Facing the Big "M":

Facing the Big “M”

By John W. Vander Velden

Those that have traveled the circuit around the sun more than most think about the “Big M”, mortality, more than the young.  My sixty-six “round trips” give me a clearer perspective.  I understand that my days are not infinite, at least my days on the green side of the sod.  And I’m OK with that.  I believe, firmly and cannot be convinced otherwise, that the breathing part is only a portion of my life.  That what awaits is far grander than the limited body in which I now reside can provide. 

Yet I’m comfortable in this fleshy form, and have no desire to leave it before I must.  More, I am surrounded by those that need me, and as I consider the “Big M” I worry not about myself, but others.  I am but a small part of anyone’s world, but some might believe differently.  It is for them I feel most, for those that have chosen to love me—for those I have chosen to love.

It is more than just a birthday that send my mind a thinkin’.  For I have stood at death’s doorway before and not feared what lay beyond.  But recently I have been introduced to another big letter…the letter “C”.  Last week I heard the results of tests—confirming the success of my surgery.  But the past weeks the “Big C” has brought the “Big M” into clearer focus.  It has also opened the hearts of so many that have sent their thoughts and prayers in my directions, and if you are among them, I cannot fully express the depth of my gratitude.

No, none walk this earth forever, and at sixty-six “more water has flowed over the dam than resides in the lake” (No Turning Back).  But that only drives me forward.  For I have much to do.  It is my hope that I face each day as the wondrous gift GOD has given me.  Among the tasks I gladly bear, is sharing my words with you and in doing so perhaps showing a bit of God’s immeasurable love. 

So my mantra will be forward, John, forward.  For God has work for me to do on this side of the “Big M” and maybe on the other side as well….    

Lookin' Back

Lookin’ Back            

By John W. Vander Velden

Some might think it silly.  Some think it a waste of time.  Some might say they never do…but I don’t believe them.  But I look back.  So today when I reach yet another milestone of my life, I think about the road that has taken me to this place.  Yes, I look back and wonder if I have used the years to their best purposes.  But I also find that if I examine my personal past objectively I realize I could never have predicted the outcome.  I imagine the twenty year old kid that set his college degree on a shelf to take on a very different profession.  That boy had no idea where that road would take him, the highs and yes, the lows.  He had no idea of just how difficult farming would be, or how much physical abuse he would willingly put himself through.  But oh, what a journey, and the things I have done.  From the fringe it might seem I lived a small life.  But I would differ from that opinion.  For forty-five years I was up to my elbows in “the mud and blood of life”.  (I always liked that quote from Tree in the Meadow, but like it or not, it fits the life I have lived).  I’ve seen this small part of Marshall County Indiana from the top of a silo.  Times I have even stood on the very top when I had stacked it above the concrete rim and seen the panorama of what was my world. 

I have helped cows give birth more times than I would care to count.  I have aided the vet on hundreds of occasions as together we had to deal with life and death…hands on.  How many times I had found myself working the soil at cool hour of first light, and continue till the day ended.  Sometimes those days ended long after the sun had abandoned me.  I have raced the rain when the hay was almost dry, and hoped for the best.  Sat in a combine cab and watched crop devoured, listened to the machine as it processed plant into clean grain.  They were hard years and I wouldn’t trade one…not one for any alternative lifestyle.

But what I see behind me is more than the farm.  For though the time demanded made up such a large part of my awake hours, there was so much more.  I think back to March of 1989 and a new chapter of my life…a chapter that has not reached its conclusion.  For when Jackie bound her life to mine, my existence took a new and wonderful turn.  I could not stand where I am without her at my side.  I could not have reached the feeble goals I have set without her assistance.  And then there are the other days, when together we have discovered a larger world in our travels.  Whether it was Alaska or Arizona or the other places we have wandered.  Whether it was walking on deserted beaches or climbing lighthouses, one plus one makes so much more than two.

And together we have raised a son.  How many runs did he require…to school…to baseball…to basketball…to band, the list goes on.  I had the flexibility Jackie did not, and so I was the chauffeur, but time spent behind the wheel needed to be made up at the farm.  It might have seemed a sacrifice then…it does not now.  Now when I look back and see the child my son grew from, my eyes dampen.  But only pride come to my heart when I see the man that child became.

So I look back and yes, there are regrets.  There are moment when I know I failed myself and more…those that depended upon me.  But failing is part of living.  And failing is only loss when we do not learn…do not get up and try to do better.  Today I will not dwell on mistakes, lost opportunities, and those things that tend to bring me down.  No, now I look back and smile, for today is my birthday and though I’m officially sixty-six, my whole life is not in my wake.  There is so much ahead, and today I will stand on the past and stride toward the future.  (722 Words) 2-8-2018

 

Beneath the Mason Jar

Beneath the Mason Jar       

By John W. Vander Velden

 

It is only natural that we wish to be spared the difficult, the dirty, the painful parts of life.  The years pile up and we often dwell on the pain and disappointments in our wake.  Yet we understand that life is like that.  There are tough times in everyone’s existence.  We have dealt with all manner of hard things and endured, so surely we can deal with the tough times ahead.  Hard times can’t be helped.  It’s just the way things are.

But all bets are off when we become parents.  We become like mother hens doing our best to protect our brood, keeping them safe beneath our wings, and to shelter them from all the difficulties and disappointments that come their way.  We want to keep them in a safe bubble, like young tomato plants beneath the Mason jars.

Mom was a gardener, but she was an old world gardener.  Her gardens were compact, each inch vital.  But just down the road from where I grew up, Mr. Buss had a gigantic garden.  Mr. Welcome Buss always had time for curious kids from the neighborhood.  He set his tomato plants out early.  Tiny things beneath canning jars.  The mason jars acted like mini greenhouses, protecting the fragile plants from frost, wind, and even the driving rains, in other word, protecting them from the world.

But though the plants thrived within their glass bottle home, they would soon fill the space and find themselves trapped.  However Mr. Buss took away those jars long before the leaves began to press against the sides.  He told us shielded that way, the plant stretched within its protected environment, and if he waited too long the stem would have no strength to survive, simply falling over or breaking with the first wind.

It’s that way with our kids.  We would like to seal them away from all the bad things in the world.  To keep them in a strong plastic bubble separated from disease, pain, and of course loss.  And there is a time when they are most vulnerable, like small tomato plants, but like the tomato, the time comes when they must be exposed to LIFE.  For just like those plants Mr. Buss grew more than fifty years ago, our children cannot become strong enough to endure the tribulations of the everyday, if they have too long been spared exposure to the wind and rain.

We do not take away the Mason jar in one quick motion, like the gardener, but we as parents begin to step back little by little.  We give those small ones we love a space where, though not out of reach of pain, we maintain a filter of just how much pain we allow.  The years pass and the space grows larger and our protection wanes.  We continue to stand as near as we dare, while offering young wings the room to fly, always ready to reach in to support and, in need, to protect.

I have had many tasks throughout my years, but none as difficult as being a parent.  For I would wish to keep my son beneath the Mason jar, but know to do would be to fail him.  And the knowing the best way not to failing him…that’s the hardest part.  So I struggle.  I walk an invisible line between the protector and the observer.  Even now the jar has not been completely removed.  Perhaps it will have some presence as long as I have breath.  But I step back a bit year by year.  The line I walk drifts further toward the observer.  And I follow that line not out of self-concerns but forcing myself to allow him to gain the strengths he needs.  It is difficult, but I would not want my son to be like a tomato plant trapped beneath a mason jar…

(643 Words)  11/1/2017

 

 

Empty Spaces

Empty Spaces  

By John W. Vander Velden

 

In what is lost, something must be found. 

How can we endure, if piece by small piece

Things slip away from us, leaving but a void unfillable.

For in life there is the gathering and the losing.

It is the way of things. 

But when we lose what matters,

When love or hope or those precious that

Were once near are stolen,

It rips from us part of what we are.

Tosses aside a portion of our heart. 

It is then, we, the broken, need to seek

Though have no desire to do so.

It is then, by enduring, a bit of life seeps in.

A small piece that moves about the soul’s cavern.

A flicker of light within the dark

That wishes overpower us. 

Though pain remains, slowly, unnoticed, it fades.

Never gone, but at last manageable. 

So strength and courage grow,

And perhaps that is the greatest thing that we can find.

To help us endure….the empty spaces…

Facts and Knowledge

Facts and Knowledge                 

By John W. Vander Velden

Facts and knowledge are not the same things.  Facts are like the stacks of brick on a building site.  They are an important material for the project at hand.  Knowledge is like the finished structure, made up of the bricks properly arranged, bound together by mortar. 

There is a skill set needed to turn the brick into the building.  The man that has those skills is the mason.  It takes a skill set that turns accumulated bits of information into usable knowledge.  Not everyone has gained that particular set of talents.  You see it is not enough to regurgitate things we have been taught.  It is not enough to go constantly seeking new facts to memorize.  To fill our heads with data but not with the ability to turn those facts and figures into…something.

Years have taught me a great deal.  My head is filled with facts innumerable.  But I have also learned how to sift through all those bits, and where to search for the truths to add to what I know, and gathering and assembling those pieces I need, put together the package that might get the job done.  It was a hard learned skill that even at my age I have not perfected.

Knowledge is more than facts, it requires seeing things from other sides.  Using my own eyes to see how the facts fit, or how they do not.  It comes from using patience, open mindedness, even compassion to be the mortar that binds together the sharp edged facts into a beneficial product that helps me and those around me.  I understand that knowledge is not something to be hoarded.  It is not something I might greedily keep for myself.  True knowledge makes the world better.

There are those that demand the memorization of facts.  Those that believe that facts themselves are the end of all.  “Follow the facts and rules carved in stone,” they say, “and everything will work out.”  But it generates an existence without thought, for thinking is not required to follow a memorized list.  They do us an injustice, by closing our mind.  They live by facts and facts alone and expect everyone to do the same.  They point their fingers and condemn any that have forgotten one of the rules while bragging in their own ability to remember.   

But wisdom comes from knowledge.  And knowledge come from the conscious assembly of truth.  It comes by asking the right questions.  For truth never fears questions, and questions cannot change what is true.  So for us, that wish to add a bit to the world that surrounds us, we take the things we know built upon the facts we trust, ask the questions that clarify, and teach those willing to learn the things that make up the hard won knowledge we have acquired.  But perhaps the most important lesson we have to offer is that facts and knowledge are not the same thing….

(490 Words) 12-19-2017

All the Pieces

All the Pieces                    

By John W. Vander Velden

 

Life is not like putting together a scrapbook.  It’s not like filling a photo album either.  You see life doesn’t give us the ability to pick and choose what things we would like to include in our days.  No, life is more like a jig saw puzzle still in the box.  It is for us to take all the pieces and fit them together…

It takes all the pieces to complete a puzzle.  When all the pieces are arranged in their proper places we can see the whole picture.  In the winter of 1962 we returned to Indiana.  We found a puzzle in the house, left behind by those that had lived there before us.  I liked puzzles…then.  But my childhood puzzles had just a few large pieces and could be put together in a matter of minutes.  I remember the box, an image of a basket weaver surrounded by perhaps fifty examples of his work.  It must have contained 500 or more pieces, a challenge for any ten year old.  But worse, not all the pieces interlocked.  Many just butted against its neighbor with a wavy edge that matched no other.

I remember working for days, and as in all puzzles the more I assembled the easier it became.  But what “burst my bubble” was that three pieces were missing.  Now in the grand scheme of things what are three pieces out of 500?  Nada. I mean there was enough to see the whole of it.  But those three pieces left a hole…an incompleteness…

Perhaps I should have been pleased that I had found the “right” place for the 497 pieces.  That I had used my determination to finish a difficult task.  But in my mind it was not finished.  Those three missing pieces made completion impossible.  I never worked that puzzle again.  In truth, I have done very little puzzle work since the early months of 1962.

It seems to me that life is like a box of puzzle pieces.  And we are not allowed to pick and choose which pieces we will place on the table of our life.  The pieces that are sunny days and happy times are mixed in with other pieces we would choose to avoid.  But it takes all the pieces to finish the thing we call life.  It takes the dark days as well as the bright.  It takes the difficult times as well as the easy.  It takes sadness to contrast with the happy parts of our living.

So on those days when I face frightening dark painful times, times of illness, times of loss, all those days I would wish I could place in the box and forget, I will do my best to remember that I cannot.  For life takes all of the pieces…and I must go on.  (470 Words)  1-8-2018

 

 

Looking Forward

Looking Forward

By John W. Vander Velden

It’s early January and it seems a time when we wonder about the year in our wake.  First we are astonishment how the days have flown passed, and deposited us here in another year.  As we look back, we question our actions, wondering if we did our best last year.  There are times that stand out in our memory.  Happy moments and disappointing ones as well.

The calendar has rolled over and it is fitting that we examine these things.  How else can we hope not to fall into the same pitfalls that ripped us up last year…or the years before?  Those lessons were hard learned, but in learning…well, we grow. 

But we must not dwell only on the dark days, feeling that they foretell a bleakness before us.  No!  Now is the time for optimism.  A time to see that, overall, sunny days are ahead.  Yes, they may be blended with overcast days of rain or snow, but we need to look forward to the sunshine.  Cherish the special hours and days, and use them to fuel us when things are harder.

Winnie the Poo’s friend Eeyore stood in his “gloomy spot” swallowed by a darkness he carried with him, and we loved him for it.  But it would be an unpleasant life if we all shared his view.

So looking forward, I see possibilities.  I expect failures, but remain steadfast that those failures are but stepping stones that lead to successes.  I try to be optimistic.  It is not an easy thing, for it seems simpler to brace ourselves for lesser circumstances.  But optimism gives me hope, and hope gives me energy, and energy will be needed every day, as I march onward.  So I look forward and cast the blankets aside I might wish to hide beneath, stepping out into another day…another year.  I hope you will look forward too….   

(316 Words)  1-3-2018