Millie and Carl

 Millie and Carl

 

Millie is changing the wheel

on her mower

when I encounter her one day.

Around those tools and

tires and bolts,

she clearly knows her way!

 

I ask her to tell me about the farm,

if she would not mind;

It was clear that for quite a while

it has been in some decline.

 

Four silos no longer filled,

A barn with just one cow.

She still keeps the old place going,

though she is a widow now.

 

She and Carl bought that farm;

fifty-six years she’d endured.

They were young and optimistic then,

and would conquer the world for sure.

 

They could not have known the changes to come,

Plummeting prices, mounting debt

too much exasperation.

Carl said it was too hard a life

To pass to the next generation.

 

The children grew up to leave the farm

And created lives of their own.

The grandchildren still often come

so Millie doesn’t feel alone.

 

Eva milks the cow in the barn;

Carson loves the tractors too.

Maybe they will take the farm

And turn it into something new.

 

Successes, failures, memories and joys;

Millie had seen them all firsthand.

Mostly they have planted themselves

There in the barn, the house, and the land.

 

 

By Nancy and Gerry Rehkugler

For Showing Up

Thank you, beautiful blue morning glory for showing up!

     I initially planted my morning glory seeds in pots, thinking the seedings are fragile and I could protect them when they were young.   Then I moved the pots to the bottom of the front porch posts and tended them daily,  watering, feeding, caring for, until they lovingly wrapped themselves around not only the posts, but also the entire front porch, pretty much!

    Eventually,  the leaves began to die off,  and I looked at the pots, and much to my dismay discovered that they were completely potbound....no nutrients..no soil, only roots in the pot!   Then I thought maybe I could take them out of the pots and transplant them, which I knew would be very risky.   Once I broke the plastic pots away,  I realized that the rootball was well above ground level, so I could not put them in the hole in the ground I had dug for that purpose, because that would rip it all apart from the vine!   Then, I constructed an above the ground planting effort with lots of dirt, with potting soil, and with wood chips to cover the ugly above ground construction.    I actually did not have much hope of them surviving the week.

    But, miraculously, they did, and continued to grow and grow and grow.   However, there were no flowers.   Then I realized that morning glories prefer full sun, and these are in a shady area for most of the day!   So I had lots of lovely vines,  which I loved and enjoyed and continued to care for.

    I would check every day, looking and hoping for one little blue flower!  Since is is late September,  I know that frost is not too far away!  Will the frost come before I every see a morning glory flower?

    There were a couple of other before this one,  but this one is by far the proudest and loveliest,  and I touch it and thank it repeatedly, and say thank you for showing up!   This may be the last one,  so I am really appreciating it!

    It has been a long journey raising these glories!   I have loved them even when they were seedlings,  when they were potbound,  when they were just vines.   But I take it very personally that against all odds,  this one beautiful morning glory has come to celebrate with me before winter sets in!

Anniversary Homecoming

This blog is quite similar to the previous one, at least in that it is about seeing folks that we had not seen in many many years.   But the occasion and context is completely different.  

We recently celebrated our wedding anniversary,  and we decided that for the sake of nostalgia,  we would return to worship in the church where we were married 39 years ago.   I don't know that we have been back since,  primarily because I have almost always been occupied on Sundays in some ministry capacity.

So we returned to the scene of our wedding.  I know the pastor and we were delighted by the upbeat and excellent service, especially the uplifting music!

It was difficult to recognize some people, because everyone was wearing a mask, due to the pandemic.   The pastor, whom I actually know quite well,  did not recognize us with our masks.   But after church in the fellowship hall where people gathered to chat and connect,  it was clear that there were enduring relationships.

Richard, with whom I worked for many years is a member there and greeted us warmly.   There were others who knew one or the other of us for different reasons.  For Gerry,  there is a gentleman there who was actually his student many years ago!

I ended up having a long conversation with "Jodie".    As fate would have it,  many years ago,  while the pastor was away and I was filling the pulpit in his absence,  there was a terrible tragedy in the community.  A beloved coach,  father of three daughters,  a member of the church was killed in his own home by one of his daughter's boyfriends.   It was a terrible situation.  It is unimaginable how they all would have coped with that.  I know that the community itself had a hard time coping,  because your own home is a place where you expect to be safe and able to protect your family.

I was called to provide pastoral care and assistance in that situation.   Through that event,  I interacted with 'Jodie' and worked with her and her family, the funeral home, the hospital,  the school officials, and the pastor who was away,  to plan the event.     Due to the coach's position in the community and the nature of the tragedy,  the memorial service was held in the high school gym and attended by more than a thousand people.

"Jodie" filled me in on how her daughters are faring all these  twenty five years later.   I know that the trauma of what happened would have had a life-altering affect.  Two out of three of her daughters are doing okay.   Two were twins, one was much younger.    One of the twins is now a serious alcoholic living in a terrible situation.

Twenty five years were like nothing at all in connecting with 'Jodie'.   It was humbling to realize how such a memory will never go away,  and I am part of it!

Perhaps there are some for others, too!  Hopefully not many are as sad as that one was!

Visisting John

 A long-time friend and colleague, Richard with whom I once worked told me about John's diagnosis with colon cancer.    He said that in a recent Zoom meeting, John commented how much he would love to see me and Gerry.   Richard strongly encouraged us to visit John because he is on Hospice and may not be around for too long.  I could not envision how such a visit might go.

I once worked with John in admissions at the University.  I figured that it would have to be pre-1985 that I had worked with him, because after my last child was born,  I worked half-time in a different capacity and would not have worked with John after that.   That means that it might have been 38 years previously that I had last seen John, and then probably only briefly.   

I could not even imagine how he would even know who I/we are after that many years!  John also knew Gerry because John worked in Admissions in the College of Engineering, and I worked in Admissions at the College of Agriculture.  so the connections were there, but somewhat obscure.  In my mind,  there would not be anything to talk about.  I knew that I could ask him about his illness, and a few other conversational areas.

We finally found a time to visit.  It had to be outside,  due to John's illness and Covid. There was an opening in the weather that would finally permit an outside visit on his uncovered deck.  John was lively,  animated,  vivacious, and not at all what I expected of someone on Hospice!  And we had a lovely visit talking about things and people that the three of us had in common.   

I must admit that my own history of constant moving, for much of my life,  had not taught me the lesson I learned that day.   And that lesson is that it does not really matter if 30 or 50 years have passed,  people still have common ground,  memories,  stories to share.   John had never heard my stories of going into the ministry.  And that happened 32 years ago.

John had nearly died from the chemo and radiation treatments three years earlier.  They gave him months to live.  Three years have passed.  He manages,  though he has surely lost a lot of weight.

But I am grateful for having learned that the distance of years does not mean that a relationship of many years ago somehow completely vanishes, no matter how insignificant that relationship might have been.   People leave an impression,  a specific memory,  a lingering note of their presence.

That was a valuable lesson to learn.   One that I will remember hereafter.