Memento Mori

Remember you must die.

I led a book discussion group at my church for a few years and one of our fall sessions was themed: "Teach us to Count our Days." The morbid awareness that we are all gonna die someday gives us the ability to appreciate life today even more, or so some people think. We read a humorous novel about a group of elderly friends going to funeral after funeral called Memento Mori , and a book written by an undertaker called The Undertaking, a bunch of essays about death and burial. A few months ago, I read a book that would have fit perfectly into this theme, called Stiff.

I grew up in a family that did not observe Halloween. Some years we were allowed to hand out candy at our own front door, one year we dressed up our little sister as a witch and used her as a front to get ourselves some candy from the neighbors (she was too little to know she was breaking the rules, and we older two could argue that we were not technically trick-or-treating). One year a sign was posted on our front door that chided any trick-or-treaters that came up our front walk: 'This house does not participate in the pagan observance of Halloween.' My first real full-on Halloween costume was my sophomore year in college, I went to a party as Pippi Longstocking, with Kool-Aid red hair braided and sticking up with coat hanger support.

Last year I gently thumbed my nose at the no-Halloween observance rule of my high school by giving a Reformation Day speech in chapel in monkish costume as Tetzel, that priest infamous for selling indulgences in such a way to get Martin Luther fired up about reforming the Church.

I prefer classy pumpkins and mums and "fall harvest" decor to blow up jack-o-lanterns and mummies for my fall yard look, but this year on Halloween day I poured a bunch of styrofoam human bones on our front park bench. Two years ago I let Steve and his friends set up a gruesome scene of a partially buried person in my front lawn. What is going on with me?

I think Halloween is a holiday a Christian can observe without embarrassment or a sense of double standard. Memento Mori means "reminder of death" and that is what I think Halloween has become. We don't see dead and dying people very often, and yet for a few weeks we are surrounded with skeletons, graveyards, and other sights that remind us of something everyone has some level of dread for: the eventual time of our own death and bodily decay.

As a Christian, I believe that part of the curse that came upon the human race in Eden is that Death has cast a shadow of fear and scariness over life and it is no help at all to pretend otherwise. Halloween is good at reminding us all that we humans are collectively afraid of monsters, zombies, ghosts, demons, vampires, graveyards, spiders, blood-soaked weapons. But I also believe that the good news of Jesus' resurrection allows us to stick our tongue out at death and poke fun of it in a way that Halloween has given us permission to do.

I'm not going to insist that Halloween is little more than a fun day to put kids in a cute puppy costume and take pictures and let them collect candy. One look at the costume selection for kids and adults at Party City is proof enough--Halloween gets to the heart of it all: sex and death. Ninja warrior. Sexy nurse. Vampire bride. Blood. Fake gory body parts.

I'm not going to ignore all the ghoul. I'm going to keep learning what my neighbors are afraid of by appreciating what is set out on their lawn, tacky or gruesome. I'm going to admit that I'm afraid of these things too. I'm going to look Death in the eye, and cringe a bit, because it will keel me over some day. But then I'm also going to stick my tongue out at it, cavort around the neighborhood with my kids in costumes, and show up in church next Easter to keep hearing the good news that takes us beyond Halloween existence: Death is keeled over too, not by the reproductive juices of Hot Sexy Nurse or the brave exploits of Super Hero Ninja Warrior, but by a place that was first revealed to fearful women like me: the empty tomb of Jesus Christ.

Happy Birthday

We chose tonight to celebrate birthdays of Gabe and Karma with our family members. Karma was very excited to get some dress-up items, a Dora the Explorer game, hair-ribbons, stickers and a grocery cart! Gabe received some great books, a chess game and a Transformers movie. We stayed up a little late to watch a movie, it was supposed to be Wizard of Oz, but we had a technical difficulty so watched Annie instead. A fun evening for all.

Trick or Treat

Douwe has no interest in dressing up, ringing doorbells, although he does like candy. Gabe and Karma were very excited to dress up and collect some candy and treats from the neighbors.

Weekend in Idaho

Jeff and Douwe flew out to Idaho for a very short weekend trip to attend Auntie Kim's surprise birthday party. Douwe had fun playing with his older cousins Charlie and Chloe, and their dog Skip. Jeff enjoyed helping prepare food with Bob for the party and for Sunday dinner.

Fall Fun Fair

The Montessori Children's Schoolhouse in Hammond provides a great place for Douwe and Karma to spend their mornings exploring and learning with other kids. They have a fall fundraiser at the Hammond Civic Center with tickets and fair games and a cake walk and our whole family had a nice time. Gabe used all his tickets on the cake walk and won about 3 cakes. Douwe made a few baskets in the little basketball game, so Jeff was tickled. I spent most of the time at the face-painting station because they needed lots of parent helpers, so we were glad that Nana and Papa were there to help escort the toddlers around to the various games.

Bellaboo's

We've taken a few trips already to Bellaboo's. Today Jeff took Douwe and he spent most of his time in the train room, the grocery store and the ball pit. This indoor play center for younger children will be a great place to go when it gets too cold for the outdoor parks.

County Line Orchard

Time for our annual visit to County Line. Much has changed since my first visit here six or seven years ago. They are set up with huge paved parking lots, crowd control signage and four different price levels of admission. THe latest this year is a huge, I mean huge barn for special events up to 1500 people. It has been interesting to see the transition of this farm as visiting the source of apples and pumpkins has increased in popularity as a field trip and family outing ritual for the fall.

I have learned from experience to visit this destination in late afternoon on a weekday so that we are not competing with the field-trip crowds or the weekend chaos.

We skipped the gift shops, the moo-choo train, the kiddie farm and the corn mazes and paid only $1 per person (douwe and Karma free) and instead spent our money on the delicious but highly-priced homegrown and homemade produce.

First stop: after-school snack and bathroom break in the old new barn: Bought a gallon of cold cider on the food store side and brought it back to the concession side and used some dixie cups. Pumpkin and Apple Cider donuts, still warm, and Gabe chose a monstrous carmel apple dipped in chocolate chips.

Then the tractor/hayride to the pumpkin patch. This patch is a little bit sketchy as to its genuine-ness. There was a true pumpkin patch with small and underripe green pumpkins everywhere actually growing, but all the orange ones seemed "planted" throughout the field artificially. There were 8 full bins of pumpkins on skids next to the field, which seemed to be brought in from somewhere else. But we're still in a pumpkin patch and seeing how pumpkins grow, so what the heck. (We bought only one here, another stand down the street sells big ones for $3 and pie sized for $1).

Back on the hayride to the apple orchard. Many of the apple trees were loaded at toddler level with fruit so all ages were able to pick and sample an apple. This is an amazing orchard and the best asset of the farm, with so many varieties all labeled by rows and apples in abundance. Oh, the experience of biting into an apple that just came off a tree and is cold and crisp in the outdoor weather. Karma ate 2 or 3 before we made our way back to the car.

After our stop at the scale, we said hi to the honey bees in the field trip yurts and headed back to the car with no young-uns noticing the other kiddie attractions, they are kindly hidden away behind the barns. Well Gabe was a little disappointed to have to skip that huge corn maze he saw on the way to the pumpkin patch, but Grandpa promised him a corn maze experience another time this month.

Curious George goes to the Library

So Gabe is ten, has a fifth grade social studies research project due in two weeks. In an effort to show by example that education is a high priority in our house, our whole family goes to the library at 10 o'clock on a Saturday morning. Jeff and I help Douwe and Karma put their books in the return slots and then discuss who will take the toddlers to the children's area, and who will encourage Gabe to pick a topic and help him find some books for his project.

Karma starts walking up the lobby's grand staircase and the circulation desk librarian tells us to get her to come down, even though we are standing at the bottom of the staircase right by her. I look at the librarian and tell him "she is fine, we're supervising her." He glares at me and shakes his head at my disobedience.

Gabe has a blue sheet of paper in his hand, the project assignment he took home on Thursday. At our house, his babysitter made him a cool paper airplane out of it and he was bummed on Friday when he found that blue paper all flattened out and magneted to the frig by me. He had said, "Why'd you flatten it, I'll never be able to fold it back right." And I said, "b/c it is important to know exactly what the assignment and list of topics is when you do your library research visit tomorrow." Poor kid, stuck with a foster mom who was once a fifth grade teacher.

Jeff takes Gabe to the juvenile non-fiction area and I take Douwe and Karma to say hello to all the stuffed animals by the baby books.

About twenty minutes later we all meet up by the grand staircase. Gabe has found a topic, the Vikings, and is explaining excitedly to me and showing me from a book what Viking artifacts he is going to make for his presentation. While I check out the books, Jeff takes Douwe outdoors and Gabe tries to refold his blue project sheet back into the airplane the way his babysitter had it. Karma, right next to me, lifts herself six inches to see what the librarian is doing on the counter. The librarian tells her, "Don't do that, I'm afraid you'll break all your teeth." A man comes down the staircase and sees Gabe and his blue sheet and says, "You better not throw that airplane. We have enough problems to deal with around here" and stomps past him into the conference room.

Why does it bother some adults so much that children are in the library? How discouraged does a lonely ten-year-old boy who is missing his home and family and friends feel when a stranger is hostile to him for showing up in a library to research a school project? Actually HE has enough problems to deal with without another adult snapping at him for no good reason. He wasn't all that thrilled about having to go the library in the first place, and right when he hits that rare and magical moment of eagerness to learn about something new, he gets deflated by a crabby man who assumes a 10 year old boy in the libary is nothing more than a rascal.

Gabe graciously just said, "Well that was awkward." I stood there for a minute to decide whether to follow that man into the conference room and give him a piece of my mind. I didn't, but it is a day later and I wish I had. Libraries should have people hired just to give fifth graders high fives for checking out a non-fiction book on the weekend. Or maybe that security guard sitting by used book sale rack all day could do it so she is not so bored in this huge beautiful library that rarely has any kids show up anymore. The place exists to welcome learners, doesn't it? Or is it just a shrine to silence and order, a secure receptacle to hold maps and microfiche?

It is experiences like these in public settings that add up and get discouraging. Curious George always does much more pesky things than my kids and yet by the end of the book he is always getting love and support from the community people he encounters. I can't be a foster mom without the broader community supporting these struggling children along with me. Or at least leaving them alone if they don't have something kind to say.

But even so, the encouraging parts always come, like this afternoon as I am writing this: Gabe has just walked in here to show off his homemade Viking spear. He hacked up a few chunks of flagstone from our yard this morning and then went to Home Depot with Jeff to get a piece of wood and string. He won't let me take a photo till he gets his shield constructed.

Children are amazing, taking more rebuffs and rebukes in a day (yes from me too) than I could tolerate and still they find motivation to pursue their important daily job of curiosity and exploration and questioning, and challenging the myriad rules that we care-full adults put in their path. Now I just have to make sure the principal doesn't suspend him for taking a "weapon" into class. There's probably a clear no-exceptions rule in the manual.

Fall is Here

Little Artists

Karma always asks to color and paint, so Douwe wanted to try too. I never let Douwe sit and try with paints before, but he caught on pretty well.