Ramblings/Things I will miss/Synergy/Small town life/So, Carol, how do YOU feel about the move?

This dress belonged to Mary Benavidez, an older lady from church. Several years ago she pulled me aside at church. She told me that she had noticed that I like some of the older, classic clothes, and since she needed to clean out her closets, would I like to come over and maybe take some of her clothes. I had no idea what to expect, other than definitely a time of good fellowship, but what I found was a treasure trove of amazing dresses and suits and an amazing time with an older, wiser and sweetest woman of God. At some point we learned that we both love to garden. This led to other visits where Scott and I would do some yard work for the Benavidez, like digging up and dividing their billbergia, and then would be sent home with the extra plants for our garden. They shared with Carmen and Ernie Jackson (who we had got to know at church family beach camp) that we liked gardening, and soon we had a similar arrangement with the Jacksons. We inherited some bergenias, and violets and ornamental onions. The Benavidez live walking distance from my parents, whose back yard connects to my Grandpa Chick's property.





billbergia in bloom

Carmen's bergenias blooming in my yard

Last month I attended the funeral of Pat Patricks, my Grandpa Chick's best friend (who lived about 2 blocks from my Grandpa) and helped my mom hostess the reception. Pat's daughter, Lisa (who lives just one street over from her dad), who grew up with my mom, is always classy and dressed to the 9's. My sister Kristen ran into her at the grocery store one morning. Yep - 3.5 inch black heels, flowy Ralph Lauren skirt with coordinating sweater top at 9 am on a weekday. I wanted to wear something she would appreciate, so I picked this dress and my designer 3.5 inch heels. It was a hit with the French guy I had never met. (He was Lisa's husband Kevin's cousin's fiance - or something like that.) He told me that a pair of fabulous shoes on a woman's foot improves the look of the whole room and is a treat to the eye. He also said I belong in Paris and they would just eat me up there because my dress was SO amazing and stylish. His mom was a seamstress in the 50's/60's for a famous designer (not Chanel but of that caliber I think, but he was talking so fast with his adorable frenchy accent, I was having trouble keeping up.)

Then two weeks ago Mary Benavidez's husband, Francis, died. He was 94 and they had been married for 63 years. He had been ill recently, so she was not surprised. She is happy for Francis who is free from all pain, but she is definitely devastated. Faithful woman that she is, she has not missed church once. Just before Francis died, while he was still in a coma, I decided that maybe telling her about Frenchy's opinion of her dress would cheer her up more than the usual "How is Francis? How are you? I'm praying for you" routine. So I grabbed her after church to tell her, and even though she was crying, she laughed and said that I had made her whole day. The following week Francis passed away. Last Saturday we attended Francis' funeral. I decided to wear her dress again.



The elderly people in our lives (and even some who are not so old) are beginning to die with increasing frequency. Our church has had 6 funerals in the last 4 months. While we were in Kansas last December, Beth Jansson, who lived down the street from my childhood home and attended our church for over 40 years, passed away. She baked us cookies at Christmas and we would walk to her house to see Mr. Jansson's train collection. They were both WWII vets. She had been a WAC. They would tell us about Pearl Harbor memories and our neighborhood when it was first being built. She taught the Good News Club in our neighborhood. In college I gave her a ride to church on Sundays, but when I got married she called me and explained that she had taken it upon herself to find a new ride to church, so she no longer needed me as I had other responsibilities and should be riding to church with my husband. When she made her family cookbook to give to sisters in law and daughter in law and nieces, she gave me a copy. She had a self-appointed ministry of saving greeting and Christmas cards and then using the pictures to make advent books, and place mats, and family story albums that chronicle a new baby's parents' life and history. Emma has one of each of these books, and I remember eating on my Mrs. Jansson place mat for many Christmases of my childhood. We missed her funeral because we were with our own dying, but three weeks before that I happened to have a phone conversation with her and tell her all about how many memories of her I appreciate and enjoy.

When we were in Kansas, it was one of my best friends, Karin, who called to tell me that Beth had died. Karin and I grew up together until her family moved to Arizona after she graduated high school. Her sister, Jenifer, and Scott were confidants and friends who connected over their ability to contemplate the workings of the cosmos in ways that only rocket scientists like Scott and geniuses like Jen, could. Jenifer died in a car accident in 2001 when she was 26 while we were out of town. We missed her funeral. When we returned, Scott and I helped Karin and her parents clean out her condo. When it was time to leave there was a rose bush left on the patio that Jen had intended to plant. The rose was anemic and scraggly. Her mom couldn't bear to leave it behind, but knew that if she drove it home to Arizona in the moving van, it would die. So, I offered to take it home and plant it in my yard. And now it grows to 7 feet tall.

When Karin was living in New York she was pregnant with her oldest son, Izaak. When she found out that I was pregnant with Emma, she started calling me regularly and rekindled our friendship. She has sinced moved back to Southern California. Our children are now best of friends. They play together, sometimes in my backyard, where we admire Jen's rose.

Emma and Izaak

Jen is buried in Oakwood Cemetery, where my Grandma D. is buried along with Eileen and Pat Patricks, and Mr. Benavidez. My Grandpa Chick will also be buried there when he dies. When I got home from Francis' funeral I took some time to sit in the back yard and look at my garden and ponder the irony of the small town life that I live in the midst of this crowded city.

When we move out of this big city

I will miss many more funerals of elderly people who have shaped my life.
I will miss my garden.

I will miss my friends.

I will miss the small town synergy.

When we move into the small city

I will enjoy a less frantic pace of life.

I hope to enjoy that there will not always be the feeling of too many people and too many things requiring our partcipation or at least an rsvp, going on at all times.

I will plant a new garden and hopefully take some of my old garden with me.

I will hope that by gaining neighborhoods in planned communities where children play together in the street as they cannot in LA, and by attending a church that most likely will be big enough to have small groups divided by age, we will not forfeit for Emma the gift of elderly people.

IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY DONE SO, PLEASE CLICK ON THE LINK FOR FRANCIS AND READ THE TWO AWESOME NEWS STORIES ABOUT HIM AND MARY. I REALIZE THIS A SUPER LONG, TEXT-FULL BLOG POST, BUT THE ARTICLES ARE DEFINITELY WORTH THE EXTRA FEW MINUTES!!!