My father loved gardening

It's been 19 years since my father died on St. Patrick's Day.  Our relationship was fraught with profound grief, beginning in my early childhood, when he was often absent.  My few childhood memories of him are that he shamed me and was critical of me, leading me to be believe that I was ugly and that no one would ever marry me.

Fortunately, my last visit with him was a good one.  It was his 89th birthday.  I was 53 years old.  As I walked out of the door of his assisted living apartment in West Seattle, he said, "I'll see you at Easter."

I've come a long way since 2003 in understanding intergenerational trauma and the effects it has on father-daughter relationships.  My relationship with my father now is better than it ever has been as I learn to parent myself in ways he could not and let my wounded father rest in peace.

In 2008, just before R died, I wrote this in remembrance of my father.  Blogger has altered the way the photos are seen in the post.  You'll need to click on them to see them in their entirety.

My Abutilon is in full bloom.  The rainbow on March 15 just before sunset was the most beautiful I've ever seen from my porch.

It's still dark outside but I can hear birds chirping because it's early spring and the sun will be rising soon.

Talking Late Afternoon Light with Rainbow and Great Spirit

A Lummi friend told me about this website some time ago, and just recently I have subscribed to their daily meditations for elders via email:

Elder's Meditation of the Day April 9
"Everything really is equal. The Creator doesn't look at me any better than He looks at the trees. We're all the same."
--Janice Sundown Hattet, SENECA
Sometimes humans think we are the center of the Universe. Sometimes we think we are above or better than other people or things. The Great Spirit made a set of Laws and Principles by which all things should live. Everybody and everything lives by the same Laws. We are all made of atoms just like the trees. The life force in the middle of the atom is the life force of the Great Mystery. It is the same for everything. We are all equal in the eyes of the Creator.

Great Spirit, today, I will respect your handiwork.

Stecher Family Album

Finally got around to photographing images from an album that I believe was assembled by my grandfather. He identifies his mother, his aunts and uncles and cousins who lived in and around Boston and in New York state. His mother (my great-grandmother) was one of 11 children of Melchoir and Helene (Roethler) Stecher of Achern, Germany. After Helene died, Melchior decided to come to America with his younger children. His oldest daughter, Jacobine, remained in Germany.

Above is a photo of my great-grandmother who was born in Achern, Germany, in 1836. Her firstborn son died during a cholera epidemic in Boston. As far as my grandfather knew, his father simply disappeared. Below is a photo of my great-grandmother's younger sister, Caroline. Caroline died at age 34 in 1879. My great-grandmother died at age 59 in 1895. Her death certificate said that she was married (rather than widowed or divorced or separated) at the time of her death. I found a record on Ancestry.com that showed evidence of separation papers, but I was unable to obtain those records as they had been lost somehow. My great-grandmother looks world-weary compared to her younger sister, and no wonder. Family secrets and tragedy must have weighed heavily on her. I keep thinking that something will turn up on the internet some day to solve the mystery of my great-grandfather's disappearance. I was shocked to find on the internet that my missing great-grandfather's father, a retired weaver, committed suicide by hanging, at age 93, in 1891.






















There are no photos of my grandfather in the old album, but here is a photo of him in 1916, the year my mother was born, before he served in the Army as a doctor in World War I, and another with my grandmother in 1920:





































I've added a Flickr badge with photos from the album my side bar on the right with photos of descendants and in-laws of Melchior and Helene Stecher from Achern. Still have more photos to take from the album.

Late in the day, as I was working on this, I looked up and saw a rainbow:






















Update: Oh dear. I can't believe I spelled descendant as "descendent" on the URL for my Flickr page for the Stecher family photos.

As a dear person once said to me, "Welcome to the human race."

As a former medical transcriptionist, I have lived for many years with the expectation that my spelling be perfect. Little room for mistakes in that field. It feels very strange to realize that I can make spelling mistakes like everyone else now without taking a cut financially! I've been amazed again and again that not all people work at jobs where there is such a pronounced expectation of perfection.

You mean I don't have to be perfect?

What a relief!

BLACK ELK SAW A FLAMING RAINBOW

From Black Elk Speaks:

Then they all stopped short, rearing, and were standing in a great hoop about their black chief at the center, and were still. And as they stood, four virgins, more beautiful than women of the earth can be, came through the circle, dressed in scarlet, one from each of the four quarters, and stood about the great black stallion in their places; and one held the wooden cup of water, and one the white wing, and one the pipe, and one the nation's hoop. All the universe was silent, listening; and then the great black stallion raised his voice and sang. The song he sang was this:


My horses, prancing they are coming.

My horses, neighing they are coming;

Prancing. they are coming.

All over the universe they come.

They will dance; may you behold them.

(4 times)

A horse nation, they will dance.

May you behold them. (4 times)


His voice was not loud, but it went all over the universe and filled it. There was nothing that did not hear, and it was more beautiful than anything can be. It was so beautiful that nothing anywhere could keep from dancing. The virgins danced, and all the circled horses. The leaves on the trees, the grasses on the hills and in the valleys, the water in the creeks and in the rivers and the lakes, the four-legged and the two-legged and the wings of the air--all danced together to the music of the stallion's song.

And when I looked down upon my people yonder, the cloud passed over, blessing them with friendly rain, and stood in the east with a flaming rainbow over it.

(Many thanks to the art farmer, who left me a phone message saying, "Look outside at the rainbow!")

RUMORS OF PEACE

TALKING 37TH DREAM WITH RAINBOW

The young man she loved always,
Who she believed loved her,
The young man for whom she waited,
Came back from the war
For the 37th time.
She heard a red-headed woman saying,
“He’s a good man.”

He didn’t want her to touch him.
He drank once from a clear bottle of beer,
Looked at her intently
And left the houseful of people
Where she lived alone.

She kept waiting for his return.
There was no 38th return
And between them appeared a rainbow.

The young woman he loved always,
Who he believed loved him,
The young woman for whom he waited.

("Evolution Of Forgiveness Dream," painted in gouache and watercolor on paper by Old Girl Of The North Country in January of 2000; "Talking 37th Dream With Rainbow," written by am on February 25, 2008 in pencil in a Ampad lined subject notebook with Wirelock binding)