Archive for month: April, 2021
© Catherine Haslag
© Catherine HaslagA Simple Moment
My grandpa and I (age 2) eating lunch in the kitchen.
My grandfather died 2 months before my 13th birthday. Other family members died previously, but my grandpa’s death was the first big death I was old enough to remember in any kind of significant way. I had the wind knocked out of me in a way I hadn’t experienced before.
It started Labor Day weekend. My mom was in D.C. on a business trip, so I stayed at my grandparent’s house that week while she was away. Grandpa started to feel ill over the weekend. He didn’t want to go to the hospital. My uncles finally convinced him to see a doctor on Tuesday if he wasn’t feeling better. He was admitted to the hospital on Tuesday and died Thursday morning before I got on the bus to school. I found out about 10a when my Uncle Willie called the school. He picked me up 20 minutes later. I can still remember the silence of the truck ride back to what just that morning had been grandma AND grandpa’s house.
That night, my grandma stayed in bed. She had just lost her husband of 47 years. My uncles were gone, probably making funeral arrangements. My job for the evening: answer the door when people came to pay their condolences, receive any food they brought, and Tetris it into one of the refrigerators in the house. (I grew up in a very small town and EVERYONE feeds you when there is a death.)
My grandpa loved to pull us behind his mower – be it on a toboggan or in a wagon.
My grandparent’s neighbor, Barb, brought over a breakfast casserole. We went into the kitchen to add the casserole to the already bulging contents of the green fridge. After closing the fridge door, I looked at her. We probably stood there for only 10 or 15 seconds, but it felt like so much longer. Neither of us spoke yet we shared volumes. We stood there in our silence, looking at each other. I felt like she knew everything I was feeling. That she got me in that moment, understood the weight of my grief, and made a space for it. It was a gift. We shared a teary hug and then she went home.
I don’t remember anything else regarding what people brought or even who visited my grandparent’s house that night, but I remember every second of that brief exchange with Barb 27 years later. I doubt Barb remembers it or has given it a second thought, but this moment touched me deeply. I felt like someone really saw me in my grief in that moment and it was everything to me. We offer these moments to people without even realizing the gift we have given them.
The gift of a simple moment too deep for time.
© Catherine HaslagNativity
My grandma always displayed a nativity at Christmas time. She used a simple nativity with painted clay statues when I was growing up. I loved to play with this nativity, especially the tiny sheep and baby Jesus because they were the smallest pieces of the nativity and I thought they were the cutest ones too.
The nativity my Grandma put up every year at Christmas time.
I regularly arranged the pieces of my grandma’s nativity so they were inside the barn. Grandma always placed just Jesus, Mary and Joseph inside the barn, leaving the shepherds, wise men, and livestock to stand outside the barn. This was December! It was cold outside and I thought everyone should be inside the barn, where it was warm, so I would always re-arrange grandma’s nativity so everyone fit inside the barn. I wanted everyone to be warm.
This did not please my grandma. She didn’t like it when I rearranged her nativity and would tell me to stop it if she found me cramming everyone into the barn. One day, she expressed her frustration to my mother and asked her why I keep putting all of the figures inside the barn. My mom suggested grandma ask me, so she did. I explained that it’s cold outside, so they should all be inside the barn where it’s warm. I don’t remember my grandma correcting me when I rearranged her nativity after that. How can you argue with that kind of kid logic?
When my grandma passed away in 2014, I asked for her nativity. A few years later, I acquired the barn she set the figurines in as well. I set her nativity up every year at Christmastime. I don’t cram the figures into the barn-like I used to, but I do tend to arrange them close to the entrance of the barn. I also leave the wise men a distance from the barn since they don’t reach the Christ Child until Epiphany (January 6). I don’t believe in the divinity of Jesus, so my friends often ask why I display a nativity. I smile and tell them this story.
They all understand in the end.
Floor Furnace
In the fall of 2009, I was in the middle of a divorce. My 4.5-year marriage had been failing for longer than it had worked. It became apparent to me that this relationship wasn’t what I needed. A friend of mine owned a small rental house that was empty. She lent me the key so I could have a place to go to get away from my soon-to-be-ex-husband and the house we owned while the legal system caught up with what my heart already knew – that the relationship was over.
This is very much like the floor furnace I describe in my blog. Unfortunately, I do not have a photo of that actual floor furnace to share. (image obtained from Pinterest)
This rental house, a small 2-bedroom, 1-bath bungalow, had a floor furnace in the dining room that heated the house. That floor furnace would become my touchstone over the next year.
It is where I sat when I called my mom and told her I was divorcing my husband.
It is where, wrapped in a blanket, I sat and cried about the loss of the life I had known and tried to figure out what I wanted to do next.
It is where I stood each winter morning in my robe to warm myself after I moved into the bungalow and finalized my divorce.
It is where I conducted many hours of conversations with my very patient girlfriends as they helped me navigate the emotional labor of ending a marriage and moving forward with my life.
Its creaks and clicks became the soundtrack of my life while I surveyed the world and planned my next steps as a single woman.
Like a light bulb to a new-born chick, it provided me with physical warmth during an emotionally trying and cold period in my life.
In January 2011, I left the floor furnace and moved out of that bungalow, headed on a northern migration. I had that furnace for just one year, but that was all I needed. I had developed a plan forward and it was time to move on, much like the chick that outgrows its need for warmth from the light bulb.
There are times when we will realize the smallest thing did so much for us – a moment of understanding silence, a book that touched us deeply, a hot cup of tea at just the right time. These are the simple things that make the hard times in life bearable. While things and moments are fleeting, their impact on us lasts a lifetime.