That Hard Goodbye

THAT HARD GOODBYE

I just read an article by a friend who reflects on many of the comments she and her husband encountered upon sharing their decision to adopt.  It brought to mind the comments we would hear as foster parents years ago.  A main one being: "I could never do that. I'd love the child too much to part with him/her."  On a bad day that would really hurt!  Did they think we loved the child any less than they would?  Of course they didn't.  Neither did they realize the implications of such comments. 

The pain at parting is deeply felt by foster parents.   Some goodbyes were bittersweet transitions to adoption,  some were worrisome returns to weak family situations. We knew from the outset that the day would come, but as long as we had those children we loved them as our own.  A mystery I guess.  We were a bridge of sorts.

Besides the everyday family routines, our kids vacationed with us.  Camping, visiting Grampa and Gramma, always with permission of course.  And if that permission was denied by the birth parent, we faced hard decisions.  One horrible moment stands out.  We were heading to Michigan to camp and enjoy a family reunion.  All of my siblings and lots of cousins would be there. Permission had been granted and the kids were all excited about the trip.  The camper was already behind the suburban and everyone was in the car waiting for me.  The phone rang. I wish I hadn't answered.  It was our five year old's social worker.  Em's Mom had changed her mind. 

I pleaded with her to no avail.  What should I do?  I felt like I was in a wrench with out options.  There was no way I could abruptly dump this child with strangers as we went on our merry way!  She was as excited as the rest to see the Grandparents and other relatives. It would be cruel to suddenly leave her here. We were already behind schedule with a long drive ahead of us.  I argued with the worker.  She was sorry but adamant that we wait until she could come by and pick Em up. She would arrange for a temporary foster placement for two weeks.   I stalled, grasping for ideas.  I prayed between the lines.  Finally the worker agreed to talk to the mother one more time and call me back.

I remember sitting on the stairway, head in my hands, pleading with God for guidance as I waited - and praying that Em's Mom would understand and allow her to come with us. Rarely have I wrestled with God so desperately.  I felt so trapped; could see no solution. Finally John came in to see what in the world was keeping me.  The kids were getting restless. Out poured the story along with helpless tears.  What should we do?  

Thankfully, in the end, prayers granted, we didn't have to make that impossible choice.  The worker called back to say she had been able to convince Mom to let Em vacation with us as planned on the condition that we stop first at a certain parking lot where she and Em's Mom would be waiting to say goodbye.  So off we went.  Trauma averted.  And soon we were on our way as if nothing had happened.  We had a wonderful time.  But to this day, almost forty years later, I cannot think of this incident without choking up.  This is the first time I've written it and it is written through tears. 

At ten years old, after almost seven years with our family, Em was adopted.  Some might wonder why we didn't adopt her.  That is a long story, but mainly it is that when you set out to adopt, I think you take a different path.  We had five children of our own by the time Em was freed for adoption.  We never went into foster care with the goal of adoption.  Our calling was to help in the transition.  After her placement we continued to care for other kids.  Continued to love, then say goodbye.  If they were infants we never saw them again. Some of the older ones still keep in touch.  We loved them all.  But not too much to part with them when the time came to say that hard goodbye.

JoMae Spoelhof
10/22/13
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This piece was prompted by today's post by Susan Gilbert-Collins:  Comments We’ve Had On Adoption - October 22, 2013
 http://susangilbertcollins.wordpress.com/

 

Secret Balcony

Secret Balcony

The kitchen chair that backs up to the garden window

becomes a winter sunset balcony for one when turned just so.

Here I sit, with my right elbow on the window sill

my left hand nestling a mug of tea

watching the sky put on her show

                                 -JoMae
                                  1/31/13

We have lived in this home almost 35 years.  In summer the sky is hidden with the abundance of trees in our small city yard.  In winter it is too cold to sit outdoors and watch the sun go down.  We take rides to see the sun set, and often wish we had more sky right here at home.  Few spots in this lovely old victorian home allow for sitting in a sunny window.  

Often I would adjust that kitchen chair to let me bask in the afternoon sun as it pours in for a short time on a bright afternoon, but somehow I'd never noticed that around 5pm on a January day the sunset greets me there with all its glory!  Pouring through the leafless tree branches,  what is hidden in the summer can be brilliant in the cold!  Etched with the fanfare of the branches, a brilliant sky soothes the closing of the day.  

And it was always there!  Makes me wonder what other wonders I have missed along the way.  Makes me determined to catch more kitchen sunsets this winter.  

Inclusion - Gender Equality and God

 GENDER EQUALITY AND GOD

The letter came in the mid 1970s and sounded dangerously feminist to me. It was an invitation that would eventually lead to a paradigm shift in my life. But that came later. At the moment my days were full and I was content. Raising five of our own plus assorted foster children left little time or inclination to question the values I was passing on. Values deeply rooted in my childhood and the teachings of my Christian faith. I loved my family and clearly was loved in return—first as a daughter, then as wife and mother. My friends from church would chuckle that I was spoiled rotten!

My love affair with my Heavenly Father was steeped in awe and trepidation. The concept of a Mother God did not exist. I’d never noticed that Christians were a motherless family and it would be many years before I saw a link between this view of God and traditional attitudes toward women.

I sometimes chafed that men held all the power, or hurt for women whose husbands might belittle them; still, life was good. I might not like it that the female was designed to be lesser, but who was I to question God? It hadn’t yet occurred to me that God’s designs were understood through male interpretation and translation. Through givens born of ancient norms.

In 1959 I had gladly given up my identity to become Mrs. John Spoelhof. Later it was “The John Spoelhof family.” Somewhere, hidden with the children under the veil of John’s name, stood JoMae Keuning. There came a point when I began to feel constricted and wanted to get out and grow up. Not out of marriage, but out of anonymity; into more autonomy for myself and women everywhere.

Yet when that letter came from a new movement in our denomination seeking gender equality within the church, I was afraid. It was an invitation to an annual conference on ordaining women. I recognized the justice, yet sensed that any interest would open a Pandora’s Box and change my life forever. So I tucked it away. I feared offending God.

A lifelong bookworm, I began to read more and more on the subject. Slowly the sentiments of feminism began to ring a bell. During the 1980s, I did start to crack open the box. I dug out the letter and attended conferences to study the issues and question traditional interpretations of the teachings in the Bible. In the King James Version of my youth I mainly saw myself referred to as a son of God. One day it struck me that if a “son,” I was a female son! What a difference that made! Meanwhile new translations changed the wording and confirmed my identity as a daughter on those pages.

I wondered, “If sons could mean sons and daughters; brothers, brothers and sisters, how long would it be before one could catch a glimpse of a Mother lost within the identity of our Heavenly Father?” I pondered such questions until after much reading and prayerful study, I learned to know God in a new way. I began to relate in a manner that recognized both the feminine and masculine face of God. If my sisters, mother and grandmothers—along with all God’s other daughters—were created in God’s image, there must be a feminine face to reflect, I reasoned.

I found it increasingly difficult to worship with only male leaders, with masculine language for humanity, and as if God were only male. I toyed with pronouns. Translated the hymns while singing. Until going to church became exhausting. I longed for childhood’s simple understanding of God. When God was my beloved Father; before I’d noticed there was no Mother. But you can’t go back.

Gradually our church did move forward. After a long and painful struggle in the ‘90s, it now ordains pastors and other leaders who are female. It has become more sensitive concerning language for humans. However, to this day, only masculine pronouns are used for God—albeit a bit less redundantly than in the past.

Today I still trust the God of my childhood and worship in the same church. The same faith—but with a fresh paradigm. The difference is a new understanding of who Godde is, and a new confidence in who I am. Godde is my complete Parent. My mind’s eye even sees this Mother/Father Godde spelled in the ancient English manner to de-emphasize the maleness.

Mine is an ongoing quest. It is very personal, admittedly imperfect and often lonely. But I believe there is a direct relationship between how we view, speak of and understand our Divine Parent, and how we view ourselves and each other. Language is that important. As long as Godde is known and worshiped as if only male; as long as the female reflection of Godde is absent, women will struggle against being treated and viewed as ‘lesser’; will struggle against feeling ‘lesser.’

-JoMae Spoelhof
   8/16/11

Written 8-16-11 and later featured on Jann Aldredge-Clanton's 'Changing Church' Blog:
http://jannaldredgeclanton.com/blog/?p=1382

Dance of the Said and the Unsaid - Translation/Interpretation

Dance of the Said and the Unsaid

This morning on Face Book I read an interesting piece on hermeneutics.  It was "The Interpreter" by Daniel Cohen, from the Feminism and Religion blog.  I saw something like this - that reading involves both the dark marks and the bed of light background they rest upon.  The idea is that the blank background is as important to decipher as are the black marks.  The dark printed words speak of what must be said and called attention to.  The light bed they are set on contains the context.  The givens.  Information so common to the reader it needn't be mentioned.  After interpreting the printed words of an ancient writing, it is just as important to understand what didn't need to be spelled out. 

I envisioned a dance of black and white.  Where together the spoken and the unspoken words begin to tell the whole story. And even where much of the context detail (once as familiar as the air first readers breathed) has been lost, awareness of that loss and the mystery of that common background must play its powerful part in translating and interpreting old teachings. There is power between the lines!

Link:  http://networkedblogs.com/CajX8

I posted this link on Face Book with the following comment:

Here is a story that made me think about the backgrounds of our ancient stories/lessons that were so familiar they didn't need to be spelled out.

.

..."every text contains two messages, one formed by the ink and the other by the spaces left between the inked letters, the material included and that which was excluded, and that the message was never complete if only the first text was read."

...[what was excluded was] "so well-known to the people in whose times the texts were written that they were taken for granted by the writers, who therefore felt no need to mention them.  Yet it was only because of the work of the cattle-farmers that others had leisure to write texts. And so once again he had shown us that what the text does not contain is as important to a true interpretation as what is made explicit in it."

-JoMae
 9/15/12

Beveled Rainbows

Beveled Rainbows

Rainbows bless our home

On sunny mornings

Hovering on the staircase

Splashing color on the walls

Moving along the woodwork

At the opening of the door

With its beveled glass window

They absolutely dance!

                                -JoMae

                                              2/12/08

                       b         y           

T         A   s      l   
                        h    y         o   e            e            
             e              l  t             c
                             u     D    n   
                                a

              

Morning Beauty

The Elegance of Shadow

                                 

September 2, 2012

The light is ever so lacy this morning!

Casting leafy shadows on the wall
and up the trunk of the old Maple tree
as sun pours through its branches
and begins to seep into the garden.

All is still this early Sunday hour.

Another lovely setting to enhance
our back porch coffee time.

Home

Zinnias from John's garden
Grace our kitchen table.

                               -JoMae
                                9/2/12

                         

Comfort Quilt

Cloud Blessings Over Clox

COMFORT QUILT

A quilt of puffy clouds rides overhead 

Patched of grey and white with hints of faded blue

And one bright central spot

Where sun is barely peeking through.

Underneath its edges

Clear pastel sky is seeping 

Brightly off to the horizon.

A hint?  A hope? 

A promise of a brilliant sunset?

Each patch of cloud is stitched together with an unseen thread 

Sunk deep within the downy folds of every seam.

A comfort quilt on this quite nippy autumn day

So short of sun, yet warm enough to sit out here and write.  

Our hearts too, are warmed with bits of downy hope 

Pieced together with words from Paul 

That Henri is now home recuperating for the next onslaught to his small body: 

Radiation starts on Monday.  

The thought of it brings on the chill; it's time to go indoors.

The sun has snuggled deep under the clouds

And I am ready for the comfort of Judy's fresh 

Homemade cream of pumpkin soup - 

Whipped together quickly for supper last night

Out of half a large pumpkin sent over from a neighbor's garden.

Leftovers will our lunch.

An amazing sunset before dinner.

                                       
                                                         -JoMae

                                                         10/19/10

Written 10-19-10 on a Tuesday morning while visiting Judy in France.  Eight days earlier, back home in the US, our then 6 year old grandson had been diagnosed with cancer and faced a long protocol of treatment after having a kidney removed.  As I sat outside reading, I noticed the layers of cotton ball clouds stretched over the huge expanse of sky that blessed us from every direction up there on Judy's hill.  Some lines began to interrupt me until I finally stopped reading to write them down.  Then more tumbled out.  I thought I might have to erase the last line, but that evening we had the most beautiful fiery sunset we'd seen so far!

Ode to a Sunday Afternoon

 June 5, 2011 

~ ODE TO A SUNDAY AFTERNOON ~

 A little bit of heaven in the air today
wonderful sun - yet not too hot
the slightest breeze - yet still

an afternoon together in the yard
Pure Joy

a little ice cream
a little fruit

A mix of books and gardening for him
for her a time of reading with her pen at hand
to capture interrupting thoughts and pondering

Day's end bird songs express our thankfulness
as lengthened shadows grace the setting light

heighten Spring colors

And beam a sideways blessing on our day

                                                               -JoMae
                                                                6/5/11

Marriage & Tornadoes 1933

 MARRIAGE & TORNADOES

I'm reading Ted Gup's  A Secret Gift - with one eye on the 1933 stories he so carefully fleshes out, and the other on the lives of my parents as seen in the many letters from the 1930s that my mother saved.  Gup's book places a new framework around those letters.

My parents were married in June of 1933, just after Dad graduated from the Seminary.  I have the letter from a small country church in Northern Michigan asking him to be their pastor. He accepted even though they were unable to ordain him until later and only able to pay him $30 a month. (They were finally able to officially call and ordain him in December of that year.)

Gup's depiction of depression poverty enlightens the stories in my parent's letters and offers a context for the hardships their families and so many others endured in those days.  A backdrop of pervasive need so prevalent in the late '20s and the early '30s.

Dad's family in South Dakota were especially hard hit.  Mom's people in Michigan less so.  In spite of a $7 cut in pay, Grandpa V was able to keep his job - and even help the young couple out as needed.

A letter from Dad's unmarried sister writes about the hope of getting a new coat.  Hers is short. It should be, she says, she's had it since she was 16.  Her brother needs one badly too, but has told her to go ahead.  Later Grandma K writes to thank Mom's parents for the coat they sent.  He looks so nice in it, she says.  I imagine it was one Mom's brothers had outgrown.

Grandma K's letters offer a powerful (yet often understated) peek at life on a SD farm.  Grandpa wrote too, but his letters are all in dutch and I can't read them.  She is thankful when the boys get a turn to work on the road.  They are allowed so many hours and then must wait their turn again.

One Precious Letter

One letter is especially poignant.  Dad's job offer came in early May.  A month later my parents were married in Michigan.  Photos show Mom in a beautiful dress and veil (which she later loaned out to other brides) and Dad in a black tux. (Or maybe that was his familiar preaching suit!) It appears to have been a lovely wedding.  I have the reminders of plans and gifts and showers etc that Mom saved.  But one thing was missing.  No one from Dad's family was there.  Letters indicate fond wishes, congratulations and lots of love, but there was no money to travel to Michigan, nor clothes to wear to a wedding if they could get there.

So following their wedding, Mom and Dad traveled to South Dakota.  There they celebrated and visited with extended family.  Dad preached in his home church before leaving to pack up their belongings and begin their new life.  His Mother mentions how much his message meant to her.

Heading back to Michigan, after less than three weeks of married life, Dad landed in the hospital in Chicago with appendicitis.  More serious than it first appeared, he was hospitalized for about two weeks.  Mom's folks hurried out to help.  Extended family kindly offered lodging and assistance for Mom - and after care for Dad.

The treasured letter from Grandma K was written on Saturday, July 1, the day after the shocking news had reached them.  Less than a week after their young son had preached for them.  The first part of the letter is full of praise and thanksgiving to God.  Full of the shock and concern they were feeling. To think that while they had been wondering how the packing was going, Dad was in fact in the hospital having an operation.  "It sure shockt us but we are not better than other ones,"  Grandma writes.  (It is interesting that two days later, in a letter from Grandma V, the same phrase "we are not better than other ones" appears!  Also, the native language of both Grandmas was Dutch and while they both wrote in English, they would burst into Dutch when writing of deep feelings.)

Then the letter transitions into the rest of the story.  Shock and fear had also struck in their South Dakota neighborhood that week.    Grandma eases into it by telling that the hot weather had continued after they left,  "but this morning it is nice and cool."  She continues, "We had a bad wind storm here yesterday about five o'clock.  Our buildings all stayed alright, but south of us and west and north it is terrible.  There are farms there is nothing left but the house."

They had heard of no deaths, but an uncle's big barn was a total wreck and on their son's farm and at other friends, buildings were badly damaged.  There is hardly a mill (windmill) to be seen.  "They are all twisted in a nather."  Their son Charley's hay is flat to the ground.  "Some had a bad hail storm too, and rain."   Their farm didn't have much rain, she says, but the corn is all eaten by the grasshoppers.  They are thankful that their lives were spared.

Grandma goes on to say that they sold their little pigs for $1.35 each and the calves for $6.00.  There is no feed for them.  (Some months later, after a government loan was approved, they were able to replace them.)  She closes her letter saying she is going over to help clean up at Charley's  where there is a lot to do because the windows blew out there "and you can imagine how much dust they have."

She closes by turning back to the news from Chicago.  "I hope children your trust is in the Lord in every way in this circumstance.  How is your headache, Ann.  We are anxious to receive a letter.  Best regards from us all.  Your loving Mother,"

Tucked into this letter is a small note.  "We would have written you folks before but we had no address until we got that night letter."

Such is a glimpse into the heart of an immigrant mother in the hard scrabble days of no money and nature's harsh hand.

-JoMae Keuning Spoelhof
1/11/11

Brassac France - Visiting Judy

Kitchen Window View
On a clear day ... the Pyrenees Mountans

 BRASSAC FRANCE

So.  We are on top of the world.  It is windy up here.  Often windy, Judy says.  Yesterday it was a brisk breeze.  Drying the the laundry - the blue jeans dancing a jig and doing the twist - while I sat in the sun with my book and a cup of tea, at a small table overlooking the patchwork of fields in the distance and the dried corn stalks just beyond the yard. When the wind picked up, I found a small corner on the other side of the house to shelter my chair so I could read in comfort.  Here too, I was right next to that field of waving corn and under a vast expanse of exposed sky.  The sky is huge and visible everywhere!  With wonderful white clouds today.  A marvelous contrast to our heavily treed city yard back home in Rochester!

So Much Sky!

'On a clear day you can see forever,' my heart sang!  I had seen photos and heard much about this small 1837 farm house our daughter purchased three and a half years ago. We've followed the progress of a wall taken down in the living room and an unusable room with a rotted out floor and moldy wallpaper, made new with the help of her friends.  Much of the work she has done herself.  Freshly painted white walls and ceilings every where.

The hired work or costly materials have taken time - moving along as she could afford it.  Some was bartered; some was a gift. Her friends are amazing. Readily loaning and borrowing tools.  At one point, needing to put in a cement floor, she purchased a small cement mixer. She would need it again for future projects, and in the meantime it would be a good tool to have available to loan out.  But somehow, focusing on each accomplishment and story, we hadn't realized the amazing view she has of sky and fields and sparsely populated country side.  Now finally we get to see first hand the dream that is unfolding and the wide open setting it is in.

Kitchen Nook

The old house has unfinished corners, out buildings and a barn.  One building has emerged (with a great deal of effort) into the beginnings of a beautiful studio for working with fabric and quilt making.  Like everything else, it is still a work in progress and at this point functions as a work shop, but the dream beams through!  Large windows are positioned to catch the best light.  The roof is tight and the beautiful slatted wood ceiling she installed sort of blesses the place.

Garden Bounty

The soul of my daughter echoes here!  Her love for the place.  Her hand on the hammer. Her self in the work. Her vegetable garden providing nourishment.  Her shoulder and wheel barrow removing rocks from the lawn.  Her shears trimming oddly placed boxwoods and her pick pulling them out.  Her voice telling the story and its potential delights me!  Renewing this old place is her palette.

-JoMae Spoelhof
Written 10/4/10 - Monday