Flowers and Sunshine.

   I have been taking flowering plants and cut flowers to Eleanor for the past two weeks. Joanne sent a white Amaryllis to her apartment two weeks ago, and and it was beautiful. Several of the nurses aides commented that the white ones aren't seen too often. Eleanor enjoyed watching the plant with it's four white flowers bloom. When it had finished she asked me to get her some daffodils, and tried to remember the poem about "Daffodils" that her mother always recited.She remembered it for the most part:

"I wandered lonely as a cloud

            that floats on high o'er vales and hills,

     When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils,

         Beside the lake, beneath the trees, 

           Fluttering and dancing in the breeze"

 She has been enjoying her daffodils this week, and the Amaryllis  that we had thought was finished, has decided to produce another set of blooms. I would guess by Friday it will be time to bring in new flowers. 

   Eleanor called this afternoon and told me she wanted to sit outside in the courtyard, as everyone has been talking about the beautiful weather we are having. It was a bit windy, but we enjoyed watching the courtyard squirrel finding his buried nuts in the courtyard. I was glad that she decided to get up, get dressed, and leave her room for a change. 

Lord I believe, please help me through my doubts.

   I went to a funeral yesterday for an old friend, Virginia Downing. I met her when I first started teaching in Seward, she was in the final few years of her career and I was a first year teacher. She was an excellent teacher, and had the desire to help those who were starting out in their careers. Virginia was born in 1919, so she was older than Eleanor, she was healthy, but had Alzheimer's so her final years of life were not easy.
   At the funeral, the pastor used the story of the centurion who asked Jesus to heal his servant, Jesus asked if he believed in him, and his reply was yes, but. I was talking with Eleanor about the yes, buts in our lives and she told me that as she has grown older she is more certain about her relationship with God. She has a hard time reading and hearing, but she still tries to listen to the tapes from St. John every week and read the large print Portals of Prayer devotions. It is becoming increasingly difficult for her to get around, so corporate worship is not easy to attend. I'm glad the yes, buts are now only yeses for her.

Funnies

   I had coffee and mixed berry muffins with Eleanor this morning. I asked if I could take the Sunday newspaper to the recycling bag at Heartland. Eleanor wasn't sure that I should take the comics, as Sam or Austin might like to see them. The boys enjoy looking at and reading the comics when they stop to visit her.
   She remembered that as a child, her grandfather Nelson would save the newspapers in his workshop. When Eleanor would visit, she would go out to the workshop and read and color the comic strips. She always looked forward to going through the papers looking for comics. When they were ready to return to the farm, they always brought the saved newspapers with them, as they were used in the outhouse.
   I can remember visiting my grandparents farm in Minnesota and visiting the outhouse with its pile of newspapers and catalogs stacked between the two seats on the outhouse bench.

Lost teeth

Shelby came with me to visit Eleanor while Joanne and I were baby sitting the girls. Shelby showed Eleanor her missing teeth, and Eleanor informed me that she had a tooth fall out yesterday. The girls posed for a picture to compare their lost teeth and great smiles. I'm thinking a trip to the Seward Dental Clinic for a check up for Eleanor. That will be after her appointment on the second to have her staples removed from the Christmas Eve trip to the emergency room. Looks like a busy first week of the New Year-- 2012.

Grandmother Albers and a question.

Today I asked Eleanor about her mother. I really can't say that I know much about my grandmother Albers even though I spent more time on the farm in Goodhue than my siblings. I can remember that she liked to recite poetry, that she was a school teacher from Lake City, and that her cooking skills seemed to limited to eggs and sandwiches when I visited the farm.
Eleanor was six when her sister Lorraine was born and she helped her mother care for Lorraine. I asked if that freed Lillian up to help cook and work on the farm, and my mother informed me that her mother wasn't much of a cook. When the threshers, came to harvest crops, Aunt Margaret, the real cook in the Albers family, would come to the farm and take over the cooking. Eleanor described her mother as stingy, she seemed to think the workers should be able to get by with a lot less food than Margaret prepared. It was maybe a difficult thing to be turned out of the kitchen of your own home for another person to cook. Eleanor wasn't sure that her mother was very happy as a farm wife, she had an education, and was a city girl who never was very comfortable with the isolation of the farm.
The first time her mother left Minnesota was when she went on the train to visit Eleanor at basic training in Iowa. She was part of a program to assure the mothers of nurses who had joined the Army that their daughters were being  treated well. When Eleanor came home from WWII, she remembers driving her mother to a town where they had a circular bridge that went down next to the river. Lillian was terrified when Eleanor decided to drive down the bridge and informed Eleanor that she was entirely too reckless for her own good.
As I was preparing to leave, Eleanor had a question for me. "Do I think it is time for me to move to a nursing home?" Eleanor has fallen three times in the past month, and she has had a compression fracture on her hip, a badly bruised thumb, and a cut on her head that required 10 stitches. Her decision to move to a wheel chair several months ago is not helping with her strength and balance. She seems to be at risk in transferring from her wheelchair to a standing position. I didn't know how to react to the question, and was somewhat surprised that she was considering the possibility.

Christmas Memories

Tis the season for Christmas past, present, and future. Eleanor has been enjoying the Turner Classics Channel watching old favorites. White Christmas, Miracle of 34th Street, and Scrooge were all on this week-- one night we watched the Wizard of Oz, not sure what the connection is there, maybe getting home for the holidays. Thanks to Mary Ann and Nette for the cookies and  beautiful poinsettia, and to Barb for writing Eleanor's Christmas letter and sending out her many, many cards. I am always amazed at how many people she knows and still gets cards from. I brought the Christmas tree from the past trees that Mary Ann has sent; something salvaged from them all make a tree that Eleanor thinks is beautiful
   We asked her about her early memories of Christmas, and she shared lots of memories. Real candles on a tree, which were only lit twice as her father was concerned about setting the house on fire.  Christmas presents arriving from the Sears and Roebuck catalog, and the Christmas they arrived late. A winter storm that prevented them from going to church, and how Aunt Margaret saved the day by walking to church and picking up the kids Christmas candy bags.{ Barb and Mary Ann can probably remember the bags we received after the Christmas service at Trinity}A Christmas dinner of roasted goose, not many had turkey in the 20's. Her grandfather coming for dinner and praying and reading the Bible in German. ( Komm Herr Jesu)
   Special thanks to Liz and the boys for visiting Eleanor while Joanne and I were in Mexico, and to Jill for her cards and letters. Prayers and hopes that your holiday is great!

This is a test.

   Tomorrow morning I have to go to Eleanor's apartment to get her up for a telephone test on her pacemaker. She slept through the last one, so we are going to get her up and caffeinated prior to the test at 10:30 a.m.. This summer we went to the cardiologists office and were told that the battery in the pacemaker would last between 6 to 18 months; that was about 3 months ago, so she is a little nervous about the test tomorrow. The replacement of the battery in the pacemaker would require surgery, but we were told it would be a simple out patient procedure.
    I remember going to Mississippi when the pacemaker was put in. The process was scheduled as an out patient procedure, but she was in the hospital for 4 days. I guess one just prepares to expect the unexpected in these cases.
   Thanks to everyone who helped to celebrate Eleanor's birthday. She received lots of great gifts; probably too much candy, but who am I to say how much candy is too much.