Change is in the air…

By John W. Vander Velden

 

There is a change in the air. As the days grow shorter we realize that summer has passed and soon a new season will begin.   Perhaps now is the time we should think about change. Changes in our lives. Changes in attitudes, in relationships. Life is about change. Changes we have made. Changes we will make. 

The world around us effects all of us.  It bombards us with so many ideas, so many promises of better things, so many demands for our time and energy. It changes us.  It changes us in our relationships, our relationships with our family, our relationships with our neighbors, our relationships with our community…our relationship with God.

Perhaps today is the time for each of to think about change, about what is important, about what we have left behind in our rush toward what the world promises is better.  Perhaps today is the time for each of us to think about our relationships… our relationships with each other…our relationship with God.

Change is in the air…are we ready for a change?

(176 Words)/2009

October 17th

October 17^th

By John W. Vander Velden

The relationship between parent and child is always complex. There are so many facets that influence how the generations mesh...or not. I believe that each person is unique. Even siblings, though they may share genetics are not the same in every way. Life itself and all the challenges and setbacks that each face shape us. So though the same clay might be tossed on the potter’s wheel, the master artist forms each lump a bit differently.

So unique individuals build unique relationships in unique ways. Again it is life, isn’t it? So the relationship I had with my mother and father was very different than the relationship that my siblings had built over the years, not better, just different.

Perhaps it was the vast number of hours I shared with my parents. The unplanned twist of my life that in the end resulted in my lifelong profession led to my working side by side with my father for more than thirty years. But even that does not explain it all. For the profession we shared demanded long hours, early rising and working often till the sky held out its stars for our pleasure. The sheer mass of hours, the countless shared meals, the seven days a week surely made my connection different than others. And over those years, faults and blemishes cannot be hidden, and that came into the mix as well.

Yet it was in the understanding, as best as I was able, these complex imperfect people, and accepting them with their strengths and weakness while doing my best to manage my own life within the few hours left. So looking back I wonder, once again, exactly what was the relationship we shared. I wonder if I met their approval. My father did not understand me...not really. And I am certain, even now, I did not fully understand him. But how could I? I did not live through the depression, survive as a teenager in an occupied country, or leave family and EVERYTHING behind at twenty three.

Yet we must have understood enough to tolerate, even appreciate each other year after year. A partnership, if not financially, in the task. And we did not carry that task alone for mom had her part, a large part in the success of a business that seemed bound for failure at its onset. So the three of us worked together side by side, each with an important contribution as we faced together the steps forward and back as well to at long last arrive in creating a profitable endeavor.

So you can see the life I shared with those who reared me shaped the relationship. And now as I approach October 17^th I am reminded of the years we worked side by side, and I think about my mother and father, for this October 17th would have been mom’s 94^th birthday.  

An Excerpt from Elizabeth’s Journey

An Excerpt from Elizabeth’s Journey

By John W. Vander Velden

The sun shone on a bright spring day, but Elizabeth didn’t notice. She sat alone in a half filled rail car as it rumbled and rattled eastward. Trains would take her to Columbus, Ohio. Elizabeth was going home. The voices of those that shared the space scarcely registered above noise that surrounded her. Having traveled on trains before, she found the swaying of the car and the chunk, chunk, chunk of wheels over the rails expected sensations. The stale air mixed with the cigar smoke from the man five rows forward did not trouble her, for her mind was filled with thoughts and memories, expectations unrealized and disappointments never anticipated. Elizabeth was going home, but had no real idea what her future held.

Seeing the others that shared the car, she shook her head at the thought of how so many would leave Thimble this week. Elizabeth wondered if a similar number had rumbled into the town at the rail’s end the evening before. It seemed that people came and people went. But as she considered the tired old men, and others in their prime, she knew none were driven by the reasons that propelled her.

Alone in her thoughts, Elizabeth considered the reasons she had gone west. The heartbreak that had brought her. The reasons for her return to Ohio were very different. Or were they? As she looked about the rail car she wondered how many had come to Kansas only to be driven back in less than a year. Certainly others, like she, had abandoned—something.

Leaning into the worn leather that covered her seat, Elizabeth eyed a family seated near the front of the coach. A man, a woman, his wife she felt certain, and five children all under the age of twelve sat in three rows. Had they come to visit some relation, or had they sought a new life, like she had, only to surrender and return to some sanctuary or other? But Elizabeth had not surrendered. No, she had made the choice to return to Ohio with no plans of returning. Even though members of the school board begged her to return in September, she could not. Only Rev. Benjamin Smith knew the real reason for her departure, a very private reason. Elizabeth drew a breath as she shook her head to herself. She considered those reasons noble in the least, a choice that was best. Love lost sent her west, and love found chased her back east. And the sacrifice love demanded meant that a new life in Misty Creek would not be hers—could not be hers.

The train rumbled on, the sound reminded her of a wagon ride taken just yesterday. When they had crossed the saddle, she was amazed. The dried up dusty land she had crossed months before was unrecognizable. The prairie was green and vibrant. Wildflowers could be found at nearly every glance. It reminded her once again of first impressions. They were not always accurate.