A Fun Time in Branson

My husband and I have just returned from an enjoyable trip to Branson, MO.  We were invited to join my husband’s brother and his wife when they vacationed at their ‘Time Share’ in Branson last week.  It takes a whole day of driving to arrive at southern MO from central Minnesota.  But we drove to Kansas City, KS, the first part of the trip so we could visit with my youngest son, Robbie, his wife Sara and our newest grandson who is five months old now.  They have just moved into their first house, so we were excited to see their new home.

After two days of playing with the baby and enjoying his giggles and smiles, we said goodbye until we see them again, when they will drive to MN to visit the family during Christmas.

 Our next part of the journey would take us through central Missouri. We turned on to High Way 65 and enjoyed the farm land in the Springfield area and rolling hills as we continued south. We stopped to eat our lunch at the famous Lambert’s Cafe, noted for their ‘throwed rolls’ in Ozark, MO.  They have great southern food, and yes they throw the hot fresh rolls to the patrons who are eating there.  A young man is in charge of wheeling a cart of fresh baked yeast rolls around the huge restaurant. If you are waiting for your order, or need a second or third serving of fresh rolls with the honey or sorghum they served with them, just reach up and motion to the waiter, and he picks a Parker house roll out of the muffin cup and tosses it to you across a row of tables.  The best ball player at your table can be designated to catch or each individual can reach up and grab their own rolls, drop it down on a clean paper towel and spread the butter and honey on the warm goodness baked just for your eager taste buds. After a satisfying meal we continued to travel another hour to Branson, where we didn’t worry about eating again the rest of the day. 

Our first stop when we arrived in the boom town of entertainment was to purchase our tickets for the musical “Noah” at the Sight and Sound Theater.  It is the newest theater in Branson; it’s amazing architecture, the beautiful lobby, and the gracious hospitality of all staff members who greet everyone with sincere friendliness is all part of the packaged entertainment there.  When the show begins the story is on the stage in front; just as any other play, but as it continues live animals are led down the aisles to be loaded on the ark when it is built.  The second act opens with three sides of the theater used as a wrap around stage, you feel as if you are in the ark.  There are four tiers/levels in the ark; the live animals (horses, cattle, sheep, pigs, lamas, camels, etc.) are on the bottom floor, and animated animals, like full sized elephants, lions, and giraffes are on the upper levels, with live birds of all kinds.  It was amazing, I didn’t know where to look, there was so much to take in and behold.  I recommend this theater production to everyone, it will be leaving Branson this fall and it will be at the Sight and Sound Theater in Lancaster County, PA this next year.  The story of Joseph, and his many colored coat, will be next in Branson.

We enjoyed several productions of country music and comedy.  The best one was a tribute to Marty Robbins, the cross over artist who was famous in the 50s and 60s while I was in school.  We saw a very interesting IMAX movie about the history of the Ozarks, so when we traveled around the streets of Branson, we understood the names on the streets and why some of the theaters had their unique names.

We had fun shopping in old town and in the craft shops around all the restaurants and theaters.  My favorite shop was an Amish store, where we brought home many little packages of natural flavorings for soups and baking, plus pickles, sweet treats, jellies, vinegars and spices.

Our time share had a complete kitchen, so we made breakfast several days and we had two home cooked meals in the evenings, so our food expenses were not so large.  We enjoyed a breakfast and lunch at our favorite restaurant, McFarland’s, where we met some old friends who have moved to southern MO and enjoyed some delicious corn bread, too.  

Our only disappointment on our trip was the rain on Thursday, when we planned on spending our day at the Silver Dollar City amusement park. Their fall festival with artists creating their crafts, Logging contests, Ozark food served in small settings and rides for the young at heart are all set in the rolling hills.  We have a good reason to return for another vacation another time.

On our 16 hour trip back home, we stopped at an apple orchard/farmer’s market near the Missouri River and loaded our already full vehicle with fresh produce.  We snacked on fresh apples and apple donuts the rest of the way home.

About me

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Something new I discovered about myself this week

I have a new discovery about myself.  I am going to be 64 years old in two weeks, and after all this time I have learned I have a preference which I never realized before.  It starts with an encounter I had at work on Monday.

I work two days a week at a local convenience store, where in our very small town of 500 people, we sell milk, bread, pop, snacks and cigarettes for the citizens here who don’t want to drive 7 or 11 miles to the larger communities just down the highway to pick up emergency items.

Late in my shift, an older man, meaning older than me, walked in proudly wearing a waxed handlebar mustache and a friendly smile.  He was maybe 75 with gray hair, beard and a very stiffly curled handlebar mustache.  He asked me if I knew where the Terry Motel was near Wadena.  Well, that is an easy one to answer.  Part of my job description seems to be navigational expert for the surrounding towns. 

 Me, “Well, the Terry Motel is just about 5 miles straight west on Highway 10.  It will be on this side of Wadena as you enter town.”

He, “thank you, would you like to join me there later this evening?’

Me, without a pause, at least I thought I was fast in my come back; “I think I will just go to my rehearsal as I have Community Band practice this evening.”

He, “Oh you are a musician?”

Me, “Yes, I am a clarinetist; I play with the local community band and with the Heartland Orchestra in Brainerd.”

He, “You probably don’t realize you are speaking with a famous person, I used to sing with “The Three Irish Tenors”.  (Me, in my thoughts, yeah right) He told me how he had sung with a powerful tenor who when he opened his mouth and belted out his first note, the man just about knocked him over with the volume of his voice.  (Very possible)  This powerful tenor appeared on PBS and he wondered if I had heard of the Irish Tenors before.

Me, “I have watched the tenors sing on PBS, but I haven’t heard them in person”.

The handle bar mustache man, who I thought appeared more arrogant as the time went on, decided to leave then.  I guess I answered his question to his satisfaction. 

After he left, I had several quiet moments to realize what has happened, I had been invited to a motel to do whatever.  Had I really understood what he said?  In my life, I haven’t been invited to anything like this before.  Especially since I have been married 44 years now, and have added too much weight to my short body.  Even if he wasn’t being ridiculous, it was ridiculous to pose such a query.

Then I realized something I never knew about myself before; I actually prefer to play my clarinet over sex, at least with a stranger.

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Look Who I Found in San Antonio

When I traveled to Texas in Dec. to watch the graduation of my oldest grandson, from basic training at Lacklund Airforce Base, visiting all the famous site in San Antonio was part of our agenda.  Naturally, The Alamo was the first place we sought out, then we walked up and down the cobble stone streets in the oldest part of the city.  We found a Ripley's Believe It or Not! and Louis Tussaud's Waxworks.  Since three out of 5 of us had never visited there before, we paid alot of $$ for tickets, and strolled on into some warmth, because the streets of San Antonio were freezing, windy and too cold to enjoy that first day of our visit.

There we found weird stuff, which was interesting, but the wax works became the high point for me, because we found him.  He was sitting and relaxing as we rounded the corner into an area where the big named Hollywood stars were hanging around.

He didn't quite look his best, a little pale, shorter than I have imagined him, his head wasn't just right.  Maybe it was a bit too warm one day last summer and he settled, squished, or melted some.  Anyhow, he wasn't as handsome as I thought he could be.

My Grandson, Brady, suggested that I should have my picture taken with him.  So there I am, grinning, looking content, near my favorite actor, a hunk of a man, a hunk of wax.

Still, it is a picture I will keep in my memory book, and I might even use it as an avitar.

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   An American Graffiti Evening

 Can you imagine sitting in your  car on a Sat. night at an outdoor drive in theater.

A huge screen fills the sky in front of you.  All around you vehicles are arriving, parking next to speakers with blaring with music from the '50s and '60s. Each one of the parking spaces has a restored car or pick up truck from an earlier age in automobile history.  There are cars from the 1940s to the present age, convertibles, hard tops, sports cars, and long spacious family cars.  People who arrive in newer recently purchased cars are delegated to the back rows, so the vintage cars can be displayed in parallel rows across the front of the drive in.

  There is a wonderful aroma of grilled polish sausage, butter corn on the cob and buttered popcorn in the air.  Everyone who drives a restored car to the drive in on Saturday night is invited to join in the picnic meal before the movies begin that evening.

  This is a traditional event every summer at the Long Prairie Drive-In in Minnesota.  My husband and I attend this fun evening at the end of August because we enjoy the ambience of the "Back to the 50s" evening.

  We belong to a restored car club in our town, and hubby enjoys going to car shows, viewing the hard work others have done in preserving these beautiful relics from the past.  He spent all day Saturday parked in a grassy field with over 600 cars from around our state, entered in a beauty contest for the most eye catching unique vehicle entered on that day.  

   After the car show, we pack up our deep red 1966 Ford Ranchero with lawn chairs, a cooler with cold pop and warm jackets and a blanket for warmth.

We drove 40 miles to the south to the only drive in theater in our area, to watch a old movie, "American Graffiti" and spend an evening remembering our favorite car we cruised around in during our dating years.

    Everyone who attended this event, spent the time before the sunset, walking around looking at each one of the old cars, with the owners sitting near their sparkling gems, which glowed with beautiful custom paint jobs, white walled tires freshly cleaned and dust free hub caps. The cars interiors are restored to their original designs. 

  The most popular phrase we heard all evening was, " I used to have a car just like yours years ago. I wished I kept it." 

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    Joyful, Joyful,We Adore Thee

Sunday’s at our small church are blessed by a family who has taken it upon them selves to share their voices and love of singing with a congregation who is very timid when we sing.

Today as we were arriving and entering the old stone walls of our family’s Episcopal church in central Minnesota, a car approaches from the west, and as it gets closer, voices can be heard singing from within the vehicle.  When it comes to a stop in the parking lot, the doors are thrown open by the youngsters inside and out spill an enthusiastic family still harmonizing.

The Rose Family Singers have arrived. When they enter the building they joyfully charm the parish members who have congregated in the kitchen, preparing the coffee for after the service. They greet everyone and proceed up the stairway, their voices mingling with others as we assemble for the Eucharistic service.

Traditionally, each member of the congregation sits in the same seat every Sunday, and the Rose family has dibs on the front pew on the left hand side, near the pastor.

They arrive with a briefcase full of music, a music stand, big smiles and hands lifted high signaling hello to all assembled.  There is not a choir loft in our small church, so the family

faces all of the parish from their front row seats.  The cruciform design of our church makes this possible. 

The organist has been quietly playing music while we file in, but she sits back and the Rose Family Singers rise to their feet and with love in their voices, sing “Seek ye First the Kingdom of God” for the Prelude on this wonderful, sunny summer morning at St. Helen’s Church

.

This is one of my favorite melodies and hymns, and it must be one of theirs also, because they harmonize so well in it.

The joy the Dad, Mom, and two sons, share with their enthusiasm and pleasing harmonies is contagious through out our church.  When it is our turn to rise and sing the opening hymn we are inspired to open our mouths and sing with startling fervor.

Our timid warbles are projected into a volume of devoted spirited song unto the Lord.  Music rises to the rafters, and floats out the open windows.  The joy is spreading this Sunday morning.

Thank you Beth and family for sharing your gift with us.  Your enthusiasm is contagious.  We are so much better when we are lead by the Spirit and your family.

All of you will know her better as wearmanyhats. 

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 Reminiscing With My Uncle

I returned to yesteryear while visiting my uncle, one summer day.I journeyed into the world of my ancestors as we reminisced about the ‘olden days’

Uncle Warren still lives on the land our ancestors homesteaded over one hundred years ago. They cleared timber from virgin woods and brush, and then farmed rocky soil after moving their family of 7 from Iowa.

 When I travel to the old farm in Central Minnesota, I start my short journey from my small town on a four lane highway, then travel north a ways on a tarred county road, turn left on a well used gravel road, and finally turn right down a narrow country lane which brings me to the farm’s rutted driveway.  I enter into a world, which has not changed very much since the death of my Grandmother fifteen years ago.

Grandma lived her entire married life at this farm, just a half mile from where she was born.  She died at age 96, when she fell and broke her hip, again.  My uncle never left the farm, he stayed to help his parents run the farm, and he never married.  He cared for his Mother after Grandpa died 20 years earlier.

I visited my Grandparents each summer when I was a young girl.  I looked forward to the week I was privileged to spend at their farm.  While I was visiting, I follow everyone wherever they were, doing their chores.  When they milked the cows in the big red barn, I watched as they milked their herd of dairy cows by hand twice a day, sitting on short, little one leg milking stools. 

The barn was built after the family lived on the land a few years in the early 1900’s.  The trees, which were sawn into lumber, had to dry and cure before it was used to build a strong hip-roof barn.

The rafters were made out of oak, sturdy enough to last more than 100 years with out sagging.  Huge boulders dug from the earth formed its foundation. It was added onto though out the years, as milking machines made it possible to milk more cows to sell more milk.  It’s huge haymow, held towering mounds of loose hay.  This was before bailing machines stuffed meadow hay into neat rectangles, and the farmers would stack the hay inside the haymow for winter feed for the cows.   At one time this barn was the biggest, one for miles around.  It even had barn dances in the empty haymow, late in the spring when the hay had be fed to all the cattle.

My Grandpa, and his Dad played their violins and his Mom played a traveling pump organ.  The neighbors drove their buggies and wagons full women, children and men, eager for an evening of dancing and socializing.

When I came to stay on the farm, I also watched when they slopped the pigs, I stood on the bottom board on a wooden gate that swung inward for easy access, but kept the pigs from escaping.  Next I questioned Grandma as she picked the eggs from under the hens, I had to follow her into the hen house to see what was going on in there, too.

Then when we had finished, and we were returning to the farmhouse, we had to avoid the surly white geese, which Grandma kept for their soft downy feathers.  She made the softest feather pillows, when she used the downy under feathers to stuff the fluffy, comfy pillows she gave as gifts.

My favorite past time was watching Grandpa and Warren take care of the workhorses.  We didn’t have horses at home.  My Dad was a dairy farmer, also, so we had lots of dairy cows, Holsteins.  But we didn’t have the variety of animals my Grandpa’s kept on their farm.  Dad’s cows were black and white and Grandpa’s were Shorthorn cows, reddish brown in color, so even the cattle were different.  My Grandparent’s ways were fascinating to my young eyes in the 50”s.

As I arrived at the retired, quiet, farm for a visit with my uncle, I hoped to gather more information about our family history.  My uncle has told me about how our Great-grandparents first settled in this area of Minnesota.  His head stores many stories and tales, which he shares with family at holidays gatherings or reunions.   These stories have always interested me and now that Uncle says he is starting to forget some things, I feel a need to record is memories before this family historian is gone and the family’s history is lost forever.

Uncle Warren invited me to look through a pile of family photographs on this afternoon.  We saw pictures of farm buildings and we noticed how the buildings had changed in appearance.  The barn, machine shed, tool shed, and corncribs looked bight and freshly painted when they were first built.  Then over the long decades, the buildings started to fade as they aged. We noticed how much the trees matured, and how the people had grown older and even the styles of their clothing changed through the years.

We sat at the old kitchen table, with the familiar oilcloth covering, it’s faded pattern, indistinct and gray in appearance.  Not much had changed in the house since my Grandmother’s passing.  When I entered the old farmhouse, the smells, the furniture, the plants all seem unchanged.  I expected to see her sitting in her favorite chair, embroidering a pair of new pillowcases.  The large, antique crock, that stored the homemade bread, stood in the same corner where it had always been.  Grandma’s fern still grows in the parlor, its wispy fronds appropriate for this antique room.  The family pictures hang on the walls and sit around the rooms with familiar faces, in the same spots they were placed by Grandma decades ago.  Uncle Warren has worked with loving care keeping his parent’s home just as it was when they were alive.

As we sit at the kitchen table, just as it was when Grandma set out meals on its well-used surface, I look over at the buffet, and see her worn dishes through the dull glass doors.  They bring to mind memories of meals with her homemade mouth watering cooking.  Her holiday feasts were memorable.  I can recall the smell of the stuffed goose, with her unequaled bread and sage dressing inside, roasted to perfection.  The table was over flowing with all kinds of pickles, salads, and pies.  The aromas still linger in my sensory memories.

As we continue to search and sort thru the assorted photos and snapshots my uncle gathered for me to look at, he describes country life when he was growing up on this farm.  He recounted how Great Grandpa traveled north from Iowa with his brother, to buy this land from the railroad late in the 1800’s.

Stories about them and my grandfather, George, as a boy; were remembered each time a new picture unlocked another almost forgotten memory.

He told about life on the farm before electricity, especially how everyone needed to be extra careful with the kerosene lamps in the barns, with hay and straw everywhere.  He told how it was the children’s job to sweep the area around and under the hanging fuel laden lamps.  The dry wisps of hay were kept out of reach as a precaution; fire was a very real concern for every family, before electricity became available.

In 1945, the farmers in Grandpa’s neighborhood worked together to erect the utility poles, string the wire and install the power to each of their farms.  After it was installed Grandpa George and Grandma Anna could buy an electric refrigerator.  The one they bought, a GE, still works to this day, cooling my uncle’s perishables.

The pictures draw me back, back in time; beyond my uncle’s memories, back to the beginning of our history in Wadena County.  The brown tinted photos, curling with age, draw me into them.  I see a younger George standing near a horse drawn sled.  He would hitch the horse up to these extra large runners.

He was preparing to drive the team of horses out to the woods, so downed trees could be cut up, and then men would stack large logs on the sled so they could drag the logs back to the farm yard over the snow.  A wood pile was close to the house, with an ax handy, sticking out of a big stump, so anyone could help split the two foot lengths of smaller logs into fire wood used to fuel the three wood burning stoves that heated the house and the cook stove.

There is a picture of Anna standing next to a Model “T”, she has her hair wrapped in a scarf, really a white dish towel; just as she always did when she worked outside, doing chores side by side with the men.  Everyday she would help the men outside with the milking, feeding the young calves, gathering the eggs, nurturing her huge garden and then she would tend to all her household duties.  The farmhouse has not had plumbing installed in side, even in the 21^st century.  All water is carried in and out by hand.  Grandma had to carry water into the kitchen for cleaning, and preparing food, and then it had to be thrown out when everyone had finished bathing (once a week), washing clothes (on Mondays), washing dishes (after three big meals a day) and cleaning the floors.  On this farm the outhouse remained an important building on this homestead.

As the afternoon continues, I feel like I am back in the days of my early childhood; visiting during summer vacation again.  Today has blurred and yesterday is here again.  I almost expect to see Grandpa walk thru the kitchen screen door; ready for his afternoon coffee and homemade sugar cookies.

Something prompts me to look at my watch, the afternoon is waning, and I need to pick some photos to be copied.  We want to share some of these treasures with our family and a new generation of grandchildren.  I write some dates on the back of the pictures and Warren walks me to my car.  The sunlight clears the brown tint from my thoughts.  As I look around, the buildings around the farmyard are showing their age.  Some are starting to collapse; most of them have turned to a weathered gray.  Summer thunderstorms, harsh cold winters, a recent tornado, and the quiet slower days of retirement, have brought about an obvious look of an unused, sleeping farm.  The old outhouse, the chicken house, the tool shed, and the sturdy hipped roof barn, don’t resemble the farm buildings we peered at in the curling, fading pictures.  The trees have grown and many have fallen and have broken limbs laying abandon on the ground; the hard working, tree cutting, ground breaking pioneers have departed, and the farm animals no longer live here.

The collection of photos I hold in my hands show the different stages in the life of this farm.  The pictures show the faces of the three generations of loved ones, who tended this land.  This afternoon, while digging into yesteryear, and looking at the aged snapshots of dear long gone grandparents, I sense that I have returned to those busy industrious days when this farmstead fed everyone who lived here.  It had a bounty of extra garden produce to send home with everyone who came to visit. 

As I drive down the driveway, I still have those images swimming around in my head.  Faces unlined, bodies sturdy, posing for a picture that will keep them ageless for all time.  While the car travels back down the gravel road, I marvel at how many of the relatives Uncle Warren can recall.  His interesting family stories need to be kept alive and retold.  Now I have the challenge of sharing everything I have learned about our family with the next generations.

As the modern buildings of town draw nearer, I start to realize I have left the brown tinted world carefully preserved and recorded by my ancestors by a black box camera.  I reenter the busy fast paced present with a feeling that after an afternoon immersed in the photos, I feel like I sat down to coffee with my Grandpa, and watched my Grandma in her rocking chair, embroider pretty pillow cases again.

Their love and welcoming demeanor has remained through the years just as I remembered.

Lovingly recorded by Sandra Dalen Gould

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            His Eyes

   It was his eyes that caught my attention.

When I stepped into the bedroom, I felt he was looking right at me.  It was as if my brother and my oldest son were present in the bedroom where my grandparents slept all their married life.

Those eyes were very familiar to me, because I have been looking into eyes like these when I see my brother Tom and my son Joey.  But the eyes I gazed at in the bedroom I had not seen for almost twenty-two years.

An antique oval picture frame was resting on an old table in the corner of the room.  The faded picture in the frame, held the images of my grandparents in their wedding photo.  My Grandfather’s young features drew my attention the instant I entered the bedroom.  The picture had been sitting in the same place for many years, and it was the reason why I was there on that day.

My sister and I were at our Grandparent’s one hundred year old farmhouse looking for family pictures.  We were seeking more information about our family’s history.  We wanted to hear more tales from the family historian, our uncle Warren.  He totes most of this valuable information around in his head.  We wanted to record his numerous recollections before they would be gone forever.  On that afternoon my notebook was over flowing with all the ramblings from his memory. 

He filled us in on particular events as we leafed though our Grandmother’s family bible.  Spilling out from between the pages were small snapshots, taken by old box cameras.  There were birth announcements, wedding and obituary clippings. 

These newspaper clippings and photos added more important facts to our family history.

We hadn’t been to the old family farmhouse since our Grandmother’s death twelve years before and when our uncle invited us to come and visit we accepted his invitation.  We were eager to see the family pictures and investigate Grandma’s filing system, the pages of her Bible.

Our uncle has never married.  He worked beside our Grandfather on the farm all his lifetime.  He became the fulltime caregiver and companion for our Grandmother for ten years after Grandpa’s death.

Uncle Warren has always been a good storyteller.  He related how our ancestors traveled to this area and how they carved a homestead out of the forest.  We wanted to keep these treasured events recorded for our children.

As we visited we wondered thru the house, many of the family portraits were displayed in the bedroom in the back of the house.  When we entered our Grandparents’ room, left just as it was when Grandma was living, our memories of them returned full force.  Grandma’s powder box still rested on her dresser, and when I opened it and breathed in the old scent, it felt like she was still present.

Then my eyes met those familiar eyes, my Grandpa’s, and I realized those significant, loving eyes were our inheritance, too.  As he gazed at me from the large old oval portrait, I felt him with me also.  My only brother looks so much like him.  My oldest son, Joey, has those same eyes.  That was the reason they seemed so familiar.  Everyday I have a reminder of this family characteristic.  My Grandfather’s eyes look at me as my son walks through the door each evening. 

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                THE SOUNDS OF LOVE

The haunting sound of a train whistle at 3:00 am the of whirling helicopter blades, waiting to fly a rescue mission, and the simple sound of a front door opening and a sweet hello, are sounds that bring to mind a time of sorrowful love and healing love.

Seven years ago, on a warm summer night, our newborn granddaughter died suddenly after 15 hours of joy and a celebration upon her arrival.  Baby Jessica, it was discovered during an autopsy, had polycystic kidney disease, and because her kidneys could not function, it caused the other organs in her body to shut down.

During the quiet hours before dawn my daughter and I sat in an out of the way hospital room, trying to comprehend what had just happened. My daughter’s husband was still trying to drive his semi-truck to the hospital in Wadena, he didn’t know about the sad hours we had just experienced.  The still body of Jessica was brought to my daughter, Deanna.  She held her baby studying her face, trying to imprint her tiny features to memory.  While Deanna sat cuddling little Jessica, the quietness was broken by a train approaching, it’s whistle sounding a warning before every crossing.  The quietude and the mournful, forlorn wail, as the train passed through our rural community, will always be imprinted in my memory. 

Many nights when I wake up in the quiet before sunrise, I hear the 4:30 morning train as it approaches our side of town, its lonely whoo, whoo is reminiscent of those hushed, farewell moments.

Sixteen months later, a new grandson joined our family.  Deanna and Robb have two healthy sons, Patrick, the oldest, and baby Jarod, who helped everyone heal, with a joyful celebration, just before Christmas.

Then surprise, a new pregnancy, ultra-sounds were taken.   Yea! A baby girl, all things appeared normal. But during a later ultra-sound taken at the University of Minnesota hospital in the ninth month, cysts were discovered in the baby’s kidneys, and Deanna was advised to go home and pack a suitcase, so she could return to the University hospital in Minneapolis for a induced delivery with a team of specialist waiting.  However, she went into labor at home while arranging sitters, and packing.  She was advised to go to the local hospital and see how far her labor had progressed.  The doctors knew her history and called the air ambulance and arranged for her to be transported to the University neo-natal unit three hours away.

As her husband, Robb, her Dad and I stood in the parking lot of the small hospital, we watched the helicopter lift off the hella-pad with its blades vibrating intensely with the sounds of urgency.  We rushed home to pack a few things and arrive a few hours later to wait for the birth of this much-desired little girl. 

Danielle was born at seven in the morning, with a gallery of observers in the delivery room.  On one side, by the delivery table stood the doctor, a nurse, Robb, the daddy, and myself.  On the other end of this huge delivery room, waiting respectfully, a dozen neo-natal specialists were ready to proceed with all the knowledge available to save her delicate life.  Immediately she was given to the team, she was breathing, and they rushed to the neo-natal unit, which was behind closed double doors, where no one could enter with out permission.  After waiting for a prolonged length of time, the family was told she would be watched and attended to by her personal RN nurse every minute of the day.  The doctors said her progress would be monitored hour by hour.  If she survived the first day then it would be day- to- day vigilance.

Happily, the family became aware of the major contributions scientists have made to polysystic kidney disease. Danielle received this lifesaving care from March until August. While baby Dani stayed in the hospital, Deanna lived at the Ronald McDonald House, conveniently located next to the U campus.  The love given and shared among the people at the House is another story to be shared another time.  It certainly made the life of a parent with a sick child a lot easier and less of a worry.

  When Danielle had stabilized and Mommy could take her out of the hospital for walks, she was ready to be brought home to live a watched and cautious life. Her Mom had been trained by the nurses to administer her medications five times a day, monitor her blood pressure and resume the duties a mother of three.  She had to manage all of this three hours away from the specialize care the hospital  provides.

Todd County Public Health provided help with a respite nurse, and a baby sized blood pressure machine, after many requests was brought to their home.  Then the family was provided with a wonderful grandmotherly woman, who came once a week to assist with housekeeping and friendship.

The first year had many visits to the doctors, and then with each secceeding year, Danielle grew taller, stronger, and started kindergarten, in Bertha.  She has very large kidneys, full of cysts, but they are functioning.  Her kidneys are the size of her Dad’s, and as long as they continue to function, the doctors will be glad to see her grow, so her body will become big enough for a transplant in the future, someday.

We learned that kidneys help to control blood pressure as well as filter and cleanse the blood.  So monitoring her blood pressure is very important.  When she catches the common cold, which all children experience, it is very difficult to provide relief for her coughing, because cough medicine will spike her blood pressure.  Since she entered school she has been exposed to many more people and she has endured many bouts of bronchitis and has missed many days of school.

On those days when Danielle is tired and weary from persistent coughing, she comes to stay at Grandma’s house when Mom has to go to work at the bank. Listen,  a car door is closing in front of my house, and now I hear small footsteps tripping up the porch steps, a little pixie opens the door and announces, “I’m here”.

Her impish brown eyes darts around looking for her favorite Grandpa and his roomy lap in which she likes to curl up.  But on days when Grandpa is at work, Danielle and Grandma get to spend our time reading  books, putting puzzles together, and talking about when Grandma was a little girl.  We make cookies, play computer games and administer her medication that will continue to help her kidneys to function and enable her to grow and visit us for many more years.

The sounds of love can be joyful and rejoicing, they can be sorrowful and supportive, and love can be healing. It can be realized in everyday sounds, with a simple, “I’m here”.