Granny

Kirk's mother, Peg (Margaret) Miller, "Granny," passed away around 10 pm Wednesday evening. We have peace that she is now with the Lord. 

She had a stroke on Sunday evening at her home in Lamar, and was life-flighted to a hospital in Springfield, MO. We all went to see her at the hospital there on Monday to say goodbye. On Tuesday she was transferred to the hospital back in Lamar, and died there peacefully after being visited continually by family members as well as several friends from town.

Her health had not been good for the last few months. She was receiving treatment for lung cancer, and a few weeks ago she had kidney failure and was in the hospital for over a week. She was struggling with her recovery from that. But still, her stroke on June 11 was a shock to us all.

Two months ago, Granny was able to witness Eva's baptism at Grace Fellowship on Easter Sunday. One month ago, she got to see her two oldest granddaughters, Carmen and Brianna, graduate from Lamar High School with honors. Living in the same town with four of her six grandchildren, this devoted grandmother made every effort to attend all of her grandkids' events, even driving the two hours to Kansas City to see Simon and Eva in swim meets, performances, and Grandparents' Day at school.

In September 2016 Peg was married to Earl. All of her grandkids were in the wedding party; Eva was delighted to be a flower girl. This dear man has treated Peg like a queen, and brought her so much joy!

When we go to Lamar for the funeral, we will stay at Granny's house. Known to the family simply as "the house," 500 Reavley Drive in Lamar, MO has been the gathering place for the last several years: Thanksgiving, Christmas/New Year's, 4th of July, and birthdays. When Simon and Eva would go on their much-anticipated visits to Granny's house, she was usually down in the kitchen each morning when they woke up, ready to make them pancakes or serve them coco puffs cereal.  I keep thinking how different it will be when we walk into the house this time. Granny will not be there to say, "You BETTER not be trying to sneak in here without giving your Granny a hug!" Granny will not be there to read Eva a bedtime story. She just won't be there in her house. We know this will be hard, but we are praying that it will be a special time of closure for the family.

In addition to being a woman of faith, devoted wife, mother, and grandmother, Peg had a special relationship with her daughters-in-law: Brenda, Marsha, and me. She would play along with our good-natured teasing about her Depression-era tendency to save and re-use everything, including birthday candles, ziplock bags, foil pans, and plastic containers. Sometimes we would chuckle among ourselves when scrubbing out foil pans at her kitchen sink. And I'll admit, we threw a few things away when she wasn't looking! I think she knew. She said to us recently, "I know that when I go to meet my Maker, the first thing you girls will do is go and throw all this stuff away!"

Well, it was not the first thing we did. But I predict we will laugh and cry when we go through her kitchen and see the birthday candles that have seen so many family birthdays, the ziplock bags that contained leftover Thanksgiving stuffing, the foil pans and plastic containers that she saved in order to bring meals to friends and church members in need. All these things will remind us of her love, and of the joy she experienced with family and friends, and that she also brought to others.

I will close with a verse shared by another great woman of faith, my mother:

And the ransomed of the Lord shall return
    and come to Zion with singing;
everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
    they shall obtain gladness and joy,
    and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Isaiah 51:11

Welcome to the World

This is the time of year when we start seeing articles and posts about the value of mothers. One such post I saw several years ago listed all the tasks that a mother does, gave each task a monetary value (such as childcare worker, taxi driver, etc.), and then totaled up the net worth of the mother in the form of an impressive 6-figure annual salary. While these can be amusing, I personally find that such attempts to place a dollar value on motherhood can detract attention from what is really valuable. Maybe because it ignores some of the most difficult and important aspects of motherhood. Lately I've been struggling with how to handle the problem of "sibling martyrdom."  By this I mean that my children at times call me to account for the unconscionable crime of inflicting a sibling upon them: "Why did I have to have a sister?!" "Why did I have to have a brother?!" (I happen to know that I am not alone in this crime; several of my friends are also guilty of having more than one child.) The injustice of having to hear one's sister chew or drink too loudly, or have one's brother touch one's book without permission, can sometimes be too much to bear. Or, perhaps not.

A wise man once said,

It is a good thing for a man to live in a family for the same reason that it is a good thing for a man to be besieged in a city. It is a good thing for a man to live in a family in the same sense that it is a beautiful and delightful thing for a man to be snowed up in a street. They all force him to realize that life is not a thing from the outside, but a thing from inside . . . The modern writers who have suggested that the family is a bad institution have generally confined themselves to suggesting . . . that the family is not always very congenial. Of course, the family is a good institution because it is not congenial. It is wholesome precisely because it contains so many divergencies and varieties. It is, as the sentimentalists say, like a little kingdom, and like most other little kingdoms, is generally in a state of something resembling anarchy . . . The best way that a man could test his readiness to encounter the common variety of mankind would be to climb down a chimney into any house at random, and get on as well as possible with the people inside. And that is essentially what each one of us did on the day that he was born. (G. K. Chesterton, Heretics.)

When a baby is born, she is often greeted with the phrase, "Welcome to the world!" This is a natural sentiment, and it captures the beautiful sense of wonder surrounding the new little human being entering the world. But the phrase also captures the reality that the child is born into this particular family as a microcosm of the world. This port of entry will be the place where she will learn all about mankind. She will learn,

Aunt Elizabeth is unreasonable, like mankind. Papa is excitable, like mankind. Our youngest brother is mischievous, like mankind. Grandpapa is stupid, like the world; he is old, like the world.

Yes, your sister will make annoying noises, like the world. Your brother will say unkind things at times, like the world. Welcome to the world! This is not a reason to do away with the family; the family is the world. To be fair (to my family and to others) I should also say, "Your sister will cheer her lungs out for you at your swim meet, and your brother will take delight in your sweet drawings and notes. So don't despair!"

As a mother, I am learning to see my role as welcoming my children to the world. It is an ongoing task, filled with experiencing joy and wonder, and also learning to navigate pain and difficulty. Teaching children to live in an imperfect world cannot be given a dollar value. But perhaps being given the keys to this little kingdom called the family is a better indication of the great value of motherhood.

Common Sense Romance

My daughter has been memorizing portions of the epic poem “Horatius at the Bridge” in her third grade class, as my son did three years ago when he was in third grade. I have delighted in this great poem as I’ve heard my children recite its lilting verse, but I did not fully grasp its significance until recently.

G. K. Chesterton says,

All romances consist of three characters… For the sake of argument they may be called St. George and the Dragon and the Princess. In every romance there must be the twin elements of loving and fighting. In every romance there must be the three characters: there must be the Princess, who is a thing to be loved; there must be the Dragon, who is a thing to be fought; and there must be St. George, who is a thing that both loves and fights. … [T]he philosophers of today have started to divide loving from fighting and to put them into opposite camps. [But] the two things imply each other; they implied each other in the old romance and in the old religion, which were the two permanent things of humanity. You cannot love a thing without wanting to fight for it. You cannot fight without something to fight for. To love a thing without wishing to fight for it is not love at all . . . (Appreciations and Criticism of the Works of Charles Dickens, CW 15:255)*

After reading these words, I revisited Horatius with fresh eyes. I now see Horatius as a man who first of all loves, and then fights. He is a man honored and revered not only for his courage, but because he fights for what he loves. Consider his rallying speech:

Then out spake brave Horatius,
The Captain of the gate:
“To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.	220
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds
For the ashes of his fathers
And the temples of his gods,
“And for the tender mother	225
Who dandled him to rest,
And for the wife who nurses
His baby at her breast,
And for the holy maidens
Who feed the eternal flame,—	230
To save them from false Sextus
That wrought the deed of shame?
“Hew down the bridge, Sir Consul,
With all the speed ye may;
I, with two more to help me,	235
Will hold the foe in play.
In yon strait path a thousand
May well be stopped by three:
Now who will stand on either hand,
And keep the bridge with me?”

And when the bridge has crashed and Horatius stands alone against his foes, he looks across the river to the Rome he loves. He speaks not to his enemy:
 

But he saw on Palatinus
The white porch of his home;
And he spake to the noble river	490
That rolls by the towers of Rome:

Horatius fights for his home, his way of life. This is a beautiful image. The above picture of Horatius is my favorite (of his many depictions) because, amidst the battle, it seems to capture his love and longing for his home. After this moment of reflection he hurls himself, injured, into the raging current, and makes it back to his beloved home after risking his life to protect it. He has defeated the dragon and saved the princess.

Chesterton and Horatius prompt us to consider that what we love is worth fighting for. This is why, as Dale Ahlquist says, “it is common sense to be a romantic.” After a hiatus of 6 years from my blog, my decision to return was prompted largely by this image of the common sense romance. Several years of studying philosophy reinforced to me the importance of defending what I love. My new blog name, “At the Bridge,” reflects a desire to preserve the vision of human flourishing that I love, and that is founded upon truth. In keeping with the classical tradition, I anticipate that this journey will involve exploring and sharing the good stories of good men and women, who remind us of eternal truths. Like Horatius.

When the goodman mends his armor,
And trims his helmet’s plume;
When the goodwife’s shuttle merrily
Goes flashing through the loom;	585
With weeping and with laughter
Still is the story told,
How well Horatius kept the bridge
In the brave days of old.

*I am grateful to Dale Ahlquist for introducing me to some Chesterton works I might not have read otherwise. This quotation was taken from his book Common Sense 101: Lessons from G. K. Chesterton, which I highly recommend.