memories | Change Is Hard

May 7, 2014
by dawnkinster 23 Comments

Approaching Mother’s Day

Marsh marigold glow

Earlier this week the grocery store cashier offered me a coupon for wiring flowers to my mother. The offer shocked me, not because I’m adverse to discounts, but because I hadn’t realized Mother’s Day was coming up. And because of course no florist will wire flowers to heaven. I absently refused the coupon offer and walked out to the car with my groceries, thinking about flowers and Mom and the festive day coming up.

Most years of late I’ve been successful at blocking Mother’s Day out, ignoring the advertisements and the rows and rows of cards with pink envelopes. I can be genuinely happy for coworkers excitedly talking of brunches and gifts. Progress.

This year I recognize even more progress as I think without pain of the flowers we used to give my Mom for Mother’s Day. Every year we (or she, I don’t remember) picked out flats of petunias and called them our Mother’s Day gift to her.

And I remember other flowers too, the springs we dug up marsh marigolds from the swamp over in the woods and lugged them home in buckets to be planted along the lake shore at home. I don’t really know if she wanted marsh marigolds, or us covered in mud for that matter, but she always seemed happy to see them.

And then this morning I heard a radio commercial for chocolate covered strawberries that had to be ordered by tonight in order for delivery to Mom before Sunday. It was a long ad, filled with descriptions of juicy strawberries dipped in dark chocolate and sprinkled with nuts.

The commercial made the strawberries sound good, but it mostly reminded me of my Mom standing in the middle of a strawberry patch, and the way that first warm, ripe strawberry tasted right from the field. All the dark chocolate and nuts in the world will never make that advertised strawberry taste as good as the ones we ate under the hot summer sun with Mom all those years ago.

So as we approach this Mother’s Day I think of Mom, and how happy she was with petunias and marsh marigolds and strawberries warmed in the sun. I bet most mothers are the same. Show up with a handful of dandelions and they’d be happy.

To all the mothers out there, Happy Mother’s Day. And to those of you with mothers still on this earth take a moment and thank them. A flat of petunias might be just the thing.

Miss you Mom.

April 19, 2014
by dawnkinster 2 Comments

Picture a photo

I’ve been enjoying the photography of Heather in her blog for a long time; she captures life in the north so beautifully. Her photography website showcases her art and if you take a moment to stop and peruse, you can enjoy all four seasons of the beautiful north country in just a few minutes. This winter she had the opportunity to take amazing photos of the ice caves along Lake Michigan, who knows if we’ll ever have another chance to see something like this, so go take a look!

I especially enjoy her photos of the Point Betsie Lighthoue, both because it’s beautiful, and because it’s where my folks went on their honeymoon in 1953. I’ve been there a couple of times myself and have my own photographs, but I’ve never been in winter so I was especially taken by this shot:

I know, I know, it’s a bad photograph of a great photograph! It was hard for me to decide which Point Betsie lighthouse photo to purchase but I eventually chose this one because it was different and because I loved the shapes of the ice in front of the lighthouse. I plan to hang it in my folk’s house down in Alabama, a modern twist on their love of northern Michigan.

Thank you Heather! For taking wonderful photographs that remind me of my trips to the north, and for making them available on your website! I can’t wait to see what you discover next!

February 4, 2014
by dawnkinster 17 Comments

You’d be 85

Today is Dad’s 85th birthday. It seems something of a milestone, one that shouldn’t be forgotten, though I can’t imagine him at 85. I suppose he would have been similar to the Dad I knew at 75, maybe with a few more wrinkles, but the same twinkling eyes, the same stories, the same advice.

Dad and his little sister

I can’t send him a card through snail mail, can’t email him or give him a call. I can’t even text him, but then he wouldn’t know what that was anyway. On the other hand…if he were still here I bet he’d have the latest smart phone because the whole information at your fingertips phenomenon would have fascinate him. Though I wonder if he would have sprung for the expense of having internet available 24/7. No, I think maybe instead he’d have been content to be in his boat, watching the sun set, floating in the warm water of his lake. Sure he’d check his messages when he got back to the house, but I don’t think that smart phone would have been used much on the boat.

In his canoe.

The little boy who loved the water, grew up on the river, and took my Mom for a canoe ride on their first date, grew up to be a father of four kids who got to grow up on a lake and spent many summers canoeing there and on rivers. We got to camp in National Parks across the country and see things lots of kids never did. We got to sit around the dinner table laughing until our stomachs hurt and tears ran down our faces. We got to ride bikes to town and climb trees in the woods and go water skiing after work. We got to have a dog named Sam and guinea pigs named Barney and ride the lawnmower and plant a huge garden. We got to go to college and grow up and live in nice places.

Most of that is due to having a Dad who was responsible and supportive. And who loved us unconditionally.

So thank you Dad. And Happy Birthday.

I hope you get this birthday card and know we all love you and miss you.

Forever.

November 29, 2013
by dawnkinster 22 Comments

Family time

I hope all of you in the States had an opportunity to spend some of Thanksgiving day with family or friends. We traveled down to the farm where my Mom grew up and spent some time with family over a wonderful meal.

Lots of talking, lots of laughing, lots of eating.

Perfect.

While there we took my brother, who hasn’t been back on the farm in many years, on a quick tour of the barns where we all used to play.

It was very cold. Especially for my brother’s girlfriend who is from El Salvador.

We noticed little things while exploring the barns, like what my uncle used to call a patented barn door handle…

…and a clamp in my Grandfather’s shop…

…with a view of the old farmhouse through the shop window.

While we were wandering among the barns huge flocks of sand hill cranes flew screeching overhead. There were at least 3 groups of them, each as large or larger than this group:

This is not a great shot, I took it blindly up into the sky without being able to see what I caught, then cropped the heck out of it so that you could see something of what we saw. It was so cool.

Barns, birds, family…

…you can’t get much better than that.

And to top it off there was pie. Happy sigh.

November 21, 2013
by dawnkinster 20 Comments

Two cups

A couple of weeks ago I listened to a report on my commute about the health benefits of wild blueberries. I don’t, of course, remember exactly what the health benefits were, but I remember my reaction to the story.

I laughed out loud.

The report recommended a person eat two cups of wild blueberries a day. Yes that’s right. Two cups. Memories of picking wild blueberries sprang immediately to mind. I used to live in the Keweenaw Peninsula which is a part of Michigan waaaaay north, a piece of rocky, somewhat hilly land that juts out into Lake Superior. It’s stunningly beautiful and a place I miss in a chilly yet warmly reminiscent sort of way.

One of the things people did in the summer up there was pick wild blueberries. There was a field at the top of the mountain that rumor said had the best wild blueberries. No one talked about where it was; it was a secret held closely by the locals and I was not a local. But eventually, after living there a few years I wormed the location out of a friend.

You drove up the main road, turned off on a little used side road and then turned into an abandoned driveway that wound through the woods until you got to a gate which you had to open, drive through and close behind you lest someone notice you were there and discover the secret. Then you drove along the side of an empty field, parked near the back of the field behind some trees and you were there!

The first time I followed these directions I thought I had been played for a fool. There were no blueberry bushes on this empty abandoned land. I wandered a bit with my big pail looking for the bushes. You know, the bushes you’d find at a blueberry farm down near the towns I once lived in. The cultivated bushes, some as tall as a person covered in huge sweet berries, the bushes almost purple from the weight of the fruit.

Almost purple….hmmm….the ground near my feet seemed almost purple. Could it be? No way! There were wild blueberry bushes under my feet! They were not even a foot tall, the berries smaller than half my little fingernail. Almost imperceptible. They were everywhere and indescribably delicious, sweet and tart all at the same time.

It took me a couple hours to pick enough berries to cover, in one layer, the bottom of my bucket. After that first visit I’d take a small cottage cheese container and was lucky to collect a cup at any one visit. And those were the good days. I picked much less than that the time I ran across a bear enjoying the fruit of my favorite shrub.

So when the researchers in the latest wild blueberry study recommended people eat two cups of wild blueberries a day I laughed out loud. Obviously they have never picked their own berries; it would take half a day to pick two cups of berries. And the season isn’t that long…so you’d want to pick extras to freeze for the winter months.

Seems pretty impractical to me. But I enjoyed thinking about it, and remembering a simpler time from years ago when I spent some quiet time on top of a mountain hidden behind trees gathering the spoils of the earth.

That was a sweet and tart time in my life and I am glad the researchers took me back for a visit, if only in my own mind.

August 22, 2013
by dawnkinster 9 Comments

Frying pan musings

I woke this morning to remnants of a dream floating almost out of reach. My mom was in the dream, along with me and someone else I can’t quite place. We were talking about modern kitchen tools. Specifically the discussion centered on how the latest electric frying pan had a searing function to keep meat juicy. Trust me I have no idea how that would work in a frying pan or why my brain came up with this concept.

In my dream I recalled my mom’s electric frying pan, the one she took with us when we camped, the old pan without a nonstick surface that had to be scrubbed after each use. I asked Mom if it had any special features, and whether I could read the manual. “A manual” she exclaimed, “a manual? You’re kidding right? I’ve had that old frying pan for over twenty years. If there ever was a manual I have no idea where it is now.”

As I began to wake from the dream I thought about my own electric frying pan, newer, with a surface that keeps the worst burned food from sticking. And I realize that in twenty years I won’t know whether there had ever been a manual either; in fact I probably won’t even know where the frying pan is. I woke doing the math and was startled. In twenty years I will be older than my mother ever was. Huh. That’s an odd concept – to be older than my mom. It took me a few minutes to digest.

Two weekends ago I went to a wedding that happened to be on my mom’s birthday. I was sitting next to a college roommate at the reception, a woman I’ve known for over thirty years. She mentioned that it was her mom’s birthday. I was incredulous. All these years we never realized our mothers shared a birthday.

Country wedding.

So I’ve been missing my mom and I guess this dream was a way for us to have a visit of sorts, though I would choose something more interesting than an electric frying pan to discuss if I ever had the chance to talk with her. I think. On the other hand that frying pan held good memories.

This morning I lay in bed for a few extra seconds, remembering. Then I hugged the dog and began to get ready for another day. Tonight maybe I’ll make dinner in my electric frying pan.

And talk to my mom about the old days.

First time motherhood.

July 8, 2013
by dawnkinster 17 Comments

Activity after

Pretty

Sunday my sister and aunt and I picked cherries at a local orchard. This is the place my family has picked cherries ever since we were little kids. So in a way it was nostalgic to be there…

Picking

…but in a way not so much as they have planted new trees since we were kids and this weekend we were picking at the new location. The picking was sparse but we got enough cherries to freeze a few and make a pie.

Future pies

Then Sunday evening husband, sister and I went to the county fair…

Crazy

…where we walked around analyzing the rides, trying to decide if there was one I could go on without getting sick.

Crazy

We wandered around, standing in front of each ride…

Fun times

….and concluded that perhaps the ferris wheel was the only safe bet.

Fun

So we bought tickets and boarded the ride. Which was when I suddenly realized I was really sore from my Saturday morning run. I had a really really hard time stepping up into the gondola…

On the ferris wheel

…and an even harder time getting out after our ride! So even though I was feeling pretty good since that run and a bit surprised that I hadn’t felt any soreness I apparently had forgotten that I am usually most sore two days after a run, which means….that this morning, Monday, I could barely get out of bed. Yea. Now I remember what it’s like to be a runner.

It’s darn wonderful.

Sisters at the fair

June 22, 2013
by dawnkinster 15 Comments

Farming my memories

When we were growing up we lived less than an hour away from my Mother’s parents. I remember many trips down to the farm where she grew up, the four of us packed into the back of a station wagon, Mom bringing along something to add to the family dinner.

Mom’s family home.

We were always excited to run around the farm’s barns, play with the barn cats, pick the black raspberries behind Grandpa’s workshop, watch the piglets, ride the tractor with our Uncle. When we got bigger we each got to spend a week at the farm, staying overnight in Grandma’s guest room, sneaking her crumb cookies, spending hours with the cats or reading on the porch swing.

Lots of dreaming happened here.

Sometimes we were even useful, helping to fill the hayloft with bales of hay, or feeding the hogs along with my Uncle. Mostly I’m sure we were just underfoot; city kids who didn’t know much about farming who slowed the work down. But my uncle just kept grinning, cracking jokes, letting us drive the tractor, climb fences, scratch the back of a mama pig.

Barns on the farm.

We were always happy to get to the farm and always sad to leave. I had the same series of feelings as I wandered among the barns this week. They and the house and Grandpa’s workshop were so full of memories.

In Grandpa’s workshop.

And as my cousin asked me questions about what it was like on the farm all those years ago I began to remember more. Did I remember back when they had cows on the farm? Were they beef or milk? I have faint memories of each cow being in it’s own stall. I might even remember my Uncle milking the cow and squirting milk to a barn cat.

Barn doors

But I might have seen that in a movie too. I’m not sure.

I distinctly remember collecting two eggs from under the chickens when I was five. It was cold out and I had a snowsuit on and mittens. I was carefully walking back to the house, one egg in each hand when a big dog ran up and jumped on me. I smashed the eggs in my hands and the dog licked the fresh egg off my mittens.

Grandpa’s coat hanging where he left it.

When I was a teenager, staying with my Grandma for a week in the summer I’d practice my clarinet up in the hayloft even though we weren’t supposed to climb up there. The sound was pretty cool in the big empty barn. I’m not sure the barn cats totally appreciated the entertainment.

Memories stored behind the glass.

I remember driving down the lane standing in front of my Uncle on the old tractor, thinking I was steering when I probably wasn’t. I remember having to stand with all my weight on the clutch in order to switch gears. I remember him deliberately distracting me so I’d look over to the left at the cows in the next farm, then he’d move the steering wheel and we’d drive off the tracks in the lane and he’d tell me I better pay attention! Then we’d laugh.

Tractor waits.

We laughed a lot on that farm. I think all those peals of laughter are still caught inside the barn walls today. As I stood there remembering the bull and the cats and the cows and the pigs I could almost hear them again. It was good to visit the farm.

I like to think the farm was glad to see us too.

Wandering through memories.

May 4, 2013
by dawnkinster 14 Comments

River of hope

Lincoln Monument from the river.

Today was the first day of the Sorrow to Strength conference here in DC. We met in a conference room of the hotel and got to know each other a little bit, then listened to a media specialist give advice on handling reporters and doing interviews. She reminds us that we don’t have to be experts on statistics and safety issues, that all we need to do is tell our stories and stay focused on our message. Good advice. We’re just regular people not used to press reporters or television cameras. I was thinking that we should all watch politicians and learn from them; they never seem to answer the questions asked of them, and they always stay on task with their preplanned message.

Later in the day we heard from a grief specialist, Kathleen O’Hara. I feel a connection to Kathleen because my sister found her book several years ago and that’s how she came to work with the Truck Safety group. We are lucky to have her. She works with new families and helps them get set up with local grief counseling She was amazing. She talked about how grief changes over the years and where to find sources of strength, both from within ourselves and from outside.

Kathleen on the boat.

At the end of the day the whole group walked over to Georgetown and took a sunset river cruise. We held a remembrance ceremony on the boat, where people told stories about their lost loved ones and we laughed and cried. We were each given a paper boat and Kathleen told us to think about our person, make a wish and let the little boats drift free down the river. It was a beautiful and unspeakably sad moment.

Dad’s little orange boat.

Dad was a water person, he grew up on the Huron River and lived on or near water all his life. He and Mom went out on the lake often in the evenings to watch the sun set. The neighbors tell us that after she died he went out in the boat alone every night at sunset. So I felt a special connection with Dad tonight as we floated on the Potomac…as I watch my little paper boat float away.

Today was good. Kathleen reminds us to see the good in what we have left, to not dwell entirely on what we lost. Today I am reminded that I have a lot of good left…and the people at this conference are some of the very best of my life.

Hugs to all of them. May we always have the support of each other as we float down this river of hope toward our new tomorrows.

Georgetown at night.

April 8, 2013
by dawnkinster 8 Comments

Guns and trucks

Listening to the news on the way home tonight I caught a snippet of someone, perhaps the governor of Connecticut, maybe someone else, talk about not backing away from an issue just because the other side talked longer or louder, about not giving up even though the task seems difficult, about standing by your convictions. The news was covering the President’s stop in Connecticut campaigning for some measure of gun control but talk like that actually helped to bolster my flagging hopes about truck issues.

The next Sorrow to Strength conference is coming up. During the first weekend in May many family members will be meeting again, talking again, learning again. Crying again. Before every conference I get wound up, sad, angry, even tired. And that’s before I even land at Regan National. In some ways I look forward to going; I love Washington DC, but I also dread the conference because it exposes some of the old feelings and frustrations that we all felt right after Dad was killed by a tired trucker.

Lately I’ve been thinking that the whole thing is just too complicated for me to understand, certainly too big for me to make any difference. Yes we won a huge victory last summer and some of what we’ve been working for has happened. But so much more is needing to be done. And the tentacles of the trucking industry are everywhere. Even when we think we’ve won a small battle we have to stay vigilant to make sure it is not undone or negatively influenced by people that want to increase profits by moving goods in larger and heavier trucks.

So hearing someone else supporting change that is difficult, change that is being fought by big money, change that is complicated – hearing someone talk about not giving up even in the face of great resistance helped me realize that my fight is worthwhile too. Giving up would be wrong. Giving up would let big money and big truck companies win. Giving up would mean people will continue to die and be injured. Of course continuing the fight doesn’t mean no one will ever be killed or injured…just that some people will be saved. And isn’t even one person’s life worth the effort?

Yes, yes it is.

Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.

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