Looking at Great-Grandma Hattie's Diary

In the square space that was once the small bedroom my sister and I shared, that is now his office, my dad has an old metal toolbox which holds my great-grandpa Royal Levant Eaton’s wallet, a true leather billfold. Inside that wallet, I found a small scrap of paper folded up. It was a page from “Our America Engagement Calendar for 1956”. On the other side of it was a brief holiday journal written out in green ink by my great-grandma Hattie Eva Smith.

By the end of 1956, Hattie had been widowed for twenty-five years. My great-grandpa Roy was a prison guard. His son, my grandpa Mark, was sixteen years old was his father was injured during a prison riot and later died. Hattie was left with three children- Helen, Dorothy, and Mark- and had to get a job. She went to school for nursing.

In the journal bit she tucked away, it was Christmas time for her and it is Christmas time again. I corrected her major spelling and grammar errors, but otherwise, I’d like you to meet my great-grandma Hattie, in her own words. She mentions her daughter Helen, who shared an apartment with her.

December, Sunday 25: Snow all gone and it is Christmas day. Went to Mark’s for the day. Had a good time. Phil’s so cute (that’s my dad!). They sure had a nice Christmas, so glad. They deserve it. Robert and Laura were there for dinner. Mr. and Mrs. Rauson [Ransom, Mark's boss] came in to call.

December, Monday 26: Dorothy came after us and we went down there and had a lovely time. Jack sure had a good time. I know I did. Helen did too and looked better in a short while after we got there.

December, Tuesday 27: Cold day. Helen went to library. Very quiet here. Looked over my xmas presents. Read. Took a nap. Washed a few clothes. They are like boards they froze so stiff. A bit tired today. So much excitement!

December, Wednesday 28: Lovely day. Dorothy came for a little while. Bertha wanted time to go to the movies. We went to Bob’s for evening and had a good time. They sure had a big Christmas. Wish I could do for mine

December, Thursday 29: Went to the movies to see Heidi also Vanishing American. Helen was mad when she found out Bertha paid for it. She wasn’t too nice about it but so it goes. She is so sore at life.

December, Friday 30: Cold. A snow squall this morning. My check came this morning. Will pay the rent 46.00 tonight. Church $10. Also $8 for Miss Schafer for underclothes; slips. Helen’s so depressed over (?)el(?)(?).

December, Saturday 31: This is the end of the year. Hope next year will not be so hard. Have done the best I could. What more can anyone do? Good bye, old year. We hope for better times.

It’s worth noting that long before this journaling, Helen was in an extremely abusive marriage. When he discovered it, my Grandpa Mark and his brother-in-law drove to her farm and packed Helen and her children up. They never returned. My dad says his Aunt Helen never seemed to recover from it.

           After I read the small diary to my father, he talked fondly of her and described the layout of her small apartment to me. I live in my own fading apartment and have spent a year barely getting by, trying to focus on the joy that we are still getting by. I feel a kinship with this woman. Her spirit stood to the left side of my ICU bed while I was in the hospital. I was never alone.

            But it’s been a hard two years since then.

In difficult times, the love of the people in my life is my sunshine. I wonder if it was the same for Grandma Hattie. Because in that respect I am fully blessed. So I’ll borrow her words, her silent prayer, as I greet 2018. This prayer is for me, for my family, and for the world around me.

“Good bye, old year. We hope for better times.”




[Originally posted December 31, 2014.]

I Believe in Santa Claus

Six years ago, my wife flew into the house, cheeks rosy and eyes bright, shouting that she had seen Santa Claus in the grocery store (insert childlike exclamation marks). I smiled while she elatedly described him to me, an old man with snow white hair and beard in a red sweater, slowly walking the aisles. He had candy canes and oranges in his cart and when she looked him in the eye, he winked at her. I felt the giddy welling in my own belly and wished I had been there to see him, too.

I would have said, thank you.

Whether you call him Santa Claus, Kris Kringle, Saint Nicholas, Sinter Klaus, Father Christmas or Pere Noel, the spirit of the myth that was once a man has lived for centuries in the hearts of people everywhere. Bishop Nicholas of Smyrna lived in the 4th century. He was the son of a wealthy family who used his money for the welfare and good of his people, performing miracles for those who might otherwise have been left destitute. He brought hope and light to the world. He was a real man before his spirit was blessed with immortality. In the passing of time and telling of stories a holy man became something greater.

He became a season of giving and a myth with many faces.

It is the legend of the immortal gift-giver and toymaker that most of us grew up with. I still remember my love of the “jolly old elf” as a child. I remember because I still carry that love in my heart. My favorite version of his mythology comes from the fictional work The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by Frank L. Baum. A babe left in the woods was raised in magic by the fairy folk and gifted the Cloak of Immortality for all of the joy he brought to an otherwise bleak human world, so that he might continue his good works forever. I like the idea that long after I am dead and gone, the spirit of the man called Claus will continue. Our world needs magic in it.

Our world is made of magic.

I wish that the joy and spirit of the holiday season could stretch out and blanket all of the calendar days, so I try to drink it in while I can, syrupy sappy happiness and all. I love baking cookies and delicacies and crafting presents for loved ones. I love the lengths people will go to in order to make a little Christmas magic happen. I learned that from Santa… and the spirit of him that lives in the heart of my mother and father.

How can belief in him be a bad thing? Santa Claus wants us to be good to each other. He promotes charity and compassion as well as candy canes and hot cocoa. I was the child who vehemently defended his existence far beyond what I should have, for as smart a child as I was. I’d done the math. I knew how much the presents we got from Santa Claus cost. Times that amount by three children. There was no way my parents could afford to spend that much on us.

I was adamant, fighting with friends on Grand Street on the way home from school and stomping home angrily because they didn’t believe me. They didn’t believe in Santa, when he was so good to us. I really wish I could remember how old I was then.

I remember sitting on my dad’s lap, in his father’s rocking chair when I was a bit older. He mentioned how important it was that I not ruin Santa for my younger sister, or other young children. I was bright for my age and always a bit ahead of putting pieces together. He assumed I had already figured it out and knew I was the kind of child who liked to share what knowledge I had. I will never forget the way his face drained of color when he saw the look on mine – when he realized that not only had I not put it together yet, but I had not even suspected the truth.

My poor father.

I had been a warrior for the Northern Elf for years and now my dad was saying that man was a figment, just an idea. I’m not embarrassed to admit to how long I believed in Sinter Klaus. If you know me you know that the magic and wonder of the holiday is a light that lives in me. It always has. My father’s admission did not take the magic away. I was not entirely sure that my father was right.

Santa had to be more than an idea. My eyes opened wider in the wake of that moment. I understood that the mall Santa was like the priest at church, speaking for a man who could not possibly be everywhere at once. I didn’t negotiate much beyond that until I realized something about my parents. They never bought things for themselves. All year, I watched my mom not buy herself anything and realized she was squirreling money away so that they could make Christmas the most magical day for us.

My parents sacrificed to gift us magic out of love. Because they remembered their joy as children, waiting for the sounds of sleigh bells in the night sky. It was a legacy they went to lengths to pass on. Isn’t that magic, too?

I remember well my days as a young girl, waking in my flannel nightgown, waiting until we were allowed to run into my parents’ room and throw open their east-facing window curtains. I remember every year, our mornings around the tree unwrapping presents. Those mornings opened a window into the child that lived in the heart of my parents and my grandparents. I understood that they were once children my age, excitedly opening gifts with their parents.

In my mind’s eye I can see the tree changing backwards into homemade ornaments and popcorn strands, paper chains and nuts strung. Rugs become rag wool become wood floor become dirt and straw… Always there is a child beneath the tree whose blood is part of me.

Always there is a child whose blood is part of me, back past Christmas, into Yule, into Modranight, into whatever group gathered together against the longest night.

The real Santa Claus lives inside all of us, like the divine energy does. We all have a santa and a scrooge, a light and a dark side. At holiday time, we find it easier to feed our inner Santa. We feel the desire to give gifts of magic to children around us and fight hard to help him defeat our stressed-scrooge inside.

Like the Native American story, we have a choice to continue to feed our inner Kringle and spread the joy and light of love, compassion and charity throughout all of our days. Whatever you believe, whatever you practice, whoever you love, take the best of the holiday season with you into world, through the long winter, well after the snows have melted.

An old Cherokee Indian was speaking to his grandson:

"A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy. "It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil- he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego. The other is good- he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith. This same fight is going on inside you and inside every other person, too."

The grandson thought about it for a long minute. "Which wolf will win?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one I feed."

[Originally posted December 14, 2011.]

Calling Grandma Ruth into Christmas Kolachkis

My father’s mother died of cervical cancer when he was five years old. Her name was Ruth Emma Ruston and she was only forty-two. This year I turned forty-one. The closer I get to that age myself, the more I find myself thinking about her. At this age, what would it be like to know that I might have to leave behind my husband and four sons?

My dad has this picture of her at a family party in this fabulous red dress, a bit out of place for a Sunday afternoon get-together. She is looking at the camera with a big smile on her face. My dad said that she went into the hospital the week after that very party, and she knew she wasn’t coming out. That dress was her favorite dress.

I’ve been focusing on reaching out to her, trying to build traditions with her that we were never able to have together. In that spirit, I made kolachki cookies, for the first time, with Grandma Ruth in my butter-yellow kitchen.

As I’ve been doing our genealogy and family history, I find that my family resemblance is to her line of the family, the Ruston line with its Polish heritage. It wasn’t a leap to try to connect with her over a Polish cookie. I am not historically talented in the kitchen, something I’ve been working on as well. So my offering to her spirit was the attempt to make something that was a bit more complicated.

The dough was prepared the night before and chilled in the fridge. The black walnut filling was mixed and beat into submission. And then I pressed the dough out between two layers of wax paper until it was paper thin, almost translucent.

As I rolled the dough out, firmly and repeatedly, I thought about my Grandma Ruth. I thought about the line of Rustons, who come through Wickers and Whitchers, Whitchers and DeLoziers, Loziers and Zabriskis, Zabriskis and Terhunes, Zabriskis and Van Der Lindes, back into Poland. And I rolled the dough thin and smooth.

It felt as if dozens of women stood in the kitchen with me, cutting out three inch squares, dolloping golden filling on them, and folding opposite corners in over each other. The warmth from the oven made fingers and dough supple and inside they went to cook. My folding skills need work. They’re not all pretty. But they are delicate and flaky, and delicious.

I wish my father could have better known his mother. I wish that I could have known her. I’m not sure if she ever made kolachkis or if her family ever had, but in my heart I made them to honor my unknown Grandmother and all who came before her, so that I could be here, with hands in warm dough, and heart full of love, peace and wonder. 

Grandpa Mark and Grandma Ruth, cooking in the backyard.

[Original post published December 25, 2013, as Kolachkis for Grandma Ruth.]

Grieving This Holiday

"Here is one of the ways grief works in our minds… I fall asleep thinking about my new cat, and how quickly she slipped into her own night time pattern. And how different her pattern is from any of the other cats I’ve had. Had. Because they’re dead now. Bella died in June. Bella hasn’t even been dead for a year. Bella’s only been gone for six months. And I miss her. As cute as Mara is, she is an addition, not a replacement. And I want to have them both. Then I want all five of the deceased and alive cats all in one space. In one time. Right now.

And then I remember that time is a cycle of wheels and gears interlocking and pulling away. Some return to meet over and over and some gears only touch once before travelling onward. Our lives are these wheels within gears, within circles of family and friends. We need time and distance to distort the powerful emotion of feeling all that love at once or we would explode from the wonder of it. But sometimes, in the wake of the awe, we forget that these cycles and shifting circles are what our lives are made up of. And grief is part of that cycle.

I remember Bella’s night time pattern. Every night, before sleep, a kiss on the nose. If I forgot she would cry at me, kneading her feet angrily or worriedly on the bed. It was never the same emotion. And I remembered them, every one of those separate occasions as if they were a flip book of images in my mind until they became the same still. A thousand emotional moments becoming one feeling, one memory, and bringing her back to life. I could hear her tinny, obnoxious cry. And I could feel her coat under my hand. I could feel her push her face against my lips. I started to cry with a kind of grief I haven’t let myself feel for months."

I wrote that four years ago. Rereading it stings at my heart. I remember like it was yesterday. The house is decorated for the holidays. We give our cats a stocking of toys and catnip in the morning. It was hard enough when Luna died. And then, Bella... This year Zami won’t be there either. I know our holiday morning will be bittersweet, making new memories while being haunted by old ones. It’s why learning to be in the moment is important. This year, more than any other, I have a long list of friends who are dealing with the loss of a parent or pet, most of them within the last few weeks. It’s the cycle of life. And it’s heartbreaking.
             It's only been two months since Zami died. Mara is part of this family now, having found her niche. But Zami was the last of the originally babies. Her loss is still palpable. There are three boxes on my altar of cremains. At least they are together again, in a way.

It’s hard to lose someone at the holiday season. And it’s hard to be missing them when we are focused on family and loved ones. The weight of our grief directly correlates to the weight of the love we held for the lost. And when we are surrounded by family, by joyous, loving emotions like the holidays evoke, some of that grief will seep through. The most important piece of advice I can give you is to be gentle with yourself. The holidays are about compassion and you have to start with yourself.
             There’s no timetable for grief. What takes some people months, takes others years. Even then, it never truly goes away. The loss is always with us. So go easy on your grief. Allow it to flow through you.

Four years ago, sitting with friends, I realized that I would never say to Bella again, “Nobody wants your anus,” as she was prone to presenting it to people in greeting. Insistently. I cried for a minute, out of nowhere. They asked what was wrong and I told them and immediately laughed through my tears, because it was such a strange thing to miss. I said that it was stupid and my friends said, No. It wasn’t.
             And they were right. The tears gave way to smiles and funny stories and the day went on. I didn’t ruin it with my grief. I allowed it to move through me.

So who cares if you’re at a holiday party and you think about your dad and you cry. Everyone loses people they love. Everyone understands. And if they don’t, maybe we need to make them. I cry for my Grandpa every Christmas morning when I eat my orange, because he’s not here.

The last Christmas with the Original trio, 2009.

It’s when we hold our grief in that it eats at us and it hurts. That’s when keeping it behind walls until it bursts ruins our days and moods. At the holidays, it’s impossible not to think about our fresh losses. We’re afraid of our grief. We’re afraid to bring it up because of the tears that threaten to follow. But what doesn’t work through us lives within us. So those who are grieving need to be able to be sad so that we can push through the crust of grief to the happy memories underneath it. The swifter you allow the flood, the sooner it ebbs.

If you aren’t the one grieving?
             Give your friends a break. Invite them to your festivities even if they’re dealing with a loss. Remind them they still have you. Be understanding if they choose not to come. Be understanding if they show up and are not the life of the party. Holidays are not about how things look. They’re about brotherhood and sisterhood and compassion.
At least they should be.

I spend a lot of my time hanging natural ribbons on trees in memory of those no longer with me. So I both make and collect ornaments that do the same thing. I have an angel cat for both Luna and Bella and now, Zami. A hummingbird for my grandparents and an owl for my grandma. You could also get some heavy card stock and cut out suns and snowflakes. Write the names of your Recent and Beloved Dead on them and hang them on your tree.

Drink a toast to those you miss when you are all gathered together. Have everyone raise a glass and speak their name. Speak their names. Invoke them into your joy. Share funny or heartwarming stories about them. Set a favored cocktail out on a clear space as an altar and offering for them. Bake the cookies they loved or used to make themselves and share them.
Cry when you need to.

Put out a bunch of tea lights and candles, unlit. Throughout the day, as you remember a happy memory, light another candle. Literally allow the love and memories you had to bring light into your holiday. The darkness of winter seems to last forever, but this is when the light begins to return. I use the holiday as a reminder that there is joy after the sadness. Grief may pull at our hearts but love will win out in the end.

Blessings to you and yours this holiday season.



[Originally published December 18, 2013 as Grieving at the Holidays, after the loss of Bella.]