A seasonal bulletin board at Fourth Avenue United Methodist Church, Faribault. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo September 2023)
WHEREVER YOU ARE on Thanksgiving, whomever you celebrate with, or don’t, I hope your day overflows with gratitude.
A full view of that festive church bulletin board. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo September 2023)
Thursday marks a day to reflect. We all have reasons to give thanks, ranging from the material to the more important non-material. Family tops that list for me. There’s nothing better than to be with those we love most. This year that will include all in my immediate family except my son, who flies back to Minnesota from Boston in mid-December for a holiday stay. Unfortunately his sister and her husband, who are coming for Thanksgiving, won’t be here at Christmas. I haven’t seen any of them in a year and I miss them so much my heart hurts.
But, if I’ve learned anything through these empty-nester years, it’s that I need to savor the times I do have with my adult children rather than bemoan the holidays without them. I feel thankful to have at least one of my three—the eldest daughter, her husband and my grandchildren—still living in Minnesota.
We will gather around the table on Thanksgiving, ever grateful for each other.
I created this displayin a stoneware bowl on a previous Thanksgiving. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
Likewise, I am grateful for you, my readers. I’ve felt the love this year through my difficult health struggles. In all the chaos in this world, goodness remains. Strong. Bold. Shining. And for that I have every reason to feel thankful.
Photographed in August 2018 in a storefront window of a business in downtown Faribault. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo 2018)
ON THIS DAY OF CELEBRATION,Juneteenth, I reflect on our nation’s past, on how far we’ve come and how far we have yet to go.
June 19, 1865, marks the day when enslaved people in Texas learned of the Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Abraham Lincoln 2 ½ years earlier. That proclamation freed slaves in Confederate states. It wasn’t until the 13th Amendment to the Constitution was passed in December 1865 that slavery was fully abolished in the entire United States.
Thinking about slavery is difficult. It’s emotionally challenging to consider that some 4 million men, women and children were “owned,” treated like property rather than human beings. Forced to work, forced to live under abusive and oppressive conditions. Without freedom to come and go.
Today the focus is not on the awfulness of slavery, but rather on the move from enslavement to freedom. Thus the celebrations on Juneteenth.
Moving onward as a people and a nation, we need to work harder on respecting one another, no matter our skin color, our social status, our differences. We’ve certainly made strides. But the reality is that we can do better.
A soldier sculpture centers the Northfield Area Veterans Memorial. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2023)
HIS STRONG STANCE, one boot planted in front of the other, ramrod posture all point to his disciplined military training. I am looking at a sculpture of a US soldier, a combat infantryman. As I study him, I gaze into his haunted eyes, eyes that, by my perception, reveal the horrors of war.
Standing strong in service to country, a life-size soldier replica. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2023)
Perhaps it is my own father’s stories of fighting on the front-line during the Korean War that shape my reaction to this soldier replica at the Northfield Area Veterans Memorial. But this could be anyone’s interpretation. That of a daughter, like me, whose father suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after leaving the killing fields of Korea. Or this could be the story of any active duty war veteran, the story of a spouse or child who lost a loved one on the battlefield, the stories of too many.
My dad took this photo of his buddies, including Ray Scheibe, left, in Korea. The photo is dated May 1953. Ray was killed in June. (Copyrighted photo by Elvern Kletscher)
This Memorial Day, I pause to remember those who gave the ultimate sacrifice—their lives—to assure my freedom. My dad’s Army buddy and friend Ray was among those. Ray died the day before he was to leave Korea and return to his wife and infant daughter in Nebraska. My father witnessed Ray’s death and it broke a part of him.
These are the personal details we need to remember on Monday, a national day of mourning and remembrance for those who died on the battlefield. Veterans’ memorials and parades and programs all provide ways to honor the brave men and women who died in service to country. But their stories are equally as important. These are, after all, individuals with friends and families, likes and dislikes, histories written long before they were drafted or enlisted and then called to war.
“The Walk of Remembrance” imprinted with veterans’ names and military information edges the Northfield Area Veterans Memorial. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2023)
A paver at the Rice County Veterans Memorial honors Sgt Donald E. Ponto, killed in action in Korea. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
A full view of the Northfield Area Veterans Memorial. The stones represent each branch of the military. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2023)
Many Minnesota communities have veterans’ memorials. While designs differ, they share the commonalities of a centerpiece sculpture, sometimes a soldier or an eagle or some other strong symbol; pavers with veterans’ names imprinted; American and other flags; and ways to recognize all branches of the military. It is the names, accompanied by the initials KIA, which break my heart. KILLED IN ACTION. I recognize the intense pain and heartbreak experienced by loved ones back home. The grieving families. The Gold Star Mothers, a mother who lost a child in service to country. The fatherless children, like Teri, the infant daughter of my dad’s buddy, Ray. Overwhelming grief imprints upon those stone pavers.
An eagle at Veterans Memorial Park in Morristown. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
This Memorial Day, I encourage you to reflect on the war dead whom we honor on Monday. Walk through a cemetery and pause at the graves marked by small American flags. Attend a Memorial Day program not out of a sense of obligation, but out of gratitude. I feel thankful for a free press. Not every country has such freedom.
My dad carried this memorial service bulletin home to Minnesota from Korea. In the right column is listed the name of his fallen buddy, Raymond W. Scheibe. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
Spend time at a veterans’ memorial beyond a precursory walk through. Appreciate the words, the names, the symbols, the artwork. And, if a soldier sculpture centers the memorial, look into his eyes and remember this biblical quote pulled from the memorial service folder my dad carried home from Korea: Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13).
Fitting words engraved in stone at the Northfield Area Veterans Memorial. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2023)
That July 31, 1953, service folder from Sucham-dong Korea lists 28 soldiers who died on the battlefield, among them my dad’s beloved buddy, Raymond W. Scheibe, age 22. It is my dad’s grief and trauma I see when I gaze into the eyes of that soldier sculpture in Northfield. War carries so much death and loss and pain. I vicariously understand that. This Memorial Day I remember, reflect, honor, carry on my heart the heaviness of war.
My favorite Easter hymn. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
IT IS MY ABSOLUTE favorite Easter hymn—“I Know that My Redeemer Lives.” And there is a reason behind that choice.
As a child, I sang that song with my Sunday School class during Easter worship services at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Vesta. Dressed in our Easter finery—girls in pastel dresses and Easter hats, boys in dress pants and shirts, some with bow ties cinching their necks—we belted out the joyful words about the risen Lord.
To this day, I can recite most of the verses. The words are that ingrained in my memory. Words of triumph, love, blessings, assurance and so much more. I feel my soul filling with Easter morning hope in the memories of singing that aged hymn.
I admittedly cannot carry a tune or read a single musical note. And I admit to a bit of fear on those long ago Easter mornings in rural southwestern Minnesota. Not fear about forgetting the words to a hymn. But rather a dislike of sitting in the St. John’s balcony with only a low, partial wall separating me from the sanctuary below. I never jostled for the front pew in that upstairs packed with kids.
I hold another memory from Easter morning. Not of danger, but rather of youthful disobedience. Mom asked my siblings and me not to tattoo our arms before church services. Of course, we didn’t listen and excitedly held washcloth to paper tattoos, imprinting temporary art (from Easter egg dyeing kits) onto our skin. In the end, I don’t think anyone really cared as long as we showed up to sing at church.
And so all these decades later, I remember my favorite hymn and how my faith has carried me through life. Through joyful moments, through ordinary days, through really difficult times…
He lives to bless me with his love.
He lives to help in time of need.
I know that my Redeemer lives!
A joyful Easter to all of you from my home in southern Minnesota, not from the balcony of St. John’s!
TELL ME: Do you have a favorite Easter hymn and/or memory? I’d like to hear.
I took this photo of a St. Olaf College student watching a video in an exhibit, “Selma to Montgomery: Marching Along the Voting Rights Trail,” in 2015. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr is shown in this frame. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo April 2015)
TODAY, THE DAY WE HONORCivil Rights activist Dr. Martin Luther King Jr with celebrations and a federal holiday, seems fitting to share my excitement over the election of Adama Youhn Doumbouya to the Faribault City Council. Elected in November and just recently taking office, the Liberian-born immigrant becomes the first person of color to serve on the Council in a city chartered on April 9, 1872.
I expect Dr. King, who advocated tirelessly for equality and human rights, would be proud. I feel not only pride, but also gratitude in knowing that Doumbouya will bring a new young voice (he was born in 1987) and perspective to my ever-changing city.
This is my all-time favorite award-winning photo showing diversity in Faribault. I shot this image at the 2012 International Festival in Central Park where kids gathered to break a piñata. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo 2012)
Today’s Faribault is vastly different from the Faribault of the past, even of recent decades. It is decidedly more diverse in skin tones, religion, culture, customs, dress, language and more. Admittedly, those who have moved here from places like Somalia, Sudan and Mexico have not always been welcomed. Racism exists. Sometimes subtle, sometimes blatant. I wish that wasn’t true, but it is.
Faribault is a city rich in immigrant history. This banner hangs in the downtown historic district. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo 2019)
In the context of this evolving, diverse Faribault, it’s important to remember that nearly all of us (with the exception of indigenous peoples) are descendants of immigrants. Too often we forget that. Our forefathers landed in America, then Minnesota, with dreams. Faribault’s newly-elected councilman, who witnessed civil war in his home country along the west coast of Africa, landed in New York City in 2013 with dreams.
Visitors could photograph themselves at the 2015 “Selma” exhibit at St. Olaf College and express their thoughts. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo 2015)
Although I’m not privy to Doumbouya’s personal dreams, I’ve read his backstory published in a Faribault Daily News feature. After moving to Minnesota, he worked at a meat-packing plant in Austin, south of Faribault near the Iowa border. He served on the Austin Planning Commission. Eventually, he pursued a college degree, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in urban and regional studies. He moved to Faribault in 2020, owns a home here.
That’s a nutshell summary of the background Doumbouya brings to city government. Responses to a Q & A published pre-election revealed a candidate eager to serve his community. Eager to advocate for affordable housing, transportation and inclusive workforce development. Eager, too, to improve city infrastructure and technology for residents and businesses. Eager to focus also on economic development. I’m confident he will work hard on those goals of improving life and expanding opportunities in Faribault.
This image from a 2015 Downtown Faribault Car Cruise Night shows the diversity in my city. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo 2015)
It took a long time—going on 151 years—for my city to get here, to the point of a person of color serving on the City Council. It took time, too, for social justice activist Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to make progress towards equality and human rights for all. As we approach the 55th anniversary of King’s assassination on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, much work remains to be done.
A promo for the MLK Breakfast in Faribault. (Credit: Faribault Diversity Coalition)
The same can be said in Faribault. But I see progress. I see progress in the election of Doumbouya to the City Council. I see progress via the efforts of the Faribault Diversity Coalition, which today hosts its ninth annual MLK Breakfast and has also started a recent Speaker Series. I see progress in personal connections and communication and caring attitudes. Faribault’s future is as limitless as our dreams.
A Delta plane photographed at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport in 2015. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo 2015)
BEFORE HE EVEN SHED his winter coat, before he was barely inside the kitchen, I stretched on my tiptoes to wrap my lanky son in a tight hug. I held on, lingering, imprinting this homecoming moment upon my memory. My voice quivered and joyful tears threatened. Nearly a year has passed since I’ve seen Caleb and that time lapse showed in my overwhelming emotions.
I feel fortunate that he even got here from Indianapolis given the air travel mess resulting in thousands of canceled flights, thousands of stranded travelers and luggage stacking up in airports across the country. Too many families missed Christmas together and many people are now struggling to find flights home.
A Delta plane at MSP. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo December 2015)
Weather delayed Caleb’s Minnesota homecoming, too, with his original Thursday evening direct flight canceled due to the winter storm. He would miss Christmas with us. But he rebooked and landed at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport Monday evening, albeit after a delayed flight. His luggage, however, was missing. Delta delivered it to our Faribault home early Tuesday evening. His bag had never been unloaded from the plane and ended up back in Indiana. We all felt grateful for Delta’s prompt attention to finding his luggage.
Caleb on one of the many trips to drop him off or pick him up at MSP when he attended Tufts University and worked in Boston. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo December 2015)
I had to wait until around noon Tuesday to see Caleb. His oldest sister, who lives a 25-minute drive from MSP, picked her brother up and he stayed overnight in Lakeville. I wanted the siblings to have some time together without the parents. They all arrived in Faribault for a belated Christmas celebration, minus our other daughter and her husband from Madison, Wisconsin, who were unable to join us.
Oh, the hugs upon everyone’s arrival. An emotional hug for Caleb. Then hugs for the grandkids and my daughter and her husband. Love filled our house as we sat down to a meal of Chicken Wild Rice Hotdish, homemade garlic cheese bread and salad. My heart overflowed with love and gratitude for this time together. I don’t take having my family here for granted.
As I reflect on our gathering yesterday, I think of how my granddaughter sneaked up on her Uncle Caleb to tickle the bottoms of his feet, after I suggested she do so. He didn’t even show outward annoyance as he does with me if I do the same. I think of my almost 4-year-old grandson, Isaac, who snuggled on my lap under a fleece throw and how his sister, Isabelle, scrambled next to us. I think of Randy on the floor beside Isaac who’d just opened his new markers and a packet of white printer paper. Both were on his Christmas wish list. He wrote the entire alphabet on 13 sheets of paper, one capital letter on each side. I think of Amber, Marc, Caleb and I sitting on the floor, playing the kid version of the board game Ticket to Ride. (I recall all the Sunday afternoons the kids sprawled with Randy in the same spot playing Monopoly or reading the comics.) I think of Isabelle playing with her uncle’s roaring toy dinosaurs, retrieved from a tote in the basement. They joined her new roaring dinosaur. It was like a flashback in time, when Caleb was still a boy.
A favorite Nativity Christmas ornament on my tree. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo December 2022)
AS A WOMAN OF FAITH, I center my Christmas celebration on the birth of Christ. I focus on the baby boy born to a young couple in Bethlehem. Seemingly ordinary, yet extraordinary.
To visually remind myself of Jesus’ birth, I display Nativity scenes in my home. This year I kept most boxed away, leaning into minimalism to make a stronger impact. The same goes for ornaments gracing my skinny, unbalanced Charlie Brown Christmas tree. Among those tree decorations is a Nativity tucked into an over-sized pinecone. Just Mary, Joseph and their swaddled newborn son with shining star above.
My sister-in-law Joanne, before she married my youngest brother, gifted me with this Christmas ornament decades ago. It remains a favorite.
On this Christmas Day, with that Nativity and a 60-year-old paper baby Jesus cut-out from a long ago Sunday School class nestled into the boughs of my short-needled evergreen, I am reminded of the reason I celebrate Christmas. Christ the Savior is born!
Wishing you a joyous Christmas from southern Minnesota!
This shows part of my small collection of Santas (and one St. Nicholas) and Santa cards displayed on a shelf in my dining room. The Santas on the left and right are candles received from my Aunt Ardyce at a family gift exchange in the 1960s. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo December 2022)
MY OLDEST DAUGHTER TEXTED on Wednesday asking for a cookie recipe. The kids, she said, would want to leave a treat for Santa.
Oh, to be young again and believe in an overweight bearded man in a red suit bearing gifts on Christmas. Just to clarify, the 6 ½-year-old granddaughter is questioning Santa’s validity. But Izzy hasn’t vocalized her suspicions to her younger brother, Isaac. I expect she wants to share her doubts, yet is hesitating lest she’s wrong. Who wants to risk Santa not leaving gifts?
There’s something to be said for believing in Santa, no matter your age. Or maybe, more accurately, there’s something to be said for the magic that accompanies believing. So I suppose, in reality, I believe in Santa still.
I believe in the joy he brings. The smiles. The goodness. The laughter. The reminder that, even in difficult times, Santa navigates around life’s obstacles through a dark sky, Rudolph’s nose lighting the way. That’s such a strong visual, one we’ve seen illustrated many times in children’s picture books.
This time of year, so many individuals, organizations, churches and more bring joy. They are, like Santa, the bearers of gifts. Toys, food, clothing, gift cards… They become the magic. But it isn’t all about the tangible “things,” although those are decidedly needed and appreciated. It’s also about what giving means to the recipient. It means someone understands, someone cares, someone sees.
Santa is not fictional. He’s real, in a magical sort of way that is timeless and believable, even to the grandma of a suspicious first grader.
The photo of my mom and son which prompted my grief to surface. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo 1994)
MY FOREFINGER SLID UP the photo toward her face, circling repeatedly as if I could somehow reach into the image and connect with my mom.
It was Sunday afternoon and I was filing through a stash of old photos given to me by a sibling at a family holiday gathering the day prior. I’d never seen the photo taken nearly 29 years ago of Mom cradling my chunky newborn son on her lap. She was 60 then, younger than I am now. The two would eventually form a special bond, despite the geographical distance. When Caleb headed off to college, he would call his grandma occasionally. She shared about the lengthy conversations and I felt thankful. Those phone calls benefited both of them.
Now here I was sitting at my dining room table, caressing that photo, missing the two of them. Mom died in early January. Caleb will, weather permitting, fly into Minnesota later this week for a short stay. I last saw him in early January, shortly before his grandma passed; he couldn’t return for the funeral.
Sunday marked about a year since my final visit with Mom in her long-term care center. That anniversary date and the photo, along with Randy asking me if I was familiar with the song “The Christmas Shoes” (I was) prompted my emotions to swell into full-blown grief. He found the lyrics for me, then played the song about a young boy buying shoes for his dying mother on Christmas Eve. That did it. The lyrics penned by Eddie Carswell and Leonard Ahlstrom in the song released by NewSong in 2000 moved me to tears.
The gingersnap cookies I baked for Mom in 2020. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo December 2020)
I sobbed, tears gushing down my cheeks. “I miss my mom,” I sputtered, the words emerging as my shoulders heaved in sorrow, my breath ragged. I miss her kindness, her smile, her gentle way. I miss baking gingersnap cookies for her, as I did each Christmas because they were her favorite. I miss hugging her and talking to her, even if she couldn’t respond as her health deteriorated. I miss the essence of her, simply being in her presence. I miss sharing with her about her grandchildren, including that baby boy she cuddled. I miss telling her about the next generation, my two grandchildren. I miss sharing about my latest writing projects. She was always my strongest supporter, happy to hear that I’d had another poem or short story published.
A sampling of the many sympathy cards I received when my mom died in January. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo January 2022)
This will be my first Christmas without Mom. Those firsts can be tough. I recognize that I am not alone, that many of you have lost loved ones, too, within the past year. I’m sorry. Grief often has a way of erupting during the holidays when families come together, memories surface. Time softens the edges of grief, yet never fully erases it. And that’s OK. To grieve is to have loved.
This message hangs on a vintage dresser in my dining room, the mirror reflecting an oil painting of a winter scene by my father-in-law, Tom Helbling. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo December 2022)
I’ll be home for Christmas; you can plan on me…please have snow…
Well, not exactly, Bing (Crosby). You might not get home to see that snow, not the way the forecast is looking. Blizzard conditions are predicted here in Minnesota and throughout the Midwest for Thursday into Friday. That will affect land and air travel, disrupting many homecomings.
A close-up from Tom’s painting shows family members arriving for Christmas via sleigh. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
I realize a snowy landscape seems picturesque and lovely and, oh, so holiday-ish in a song. But if you’re traveling or waiting for loved ones to arrive (like I am), then I’d rather not see new-fallen snow accompanied by frigid temps and strong winds.
Waiting at the door to welcome loved ones home for Christmas. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
Dreams of my son being in Minnesota for Christmas are just that, a dream. The predicted winter storm changed everything. Now he will arrive the day after. I’ll take it. A year has passed since I’ve seen Caleb and to not see him at all would have been really really difficult for this mom. His stay will be shorter than planned, only a few days.
Tom Helbling’s artistic version of a Christmas homecoming. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
In the end, I feel thankful that my son can still travel to Minnesota. He may not be home for Christmas. But he will find plenty of snow when he does arrive. So there you go, Bing.
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