Lessons at South Friborg

The wind is howling outside. Trees shaking their new leaves and the lilacs popping out to give their spring scent. The skies are heavy gray and I am just waiting for the first raindrop. Somewhat revealing of my own mental place today. The kids are all napping, I have a cup of iced coffee at my side, and I am curled up with the blue afghan my aunt Bev made me two decades ago.

I am remembering her today. Remembering me. Remembering Heyma. Remembering Ruth. Remembering all the “hers” that I have lost sight of. Remembering the women that rooted me and the ones that have somehow shaken loose.

The howling wind takes me to my childhood. Watching the trees sway, I was somewhat fearful of damage, of what was coming, of the unexpected explosion that may just interrupt my world. I remember sitting on Heyma’s front porch, cuddled up with a quilt on her day bed, closed eyes, the wind comforting and concerning me all at the same time. The howling through the night that would shake the old windows of my room at home. The rattling rocking me to sleep.

I listened to MPR on my way to South Friborg Cemetery this morning. This was the only radio station I recall hearing in Heyma’s car growing up. My kids and I picked a few 

branches of lilacs at our house to bring to her grave today. Lilacs are about as symbolic of Heyma for me as her green eyes and red hair. We drove by the same fields, the same lakes and trees, and the same family farms she knew in her day. Man, how things have changed. How people have changed. How I have changed.

We pulled up to the cemetery, my kids wide-eyed. A sense of reverence settled in my body, something my kids have not learned yet, but will. We opened the heavy metal gate, the same one I remember as a kid when I visited this same cemetery with Heyma. I brought our lilacs and told Olivea and Tosten to collect some other flowers from the grass (dandelions).

We sat down by her gravestone. I cried. My kids were too enthralled by all the mysteries of a cemetery to truly relax, but they tried. They eventually got up and decided to explore, whispering, stooping to look at the pictures on each gravestone, picking more “flowers” and bringing them back to Heyma’s grave. And I sat. And sat. I am still not sure what Manda sat there, whether it the mother-of-three Manda or the eight-year-old Manda sitting, but I sat.

We eventually held hands, walking through the gravestones as I attempted to explain what a cemetery was. I explained who lived in the cemetery and why we visit them. I explained the respect that each grave should be given as we walk through. I explained eternity and death and life and a million abstract thoughts at once to my children…and they just giggled. They eventually ran off and collected more dandelions to decorate each gravestone.

And it all seemed so silly. Ridiculous even.

What does a child know about such things? About death and life and heaven and hell and cemeteries and people dying that are never suppose to leave? What do they know about the millions of tears that have dropped on this ground, the dashed dreams, the broken spirits, and incurable aches that have been placed here. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. And they won’t…until it happens. And it will. It always does.

The wind howled again and this time with a chill. Olivea rushed to me and said, “I cold. We go?” And that’s exactly how it feels.

But I have to remind myself…this is not the end. It is cliche’, but for them, this is just their beginning. They will feel this brokenness and probably much more. They will be crushed in ways that I never had to experience and none of those before me ever had to. And the one they’ll be mourning might be me someday. It might be my husband. It might even be each other.

And that’s how the circle goes. Round and round, generation to generation, woman to woman. Human to human. Years keep clicking by and more are born and more die. My life is but a spark in an explosion of life.

And I must live now. My moment with them is now.

I am pretty sure if Heyma was watching this whole ordeal as we visited her grave today, she probably would have been full-grinned, laughing at my children’s pure pleasure of life as they traipsed around the cemetery. In fact, most people in that cemetery probably would have delighted in their joy. Because sometimes that’s what death is…joy. Joy at birth. Joy at death. Joy of the in between. And joy of eternity.

It can be joy.

I guess if there was one thing I could teach my kids about life and death it is that it’s all fluid. The world changes. Brokenness is guaranteed. And cemeteries, well, really, they are just the place of old bodies that couldn’t hold spirits anymore. And those spirits, some of them go to a much better place where joy is the only thing that is experienced. And Jesus, well, Jesus is as real as He ever was on earth…but more.

And when their smiles hit ear to ear I will smile back and say, “I can’t wait for that either.”

This Tree

And in this moment, right here, in this photo, with Ellenor snuggled next to me, I felt happy. It was so strong it was as if heat was wafting out of my ears, my heart at complete ease, and all seemed right in the world. In my world.

We picked out our family Christmas tree today. I am a firm believer in REAL trees and I think I always will be. Many childhood memories revolve around a Christmas tree, a real one, even though my mom stopped getting real ones as I got in my teen years. And just as I am a firm believer in real trees, I am almost an even firmer believer in “Charlie Brown trees.” So much so that I would prefer one of Charlie’s to a perfectly symmetric, full-boughed tree. I figure full trees are a little prideful anyway.

This year, as we have done a couple previous years, we decided to go to my family’s land and try to “thin out” by cutting down one of the pines that were clustering and choking each other out. This is always the best way to find a Charlie tree! While we waited for Tyler to scout out the trees (which Tyler is the best scoper-outer ever…always picking the best possible choice…which is exactly how he picked me), my dad pulled up in his grain truck and decided to help pull the kids out of the pickup. As we waited for Tyler to surface again, my dad began to tell me a bit about the land.

It was a field at one point. I had no idea. I had been by this piece of land probably several hundred times in my life and I had always assumed it was a tree hill. There was little flatness to this land. A bunch of small independent hills somehow uniting just because they had to. And it was a small chunk of land surrounded by roads and water. What a nightmare for any farmer. He then told me how he helped my grandpa and some hired men plant these trees in the 1950s.

All of a sudden this land took new life. These trees took new life. These hills that my dad just smiled and reminisced about somehow seemed…magnificent.

It’s moments like this that I wish I could stop and record every word. Like somehow I am missing something. Like “there’s some wisdom here: listen carefully.”

As Tyler appeared, he brought us on a quest through the snow-laden grass and what seemed like secret passages through the pines. We then came across this one lone tree. He was small in the shadows of his peers, but he was alone and randomly boughed (totally unsymmetrical) and grew exactly how he was meant to grow. My heart began to beat faster and I said, “this is the one.”

 

As we all stood there, deciding this was the tree, a part of me felt a weird connection to my Grandpa and to my ten-year-old Dad. Did they have any idea in the 50s that they would be planting this tree for me, for their grandchildren, for generations after them? It probably crossed my Grandpa’s mind. But as that tree seemed to glow (like in all the movies), it just seemed too magic. Too amazing. Too reverent.

 

We cut half the tree, which seemed barbaric to me, but Tyler assured me the remainder would grow and eventually have a rounded top and be happy. And Tyler, with his He-Man strength, carried it to the truck and we all rode in dreamy-eyed excitement home. Well, except for Tyler: he knew what awaited us as we tried to squeeze this beauty in our living room.

Right now, everyone is in their beds and I just sit. I sit on our brown couch, the fireplace humming, and ponder on it: pine cones still clinging to the branches, still uncluttered with lights or ornaments, and I think it may be the most beautiful tree I have ever seen.

 

Somewhere In Between

“Heyma, it’s your little princess!” Mom said with an upbeat tone as we walked into her room at the Broen Home. I smiled and bent next to Heyma who was covered in one of her polyester pieced quilts. I haven’t been called that name for so long that it drowned my mind in a million memories. Though she had been sleeping, her green eyes opened and her face lit up in a smile.

Heyma’s smile is unlike any other. The wrinkles of almost 98 years of life gathering around her grin, her green eyes twinkling under her heavy lids, and her soft pink cheeks raising as if every wrinkle in itself was sagging a smile. I brushed my fingers through her coarse white hair and gave her a kiss on her forehead.

In my mind, I felt like I had to record every word. Every emotion. Every move and action and sound. I wanted to hold onto everything.

Once I started rubbing her arm and combing my fingers through her hair, she closed her eyes in complete comfort. I whispered “I love you” and gave her another kiss on the cheek. Her mouth opened, but only a groan came out.

I don’t need anyone to tell me what she can and cannot understand, so I said, “I know you love me too, Heyma.”

What do I know about Alzheimer’s and aging to 98 and getting closer to death? Nothing. I have no clue what it feels like to lose my parents and siblings and husband and even a grown daughter. I don’t know how it feels to forget names and memories. I don’t know how it feels to forget who I am or what I am to others. And I am not about to assume anything about Heyma…because she’s still Heyma. She could forget her name yesterday but remember “Amazing Grace” today. She may recall the endearing name “Little Princess” she called a chubby, blonde-haired little girl today and forget tomorrow. Her nurses and science and even my family can tell me she doesn’t understand much of anything, but she’s still my Heyma. So I’ll still talk.

While her eyes were cracked open, gazing at me, I thanked her for her love. For teaching me to bake and cook and sew and for all her yummy Lefse. Her eyes became big as cherries at the utterance of Lefse. I smiled. I soon followed with telling her memories about having grot for breakfast, hoping I’d get another response. Nothing. I guess Lefse was the winner today. I wish I had a roll of the stuff, buttered and brown-sugared, not that she’d eat it.

I saw her wiggling toes peeking from beneath the covers. I remember spending nights with Heyma and being abruptly woken by her in the morning doing leg exercises in bed, followed by massaging each of her feet and each little toe. I decided to rub her feet. She began to shift, her face crinkling, followed by a relaxed sigh.

I remember Heyma doing all these things for me when I was her Little Princess. She’d shower me in affection every opportunity she could, giving me hugs and kisses and brushing my hair with her fingers. I couldn’t but help feel like we switched roles, which we did. And for the first time in a long time, I was okay with that.

I had become so selfish as I became older. I couldn’t handle seeing her as she aged and changed and when she really couldn’t remember me. I’d visit her every few months, but it was nothing like every weekend or every summer day growing up.

When she was healthier, like just months ago, she’d laugh her operatic laugh at silly things, lick her lips from a little chocolate, and always said “yes” to a cup of coffee. She got to meet and even hold Tosten and Olivea, and I can’t but help grieve each future Hegseth that may never get to meet this bigger-than-life woman.

One day, my dad was holding little Olivea Jamae. She was smiling her toothless grin, having nothing to be happy about but the air she was breathing. Dad said, “I bet Olivea is just like what Heyma was like when she was a baby.”

I didn’t know what to say. I love Heyma so much that I couldn’t even begin to compare the two. One that was approaching 98 years of life and the other only five months.

As I looked in Heyma’s eyes yesterday, I saw Olivea. I dont know if it was a physical attribute or just the feeling of that drowning affection. I thought about the legacy Heyma has left. She being the oldest Hegseth, Olivea being the youngest, and me sandwiched somewhere between the two.

I want to hope a part of her will live on no matter when she leaves this earth. It’s cliché to say she’ll leave a part in each of us, but I need that today. I WANT to hear that today. I want to look at my daughter and believe she’ll be just like Heyma. I don’t want Heyma to go. I don’t want one single part of her to go…

But then I realize, when she lets go of this world, she’s free. Letting go allows her to be more Heyma than ever!

By this time, my tears were streaming down my face on the quilt over her. I whispered, “It’s okay, Heyma, if you want to go. You worked so hard here on earth. Your whole family is in heaven and the rest of us will be there soon.”

I sang “Jesus Loves Me” and rubbed her arm. She was so warm. Her hands have always been warm. I gave her one last kiss on the forehead.

I put my coat on and took one last look back, she was sleeping soundly. Drifting back to a world where she doesn’t have to be so confused.

I’m not saying this was my last time seeing her alive, but I’m not saying it won’t be either…so I must remember. And I do.

I love you, Heyma.