Christmas 2009

Christmas 2009 turned out to be very special in several ways.

Today I was thinking about Christmases past and realized I don't have many memories specifically of Christmas when I was young. I have memories of Christmas at school because at school we made a big deal out of it. We had gift exchanges, special games that day, singing the Christmas songs (yes, including many songs about Santa Claus). We always had a day just before Christmas that we did not do lessons but did special Christmas stuff all day. Those were the days we pushed all the desks up against each wall of the little one-room schoolhouse (plus an entry) there near Clark, Missouri and we would play games that involved the whole school including the teacher. Later we would exchange greetings, get candy and oranges and stuff like that from the teacher and exchange gifts. We had exchanged names earlier. Actually I can't remember having a program for the parents. I really don't think we did. Later when we (Mom and I) were teachers we did have programs for the parents and that was the big Christmas thing but back in the day in Clark I don't think we really had any Christmas programs.

Then on the actual Christmas day I have very few memories. Seems like perhaps we often went to Aunt Edna's house but we didn't call it that. We just called it 'Elmers". We went to Elmers a lot so they all blend together. But we often went to other people as well when we were invited. I remember the big dinners and things like that. Christmas as a day became more special to me, at least the way I remember it now, after I was a teenager and we moved to Michigan. Now we were closer to Indiana and all the aunts and uncles in the area, so we often got together around Thanksgiving or Christmas with all the aunts and uncles and cousins. Those were special times. I remember the uncles telling all kinds of stories about when they were younger.

After we were married it became more about family, at least the way I remember it. I am not sure just how soon we started having a big deal with the family at home for Christmas, but it definitely was already happening in Montana, perhaps in Tennessee. Before that it was usually something we did with the extended family, such as a dinner or something. For me it was also marked in Amish church, as at Christmas you would restart the year with the scriptures that were to be used in Amish church service. You would start real close to Christmas with Luke 1 and 2 as the chapters of choice for reading that Sunday in church. Then it would be followed by Matthew 2 and 3 (usually including part of chapter 1), and then the year would follow the pattern that was set by tradition.

Today for us it has become, and rightfully so, a family thing. And that is exactly what happened in New Mexico this year. We all somehow got there, strangling in over a day or so. Actually it probably wasn't that bad, but some of us had more snow and ice to deal with than others. Personally we had a very nice drive to NM and then a very nice drive home. The Lord was good to put the snow up just a bit higher in elevation that I didn't really have to live in it every day, but we were able to go up into the snow and the children had especial fun in it.

When we did the family picture in front of the tree, starting with Mom and then working our way through the family, that was special. Somehow it brought back memories of bygone times, when the family was smaller. It wasn't always like this, and it won't stay like this for long. The most sure thing about life and living is that there will be change. There will be births.........and marriages....and inevitably.......deaths.


Somehow I was abruptly reminded of that when the tree was being decorated and Joseph brought out his contribution -- the little egg shaped balls with every persons name painted on them. I didn't think of it right away, and nobody else did either. But all of a sudden it hit me, and I knew I had to do something about it right away. Not everybody understood right away what was happening to me, but suddenly the memories of Timothy hit me so hard that I knew we had to do something about it, and now. I don't blame Joseph for forgetting. And I don't blame anyone else for not understanding right away. But suddenly it all came flooding back and I knew I had to do something right away. I was so thankful when one of you came up with the cross to hang there on the tree, along with all of our names, in memory of Timothy L. Graber, 1981-1981.

The following morning when we were taking the family pictures -- and again appropriately we took one special photo of where Timothy was missing.

When all of this went down back in 1981 I suppose I did not show as much emotion as I could have. But it did hurt, and there is a spot for Timothy in my heart yet. This Christmas my whole family was there, and the memory of Timothy was very fittingly included. There was just a bit more healing going on. And a bit more understanding. And a bit more of surrendering to God knowing that He sees the bigger picture when we don't. And also knowing that we just saw a bit more of that bigger picture.

There are many other memories. Coffee in the morning (from a pot that brews before you get up, but often didn't!). Mountains. Clear air. Quiet. Quiet that you could hear early mornings outside. Four wheeler rides. Games played together. Pool shot. Candy ate. Memories shared. Food cooked. Food ate together. Watching wondrous expressions on the faces of grandkids. Grandkids who were experiencing new memories but didn't realize yet how important those memories were. Knowing that somewhere out there was a great big world and stuff was going on. But for us, it was right there in that valley. On those mountains. In that house. Memories we will never forget as long as we live.

We all left there and have now gone back to our everyday lives. But somehow, those days together in NM are a link to who we where before to who we are now. And for me especially, have connected the past to the present in a way that never happened before. And I am glad for it. I really enjoyed it.

Does Anybody remember ALL of this??

November 2004

Let it hereby be known to each member of the Graber Family that it is our desire to have each and every member together for Thanksgiving Dinner and a day of working together putting together a memory book of photos for each one.
It is also our desire to start a tradition of taking an annual family picture plus creating a video where each member performs for a recording either by singing, acting, saying something witty or wise, or simply saying, “Hi”, for future generations to observe and learn from.
Please dress according to family principles and have your creative juices flowing.
If for some reason you can’t be present on Thanksgiving Day, please give notice as soon as possible so we can arrange another date as close to Thanksgiving as possible.

Looking forward to seeing ya’ll–

Dad and Mother Graber

Warm Memories...

On the subject of warm memories, I have a few that are were rather cold at the time but are extremely warm in my mind.
I wish we could duplicate them.

Remember waaaay back in Montana? Those beautiful clear nights with a full moon reflection of the snow and flying down a hill on an innertube. I wish we could do that again, I do remember a time though that on a new route...hitting a covered stump and getting some snowburn.

But remember that hill there by the garden? That was a good tubing hill and then that curvy road by the shop scared me quite a bit.

Timothy Graber

On November the first 1981 they brought home my baby, wrapped in a soft yellow blanket but life had fled. I sat on the bed with Ruth on one side and Joseph on the other as their Dad soberly handed the bundle to me . I helped each of them hold their baby brother one last time as I explained to them that Timothy was no longer in that body, he'd gone to heaven to be with Jesus.

Timothy died in the Cuero Hospital and I was in too bad shape physically to be with him so I was at home while Grandma Borntrager and Dad , Lester, were in the hospital with Timothy.

Love It

Everytime I come to this blog I think of a warm fireplace with everybody relaxing around it sharing stories and a few jokes.....I can hear the wind whipping the snow into a blizzard outside and uh, I am sorry dad but I don't see any internet here...a few books and Joseph telling some story about a lost billfold in Montana.
Ruth is curled up on the couch with Dorcas who asked some question about Idlewild whom both Rosemary and Rachel start to answer simultaneously-dad shakes his head and gets up to get more popcorn that mom just got done making in the kitchen.
David is making a truck out of legos on the floor but my dog just snatched it and ran with Timmy right behind him.
Mom is sitting back down in her rocking chair as Brittany curls up in her 'mamaws' lap. The door blows open as Isaiah blows in with some more wood for the fire.
Me? I'm sitting over there cleaning my gun after scolding Ace who's quietly laying by my feet.

Don't you just love it? Or am I the only one....?

Mother Hospitalized

On July 18th, 1965 was an inbetween Sunday at our Turkey Farm in Missouri. The boys had been invited somewhere with the young folks , at one place for dinner and another place in the evening. Along in the afternoon my mother started having severe stomach pains where she'd groan out loud. In retrospect, mother had not been well all summer but we weren't alarmed or at least I can't remember that I was. Anyway that afternoon Dad sent us out with a white bed sheet to wave in the air out by the buggy shop in hopes the boys would see it as they passed on the road half a mile away. Sure enough, Rudy and Truman saw it and leaving the lineof buggies they came home . I don't remember clearly but I think Dad sent Rudy to call the Doctor , Dr. Hull, and he came to the house , examined mother and said he'd take her to the hospital as she was seriously ill. We children, all ten of us from 18 yr old Rudy to 3 yr old Mary stood in a row and shook mother's hand as she told us good-bye and went with Dad and the doctor. Nine days later she died in the hospital. They did exploratory surgery and found her stomach so full of cancer that they just closed her up and said there was no hope of a cure.
The last time I saw her alive she was delirious and kept saying,"Where are the girls? I want to see the girls."
Dad would line us along the bedside and tell us to touch her hand, then he'd tell her the girls were all here but she didn't recognize us.
I prayed for my mother to be healed, surely God would answer my desperate prayers.And when my mother died I concluded that my prayers were useless and quit praying, but only for a little while because as sure as I didn't pray at night before I went to sleep I would have terrible nightmares. So I started praying again that God would send an angel to watch over me while I slept and it always worked.
Now in January of that year my best friend Mary's mother had died very suddenly of a blood clot in her head, if I got it r ight and my mother died in July , then in December my friend Barbara's mother died at childbirth. So there in that little church of possibly 20 families there were three families with each 10 children who were motherless. Thirty motherless children in one church. Now that was a wake up call and material for many an Amish sermon.

Baptism

July 15th, 1972 - At the age of 17 I was baptised on the confession of my faith by a godly elderly patriarch, Christian M Borntreger, by name . He was widely known in Amish circles as , "Der Alt Christ". Let it suffice to say that this day I was officially initiated into the intrinsic essence of the Amish religion. My life was never the same after that day. Of course there were myriad things leading up to this day but this was a day I could put my finger on and say from this day forward I could no longer hide behind my Dad and be protected from the long fingers of the --------- Ordnung (?) or mechanisms of the Amish church.

That July morning the sun rose as usual on our Wisconsin Dairy Farm. We got up at five, got in the 30+ cows, fed and milked them plus feeding the calves, horses, pigs and chickens and got back to the house for a 7 o'clock breakfast of eggs, bacon and cooked mush followed by Wheaties and milk. After breakfast there was the usual rush of washing dishes, hitching the horses to the buggy and getting changed into our church clothes which for me this special morning was a new black dress and a new starched white cape and apron. I don't remember my cap being new but I'm sure it was freshly washed and pressed with sugar and vinegar.

One out of the ordinary thing happened that morning when Dad wrote a letter and flagged the Bishop down as he passed to give it to him as he wanted to explain some things that he didn't care for all the other preachers to know and the bishop was so hard of hearing he couldn't talk to him privately in public.

The 12 mile drive with horses and buggy was uneventful but soothing to have the whole family together with Dad at the lines. Once at the place where church was held at Joe A. Borntregers the family went to their proper positions in the Amish church and I felt very vulnerable.

I remember filing in at the proper time behind Lizzie, the other girl who was being baptised, and sitting in the living room on the long benches waiting for the men to come in. As we sat there I noticed the curtains at the windows twisted back and up in an unnatural way and attributed it to the fact that it must have been the boys because they had no older girls to do such things.

That day I got baptised and our family got our "zeugniss" or church letter to move to Bronson 'Mi . ;Which was the reason Lizzie and I only had church instruction for five Sundays instead of the usual seven. I could write a book about all the things that happened that day and the things leading up to and following that day in the history of my life but I will leave that for another time.

But after all these years I still believe my baptism fulfilled all the requirements of a Biblical baptism.