Everyone’s Favourite Uncle

Big B has the most dramatic brothers, I tell him. Perhaps the most dramatic of all the dramatic the brothers is Teddy. (and I tell you he has so many brothers -7 of them! - and they are all dramatic, but some more than others) 

Teddy  (a play on his real name) was what -8? when I first got to know him.  Still in diapers, little and round and squishy. More inhibited (or maybe just more controllable) than he is he today. Obsessed with gloves. I mean OBSESSED. I asked Mama when the obsession with gloves started and she said he’s been a glove thief basically as long as anyone can remember.

Teddy was a few months old when he came to live with BigB’s family. He was tiny and quiet, with more trauma and neglect than anyone, particularly one so young, should have to deal with. He was an extreme example of a container baby, he had little neck control, only moved his head one way, and had learned that crying didn’t communicate his need. Mama tells the story about the first time, months later, she heard him call for her when he woke up from his nap. It wasn’t a cry, more of a happy baby talk call. That was the beginning of him figuring out  how to communicate,  and he just kept communicating, to the point where now he basically never shuts up.

I don’t know / have forgotten all the details of the first few years of Teddys life. He was diagnosed with multiple things. Doctors predicted that he would never walk or talk or be potty trained. He had to prove them wrong, of course. This is a testament to the love and care and tenacity of his family and also to his stubbornness and tenacity. He developed  extreme seizures as a young child which he’s mostly grown out of, although he is still on medication for them as a precaution. He had a poor immune system and often got very sick as a little kid and nearly died in the back of an ambulance at least once, maybe more. 

Time has passed and Teddy has grown up. Without me even noticing he’s morphed from little boy Teddy into Uncle Teddy. He’s 18 in actual years, maybe 50 years in body but still 3 or 4 in his mind. He’s a big boy with a lot of extra weight gain from his medications, and taller than me if he’d ever stand up straight. But he doesn’t understand his size and still loves to sit on our laps because his brain is still the brain of a preschooler. No one can lift him anymore, he’s basically impossible to manhandle out of bad situations (so verbal distraction skills are key when spending time with him). His muscle tone is low so he is extremely awkward and clumsy and it takes him a long time to get anywhere except places he’s not supposed to go. If there’s something he knows he’s not supposed to be doing he suddenly can run almost like the wind to go so the thing.  

And, as he has been for as long as I’ve known him, Teddy is  still OBSESSED with gloves🧤 and, to a lesser degree, baseball hats 🧢. He has large collections of each, but the novelty of a new pair wears off quickly. The novelty lasts much longer if the gloves (hat, etc) are stolen instead of willing given.

Teddy has more friends than anyone else I know. He rarely forgets someone he meets and has a conversation with. He may not remember their name but he will know their kids’ or spouse’s names (Austin, Carly, Chloe, Asa, Colby, are children or spouses of people we’ve connected with in the last few weeks) or their pets names (Snuggles, PruPru, Claudia are a few pets who’s owners we’ve spoken to / of recently)  or remember what they do for work (cowboy, septic truck, parts guy at John Deere, lab tech, etc). He makes people feel connected to him by remembering something about them; it is truly one his of his natural gifts. However There is also the chance he will completely ignore someone and not even try to connect if someone or something more interesting is nearby. 

Uncle Teddy is a big part of our life. He has always come over regularly since we got married but in the last 4 or so years he’s spent a lot of time with us. He stays with us when his family goes on vacation (as he has been now for almost a week) or shopping, he spends almost every Saturday with us, he usually comes over at least one day a week after school and in summer when there is no school it’s a lot more often that he spends part of the day at our house. He is in many ways, the Big (little ? twin?) brother LittleB doesn’t have. They are a similar age in their brains if not in their years and sizes. They fight and argue, get annoyed at and look out for each other. LittleB gets sad when he doesn’t seem Uncle Teddy for a couple days, And then promptly gets annoyed when Teddy walks in the door again and goes straight to annoying him. 

I wrote this all about a year ago. Many things have changed in Teddy’s life since then. He lost his mother, The second mother he’s lost in his life. He can’t live at the only home he’s ever really known . He graduated high school and started regularly attending a day program. He has now lived at our house for the last almost 7 months. This has been a beautiful and comforting but also heartbreaking and difficult thing for all of us. I can’t venture to name his feelings about it all besides a lot of grief and a lot of acceptance. We are lucky to be able to love this kid who is no longer really a kid and have been blessed by the wildness and weirdness and laughter he has brought to our house during a long season of sadness. 

I’m Posting this in honour of Teddy’s 19th birthday today. The  facts as listed here do not do him justice. There are so many more things I could write about who he is and stories I could tell about life with him. (Let me know if you’re interested in more. I really could probably fill a book.) To know him is to love him. but also to know him is to get annoyed at him. both can be true. This kid is here doing the Lord’s work, one hug, stolen glove and swear word at a time 🧤❤️

The Summer I did not Learn Patience

I live with the Master Question Asker. To quote his favourite teacher, “he holds the [unofficial] world record for most questions asked.“ Ironically, or maybe obviously, Teddy is exceptionally terrible at answering questions. He meets every question asked to him with a question of his own. A typical conversation with an acquaintance, by which I mean friend, by which I mean anyone we meet on the path of life, might go like this:

Friend: “Hi, Teddy. What have you been doing today?”

Teddy: “do you have cows?” (or kids or dogs etc)

Friend: “yes I have cows! Do you remember when I took you to see my cows?”

Teddy: “what kind of gloves do you use when you brand your cows?” 

Many people roll with him, at least for a bit, and then often start asking him a question, sometimes over and over again until either they get an answer, or mostly they eventually just give up. Teddy knows how to win the question game, and it’s both annoying and endearing. When you can’t get an answer out of Teddy but he gets a dozen answers out of you, it feels like you’ve lost the conversation game. Yet some part of you feels good because someone asked about you and your life and your cows and your gloves in obsessive detail. Someone remembered you have a life and cows and gloves, and that feels good. 

And that’s what I learned this summer: to Ask people questions about themselves. I know most of you have been doing this all your life, but I’m only mastering this in my 30s. I don’t love making conversations with people I don’t know well. Asking questions takes some self denial.

Ask the random stranger at the pool or the waitress at Rawhides. Ask the lady at church who was friends with your mother-in-law, and you might hear more about her than she planned to say. Ask the cashier at superstore, because you have half an hour to chat, that’s how many groceries you’re buying. Ask Mel at the drugstore about her cows (Teddy would be so proud of me, right?).  Ask the doctor about her kids because you feel like you know them because they’re friends with your kid; as it turns out, she’s like every other mom and she really likes to talk about them. Ask the mom when you go buy apples from her kid.

 Just ask the question and you might make a friend.

(I did have a lot of opportunity to practice patience, but I don’t think I learned it.)

The Garden after Zenith

The garden after the zenith of the summer, just before fall comes and takes everything, that’s my favourite garden. After one too many winds, the whole corn patch grows horizontally instead of the pious upright rows Little B and Pepperoni used as a hideout last week. And still there is fresh corn daily. The dill, arguably the best of all summer flowers, blooms in cheerful height up somewhere near my chin. 

The tomatoes languish in a huge wilting pile under the garden shed roof just there, keeping company with a mass of black beans, still on their vines, laying on an ancient bedspring awaiting processing. 

In preparation for The First Frost, Little B picks all the peppers off all the plants. Fruitless, in a stately if weedy row, they still grow valiantly against the September gloom. The parsley and basil are also in deep green denial that autumn is here. 

The overachieving zucchini is still zucchining. After having our fill of zucchini for the year we pick its massive overgrown fruit to use as somewhat grotesque fall decor, and still it keeps giving, more and more and more, and even the chickens are weary of eating zucchini for every meal. 

The cilantro, wild growing and abundant, blooms in all the places it shouldn’t. The bees and I take silly delight in its irreverence.

I point out the last red berries hiding in the tangled leaves of the strawberry plants and Little B is excited.

Pumpkins are growing fuller by the hour, the minis turning from yellow blooms to green babies to yellow adolescents to white beauties almost overnight. Mr Spaghetti Squash thinks that because he covers half the garden real estate, some of the grass around and also a few trellises, he now officially owns the place. How do I persuade him that I’m still boss ? I don’t want to offend him, because he inadvertently did a great job protecting the black beans and cabbages from weeds and I might need his descendants to do the same job next year. 

And speaking of attitude. The success of the broccoli has gone to its head. (Pun intended.) If I skip a day of picking it turns its stinky florets into saucy yellow flowers. She’s another over achiever. At this point, she’s standing taller than most of the corn. The more delicate cauliflowers in all their lavender beauty are unfortunately long eaten and all that’s left to remember them by are a stack of wilted green and purple leaves. I miss them. 

One mediocre red cabbage grows alone where used to be a lovely row of them. The deadly moths have gone for the year and seem to have taken the cabbage’s will to grow any bigger along with them. 

And I grow more melancholy as I write. But as a conclusion, I have to present the lettuce. 

I always grow too much lettuce but at the same time never enough. If there’s one thing I want to do better next garden season it’s successively planting lettuce all summer long. Right now I have no fresh lettuce but I still look lovingly at the old purple and green plants that are bitter, flowery and showing their age by refusing to stand up straight and tall and bushy as they did in their youth.  I haven’t spoken to them yet of my half formed uneducated hope to extract some of their seeds for next year’s lettuce crop. (The whimsical arugula flowers are coming to an end nearby and I actually have communicated with them my hope for some seeds.)

Honourable mention: 

1. the root vegetables. I adore you even if you’re not that pretty. 
2. the flowers. You are automatically the stars of the garden. You deserve your own page, one without the mention of practical things like vegetables. 
3. Anything else I failed to mention. spinach, feverfew. The voracious mint. Navy and green beans. My single Persian cucumber plant  -you are my pride and joy. Chives, rhuBarb, Raspberries. Celery. I’m sure there’s more of you. Even unmentioned, you are valuable and  loved for who you are. 

A Small Tribute to “the Toughest Woman I Know”

Mama Mavis. There’s an old saying, you are a different person to everyone. This is who you were to me. 

I learned so much from you. One of the first Sundays after I married your son, I walked into your kitchen wondering how to fit myself into the chaos and you told me to make gravy to go with the mashed potatoes and beef roast. It ended up goopy and lumpy. I dont remember your reaction, but I do remember that the next time you asked me to make gravy you gave me instructions on how to do it correctly and saved me from more gravy embarrassment. You taught me more kitchen things. How to efficiently can millions of jars of green beans. How to saute onions on the lowest imaginable heat to carmelized perfection to top a burger. And speaking of making homemade hamburgers. I learned all I know about those from you too. Most of all, I learned about how to treat people. I learned about feeding the proverbial 5000 even when you only cooked for 3000. I’m not sure if there are any specific tricks you taught me about this other than graciousness and faith. You gave what you had, and no one ever went hungry at your table. Somehow, there was always an extra burger or spoonfull of casserole for the unexpected visitor or the straggler that showed up just as supper was about over. And the unexpected visitors. You might’ve internally stressed and whispered in panic in the kitchen, but to the unexpected visitors you were always kind and calm and gracious. I’m not sure I ever heard you apologize for the horse hoof prints on the dining room floor or the shop grease all over the bathroom sink or the loudness of your very loud kid Teddy. You left your work, gave what you had, and then sat down and chatted among the chaos. It didn’t matter if it was a lonely neighbor or a local d**g dealer or  a government social worker or therapist, or some of your kids’ friends that you really wished weren’t your kids’ friends, everyone was welcomed and respected. The people in your life made your life a drama-packed adventure and even though it was very hard at times you did love it.  You regularly wondered, “what do people with normal lives do for fun / entertainment?” Your life was never boring that was something you liked about it.

Your house was a source of chaotic comfort. When I didn’t want to be home I came over and I was never bored. You always had horses in your house or fires by your chicken coop or thousands of green beans to can or updates on friends and relatives to relay. I could always call you for medical help or ask you child-training advice (which you never gave without being asked). You really were a mother to me, especially as I became a mother myself and I am devastated to be left without a mother nearby.

You gave every bit of yourself to caring for others. Even  tired and sick you were busy worrying about little details of your little boys’ lives. Your generosity and endless unconditional love puts me to shame. I also saw how along with the unconditional love you sometimes had to learn to let go of some of the ones you loved in ways you didn’t want to do, and somehow you found a peace in that too. I have long said that I can never live up to your standards of selfless love and giving. 

Right now I’m trying in the smallest way to fill your shoes caring for your Teddy. I told BigB last night that there were so many instructions you never got to give us. The specific care he needs when he’s sick. Which government contact to communicate with about what need. How to keep him from getting heat stroke on these super hot days. What kind of plan to make with the school for next year. How many buns he’s allowed to eat at supper. He’s the best gift you left behind for us, but I feel so inadequate to care for him. 

You had a way of making each person feel important. You knew the exact detail about our life to ask about, the detail that maybe no one else remembered. You knew how to talk about hard things sometimes, for just long enough that we knew you cared but not long enough to make us want to run the other way. 

 9 years I knew you. only 9. And that’s all I get. I still don’t believe that you’re not coming back.  

Grace in the Fog

A month and a half into this particular tribulation the fog finally starts to lift. I see things more clearly, deal with them with my heart and reasoning brain instead of my fight and flight reflexes. And eat half the mars bar little B and I had bought for Oma for the next time she visits. The end of the day leaves me exhausted but not completely overwhelmed. 7 hours of emergency room waiting doesn’t send me into complete PTSD and walking out of ER with a healthy husband and two living children instead of a dead baby in a tiny box is strangely…healing ? 

I’m able to reflect on the past weeks and I’m surprised  at what I see. Change, not only to life as I know it but to who I am. I was ruled by fear for days until a late night conversation with my husband showed me the complete uselessness of fear; the source of the fear really didn’t completely leave, but I’ve had tools to deal with it in a healthy way.  I have talked on the phone to so many people and I haven’t spontaneously combusted (I’ve been fairly “allergic” to talking on the phone in the past.) Same goes with conversations: I’m getting better at asking the right people the right questions at the right time (some conditions apply). I have marginally more acceptance of where I am right now. It’s almost impossible not to live in the moment with a 4 year old and an 18 year old who is also 4. I have a deeper respect for people who take care of other peoples kids. In the last few months we have had 3 different kids of different Ages staying with us at various times for various reasons and for various amounts of time (the current record being 1 1/2 months and counting)  and it’s truly one of the best and also one of the complex and challenging things I’ve ever chosen to do.

As always a disclaimer. Or three. This is not a comprehensive list because it’s 3 hours past my bedtime and I’m losing my train of thought. Also all growth comes with trial and error. I’ve glossed over the error part in this post. 

April Auroras

You’re supposed to be in my arms tonight as I watch the sky. But you’re not. 

What do the auroras look like from heaven, Little One ?

They must pale in comparison to the Light up there. 

But maybe you’re looking down on their dancing green magic tonight and watching them just like I am.

Knowing you’re safe and happy up there is the saddest happiest thing I know.

As your Big Brother likes to say, Take care of God and Jesus. 

And I hope They remember to tell you how much your mama loves you. 

The Malaise in Between

Existing. 

Mostly just Daily routines: Food, dishes, quiet time, outside time, laundry, cleaning the bathroom floor. 

We talk about things we want to or need to do. 

We mostly don’t do any of those things.  

We spend time with family. 

I make it to sewing, once. 

I don’t back out of galentines. 

We start going to church again regularly. 

Neither me or Big B ever really feels healthy and well. 

Little B remembers how to giggle and does it a lot. 

Friends invite us to their homes. Maube they feel sorry for us.

I tell people that my 3 year old  would have lost both of his parents in the last few months if we didn’t have access to modern medicine. 

Cynicism is a coping mechanism. 

I start drawing for the first time in my life. 

The chickens start laying again as the days get longer. 

I play hockey for the first time in 4 years. 

I don’t accomplish anything significant or interesting or visible. 

This is the malaise in between. In between what ? In between loss and healing. In between the heartbroken autumn and the spring that was supposed to be the happiest spring of our lives but now looms empty. In between the darkness of the past and the unknown of the future. In between. 

In between. 

In between. 

These words are important. This has to be a middle, not a forever, this ambivalence where nothing is horrible, and nothing is fantastic, this Malaise in Between.