Passing a torch, sort of....

 October 26, 2022

It always amazes me that the days can drag, but the weeks seem to pass at the speed of light. Already, we’re into the last week of October. We started out the month with a fair bit of cold and rain, but these last few days have been comparatively mild. I am counting my blessings. I don’t like the cold and damp, but only because it exacerbates the arthritis that I have in so many of my joints. So these mild days have been a blessing, and I’ve seen to it that I’ve spent a bit of time on the porch, simply breathing it all in.

Our walnut tree has lost most of its leaves, and that only began about a week ago. The very next day after I looked out at it and said to David, “Why hasn’t that damn tree started to drop its foliage?”

The shedding of our large walnut usually commences as soon as the first walnuts begin to drop. The occasion of those nuggets falling always results in a thick carpet of discarded yellow leaves that cover our porch roof and steps and the walkway. In the morning, those leaves are often wet thanks to the overnight frost or the morning dew, and that’s a safety hazard for everyone here, not just the one among us using a rubber tipped cane.

This year, our daughter was adamant that her father would not rake those leaves. He went to the doctor last week as he had a few issues in the aftermath of his horrible cold. Daughter told him that until he got the all-clear from the doctor, he would do only light things. To be fair, the doctor did tell him that very same thing himself.

He grumbled quite a bit, but he did listen to her. So for the first time, daughter raked those leaves, and bagged them, and set those bags out by the curb. She managed it all in a single morning. She ached some the next day, but she considered the discomfort worth it.

We tried not to laugh too hard when two days later, she looked out the front and said, “It doesn’t even look like I did anything!” I understood then, that up to this point in her life she had been spared a cruel reality.

When she had her own place, it was a house in a newer survey, and there were no mature trees close by. So she would pick a day in fall and do her outside work, one and done. She had not yet experienced the reality that if you begin to rake before all the leaves are down—which you pretty much have to do—then you will be raking again. And again.

Her daddy patted her shoulder and told her that generally, he rakes three times for the walnut tree.

Yesterday, David got his test results and was told he could resume all normal activities. He plans to do just that. Our daughter has said she’ll work with him to get those walnut leaves into bags and is feeling very hopeful that since there are only a very few leaves left on that tree, this task will be in the bag—pun definitely intended—in no time.

Her father and I nodded our heads and agreed. And smiled at each other when she left the room.

“Are you going to tell her?” he asked.

“No. I’ll wait, and then I’ll tell her what I always told you.”

“Good. I feel like we’re sort of passing down a torch. Life, as it should be.”

The house directly across the street, which is right there about 60 feet off our porch railing has three beautiful, tall maple trees. Oh, they are full and beautiful, and as I stepped out onto the porch just now and admired them, I did see that while they have some very pretty red and orange leaves, two of those three maples are mostly green still.

Right there across the street, not even one hundred feet away.

Friends, those leaves are going to drop, and I can assure you from past experience that a goodly number of them will end up on our porch roof, and steps and walkway. And because our daughter is her father’s daughter most of all, I can well imagine her whining the same as her daddy has always done.

“But they’re not even our fricking trees!”

“No,” I will tell her. “They’re not. But you have enjoyed its presence and beauty all summer, and raking those leaves is the price you pay for the gift you’ve been given.”

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

Pass the tissues and the lozenges....

 October 19, 2022

In mid March of 2020, David and I were having an in-depth conversation about, well, what else—Covid. At that point we didn’t really know anything much about it. Being over 65, and having health issues, we were scared. We knew history, and we had known about the influenza pandemic of the early 1900s. We knew that millions of people had died, and while it was true that medical science had made huge advances since then, we also knew that so, too, had the speed with which humans interacted.

We of course didn’t know how long this new pandemic would last, but we kind of scoffed at the idea that just 15 days staying home and masking and keeping distance when we went out and washing hands would be enough. In fact, we shook our heads listening to all the people who thought this would be over “before you know it!” As days passed and we learned more, we were both comforted and concerned. When it came to our guesses about how long this would last, we weren’t thinking then in terms of weeks or months. We thought then in terms of years. And we also thought it could very well be that this new pandemic would turn endemic. That, like the flu, it might always be with us if we all didn’t hang tight and do the right thing together. We knew then as we know now, that having a vaccine would be our best, and greatest hope.

Now, we never once considered the possibility that so many people, all of whom had been praying right from the beginning for a vaccine, would not only reject one when it came, but would spread lies about it being fatal, and then would refuse to wear masks on top of that. The “I don’t want to, and you can’t make me crowd!” has to be the most surprising element in this entire drama for us; and I personally believe that those people have played a huge role in ensuring that Covid-19 has, indeed, become something we’ll have to live with forever. But back in the spring we never once considered that would truly be so.

But there was one thing we did think about, and talked about, as we were and are both of us of the same mind. This conversation occurred near the end of 2020.

Me: “You know, if folks are good enough at all their precautions, I bet you we’ll see a real lessening of the spreading of colds and flus, at least for this year, as a bonus.”

David: “That could very well be. Until folks get to the point where they feel it’s safe to not mask or distance and then those colds and flus will be back with a vengeance.”

Talk about prescient words!

About three weeks ago, on our “nanny Tuesday”, our two great-grandchildren who are our daughter’s grandbabies, came for supper as usual. The lad, who was about to turn 8 had a cold. They’d been testing him, of course, and it was only a cold and not Covid. We didn’t think anything of it, either. Kids get colds. And then a handful of days later David came down with a cold.

It started out as an ordinary cold, but it didn’t take long to morph from ordinary to monster. He had a bit of a fever for a couple of days, and no, he didn’t test positive for Covid, either. But it was the worst cold he’s had in probably a decade or more. It went a familiar route: sore throat first, then sniffles, then a cough. Not a constant cough, but one that would erupt a few times a day and be fierce. And at times, it was a dry cough, too. His throat and belly suffered from the coughing.

I did snoop around online and I learned that the Rhinovirus which is the common cold has indeed been back with a vengeance and is hitting hard. Apparently, as it used to be, we had cold and flu season, and folks would get colds, and they would retain some immunity in the aftermath, enough that colds tended not to leave you being rode hard and put up wet. That knowledge did give me some ease of mind.

David’s cold is just tapering in him now. He only coughs about once a day now. And now, of course, he’s passed it on to me.

No sore throat here, no fever, either. Sniffles, yes, and a cough. And while my throat isn’t aching, my voice went from alto to bass to yesterday, something just above a whisper. While David has been medicating with specific cold and sinus medication, I am relegated to my hot lemon water with honey concoction and trying to get more rest.

At one point David looked at me—before I indeed had the cold—and said: “if you get this, it could kill you.” He was legitimately quite worried about that fact—but I wasn’t.

Now, it’s been a rough cold for me, no question. I was a bit achy and while I don’t cough as much as David did, I still coughed, but only sometimes. Didn’t have much energy and would doze a bit in my recliner, which I don’t always do. Today I feel a bit better than yesterday, and I believe that in another few days, I should be mostly over it.

I knew the question would come, and I thought about my response to him when it did. And finally, last night, he asked it.

David: How come your cold wasn’t as bad as mine?

Me: Well, it might have something to do with the fact that I don’t think that potato chips are a fit breakfast food.

I do tend to eat healthier than he does, especially when it comes to fruits and veggies. And all other things being more or less equal, I do believe that makes a difference.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

 

 

Believing in fairness...

 October 12, 2022

What do we think about the concept of fairness?

I can remember a time, oh, I think it was not too long before David and I got married. I was pregnant; the wedding was scheduled for July 14, which in 1972 was a Friday. We said our vows at 7:15 pm in the evening.

Because I was pregnant, my mother was quite firm on two factors: I would not wear a white wedding dress; and the guest list would be very small.

The latter didn’t bother me so much, really, but that not being able to wear a real wedding dress certainly did. She understood that and told me that I could wear white if I chose, but she would not attend.

My dress was mauve.

In the lead up to the big day, I was the recipient of a bridal shower. I received 4 blankets for our matrimonial bed, a box of spices from my mother and one or two other gifts. Even at 17, I was grateful, did sort of  wonder if the presence of so many blankets could be the 1972 version of shutting the barn door after the horse had gotten out: “We’ll make sure she’s warm enough she won’t need to snuggle close to the man.”

I had a strange sense of humor even then.

I also recall that one of my friends, about two months after David and I got married, was planning her wedding and oh what a lavish affair it was going to be! She had three bridal showers. Three! And the most beautiful white gown…. at one point, I recall thinking that it just wasn’t fair—and even said so aloud to my mother. Everyone knew that the couple had been having sex for a long time. She got to wear a beautiful white wedding dress when I did not. Blame it on teenaged pregnant hormones and the fact that, at this point in my life I can look back and see that I really was still not much more than a baby myself on my wedding day. But what I remember most about the incident was my mother’s reaction to my bemoaning of unfairness.

She gave me a look of utter shock. And then she said, “Who the hell ever told you that life was fair? If life were fair, your father would still be alive!” Then she nodded, the look on her face telling me more than words that the matter was closed.

Though I didn’t appreciate it then, I think that her question to me about fairness was a good one. Being where I am now in life I look back. I never answered that question but I could now. And the answer is that no one ever told me that life would be fair; yet everything within me, growing up, had always believed that life should be fair.

Now, of course, that question and how they express it can define a person, but I’m not sure whether that definition can be considered truth, or opinion. For example, there are a lot of people who make a lot of noise, fueled by a general sense of grievance. Apparently, they don’t think life is fair at all, and want something to be done about that—legally, if not morally.

Counter to this group are people who believe that all things are possible if one just works hard to achieve whatever goal they set. Fairness doesn’t seem to be a part of that equation for success, and yet those who adhere to their “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” philosophy don’t necessarily decry fairness. They just believe in making lemonade out of lemons, or, if you will, doing what they can to make the question of fairness moot.

When I think back to my naivete in my teen years at the ripe old age of sixty-eight, there’s a part of me that marvels. I’d lost my daddy when I was 8, and a part of me from that moment on dreaded losing my mother, too. In fact, she died just four years after my wedding. And yet despite that early in life loss of a parent, I still clung to my hope in fairness.

And I still do—even as I dig down to do what I can to give that hope all the fuel my soul can conjure.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

An attitude of gratitude...

 October 5, 2022

After posting last week’s essay, my husband and I set off, having decided that the time was right to complete one item on our autumn check list: veggies down for the winter.

There’s a farm-market place outside of town, one that we’ve frequented for years. Some of the produce is grown by the family that runs the store. But some is brought in from other farms, all within this province.

My vegetables of choice for this final round of preserving: green beans and more squash—butternut squash this time. This is our favored squash for soup, and the goal was to have some put down for the dinner table and some for the soup pot.

The green beans looked very good. They were a nice dark green, slender and fresh and straight. Thursday afternoon, after my writing was done for the day, I processed the four quarts of beans we purchased, netting eight bags which translates to 8 meals. Added to the five bags we froze from our own garden we now have beans aplenty ready to be included in any winter menu.

And while we only purchased 4 large butternut squash (we grabbed up 8 of the acorn), I believe four would be sufficient. David was kind enough to chop them because I just don’t have the strength in my hands these days to do that myself. In all, we had 34 cups of raw squash cubes which turned into 26 cups of processed for the freezer—ten bags of two cups, and two bags of three.

I do know that one doesn’t need to blanch this squash; you can freeze it raw, by laying out a layer of chopped pieces on a tray covered in parchment, and then setting the tray in the freezer until the veggie is frozen. Once solid, you simply place the pieces into a larger zipper bag.  

I’ve embraced this preparation, but my freezer was too full to do that. Maybe I’ll try that next year? If I can remember to try it, which interpreted means I should not load my freezer so full, so early in the harvest time.

Sunday saw one more fairly recent tradition here in the Ashbury household. Sunday last was cabbage roll day. Fortunately, I am the sous chef for this event. My daughter loves making cabbage rolls. I thought that might be a thing of the past when, two years ago, she gave up meat. But no, she can use her plant-based burger meat in her own portion of rolls, and good old fashioned hamburger in the rest of them.

She bought two large cabbages this year. There are a few clients my daughter sees, as a PSW working in the community, as well as a friend who used to be a client. These women who she visits on a regular basis don’t get a lot of home-cooking brought to them. Because that is so, when we are having what one would consider “comfort food”, like a pot roast, or a beef stew, or cabbage rolls, Jenny always sees to it there’s enough to share with these ladies.

Our daughter has a very good heart and is a generous soul. Her attitude when it comes to people is simple enough that everyone can emulate it: if I can help, I help. Since that is an attitude that I’ve always shown, my heart is full of gratitude. And speaking of being grateful….

Next Monday is Thanksgiving Day, here in Canada. I’m grateful for what I have, and what I can do to help others. And I am especially grateful for my readers—both the readers of my essays and those who read my books.

I hope my words give you, the reader, distraction, comfort, or thought. In other words, I hope they help, even if it’s only in a small way.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury