My Miracle Year: A Window in Your Heart

(To the left: my dad & mom in a snowy Minnesota) Uff da, again! When it rains, it pours! The day after I got back from Sioux Falls, I got a packet in the mail from my seldom heard from cousin Becky,* who lives in Michigan (and who will be more in touch after reading this :-).

Becky’s mom and dad were seriously into photography (they had their own dark room, very mysterious to me as a child). She had sent me photos of my mom and dad and a couple of my brother and me soon after my mother’s death that I had never seen before.

(To the right: Grandma Schlinsog holding Steve, Becky & me) It was to Becky’s home (her mother was my dad’s youngest sister) in Washington State, that we fled after my mother’s death. My dad’s mother, Grandma Schlinsog, came with to take care of me and the new baby, Steve. Not very happy times. My aunts told me that for months after my mother’s death I kept asking, “Where’s my mommy?” I wonder if anyone ever told me? I think not.

For those who lose parents at a young age, there’s a black hole that never completely heals, is never made entirely whole. Paul Simon, in his song “Graceland” summed it up perfectly:

"And she said losing love

Is like a window in your heart,

Everybody sees you're blown apart,

Everybody sees the wind blow."

Quite a few years ago, I bought a book called "Motherless Daughters: A Legacy of Loss" by Hope Edelman. It sat on a shelf for a long time. I picked it up from time to time, opening it randomly, then I'd put it back on the shelf. Finally, last year I donated it to a library, still unread. Perhaps someone else will get more use of it than did I. Still can't go there...

*Out of my maternal grandmother’s six children, five had girls within eight months of each other; Bonnie (June), me (October), DeVona (November), Becky (January) and Kathy (February). A great example of the American diaspora, we now live in, respectively, Hawaii, California, Minnesota, Michigan and Washington State.

To be continued...

My Miracle Year: Roots

(To the left: Borgund stave church, near Laerdal, largely unchanged until the present day. As long ago as 1721 it was described as ”an old and extraordinarily special stave building.”) So here I am, full of fresh information, getting in touch with my Norwegian-ness. I’ve always joked with people that the Norwegian half is the ‘nice’ half, the other half being German. But, truth be told, I’m actually half German, quarter Norwegian and quarter English (whereas Sandy is three-quarters Norwegian and one quarter English).

I’m a relatively new American. My maternal grandmother, a Butler, was born in Bristol, England; and my paternal grandmother, a Dreckman, in Hanover (Mecklenburg-Strelitz), Germany; each entered the US through Ellis Island, New York.

Both my grandfathers’ fathers came from the Old World. I'd learned from David Husum that the Husoms came from the tiny village of Husum, Norway. My paternal great-grandfather, whose family name waaay back was 'von Harnack,' came from the Mecklenburg area of Germany, Prussian to the core. (All family records were destroyed in the massive Allied firebombing of Dresden during WWll.)

(To the right: the Borgund Vindhella road, near Laerdal, part of the old Konge-vegen (the King`s Road) at the crossroad between East and West, completed around 1748.) Some of this is new knowledge for me. For instance, I learned that my mother’s great-grandfather was still alive when she died in childbirth in 1952. Thomas Einer Husum, born in Borgland, Laerdal, Norway in 1863, died in Long Prairie, Minnesota in 1953, the year after my mother passed away (1952); he is buried in the same plot as she. I find this astounding. I’ve never heard of him before. Uff da!

To be continued...

My Miracle Year: Uff Da

After an all too brief visit to Sioux Falls, I’m back in San Jose, head in a whirl of emotion, elation and story. “Uff da!” (A new Norwegian term I learned from Sandy, it translates as: "I’m overwhelmed," especially for those with Scandinavian roots in the Dakotas and Minnesota.) (To the right: little Minnesota Scandinavians -- me & Steve)

I’m most anxious for my brother to be enveloped in the unconditional love and acceptance I’ve found within our ‘new’ family -- something we never experienced from our father’s side of the family. Shunted from aunt to aunt, then foster home to foster home, we learned early what a 'burden' we were, tolerated for whatever income attached itself to our care.

Rooted in a religion both judgmental and intolerant, my father's family practiced a stoic and dogmatic Northern Scandinavian brand of Calvinism where love and acceptance were luxuries, to be doled out sparingly if at all. In hindsight, I give them the benefit of the doubt; they were not bad people. But they were not very kind to motherless children either. And it didn’t help that my father frequently antagonized them as he had our mother's family.

To be continued...

My Miracle Year: The Girls Together

(To the right: Shirley, me, Sandy - trying to figure out how the camera works!) Ever since my plane landed the day before, Sandy has been trying to contact another cousin of ours, Shirley (daughter of my Uncle Dean and named after my mother) who lives about an hour and a half away but who has been in Minnesota with our cousin Connie over the weekend, going through more old family photos for the upcoming reunion. Both products of our fractured family, Sandy and Shirley have only met recently themselves.

Finally Sandy connects with Shirley (who I only met briefly at my Grandfather’s funeral some 30 years ago when I also spent, maybe, 15 minutes at her house) -- and she says she can stop by Sandy’s on her way home. When she walks into the house it’s like we’ve known each other forever.

How does this happen, I ask myself in amazement. How can it feel so completely comfortable, familiar, ordinary and unexceptional to be with people I really do not know? Except I do. We do.

In minutes, we are into the pictures; in addition to the ones that Sandy and I have been pouring over -- some I brought, some she has – Shirley has more. We swing between laughter and tears. We all find ourselves correcting long-held erroneous information.

Like I had always thought my Uncles Harlen and Neil were twins; I learn they are not (!!). (Did my dad refer to them as ‘twins’ because they were ‘joined at the hip’? They did marry sisters. And they did keep somewhat apart from the rest of the family.) Other pictures thought to be Sandy are me, and vice versa. Some pictures have long been unidentifiable -- but now at least one of us can identify who’s who.

Some of Sandy’s friends come by as we’re seated around the table. More laughter. More tears. She and they have been there for each other. In some ways cursed, in some ways Sandy is very blessed.

To be continued...

My Miracle Year: How to Be a Mom

A sunny Sunday morning in Sioux Falls (a good song title?), my Saint Sandy gets a rare treat. Because I am in town, she and I get to visit her beautiful young daughter Kathleen, with whom she is estranged, and her beloved 3-year old grandson, Julian (Daddy is at work).

Kathleen is a lovely girl – and obviously a loving caring young mother. Julian, once he gets over his shyness, acts like the 3-year old he is. When his mother leaves the room for a moment, he lifts his leg, spreads his little butt cheeks…and farts, then gives a big laugh.

The visit is bittersweet, but afterwards it feels like at least one brick has been removed from the defensive wall. It’s a long story, a rupture in the family fabric that goes back years. In fact it’s true origin goes back to when Kathleen was five years old and her father left the family on Christmas Day, saying as he slammed the door, “I’m not the problem, all of you are.”

Anger, angst and abandonment; that’s the legacy of Sandy’s ex.

Although she doesn’t recognize it until I point it out, Sandy’s biggest legacy has been on display today. “Who do you think taught Kathleen how to be such a good mom?” I ask Sandy as we leave. "That may be the biggest gift a mother can bestow." Sandy finally smiles.

To be continued...

My Miracle Year: Saint Sandy

(To the right: from left, my dad, me, Grandma Husom [the only pic I've seen with her holding me], Great Grandma Butler, Sandy, Great Grandpa Butler, sometime after my mother died) Saint Sandy. That’s what I’m calling her. The most purely good person I’ve ever met. Sandy has turned a lifetime of one bad experience after another into a heartwarming chicken soup for the soul, one that’s nourishing, satisfying and wholesome in the best Mid-West tradition. Big surprise that she’s a fabulous cook and baker. Sandy’s mission is to nourish.

So, no blogging, just talking for 3 ½ days…talking until we are hoarse and dry as we share with one other, trying to cram in the most important experiences of our past 55 years. As I listen to Sandy’s stories, I don’t think she’s ever done or said the wrong thing. The lone adult in a 'Disneyland for Adults' country of immediate gratification and win/lose, Sandy always has her eye on the long-term goal, not the quick reaction or retort. She’s an adult in the most fulsome sense of the word.

Abandoned by a mother who for whatever reason, chose a new husband over an inconvenient child, then kidnapped at the age of six by a father she had never seen before, Sandy survives. She survives brutal beatings and attempted sexual assaults by a father who’s a respected deacon in the local Lutheran church, family upfront and center every Sunday; loves a new grandmother who she finds out years later encouraged her father to beat her mother when she was pregnant with Sandy – because no one was good enough for her son.

But the heart of Sandy’s stories is her experience of being a mom -- and too soon a single mom -- raising three good children on very little besides unconditional love, undivided attention, a vivid and playful imagination and the Norwegian pioneer spirit. Some stories are heartwarming, others bone chilling; she now has grandchildren she’s allowed to see only rarely. But through it all, she builds a life in which others are the center, never herself.

To be continued…

My Miracle Year: Savoring Every Moment

So here I am, in San Jose (up at 3:45am this morning!), about to board my 6am flight to Sioux Falls, SD. In approximately 5 hours, Sandy and I will meet once again.

When I asked one of my BFF’s “ how are Sandy and I going to recognize each other?” she just laughed and said, “Oh, everyone will know you’re the California girl.”

I already know what kind of reception I’ll be getting.

In my early 20’s, I spent 2 days in Minnesota, attending my grandfather’s funeral. I don’t remember a lot, mostly the unprotected wind-swept cold of a Minnesota November day as he was laid to rest in Bearhead Cemetary (where my mother is also buried) and the blur of many unfamiliar faces – Husom family and friends -- as I tried to come to grips with the fact that my grandfather, whom I hadn’t seen since I was 11, had been killed in a tractor accident two days before my scheduled visit.

Nonetheless, what I do remember is that I was treated as though I had just descended from heaven for a visit. I was overwhelmed…and at the time not appreciative enough. My father had raised very unsentimental children.

This time I will savor every single moment.

To be continued…