A Valentine’s Day Story — Changes in Altitudes

Dear Steven;

     Happy post Valentine’s Day! I’m sorry I have not written in awhile.

     Dad and I “celebrated” Valentine’s Day in Copper Mountain, CO. Dad was out there skiing earlier in the week. Even though (as you and the world knows*) I do not ski, I could not stand the thought of not spending Valentine’s Day with your father and thought it would be so very romantic to meet him for the weekend.

    Let me tell you a little about altitude sickness…

    According to Wikipedia, also known as acute mountain sickness (AMS), altitude illness, hypobaropathy, "the altitude bends", or soroche—is a pathological effect of high altitude on humans, caused by acute exposure to low partial pressure of oxygen at high altitude. It commonly occurs above 2,400 m (8,000 ft).  Frisco, where we stayed is 2,766 m (9,075 ft) above sea level. Although, it must have been at least 5,000 m everywhere that I stood according to how I felt.

    It is caused by reduced amount of oxygen available and dehydration due to the higher rate of water vapor lost from the lungs at higher altitudes. People have different susceptibilities to altitude sickness; for some otherwise healthy people, acute altitude sickness can begin to appear at around 2000 meters (6,500 ft) above sea level.

• Lack of appetite, nausea, or vomiting
• Fatigue or weakness
• Dizziness or lightheadedness
• Insomnia
• Headaches
• Shortness of breath upon exertion
• Nosebleed
• Persistent rapid pulse
• Drowsiness
• Excessive flatulation
• General malaise
• Peripheral edema (swelling of hands, feet, and face)

     I had 9 of the possible 12 symptoms. Acute mountain sickness can progress to high altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE) or high altitude cerebral edema (HACE), which are potentially fatal… or it just makes you wish you were dead.

     As I lay there on my deathbed in the quaint Hotel Frisco, I urged your father to go on without me. “Just pretend that I am not here. Let me die, knowing that I have had a good life with you.” 

     Gently, Dad kisses me, and I whisper to him, “Don’t kiss me, I may throw up.”

     Dad spent the weekend serving me soup and toast that I did not eat, listening to me have repeated conversations with porcelain fixtures and allowing me to wallow in self-pity and lamentations worthy of Job himself.

    This must be what “worse” in “For better or for worse” means because it surely couldn't get much worse than this.

     One would think I should have learned by now, that I AM the “delicate hot-house orchid” that Dad calls me, and to stay within 100-m elevations. And that I should never visit Colorado again. *Remember http://dear-steven.blogspot.com/2010_03_01_archive.html.

This was not the Valentine’s weekend that I had planned. But I received more love and tender care in this one weekend than many receive in their lifetimes. And Valentine’s Day is all about love, is it not?

     I love you, Steven. And I love your father. Very much.

Love,

Mom

Goodbye Mummy. I love you.

Patricia Chan

September 7, 1939 - September 11, 2011

Patricia Chan, 72, of Mason, died in the early morning of September 11, 2011 of cancer. Patricia was very active with senior citizens and prayer groups of St. Susanna Church in Mason and an enthusiastic volunteer at the community center. Her warm smile and caring concern for the seniors in Mason will be missed. She was preceded in death by her husband Peter C.F. Liew and survived by her children Mary Jacqué (Dave), Susan Giovengo, Leonard (Siew Peng), Peter (Siew Chin) and Paul (June) Liew, grandchildren Steven Jacqué, Denise, Amanda, Alicia, Kristie and Jason Liew.

Dear Steven,

My mother died. We watched her cancer devour her spirit and gradually suck all life out. There are no words to describe the pain of someone watching her mother die. How hard we prayed: "Dear God, if you are not going to cure her, please take her now. For mercy's sake, please take her now." How does one wish death upon one's mother?

The last few days have been a surreal blur. What flowers would you like? What color casket? Should there be 50 prayer cards printed or 75? Where will the reception be? Will she be buried or will she be cremated? So many meaningless questions ...

What difference would all this make?

My mother was beautiful. She was a dancing queen, the belle of many a party in her day. She married my father at a young age. She had 5 children by the time she was 26. She raised your Auntie Sue, Uncle Leonard, Uncle Peter, Uncle Paul and me with tough love. She instilled in us, with disciplined certainty, compassion, assiduousness and spiritual strength. She made sure that we knew God.

All 5 of us had to attend 5:30 a.m. mass every day before school. We (at least I did) swallowed our soft-boiled eggs (yuck) whole to minimize the taste, and washed it down with warm milk (yuck again.) This was our breakfast. Then we would cram into my mother's small Mazda with school bags and all. It must be more sanctifying to worship God half-asleep making tortured efforts to pay attention to the priest's holy dronings. But we got to know God. We learned God's grace and goodness through sleep deprivation and my mother's relentless persistence.

Even as a young girl, I marveled at my mother's beauty. I would watch her put on her make-up, pick out the right outfit to wear and make sure that her hair was just right. We did not have much money. My mother sewed most of her own clothes and those for Auntie Sue and me. We always looked good. My mother was a vain woman. And proud of it! She always looked like she stepped out of a fashion magazine. She even took 2nd place in some beauty pageant when she was younger. People who didn't know us always thought that we were sisters instead of mother and daughter.

My mother was an excellent cook. I regret that I did not inherit this talent from her, but Uncle Peter and Uncle Paul did. She used to whip up the most amazing meals: rendangs, chow-fun, flying steaks and mouth-watering curries so spicy that my father would be drenched in sweat and nasal drippings eating it; all the while smacking his lips and nodding sated approval. Being very frugal, she was adverse to waste of any kind. She would recycle unpalatable leftovers that we wouldn't eat, to brand-new feasts that we unknowingly inhaled with voracious appetites.

Her culinary skills were shared by many more than immediate family. My mother always encouraged our friends to play at our house when we were younger. I think that this was her very sneaky way to keep close tabs on the 5 of us and who our friends were. Friends loved to be at our house because my mother would feed them well. She continued to cook for our friends even when we were grown. My mother lived with Auntie Sue, so all of Auntie Sue's friends got to know her. My mother "adopted" most of them, and lovingly cooked for them too.

My mother also taught us to respect our elders. My great-grandmother and grandmother lived with us. We learned to take care of them by my mother's example and instruction. For most of her life, my mother volunteered at different organizations to help the elderly. She chauffeured them to church and doctor visits, she held their hands in hospice, she prayed with them. She was their angel and their friend.

My mother taught us that life is not always fair. That we make our own fates and our own futures. She taught us independence and self-reliance. She taught us compassion for others. She taught us how to love unconditionally.

I will always be grateful for all these gifts. And I will miss her.

Love,
Mom

Happy Belated Birthday Eesok

Dutch-oom
French-oncle
German-Onkel
Greek-θείος
Italian-zio
Portuguese/spanish-tío
Russian-дядюшка
Cantonese-Sok

Dear Steven;

   I would like to think that Dad and I have been good influences in your life. It is so very important that you have people that you look up to, people you know who love and support you, people who have made an impact on the shape of the mold that formed you.

   Let me tell you about your Eesok-kung, my Eesok... a major diecasting element in my life.

   Eesok means "2nd Uncle" in Cantonese. He is my father's brother, not to be confused with Eefu which means "2nd Uncle (mother's brother)" Eesok-kung is therefore, your great-uncle on your maternal paternal side. And yes, he is a GREAT uncle.

   My earliest memories of Eesok are with his old black bicycle. Eesok used to ride to our house from his house on his rickety one-speed black bicycle. He was a college student living with his parents. He perched me atop the support bar and together, we rode back to my grand-parents' house. And there, he created a wonderland playground for an enthralled young child. We drew faces on our thumbs and had "finger and thumb" conversations. He taught me how to rub my head with one hand in one direction and my tummy with my other hand in the other direction at the same time. And when you listened carefully to his tummy, you would discover a whole new alien world where they spoke in growls and clicks and musical rumblings and hysterical burps. We laughed at each other's stories and jokes. We played word games. My favourite were homophones: words that sound alike but differ in meaning, e.g. son vs. sun, hair vs. hare, pray vs. prey... you get the idea.

   In later years, your Auntie Sue and Uncle Leonard were also included in these special Eesok outings. He graduated with an engineering degree and started a successful career working for George Kent (Malaysia ) Berhad. He shared his newfound affluence with us. Our special outings together now included trips to A&W for foot-long hot dogs and root beer floats. And every outing almost always ended with a trip to the convenience store to buy Beano and Dandy comic books and Smarties chocolate candy before he took us home.

   Eesok loves to read and subsequently nurtured my love for reading. He must have bought us hundreds of books: Enid Blyton's Famous Five and The Magic Faraway Tree series were my favourites, followed closely by the Nancy Drew series. I must have read every one of them, thanks to Eesok. In my teenage years, I started to read his hand-me-downs. I think I read Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls when I was 14 or 15; the story of three young women who embark on careers that bring them to the dizzying heights of fame and eventual self-destruction with sex, drugs and alcohol. Not entirely appropriate teenage reading material. But I also read works of the "Great Ones"... Alex Haley, Pearl S. Buck and John Steinbeck. All because Eesok had read them.

  I so wish that you had the opportunity to get to know your Eesok-kung. I wish that he and I were not so geographically inaccessible to each other. I miss him. I miss his dry humor. And his ready laugh. And his ability to make me laugh.

  But I can raise my glass of Cabernet and wish him well... Happy Birthday Eesok. May you have many many happy years ahead of you. Thank you for the many many happy years that I had because of you.

   So dear Steven, I hope you find your own "Eesok." We all need one to love and to look up to.

Love,
Mom

Humanity Thanks

From: Steven Jacque

Date: Mon, Oct 25, 2010 at 12:07 AM
Subject: Humanity's Thanks


Thank you all for your generous donations to habitat in light of the Bucket 100! This lovely 120(!) mile ride through rural Indiana was to make sure habitat for humanity can afford to give homes to those in need. Altogether we raised $500 out of a little over $4000 in total. There were 22 people in total riding this year. All in all, 12.5% contribution is a great turn out, thanks!

Anybody interested in the contents of the trip should keep reading.

The starting point of the ride resided in the inferior* Indiana University where 22 riders would meet. The students from Purdue, including yours truly, were bused down to IU's campus the day before where we would spend the night in a church. However due to miscommunications the church was locked for the night by the time we got there. This was discovered after the bus left. We got into contact with members of the student body who were very apologetic about our predicament and offered their student body house as lodging... 2 miles from the church. ~15 students and no bus, we restored to the best option: the moving van. We hopped in the back an took a blind ride through campus.

The next morning we rolled up our sleeping bags and headed for the starting point. Everyone else drove in that morning and gathered for the introductions/safety/how-to shpeals. Soon the police drove up and escorted us through campus as we began. We left behind IU quickly through a bit of forest and hills (who knew Indiana had elevation?) and hit the flattest stretch of road anywhere.

Most of the group quickly took off zooming on their mutant seasoned biker legging and souped up bikes leaving slower group, including me, behind. About an hour in we hit an Orchard with a big sign out front advertising fresh apple cider. There was no way we could pass that up.

The rest of the trip was considerably less interesting. Just flat farmland with corn, soybeans, more corn and cows.

Oh hey! A post office!

More farmland.



After what seemed like an excruciating 120 miles we reached our destination: Danville High School. The halfway point. A whole 60 miles between us and Purdue still remained.



ARRRGH



We rested for the evening and set out in the morning.

60 miles into the wind later, we puffed up chaucy Hill, the last hill. Finally the end was in sight. After the grueling ride I was ready to get some food. However once we arrived organizers of the event greeted us but no food. Oh well, at least it was over.

Thank you all again.

-Steven Jacque

*IU might not be inferior it's just a requirement for a Purdue student

Happy Birthday Steven

• Wait at least 1 hour after you eat before going swimming to avoid cramps. 
• Do not eat celery leaves, they will make you deaf.
• Do not drink alcohol when you eat durians, you will die.
• Do not part your hair in the middle during a thunderstorm; lightning will strike you and split your head in 2.
• Finish all the rice on your plate. Every grain that you leave becomes a blemish on your future spouse's face.
• Do not eat standing up. You will get fat feet.
• Boys should not eat eggs that have been left overnight. "Something somewhere" will grow very large.

— Things my great-grandmother taught me.

 Happy Birthday, dear Steven;

    With every one of your birthdays that we celebrate, I worry more about time slipping away. I am afraid that we have not had enough time to tell you everything that we should or want to. Have we taught you everything that you need to know?


Lesson 1- Crossing the Road:

You used to hold your hand out to me when we were getting ready to cross a street. "Mama, we have to hold hands!"  

And then, we would look left, and right, and left again with much enthusiasm and gusto, before you ran across pulling me behind you.

Lesson 2- Economics:

When the country was going into dire economic straits,morning news on the radio on the way to pre-school was usually grim. "What does recession mean, Daddy?", you asked from your car seat in the back.

Daddy painstakingly explained global economics, the gross national product and unemployment to you. Never mind that you lay awake the next 4 nights worrying about the eventuality of losing our house if Daddy lost his job.

No Steven, Daddy is not going to lose his job.
No, we are not going to be homeless even if he does.
No, you do not have to go find a job yet... maybe after you're done with kindergarten.

Lesson 3- The Art of Negotiation:

"Mama, can I have a cookie and watch t.v.?"
"No, Steven. It's too close to dinner-time."
"Can I just watch t.v. then?"
"No, Steven. we're going to sit down to eat soon."
"Pleeeeeeze, Mama??"
"Didn't Daddy tell you no already?"
"Yes." "But Mama, YOU are the boss of this house."

Lesson 4- Genealogy:

You discovered the bony ridge that is on top of your skull. It is the same bony ridge that Dad and your great-grandmother have on their heads. We told you that it came from the Klingon part of the family. You believed that you were part-German, part-Chinese and part-Klingon for many years.

Lesson 5- Birds, Bees and Special Hugs:

"Where do babies come from, Daddy?" This was another one of the hundreds of profound questions you used to ask at bed-time right after you were tucked in.


"Well, Steven..." as panic raced through Dad's brain. In a stroke of perceived genius, Dad remembered a conversation with his boss regarding a similar situation with his children and he chose to borrow the response. "... children are made when daddies and mommies give each other a very special hug."

Phewww... an awkward moment averted?!! Oh, if only...

You asked me a couple of bedtimes later, if we were giving each other special hugs at mass, when the priest asks that we offer each other a sign of peace

No Steven, people are not making babies in church during mass.

   There are so many more lessons that we have taught you. And yet, there are still so many more lessons to learn.

   Perhaps the most important lesson that we have learnt is that you will grow up no matter what lesson we try to teach you. You will grow and learn that some lessons are more important than others. You will learn your own lessons.

   We can only hope that we teach you enough to recognize a lesson when it presents itself, and to know how to apply lessons learnt with wisdom and sagacity. If nothing else, we know that you know how to cross a street. And that it is very expensive to go visit our Klingon home world.

Have a happy, happy birthday, Munchkin!

Love,
Mom and Dad

Malaysian Curling Team

Curling

From Wikipedia

Team members 4 per team (2 in Mixed Doubles)

Olympic 1924 (Retroactively made official in 2006).
Officially added in 1998.

Curling is a team sport in which stones are slid across a sheet of carefully prepared ice towards a target area. It is related to bowls, boule and shuffleboard. Players sweep the ice vigorously with brooms to manipulate the trajectory of the stones.
Two teams, each of four players, take turns sliding heavy, polished granite stones across the ice curling sheet towards the house, a circular target marked on the ice. Each team has eight stones. The purpose is to accumulate the highest score for a game, points being scored for the stones resting closest to the centre of the house at the conclusion of each end, which is completed when both teams have thrown all of their stones.

Dear Steven;

    Did you watch the recent Winter Olympics held in Vancouver?

    Dad and I did, and one thing was certain. Malaysia was way under-represented. In fact, Malaysia has never participated in the Winter Olympics! And being in an equatorial tropical region of earth is poor excuse for this blatant shortcoming. I feel a nationalistic need to rectify this situation. I think that I will start a Malaysian curling team for the 2014 Winter Olympics.

    I did not come to this conclusion lightly. Do you remember our ill-fated ski vacation in Breckenridge, CO? Remember how I took ski lessons and relentlessly practiced going up the bunny hill with the rope tow? I looked so snazzy in your old snowsuit that you had outgrown and handed down to me. Step aside, Lindsey Vonn... here comes Steven's hot snow-vixen mama! Bet Lindsey never flopped around on the ground as alluringly as I did.

    At the end of the lesson, Dad deemed that we were ready for the "Green Circle" slopes. I understood that Green Circle means the easiest slopes on a mountain. Green Circle trails are generally wide and groomed, typically with slope gradients ranging from 6% to 25%. However, Green Circle in Breckenridge apparently means "Place for flatlander snow-vixens to die."

    The nightmare began with the dismounting off the chairlift. Auntie Sue assured me that even veteran skiers fell off the chair face-first and ate snow. Then I waddled like the proverbial duck with oversized long skinny planks duct-taped to its feet, to the the start of the "Green Circle" trail. Small children were zipping around me on their miniature skis with no poles. I'm quite sure that they were midget offspring of mountain norsemen and yetis.

    I planted my poles and dug the edges of my skis into the white snow. And I fell. I stood up perpendicular to the mountain's fall-line like the ski pro told me. And I fell. I stood up again. And this time, I slid backwards down the mountain. And then, I fell. I wedged my skis, and I fell. I snow-plowed, and I fell. I finally stayed down, and begged tearfully to be left to die alone. "Go without me. I will only slow you down. Let me slide down this mountain on my butt. Maybe I will meet you at the bottom in 2 days. Maybe I won't make it. But I love you all."

    Thankfully, Auntie Sue managed to flag down a rescue snowmobile during my heroic gesturings.

    So you see why skiing is out of the question for my Olympic debut in 2014. And I suspect that with my lack of agility and coordination, figure skating would also be out of the question. But I do know how to use a broom! I have years of experience sweeping and cleaning. And I have experience looking stupid. Which leads us to curling! All I need is to find 3 other Malaysians to complete the team, and a very warm sweater. Dad is totally supportive of this noble venture.


Wish me luck.


Love,
Mom and Dad

Bread and Butter

"You are the butter to my bread, breath of my life."
— Paul Child to his wife Julia, in the movie, Julie and Julia

Dear Steven,
     Happy Valentine's Day. It is a day for flowers and whispers of sweet nothings. It is a day for romance and twitterpating. It is a day dedicated to love. This seems like a good time to tell you about how Dad and I met, how you eventually came to be.

     Dad and I met at the Baptist Student Center cafeteria in Carbondale. Dad worked there as a dish-washer and I dished out the (sometimes recognizable) fare that the cafeteria offered. It was a late Sunday morning in January after the breakfast shift.

     I was pouring myself a cup of coffee. It was one of those industrial coffee dispensers with a spigot and a drain hole at the bottom to catch spills. I noticed the scruffy dish-washer, badly in need of a shower and a haircut, wearing a plaid fleece shirt over a worn T-shirt, waiting next to me.

     I had arrived just weeks ago: a Malaysian girl who had never been out of her zip code by herself, who had always been chauffeured and chaperoned everywhere; a well-coddled tropical princess who was displaced 10,000 miles and 13 time zones away, very homesick and very cold. I was happy to have the cafeteria job. It brought in pocket-money and it kept me from weeping in my dorm room wondering why I was sent to this god-forsaken country instead of England or Australia where all my friends went.

"Coffee?", I ask.  He grunts a guttural sound and hands me his coffee mug, and I pour.

     I find out much later that Dad was suffering a well-deserved hangover. To his credit, he graciously sat with me, nursed his coffee, and made very small conversation.


     And that was it. No fireworks, no cardiac aerobics, no love at first sight. I was not looking for love. I was looking to get my higher education done in the shortest possible time so that I could go back home to my coddled life... where the boys were not so scruffy-looking and were better groomed... my best-laid plan.


     But your father has magical powers of persuasion. He charmed me with plush stuffed green frogs, ginger snaps in my mailbox, kite-flying afternoons and meteor-hunting nights. He introduced me to the constellation Orion, the Pleiades star cluster, water elephants, haikus, Booby's sandwiches and vodka. He brought poetry and Led Zepellin and Nietzsche into my ordered life. Nietzsche who? He made my small world bigger and scarier, but oh, so much more fun. He makes me laugh.

     And he made the Disco Queen fall in love with a grassroot member of Insane Coho Lips. Pretty insane, huh?!?

     
     I know that this is not the world's greatest love story. It may not even be a good story, but it is our story. We gladly share this with you until you have one of your own.


Love,
Mom and Dad

Not Worth My Salt

Ice forms when the­ temperature of water reaches 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees Celsius). When you add salt, that temperature drops: A 10-percent salt solution freezes at 20 F (-6 C), and a 20-percent solution freezes at 2 F (-16 C). On a roadway, this means that if you sprinkle salt on the ice, you can melt it. The salt dissolves into the liquid water in the ice and lowers its freezing point.

Dear Steven;

     It is winter in Chicago. We have had snowstorms, ice-storms, freezing rain and sleet in the past week or so. With each precipitation, the city is obliged to salt the roads in mass quantities. When the snow melts, we have our very own Dead Sea on 75th Street. Consequently, my normally Barcelona-red Toyota Camry became a splotchy classic Chicago Middle-of-Winter-Dirty-Salt white. It was time for a car-wash.

     I pulled into one of those car-wash places in a gas station. I slid my credit card into the credit card slot. Lights flashed and (I swear) Orson Welles spoke from the speaker next to the credit card slot and apologetically informed me that the credit card slot was not working, and suggested using cash instead. I should have recognized this as a bad sign.

     I pulled out $9 for the Deluxe Works Wash with the Undercarriage shower. After I fed $7 into the cash slot, lights flashed again and Orson congratulated me for choosing the Express wash, and would I like to add more cash for a different wash?

     Yes I would, Orson, I want the Deluxe $9 wash, not the Express! I fed 2 more dollars into the slot... and nothing happened!

     The lying, cheating Orson Welles impersonating machine ate my first $7 and was now waiting for more money. Since I was in a relatively amiable mood with time to burn (Dad was out with his office-mates) I fed my last $5 into the lying, cheating Orson Welles impersonating machine for the less-desired Express wash.

     The robotic arm came around and sprayed my car with tri-colored soapy foam on one side, whirred around the corner and sprayed the other side. We soaked comfortably for a few moments while I listened to some old-fashioned love song on the radio. Then the arm came around with the Armor All spiked rinsing spray cycle. I watched the salt cleansed away on the one side, as the robotic arm whirred around the corner. And it stopped.

     I drove up to the cashier's kiosk in my dripping half-washed, half-foamed car. I calmly explained to the cashier that his lying, cheating machine stole $14 from me and what was he going to do about it? He offered to give me a "free" $9-wash.

"No, no, no, you don't understand. I already paid $14 for this mess."

"Okay, okay. I give you free wash AND refund."

     Somewhat placated, I drove back into the lying, cheating machine. My car is covered again with tri-colored soapy foam. And I waited for the déjà vu rinse cycle.

     And I waited. And waited.

      After interminable moments, I thought to start my wipers so that I could see. Mr. Cashier was waving me to drive out. Apparently, the car wash was not working.

No shit, Sherlock!

     So now, I have a salty AND tri-colored foamed car. It looks like it's been covered with frozen poop from a flock of diarrhea-infected sea-gulls.

     Ahh... the joys of living in Chicago.

     Put on an extra sweater, my son. Keep warm.

Love,
Mom

Resolutions

Dear Steven,

It's time to take the Christmas tree down.

As I put each ornament away in its resting place for another year, I ponder all the New Year's resolutions that I should make. Resolutions that I make each year and then ignore by Martin Luther King's weekend holiday.

Perhaps I should just review our year that we've had, and be grateful for all that we've celebrated, rejoiced and endured. Looking back at the very busy year, one clear thought surfaces...

"We are so very blessed."

Firstly, we have you... our reason for the sun's rising and setting every glorious day. We have our very loving family and friends: People who laugh with us and cry with us, people who call just to say "Hey", people who break into doctors' offices on a Sunday afternoon to get us necessary blood tests (this story will have to wait till another post.)

Sometimes, I think that we have a lot more blessings than we deserve. But I am very thankful.

• January — Celebrated Chinese New Year in Cincinnati.
• February — Mr. Dick had very successful heart surgery.
• March — Found that my cholesterol has dropped below lethal levels.
• April — Celebrated Uncle George's 60th birthday
• May — You started your summer internship at Argonne.
• June — Rode our bikes in the glorious treacherous mountainous roads of Kentucky.
• July — Uncle Peter and his family emigrated from Malaysia
• August — Celebrated Merdeka Day (Malaysian Independence) with the Chicago Malaysian Club
• September — Celebrated Por-Por's 70th birthday in Disney World.
• October — Watched Northwestern beat Purdue
• November — Nanny moved to an assisted living facility
• December — Christmas with the family

So, I resolve not to make any new resolutions. I will just try to make good on previous resolutions made.

I resolve to fret less and to laugh more.
I resolve to love and not worry if I am loved back.
I resolve to leave things alone... I cannot fix everything.

I resolve to always love you.

Love,
Mom and Dad

2010

New Year's here and now,
Resolutions are made and
Yet to be resolved

To speak less often
To listen better and more
In order to hear

To change what I can
To not change what I can not
To just let it be

Love with all I am
Free and unconditional
No expectations

Lofty heights to reach
Eleven and half months left
Same again next year?

Christmas Magic

Dear Steven;

It was wonderful having your cousins here for Christmas. Santa has not visited our house in the last few years. You know he only has time to stop in houses where there are children.

Alicia and especially Denise, were skeptical. When we put out the kolachke and the chocolate chip cookie next to his glass of milk, Alicia asked if Santa would really eat them. I told her that it depended on how many cookies and glasses of milk he'd already had before reaching our house. She let out a heavy sigh, and with heavy weight falling on 11-year old shoulders, said, "He's not real. They won't get eaten."

It broke my heart to see such anticipated disappointment.

You used to love Christmas. You dutifully wrote your letter to Santa, politely stating your one gift request. Yes, always only one request... but one, usually expensive, request. You wrote your first letter when you were about 5, asking Santa for the Fisher-Price 3-In-1 pool table. Dad and I tried to reason with you.

"Steven, the pool table is really expensive." It cost $299.99.
"Santa will bring it." you answered confidently.
"But what if he doesn't? It may be too expensive."
"Santa is magic, Mama. Of course he will bring it."

Guess what? Santa did bring us the Fisher-Price 3-In-1 pool table that year.

Then, do you remember the year that you wanted a printer for your computer? You were about 8. Weeks before Christmas, you measured the opening from the chimney to the fireplace to make sure that the printer box would fit down the chimney. And it did. Santa is magic, Mama.

To my relief and dismay, on Christmas morning, there were sooty ashy boot-prints all over the family room leading from the fireplace. Auntie Sue was yelling, "He came, he came. Come see." The girls ran in and saw packages - one simply labeled "Denise" and the other labeled "Alicia." They both looked at me and Alicia said, "He didn't finish his milk, but he ate all the chocolate chip cookie and half the kolachke."

Denise just stared at her package with reluctant wonder. Her 13-year-old very intelligent brain was at odds with her 13-year-old heart that desperately wanted to believe.

The rest of Christmas morning was a blur of  ripped wrapping paper and bows. Those presents were insignificant. They paled next to the stuffed tiger Alicia clung to all day... the one Santa brought. Santa came to our house again this Christmas, Steven. And like all his other visits before this, he left much more than presents. Santa is magic, Mama.

I hope you had a nice Christmas too, Steven. I wish you Santa's magic this Christmas, and for all Christmases to come and for the days in between. In these troubling times of humanity's inhumanity toward one another, we could all use some Santa magic.

Santa is magic, my son. Santa is magic.

Love,
Mom and Dad

Giving Thanks

Dear Steven,

We had another successful Thanksgiving celebration. When I looked around the dinner table, laden with enough food to feed a small starving 3rd world nation, my head is filled with the usual obligatory cliché things that we should be thankful for... family and friends, health, blah, blah, blah. I am so very tired.

Your great-grandmother will be moving into an assisted living facility soon. This is the right thing to do and the right time. The house is just not safe or comfortable for her anymore. She will be happier where there will be other people for her to talk to and activities to do. She will be well cared for. She will get 3 delicious meals a day. This is the right thing to do and the right time. This is what we tell ourselves. This is the right thing to do.

Guilt is a funny thing. Logic tells us one thing while an annoying voice buzzes contradictory, reproving tongue-clucking admonitions in our brains. We are so very selfish.

And then I realize that we really are selfish... and greedy. She helped you grow into the man that you are... a very fine man. We will miss the years that the two of you would play card games that you made up, after school. Years of pumpkin pies that you helped her make. Years of report cards and shadow boxes and hugs and kisses. Years of blankie mendings. She and you have always had such a special bond. She has been part of most of your happy years. I guess we just want those years to go on forever.

But there is a natural progression in life. And we must make new happy memories with new changes. Change is inevitable. Change is good.
A wise young man told me, "Stop finding flaws in my logic in order to further your point against yourself." And so I will.

Always hopeful, yet discontent.
He knows changes aren't permanent.
But change is.
- Rush "Tom Sawyer"

I rethink our blessings.

We are thankful for our health. We are thankful that we have enough to eat and enough to share. We are thankful that we have family and friends to share with. We are thankful for all the years that we have had with many happy memories, and all the happy years that have yet to come. For all these and more, we give thanks.

Happy Thanksgiving, Son.

Love,
Mom and Dad

My Morning with Max

grand (grānd) –adjective
stately, majestic, or dignified
magnificent or splendid
noble or revered
of great importance, distinction
princely, regal, royal, exalted

grandmother (grānd'mŭth'ər) – noun
The mother of one's father or mother.
A female ancestor.

Dear Steven,

It was Grand Friends Day at Kingsley today. Yes, it must have changed from Grandparents Day, to include children who do not have grandparents who could attend. When I was invited to go, I was extremely flattered but with trepidation. There was an ominous voice faintly taunting menacingly in the back of my head. Am I really old enough? Do I really appear old enough? Omg, do I look old?

Have I joined the ranks of female ancestors already.

I walked in with my very excited and proud escort. The pictures and signs have changed but the halls welcomed me with familiar smells and reminders of long-ago teacher conferences, cake walks, book fairs, assemblies and holiday recitals. Do you remember them?

We were warmly greeted by Max's teacher. The classroom was adorned with kaleidoscopic flying paper turkeys. It was a sun-shiny day and the classroom was especially bright and cheery. There was palpable enthusiastic anticipation as grandparents and grand friends filed in with their excited kindergarteners.

We hung our jackets in our cubbies. We found our seats and placed our pencil cases neatly on our desks. We recited the Pledge of Allegiance with our right hands over our hearts. And then, we took turns at the Smart-Board.

The Smart-Board is a white-board touch-screen computer monitor. It could have come right out of some futuristic Star Trek episode. All the students' names were "written" (projected) on one side of the board, underneath a graphic of a home. Each student stepped up, identified and touched his or her name and then, "dragged" it to the other side, underneath the graphic of a school building.

This is how attendance is taken in the future. And the future is now. No longer do our children passively sit and politely respond "here," when their names are called. They participate, they partake, they are engaged... they shout, “WE ARE HERE!” Max and you, dear son, are our propitious future. Lucky us.

And the time just flew. We read. We counted. We did puzzles. We had circle-time. And there was a rousing rendition of "Tu-ti-ta-ta." Since this was a grand-friend-inclusive activity, geriatric gymnastic gyrations were necessary in order to keep up with the class.

I also got a very personalized tour of the school. At the end of the tour, Max reluctantly gave me a quick hug and kiss goodbye, under the watchful eyes of his class-mates— "this is so uncool!"

I am so very happy to have attended Grand Friends Day. I am privileged to be Max's grand friend. I do feel magnificent and exalted and of great importance. Mostly, I feel loved.

In time, may fortune smile at me so that I may meet your children and proudly claim my role as female ancestor.

Love,

Mom

God also lives in Illinois

Dear Son,


Dad and I rode an 18-wheeler today... 2 wheels at a time.

The Sunday Riders started out with 9 bikes today. You remember that this is the gang that we joined 3 seasons ago. Dad and I look forward to good weather each week so that we can "get on our bikes and ride!" This is what gets us through the weekly drudgery that we endure for the necessary paycheck.

It was a glorious fall day ... sixties and sunny. As we headed west, love songs and hymns caroled in my head. I could feel undulations and vibrations from the road, from beneath the soles of my boots up to the depths of my soul. I was cruising effortlessly up to 90 mph with my newly installed windshield, thanks to your wonderful father. Does it ever get better than this?

Oh yes, indeed it does.

We gassed up in Mt. Carroll and proceeded into God's country. The roads became twisty and snaky and hilly; even almost mountainous, by Illinois standards. Don't forget that we live in a state where we can drive hundreds of miles within 0.05% gradient without turns... or so I used to think, up till this past weekend. Son, we have a corner of twisty heaven in the northwestern region of our great Land of Lincoln.

We rode on a roller coaster named Country Roads 4, 7 and 15 leading into the town of Elizabeth. I had to lean left, and then I leaned right. I had to downshift, and then I up-shifted. I had to remember to breathe as I maneuvered 60-mph turns on manicured, banked curves through Wisconsin-like bucolic vistas. There was no room for mental love songs or hymns or ponderings. I could barely hear the roar of the engine over my heart drumming against my chest.

This may be our last ride this season. But what exhilarating, life-affirming last 336 miles they were.

Thanks, Neil and Ben and the rest of the Sunday riders for a great season.

So many roads, so little time.

Love,

Mom and Dad

Remembering Veterans Day

Excerpt from Naperville Sun

Rotary Hill will be covered with American flags during the week of Veterans Day. From Nov. 8 to 14, the Exchange Club of Naperville will fly 2,009 flags to honor the men and women of the military.
Individuals can present a flag to display and take home or donate to next year's event. It costs $30 to order an American flag, $35 to order a flag with an honor tag. The deadline has been extended to Oct. 30.
Related events on Rotary Hill include a Tag a Flag Ceremony from 12:30 to 3 p.m. Nov. 8 and a Veterans Day Observance at 11 a.m. Nov. 11.

"In memory of Scott Biesterfield U.S.M.C. — Love, Dad"


This is the inscription of a flag dedication that I read today.

Your dad and I visited Rotary Hill in downtown Naperville. It was covered with 2,009 American flags, waving in the wind in neat rows. This was Naperville's Healing Field of Honor in observance of Veterans Day.

The Healing Field program started out as a way to commemorate the lives of those lost to us on September 11, 2001. Since the first Healing Field display in 2002, hundreds of communities across America have hosted a Healing Field or Fields of Honor to raise money and awareness for a growing array of causes.

These special displays of fields of American flags have helped to honor the sacrifice of our service men and women, raise awareness for the tragedy of child abuse or domestic violence, honor veterans past and present, raise awareness for heart disease and cancer and more.

As tears fall uncontrollably, I am thanking God for you. I thank God that you still play Manhunt and tag. I thank God that you are not serving in the military. I thank God that you are safe. Selfish... I know.

As we celebrate Veterans Day, I would like to humbly thank all the Scott Biesterfields there ever were. Those who never came home, those who did, and those who are still out there. I especially want to thank their dads and their moms, their wives, husbands, sisters, brothers, sons and daughters. Thank them all for the sacrifices that they have made and that they still make every day... sacrifices that the rest of us could not even begin to understand.

We stood there among the flags, with only sounds of their flapping in the soft zephyr... and we cried.

Love,
Mom and Dad

Back to the beginning

Southern Illinois is more beautiful than I remember. Dad and I cruised our Suzukis on roads that ascend and descend as they twist and turn like the serpent king, Muscalinda, slithering through the Shawnee National Forest looking for deities to rescue.

We were in search of Jamestown Road that would lead us to the Garden of the Gods. We found the wine trail, the Pomona Natural Bridge and Bald Knob Cross, instead.

The Pomona Natural Bridge, situated in a verdant corner of heaven, is amazing. It is a huge sandstone rock that was carved out by some long-gone river. Yes... "a river ran through it." What is even more awe-inspiring is that we survived the 3-mile gravel road that took us there; full of ruts and going downhill fast. There were several other bikers with equally questionable sanity, who braved this near-death experience to get to the bridge.

It was worth it.

The wine trail was picturesque... earthy, idyllic and pastorally peaceful. The wines were... the wines were... well, the wine trail was picturesque, earthy, idyllic and pastorally peaceful.

Bald Knob Cross is impressive. It is 111 feet tall with arms that span 63 feet. It is covered with highly reflective reinforced porcelain steel panels. It is located on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi flood plain. You can see the cross from miles away. Sadly, the cross is showing signs of having weathered the elements. Even in its current disrepair, the cross stands solemn and majestic.

Unfortunately, we only had a day and a half to ride. We got rained out in true Southern Illinois spring fashion... torrentially with a couple of tornado warnings thrown in for good measure. We took this opportunity to visit our very dear friends, Nancy and David. We also visited our good old Saluki stomping grounds. It was a good tromp down memory lane and fun to re-live the love story that led to your existence.

We hope this to be the first of many cruising trips. We will definitely return. We did not get to taste root beer in Makanda. We did not get to shop in "The Smelly Hippie" store in Alto Pass. And we never did find Jamestown Road.

So many roads, so little time.

Love,

Mom and Dad