The Clean Plate Club

Red-letter day: I left a quarter-cup of rice on my plate at Thai E-Sarn restaurant in Arlington Heights at lunchtime.

I am a pathological member of the ‘Clean Plate Club’. It is painful for me to throw away food. I work hard to serve myself no more than I want to eat, but when there’s too much on my plate, I sometimes eat it all.

For years, our family budget was tight. We were raising six kids on one income and hoping to help each of them financially through college. I was conscious of the cost of every calorie.

One wintery February, in about 2005, I accompanied my dad to St. Croix. He always flew first class. The flight attendants brought us heated washcloths before take-off and served dinner on real crockery with metal flatware. Dad and I were seated in different rows, with a stranger sitting next to me. As is my wont, I ate every speck of food, even wiping the dish clean with a bit of bread I’d saved for that purpose. The man glanced over at my plate and said disdainfully, “Well, you must have liked that”. I felt like a unsophisticated yokel. I’m sure he’d never seen someone consume all the calories available  in-flight.

I still work really hard at serving myself modest amounts of food, consuming all the calories on my plate, or bringing home restaurant left-overs, but I’m trying not to be obsessive about it.

Did you know the Clean Plate Club was an actual, federally-sponsored organization? In 1917, Woodrow Wilson appointed Herbert Hoover to address World War I food shortages. Food rationing was implemented and voluntary 'meatless Mondays' and 'wheatless Wednesdays' were promoted.Hoover developed a pledge for schoolchildren:

“At table I’ll not leave a scrap of food upon my plate. And I’ll not eat between meals, but for supper time I’ll wait.”

The club was terminated after the war, but revived in 1947,  to address post-World War II food shortages. Elementary schools established local clubs and encouraged children to join. I remember my parents encouraging me to be part of my own Clean Plate Club. We certainly didn't throw much food away. It takes discipline to limit both waste and consumption. "Waste not, want not" combined with what my dad used to say, "Don't make your body a garbage can."

I feel a little sheepish admitting to the uneaten rice. Perhaps next time I'll ask specifically for a smaller portion.

Godt nytt år!

Godt nytt år!!! greeted me Sunday evening, 8 hours before midnight in Provo, Utah. My sister was in Norway.

We’ve been goofing off, attending a nephew’s wedding in Salt Lake City, hanging out with our daughter and son-in-law.

Yesterday we hiked up to the white concrete letter “Y” about 1650 feet above the Brigham Young campus. The actual trail ascends a thousand feet on a wide unpaved trail, and was dotted with young families. The four o’clock sun was strong and I soon regretted wearing my long fuchsia coat. I shifted it from one arm to the other, letting the perspiration evaporate. As we started to descend, however, the sun was setting behind the western mountains and I gratefully put it on.

The letter "Y" is taller than the Hollywood sign is wide: 380 feet. It's also taller than Whipple Hill, the highest point in Lexington. We'll be returning to the lower lands tomorrow: lower and more trees.

Carol of Joy Mixed with Sorrow

Christmas snuck up on me this year. The distraction started with the trip to Montana for Duane’s funeral, followed by two and a half weeks in Southern California, enjoying Thanksgiving with family, the birth of Eliza Joy Johnston 2 days later, and finally Oma duty, cooking for the new parents and cradling Eliza.

After Thanksgiving the holiday lights started appearing in Maggie’s California neighborhood. I found it unsettling to see Christmas lights and decorations with temperatures in the 70s.

Tonight, on my way home from my weekly temple visit, I stopped to enjoy some houses in Lexington.

  The first is my second favorite house in the world. From each window shines a candle. The first-floor windows are nearly room-length and I've always fantasized being able to walk through one into a front room.

The little girl in me seeks out the multi-colored lights of my childhood in Pennsylvania. They aren’t common in Lexington; home owners (including myself) tend to the New England tradition of white candles in each window or a spotlight on the wreath on the front door.

2017 started out as the year David wasn’t going to turn 30. On Sunday the choir  sang “Carol of Joy” by Eileen Berry. Every time I rehearsed it, I wept, and the performance was no different. Although the carol's ultimate message is profoundly hopeful, pointing to the redemption of the fallen world and the deep joy of the Savior’s birth, the lyrics' depiction of dry, withered leaves, cold, barren hillside, and death holding the lonely, fallen world fast, fills me with sorrow.

Yes, Christmas is a time of joy and my experience with death deepens my hope. But it's intermingled with  pain at the closing of the second full year since David died.

         On a brighter note, we are expecting Peter, Xiomara, and our other two grandchildren, Andrew and Victoria, for the Christmas weekend. They'll bring their stockings to hang over our fireplace mantel. I've got all the ingredients for homemade egg nog and my mom's traditional Christmas lasagna (She hated roasting turkeys. Miss you, Mom!).

Candle Lighting and New Life

For The Compassionate Friends’ Worldwide Candle Lighting, we lit our double-wick maple butter candle along with the first and second candle of Advent. We paused a few minutes to remember David during our Advent supper. Over half of our guests were kids, some too young to remember David at all, the rest having barely known him. Of course, these children don’t know any of our grown children: to them we are grey-haired denizens of a two-person nest. It was a bittersweet moment, realizing that David will make no more memories and that no one new will get to know him: his thoughtful gifts, his dedication to hard work, his funny laugh.

David with Santa Claus at the Arlington Ward 2009

After my trip to Montana to attend my cousin Duane Hazen’s funeral, I flew to southern California to spend Thanksgiving with my sister, her husband, and some of our kids. Two days later, Eliza Joy Johnston was born to Sam and Savannah (Savam!). As a full-time homemaker, I got to spend the next ten days with them. I love the fresh, soft-as-satin skin, the huge eyes, the arch-less feet and tiny toes. Sunday morning Savam went to church while I minded Eliza; Monday they took a lunch date. It was hard to leave.

While staying with my sister, we took several one and two-hour walks along the “Fullerton Loop” trail near her home. Weather in the 70s, sunny and bright. Four days after I returned to Lexington, it snowed several inches, a sudden shock to my system. But on Monday the sun shone into my office window, intensified by the reflective snow in the yard.

Fort Benton, Montana

High on a windswept bluff in Big Sky Country, overlooking the Missouri River, my people are buried, including my dad’s parents, Logan and May Hazen, and May’s parents, Gustav and Augusta Bruesch. And now my cousin, Duane Allen Hazen.

Three years ago, we visited Riverside Cemetery, with my dad, who grew up near Fort Benton, then lived in New Jersey 63 years. When my dad died later that year, and his only surviving sibling, Uncle Herb, moved to Helena, I didn’t expect to return. Then Duane died unexpectedly. Jim and I were already planning to fly to Salt Lake City, so I bought a ticket for the Salt Lake Express to Great Falls. When I set my alarm wrong and woke up just as the van was leaving Salt Lake, Jim drove 80 miles to Tremonton, Utah, to catch it. The 15-passenger van arrived and I climbed into the only empty seat, which was sopping wet and directly under a leaky roof vent. Water dripped on me at every curve in the highway until the rain stopped and the vent emptied, but I was grateful to have a seat at all.

The memorial and graveside service were Saturday morning. Later that afternoon, I returned to the family plots and made a map. Wilbert Freddy Bruesch’s marker, flush with the ground, was covered with dirt, so on Sunday I borrowed a large stockpot and scrub brush from the church kitchen and returned once again. The red granite stone was hard to read: the raised letters are worn. They tell a sad story; my grandmother's younger brother, Wilbert, was five and a half when he died in March of 1913. Her son, Donald, died at age two in 1927. The club no one ever wants to join: my grandmother and great-grandmother lost sons too young.

Amadeus

              Months ago, Jim purchased tickets to the movie Amadeus at Boston Symphony Hall with the orchestra and chorus of the Haydn and Handel Society.

              The  stunning cinematography on a huge screen, coupled with the concert hall acoustics was nearly overwhelming.

Spoiler Alert: Mozart dies at the end. Yes, I knew that.

Near the end of Amadeus, a deathly ill Mozart dictates the Requiem “Confutatis Maledictis” (while the wicked are confounded) to Salieri. Mozart, too exhausted to continue, falls asleep. His wife returns to the apartment and confronts Salieri. When she finally turns to Mozart, she sees his open eyes lifeless and staring.

              After David died, I saw a movie character die on camera. It was such make-believe to me. How could an actor mimic a dead body?

              Tim Hulce could and did. His eyes in that death scene brought me right back to a certain August night.

              The following hearse scene transported Jim and me to our bedroom window, watching the taillights of a long, black hearse recede down the driveway. The amber turn-signal flashed silently a few times and the hearse turned towards the highway. Amadeus captures the anguish.

              Afterward the standing ovation, Jim and I sat back down, as the crowd buttoned their overcoats and moved slowly towards the exits. I nestled my head in the hollow of his shoulder and wept, overcome with emotion.

              Today, as I drove home from the Bedford Library, I realized that I would pass by David’s cemetery. I hadn’t visited his grave in months. The remaining ochre and brown leaves on the trees blended in with the dark pine boughs. I knelt on the damp grass and wiped away a few spindly pine needles and short blades of cut grass from the stone. Even now, it seems unreal.

Sunday, November 5, 1995

Thursday evening, November 2, my 39th birthday. I rode the ‘stake temple bus’ to the Washington, D.C. temple. Before the Boston Temple was opened in 2000, our stake (a collection of 10-12 congregations) sponsored a temple bus a few times a year. We’d board the bus around 9 p.m. and ride 450 miles, arriving at the temple around 5:30 a.m. After a full day of worship, the bus would take us to a motel and early next morning we’d be back at the temple. I’d get back home Saturday around midnight, sleep-deprived.

A dangerous schedule for someone who was hypomanic, but we hadn’t ever heard the term and certainly didn’t know it applied to me.

Sunday morning I was back in my head-lice-infested household. My long hair was at risk. Our dear Finnish friend, Maikku, offered to drop by and nit-pick.

Maikku and I stood in the warm autumn sun at the bottom of our kitchen porch steps. She gently combed out my long brown hair with a very fine-toothed comb. Although she was picking up houseguests at the airport, she took the time to help a desperate young mother.

By Sunday evening, I realize now, I was far gone. I believed that evil men were plotting to kidnap our oldest daughter. I’ve tried many times to describe my paranoia. It felt like certain knowledge, as if I had been in the same room with these evil men and was privy to their conversations. I think I knew I hadn’t heard a conversation, but I was certain of the danger and furious that Jim didn’t take me seriously.
No one took me seriously. They took me to the emergency department instead.