dexheimer

This blogging is scary. If I get pompous and blustery in person, no one will hold me accountable several months from now. I won’t be embarrassed if I should learn better.

I wanted to write about sleep and a general perception on my part that I know better than most of the doctors and medical professionals I’ve dealt with lately. Besides worrying about having to eat my blogged words, I worry about grammatical things. I’d like to write slightly smarter than auto correct and grammar check. I have a thing for dangling prepositions. Maybe you will think its quaint, betraying my Wisconsin origins. But I try to be smart about them and occaissionally cover them up with an adverb, if not an object. Lost you already? Don’t worry, I’ll be checking google to make sure I’m somewhat close to knowing what I’m talking about.  The dangler above that inspired this tangent is “with lately”.

On Sunday, my sister Donna handed me an envelope of stuff. She had been storing some of mom’s stuff and decided to divide it among the rest of us. She hinted mine contained more than just photos and I may want to  check them out “later”.  What reminded me of the manila envelope was the grammar rant above. Donna also handed me a beatup three ring binder that was mine from my freshman year of high school. Inside were Latin conjugations, algebra equations and sentence diagramming. I excelled at diagramming.  But a report card indicated I was best at Latin, a 100. That didn’t last long. I never had biology in school because I went away to the seminary. That deficit has haunted me my whole life. So many things I don’t know but have had to pick up on the streets or from Wiki. It was especially apparent when I got permission to take a graduate course on the ecology, morphology and identification of sedges. But here in this notebook handed to me on Sunday was proof that I had been taught the fundamentals of reproduction by a priest, Fr Pilacynski.

My granddaughter started third grade yesterday. Guess what they’re learning? To write cursive. That seems as archaic as studying Latin (which I’ve always valued) and diagramming sentences. I tried to coach her that all she really needs to do is perfect her own fancy signature. At least her initials in flowery capital letters. Then she’ll be able to sign her life away by refinancing a house. Cursive is inextricably connected in my mind with nuns. My mom had great penmanship. My sisters do okay. The last time I hand wrote a whole police report, many years ago, I printed the whole damn thing.

But I wanted to tell you more about that manilla envelope. Donna was right to raise her eyebrows slightly when she gave me that look. The stack of papers and photos was about four inches thick. I pulled out the pages and notes which were all handwritten, in cursive. I must warn you, the older I get the more emotional I get. Ever since Bill Clinton made it okay to tear up, I’ve been crying at the drop of a hat. I don’t think there’s an episode of Parenthood that hasn’t gotten me choked up. So several of the documents in the manilla envelope got to me. I won’t bore you with all of them, but one in particular was very special. I actually gasped. You know I’m crying now, right?

There was a small 5×7 spiral notebook. It didn’t look too old.  It was actually from 1997. It was a journal my mom kept of a week we spent in Canada at Port Cunnington. Mom died in 2009 after a six year, second round with breast cancer. So it was special to find something she’d written about time we’d spent together in the past. She loved the times we took her to Canada because it was a resort and lodge where she got her own cabin, Chickadee, and was served three fantastic meals everyday in the dining room. It was luxury and being taken care of that she didn’t experience that much in her life.

The journal was touching but mundane. She wrote a lot about what she ate. And teaching Mouse to play Sheephead. Reading at the beach. I was smiling and fluttering my eyelids a little as I read every word. But nothing too emotional.

As she got toward the end of the week, she wrote that I took her to Algonquin Provincial Park. She mentions that we hiked into a cedar bog on a boardwalk. She wrote, “Jim is very knowledgeable about all the plants etc. Very interesting.” It was very nice to read after all those years. I was glad that I had waited until I was alone so that I could savor it.

After the last written page, there was a torn off piece of heavier paper folded over to fit in the notebook. As I carefully unfolded it I gasped. There were several dried plants. Bunchberry, Bog Rosemary, Sweet Gale and Labrador Tea. Now I was sobbing. All these years mom had saved these plants I had handed her in the bog.

People are usually polite when I get all excited on a nature walk and start handing them specimens and showing them things I think are fascinating. But after a while, I notice they’re holding them awkwardly. Sometimes they’ll ask, “do you want me to keep this?” I tell them “no just toss it.”

My thoughts on sleep, and doctors and being smart will just have to wait.

Mom glowing on the dock at Port Cunnington

Mom and Margaret playing cards at Red Wing

Mom in the boathouse at Port Cunnington

The dining room in the lodge.
Mom closed her eyes when she saw me with the camera.

At the train station in Huntsville, Ontario
Earlier we spent eight hours together in the ER there.

Good night.