Let’s Take a Look
A time back in visiting with someone that has occasionally read my blog, they remarked how many of the stories were deeply steeped in memories of my parents and their lives: Raymond and Lena Wendlandt. I openly acknowledged that those years in my life are very vivid and easy for me to recall events. The reader went on to ask me if there were more to the stories than just memories: perhaps there had been something in my past that prevented me from moving on, perhaps something that I never found closer on. Hmm . . . let me think. Let’s take a look.
Raymond and Lena’s wedding day.
My Mother and Father were a hard working couple that literally started out with nothing. In about 1935 they had found each other as each of them had been hired by the same farmer to be hired hands. My Father was hired to work with livestock and the soil. My mother was hired to work with the household and garden chores. They owned their own personal clothing and nothing more and contended with the years during World War II.
Fast forward to 1949 and my parents, parents of four children, were buying their very own farm: 160 acres with 140 acres of crop land and a farm site of old buildings. My Mom and my Dad each came from farm-oriented large families and our Mom and Dad had pulled it together to be the first in either family to sign a deed telling the world they were working on buying their own farm. No more finding acreage to rent, realizing the rent money each year brought no security. Simply awesome. Assembling a modest herd of Holstein cows, several brood sows that would bring about litters of pigs, and a flock of chickens to make it a total farm. They worked as a team from morning to night with the belief and hope of making a good life for their family. Raymond and Lena made a wonderful quality of life for the family.
Growing up there were few extras in the way of material items. We had what was needed to be comfortable. All of us kids wore hand me downs, either from each other or cousins who were older, and the rest of the kids in the country school we went to wore the same quality. We never knew that we could want for more; we never knew there was more to want for. At the end of the day the six of us were safe, our stomachs were not growling for lack of food, our bodies were weary enough that sleep came fast on the four inch cotton mattresses each of us could call our own in shared bedrooms. Most of the Sunday School clothes was made by Mom. It was amazing how she could trick out the prints that came from the sacks of the chicken feed concentrate that Dad bought at the elevator. When Dad’s work shirts began to show wear, my sister Elvera and I were put to the task of taking the collars off so Mom could turn them over and sew them back on and look fresh.
As items wore out or broke down, they were not easily discarded. If there was any way to fix them or repurpose them, they lived to see another day. Dad had the ability to fix farm machinery that would run, not quite like new, but very close. Mom kept the farm home clean and fresh with more elbow grease than Elvera and I even knew we had. We had one upholstered piece of furniture in the living room and that sofa was covered six days out of seven. The floor always had clean rag rugs on the floor that made extra warmth for places to play on or to do school work on.
Raymond and Lena’s family: Elvera,
Noreen, Calvin and Michael
Our family, like most of the cousin’s families that we kept in contact with, did not have a lot of openly-shown affection. There was no “I love you” as we went up to bed. Hugs were few and far in between. How did I know I was loved? As a small child, when we would be visiting at one of the family gatherings and I got tired, I went to my Dad and he would lift me up on his lap and hold me close until I nodded off. If it wasn’t me, it perhaps was Calvin or Michael that would find that comfortable spot. Times such as those felt like the real deal: love. I can only imagine after a long day of farm work, his arms may have very well ached and could have very well done without the tight grip he held us with. When I would work beside my Mom stacking bales on the hayrack behind the baler that Elvera was driving we would take turns hefting up the high ones and giggled when we struggled. It would take more memory that my computer has to recall all the instances that had shown love during my childhood. We all worked together living the love of a family pulling together for the same end, making a home and a living.
In the heat of summer days and also in the heat of a moment there were harsh words that our parents had for us as we worked side by side. They knew what was needed for the task at hand, and by God, that is what was needed from us. No one ever carried it beyond that moment as we knew it was not anger in the words, it was the thought expressed at that instant and nothing beyond. No one held a grudge. We had not been brought up to wilt in the midst of interaction. Through it all, perhaps love was implied more than expressed. For me, I felt it 24/7. Self esteem grows from belief in self. As a child, and until I graduated and left home, I was being honed for life, life as an adult with enough of a tough skin to survive along with the family experiences that nurtured the heart.
I can’t recall how many times I may have fallen flat on my face after I left home and I know my parents were gracious and did not keep track. Decisions were made that I felt were in my best interests. Guess what? Some of them weren’t that great. Each time I chose to take the best of the situation to grow through it and save the best and leave the rest. By and large, the hurtful had no place for me as I trekked on. It would have been too heavy to carry day to day. As a descendant of “the old Adam,” my bias may not have recalled the event clearly and accurately, so why allow it any part of me? Hmm . . . Megan’s movie “Let it Go” comes to mind.
My parents, in their wisdom, focused on the here and now as all four of us kids became our own person. The four of us kids coming together with our parents, one on one, or in a gathering, met as adults. The four of us siblings had children of our own to parent and Raymond and Lena were in the midst of taking care and maintaining a quality of life that kept them independent. Torches had been passed.
Being an adult it felt so right as I left from a visit of seeing my parents that I would not leave without giving hugs. The first times, I could feel my Dad stiffen up. As time went on, it was not just my arms reaching out to hug, his arms were there for me to feel that warmth, that strength and that love that I had always felt. Living it was more powerful than any words that than can be spoken.
So, to the person that may believe I have hidden issues from my childhood, I can say “No, nothing hidden, nothing lacking closure.” I had the most wonderful, simplistic, caring childhood any child would be blessed to have. No bells and whistles, just everyday living a real life with real people that felt comfortable enough with each other to tell it the way it was. I think one of my Dad’s favorite sayings was “You’ll know where the bear did it in the Buckwheat.” There may not have been a lot of “kissy face, huggy bear,” but then you didn’t have to wonder if you had misinterpreted anything that was told to you.
Orlin and Noreen on their wedding day.
Orlin came from a background much like mine. Orlin and I parented with more evident emotional love and support to Carrie and Kevin than the generation before. Would each of our children think it was enough? I know I can comfortably say that both of us gave all to our children, and now as the only parent for Carrie and Kevin, I give all that I have. Believe me, that love and support is from the real me. Me . . . The Mom that speaks English and Blunt. The old adage of “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” comes to mind. Words do have a sting, but how long we allow that sting to remain is an individual choice. The stings of the past can’t be brought up and rehashed as that instance and all of the circumstances of that moment are gone and there is no way it can be re-crated to give it credence. I can tell you, I am more on the lookout of those things that may physically hurt me and cause me to no longer enjoy the life I worked very hard to have. It’s all about choices.
My choice is to love like there won’t be a tomorrow. The option that anyone in my world may want to deny that — that’s not in the equation, it goes with them . My love and support may not be heard in words, it may not be physically felt, it’s there 24/7 and there are no buttons needed to be pushed, there is not an expiration date and there is no chance that it could be depleted.
In life, please remember to give and have no remembrance of it, or take and remember it always.