Lots-n-lots-a-luv ~

My senior year of high school I wore his class ring on a silver chain around my neck.  When I went off to college, I took his Lincoln Lynx letterman’s jacket (class of ’58) with me.  I thought it jazzy to wear these vintage treasures of my dad’s from when he was my age.  The retro look was cool, but the truth is, my daddy was my first sweetheart. These two things let me feel his love and gave me strength when I was far from home.

But first: for those of you who are new readers, I’m Terry, owner and caretaker of Willowbrook Manor English Teahouse and Farm Stay. The picture above is of me and my dad, going out to see the dinosaur tracks in Southern Utah. 

This email comes to you because you either signed up for this newsletter, made a reservation at Willowbrook Manor, are a friend of mine, or are a follower of my mother, author Liz Adair, who has her own corner here in The Willowbrook Word. (If any pictures come to you sideways, click on the link at the top of the page to view this in your browser.)

Hobart SOS ~

My last newsletter told the story about the Hobart mixer that my dad purchased from a school auction when my mom had her bakery (early ’80s), and how it eventually made its way into the production kitchen at Willowbrook Manor (click HERE to read).

Well, one early Saturday morning this past April when I was beginning the process of baking hundreds of scones for Tea and Tulips, the Hobart quit working! Its thirty-quart bowl was half-full of scone mix, and I was poised to add a gallon of heavy cream and begin mixing. But when I flipped the power switch, instead of engaging the motor, it just made an electrical hum. This machine is older than my dad, and for a moment the chorus of  “The Grandfather Clock” song came to mind:

“…and it stopped, short, ne’er to go again when the old man died.”  

I got on the phone right away and called mom to make sure dad was ok. I learned that he wasn’t ok, and neither was my mom.

Dad had gotten pneumonia while recuperating from his knee replacement surgery, and mom was down with severe bronchitis. They were both so sick they couldn’t take care of each other and finally called my sister Ruth and asked her to make the five-hour drive to help out. It was then we all agreed it was time for Mom and Dad to move from Kanab, Utah, and come back to the Northwest.

Goodbye to Red Rock Country ~

The whole reason dad had his knee surgery was to make it easier to get into his ATV. His passion has been exploring the southern Utah desert. He didn’t want to give that up.

Hello to Washington!

The plan was to be closer to family and have needed support as they both got older. They arrived the end of May.

The Gardener ~

Dad became the Willowbrook gardener and spent time every day pruning, weed whacking, or helping me pull down dead trees.

A Wedding ~

Dad officiated at my daughter and son-in-law’s wedding. It was a gorgeous day of celebration, joy, and family-together time. The feeling is imprinted in my mind and heart. Such a beautiful memory!

Slowing Down ~

A couple weeks later Dad ended up in the hospital, and we almost lost him. After that, his attitude changed. Instead of frustration for not being at his home in Kanab, there was gratitude and graciousness. There were many times where he expressed his love for us.

Saying Goodbye ~

A week and a half later, with hospice making him comfortable,  he slipped away in the wee hours of the morning. As he passed, his grandkids strummed the ukulele, singing the folk songs he taught them at family campouts. Mom was by his side. We sang the hymn ‘The Old Rugged Cross’ as a sweet amen to the life of a man we all dearly loved. Comfort  and peace is what we felt, knowing that Dad was at ease and on to his next great adventure.

Turning a Page at Willowbrook ~

After 61 years of marriage, my mom is now a widow. I am so glad she is here with me during this change in her life.  She is lovely company and has taken on some of the time-consuming tasks that make having tea delightful, like crisp-pressed napkins and fresh-picked wild flowers.

For this newsletter, I asked her to share part of the homily she gave at my daughter’s wedding. Here an an excerpt. You can find the whole talk at the end of this newsletter. I may be biased, but it is worth the read.

Here is my mom (Liz):

Two Points about the Language of Love

From Liz Adair’s Homily at Brandon and Kjaisa’s Wedding

First, remember that, though you both speak the American version of English, you each might speak a different language of love. Not realizing that point, one might grow impatient waiting to hear those three little words, “I love you,” and never notice the many tokens of affection offered by a taciturn partner.

I am a wordsmith, delighting in clever ways to express devotion. In fact, I write romances.

Derrill, on the other hand, doesn’t say I love you lots, but he does warm up the car for me. He sets the table in the morning. He dusts and washes the windows. He cleans my electric toothbrush and sees to my comfort and my safety. He says “I love you” several times a day each time we meet in the narrow hallway of our home and he stands aside, allowing me to pass through.

Another thing to remember, and I guess it’s part of the language of love thing: Never neglect greeting and leave-taking.

The home can be lots of things: laundry, restaurant, entertainment center, place of respite, childcare center, sick bay, pep rally, justice system, detention center, romantic retreat, educational institution.

To me, home is—or should be—where, when you go there, you are noticed, valued, greeted.

That’s a tricky thing for busy people to pull off. Or for people who have passionate interests.  Or for people who don’t realize how vital greetings and leave-takings are.

I’ve heard two different men whose marriages were fraying say these words: It’s hard when you go home and the only one glad to see you is the dog.

It’s such a small thing to pause, make eye contact, smile, and say, “Hi, I’m glad you’re home.” A one-size-fits-all greeting, it’s short and easily said. The exact words can be repeated over and over and never get old.

I’ve noted before that Derrill seldom says, “I love you,” in words, but he never, ever leaves the house without telling me he is going. And he always comes and finds me when he returns.

Sixty-one years, and he’s always let me know where he was going, never left me to wonder where he was. What a guy! 

Each time that happens, and it happens daily, it is a reminder that I’m valued and loved.

I have had to learn to do the same. When I’m in leave mode, I don’t want anything to stand in my way. But, because he has extended that courtesy to me for all these years, it would be churlish not to do the same.

So I sigh, get out of the car—because I’ve already started on my way—and go out to the shop where I invariably find him, and let him know.

That was his love-language, and though it didn’t come naturally to me, I made the effort to speak it.

Now I am so glad I did.

Now back to Terry:

The usual giveaway will need to wait until the next newsletter.

One More Thing ~

I don’t have many pictures of me with my dad so I cropped this from a crinkled family photo. I think I was 10. 

Remember the class ring of my dad’s that I used to wear around my neck? I don’t have it any more. A thief took it. I do still have the red wool lettermen’s jacket, but it is moth eaten and the white leather sleeves are stiff. However, now I don’t need tangible things to feel my father.

Because he was strong (almost invincible), I am strong. His faith in God is etched in my soul. I am sure that I can get through hard things because I saw him get through super hard things. And even though he is not here, I feel his love. 

Perhaps it is sappy, but a song by Kathy Matea has been rolling through my mind. ‘I Wear Your Love’ kinda sums up what I’ve been feeling lately. Click HERE to listen.

Oh, and one last thing. . .

The Hobart mixer?
I got its message.
And now it is working like a champ.

Sending lots-n-lots-a-luv from Willowbrook!
-t

Post Script.
Here is my calendar of events: 
(Click on the link listings for more information)

• Summer Garden Tea – August 10th and September 14th
• Harvest Tea – October 4th, 5th, 11th, & 12th
• Holiday Tea – December 6th, 7th, 13th & 14th

Homily for the Wedding of Brandon and Kjaisa

By Liz Adair

When Kjaisa and Brandon asked me to speak for a few minutes about marriage, I thought no problem. I had included a Thoughts on Marriage section in the memoir I just finished. I could just pull it up and use that.

But as I read through it, it didn’t quite fit the occasion. I decided to leave that for them to read when it’s published and instead tell them three things I think are super important to remember as they make their partnership official.

First, remember that, though you both speak the American version of English, the language of love you each speak might be different. One can grow impatient waiting to hear those three little words, “I love you,” and never notice the many tokens of affection offered by a taciturn partner. I am a wordsmith, delighting in clever ways to express devotion. In fact, I write romances. Derrill, on the other hand, doesn’t say I love you lots, but he does warm up the car for me. He sets the table in the morning. He dusts and washes the windows. He cleans my electric toothbrush and sees to my comfort and my safety. He watches over me. In fact, a few years ago he said, “I love you,” in a most impressive way that involved a helicopter. But more about that later.

Another thing to remember, and I guess it’s part of the language of love thing: Never neglect greeting and leave-taking.

Years ago, the company I was working for sent me to Portland for a week, and while I was there, I fell and gashed my knee. I needed stitches, so I went to the nearest emergency room attached to a large hospital.

The whole time I was there, the better part of a morning, only one person—the doctor who sewed up my knee— acknowledged my existence by looking directly at me. I left with my wound stitched but with my soul bruised.

Many times since, I have reflected on my experience in that Portland hospital.

I have thought about how it felt to have no one meet my eyes and acknowledge that I was even there. For all the interest I stirred, I could have been Lamont Cranston in “Shadow” mode. In an odd way, that experience solidified the philosophy I had been developing about the importance of greetings and leave-takings in relationships, particularly in the family.

The home can be lots of things: laundry, restaurant, entertainment center, place of respite, childcare center, sick bay, pep rally, justice system, detention center, romantic retreat, educational institution. Above all, it is, or should be, a haven.

Robert Frost, in “Death of a Hired Man,” said, “Home is where, when you go there, they have to take you in.” What a dreary view of home that is. To me, home is—or should be—where, when you go there, you are noticed, valued, greeted.

That’s a hard thing to pull off for busy people in a busy family. Or for people who have passionate interests.  Or for people who don’t realize how vital greetings and leave-takings are. I’ve heard two different men whose marriages were fraying say these words: It’s hard when you go home and the only one glad to see you is the dog.

It’s such a small thing to pause, make eye contact, smile, and say, “Hi, I’m glad you’re home.” A one-size-fits-all greeting, it’s short and easily said. The exact words can be repeated over and over and never get old. If there happens to be a strained relationship right then—and all marriages have them—the smile can be a shadow, the words a little clipped, but still they need to be said.

The cold shoulder needs to thaw a bit at the front door.

I’ve noted before that Derrill seldom says those three little words, “I love you,” but he never, ever leaves the house without telling me he is going. And he always comes and finds me when he returns. Sixty-one years, and he’s always let me know where he was going, never left me to wonder where he was. What a guy! 

Each time that happens, and it happens daily, it is a reminder that I’m valued and loved.

I have had to learn to do the same. When I’m in leave mode, I don’t want anything to stand in my way. But, because he has extended that courtesy to me for all these years, it would be churlish not to do the same, so I sigh, get out of the car, and go out to the shop where he invariably is, and let him know.

To him it comes naturally; to me it doesn’t. But I’ve come to believe that greetings and leave-takings are important ways to nurture a marriage.

The time, thought, and effort expended in nurturing a marriage is an investment that will pay dividends forever.

I remember coming out of Costco one time, Derrill and I. It was raining, and the way out was partially blocked by a little old lady in a wheelchair. Her elderly husband was trying to unfold one of those plastic rain hats ladies sometimes carry in their purses. It was obviously his first experience with how it was folded, and he fumbled around, trying to get it situated on her head and tied under her chin. As we passed, I took Derrill by the hand. “That’s us in fifteen years,” I said.

Shortly after that, I was asked to review a book on investing. As I read through the principles outlined by the financial planner, I couldn’t help but liken it to nurturing a marital relationship. As Derrill and have had health-related episodes journeying through our seventh and eighth decades, we have lived on the interest from our marital investment.

As he ministered to me, helping me to the bathroom and making sure I was fed, I felt the power of his love. He cared for me because he cared about me. I didn’t know how things were going to fall out at the time, and I was so sick that I wasn’t sure I cared, but I knew that the ties that bound us were eternal and that whatever happened I could depend on his love.

He proved that again when he went beyond what he was capable of to rescue me from the desert. This is the part with the helicopter.

One morning about three years ago, we went out for a short morning jaunt on our side by side in the southern Utah desert. It was close to noon when we high centered in a sand dune but felt confident we could walk back to where our truck was parked. Unfortunately, we took a wrong turn. We were hiking in deep sand and had some pretty steep ups and downs.

After about five hours of walking, I came to the realization that we weren’t where I thought we were, and it took the starch right out of me. I gave up and lay down in the middle of a sloping sandstone field—what the locals call slickrock.

I wasn’t unconscious. I was definitely having thoughts, and they amounted to this: 1. I wished I had expressed more often to each of my children how much I loved them. 2. I hoped they remembered where the file for my memoir was on my computer so it could be published posthumously, and 3. I had left dishes in the sink, unfolded laundry on my bed, my office looked like a hoarder’s lair, and now the church ladies would come in after my death and see it all. 

I was in the midst of letting all those regrets go when Derrill returned from reconnoitering at the top of the hill. I told him I could just slip away, and it would be okay. He said that wasn’t going to happen and proposed that he continue on and walk out to the truck. He left most of the water for our dog Penny and me and took off.  Like my regrets, I let him go without a thought.

It was dark when I finally rejoined the world. It was a world so still that when a moth flew by its fluttering was loud in my ears.

I watched the satellites tumble through the sky and thought about Derrill and all the things auguring against his success.  His age. His diabetes. His three joint replacements, none of which are pain free. His heart disease. The stroke he had two months earlier. The cancer surgery he had two months before that. The crippling cramps he has when he is dehydrated. I wondered if he were even then lying unconscious in an arroyo somewhere.

It was around midnight when I heard the sound of a helicopter and saw running lights low on the horizon. Thinking it was a medivac unit, I wondered what family crisis prompted that flight. When it swung down and flew in front of me, I realized I was the crisis. I hugged Penny and said, “Dad is a hero. He made it through.”

When we landed at the search and rescue station, all seemed confusion to me. Then the flight nurse pointed, and I saw Derrill standing in a pool of light cast by the command post generator.

His hair has grown white over the years, and his shoulders sag asymmetrically. No longer the tall, strapping redhead I married, he’s from the generation that eschews pinning hearts on sleeves. He doesn’t end each phone call with, “Love you,” but he doesn’t have to.  If I didn’t know that he loved me before that night—and I did—that helicopter ride would have made me a rock-solid believer.

Years ago, a friend brought me a candy bar for Valentine’s day.  It was dark chocolate, smooth and wonderful. I shared it with Derrill, not giving him too much because of his blood sugar. I ate the rest, so it wouldn’t tempt him.

Inside the candy bar wrapper was a poem in honor of Valentine’s Day. It’s by William Morris, a Victorian-era textile designer, artist, writer, and member of the Pre Raphaelite-Brotherhood. It’s called “Love is Enough,” and it goes like this:

Love is enough: though the World be a-waning,
And the woods have no voice but the voice of complaining.
Though the sky be too dark for dim eyes to discover
The gold-cups and daisies fair blooming thereunder,
Though the hills be held shadows, and the sea a dark wonder,
And this day draw a veil over all deeds pass’d over,
Yet their hands shall not tremble, their feet shall not falter;
The void shall not weary, the fear shall not alter
These lips and these eyes of the loved and the lover.

The candy bar was sweet, but the poem was even sweeter, and that’s what I’m talking about—the interest-bearing investment that comes at the end of a successful marriage. It’s shown in the last half of the poem. Let me repeat it:

Though the hills be held shadows, and the sea a dark wonder,
And this day draw a veil over all deeds pass’d over,
Yet their hands shall not tremble, their feet shall not falter;
The void shall not weary, the fear shall not alter
These lips and these eyes of the loved and the lover.

When I was out there, all alone on that great swathe of slick rock, I wasn’t afraid. Many of the options on the menu had a dark ending, but fear didn’t alter my knowledge of my husband’s love for me. He may not say it in American English, but I understand his language.

My sweet darlins, Brandon and Kjaisa, may you become fluent in all the dialects your lover speaks. May your leavetakings and returnings be acknowledged and celebrated. When your hair is as white as mine, may you look back on years of growth, adventure, and fun. But most of all, may you reap bounteous interest from a well-nurtured marriage.