So this is Christmas...A Eulogy of Sorts
We made the Christmas Pilgrimage to Lincoln, Nebraska (Birth place of Sweeter Half, residence of her parents) this last week. Got a chance to see a 10 month old niece, sister and brother-in-law, a bunch of other relatives, grandmas and greats and on and on. It was a good time, though I think my hyper-intelligent, future Noble prize winning beauty queen daughter grew bored with adult company and spent much of her time changing her doll's clothing. She's gathered up enough doll clothes now that she now has a summer and winter wardrobe.
But now we are back, and tomorrow enter back into the regular grind of things. I wish I could talk about how inspired I was by the season, and how the gathering of family was so much sweeter than usual, or the celebration of Christ's Birth meant so much more to me than usual, but...it didn't really have any profound effect on me this year. At least, not yet.
Round the table for Christmas dinner sat some very fine, wonderful oldsters that I've grown fond of since Sweeter Half and I were married. Ranging from late 70's to 90, they represent a generation who talk about their dads and grandparents who came over from Sweden and settled in the plains, men with names like Calmar, Bjorne, Rolfe and Torkel, and women like Mia, Ingrid, Kjersten, and Violet. Some who never moved more than a few miles from the houses they were born in, some who went to California and then came back. A real connection to the past, these folks saw little rural communities grow and expand, then wither and collapse. And they all mourn for a simpler time, as well as mourn for loved ones who have passed on.
Around that same table, with their memories, also sat strokes, cancer survivors, a couple of bionic knees, and numerous medications for ailments I don't even pretend to understand. Some speak of the oldest like, "If she makes it through the winter..." and others speak of themselves, wondering the same.
But they didn't speak in bitterness, just in resignation that this was life: They've lived it long and fruitful, and now the younger folks have to make their way. And they all seem to agree that those of us who are younger and take up the torch have a harder time ahead of them than they had.
It was a unique table we sat at, and it is doubtful my wife and I will have the opportunity to have another Christmas like this, soaking in history. Next year we will all be scattered to the different parts of the country, the plans already being made. It may only be family history to some, but it is part of the history of the Great Plains, effecting numerous families, spreading like the ripples in a pond, across the world.
What will make this Christmas memorable is the time when we are gathered together in the future, over a bittersweet cup of coffee, discussing the last Christmas we spent with one of these great pillars of their communities and churches. How they have passed on, severing a link to some distant cousin in Sweden or Ohio, and how we realize that we should have taken notes and gotten addresses.
What will make this Christmas memorable is when, in some distant future, over a cup of coffee after the lutefisk and ousta kakka, my wife and I pass on the lore of our family to our kids and grand-kids, the circle completed, the torch passed on.
But now we are back, and tomorrow enter back into the regular grind of things. I wish I could talk about how inspired I was by the season, and how the gathering of family was so much sweeter than usual, or the celebration of Christ's Birth meant so much more to me than usual, but...it didn't really have any profound effect on me this year. At least, not yet.
Round the table for Christmas dinner sat some very fine, wonderful oldsters that I've grown fond of since Sweeter Half and I were married. Ranging from late 70's to 90, they represent a generation who talk about their dads and grandparents who came over from Sweden and settled in the plains, men with names like Calmar, Bjorne, Rolfe and Torkel, and women like Mia, Ingrid, Kjersten, and Violet. Some who never moved more than a few miles from the houses they were born in, some who went to California and then came back. A real connection to the past, these folks saw little rural communities grow and expand, then wither and collapse. And they all mourn for a simpler time, as well as mourn for loved ones who have passed on.
Around that same table, with their memories, also sat strokes, cancer survivors, a couple of bionic knees, and numerous medications for ailments I don't even pretend to understand. Some speak of the oldest like, "If she makes it through the winter..." and others speak of themselves, wondering the same.
But they didn't speak in bitterness, just in resignation that this was life: They've lived it long and fruitful, and now the younger folks have to make their way. And they all seem to agree that those of us who are younger and take up the torch have a harder time ahead of them than they had.
It was a unique table we sat at, and it is doubtful my wife and I will have the opportunity to have another Christmas like this, soaking in history. Next year we will all be scattered to the different parts of the country, the plans already being made. It may only be family history to some, but it is part of the history of the Great Plains, effecting numerous families, spreading like the ripples in a pond, across the world.
What will make this Christmas memorable is the time when we are gathered together in the future, over a bittersweet cup of coffee, discussing the last Christmas we spent with one of these great pillars of their communities and churches. How they have passed on, severing a link to some distant cousin in Sweden or Ohio, and how we realize that we should have taken notes and gotten addresses.
What will make this Christmas memorable is when, in some distant future, over a cup of coffee after the lutefisk and ousta kakka, my wife and I pass on the lore of our family to our kids and grand-kids, the circle completed, the torch passed on.
