wrote this piece for Relevant magazine so everyone could understand, although not necessarily agree with, why Groot is the greatest hero. This sentient, little tree is irresistible even as a teenager which is nearly impossible for that genre of life. How could you not agree? Enjoy the movie, even if you are on your third, fourth or fifth time seeing it and let me know who your favorite superhero is. Leave me a comment and let’s debate the merits of this cultural “marvel.” https://relevantmagazine.com/culture/film/groot-greatest-hero-marvel-cinematic-universe/