I Know Where Love Lives

There's a house on the edge of town It's a little old, it's a little run down Full of laughter and tears and toys Crazy things only love enjoys
- Hal Ketchum

I would love to be able to describe my Mom. I can't begin to do justice to the person she was to me and how much I loved her. I had trouble even defining some of the ways she influenced me, because they are so engrained in who I am. It's too enormous. This is the best I could do....

1. Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry and you cry alone. I probably heard this from my mother more than any of her other sayings. My mother was always laughing. I can't begin to count the number of times she would dissolve in giggles to the point tears would run down her face. She came from a family of practical jokers; teasing was good-natured, and kindly and no one ever doubted that they loved you. She was silly and fun and taught me to value friends and family who made me laugh.

2. The meaning of finesse. Mom played the card game Bridge. She belonged to several Bridge groups and even taught it at various community ed programs. I think she would have lived and breathed Bridge if she could have. I was the only one of her kids who picked up the game...sort of. But it was in learning Bridge I learned the term and the art of finesse. It's a life skill everyone should know.

3. A love of games. She was up for playing anything - board games, card games. word games, anything. She taught me to both play for the fun of it, and probably honed my competitive side as well.

4. How to listen. My mother was born deaf and so had to learn to lip-read. To "hear" what people were saying, she had to stop what she was doing, look at them, and give them her undivided attention. That's a far different and deeper form of listening than we give most people in this busy world of ours.

5. To sew, knit, and crochet. I was in 4th grade when she taught me to use her sewing machine. And not much older when I learned to cook. My mother didn't learn these things until she was in college, majoring in Home Economics. She grew up with a maid in the house and never had to do these things. She said she didn't want her daughters to "waste" their college education on these things. I'm sad that she felt she wasted her college years, but proud at what my siblings and I have done with our education.

6. If the mountain won't come to Mohammed, Mohammed will come to the mountain. She taught me I wasn't the center of the universe. The world wasn't going to come to my doorstep. If I wanted something, I'd better go after it. Learn how to meet other people on their terms when it's necessary.

7. The dinner hour. She would lament that we kids would finish our meal and want to be off and doing things after 20 minutes; that the dinner hour wasn't lasting an hour. But what was important was that we always sat down together as a family. Every night. We talked about our day, knew what was going on in each others' lives, and learned the art of conversation.

8. An appetite for reading. Probably because she didn't get information from audio sources as readily as others, she was a voracious reader. And through watching her read, and being read to, I grew up with the notion that reading was important. And have passed that on to my children.

9. Traditions. My mother was big on the little things that made up traditions from year to year. Like reading us "The Night Before Christmas" every Dec 24th when we were little, or always bringing "camping cake" when we went to the dome. It gave us a sense of things to look forward to and find myself doing the same for my girls.

10. How to make each of her children feel completely loved. I always felt like Susie was her favorite - I think we all did. But I never felt any the less loved because of it.  I always felt her love for me was so complete and so total. I only hope that I will be remembered by my children like my siblings and I remember her.

I know where love lives
She's sitting on the back step in the evening air
With sea green eyes and her chestnut hair
You keep your mansions of gold, buddy, I don't care
Cause I know where love lives

Fishin' In The Dark

Lazy yellow moon coming up tonight
Shining through the trees
Crickets are singing and lightning bugs
Are floatin' on the breeze...
- Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

Of all the places I know, the best place of all to see lightning bugs is at the Farm. The Farm. My Aunt Mary's Farm outside of New Richmond, Wisconsin. It isn't a diary farm like most of Wisconsin, or even a hobby farm. It's just 40 acres of trees. Aunt Mary's dad bought it from two Norwegian brothers who couldn't pay their taxes, so he had a place to hunt. Mary spent a lot of time there growing up when there were epidemics going through the Twin Cities and her dad thought it best to get his wife and two kids away from it all. The farm house looked like it had been built by two old farmer brothers...a small kitchen with a pump in the sink instead of running water, a small living room, two small bedrooms that had been tacked on in back, and an even smaller bathroom. There was a nice enclosed porch off the back, and a low, sloped roof over it all.

When I was a young girl, my family used to go up there with our Boe cousins to cut down our own Christmas tree. We'd get there and it would be a big laughing argument who had to go chip all the drowned mice out of the frozen-over toilet in the bathroom. Because, of course, there was no heat inside until someone fired up the gas heater in the living room. So we'd all tromp off in the woods, cut down our trees, go back inside and eat sandwiches with cocoa, and then head home. Once in a very great while, we went up for the day in the summer, but what I mostly remember about the old farm house, is the winters.

When my Aunt Mary inherited the place, she tore down the old farm house, put in an in-ground pool where the house had once stood, and then brought in a pre-fab three-bedroom home. She added a deck and a three-season porch. She cleared a lawn around the pool, and it became a really nice place to be. The reason I never spent much time up there in the summer is because my parents always had it for a week each summer but it was their time away from us kids for a while and we kids were farmed out to other relatives. But once I had kids, my folks wanted to spend that time with their granddaughters, and they started inviting me to join them for their week at the Farm. And so ever since my girls can remember, it's been a part of their summers.

Lying on our backs and counting the stars
Where the green grass grows

And it's where I spent time with my Mom. More uninterrupted, relaxed, enjoyable time with my Mom than anywhere else I can think of. We would sit for hours by the pool playing games like Upwords and Scrabble. We'd watch the girls and talk about them and be so proud of them. We'd reminisce and gossip and tell stories and get the giggles. And sometimes just sit and enjoy the silence of each others' company. But I just loved being in her presence with nothing pressing to do, no interruptions, just feeling loved. And when Mom passed on, I somehow inherited my Mom's week at the Farm...and my girls continue to come.

Staying the whole night through
Feels so good to be with you

Sometimes I have the chance to go up to the Farm a bit earlier than everyone else, or stay later after they've all gone home. Or sometimes I just stay up late at night after everyone's gone to bed, and I go sit out on the three-season porch in the dark and watch the back yard all lit up with a zillion lightning bugs floating around the back yard. And I'm at peace. I feel my Mom's presence so strongly there. It is a special place to be.