Demi Gods Among Us

DemiGods We all know several of them. We detest them. We PRAY, we aren’t one of them. Who are they? Those among us who “know it all”, who have the attitude of “My Way or the Highway”. It’s very easy to fall into the trap of being a DemiGod, when you are in a position that gives you even a slight bit of power – when you have the ability to “force” your thinking and will on others. Several years ago, I had a delightful young lady who due to a divorce, was having to sell her home as a short sale. We found a young couple who really wanted the home and was prepared to take it “as is”. The young lady actually moved out of the home early, and gave the buyers permission to go in and make the corrections and repairs to the home that the municipality was requiring be done prior to the couple being able to get an occupancy permit and move in right after closing. Once the couple finished the repairs required by the municipality, I asked the municipal inspector to come back for his reinspection, as is required. First, "THAT inspector didn’t like anyone else to reinspect after him”, and since he was on vacation, we would have to wait till he came back for our reinspection. Our pleas that the home was a short sale and we had to close within the window that the bank had approved, or we couldn’t close fell on deaf ears. The supervisor wasn’t about to cross the inspector, even though other inspectors were available. Next, when the inspector finally got back and came to reinspect, he was HORRIBLE. The couple had done EVERYTHING on the list he gave them from replacing the hot water heater, to painting the chain length fence. The inspector, however, wasn’t satisfied. The couple had scraped and painted the exterior of the home where the paint was peeling and repainted those areas. Not good enough - the inspector informed us that while he hadn’t written it down that way, that was what he had meant and we were supposed to KNOW that. The couple had paid for a new hot water heater to be installed in a home that they didn’t own yet. They had gotten a permit, as was required, and the installation had been approved by STL County. Not good enough, the inspector (who had been out of town when the hot water heater was replaced, informed us that HE had not personally checked the permit and inspected after the work was done (even though he wasn’t a plumber and didn’t have the expertise to know if it was properly installed or not! Then we got to the backyard. The inspector had cited us because the chain length fence had vines growing on it and needed to be painted (which everyone involved had thought a bit much – paint a chain length fence???), but the couple had done it. Unfortunately, the vines turned out to be poison ivy and everyone who helped pull them off the fence came down with a bad case of poison ivy. But even as sick as they were, they had gone out and painted the chain length fence after the vines were removed because they inwspector had it on his list. He cited us because the vines that were pulled off the fence had been piled up in the middle of the yard and were waiting for someone to get rid of them. The ONLY WAY, we were able to close within the bank’s timeline, was because the couple’s grandmother paid the municipality several hundred dollars to give the couple a temporary permit allowing them to move in and then finish the work the inspector was requiring. ABSOLUTELY no reason for the inspector to make us go through all that. No reason for him to treat us that way, other than the fact that the inspector was a DemiGod in his own mind and he wanted to be sure everyone of us knew that HE had total power over us and over getting the house closed on schedule. It gave me great pleasure about a year later, to have the Mayor of the town the building inspector worked for, tell me he had been fired for abusing his power.

Time is Relevant

Time is so relevant. Years ago, my oldest son was given a pair of sandals by his grandmother. As expected, he outgrew the sandals, but I held onto them for his younger brother to grow into. A few years later, I put the sandals on my younger son. He thoughtfully looked at them, then asked me why there was a “worm” on the side of his sandal? A worm? It took me a few minutes to realize that time had passed us by and the picture of ET on the side of his sandals, to a 3 year old who had never seen the movie or heard any of the “hype”, looked like a worm. When I was in grad school, working on a Master’s in Dietetics, I took a required cooking class. While I had gotten my Bachelor’s about 10 years earlier, a young man in my class was not only going straight through getting his Master’s right after finishing his Bachelor’, he had obviously, never been taught to cook anything and really struggled with the class. As a result, the women in the class, who would invariable finish up what we were fixing quickly, would tend to go over and help the young man so that the food he was supposed to be fixing would be finished before the class ended (after all, we didn’t get to eat until everything was finished). One day, as I was helping him, he tried to make “polite conversation” to fill the void. So he asked me if I liked music, then started telling me about a “GREAT” band he had recently heard. Almost every other comment was that it was a “REALLY OLD” band, but it was “REALLY GREAT” and he was sure I would enjoy the band if I heard them. Even though they were “REALLY OLD”, they were great. When he finally finally got around to telling me the name of the band, it was the “Moody Blues”. Unfortunately, I then crushed him, when I simply said that I had danced to “Knights in White Satin” at my wedding many years earlier. He was silent for the rest of the class. Most of today’s young people have no idea what using a “party line” phone was like, or how to use a payphone and ask an operator for help. They know how to text, but use a manual typewriter? Much less what to do if you made a mistake and had to correct it before IBM came out with a Selective 3 that could type BACKWARDS to cover a mistake (I could type backwards faster than forward when I was in college). Just as our generation often didn’t truly understand the references that framed our parent’s and grandparent’s generations, our children and children’s children won’t understand the references that framed our generation. I was speaking to an older veteran recently and she lamented that many of the younger people she runs into have no idea what WWII was all about. As the WWII generation (of which she is a part) dies off, current generations don’t understand the lessons that were learned and how their history was impacted by the war. They know about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but many don’t even understand how the Vietnam War impacted our country. I pointed out that some of the recent movies are helping that, but she responded that the young people she has talked to see those as entertainment, not as history. While we often tell people to learn from history, rather than to repeat things that didn’t work, we fail to take into consideration that our history is seldom completely known by those around us. Our personal history shapes our views on life; our understanding of not just the world around us, but of the reactions of other people to things that are going on. If we have never experienced famine, how are we to truly understand someone who has? It is with an open heart and a willingness to learn from others that we are able to truly move forward and understand the world around us

The Evolution of Christmas Traditions

The first Christmas that Mike and I were married, we were living in Columbia MO, with both sets of parents in the metro St Louis area, so we went home for Christmas. First we drove to my parent’s home, in West St Louis County, to drop our bags and go to Christmas Eve service with them. Then we got in our car and drove an hour to his parent’s home in Jefferson County, for Christmas Midnight Mass. Then we drove an hour back to my parent’s home to spend the night.Christmas morning was with my family, then we drove the hour to his family’s home for Christmas Dinner, then we drove to Shrewsbury (another hour away) to spend late Christmas Afternoon with my older sister Pat, at her home. Then we drove an hour back to my parent’s to pick up our bags and start the drive back to Columbia. I swore I’d never do that again. The next Christmas we were at Malmstrom AFB, in Montana, so we didn’t have to worry about which family to visit when, instead we started to form our own traditions. A freshly cut tree with white lights on it with the ornaments I had collected at after Christmas sales as a teenager. The next year found us heading to Korea in November, so we passed through St Louis to leave our cars, dog with her puppies and a few other things for the year we would be gone. In the process, we celebrated Thanksgiving and an Early Christmas with both sets of family before heading on to California to catch our flight to Korea. Christmas in Korea was very different. Between 1910-1945, while Japan had occupied Korea the Japanese had cut down the majority of the trees in Korea (the rest being cut down for firewood) and taken the lumber back to Japan. While the Koreans had replanted their forests, by the time we got there in 1977, the trees were still in very defined rows and cutting one down was a major offense, so Christmas trees were no where to be found in country. I don’t remember if we had shipped a tiny artificial tree or my parents sent it to us, but we had a small artificial Christmas tree that year with a few Korean decorations I found at the market. At the time, we were living in the married enlisted quarters, because while Captains and above were issued a room with a kitchen that was shared by the room next to theirs (so a married couple could end up with 2 rooms and a kitchen), we were only Lieutenants and Lieutenants were housed in open bay barracks. The quarters for the married enlisted personnel consisted of 2 small 1 story buildings with 12 small bedrooms and a shared common room for a living room. The 12 couples shared a small kitchen (1 stove and refrigerator) and there were 2 shared bathrooms cut out of the common room space. One was for the men, the other for the women. We were in the “upgraded” building – we had walls around our bathrooms, the other building only had curtains. The individual bedrooms each held a bed and a dresser. Because we were both officers, we were given 2 dressers. The couples sharing our building with us, didn’t hold our ranks against us and we celebrated Christmas together with them with a Secret Santa exchange that year and our small Christmas tree. A few weeks later, we moved out of the enlisted quarters to a small walled compound in town where we had the second floor and another couple had the first floor. That year started my “tradition” of working Christmas Day, since as the Base Food Service Officer, I was responsible for the big Christmas Feast in the Dining Hall each year and if my personnel were working, I felt that I should be also. (A few weeks later, we moved out of the enlisted quarters to a small walled compound in town where we had the second floor and another couple had the first floor. In Nov 1978, we flew back to the States. We briefly visited with both sets of parents and had another Early Christmas celebration, then Mike headed to the West Coast for his next assignment, while I went to Blytheville AFB in Arkansas, where I spent the first few months living in visiting officer quarters since I was 7 months pregnant, and not eligible for family housing until the baby was born. Once more, I worked the holiday, overseeing the holiday meals at the dining facilities on base. The following year, Mike was still on the West Coast, and I was still at Blytheville, now in family housing with a 10 month old baby. Right before Christmas that year, the Services program had a “consultant” visit from one of the top Enlisted NCO’s from our headquarters. He was having trouble getting the junior enlisted to talk to him, so I ended up inviting all the personnel who worked for me and the NCO to my home to help me “decorate for Christmas”. Everyone helped me put up a tree and decorate it and in the process, the NCO got a chance to talk to the troops on a “casual, friendly” basis. I made stuffed Christmas decorations that year, so that my cat and baby Brigham, could play with them and I wouldn’t have to worry about breakage. The following Christmas found us at Hahn AB in the Hunsruck Mountains in Germany with a toddler, living on the German economy in a small town called Morz. Our German landlord and his family introduced us to many German customs including their Christmas traditions like putting shoes outside the front door when you went to bed the night before St Nicholas Day (Dec 6th). If a child was good, he would find a small toy and maybe some candy in his shoe in the morning from St Nicholas, while a naughty child would have some sticks or a lump of coal from Krampus (a half goat half man creature who accompanies St Nicholas on his rounds). The Germans spend Christmas Day visiting friends and relatives (sometimes receiving small presents during their visits) but they open their main gifts on Jan 6th when the Wise Men were said to have arrived in Bethlehem to see the Baby Jesus. In Sept 1981, we moved from Hahn down to Ramstein AB in Kaiserslautern Germany (at one point in time, the Kaiserslautern American Community in Germany had more American citizens residing in it than any other location outside of the Continental United States (ie, there were more Americans in Kaiserslautern, then in either Hawaii or in Alaska). We moved RIGHT after the Red Army Faction Terrorists bombed USAFE headquarters at Ramstein on Aug 31, 1981. We lived in a small town next to the base called Mackenbach. It was from the Mackenbach Forest between the town we lived in and the base, that the bombers had watched the bomb detonate. Here we lived in a small house where our heat came from a tiled stove in the middle of the house, with a section protruding into the living room, the dining room and hallway. During the day, we’d close the dampers and keep the heat downstairs and at night we would open them to heat the upstairs before we went to bed. The tiled stove got so hot that a fabric Santa decoration I sat on it got scorched and turned black from the heat. We didn’t realize when we put up our Christmas tree that it had a dual trunk, causing it to be much heavier on one side then the other. That resulted in the tree falling over, breaking many of the glass ornaments I’d put on it. We put it back up, tying it to heavy curtain rod to keep it upright. That year, I switched from white tree lights to colored. I still worked all the holidays, while Mike and Brigham would join me for Christmas Dinner in the Dining Hall. Later I would fix a second big dinner at home for all of us. 2 years later, in 1983, with another baby in tow, we went back to the State, or so we thought. We moved to Homestead AFB in Miami, Florida, where we lived in an area known as “Saga Bay”. In many ways, we felt like we had moved to another country, rather than back to the States, as the culture was often very Cuban and Spanish. Here live trees were extremely expensive and tended to look very much like “Charley Brown’s Christmas tree. The first year, we bought a cut tree, the second we used a small Norfolk Island Pine in a pot and then planted it in the yard afterward. The next year we gave up and bought an artificial tree. While the Santas at the mall spoke Spanish rather than English, we had the fun of having an English speaking Santa and Mrs Claus arrive in an F4, at the Squadron’s family Christmas parties. With inquisitive children and a small house, we finally had to ask our neighbor (who was in Mike’s squadron if we could hide Brigham’s Christmas bicycle in his garage. He politely refused his garage, and offered us his living room instead. Seemed his garage was full between his pontoon boat, car and other “big boy toys”, but he had no furniture in his living room. A few years later, Mike transferred back to Ramstein, while the boys and I remained in Miami for another year. I had gotten out of the service by then, and was working at Dade County Public Schools in their Food Service Dept while I finished my Masters. That Christmas, the boys and I joined one of my colleagues for Christmas Dinner at her home with her sons and mother. When the boys and I rejoined Mike, we moved to a small village called Rothselberg. Here our German landlady, her sister, their boyfriends and our German neighbors and friends made sure we participated in the German customs, which the boys were now old enough to understand and enjoy. Rothselberg, essentially means village at the bottom of the Red mountain. One of the local customs was for the volunteer fire department to “host” a Christmas event on St Nicholas Day on the mountain. We would all walk up the mountain carrying burning torches and flashlights, then St Nicholas would hand out small presents to the children (that the parents had given the volunteers earlier in the week). Afterward, we would eat hot fresh super large pretzels and drink hot beverages as we mingled with the other families from the village and walked back home. The night before the boys would have put their shoes outside the door for St Nicholas or Krampus to fill as well. Since I was no longer in the Service, I would fix a big Christmas dinner with all the trimmings each year. One of my favorite German customs is a New Year’s Eve custom, where everyone steps outside at Midnight and wishes their neighbors well for the upcoming year. (And if you see a chimney sweep on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day, it’s an especially good omen for the coming year!) As the boys got older, we would travel over the Christmas Holiday, often going on skiing trips with the Ramstein Ski Club. While we wouldn’t be able to bring all the gifts with us, we would normally bring the filled stockings and several small presents (often things that could be used on the trip) with us for the boys to unwrap on Christmas morning. Typically, the ski resorts we would stay at would have a special Christmas meal (sometimes their adaptation of what they had been told the American’s expected at that meal were very different from what we actually expected) and activities while we were there. We would also visit the Christmas markets and village festivals that were going on around the holidays. For our home, we would cut down a tree and decorate it with colored lights and decorations from the States, Germany and Korea as well as other countries we had visited (Mike would often joke that I had enough ornaments for 5 or 6 trees and probably didn’t need all of them, much less to buy more). I had started collecting a special ornament each year for each of the boys, so they would put their ornaments on the tree along with the ornaments they made at school. Because of the cat, I tended to avoid tinsel, and instead used crystal icicles I bought at the Kathe Wohlfhart Christmas market - bringing home pyramids and small wooden ornaments and all sorts of treasures. I spent a lot of money at Kathe Wohlfhart’s. We would fill the stockings with oranges, nuts, toothbrushes and small gifts, and pile the wrapped presents around the base of the tree along with a wooden nativity set we had gotten in the Philippines. Christmas morning, one of the boys would be selected to wear the Santa Hat and hand out the presents. The rule was one present at a time. Everyone would watch the person receiving the gift as they opened it, then we’d OHHH and AHHH as appropriate (and I would write down what came from family and friends for the Thank You letters that the everyone was required to write before they got to play with that gift. One year, Nathan decorated the tree with his GI Joes in little vignettes (mainly battle scenes). When I tried to rearrange them to make the tree “more balanced”, he knew I had moved them and they ended up getting put back the way he had arranged them. The Christmas after we returned to the States, we spent in California, visiting my older sister, Pat in Oakland for Christmas, then going skiing at Lake Tahoe. After Nathan died, it was many years before I wanted to do anything for Christmas. The first year, with Brigham coming home from his Freshman year at college, Mike insisted we put up a tree and have his parents over, I remember throwing a few decorations at the tree and walking out of the room because it was so painful. Later things got better, but it was still difficult to do a tree. We often received boxes of oranges and grapefruit from Florida and typically the box would contain a small pink flamingo toy. One year, not wanting to put up a tree, I threw the flamingos onto a large potted ficus tree that we’d been given when Nathan died. When Brigham got home and saw it, he said “Tiki Bar Christmas, I like it!” So that became the staple Christmas tree for several years. After Brigham moved to Germany and wasn’t home for Christmas, we started putting the gifts around a poinsettia rather than setting up a Christmas tree. The year Brigham came home briefly before going to Afghanistan for a year, I put up the Christmas tree and put all the decorations on it. As a family, we made an Apfel Strudel and enjoyed being together. It was the first year I had wanted to really celebrate Christmas since Nathan had died. I grew up shopping the after Christmas sales as a teenager. As an adult, I would often buy decorations and small gifts that could be used for future stocking stuffers and gift exchanges, or those last minute presents when you need something small and funny. I keep an eye out for the animated singing and dancing toys, as those work well at White Elephant gift exchanges. These days, I sometimes decorate the house with the animated toys and some of the decorations until I need to gift them. Mike enjoys them and often sets them off as he walks through the house. For several years, while we were taking care of Mike’s Mom, the focus would be on her. We would have a nice breakfast (often with Mike making his famous Overnight French Toast), then go join her, first at the farm house Mike had grown up in, then later at the dementia facility she was moved to, for Christmas Dinner. Often, I would put up more decorations in her room, then I put up at home. Dinner when we were taking it to her at the farm, would be picked up from a grocery store, then reheated at dinner time, rather than my trying to fix dinner and get out to see her early enough in the day. Now, with Brigham grown, we are starting a new tradition – going somewhere with Brigham for the holiday when his schedule allows. The first year, we went to New Orleans, renting a condo a block from Bourbon Street and a block from the streetcar stop so we could park our car and walk everywhere or take the streetcar. We visited with Mike’s cousins briefly, then spent the rest of our time exploring New Orleans (The WWII museum is fabulous). I still take our stockings with us, along with the Santa Hats and a few presents, but being in each other’s company is really all the presents we need. When we can’t get together with Brigham, Mike and I spend a quiet day at home. I grew up shopping the after Christmas sales as a teenager. As an adult, I would often buy decorations and small gifts that could be used for future stocking stuffers and gift exchanges, or those last minute presents when you need something small. I keep an eye out for the animated singing and dancing toys, as those work well at White Elephant gift exchanges. These days, I sometimes decorate the house with the animated toys and some of the decorations until I need to gift them. Mike enjoys them and often sets them off as he walks through the house. In fact, these days, some supposedly Christmas Decorations stay out year round – the brass angels from Korea, some of the German pyramids in the curio cabinet, the many Rodney and Rhonda Reindeer toys that use to be given out in the children’s meals at Burger King when we lived in Florida, and now cost a fortune at Hallmark build a pyramid of their own on top of the Grandmother Clock from Taiwan. A 3 ft tall elf that I got at Schnuck’s at an after Christmas sale (marked down even more because the seam in his shoe was coming undone) sits on a speaker year round in the family room, while another smaller elf is perched on the floor lamp. In my china cabinet, I have both a Lladro Nativity set that Mike brought me from Spain and the Hummel Nativity set that my father brought my mother from Germany when I was a girl. Other things, like the large Christmas rug that I bought at the church rummage sale, get brought out in December, along with a snowman themed fireplace screen I found at Schnucks one year, Christmas pillows from I received in past Christmas gift exchanges and some stuffed Santas and snowmen. Traditions evolve. Never stagnant. Ready to be adapted to whatever life hands us.

Putting Ourselves First

When my oldest son was born, I was an Air Force officer at Blytheville AFB in Arkansas, running the military dining facilities, with husband stationed on the West Coast. I went from a day working with troops whose average educational level was 5th grade, home to a baby. One day, I realized I was going to the Base Thrift Shop several times a week, not because I needed anything they had to sell, but because it gave me an opportunity to talk to the women volunteering there and actually have an adult conversation! I realized that I had been so absorbed with work and the baby, that I wasn’t taking care of myself. My “wakeup” call made me re-evaluate my life and decide I needed to pay attention to myself. Kind of like when the airline stewardess gives her safety briefing at the start of a flight and tells you, if the oxygen masks come down, PUT YOURS ON FIRST. If you don’t, you will most likely pass out before you can finish helping the people around you put on theirs. If you don’t take care of yourself, you won't be able to take care of someone else. For many of us, that’s really really difficult. Especially for women. We were taught as children to put others first. We put our families first, our church, volunteer work, friends, but very very seldom do we ever put ourselves first, and when we do, we feel guilty about it. It takes a real effort to change our perspective and learn to put ourselves first, but when we learn to do that, we learn that acknowledging our own self worth by putting ourselves first, is often the first step in learning that we have a voice and that our opinions and action matter.

Finally, Wise Enough to say "Enough"

When I was a little girl, my sisters and I went to school with pencils that said: The Stephenson’s An Air Force Family Serving God and Country We were raised knowing that we were to serve and to take care of others. In our minds, that translated to taking care of others first, and ourselves last, which often meant taking care of others first, our families second and ourselves last. To add to this, we were the generation that went through the feminist movements of the 60’s and 70’s - we KNEW we were strong women who could do anything we set our minds to. We were “Super Women”, who could take on any challenge. And then, of course, we were perfectionists. Everything had to be done correctly, and we would word and reword and reword a simple business paper 50 times, until we thought it was perfect before sending it on (and this was in the era when we didn’t have computers, we were typing everything and having to backspace to correct mistakes (I could type faster backwards then forwards back then)). Lida’s degree was in library sciences – running elementary school libraries while her 3 children were small, while being very involved in her church and community to the point that she went to Russia with a Presbyterian delegation on a peace mission in the 70’s. My mother use to say that Lida was burning her candle at both ends and was going to burn out if she didn’t slow down. Lida was always the most social and popular one of us. Pat – Pat was always an overachiever. She worked her way through college in 3 years, started as a Math teacher in Wentzville, moved onto the world of corporate finance and at one point worked in New York and was responsible for the finances of all the Sheraton Hotels worldwide. If Pat told you, you needed to be somewhere on a certain day and time, when she informed you, she would also tell you which plane flight would be the best (and back when times were different, she would have already made your reservation for you), with no regard for your personal schedule and desires, because she had figured out the optimum flight, period. She not only dotted the I's and crossed the T’s, she was the supreme perfectionist. I was the “good little girl”, the “homemaker”. My degree was in Food Systems Management Dietetics (slightly “more” than just a degree in Home Ec). Since I could not compete with my sisters’ and “win”, I followed a path that neither of them had taken, joining ROTC at Mizzou when it first opened up for women. (I was the first and only woman in ROTC at Mizzou for awhile). When I went into the Air Force, however, they put me in admin rather than in dietetics or food service. It took volunteering for a remote in Korea as a Food Service Officer that put me on the path I thought I wanted to be on. I was not only a perfectionist, I was bound and determined that MY unit would excel and I succeeded with have the Hennessey Trophy awarded to one of my units. In the process, I was always consumed by work to the point that my children’s birthday parties were always late. One day I opened the refrigerator door, shut it and relooked at the birthday party announcement on the door. My children had a birthday party to go to that afternoon and I had forgotten about it. I knew my boss’s schedule, my schedule, and other pertinent base schedules, but I didn’t remember my children’s. My younger sister, Nissa, was always the rebel, and as a result, she never quite fit in with the people around her. A preemie, she could read soup cans (without pictures on them), before she went to school. As a result, she was bored in school and didn’t pay attention. No one discovered until she was in about 5th or 6th grade that she was also dyslexic. She ended up joining the Air Force as an enlisted troop (I was an officer) and rising to the rank of Senior Master Sergeant (the second highest enlisted rank). Now she works in a Civil Service job for the Air Force and rescues feral cats. Nissa never worried about being a perfectionist, she just “did”. But I can so clearly remember once when she told me that she needed a warmer coat, I sent her one and she promptly gave it away to someone she felt needed it more. That was always how Nissa was. The older 3 of us have learned the hard way that being a perfectionist wasn’t worth it. No one lauds you because you stayed at work for 18 hours in order to get the job done. No one gives you a medal for missing your children’s activities in order to “serve the higher good”. The unit may win the Top Award for something because of what YOU did, but by then, you have been transferred on and don’t even get the satisfaction of receiving it or being able to put it on your resume. You are Burned Out, Tired, Irritable and Just Plain discouraged. But you succeeded in being Super Woman, if only in your own mind. Your family doesn’t know what you look like, but that’s ok, You were serving the higher good. Your health is dismal because you haven’t taken care of yourself, but that’s OK, you accomplished things, even if no one will remember you were the one who did it, 6 months later. And eventually you realize that it’s not enough and you are a failure, because you are so Burned Out, Tired, Irritable, and Just Plain Discouraged that you aren’t doing anything right. That’s the point when you stop and realize that if you don’t take care of yourself, you can’t take care of anyone or anything else. It’s taken a very long time, but my sisters’ and I finally learned that “It’s OK” to say “NO” when someone asks you to take on another volunteer job, or additional responsibilities. “It’s OK” to say “NO” when someone wants something done immediately – esp when the person who wants it done is headed home to their family and dinner and won’t look at it until morning anyway! “It’s OK” to take some time for yourself – and for your family. “It’s OK” to stop and smell the roses along the way. To have another cup of tea while chatting with a friend. To take time to look at the world around you and instead of seeing the guy who cut you off as you were trying to get to work on time, seeing the blue sky and feeling the warmth of the sun and listening to the birds and feeling grateful that you can see the sky and feel the sun and hear the birds. “It’s OK” to take care of yourself – to eat a healthy diet (and to have that occasional piece of chocolate or concrete at Ted Drews), to get enough sleep, to take time for yourself to meditate and to tell God that the world around you is wonderful. “It’s OK” to let people see that you are vulnerable and that you need help. “It’s still OK” to be that person who is there for others. To be that person who others can count on in a crisis, but “It’s NOT OK” to put work and being a perfectionist and dotting all the “I’s” and crossing all the “T’s” first, before GOD, yourself and your family. If you don’t take care of yourself, you can’t take care of anyone else. We are no longer failures, we are women who are wise enough to say “ENOUGH”, and to take time for what is really important and it’s not dotting “I’s” and crossing “T’s” and taking care of the everything but what we should be taking care of.

This Too Shall Pass

Yesterday, anticipating the “shelter in place” order that is coming, I went out into the petri dish of our current world to gather a few items that might be needed while I’m housebound and to collect up essentials from my office since I’ll be working at home for the foreseeable future. The cashier at Costco made a comment to his colleague that today’s customers were much better behaved then the customers the day before and what a wonderful difference that made. I wondered as I watched people walking by with laden carts, how much of what was being purchased would end up being returned (provided the time to return it hadn’t expired by the time shelter in place is over), would spoil or would be donated to a food pantry when things return to a more “normal” scenario. I acknowledged to myself, that I was buying both things that were staples and would last for a long time, and emotional comfort items that I really didn’t need. Both Schnuck’s and Costco had signs limiting the number of some items a family could purchase, and both were out of the kleenix I am starting to run low on. As I struggle to figure out what this next new normal is like and how to behave, I wonder where God is in all of this. Then I step outside, where the Tulip Magnolias, red buds and other trees are blooming. I look out over the dogwoods with their petals still a yellow color since they haven’t opened up all the way yet. The forsythia is in bloom along with a few bushes I can’t quite name, while the crocus and daffodils are defiantly waving their heads in the breeze. The birds are building nests in my birdhouses getting ready to lay their eggs. And I realize that all around me, God is saying, this too shall pass and Life shall go on. I look around again and see neighbors shopping for neighbors who are more vulnerable. People coming up with ways to entertain others (artwork in the yards, pictures in front windows, etc) to bring a smile to neighbors walking by, similar to what is happening in Italy with people singing from their rooftops and windows and hanging signs out with rainbows on them saying: “andra tutto bene” which means Everything will be all right” or “don’t give up” and the Chinese are using the phrase “jiayou” which means “don’t give up” or “hang in there”. The next few weeks or perhaps months, won’t be easy on any of us, but together, with God’s help, we will weather what is happening and come out stronger and more unified then we were before.

Retirement and the Next New Normal in Our LIves

5 more working days, but who’s counting, till my husband retires (again), and I have to come up with another “new normal”. I have reinvented myself so many times over the years as we’ve moved around the world to new bases, gotten new jobs and responsibilities, made new friends, had to learn new communities and cultures. We’ve had year long separations in the past and then had to re-learn how to live with each other and who will take over responsibility for what (I loved it when he went to Germany and the boys and I stayed in Miami for a year – he told me to send him “any bills I didn’t like”. I didn’t like any of them, so I sent most of them to him). But this time, will be “different”. While he still intends to spend a lot of time working at the family farm in Jefferson County, he’s also going to be home a lot. With my job as a Realtor, there are times when I work from home in the morning, typically at the kitchen table – talking to clients, doing paperwork, setting up appointments, etc, then go to the office in the afternoon. I’m use to it being QUIET when I do that. While I can hear the birds singing out the window, I don’t have people walking into the room and wanting to start a conversation or making noise getting something to eat or drink. More importantly, I don’t have people turning on the TV or the stereo in the other room. Now my husband likes music and I understand that, but what I don’t understand, is why he feels compelled to turn on the TV in every room when there’s a football game on, so when he walks between rooms, he can keep watching it. Worse is his turning on the stereo and then going downstairs to his home office and turning on different music there since he can’t hear the music he turned on upstairs when he’s down there. He keeps telling me that he put CDs that I would like in the upstairs stereo, so it’s not “HIS music, it’s mine”. I keep telling him if I want the music on, I will turn it on myself, but he still persists in turning it on then leaving the room. I like QUIET. I like talking to myself in my head as I work through the pros and cons of different issues or when I’m drafting out something in my head before I sit down and type it. I like hearing the birds, they remind me to be calm and thoughtful of my surroundings. This is going to take an adjustment on both our parts. I’ve started giving him a “Thou shalt not” list: 1) No forwarding junk emails 2) No planning on my being the one who is home for contractor appointments (I have conveniently scheduled the HVAC fall checkup when he will be home to deal with it) 3) No planning on my being the one who sits at the DMV every time the license plates need to be renewed. 4) No automatically assuming I have nothing planned that day, he should ask me first if he needs me to be somewhere at a certain time. 5) I’ve told him to keep in mind all the things that his newly retired friends started doing that he rolled his eyes at and NOT DO THOSE THINGS. We’ll see. I figure it will be January before it really hits home since there are things planned for Oct-Dec that will keep him busy.

Frugality

Frugality I prefer not to be called “cheap”, but rather frugal. I grew up with parents who were frugal, having lived through the depression and WWII, they knew that they needed to make do with what they had and not seek out things that they couldn’t afford. When they reached a point in their lives when they could afford things, they relished them more, because of waiting and saving for them. I have too many things. My husband periodically threatens me with “Anything new you bring home goes on your side of the bed!” Yet I still bring things home. My periodic wakeup calls are walking through donation shops like Goodwill, Savers, St Vincent De Paul and the Bethesda Thrift Shops – Pointing out to myself things I have that they are now selling: “I have that crystal and silver plate serving bowl – it was a wedding present. Someone probably paid $25 for it which was considered big money back then, and OH, they want $1.50 for it here!” I probably haven’t used it for over 15 – 20 years, but I have it, just in case I need it in the future. Then there are the families that I help as they downsize to a smaller home, moving in with family members or moving to a senior facility. While I don’t conduct estate sales, I often attend, to ensure that no damage comes to the house during the sale. There I see the many wonderful collections of “collectibles”, kitchen utensils and pots and pans, tools in basements and garages, solid wood furniture that will survive through multiple generations and more. Lovely things that often go to a liquidator, because “no one” is interested in the “old stuff”. Sometimes I buy a small item or two, often something that I remember having (or my parents having), years ago, or that I can see a use for. Occasionally, I find that “Great Deal” – Like an 18’x10’ hand loomed all wool Oriental rug that looks like it was kept in a living room that was never used for $600, that goes perfectly in my family room. My mother used to say that garage sales should be renamed “neighborhood exchanges” as things went from one neighbor’s home into another’s home. The Church Rummage or ABC Sale seems that way to me and every year, I manage to find far more things to bring home then I expect. Yet, I still consider myself to be frugal. My parents taught me to put something aside every time I got paid for my future. When my children were born, we started immediately putting $25 every month into savings bonds for their college education, taking the money out before we got our paychecks, so we never “saw” it leave. My son graduated from college with no student loans as a result of our constantly putting away money, while his fellow students graduated with huge amounts of debt. My mother also taught me that only people who were "comfortable" could afford sales. As she put it, when you can barely make ends meet, you don't have the money to buy a set of sheets to sit on a shelf before your foot goes through the hole in your current set. You must wait until you ABSOLUTELY need that set of sheets to buy it, even if it will cost you much more. It's not a matter of being "cheap" or "frugal" or even "spend thrifty", it's a matter of economics and how best to use the resources I have been given

Listen

Listen As business takes over my life – rushing here and thon, taking care of others, I often forget to stop and listen. On a quiet day, I can hear the sounds around me, not just car doors slamming shut, the mailman coming down the street (nothing else sounds like the current mail trucks), and the birds, but the squirrels chattering away. Today there are 5 cavorting in a tree together, chattering away, playing tag, checking out the 3 squirrel nests (so much large than bird nests) in the tree. Even the wood in the fireplace makes noise as it burns. Even when the house is silent at night, it’s never totally quiet. I can hear the ceiling fans as they turn, and occasionally get out of balance. The fan on the hvac system pushing the air through the house. The house settling onto its foundation. The ice maker in the refrigerator periodically dumping a batch of ice and refilling itself with water. The high pitched sounds of transformers and routers in this electronic world and periodically the printer doing a “self check”. Even the wood in the fireplace makes noise as it burns down. When storms come, I hear the wind and rain as they come down, hail bouncing off the roof and gutters. While I have yet to discover how to listen to sunshine, I do know how to listen to the birds as they sing their song of gratitude for it. I can’t hear the butterflies either, but I know their wings whisper around me, just as the angels’ wings do. I glory in the quiet that isn’t. Connected to everything, but separate, it wraps around me like a blanket soothing me as I listen.

Perception

Perception Our own Personal Perception change as we age, just as social norms, fashions, entertainment and more change. When we are tiny, we helplessly wait for others to care for us. Then as we hit the terrible 2s and 3s, we seek to find our boundaries, knowing we can safely run back to Mommy’s arms, 2 minutes after we pushed her away saying we could do it ourselves. Our initial perceptions of the world around us are shaped by the beliefs of the people around us we trust to take care of us, often following their footsteps and mimicking their actions and words. As teens, we struggle again to form our own identity, separate from our mentors – sometimes following the lead of other teens, older siblings or famous people we try to emulate. For many of us, that results in developing new perceptions of the world around us to take with us as we leave home, yet often keeping the basic beliefs of our parents as a touchstone to lead us home. Mark Twain said it best with: “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.” Like most, we make mistakes in the process, learning not to “touch the hot stove” in the process. Sometimes however, it can take years, or even generations between something that is done and our perception of that act telling us it was wrong, other times, we may “know” something is wrong as individuals, yet the society around us condones and encourages the behavior, so we adapt our perception to the societal norm. How far back does slavery go? It’s spoken of in the Old Testament as a common occurrence. Wars were waged and the conquerors got the “spoils” of the war which typically included raping the women and enslaving the population; unless the order was genocide when entire cities to include all the animals were destroyed. The gold and jewels? At times used as plunder for the church or the ruling body, at other times, enriching the soldiers who found it. In America, our economy has changed and perceptions have evolved as well. I URGE all of you to read the book “The Soul of America: the Battle for Our Better Angels” by Pulitzer Prize winning author, Jon Meacham. It goes through America’s past (from colonial days to the present) showing how perceptions, social norms and freedoms have changed over the years, only to be repeated later. It lays out in clear, well researched terms (references are noted at the back of the book), how we have divided ourselves over race, immigrants and those “not like us” based on fear over and over again. The book was number one on The New York Times’ list of best selling nonfiction books in 2018 and was named one of the best books of the year by NPR. It covers American politics, social norms, economics, philosophy, immigration policies, the rights of ALL of America citizens and more. And it covers critical times when HOPE overcame the division and fear that had overwhelmed our society.  

Pandemonium vs 6 Degrees of Separation

It’s 4 am and I can’t sleep, my mind swirls around the pandemonium that is going on with the COVID 19 virus. At the same time, I feel “insulated”, in my “safe little world”. I have the luxury of shopping for groceries every 2-3 months at the Scott Air Force Base Commissary and I went about a month ago, so I am in no fear of running out of staples, only perishables like milk, produce and fresh bread, which will hopefully be available when I need them at the local grocery stores. My husband, Mike, recently retired and no longer takes the long trek from the Forest Park MetroLink station to Scott twice a day, exposing himself to the myriad of petri dish diversity that rides the MetroLink each day. As a Realtor, while some things (like showing homes) has to be done in person, a lot of what I do, like negotiating contracts and building inspections can be done via phone calls, texts, emails and electronic signatures, and I have a home office I can safely work from. I know I am among the fortunate ones. While I’m in the over 65 age bracket that is deemed more vulnerable, Mike and I are in reasonable health and should be able to weather the storm if we come down with the virus. At the same time though, I worry about friends and family who are older and aren’t in good health. At the back of my mind, I have to acknowledge coming down with Mono when I was a freshman in College many, many years ago. Our family doctor when I complained that I knew NO ONE who had Mono, so how could I possibly have gotten it, simply said “You were in large auditorium class with 100-200 students, and someone who had it sneezed in your direction, ” a lesson learned that applies today While it is unknown the full extent of the havoc that the virus and its aftermath will have the world’s financial status, already businesses are limiting their hours, laying off staff and closing down. I wonder which ones will survive and which will never be the same even if they reopen after it is over with. Mike saw an article that suggested buying gift cards to small businesses now that could be used when they reopen after the virus has passed, but that doesn’t take into account that many may not reopen. Others have sent me pleading emails asking me to please use their drive thru and carryout services until they are able to open again, so they don’t have to close completely. In my mind, I wonder how other small businesses would even have the ability to provide any services? Beauticians, barbers, nail salons – it would be impossible for them to serve customers from home or to provide a “carry out” or “delivery service” option and they would need to break the social distancing rules to service anyone. There are just too many jobs and careers where it would be impossible to work from home or to do your job if you were following social distancing rules. But shopping now is based around perceived necessities, not “nice to have” items so as “nice to haves” sit on store shelves, the companies making them have decisions to make - keep producing so the items will be there when the shoppers come back, or slow down production and lay off employees since no one knows what season it will even be when the shoppers return, and if the shoppers have been laid off or had their work hours cut, whether or not they will have the income to purchase “nice to haves” at that point. While online businesses seem to be “booming” as people shop from home for entertainment as well as needed supplies, that raises the quandary of the number of people that have to work at the warehouses and distribution points to package and move those items to get them to us, and the delivery people who, while leaving things at people’s doorsteps are still within range of a sneeze or a contaminated mailbox door or doorbell. The cashiers and employees at the stores that are still open share the same fears, will the next customer or other employee they come into contact with, expose them to the virus? Will someone sneeze in their direction? My sister is California is under the “shelter in place” orders. She can go to the grocery store or pharmacy, to see a doctor, and can use drive thru and carry out restaurants, but her only other resource that is still open are the local parks where people can (by themselves or in small family groups) walk and play. While a friend in Florida, who has bronchitis, is self isolating and ordering deliver of fresh fruits and other foods online, and a friend in St Louis is self isolating and friends are delivering things to her door. The “normal” we knew has left us. We are in a “new normal”, but with no idea what the next new normal that will follow once the virus is “contained” will be. As I ponder all this, I think back to Noah and the Flood and to the other times in the Bible when God’s people turned away and catastrophes happened, bringing them back to God. In the still of the night, I wonder if this is a wakeup call from God that we need to heed. One telling us to stop being so self-centered and to take better care of our world and the people around us. Telling us that all people are loved and when one person hurts in one part of the world, it affects all of us, not just “those people over there”. Several years ago (1967 to be precise based on a study by Stanley Milgram), a prevalent philosophy was that we were only 6 degrees (or six people) away from anyone in the world we wanted to know. Now, with the onslaught of social media and internet connectivity, that has been reduced to 3 degrees, through 3 main networks – family, friends and work using social media based on a study done by the French mobile carrier O2. Perhaps it’s time to revist the 6 degrees of separation philosophy with a new mindset that everyone within those 6 degrees is my brother or my sister and should be treated as such.

Awake

Awake, I try to discern how I feel. Cocooned in the blankets, I slowly assess and consider getting up or just staying put. Mike wanders by and I speak to him. Commenting that he’s glad I’m still alive, he moves on. Do I metamorphose into a living being getting up and getting dressed or do I stay in suspended animation and hope to drift back to sleep. There are things to do, Always, but the thought of “hamster sized snowflakes” (per last night’s weathercaster), immobilizes me in my cocoon. Suspended in time, preferring not to look at the clock, luxuriating in the ability to stay put until finally my brain says “enough, you need to get up and take care of things”. Still. Sitting at the table, drinking tea, willing my body to wake up enough to eat some breakfast and get dressed. Never a morning person, but often now more productive checking emails and messages before getting dressed then after, for that signals it’s time to MOVE. To leave the house, and join society in the rat race of life. Once that movement kicks in, the time to myself is gone. Time to sit and contemplate and be grateful for the day ahead and that possibilities it brings and what I can do with it. To watch the birds and listen to their songs. To wonder with elation at the buds on the trees signally spring and the tiny shoots coming up in the garden, or, as on today, the stark branches of the trees covered with hamster sized snowflakes, I see in front of me as I look out the window watching the red cardinal flitting from branch to branch in the Oak, while the wrens, sparrows and bluebirds huddle on the feeders, greedily emptying them, knowing that, as the storm worsens, they also will seek shelter and need this meal to tide them over till they can venture out again. A squirrel gets a sip of water from the birdbath before heading to his own nest in the tree above him, as I sigh, and put my cup on the counter and go to get dressed and start the day. Meanwhile, I’ve answered emails and messages, set up appointments with clients and contractors, cleaned off the kitchen table, made the bed, sorted and put away items, put out a letter for the mailman, put away a few last laundry items, and finally had breakfast.

Ants vs Dragons

My sister wrote this fabulous article once about being able to face the dragons but it was the ants that got her down. Isn’t that true for all of us? When the big disasters happen in our lives, we gird up our loins, take a deep breath, say a prayer and launch into action. But daily, we face all the “ants” - those tiny little biting, annoying issues that just drag us down. Often, we try to be “Wonder Woman or Superman” and solve everything for everyone else, but we don’t take care of ourselves and we let those pesky ants keep knawing at us – the daily grind of our jobs, the disrespectful and demanding clients, the children who need to be taken here, there, everywhere and who often forget to give us a hug or forgot their folder somewhere along the way and we have to retrace their steps (since we drove them) to find their missing stuff. The spouse who suddenly wants us to change our schedule to accommodate something they forgot to do (like go sit at the DMV for several hours to renew the car’s license plates that they put off till the end of the month). It’s picking up a pen and it’s out of ink, then the pencil tips are all broken and the crayons melted so we can’t leave a message. It’s planning a fabulous meal, only to discover in the middle of cooking it that someone used up the one crucial element we need for it and we didn’t realize it until everything else was already mixed together in the bowl. Or planning lunch with a friend, then forgetting to put it on my calendar and meeting a client when I should be at lunch with my friend, without calling her and spending the next week wondering if I was developing dementia because I may forget many things but not lunch dates with friends!! I can remember so vividly the day the ants were really getting me down and I decided I needed to take a break. I sat down with a cup of tea and some dates my hubby had brought back on a TDY (fresh wonderful dates, straight from the source) – it was heavenly – until I bit into the date with the worm in it. That put me over the edge. I retreated to a hot bath and refused to come out for several hours. But then, I pause for a minute and think about the times the ants DIDN’T get me down. I can remember living in Germany and going to a Dietetic conference in England with some colleagues. First we all met in Heidelberg where the gal who had planned our travel lived. Her husband took us to the train station and we all boarded a sleeper train for the coast. We were having a great time getting reacquainted since we typically only saw each other once or twice a year, and were just starting to get ready for bed, when the conductor came along and told us that there was a transportation strike in Belgium and the train couldn’t go passed the Belgium border as a result. That meant that we had about 5 min to get dressed, make sure we had all our belongings and GE T OFF THE TRAIN AT THE BORDER! So now, here we are, a group of American women, totally stranded at the German Belgium border. BUT, up drives a bus and he’s headed to the port! Dumb us, we initially thought he was contracted by the transportation department to get us to the port. Nope, he was a freelancer who saw a Golden Opportunity. He took whatever type of currency you had (German Deutsch Marks, French Francs, American Dollars…) and didn’t give change. He also drove non-stop across Belgium without a bathroom on the bus. If I had been by myself, I would have gone crazy. BUT, with us was a gal who had lived and worked in Belgium and she told us that it happened quite often and when it did, if you were working at the hospital, you just had to stay, cause your replacement couldn’t get to work. We had gals with us who spoke the different languages of the passengers around us and the bus driver and who could translate what was being said around us (the bus driver and other passengers, of course, spoke no English). Then there was the gal who had brought GIRL SCOUT cookies with her – We weren’t going to starve as long on this very very long bus ride cause we had Girl Scout cookies!! Everyone shared, everyone volunteered what they had, whether a skill, a calm presence, or cookies. When we finally arrived at the port, the very first thing we did was find a bathroom, then look for our ferry across the channel to England. It had just left without us. So we regrouped, figured out that we had enough money between us, and bought new tickets on the Hovercraft (which at that time was fairly new crossing the Channel). We got some food and water, then boarded the Hovercraft. We actually got to England before the ferry we were supposed to be on and were able to make our train connection at the port to take us on to London. When we got to London and checked in to our hotel, we were beat, but WE HAD DONE IT!! We had survived the many, many ants along the way that if any of us had been alone, would have put us in a panic. And that was the answer – we weren’t alone. We were in a group and we shared our strengths and what we had which made us a stronger being then one person alone can ever be. The next day, England had a transportation strike and the people coming in that day didn’t make it until later!

Guardian Angels

Guardian Angels How often do we recognize the angel on our shoulder? For most of us, it’s after a “near miss”, typically when something that would have caused a major accident is suddenly averted. Driving down the highway, and the car in front of us suddenly breaks when everyone is going faster than they should as we are able to swerve without hitting them. Then we say a quick “Thank You, God”, and move on. As I think back over the years, I remember times when I thought nothing would get me out of situation, only to end up unscathed. The time in Germany, when we had a major IG inspection going on and a blizzard started up. It was bad enough that the Commander closed the Air Base. Yet, the officer inspecting my unit informed us, that HE was going to continue his inspection and if we left, he’d fail us. After all, he only had to walk across the street to the visiting officer’s quarters, so what was the big deal. The big deal was that I lived close to 45 minutes from base and I had to pick up my toddler before heading out. I stuck with the inspection for a short while, then said, I’m leaving, fail us if you will, but I’m leaving. I picked up Brigham and put him in his car seat, then headed out on the rural roads I would need to travel to get home. In Germany, when heavy fog, rain or snow might prevent you from seeing where the road is, they put reflective posts about every 50 meters. On one side, the post has a rectangular reflector and on the other side of the road the reflector will be 2 circles. I knew that as long as I stayed between the reflectors, I would be on the road. As I got close to the village we lived in, a large bus following me, the wind whipped up as I crested the hill, blinding me, but worse literally turning my car sidewise on the road. The wind died down and the bus driver was able to see me in time to stop, but only by a foot. The passengers on the bus, angels themselves, got out and pushed my car around so I was once more going in the right direction. Shaking, I drove through the village to my home, knowing that my son and I had come very close to never making it home. In Miami, several years later, we had just moved into our new home with its swimming pool and were enjoying one of our first swims with my visiting parents, while Nathan, my toddler at that point, was happily splashing away as he rode in his rubber safety tube in the shallow end of the pool. Then suddenly he was upside down in the water. Brigham, age 5 now, reacted faster than the adults and pulled his sputtering baby brother upright. I think all our guardian angels worked overtime on that one. So often we say Thank You, when the disaster is first averted, but we forget to say Thank You, every day, for all the small disasters that were averted without our even noticing them.

Threads of My LIfe

The threads of my Life As a Realtor, I often have to counsel people who are downsizing about getting rid of their “stuff”. Unfortunately, our children and their children, no longer want the things we have accumulated over our lifetime. Telling their elders that they “don’t want to be owned by their possessions”, and they want to lead a minimalist lifestyle, they encourage their elders (myself included), to go on and get rid of the “stuff”. Don’t leave it for them to dispose of after we are dead. They want “experiences” not “stuff”. I understand their logic, but as I walk through my home, I don’t see my “stuff” as excess baggage, I see it as part of the tapestry of my life, woven with threads made from the “stuff” they eschew. I don’t see it as my choosing “stuff” over “experiences”, I see them as the embodiment of my experiences. The exquisitely hand embroidered folding screen in the living room where the roses seem to be lifelike, with bug holes embroidered on the leaves, we bought in Pusan, Korea, from an orphanage that taught the little girls to embroider – selling their wares not only to keep the orphanage running, but teaching the girls a skill for their future security. The hand woven shawls and hand carved nativity set from the Philippines, another school where nuns taught skills to help the indigent peoples support themselves remind me of the 30 days we spent traveling the orient on our mid-tour leave when we were stationed at Osan. In the curio cabinet, I bought in Taiwan, right before the US broke relations with Taiwan and I wondered if they would ever be able to be shipped to me, are more brightly colored threads - plaster handprints from my children; tiny miniatures of their faces; Russian stacking dolls – the first from the Canadian World’s Fair I attended as a child, others from a more recent visit to Russia; German smokers and Christmas bells; the Pennsylvania Dutch little boy and girl on their bench I was given as a child; finger castanets, from a trip to Spain as a small child; a bracelet my mother bought in Morocco when we lived there. The Windsor Rocking Chair in the family room that I saved my babysitting money to buy as a teenager. The Christmas rug that my sister commissioned, then sent me when she lived in Turkey. The bakers dozen Rodney and Rhonda Reindeer that Burger King gave away in Children’s Meals in the 80’s that now cost a fortune at Hallmark piled high on the Taiwanese grandmother clock’s turrets. Then there’s the French buffet that stopped me in my tracks in a hanger at the annual Ramstein Officer’s Wives Bazaar but I have never had a ceiling high enough to put all the topknots on. Each piece has a story to tell. Each piece is a thread in my life’s story. Apart, they are just “stuff”, but combined, they are the threads that are woven together to tell the story of my life – places I’ve been to, things I have seen and done. People and places I’ve known and loved. They aren’t just “stuff”, they are the threads of my life. Woven to create who I am.

Perspectives and Parallels

It’s been awhile, since I’ve sat down to record what’s going on. “Things” have gotten in the way. From a celebration parade for a 100 year young friend, to work, on. Truth be told, it’s hard to focus my mind on what to write, though I know from experience, that once I sit down and start writing it will pour out of me. But somehow, it’s different right now. I try to find things I can put in perspective, parallels I can use to what is going on around me, and what I find seem jumbled, since there seems to be nothing to put this in perspective, no parallels from my past to use. I think about keeping track of days and times and how difficult that is right now. Much easier when we have set schedules for what day we do what and what time things routinely occur. When we lived in Korea, we worked 6 days a week and I had trouble keeping track of the days, so Mike bought be a Seiko watch with the day and date on it as well as the time. Now my FitBit watch tells me the date and the time, but I have to open my phone to see what the day is. Saturday’s we would work a half day, then I would go to the base beauty shop (we might have had less than a couple dozen women on base, but we had a beauty shop), and for a few dollars, I would get my hair done, a manicure, a facial and a massage once a week. Those days of pampering myself seem so far away now. Shortages of food and supplies? When Desert Shield and Desert Storm were going on (Aug ’90 – Feb’91), I was living in Germany working in the Kaiserslautern Military Community (at one point in time, Kaiserslautern had a larger population of American citizens living there then anywhere outside of the CONTINENTAL United States – ie, more Americans than Alaska or Hawaii had.) When the war started, there were shortages in the commissary, not of food as much as cleaning supplies and the families left behind in Germany after the military deployed to Desert Storm were told it was because the shipments had followed the deploying troops. We honestly didn’t believe that they needed our family size household cleaners in the Desert, but we did believe that the things that would normally have been shipped to Germany were still sitting on the docks in the US, while they prioritized sending other supplies to the troops in the Desert first. Then there was Korea – where just about everything was rationed. If you wanted to buy coffee or tea, those were rationed to prevent them from being sold on the blackmarket downtown (I remember getting to the tiny shoppette we had once without a current ration card and the gentleman behind me in line graciously using his tea ration to help me out.) Shampoo and cosmetics however weren’t rationed and I would often see a GI walking out of the Shoppette with a case of shampoo that would have lasted me (with my waist length hair) for several months and he would be back a day later to buy another case. Now if you can find soap, kleenix or toilet paper at the grocery store, you are limited to one or two “packages” of it, so you hope to find a “multipack” rather than a single pack when you go shopping. When I was in Korea, we had an annual Team Spirit exerc ise with a combined force of South Korean and American Troops close to 200,000 men and women. I managed the largest food service operation in the Pacific at the time, at Osan Air Base. We had an issue one year with the supplies arriving in time for the exercise and a water shortage, so I ended up using a wartime priority to order the papergoods (plates, cups, flatware, etc) and other supplies needed to feed the troops. What I used was a minor part of the system that is being used now to try to get supplies manufactured and sent to the right areas in a timely manner. Stockpiled supplies. I remember being at MIZZOU in the early 70’s in the ROTC program and the NCO’s going through the stockpiled supplies of C-Rations in the basement of Crowder Hall and pulling out the cigarettes and chocolate. The US Military has always stockpiled resources. I worked for the Army’s 29th Area Support Group in Germany after I got off active duty. Their primary job was to maintain the stockpiles, than when Desert Shield and Desert Storm happened, that transitioned into sending those supplies to the Desert. The stockpiled supplies, foods and medicines would be inspected on a regular basis and while some would be rotated out and used with the incoming supplies at the local bases, we typically wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the new and old items. Only antibiotics, hormones and a very few other medications couldn’t be used years after their use by date. And foods, unless the package was bulging or leaking or rusting, could almost always be used. Use by dates and best use by dates, don’t mean a food is bad, just that it’s quality might not be the same level as when it was originally packaged. No one questioned using 5,000 masks found in a crypt in the National Cathedral that have been stockpiled and forgotten for over 10 years. Lack of coordination? We moved from Hahn Air Base to Ramstein Air Base right after USAFE Headquarters was bombed in 1981. While we weren’t at Ramstein when the bombing occurred, we heard endless tales of the missteps that occurred. The Terrorist Bombers hadn’t realized that the base was so large, that the “operational side” of the base came to work at 7:30am, but the “Headquarters side” of base didn’t come to work until 8 am. They timed the bomb to go off right before 7:30 in the parking lot, figuring that they would get mass casualties with everyone rushing to get to work on time. Instead, only a few early birds were around. The Bombers, left the base right away and the police later found evidence that they had gone right outside the base gates and watched from the Mackenbach Woods next to the base. Immediately after the bombing, as shock and disbelief set in, NO ONE on the base took charge. Finally a Lt Col took over and started directing operations. As a result, no one initially notified the German authorities. Those precious few minutes were enough for the bombers to get away. Is the lack of international coordination allowing the virus to “get away” from the scientific community that is seeking a vaccine and cure? Attacking the most vulnerable? When we lived in Germany, the Bader Meinhof Gang and the Rote Armee Fraktion (Red Army Faction)-RAF, was very prevalent. They bombed hospitals, schools, US military clubs, the October Fest and were the ones responsible for the bombing of USAFE Headquarters. For the most part, we did our best to ignore them. One person (other than the poor guy who was murdered in order to get his uniform and ID to get the terrorists on base and the really high ranking officers), wasn’t their target. (We rolled our eyes when told we weren’t supposed to hang uniforms on the outside laundry lines because they might be stolen and used to enter the base.) The object of terrorism is to terrorize, and how do you best terrorize? You attack the defenseless and show the defenders that they can’t protect their most vulnerable members. Isn’t that what COVID 19 is doing to us? Attacking first our most vulnerable elderly population and showing us we can’t protect them? Shelter in Place? When I was a small child, I lived in French Morocco during the Revolution as the Arabs fought to be free of European control. We would watch the French evacuate in one direction in their tiny little cars and the Arabs evacuate in the other direction with their donkeys and carts and we were told there was a mandatory curfew in place and we were to STAY INSIDE for our own protection. Learning new computer programs and procedures. In the mid 1980’s, when personal computers were just starting to be used, I was responsible for computerizing the Services Division, I worked in. No one had any idea what they were doing, and the first instruction was to “format” the harddrive in increments of 7, so we all formatted our brand new hard drives at 7, which was too small to hold anything and crashed all the computers. At which point they said increments of 7 at or above a certain number base number. Today, I work on learning ZOOM, MS Teams, how to do Virtual Open Houses and showings and much more, each with its own blips and blurps and failure points. Adapt our living environment? Anyone who has ever spent time around a military person, especially one on a remote tour or long deployment to a third world country, knows that US troops are inventive and able to adapt to whatever is thrown at them and will adapt their environment to fit the situation, just as we are adapting our homes for sheltering in place, working from home, home schooling and family life right now (though having an entire room to quarantine things in for 3-4 days - up to a week or two, when you bring them home from the grocery store or they get delivered to your front door still seems a bit much to me, but my California relatives swear by it.) As I write this, I realize that I survived all of those times and others, and I know that in a few years, I will joke about how I survived COVID 19 and the many things we did to “protect” ourselves from the unknown, some of which in hindsight will seem ridiculous (like putting pantyhose on over our masks) and My husband keeps saying every time he walks into a store or bank wearing a mask, he expects someone to stop him. As someone once told me, the vacation trips that you take where everything is PERFECT, may be great, but they don’t make for great stories afterward, while the times that tried us and where we really wondered if we’d make it to the other side are the trips that we are still talking about years later, when we can look back in hindsight and laugh at the perils we stood up to and fell down against, but we survived through them and have reached a point where we can laugh as we talk about them. It may take awhile, but we will find a vaccine, develop herd immunity and come out on the other side of this stronger for the lessons we’ve learned about what we can survive and how inventive we can become. Here's to coming out of this stronger with great stories to tell that will make us all laugh down the road. Dale

The Dining Room Table

The Dining Room table. First, it wasn’t in the dining room, but rather in the family room that was open to the kitchen. And it wasn’t a “dining room table”, it was a command center. It was where my mother sat to talk to her friends, to talk on the phone, to have a cup of tea with us when we got home from school to celebrate a good day, or to commiserate over a bad day. When we moved to St Louis, she got a round dinette table, with a white background and a single wonderfully colorful blue and green petalled flower in the center of it that took up almost the entire table top. And since she didn’t like people scooting chairs around, esp over carpeting, she bought narrow stenographer chairs on casters to go around it, that allowed more chairs to fit and everyone to move freely. Quickly outgrown, that table was replaced with a MUCH larger round top mounted on a heavy cast iron pedestal base that had been made out of the street cover for a gas main in the city. The table sat between the kitchen, the section of the room designated as the family room with a fancy console tv and stereo (children’s bedrooms on the other side of the tv from the table), the hallway to the front door, hallway to the garage door and the Oversized sliding glass doors that took up the entire back wall of the room leading to the patio and back yard. While we were seldom bored, if we were, we could read the Sunday comics that were printed on the colorful fabric that she had made curtains out of for the back wall. From the table, my mother could watch the children playing outside, see anyone coming in any of the doors monitor what was going on in the kitchen, hear if a child woke up from a nap and talk to her friends. Dinner time at the big table, with anywhere from my parents and 5 kids still at home plus friends and extended family was typically a fun time. So much fun that my older sister Pat and my Mother would start laughing. And Laughing. And Laughing. So much so, that they BOTH would sometimes wet their pants. We use to joke that they couldn’t catch each other’s eye at the table without bursting into laughter then running to the bathroom. The table was usually Gloriously messy, covered with the bits and pieces of everyday life – from school projects, to backpacks and purses on. My mother wrote down the foods my father liked and those he didn’t. Rice was “poor man’s food”, so we girls ate that when Dad was out of town. Bananas – for years, we girls all thought we hated bananas. It wasn’t until we were adults that my mother confessed that because Dad liked bananas on his morning cereal, she convinced us that we didn’t like them, so we wouldn’t eat up Dad’s bananas. We seldom ate out, but when we did it was an occasion. On one such occasion, the whole family scattered to get ready. When I came out of my room, I discovered that they had left without me! They didn’t even realize it until they got home, walked in the house and saw my thunderous face! When they moved to Tennessee, the big table went along, but it wasn’t the same, with no kids at home to sit around it teasing each other and having a cup of tea with Mom.

I am one of the Fortunate Ones

I am one of the fortunate ones. I cringe as I say that. It sounds “elitist” and “self serving” and just wrong in so many ways. And yet, it’s the truth. As COVID19 ravishes the planet, I am one of the fortunate ones. My husband is retired and we have a steady retirement income coming in. And while our investments have declined in value, they are still there and we don’t need to decimate them in order to pay our bills. As a Realtor, my business was “quieter” at the start of the pandemic, giving me time to take stock of my business then take some certification and designation training classes I’d been putting off for awhile now, but my business never stopped and now it has rebounded with a pent up energy that is astounding. While we know people who have relatives who have come down with COVID19, so far (knock on wood), no one in our extended families and no close friend has gotten it. Though I do wonder, when this is all over, who I may not receive an annual Christmas card from – will they have died from COVID, or something else, or have just decided it was time to stop sending cards? And will I ever know? I wonder, how many elderly and singles, who don’t have a good support system checking in on them, will quietly disappear, some having gotten sick and died in their homes, and no one realized it until they’d been gone for awhile. I am grateful for the weekly calls from the church, family zoom calls and checking in with my neighbors and friends that are going on in my life. When I shop, I note the barren shelves and the signs rationing hard to acquire items, but I have enough to take care of my family’s needs and the creativity to figure out substitutions for items I want that aren’t readily available. I have the ability to WANT, rather than NEED items. As others cringe, having to get on public transportation to go to work, school and shopping, I own 3 vehicles and can easily get to where I need to go while maintaining social distancing. I have a sewing machine, material, elastic, thread and pipe cleaners and while I’m not a “seamstress”, I have enough skill and knowledge to make face masks to protect my family. Work from home? Internet connection? As others worry about them, between my husband and I, we each have a home office and we have 2 desk top computers, a laptop, an IPad and 2 smart phones, along with a printer that will scan and fax. Our home has a fairly strong internet connection with a router booster system that helps to ensure that we get a decent signal in most of our home for equipment that isn’t wired. Feeling like we’re “cooped up and need a break from family members”, while I admit to having that feeling occasionally, my husband has the ability to go check on the family farm in Jefferson county when he’s feeling “cooped up” and I have the ability to go to my company office in Kirkwood. But typically he’s in his downstairs office and I’m in the kitchen or my upstairs office so we don’t get in each others way. Trying to work while home schooling children is an issue for many, but my son is 40+ and lives in Tampa, so home schooling isn’t on my agenda. Instead, I have the pleasure of entertaining my almost 5 year old great niece by reading to her on facetime while her mother works from home. I admit, I haven’t totally sequestered myself over the past few months, unlike my sister who has only left home for doctor appointments and walks in a nearby park and who has everything delivered to her doorstep. I’ve met with clients both online and in person. I’ve gone shopping at grocery stores, Target and Walmart, and when they reopened, at Jackman Fabric and JoAnn Fabric. I’ve gone to my office in Kirkwood. I’ve gone through a drive thru to get a frozen yogurt. And I’ve made a point of picking up carryout from restaurants (and now dining in at them) that I want to see still around when this is over. I follow CDC guidelines when I do it and wear my mask and use my hand sanitizer, but I am able to continue to live my life. Granted, it’s not the same way I was living it in Jan and Feb, but then it’s not cold either. So I am one of the fortunate ones.

My Purpose is to Help People

When asked what I do, I have a fairly simple response, I help people. It doesn’t matter which of the many various career fields that I have worked in, that they are talking about. I help people. As an Air Force office, I helped to protect the world and the United States. As a Services Officer in the Air Force, I ran the largest military food service operation the Air Force had in the Pacific, then the largest one they had in Europe, making sure that all of the enlisted troops on base received healthy meals. I also ran billeting, making sure that the single enlisted and officers had adequate dormitories and apartments to live in; the visiting quarters (hotel) for personnel passing through the base, linen exchange, over saw the commissary and bx ensuring that everyone had access to food, supplies, clothing and all the material essentials of life. I also had the privilege of getting to design 2 brand new dining facilities over the years and renovations on several others (along with the political “JOY” of fighting for the funding for my projects at the base level and providing input as they were fought for up through the channels to be included in the annual federal defense budgets each time. As part of a Tiger Team, I helped create the plans for protecting the United States if we were ever attacked from the Southern Hemisphere. As a Unit Commander, I took care of my personnel, making sure they were treated right. When I worked for Dade County School District in Miami, Florida, I took care of the Food Service Departments computerized system for purchasing food and supplies, recipes control including nutritional values and inventory control for the 4th largest school district in the United States. I also got to give nutritional education programs to the students. When I moved back to Europe as a civilian, I got hired as the Non-Combatant Evacuation Operations (NEO)Officer for initially the US Army’s 29th Area Support Group. I was responsible for ensuring that all the US Army civilians and military dependents within the Kaiserslautern Military Community in Germany, were prepared in case a disaster occurred (man-made or natural)that required that they be evacuated back to the states. I quickly was promoted and took over the office becoming responsible for all military units, not just Army, in the area. By the time I left that position, I was my own boss multiple times over as they kept adding areas of responsibility to me. It was the most interesting job I’ve ever had. I would brief groups of 6 women in someone’s living room (or in one case a laundry room in a high rise apartment building), groups of 600 women at a luncheon, classrooms of children. During my time there, the US evacuated the Philippines due to a volcano and I received some of the evacuees into my area. We also, due to the first Persian Gulf War (Desert Storm), evacuated the civilians and family members living in Turkey to Germany, then on to the states. While I didn’t handle that evacuation directly, I had the privilege of debriefing the officer who did and learning his lessons learned for my own operation. While I was there, the US Military created a computer program to track all the family members and civilians in Europe and I was instrumental in helping to define what needed to be in the program and then testing it and fielding it to the over 200 units that were under my control at that point. Back in the US, when my husband retired, I worked briefly for the US Air Force at Scott AFB, in the Civil Engineering Directorate as a budget analyst, helping to ensure funding was received for vital programs at Scott. I left that position, to work at Normandy School District as their Food Service Director, back to ensuring that children received healthy meals each day (though they did complain a lot that I tended to serve “Grandmother meals” rather than the type of meals that their parent’s provided them with - ie meatloaf and spaghetti and similar items vs fast food hot dogs, hamburgers and pizza. I left Normandy when a contract food service company was hired by the district to run the operation, and went for a short while to Vandover which was a transition assistance company. Southwest Bell had recently moved out of state and merged with some of the other “Bells” and I helped employees being laid off to learn the skills needed to find new jobs. I went to work for Barnes Jewish Hospital after that, back to my food service roots. Over the time period I was there, I ran the kitchens on the Jewish side of the hospital (including the Kosher kitchens), patient food service and the cafeteria food service. Still taking care of my employees, while ensuring that my customers and the patients received healthy foods that would be enticing when they weren’t feeling well. I followed that up with working at Fontbonne College (now University) teaching dietetic students and general students. Helping young people to prepare for their futures. I went into Real Estate after that. Now I don’t worry about whether or not employees show up for the night shift, or whether a district superintendent cancelled school after the milk was delivered during a blizzard and similar problems. Instead I focus on individuals and their families and how I can help them to be in the “RIGHT” home to meet their needs. In some cases, that’s going through their homes with them and helping them to fix up their homes for aging in place, so they can live in them longer. In others, it’s helping a young couple find their first “together” home. I help family’s upsize, downsize and right size. Each family and individual I help is different, with different needs and wants, but each receives the best I can give as I help them along the path of homeownership.

Planned Obsolence

My husband once told me that he wished he had married a woman who had grown up on a farm and as a result had either decided she never wanted a garden again, or she knew how to take care of one. He told me that after I asked (once more) for help with my tiny little garden in Great Falls, Montana. I'm still trying, but since I have trouble telling a weed from the start of something I planted, my gardens seldom look very good. In fact, I fully acknowledge that I’m an expert at unintentionally killing plants. That has never stopped me from trying though. At times, I’ve had unexpected help. Like when I lived in Germany and fell in love with the balconies filled with cascading ivy leaf geraniums. I went to the local garden shop and bought the requisite planters of geraniums and put them out on my balcony. At the end of the year, I proceeded to throw the planters out, which elicited quite a gasp of dismay from my German neighbors. They proceeded to explain to me that all I had to do was cut the geraniums off about an inch to 2 inches above the soil line, then put them in a cool dark location where they wouldn’t freeze (like the unfinished basement of the house we lived in or a garage), water them Very slightly about once a month, and wait for spring. Come spring, when the light started to change, they would start growing, sending up spindly pale lime green stalks. Once it got warm enough to stay warm, they could be put back outside, where within weeks they would be back to their normal color and as robust as before I had cut them back. The following summer, my balcony would again be filled with cascading blooms. In the process, I also learned that having someone else plant the planters in the first place, using the right soil and fertilizer was an important part of the equation. The flowers in the hanging baskets I’ve purchased in the States have never done as well as the ones I bought in Germany did. While I fully admit, my care or lack of care, may be part of the equation, it doesn’t seem to matter if I water on a regular basis or if I ignore them, I may get a second season out of a basket, but seldom a third one. It seems to be that way for many things these days. Planned obsolescence is a real thing. If my baskets last longer, then they can’t sell me new ones the following year. So many other things seem to have obsolescence planned into them. While they tell me, it’s to make it “cheaper to manufacture” an item, or to make an item “lighter weight” when they use plastic parts instead of metal parts, when the plastic bushing or whatever the piece is wears out and can’t be replaced without replacing 4 other parts along with it for a price that’s equivalent to buying the item new on sale, it’s really planned obsolescence. While I understand “new technology” that can make my life easier or better, I really don’t need to buy a new computer or tablet or phone just because it has new technology in it. But when my older device is “no longer supported” by the manufacturer or it “can’t be upgraded” any further, so it won’t work with a program I need for my job, or the battery is “built in” so it can’t be switched out when it no longer holds a charge – that’s planned obsolescence. Planned obsolescence by itself is bad enough, but when it’s coupled with “wanting to keep up with the Joneses of the world”, the problem intensifies. Keeping up with the Joneses is expensive. An item may be totally functional, but not the latest “style” or “trend” so it’s gotten rid of, and a cheaper but more trendy item takes its place. Then when that item is no longer in style, it’s gotten rid of and replaced with the “newest version”. What happens to the old item though? Unfortunately, they often end up being “dumped” in landfills (isn’t that a horrible term? As if the land needed to be filled with trash that we no longer want), where unlike a material that will eventually rust away or decompose, or be taken apart and recycled, they will sit for eon’s “filling our earth” with “planned obsolescence” and “keeping up with the Joneses” instead of flowers and trees that will help to make our world a better place to live. Hopefully, people will eventually learn to buy items that can decompose and be recycled, so we can stop filling our land with trash and start filling it with flowers and trees and birds and pollinating butterflies and bees and animals again.

Waffle Iron Bakers and Sandwich Grills – a GREAT wedding gift and it’s long life

Waffle Iron Bakers and Sandwich Grills – a GREAT wedding gift and it’s long life Back when Mike and I got married in the 70’s, we were given a waffle iron (technically a Waffle Baker and Sandwich Grill) that could also be used as a grill for making pancakes or grilled cheese sandwiches or even for grilling a steak. All we had to do was lift up on the lid unlocking it from its “folding position” and then lay it flat on the counter, doubling the size of the waffle iron to put it in the grill position. Then we’d take the waffle iron grills out and flip them over to expose the flat grilling sides and reinsert them. That old Toastmaster waffle iron made in Boonville Missouri, lasted us well over 20 years of almost weekly use. At one point the clip holding in the top grill broke, but Mike welded a new clip on. Then the hinge broke and the lid would no longer stay up so we were endanger of it falling on our hands as we poured batter into the waffle iron, so we finally had to say adieu to it. Before ours had died though, I was able to find a similar Black and Decker Waffle Iron Sandwich Grill that one of my clients was selling at their estate sale. Unlike us, they had seldom used theirs, and it was in excellent condition. I didn’t buy it to replace ours though, I bought it for my son, who, whenever he came home would drool over our old one and make a comment about not being able to find one like it – the newer ones didn’t have the reversible grills like ours had, so while he had his “George Foreman” grill, he couldn’t make waffles with it and in his tiny apartment kitchen, he didn’t have space for multiple appliance. While the plan was to give the second grill to Brigham, my husband claimed it before Brigham could come home and get it. After that, I started watching for waffle iron /sandwich grills from the 70’s at estate sales and I was able to find a couple more, one for Brigham and a backup for Mike and I. Both of them, like the first one I had gotten, were in great condition and looked like they were seldom used. In fact, all three that I bought still had their original instructions and warranty information and were in their original boxes. Our second one died a few days ago, after probably 10 years of our using it and my husband pulled out the 3rd one I’d purchased for next week’s waffles. So now I’m on the hunt for another Waffle Iron Baker and Sandwich Grill from the 70’s so when this one finally gives up the ghost I’ll be prepared. If you know anyone who has one they are willing to part with, please let me

My Father's Last Gift to His Daughters

My Father’s Last Gift to His Daughters My father was a very detail oriented person. When my parents moved to California from Tennessee, he built a scale model of the apartment they were going to have, then scale models of their furniture to determine what would fit so he didn’t ship furniture across the country that he couldn’t use once he got there. He was also someone who went out of his way to make sure that his daughters were well taken care of. When my oldest son was born, I was living at Blytheville Air Force Base in Arkansas, while my husband was stationed on the West Coast. One evening I called my father and told him I thought my car had a problem. I asked if I should get it seen before I drove home to St Louis in a few days or if I should wait and let him look at it when I got home first. The next day, my father went to work like normal, then after work drove to where I was living (a 4 hour drive when you were healthy, a 6 hour drive when one was heavily pregnant or traveling with an infant). He proceeded to fix my car, than drive the 4 hours back to St Louis so he could go to work the next day. No way was he going to trust his daughter and grandson in a car that wasn’t in excellent condition, nor was he going to trust any old mechanic to fix his daughter’s car. Now my father, in the 70’s, when his daughters had all left home, sent each of us a copy of his “if something happens to me” letter. It was very detailed. 4 pages of being very detailed. He listed (with contact information and any information that would be needed by that entity) all his financial accounts, his savings bonds, his insurance policies, the real estate my parents owned at the time and what mortgages were on them, items of significant value – you name it, it was there. In addition, he listed everyone who should be notified if he died from the US Air Force and Veterans Administration and his insurance brokers to his siblings. In his cover letter, he told us that Mom and he were going to start traveling again, now that they were unencumbered by children, and in case anything happened to him, we should just follow his list. Over the years, he would update the list and send out a new one. Towards the end of his life, as he was beset by health problems and starting to have memory issues, the list didn’t get updated very often, but by then my sister was handling most of his affairs and had the information in her files. The last update was in 1999, 14 years before his death in 2013. My parents were living in California, with two of my sisters living nearby, when my father died. My sisters had their hands full taking care of my mother who had dementia issues, dealing with having my father’s body transported to the funeral home, dealing with the facility they were living in, dealing with returning medical equipment, planning the funeral and so much more. From St Louis, there wasn’t much that I could do to help them, other than offer support over the phone. But the one thing I could do, was to pick up the letter Dad had sent us in 1999 and start going through it. I spent a week sitting at my kitchen table, following my father’s instructions. While most of the information was still valid, there were a few points where a company or phone number or representative’s information was no longer valid. When that occurred, I was able to follow the breadcrumbs through Google searches to find the right person to contact. By the end of the week, before I left for the funeral in California, I had notified everyone, created a list of who was sending my sister (the executor of the will) documents that would need to be filled out and returned, who needed copies of the death certificate and all the information that I had accumulated over the week. I had also arranged for his remains to be placed in a columbarium at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery. In doing so, I was able to reduce the stress and burdens that my older sister (my parents’ primary caregiver as they aged) faced and help to “move along” things that she wouldn’t have been able to get to until after the funeral. Several years later, when my mother died, I was able to use my father’s 1999 letter to make the notifications of her death and again relieve my sisters of that burden. When my father-in-law died, my mother-in-law took care of settling his affairs just as she had taken care of settling her parents affairs and none of us thought twice about it. But when she died, we discovered that had been a mistake. As executor of the estate, my husband had her will along with a note his mother had written years before stating which of her 7 children got what of the “personal belongings” based on things they had asked for years earlier – One brother got the dining room furniture, another got his grandfather’s dresser, her daughter got her hope chest, etc. The problem was that they were supposed to get the furniture and everything in it – yet we knew for certain that the items that were in the furniture when the list was written weren’t the items that were still in those pieces of furniture and we had NO idea what items she had originally expected to be there. She specified the dress she wanted to be buried in, but there was no dress left in any of her closets that even remotely matched that description. She did have a prepaid funeral plan, but it had been sold to her by a company that had later been indicted for defrauding consumers. My husband managed to get things taken care of, but it took several years to get everything handled, even though he had been handling her finances for several years before she died. After going through all this, I tried to make a “When we die or become incapacitated” list and send it to my son, but I got the standard words of youth: “Mom, you aren’t going to die anytime soon. I don’t want to hear it.” A few years after that, one of his best friend’s mother died. Brigham stood by his friend supporting him, as his friend discovered that he knew nothing about what he should do, who he should contact or what his mother wanted in the way of a funeral service. At that point, Brigham sent us an email and told us he wanted us to get our affairs in order and give him a list of everything from what we wanted to be buried in and what hymns to play at the service to who he should notify and what financial accounts he should know about. The letter my father wrote his daughters in the 70’s ended up being one of the most valuable things he ever gave us. By providing us with his final guidance and directions, we were able to ensure his wishes were followed, my mother was provided for and we could all spend time grieving, rather than dealing with the stress of having to handle his estate with no idea of what we needed to do. His letter to us, was like a warm blanket cuddling us while my father held us in his arms, reassuring us and letting us know how much he loved us and cared for us My wish for you, is that you take some time to write out your “if something happens to me” letter for your loved ones. While, like my son, they may not want to have it now, some day in the far future, it will be there for them when they need it.