Looking Back and Looking Ahead

August 22, 2023 / nagneberg48 / 6 Comments

August 22, 2023

If my parents were still alive they would have celebrated their 80th wedding anniversary this past June and their 100th birthdays this month. They were born days apart in 1923, but died years apart — my mother in 2003 and my father more recently in 2020.

When my mother died of colon cancer after three years of remission, my father’s pain was tangible, but also his amazement. His wife dying first was not the plan. Men were supposed to die first, and much of their financial planning was with that thought in mind. He wanted to make sure Mom would be well-taken care of financially. Never did he think about what being a widower might mean for him.

Although he was lonely and missed her deeply, he did well. He continued his work as a consultant for several years and remained in their home until some health problems led to his decision to move into an independent living facility, where he lived for about ten years.

I suspect if Dad had died first Mom would have moved out of the house earlier and would have developed a social life with her new neighbors. Her needs for help from her family would have been different from my Dad’s, but I think she, too, would have done well in her years as a widow.

What’s important to remember is that there wasn’t a choice about who was going to die first.

What is true, however, is one of them would die before the other.

How obvious that seems, but I wonder how often we operate under mistaken assumptions. Like my father’s assumption that he would die before my mother.

In my August 1 post I mentioned that my husband and I recently had a conversation about future plans. Would I stay in the house if he died first? “No,” I said, but he said he would stay in the house, if I died first. Our conversation, brief as it was, focused on our individual needs and decisions. What strikes me now, however, is that unless we die in a car accident or some other catastrophic way, ONE OF US WILL DIE FIRST. And one of us will continue to live for an unknown period of time.

There are obviously all sorts of implications with that awareness, including financial ones but also thoughts about who I am as an individual. What am I doing now to maintain my own personhood, to continue to develop my own interests, to grow, and to connect to others in meaningful ways? What would be my challenges as a person newly uncoupled? My challenges might be different than my husband’s. Are there ways we can help each other now prepare for a life on our own after so many years of being a pair?

Obviously, we have no idea when either of us will die, and neither of us dwells on that question. Instead, we attempt to live fully and gratefully for these years that feel like such a bonus. At the same time we live aware of more days behind us than ahead of us, and it is good to continue the conversations.

In the meantime my sibs and our spouses will gather in the next few days to lift a glass or two to the memory of our parents and the years they were privileged to live.

An Invitation

What assumptions do you have as you live in your elder years? I would love to know.

A Time to Celebrate

July 18, 2023 / nagneberg48 / 9 Comments

July 17, 2023

For Celebration

Now is the time to free the heart,
Let all intentions and worries stop,
Free the joy inside the self,
Awaken to the wonder of your life.

Open your eyes and see the friends
Whose hearts recognize your face as kin,
Those whose kindness watchful and near,
Encourages you to live everything here.

See the gifts the years have given,
Things your effort could never earn,
The health to enjoy who you want to be
And the mind to mirror mystery.
		John O’Donohue 
                To Bless the Space
                Between Us, A Book of Blessings

How close the words “celebration” and “blessings” feel to me.

This past weekend our family gathered to celebrate my husband’s and my 75th birthdays. Bruce’s is later this month, and mine was in April. When our family asked how we wanted to celebrate this milestone birthday, we expressed our desire for all of us to simply be together, to have time to enjoy one’s company, to be in each other’s presence.

That is not as easy as it sounds. Our son Geof and daughter-in-love Cricket live in Cleveland and have demanding jobs and a busy life. Our St Paul family, daughter Kate, son-in-love Mike and our grandkids, Pete and Maren juggle MANY balls, including Pete’s summer baseball and football training schedules.

Yes, finding a time when we could all be together was challenging. Yesterday Pete left on a 19-day hiking trip in the Rockies and could Maren manage some time away from her summer job at Northern Lights, a YMCA family camp in northern Minnesota? She leaves for a semester in Greece at the end of August and won’t be home till Christmas, so being together seemed even more important.

Thanks to everyone’s cooperation and Kate and Cricket’s organizational skills, the weekend happened, and it truly was a celebration. A blessing to be held tenderly and lovingly in our hearts and memories.

The “doing” was great fun–going to Pete’s last baseball game followed by pizza at a local brewery, a Saturday pontoon cruise on White Bear Lake (Maren was our captain because one of her jobs as director of outdoor activities at camp is to be in charge of the pontoons); dinner at an excellent restaurant, The Lexington or “The Lex,” a St Paul tradition; church where we filled an entire pew and introduced Geof and Cricket to that loving community; lunch at Kate and Mike’s club (we had intended a poolside afternoon, but it was too cool); and an evening movie, Mission Impossible, at the iconic Riverview movie theater, which has the best popcorn anywhere.

Even more special than the “doing” was the “being.” The being together. The laughing. The catching-up and the connecting. The strengthening of our bonds of love. The opportunity to know one another more deeply–who we are now and the ground and the paths that brought us to this point.

At one point I asked everyone to tell about a memorable birthday. Interestingly, several of us shared stories about our 40th birthday celebrations. For example, Bruce and I each had surprise birthday parties for each other. That topic led to more stories about memorable celebrations and tales about earlier years. Throughout the weekend I kept thinking about other memorable birthdays like my 50th when we visited Kate and Mike in Tanzania where they did mission work for a year and more recently the 70th birthday party they had for us, inviting friends and family.

I thought about how in past years we have celebrated those who now are no longer physically with us, but also how Pete and Maren have so much living ahead of them–celebrations, along with unwanted changes and challenges. More and more I feel the blending of past, present, and future, but perhaps this is a topic for another day.

Often on a birthday card I write, “May you feel celebrated.” Well, Bruce and I felt celebrated, for sure, but I think what was really celebrated was the love and acceptance and joy of our family’s ongoing life. What a blessing that is.

An Invitation

What have you celebrated recently? How was that a blessing in your life? I would love to know.

Home Away From Home: Door County, WI

April 18, 2023 / nagneberg48 / 6 Comments

April 18, 2023

In order to have this–cherry coffee cake–

We spent this past weekend in Door County, WI, a place that over the years has become a home away from home, even though we rarely stay at the same place. At breakfast one morning at our favorite place, The White Gull Inn in Fish Creek, we tried to remember all the times Door County has been our vacation, get-away destination. We listed at least 20 times, and I’m sure we missed a few.

For those of you who don’t know, Door County is a peninsula with Green Bay on one side and Lake Michigan on the other. Many have referred to it as the Cape Cod of the Midwest. That’s fine, but I don’t think it needs to be compared to anything–it is its own kind of time-out haven.

My husband planned the trip this time to celebrate my 75th birthday, which seems like a logical time in itself to reminisce and honor the past without neglecting the present or denying the realities of the future. We roamed favorite routes, as we always do, staying alert for sandhill cranes and turkeys, glimpses of spectacular water views, and the pink haze on the cherry trees, moving steadily towards blossom time. We noted what stores and restaurants were still alive and hopefully well, and kept saying, “Remember when…”

A kind of life review of our adult years.

Neither of us could remember how we learned about Door County or when we had first visited, but we obviously fell in love with it and kept returning–sometimes just the two of us, but also family times when our children were little. And later when our children were grown. The summer of 2010, when we lived in Madison, we rented a house for a month. Bruce came for the weekends, and our daughter and family came for a few days, too.

I spent my alone time reading and writing. (No surprise!)

When I was growing up and my family moved frequently, we always went to the same resort in northern Minnesota for a week or two before moving to our new home. That time served as transition time, easing us from one place to another. Whether my parents realized they were doing that or not, that week offered a touchstone, making what was changing and what was ahead and what was left behind not quite so daunting.

Door County has become a similar touchstone–a place where I mark the changes in our lives, not just as memories, precious though they are, but as a timeline of growth and development. I recall many leisurely dinners, lingering over what we came to think of as “daiquiri talk,” dreaming and imagining what our future might hold, could hold. In fact, Door County was where we realized that we wanted to retire back to St Paul and put a plan to do just that into motion.

This past weekend was quiet, for the spring/summer season has not yet begun, and I realized how much less I need “to do,” “to see,” “to visit,” in this stage of my life. How content we were to spend more time reading in our pretty room or on the balcony.

Note the cherry wallpaper! Cherries are a definite theme in Door County.

We have celebrated birthdays and anniversaries in Door County and have been there each season. We have each had alone time there plus been there with friends and family. I don’t need everything to be the same with each visit there, although I would be crushed if the White Gull Inn closed, but instead enjoy seeing the mix of old and new. We’ve been young there, and now we are old there. I feel the span of time there, and it is a good feeling.

Perhaps if we were still living in the home where we raised our family, a home where we lived for decades, I might prefer to vacation always in new places, to cultivate new places, new experiences, but instead, Door County has become the place of returning. The place where time is measured. It is the place where each time we leave, I think about when we might return to our home away from home.

One More Thing:

As we often do, when we are out roaming, we visit a library. I think if I were living in Door County, I would spend a good chunk of time in Egg Harbor’s library–with its water view and comfortable places to sit and read.