"Oh, Didn't It Rain"

Our family celebrations are much smaller these days with most of our family no longer in our community But we did have a pleasant Easter with the Taylor family. Trent and Brianna were both home from college and died beautiful eggs for us. After worship, we six gathered for dinner at the farm, and later I took plates into Katherine and her aide and visited there. Grandson Sam had surprised us oldsters by flying home for his birthday weekend, so he showed up at the farm coming and going while spreading himself thin to see both sides of his family. Getting to see her son unexpectedly definitely made Katherine's holiday. Sam did not surprise his cousins because they all keep in close touch thanks to cell phones.

Last Wednesday was Katherine's bithday, so I made her a cake I sometimes made her years ago—an angel food with a bouquet of real flowers with the vase hidden in the center hole of the cake. We took chicken and dumpling dinners from a local restaurant and had birthday dinner in her bedroom with the help of her excellent aide. As I had not been organized enough to know the time to send to Mary Ellen with Brian in the field, they dropped in later to sing “Happy Birthday” with us when we cut the cake. With gifts to open, a call from Sam and others, and all the cards in the mail and Facebook greetings, that was the best we could do, and Katherine was smiling and appreciative.

The Taylors are without a kitchen right now as they are replacing floor and cabinets and doing other rehab work. When Gerry came through here on his way to a softball weekend at Lexington, Mary Ellen came over to see him and brought Fifi to enjoy a bit of country life running in the fields since her life has been torn up too by all the workmen in the house with her. Before Gerry and Gerald took off in his rented pickup carrying the team's pitching machines, there was a demonstration of bird dogs brought up to the farm from Knoxville. Mary Ellen and I had to laugh to notice that Fifi was not intimidated by those big dogs. She marked her territory to let them know this was her farm. Gerry brought in four quail eggs for Mary Ellen to fry for Brian, which she laughingly and graciously accepted although she had never served such before. Then she remembered she had no kitchen—so I am saving them for her.

I listened to Friday night game on the computer and was pleased with the A&M's victory over Kentucky, and someone put a photo of Gerald at the game on Facebook. But weekend began going downhill when I learned that our Jeannie and husband Rick were driving home from Rochester and they would be going back Sunday afternoon to have same-day surgery yesterday morning to repair a problem caused by the port left in after her chemo. Jeannie kept emphasizing it was “not a big deal,” but I did not believe her for a minute. So when it stormed all night, I felt as I often do that nature was upset as I was. I do not know how much it rained because our rain gauge was run over at five inches when I emptied it the next morning.

We are on a hill side, so we do not worry about flooding. I was grateful that my diligent husband had noticed and made a point on Thursday to repair the very tiny “wanna be a gully I grow up” on the side of the slope on our lane. He also cleared the debris off the filter on the emergency overflow pipe on the far end of our lake. The first thing he asked when I told him about the rain storm was whether the water went over the dam. And I was able to tell him the overflow had worked perfectly thanks to his work.

But many people in our area as well as other areas of the nation did not fare so well. Lakes formed beside many roads here, and some roads became lakes. Our homeless shelter and many other homes were flooded. The Catholic church opened for those needing shelter, and the Red Cross came in with emergency shelter. And people are still hurting and coping.

Katherine had one aide out sick and another who had a car wreck, so I took the highway into her house to avoid the closed roads. We listened to the A&M-Kentucky game together on her TV screen, and we felt together the pain of defeat. Of course, we assumed we'd win again on Sunday, but we didn't.

I went back to town through light rain that evening to give Katherine night pills, but then drove home through torrential rain. I knew then I would stay home the next day and not venture out unless necessary. I slept very late and poured out another over five inches of rain from the gauge. Fortunately Katherine's aide was back, and I had the restful Sunday I needed. I prayed for Jeannie's surgery coming up, ate up left-overs in the fridge, found a play-by-play game account on Kentucky's website that let me follow the game, and looked forward to seeing Gerald and Gerry when they arrived that evening from Lexington.

Despite a fall the night before from catching his foot on a stob in an unofficial walkway between the outdoor pizza place and their motel, Gerald was in a good mood. With his hand he had bandaged up very professionally after he picked the gravel out, he and Gerry had me laughing during snacks at the kitchen table as they told of their misadventures. (Gerald had a regular doctor appointment today, and the doctor said his hand looked good.) I am sure Gerry was exhausted because he went straight to bed after his shower instead of running over to visit a friend as he wanted to do, and I think he and Gerald slept as good as I did the night before.

Yesterday after we saw Gerry off for Texas, I was focused on waiting for Rick's call that Jeannie's surgery had gone well. The good call came, and I relaxed. They stayed at their motel in Rochester last night, and today they were on their way home. I thank God for that. Gerry and the pitching machines are back on campus today, and he is cheerful on Facebook. Gerald has picked the asparagus in his garden and cleaned out the overflow filter again. He is ready for the next deluge.  

Adversity

Although we missed out on one big snow while we were gone, we came home from Texas to experience the next one. Schools were closed, and people were pretty much home bound by the ice and snow.

Our middle daughter Jeannie has been our extremely dedicated bicycle rider and healthy food advocate. We were shocked to find out that a second surgery was required after a negative biopsy. We delayed our trip up to Jeannie’s because of the fear of roads. (I felt as if the worst thing we could do was to go up and have an accident and add to family woes.) We were glad we waited. Despite the snow in the fields beside the highways for the length of state, the roads were all fine. So we arrived last Friday—the day Jeannie came home from the University of Wisconsin hospital a day early, which we thought was a very good sign.

The weather had not only gone from bad to beautiful in Freeport, but we had to laugh when Gerald reported from a phone call to our nephew DuWayne that the temperature down here was colder that where we were at the north end of the state.

Once Jeannie arrived at home, her positive attitude kicked in, and she started walking every day. She is determined to be as healthy as possible as she recovers from this unexpected adversity in her life. Since she is not allowed to ride her bike yet, she is substituting walking. Her daughter and son-in-law arrived the same day we did. Mike left Sunday with Millie and Sidney (their big dogs), but Leslie stayed to support her mother. Despite a busy high school schedule and working a shift Saturday at the thrift store where she clerks, Cecelie was in and out with her boyfriend. They impressed us with their serious chemistry study at the dining room table after we ate.

Leslie was there until Thursday of this week when she back flew home to Nashville. Elijah was on spring break from Illinois State, and he arrived the day after us on Saturday in perfect timing to work the opening day at the famous Union Dairy (the place where people in Freeport go to get their ice cream cones every spring and summer). He was able to see how well his mother looked, take Leslie to the airport, and make himself useful during the week however he could. I am sure Cecelie was glad to have the companionship of her siblings during this time.

And I am sure they ate well all week, because Jeannie’s church was sending food. We enjoyed part of that good homemade food. I even came home with the recipe that the pastor’s wife sent with her Quinoa chicken salad. I had just learned its surprising pronunciation before we went to Jeannie’s, but I had never eaten it. Now if I can find it at the grocery store, maybe I will cook it and join the other gluten-free Quinoa enthusiasts. We were especially blessed Saturday evening to get to hear Leslie and Elijah practice “At the Table of the Lord,” which Jeannie had requested that they sing the next day at their morning service.

We felt we needed to leave Sunday morning instead of going to worship with them, because we wanted to stop in Mattoon to see my brother Jim, who is still recovering from the heart procedures earlier this year. After a lazy and pleasant breakfast at our motel, we took off. We knew my nephew Robert was staying with Jim and Vivian this winter helping them—they brag on his cooking. We were looking forward to seeing him for the first time in a long while. We were even more excited when we arrived to find our great nephew Sean and his two sons there visiting. I had not seen Sean since he was a young boy and had never met their toddler Lincoln (called Linc) nor Vincent Indiana Roland Jones, age 5, and called Indy. Linc had beautiful red hair, the kind we had always wished someone would inherit from Vivian. She graciously explained that Sean’s wife Paige had red hair in her family too. They soon had to leave, but Indy sparkled and entertained us while they were there, and I had to notice his excellent vocabulary.

As I had hoped, next my niece Judi dropped in. We had missed Sean’s brother Ryan from Champaign-Urbana, who visited the day before. And we had to leave before our niece Jane and her daughter Vanessa dropped in, but we still felt we had great dividends for stopping for that brief visit and seeing so many of the family.

We have had a busy week here as one of Katherine’s new aides ended up at the doctor’s with kidney stones and was unable to work all week. Fortunately that aide was friends with another woman who came part of the aide’s shifts, and I helped out as did some of Katherine’s friends who have generously given her their help. This was spring break for schools in our area, so Sam and his dad David had gone to visit a couple of colleges in the Southeast. With Trent on break to go with them, Brian and Mary Ellen traveled down to visit Brianna at Disney World. Fifi, who travels well, was able to go along because Brianna was missing her too. She was able to stay in the kennel there since Brianna had a discount. Mary Ellen and Brian must have felt rejuvenated by their trip, because they were already heads up painting the ceiling in their living room changing the brown wooden tiles to white. It was looking good when I stopped by. I got an air hug from Trent, who wasn’t feeling well. I had never had an air hug before but I imitated and sent one back.

I think all the family is back in place now, and we are hoping Katherine’s aide has no more health problems. I finally had my evaluation appointment, and I will start two weeks of physical therapy on Tuesday, Most of all, we are praying that the week goes well for Jeannie as her treatment continues. So many people are praying for her, and we would be grateful if you would too. She might get to complete her planned bicycle last lap to the Gulf Coast this summer after all.

Suddenly It Is Green Again

Almost overnight the greening that nature has been brewing surrounds us. The bushes and shrubs. The grass. The leaves on the trees. The green has all come alive once more joining the beautiful flowering that has been going on for a few weeks now. The temperature was in the 80’s today. As always on April 26, the lilacs are showing lavender. They know it is their responsibility to do so because it is our daughter Katherine’s birthday, and lilacs are one of her favorites.

Driving to Carbondale for our first Illinois Chapter of the Trail of Tears Association this afternoon, I tried to drink in every mile of the roadside beauty. The newly remodeled Morris Library is a venue to make our region proud. With its completion, once again Special Collections has been able to move back home from its temporary hangout during the remodeling.

It was good to hear Melissa Hubbard and Dr. Herman Peterson review for us the work that the 1930’s historians--George Washington Smith, history professor, and John G. Mulcaster, retired Makanda station master--accomplished for the l00th anniversary of the Trail through our region. I especially liked Melissa’s explanation of how the professional historian worked one way collecting documentation while Mulcaster, the amateur like so many of us doing current research on the Trail, worked out in the field interviewing old-timers and thankfully taking the few photos we have of buildings that have since perished. And it felt good to hear Dr. Peterson express gratitude for both kinds of researchers.

We saw a short preview of the next episode of We Shall Remain that will be shown in our region at 8 tomorrow night. Vickie Devenport and Harvey Henson of Southern Illinois University Carbondale had the wonderful “Mapping the Trail of Tears in Southern Illinois” on display in the beautiful new round reception room where we gathering before and after the meeting in the new auditorium. It was fun to see the new coffee bar nearby named Delyte after our beloved SIUC president, the late Delyte Morris. He was there when the library was built in 1955 replacing the old Wheeler Library.

After the meeting at the library and the board meeting following, Gerald and I had a date with our daughter’s family to celebrate her birthday. Gerald had stayed home to follow both Gerry's and Erin's softball games--and I would have liked to also.

Katherine was hoping to be up to going out to get out of the house, but I had also offered to carry in our supper. That turned out to be her choice. So the menu was chicken and dumplings with slaw from Cracker Barrel with some of their old-fashioned bottled sodas. I’d taken one birthday cake in yesterday, and her sister Mary Ellen had sent a second cake yesterday afternoon along with a beautiful bouquet of lilies that Katherine adored. David brought out the ice cream.

Brian carried the flowers and cake into Katherine yesterday because Mary Ellen was much too sick to go in—not wanting to expose Katherine to the lingering cold that seemed to have suddenly turned into something worse. (Mary Ellen came down with Trent and Bri and Fifi in order to meet with a realtor about some acreage they are in process of buying. Brian was already down here farming.) By today Mary Ellen’s whispering voice was more inaudible than yesterday. When Brian took her to urgent care, she had to get four prescriptions from the pharmacy before she and the kids drove back to Lake Saint Louis. Since Brian stayed down to farm, he was able to join us for the birthday celebration tonight.

It was really fun and restful to avoid the crowds at the local restaurants, and Samuel and his buddy Tyler were able to join us for cake without too much interruption to their basketball playing in the driveway. Scooter was glad to be included in the birthday party too.