Mom's Words

Anyone that really knew Mom, could tell that she had suffered in many ways. It shaped her. It seasoned her. It was something she reflected on. These are words from her journal in her format; the entry is dated 21 January 2011:

• Power is developed through resistance.
• Tribulation is the door to triumph.
• The chains of character found at the feet of God are forged in earthly flames.
• With deep furrows of anguish on His brow the man of sorrows (Isa 53:3) said "In the world you will have trouble" (John 16:33) But immediately comes the psalm of promise "Take heart! I have overcome the world."

"They'd Die of Homesickness That Day"

When recently looking up press for the Minneapolis Farmers Market, I came across a blog article by Tracey Paska titled, "Blue Gentian Farms a Midwest Refuge for Heritage Breeds." I clicked on the article because the "blue gentians" and "heritage breeds" spoke to me. I learned the farm raised Scottish Highland Cows (Mom loved "hee-land coos") among other livestock, and, according to the article, they took their name from the rare blue gentians that grow on the farm. It reminded me of a poem Mom used to read aloud to us from her worn-out anthology of poems called "Fringed Gentians" by Amy Lowell. The title of the anthology I can't recall. My memories of it were its threadbare, avocado-colored cover with just a hint of gold where the name of the title once lay. Here is the poem for you to enjoy:

Fringed Gentians

by Amy Lowell

 

Near where I live there is a lake
As blue as blue can be, winds make
It dance as they go blowing by.
I think it curtseys to the sky.

It's just a lake of lovely flowers
And my Mamma says they are ours;
But they are not like those we grow
To be our very own, you know.

We have a splendid garden, there
Are lots of flowers everywhere;
Roses, and pinks, and four o'clocks
And hollyhocks, and evening stocks.

Mamma lets us pick them, but never
Must we pick any gentians -- ever!
For if we carried them away
They'd die of homesickness that day.


If you are interested in the Minneapolis Farmers Market, Blue Gentian Farms or Tracey Paska's blog you can peruse the links below:

www.mplsfarmersmarket.com

www.bluegentianfarms.com

www.simplegoodandtasty.com




                          

                                 Fringed Genetian from
                                Georgia Botanical Society site.
                          www.gabotsoc.com

                    




Being A Life-long Learner

Raising educated, intellectually curious children was very important to Mom. She wanted us to be life-long learners as she continually told us growing up. She was herself a life-long learner. Some of her methods people may think of as extreme like putting the television in the closet for a year-and-a-half or whittling down the number of toys we had so we'd be forced to create our own. As a child watching everyone else watching hours of television or having the latest gadget from Toys R Us made me frustrated sometimes, but more often I found ways to amuse myself along with my sister, Sara. When one does not have the stimulation of other's ideas pouring in, well, the possibilities are endless!

We created a commercial kitchen in the backyard. We did this by using our sandbox toys and old pie pans and bowls. We made pies from mud that were topped with the berries from the yaupon holly trees that we picked off. We baked the pies on the top of air conditioning unit. It was the perfect backyard oven since hot air blew up from the exhaust fan. It used to make Dad really mad because all of the mud dripped into the unit.

Much to Dad's chagrin, we made soup in the water fountain that was part of the landscape design in our early childhood home. We used leaves and petals which we pulled off of all of the different types of plants in the backyards and mixed them all in the basin of the fountain. Our soup had variety and color. We clogged up that fountain many times and always had to assist Dad with draining and cleaning it.

How did these experiences help make us into life-long learners? Did this imaginative playtime mean anything to us and how can one tell? We learned about seasons and nature. Our kitchen creations changed with the season as the availability of our ingredients did plus thanks to Dad we learned the names of the plants as we pulled them from the fountain. Seasonal cooking with fresh ingredients is something Sara and I both do now. And in an interesting twist Sara later went on to study at the highly regarded Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. Just a coincidence or did these types of experiences influence her? You decide.

Word Study

As mentioned previously, Mom was highly intelligent. One of her pasttimes was to study languages. She did this in her pursuit of faith. Not only did she believe in God and the Bible, but she wanted to know all there was to know so she could have a more meaningful relationship with God. Already well schooled in languages (she had taken Latin and German while in school and had learned some Norwegian while living in Norway), she taught herself Ancient Greek and later Hebrew. I have all of these memories of lexicons, concordances, language primers, Bibles, notecards, papers and notebooks everywhere when I was a child. I used to find it irritating until I found out when I was older how wonderful lots of notebooks can be! I, too, have them everywhere. When searching for a specific notebook of mine, I came across one of hers. It contains lists of words in Greek along with the translation into English. I found one series of words particularly interesting. Here they are (in English):

I hear
I see
I have
I destroy
I believe
I know
I write
I take
I say
I suffer

That's Impossible!

Mom had an unusual sense of humor. She was so smart that some jokes were not funny to her because the content of the joke was "impossible." An example of this type of impossibility can be found in the following joke:

Question: What is the last thing a bug sees before hitting the car's windshield?
Answer: It's behind.

Juvenile, I know. We were juveniles when we brought this gem home. We told it to Mom and Dad. Dad laughed quite a bit. Mom said, "I don't get it. How could see it's behind? It would have died during the initial impact. It is a physical impossibility to see it's behind. I don't think it is funny at ALL!" So, we kids, rolled our eyes and told her not to be so literal and maybe the humor would come to her and then we shrugged it off.

About a week later, we were on one of our family trips to visit Dad's family in Florida. We always drove from Texas to Florida because it was so much cheaper than flying a family of five. Somewhere between Louisiana and Mississippi, Mom, who was sitting in the back of the car (I was driving) suddenly and with no prompting starts laughing hysterically. We all asked her what was so funny. When she finally caught her breath, she explained that she finally got the bug joke! Apparently, she'd been trying to understand it all week!

It was short-lived because no sooner than we had arrived in Florida, she approached my sister and I because she "couldn't remember why that bug joke was so funny." She wanted us to explain it to her. Of course, we rolled our eyes. She kept asking us to explain that joke up until the very end of her life. Every time we tried to explain it to her we got the whole "that's impossible" explanation.

Remembering Mom

         This past October, my mom, Patricia Ann Prutzman nee Johnson passed away. The autoimmune disease that so ravaged her body had become too much for even her to battle. Scleroderma had completely taken over her body. In those last days, she still carried the air of quiet dignity and warm kindness that she was known for. It was what caused strangers to be attracted to her and made those close to her cherish "all things Mom." She was an unusual person whose adamant faith, fighting spirit, exceptionally sharp mind, and intuitive awareness made for some amazing triumphs and some dark struggles. It was what made her exceptional at things most people would consider impossible like teaching herself languages (yes, that is plural) and dreadful at things most people consider simple like using a television remote control. What made someone with such extremes so likeable? Her transparency. Her willingness to open up her heart and share her life. Why? Because other people had difficulties too. They might benefit from her journey. This is the legacy of Mom and it is from that legacy that this blog is born.