CoVid19

Letters to My Mother During Covid 19

May 6, 2020 by Margaret Philbrick Leave a Comment

Dear Mom,

Whenever I say to dad on the phone, “I have good news and bad news, which do you want first?” He always says, “Let’s get the bad news out of the way.” The bad news today is that someone you know on your floor died of the Covid19 virus last night. He sang with us in our Songs By Heart sessions and his kind son would also sing with him. We belted out, “You’re a Grand ol’ Flag” and “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” together. I loved singing next to you in those sessions with Olivia leading and dancing with your hands and swinging in your chairs. She gets you all moving and marching in place to “When the Saints Go Marching In.” I can’t speak more highly of Songs By Heart so I’m recommending them here. http://www.songsbyheart.org

This fine and handsome gentleman who passed always beamed a smile for you at the dinner table, in the hallways or during activities. I’m going to miss him when I get back in there! R.I.P. sweet, smiling singer!

In the spirit of thanking you for the truly AWESOME mother that you are and I mean that in the truest sense of the word, not in the cheapened —apply this word to everything, even getting a parking spot vernacular, I’m thanking you today for loving dogs. Yep, you are a dog lover and in the midst of Coronavirus many people are becoming dog lovers or yearning to own a dog. We just prayed with a sweet man on Sunday who asked God for a dog so he wouldn’t be so lonely in this pandemic. If a person has a parent who is a dog lover, they usually become a dog lover themselves (my scientific research on a sample of about twenty tells me, with Caleb as the outlier.)

Your dad was a dog lover and he owned many hunting dogs that he named after his grandchildren. I remember visiting them in their kennel and loving them from a distance because we weren’t allowed to play with them since they trained as professional dogs. I do remember throwing dummies into the lake and watching them jump into the water and swim out to retrieve the grey, stuffed dummy. They’d swim back coughing and choking on water while keeping that dummy in their jaws. One of those dogs gave birth to a “runt of the litter,” what an awful expression that is, and we came home from Hayward, WI with a black lab pup, McDuke. I think this name is some blend of McGreevy and the nickname you always called your sisters, “Duke.” We called her “Duker.” What a sweet dog! As a child, Chobey was an even greater lover of animals than myself so I always thought of McDuke as Chobey’s dog. Nonetheless, she was a perfect pet for our family, except that I never believed dad loved our dog so that was a bit of a downer. When she ripped all the wallpaper off the wall during a storm I think that did dad in on Duker. The worst thing about her was the smell of her wet Alpo dog food that I scooped into her dish in the “little kitchen” while holding my breath and gagging to the point of near cardiac arrest.

Your love of Duker triumphed and your children now revel in dog love! Here you are with Snoopy who joined us this past Christmas, along with our dog Snuggles and Jessie’s Persian cat, Smushie. Snoopy ate the sugar cookie ornaments off the tree, rascal! Check out these primo photos of our animal planet holiday get together. Thank you for making the trek with us to Missouri to get our precious Snuggles. Sorry I didn’t tell you how far away Snuggles lived when we adopted her, but if I’d told you then you wouldn’t have come along! xoxo to you doglover!

Letters to My Mother During Covid19

May 3, 2020 by Margaret Philbrick 2 Comments

Hi Mom!

Happy Sunday:) What a joy to see you through your window yesterday— Smiling!

Sue from the front desk unlocked the gate into your courtyard so I could stand outside the window and chat with you LIVE for the first time since the middle of March. That’s when the Coronavirus swept across our part of the world and locked me out of your facility. Do you realize we just endured the longest time apart from each other (over 50 days) since I went to college? We’ve been blessed to live in the same town/Chicagoland area since I finished my education.

If you look out your living room window today, you can see the planter that I delivered, a May Day blast of colorful pansies, carnations, cineraria, euonymous all surrounding a mini-spruce tree. Please make sure it gets watered once a week if it doesn’t rain. I noticed the giant crabapple tree in your courtyard is about to bloom and that will bring more living color your way:) I always loved how you would hide a May Day basket of flowers somewhere around my house, either hanging on the front doorknob or resting on a windowsill.

In my last letter I thanked you for your thoughtful care in picking out the toys that you bought for us and our children. That letter contained a big photo of the Show ’n Tell record player that I listened to as a pee-wee. Most of those toys are long gone to landfills, but a few reside in the corners of our adult lives. One of those eternal toys is Ted D. Bear.

Back in December, I published a letter from Ted and the sound of his voice jarred many happy memories for those who knew him, especially my college friends. I think you know that Ted lives up north, at High Pines in Door County. His life up there is solitary, but fulfilling since he serves as caretaker while we’re away. All his stuffer friends live in the loft and honestly, I think they’re a bit resentful of Ted’s leadership over the house. One of our neighbors read the letter from Ted last December and he wrote back expressing a desire to come and meet Ted D. Bear. So on Easter Sunday he came to join us for Easter dinner! Sadly, because of the Coronavirus you could not enjoy Easter with us, but Ted-bear made a new friend that day and he wants to tell you all about it.

Dear Nana,

I hope you’re feeling healthy and strong. Old people tend to get the Coronavirus, but elderly stuffed animals don’t so I’m feeling well up here in the Northwoods. Since my mom (Margaret) could not enjoy her usual Easter celebrations with you and her children this year, I felt a little sorry about that. I organized (with the help of my new friend) a “beary” happy Easter dinner with some other bears. Please don’t think this is strange, these are “unprecedented times” in the world so we bears must unite and bring an even deeper level of happiness to our owners.

My new friend Jerry wrote my mother saying that his bears would like to meet me! Mother decided that since Jerry is a widower, God rest the blessed soul of his dearly beloved wife Karen, who I didn’t know but I know that I would have adored her — she had a large collection of stuffers and other cozy knick-knacks, we invited them all for Easter dinner. Bears do not do social distancing. Jerry came “bearing” a nice bottle of Rhone (I think that’s red wine?) which thrilled the Big Man, (Mr. Philbrick) and his beloved friends Randolph and Patchy Packer (this bear is a Green Bay Packer fan that Jerry irresistibly pulled from the garbage dump still looking fresh in his Green Bay Packer vest.) I delighted in the fact that I’m much bigger than these two, they could be my children — and not even having had children it made the Easter dinner extra special. I felt like their father sitting at the table, they actually sat on the table because they didn’t fit in a chair, poor little feltlings – the Packer vest was made out of green and yellow felt.

As you might expect we all enjoyed ham, potatoes, asparagus and even a few sips of cherry bounce. It’s okay if you don’t remember what that is, I’m happy to remind you that it’s a homemade cocktail that mother and the Big Man make out of summer cherries and it sits in the basement for months while I watch over it and make sure that all the other stuffers in the house stay away from it. They are not of age to drink alcohol unless they are accompanied by moi, that’s french for me!

After dinner we sat by the fire and listened to my pal Jerry wax on about his younger days which I actually found somewhat interesting. He asked his beloved, nearly and dearly departed wife Karen to marry him by inviting her to go on a trip to England with him. Isn’t he an brave bear when it comes to the ladies?

I miss you dear Nana. You have not been to High Pines since Christmas when you looked most fetching in your cheesehead hat. I look forward to your return this summer when I will introduce you to Jerry, Randolph and Patchy Packer. Since I’m allowed to sit at the table like a grown up, perhaps Mother will take me to the 4th of July parade?

All my beloved stay well wishes, bear hugs and love,

Ted D. Bear

(transcribed by my mother Margaret since my paws do not allow me to type.)

Letters to My Mother During Covid19

April 13, 2020 by Margaret Philbrick Leave a Comment

Dear Mom,

Happy Easter! We are so thankful that Mercy and the talented staff at your facility took the time to do your hair for Easter. Look at how you impressed the Easter bunny! In the midst of stay-at-home celebrating today we are reminiscing about one of your favorite places in the world…

Think back to your honeymoon. You and dad were high school sweethearts and managed to keep your relationship going through college in two different states. When you married and began planning your honeymoon, you wanted to go somewhere fresh and not too far away. Fortunately, Goggie read an article in the Chicago Tribune about a destination called, “The Cape Cod of the Midwest,” only five hours up north. After your downtown wedding night in the Palmer House, you packed up the ghost-white station wagon and headed into the unknown. Dad described it as a miserable drive, “Rained the whole way and your mother didn’t feel well. We checked in and wondered what tomorrow would bring. The entire area looked bleak and black.” But when you woke up, you saw the June sunlight tilting through the conifers surrounding your cottage. I imagine you two stepping out and letting the screen door slam behind you— inhaling your first breath of what would become 50 years of Door County pine scented air.

Door County. It is a huge part of the life of all my grandparents, both sides of your family and now our own family. Thanks to your 1950’s trekking up north along that Lake Michigan coast, here’s what happened:

Grandma and Grandpa followed you and built “just a little hot dog stand” on highway 42 between Ephraim and Sister Bay. That little hot dog stand became a full service restaurant known as the Red Barn complete with cottages for rent, a driving range and their summer house. The restaurant is still there and is now known as the Summer Kitchen.

We jammed our massive Lehwald family into their little summer house, heated by a Coleman stove and baseboard heaters for many Thanksgivings. We spent my first birthday eating dad’s favorite strawberry shortcake out on the concrete patio.

Uncle Jay and Janet rented the “big, grey house” on Cottage Row and cousin Leslie and I played with the electrified dollhouse more than we played outside.

Dad and Grandma battled over which fish boil served the best meal. Dad swore allegiance to the White Gull Inn and Grandma and Grandpa loved The Viking. Both of these restaurants still do fish boils. The White Gull Inn won the family contest. Who wants to pay to eat a fancy dinner off an army mess hall, stainless steel tray?

After baking countless apple and cherry pies and picking up legions of golf balls on his riding mower, Grandma and Grandpa sold The Red Barn and built their dream house just up Maple Lane from the Sister Bay Bowl. Erica and I stayed in the guest house and snuck out at night. Me and Uncle Billy and Dad and cut down our most gigantic Christmas tree and we all made the ornaments and chains out of paper. Grandpa taught me how to play cribbage. Grandma cheated at pee-wee golf. We killed each other over slap-jack and Fool Your Neighbor card games.

Our kids spent many Presidents’ Day weekends running down hotel halls and jumping off the sides of the High Point Inn pool. Summers lazily wandering orchards picking cherries, skipping and heaving rocks into the water, hiking in Peninsula State Park. Nathaniel got lost in the woods at the Wilson’s Eagle cottage and Pebble Beach provided hours of rainy day entertainment by painting rocks. Pebble Beach and the surrounding land was recently purchased by the Door County Land Trust so it will forever be enjoyed by generations of rock painters and skippers.

This past Christmas you spent with all of us up at High Pines, sitting beside the second most gigantic Christmas tree, looking fly in your cheesehead hat and sipping cherry bounce. Snoopy the dog ate all the sugar cookie ornaments off the tree and we enjoyed the best hot chocolate in our individual whipped cream topped teapots at the White Gull Inn.

Generations of cherry juice running down the arms of children who jammed more cherries into their mouths than their pails and everything else happened because you listened to your mother who read the newspaper! Thank you for taking us to shuffleboard courts by the bay at the Evergreen Beach Hotel and snowmobiling on New Years Eve from the Hotel DuNord and everywhere else in Door County. As the worlds battles the Coronavirus, the beauty of birches by the lake remains untouched.

Gratefully loving you from a distance this Easter!

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,