Ancestry

Something odd happened. My sister did my hair for a 40's dinner. We took a picture. And suddenly, I was staring in the face of my grandmother at my age. Now I see her everywhere.

I remember watching my grandmother watch all of us. She would stand at the bottom of the basement steps and just watch us pedaling and rollerskating around and around her basement. At the time, it was just what she did. Now I can see her love and enjoyment of us.

I remember singing with my aunts and uncles at her house. Dad would play the piano and Grandma would bring out her guitar or accordion and play and sing along. She could pick out any melody pretty quick and could figure out the chords to go with it.

I remember her laugh. How do you describe laughs. It was happy and the type of laugh that made everyone who heard it happy too.

Perhaps my favorite memory was after she was living with my parents due to the onset of Alzheimer's. I sat down at the piano to pick out a tune and she gave me the best piano lesson ever, learning to play "Edelweiss" from the Sound of Music (her favorite song from her favorite movie). Then she sat down to play it. Although she couldn't remember who I was, she knew her music and she loved me, simply because I was another human being.

Now when I look in the mirror, I wonder about the grandmother I don't remember. I know that she was heavily involved with her church's music and Sunday School education, just as I am a Sunday School teacher who tries to get our kids to sing and enjoy music. I know that she was an artist, not by training, but by nature. She loved to make beautiful things - wood carvings, paintings, and gnome flower gardens were what I remember most. She loved books, good stories, especially those with happy endings and silly adventures. She admired Queen Elizabeth II. But what about all the other things? What went on in her head when she was quiet? What did she think about when she was awake at night? How did she balance out the creator in her and the mothering necessities?

I looked at some old photos of her and her family the other night. She looked like her mother. My father has memories of his grandmother singing a song in Dutch about a ladybug. I remember my great-grandmother's love for us grandchildren - and the way we would climb onto her lap and she would read story after story to us. I wonder about the other similarities that have been passed on from generation to generation. Our love for children. Our love for music. Our love for making beautiful things and making things beautiful. I also wonder about our earlier ancestors, who they were and how they made the world more beautiful. And I wonder about how I will pass on these traits to my children and grandchildren and even great grandchildren.

Psalm 145:4 "One generation commends your works to another; they tell of your mighty acts."

The Maple and The Oak

When I was young, there was a big maple tree outside my bedroom window. I remember watching birds perch on its branches then fly onto the roof, sometimes making nests where I could hear their scrabbling and squeaking, but not see them. I vividly remember one morning when I watched a cardinal perch on a branch and eat something. During the summer, when the windows were open, the wind in the branches reminded me of Heidi's affection for the wind in the firs on the mountain. The leaves whispered and the branches creaked.

Now I have a maple out my back door. When I sit at my chair at the kitchen table, I can look out the back door and see it waving in the breeze. I can hear it whispering through the open windows on those long lazy afternoons, when the neighborhood is quiet before the evening rush. And on the back porch at night, if I close my eyes, I can imagine that it is just the tree and I in an open field.

Maples have been my friends through growing pains, and making good times even better. During seasons of depression, they have been a reminder into a world full of life. As the winter sets in, the fire of life bursts from their leaves in red and orangey-yellow and mottled peach. The mingled smell of wet and dry leaves as we rake them into piles, then jump into them, fills my lungs with youth and happiness. Then I hide under them, for a half-second dreaming in leaf stained-glass windows; there in my private sanctuary, I wait for a little boys to find me, listening to the hymns of their giggles. In just a few months, their stark bare branches begin showing red buds that point to the spring that seems to take forever to come. I have watched them grow and die and new life sprout from their winged leaves. Maples are my friends, for they are trees of balance and generosity. 

But when my father chose a tree for me, he chose a white oak. Known for its strength and endurance,  its tousled head holds onto leaves all through the winter. Its wood is strong and resilient, carrying a special tannin that keeps out many parasites. White oak barrels are used for aging wines (the American oak is favored for brandy, sherry and other liquors, though it also brings out a different flavor in wine) and even the cork tree is a kind of oak. It has historically been the wood of shipbuilders, and favored for timber-framed buildings. But also beautiful with is white and dark grain markings, it is prized for paneling, veneer, and furniture. Oak trees, when in a forest, often grow taller than the other trees, reaching, always reaching for the light. Those in the open, spread and extend, often growing as wide as they are tall. It is not uncommon for them to grow to be 200-300 years old, though some may be longer. But it is a tree of the fields and forest, and often cannot tolerate the pollution that comes with city life. Even the salt from the streets can harm them. Though when they survive, their slow growth will break the pavement that surrounds them, rather than conform to it.

Each of us children have a home tree, or perhaps it should be called a heart tree. My father would tell us how he would pray for us as he mowed around our trees, and my sister and I have often pondered the symbolism of our trees. She recently wrote to me, "I've always thought our home trees were sort of symbolic for who we are/where we are in life. Yours flourished early and grew tall and strong dwarfing the rest of us. You married first, grew from your college experience, loved your job. My tree (sugar maple) grew steadily quickly matching Keith's (also a maple). Now his has out grown mine again I think. And if you remember, Curt's first tree died. Dad went to the woods and dug up another, unwilling to give up on his wayward son. Now he is becoming an oak of righteousness."

So I am an oak. Unsuited to cities or even small town life, I thrive in wide open places. Trees, water, rocks, green growing things seem to nurture my soul. On our little plot of land that we share with three other apartments, I feel closed in. In our house that looks out on other houses, I feel claustrophobic. In a world of engage, relate, serve, I often feel burnt out and exhausted. When pressured by make, do, accomplish, I give into measuring myself by outcomes. Yet even when I find myself in this busy world, I reach up for light, finding windows, patches of sky, and green growing things for company. 

Slow to change, yet steadily reaching for the Son, I am growing. The changes may not be visible on the outside, but inner rings of light and dark are forming. Seasonly prolific, like the trees that drop acorns with only a 10% germination rate, I occasionally learn that I have unintentionally blessed many who happen to pass under my boughs and stopped to feed on my acorns. So like the tree, I will slow down, feel the wind in my hair, and watch the rings grow, measurable outcomes un-quantifiable until it is cut down, yet its legacy continuing through generations.

My Tree

Our backyard with our tree

How often has the tree in our back yard been a place of solace!

When I sit at my chair at the kitchen table, I can look out the back door and see it waving in the breeze. When the neighborhood is quiet, I can hear it whispering through the open windows. When I sit on the back porch at night, I can imagine that it is just the tree and I in an open field, if I close my eyes. 

I am not a city or even a small town girl. I like wide open places. Trees, water, rocks, green growing things seem to nurture my soul. On our little plot of land that we share with three other apartments, I feel closed in. In our house that looks out on other houses, I feel claustrophobic. But the tree offers a sense of freedom and openness. 

My "home tree" is behind the yellow one.

This sense seems to translate to life. In a world of engage, relate, serve, I often feel burnt out and exhausted. In an atmosphere of make, do, accomplish, I give into the pressure of measuring myself by outcomes. The tree reminds me to stop and watch the rings grow, its measurable outcomes un-measureable until it is dead and cut down.

Our tree is the last one to turn colors in the neighborhood. I have often wondered if it is sheltered between the houses so it doesn't feel the change in seasons like its "sister" down the front walk. It is also a maple, which is the same kind as my "home tree" on my parents homestead. So I wonder, if I were a dryad, would I be maple?