Into His Rest

 "Come unto me. all ye that labour and are heavy laden. and I will give you rest."

Tomorrow I start telling the story of Christmas with special emphasis on hesed, the love He is able to give to all and especially felt by those who covenant with him to always remember Him and keep His commandments. Some years ago I wrote a song with a friend that encompassed that rest experienced by those who turn their hearts over to Him. I wanted to capture the sound of rest, the feeling of rest and the surety of His rest. Below is a music video of that song.

 

              

In pride I turned my back on God and chose to shun the iron rod.

But sin brought misery and strife, no peace or joy refreshed my life.

Into His rest,

freed from all doubt, heart open now from inside out.

Into His rest, nothing to hide,

I come to him, arms open wide.

Long have I faltered so full of doubt, allowing pride to look me out.

But prayer upon Thy sacred name, 

Awakes my heart, consumes all shame.

Into His rest,

freed from all doubt, heart open now from inside out.

Into His rest, nothing to hide,

I come to him, arms open wide.

I kneel repentant, my life's restored.

Merciful Savior, my pain's no more.

Thy healing balm of peace sublime,

Thy glorious love transcends all time.

Into His rest,

freed from all doubt, heart open now from inside out.

Into His rest, nothing to hide,

I come to him, arms open wide.

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More Jesus

 For a calm Christmas I choose to invite more of Jesus into my daily life and expand my Christmas story of faith.

Do you know the Hebrew word hesed? There is no English equivalent. From Hebrew into English it can be translated as love, mercy, kindness, grace, but none of these words completely encompass hesed.

     "One translation expert examined all the occurrences of hesed in Genesis and concluded that its wide range of possible meanings made it necessary to focus carefully on the context before deciding whether the primary element of the Hebrew word “be that of mercy, faithful love, obligation under some contract or agreement, devotion, responsibility to help, tender love, sympathy, or whatever else it may be."

This December I want to search for relationships in the New Testament where hesed is displayed by Jesus and for another.

Eva Timothy Art

How was Jesus with:

His Heavenly Father

His earthly parents

John the Baptist

Nicodemus

Andrew (Matt: 4:18-20)

James and John  (Matt 4:21-22)

Rich Young Ruler (Matt, 19:16-30)

Peter

Thomas

Mary Magdalene

Martha

Mary

Lazarus 

John

The Woman at the Well

The list does go on and will surely be more than 25, one for each day, Dec.1-25. I marvel at this love and can't fully comprehend it. I worry that I can't merit it. But, that's about me and I need to turn my focus to Him and really consider his abilities, along with my Heavenly Parents. 

"Once you and I have made a covenant with God, our relationship with Him becomes much closer than before our covenant. Now we are bound together. Because of our covenant with God, He will never tire in His efforts to help us, and we will never exhaust His merciful patience with us. Each of us has a special place in God's heart. He has high hope's for us." 

President Russel M. Nelson, "The Everlasting Covenant", October Liahona

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Into the Black Hole

Into The Black Hole

   I’m in the black, I’m in the red,

It’s Friday and I shop til bed.

   The sales are big, or so they seem,

Is it real or just a scheme?

  If I add up all my savings

From my needed cravings,

  I’ll come out in the black and 

My budget will be on track.

  I need that hot air fryer

I’m such a prudent buyer.

  I saved thirty dollars there 

I can apply that to the chair.

  With the discount on that one

I can definitely outrun,

  My goal to save loads of money

And impress my frugal 'honey'.

Today is Black Friday and my e-mail box is overflowing with offers to save, save, save. Part of the stress of Christmas is money. I am saddened to hear the reports in the past of Christmas spending in the trillions. Will it be so this year? 

Something I have learned through experience is to make a budget and then have that money in my account to pay off the credit card within the month. That relieves the January blues but there is still the stress of giving to children and grandchildren. My grandchildren are almost all teenagers. Is it even possible to give them a meaningful gift?

And what about decorations and food?

My neighbor put free items out in front of their house during their move. Everyday I would look at a grapevine wreath, dusty and old. I finally took it home and made a fifty dollar wreath by cleaning the vines, re-decorating with greens and adding a tiny bit of bling, all for free.

I'm looking for more of those opportunities to make instead of buying. It isn't an easy endeavor and not always black and white. The gift may be thoughtful and kind but still under appreciated. Perhaps my rule should be to let go of the expectation once the gift is given. 

What money related goals do you have?

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How Do You Want To Feel At Thanksgiving?

Holiday Feelings

   How do I want to feel?

Do I have control over that? 

   Holidays are such a big deal

At times I feel like a door mat.

   Be sure to get enough gifts, 

Write cards to those I’ve forgotten.

   Make all the food on the lists,

If I don’t, I’ll feel rotten.

I’d like to feel welcoming,

  Calm, whole, and gracious.

I’d like to be strengthening,

 Heart open and spacious.

 What has to happen 

For me to feel like that? 

Gathering with family is on the horizon and maybe it's time to consider what you want to feel at Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Last year at this time I had a phone visit with a life coach named Bonnie. She offered an introductory session for women with adult children who struggle to connect. 

She asked me two questions that I had difficulty answering.

How do you want to feel when you get together with your family?

What has to happen to help you feel that way?

We worked on thoughts that arise during family gatherings because really it is our thoughts that generate our feelings. Here are some negative thoughts that have arisen and might arise again during a family gathering.

"My house is dirty. I wish I was a better housekeeper."

"I really should have purchased more food."

"Why does that grandchild just sit in the corner on their phone?"

"I need to start washing dishes right away."

"Why doesn't anyone help?"

So, from these thoughts, I am inadequate, why are they doing that, I am not loved, feelings arise. But are these thoughts facts? No, they are perceptions which may or may not be true.

And then Bonnie challenged me to try some new thoughts. 

"I really want to show love to that grandchild in the corner."

"I am so grateful that my son and family traveled here to be with us."

"My daughter-in-law brought the best side dishes."

"I can't wait to go on a walk with their dogs."

These new thoughts brought a whole variety of feelings, such as; love, gratitude, anticipation of fun, and appreciation from my family.

That's what I wanted to feel! So, what had to happen to feel that way?

I had to change my thoughts. Bingo!

Easier said than done but, it worked. I had a great Thanksgiving last year and intend to carry that into the holiday season this year.

"You control how you show up in the world by controlling who you want to be."

Bonnie Lyman, Coaching

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The Story Of Connection

 

                                                                                     The Missing Tree

 The day I bought the baby grand

A Christmas custom vanished.

  The tree which made our room expand 

Was now utterly banished.

Instead of boughs of twinkling lights

 The twinkling, turned tinkling onto keys.

A shinning plastic tree, displayed at nights

  Atop the black lid, did not quite please.

I piled the Christmas gifts underside,

 Consoled myself with proper tone.

The better compromise was implied 

  As melody ascended the throne.

One way families connect at Christmas is through the Christmas tree. For some the picking of the tree is going to a tree farm and actually choosing and cutting down a tree, for others it is visiting a lot and picking a tree, while still others dust off the artificial tree in the closet and bring it back to it's original shape. 

Then there is the decorating. Old favorite ornaments come back, new ones are sometimes handmade from clay or paper. All of these traditions bring connection which is a most important story of Christmas. 

When we moved the baby grand piano into our small house it dominated the living room. While we no longer purchased a real, floor to ceiling tree, we turned to making more music at Christmas. Now the grandchildren hammer out Jingle Bells as soon as they walk through the door. 

No matter what connects us to loved ones, gathering, feasting, or gift giving, it helps to slow down and enjoy the moments. Look at faces, feel the excitement of others, hold a hand, or listen more intently, these acts of turning outward will strengthen connection. 

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Three Symbols Of My Christmas Heritage

                           My Christmas Story of Faith grew out of my Christmas Story of Heritage

Christmas Sense

  Sappy, sticky, evergreen boughs,

A soapy smell, mingled with earth.

  Cinnamon, ginger, better somehow

When vanilla allows them birth.

  Smoky, sizzling heat from candles

Tucked into pockets of green pine,

   While Messiah music from Handel’s

Genius, lights spirit stars, as a sign,

  He is coming. I smell it, hear it,

Touch it, as I knead the dough,

  All the planing helps me commit

To receiving Him, quiet and slow.

My mother introduced three symbols of Christmas to me which still resonant for me today. The Christmas story from the Holy Bible,  the advent celebrations and wreath, and the making of Pefferkuchen, along with other baked treats.

The old German script in my mother's bible was almost impossible to read because I didn't have much training in the style. But, I loved hearing my brother read the opening lines of Luke 2.

Es begab sich aber zu der Zeit, daß ein Gebot von dem Kaiser Augustus ausging, daß alle Welt geschätzt würde.

Each Sunday before Christmas we would read from the New Testament and sometimes from the prophet Isaiah. These scriptural passages brought the anticipation for the Coming of Jesus and became a spiritual foundation for my Christmas celebration.

The advent wreath was a creative craft for my mother. Each year she gathered boughs, pinecones, and ribbons to intertwine through a wire base. Then she would wire on four new candles, one for every Sunday. 

And lastly, she gathered the long list of ingredients to make Pefferkuchen, sometimes called Lebkuchen. 

The fragrance of anise, cardamon, cinnamon, and allspice filled the kitchen. Sometimes my father would carve figures and animals out of the dough. They were prized by me when it came time to eat them. My mother stored them in the cool basement so they were made at the end of November. 

These are the ingredients of my Christmas heritage story. I improvise with these basics and make new activities each year. I like to change things now and then but my heart calls for these three symbols.

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Some Of My Things Part 10

 The Memoir

I had a dream of creating some books to encourage family members to write their life stories. The books would have writing prompts and places for pictures. Tutor The Heart Publications was my own invention and I did a limited run, printing, collating and binding them at my local print shop. 

My mother-in-law Beth was the first to send her’s back to me completely finished from the Texas panhandle. I was so impressed! She included stories, pictures, no one had actually seen before, and even recipes. Why did she spend so much effort and time on this project? Well, she had a deep love for us but also a very deep love for teaching her children about their ancestors. She worked tirelessly on genealogy research and made multiple copies of everything so that each child had their own copy. 

My children loved the stories she told about their dad. She thought his building model airplanes was very interesting. Once they were finished he hung them from the ceiling and she would navigate through the airplanes when cleaning his room. She laughingly recounted how he climbed up on the roof and jumped from there onto the trampoline. While these stories were not all in her Cherished Memories Book she did include a hilarious story about her father and the run-away car.

I can imagine her voice telling the story with occasional “ya’al’s” thrown in and the phrase “ya’al’s lil’ doll” used to describe her grandbabies. 

Beth was an excellent cook. She didn’t describe herself that way but what made her excellent was her consistent use of the recipe. She followed directions exactly. My husband could never understand why my dishes were always a little different because his mother’s recipes were always the same. Improvising was unthinkable and unnecessary. When she came to visit she always brought her recipe file in case she could cook us dinner. Along with her recipes she sometimes brought ingredients that might be unavailable where we lived. We often made a trip to the grocery store to purchase a forgotten item while making dinner. How different from my mother who only went shopping on Fridays. No other days, just Friday.

The Southern Peach Coffee Cake was included in her memories book. The secret ingredient was a tablespoon of butterscotch pudding powder. During the 1960's an 70's canned goods were a staple 

Tall, proper, and always gracious are words I would use to describe her. I learned to be grateful when I was with her because she exhibited gratitude in both speech and behavior.  She was a cheerleader for all her family, lauding achievements of others and encouraging us to be better. I am not surprised that she speedily returned the empty memories book full of her stories and charm. She did it out of love.

Some Of My Things Part 9

The House Plan 

This was the floor plan of our first home in America. My father secured enough money from the sale of his business and the sale of our house in Germany to buy a house in Salt Lake City. It was a renovated home with three apartments and basement. 

The upstairs was rented to an older Japanese man named Mr. Ito when my father closed on the property and we agreed to continue to rent to him. He was quiet and made the most interesting food, the smell wafting down the stairs. I often played paper dolls on the first landing of the stairs and imagined them as Japanese geishas.

Entry to the two main floor apartments was from the large front porch. It was partially enclosed and provided a place for street gazing and eating when the weather allowed. My mother often prepared lunch and served it on the porch.

The apartment on the east side was rented to my married brother. They had three children while living there and my niece and nephews became more like my siblings. The oldest, my niece, was only four years younger. As they got bigger I was always eager to play with them after school. My sister-in-law had to make boundaries around when I could come over.

Our apartment had two bedrooms, a bath, kitchen, living room and partially open den. The living room windows on the east side faced a large apartment building and kept the sun from shining in directly. My piano was on the south side of the living room just inside the entrance. It occurs to me now that everyone in the building would have been forced to listen to me practice, not just my mother who regularly sat down to listen.

The kitchen was always busy. My mother cooked for my father, two teenage boys, and myself. There was a heater vent on the east wall, just by the door to the bathroom, where I hunkered down each morning to get warm. My mother would have to pry me away to get dressed.

My room was a bright, cheery room with two large windows facing the backyard. I talked my parents into a white corner desk which I loved. My bed had Federdecken, a down bedcover, for winter and a cotton comforter for summer. There was a floor electric heater between my room and my parents. It was dangerously hot to walk on which I learned never to do. Staying warm was very important to me then, as it is still now.

I played outdoors a lot. One activity I loved in the early fall was gathering chestnuts from the two trees in front of the house. When they were fresh out of their pods they were shiny and cool. I collected them in tins and stored them under my bed, much to my mother's chagrin.

We moved to the suburbs when I was twelve but I have such fond memories from this first home. My street had a store and church on the east side and my school was two blocks west. It was a place for many immigrants. My friends were Black, Chinese, and Japanese, as well as white, they spoke different languages so my German speaking seemed more common than not. Many of us spoke English in school and our native language at school and church. I was certainly more odd as we moved outside of the city. There I was in a predominately white world where everyone spoke English. But, that's another story.

Some Of My Things Part 8

The Portraits

In our office at home these two portraits hang side by side. My husband, and I are immortalized at ages six and four. We knew nothing of each other and our worlds were thousands of miles away. These portraits  were painted from photographs taken in the 1950’s. One was a black and white photograph colorized by a professional artist in Texas and the other was an oil painting by my father, painted in Utah. Two children, so sweet and full of hope would eventually meet at college, fall in love and get married.

I was posed on a stool, my chubby arms pressed to the side of my face, a crown of flowers on my blonde hair. I am sure the flowers were my mother’s idea. She loved doing my hair in different hairstyles because I was her only daughter. One style was her favorite. It was called Affenschwänze meaning monkey tails in German. Braids were tied up with bows on each side of the head creating a swing which used to bounce along my head. In the painting my hands are awkwardly tucked to the side of my face. This was a common children’s pose I later noticed in other pictures from family albums. Maybe it added to the innocence of that age?

 Taking a professional photograph was very unusual for my frugal immigrant family and I assume the opportunity presented itself with a very reasonable cost. My father, Kurt, loved the picture from which he painted the portrait. This oil painting was done in his later years when he had time to create art. He was still smitten with the little girl who was born after twelve years and three older sons and he captured my blue eyes and happy smile.

Mark posed at a local photographer in Dumas, Texas. He was “dressed to the nines”, as his mother would say in her southern drawl. Dressing up was a common occurrence for Mark as a child because his parents owned a children’s toggery in their hometown.  Toggery, a word unfamiliar to me, meant apparel or clothing. Mark’s mother Beth purchased the store with money she inherited from her mother. He was an only child for six years and Beth used him as child model for little boy’s clothing in her store. She liked dressing him in the current inventory and taking pictures for advertisements in the local newspaper. The bow tie was a signature look for Mark who wore them well into his twenties. I think dressing well started in his youth and continued on when his mother took him to a tailor to have suits made from fabrics he picked out.  A tuxedo he had made when I met him had a gold silk floral design as a lining in the jacket and that same fabric ran in a thin line on the outside length of his pants. Somehow his love for a well cut suit collided with his love for military camouflage. The ‘camo’ style won out in later years. 

I was raised in an immigrant German home and Mark in the wide open spaces of Texas. Our parents both had accents which got confusing when they met for the first time at the wedding. The “Bitte” and “Danke” got mixed with the “yo’ awl” when they greeted each other.

It is still surprising to me that we found one another and combined our two heritages together to make another different family with a Northwest relaxed outlook. 

 

Some Of My Things Part 7

The Diary

June 13, 1985

  “Last Monday Peter could take me to Gaby while he went to BYU. The three girls were with us, so we had a nice time with Gaby and her children. We all went to the library, ten blocks and eight blocks back. We had Eiscreme on the way home. We were all tired when we came home and rested, listening to tapes. Gaby showed us all the toys she bought for the nursery school. On the way home to Salt Lake we went eating chicken and some stuff. We all rested for a half hour and then they went home to Bountiful.”

This is an entry from Marta Betterman Titze’s diary. Marta is my mother, Peter, my brother, and my nick name is Gaby. In 1985, Marta had been in the United States thirty years. She spoke fairly good English, with an accent, and used English in her diary. I think this was a conscious decision to make her story readable by her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

The diary is worn, held together with tape on the spine and a lock on the side. It’s likely that the diary was once locked and the key was missing so the strap was cut. Inside the pages are printed with one page per day but my mother ignored that and wrote the date of entry on an empty page. There are later dates towards the back which makes the chronological order difficult to understand. 

One reason that this diary is so special to me is the account of the ordinary day to day occurrences. Marta’s life was somewhat lonely as my father passed away in 1977 from lung cancer. Her life centered on taking care of her home and garden which she did with care and thoroughness. As I read the entries I see that she recorded the visits by her family in detail. Her children came, they brought her grandchildren and often went on a drive and picked up food to bring back. She wrote about what each grandchild liked to do and what they liked to eat. She made comments about their lives and homes but was fair in her assessments. 

Writing a life story and using a diary was a common pursuit for both my parents. I feel very lucky to have writings by both of them which I read often to encourage me through hard times and to give me perspective in my own story. In my mother’s life story she wrote about being alone with her three boys during World War II while my father was on the Russian front. One story about my brother was especially poignant. While just five years old he had an injury to his eye from an unexploded grenade which was found outside by neighbor kids. His face was bleeding and my mother frantically sought medical assistance which was not to be found. She carefully washed his face and knew with horror that his right eye was blind. She carried a burden of guilt all of her life because she couldn’t prevent the injury.

An example of how her writings gave me perspective while looking at my own life were the stories of her traveling across the United States to spend time with each child and grandchildren. She traveled  to Virginia, California, Seattle and Montana. Each visit was made with happy anticipation and always she gladly went back home. As I started traveling across the United States to see my children I always remembered her attitude and her willingness to travel alone on long flights. Her diary reminded me to walk and play with my grandchildren. These were things she did very well and I learned that my grandchildren liked when I came to see them and when I walked around their neighborhood. They also like to play board games and liked to do art projects with me. Marta taught me well through her own words and through her example.

Kent, Washington November 9, 1984

   I am here in Gaby’s home since yesterday. Goetz and Sigrid brought me to the airport and Gaby and her family picked me up in Seattle. That little baby girl is lovely. We were food shopping, all of us because they were out of school. Gaby bought food for almost $100 dollars. It looked like a parade, the baby in the cart and two carts of food. But they behaved not too bad. We had sunshine today and did go for a walk, and even yesterday when I came here the weather was better than in Salt Lake. The children have to help a lot in the house, but they don’t like it much.

Some Of My Things Part 6

The Passport

I am an immigrant. I didn’t know it at the time as I was only eighteen months old. 

My passport issued just before we left is a prized  possession because it documents a huge change in the life of my family.  I was leaving the Bundes Republik of Germany and going to the United States of America. The Federal Republic of Germany came into existence in May 1949. We left in 1955. My parents and three brothers had endured being evicted from their home in Hirschberg, Selesia (now Poland), walking and traveling by train to Germany as refugees, and then trying to re-establish a home and business in Werdohl, Westfahlen.

The Second World War left Germany with devastating destruction and food shortages. As my brother Ingo writes,

“My father had prepared well for the exodus to America. Having departed from Schlesien a decade before, he was able to re-assume the survival mode, leaving essentially everything behind and starting from scratch in a new land. In fact, I don’t think that he ever truly settled down in Westfalen.  Although frequent visits to the Hannover area kept him connected to his family, his monument business was doing well, and he had a professional colleague in Ludwig Hertwig nearby, the search for fulfillment of dignity and freedom was not over. Many would say he had achieved enough personal success for a refugee, in a very short time. Being a man of vision and much experience, however, personal success was not the ultimate goal for Kurt. He wanted more for his offspring than what post World War II could offer. Having never enjoyed the fruits of higher education himself, he wanted more opportunity for his three sons and his daughter. Rumor had it that, in the U.S., immigrants can achieve any level of education with modest means. Hard work did not need to be impressed upon him as a condition of success; hard work was always understood, and nothing else was acceptable. A second motivation to emigrate was the fulfillment of Marta’s dreams, who had immersed herself in a religious life that offered promises for eternity. She knew that material recovery from the war was not an end unto itself. The mountains of Utah became the physical rock upon which she hoped to stand as she built her spiritual rock of faith in Jesus Christ. Kurt loved her enough to give up his personal successes and the regular contact with his sisters and friends. As a non-believer in formal religious activity and a non-member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, he nevertheless knew that God had preserved him throughout his life - this sacrifice was a requirement to pursue a bigger goal for all of us.

Formal preparations required the usual documents for six people: passports, immigration visas, a sponsor in the United States, health certificates, relinquishment of properties in Germany, bookings on ocean liners and bus liners, and numerous other details.”

So as my passport testifies in January 1955 my family was given permission to emigrate. The picture in my passport shows a serious toddler with blond hair, blue eyes, and a round face. As the youngest of four with a large gap between myself and my brother, I was loved and well taken care of. I wish I remembered more of those first years. I would have liked to have a memory of arriving at Ellis Island. My brother writes,

“We had been told that Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty would be the first landmarks. I looked for them with great anticipation on the last day of our sea voyage. The appearance of sea gulls alongside of the ship is a sign that land will soon be at the horizon. It was a bit foggy, so Lady Liberty shot up suddenly out of the gray mist. We couldn’t believe that we were finally in America. The ship approached the south tip of Manhattan, moved slowly up the Hudson River, and docked on pier 42, I believe. The skyline of New York City was a jaw-dropper. As we got off the S.S. America, in America, there were many shouts of welcome for immigrants and seasoned travelers arriving in the U.S., but none of the greetings were specifically for us. Our relatives were still 3000 miles away. Father had a look of worry on his face because he didn’t know if all the connections from sea travel to land travel would work. First we had to clear immigration and customs.”

Someday, as someone in my family comes across this passport I hope they remember the story of sacrifice and generous blessings we received as a family by coming to America. 

Some Of My Things Part 5

The Sculpture

     I feel so fortunate to own a sculpture my father made of me. The hair has long waves in layers just like my haircut while I was in college. I think he has captured my smile and my eyes.

   I often run my hands over the face and head noticing it’s coolness to the touch. She, my sculpture, has moved with me from Salt Lake City, Utah to Seattle, Washington and has resided on a stone pedestal in five houses with five kids. One of those rascal kids took a marker, thank goodness it was water-based, and colored in a couple of my teeth. There was quite a kerfuffle over that mistake. She was restored to her off white coloring and regained her dignity.

    My father, Kurt, was an artist with rough edges. By rough edges I mean that he was largely self taught and perhaps did not have the refinement of a trained artist. He grew up poor, in a little village in Silesia, a province of Germany, now Poland. It was expected that he would use his hands to make a living and his father thought he should be a blacksmith, as he was, and his father before him. But Kurt liked drawing and he was always sketching something, especially people. He made the unpopular decision to go to Dresden and attend art school. His family was concerned that this would not help him make a living. In their opinion there was no money in being an artist. While in Dresden he apprenticed as a stone mason and that allowed him to go back home and establish a business before the war.

   When we emigrated to Utah after World War II my father looked for work and was hired to carve huge stones that would be used along the top of a building next to the Salt Lake Temple. 

He carved some of the  suns, moons and stars which were symbols on the temple itself, built in 1860. These symbols represented the three degrees of glory, Heavenly Father residing in the highest glory represented by the sun.

      This annex was to have the same architecture and motifs. I remember going with him to the granite stone quarry in the mountains of Salt Lake City. He showed me the large sun he was carving in granite. The stone stood ten feet tall and three feet wide. I watched as his chisel and hammer flaked pieces of rock off the surface. The tiny shards flew off in my direction and I breathed in the dust. My father’s hands were big and his fingers griped the chisel like roots of a gnarled tree. When he placed his hands over mine they were rough like wire and deep grooves made permanent pathways in his palms. I didn’t think of him as an artist but more of a craftsman because to me an artist didn’t work so hard physically. I changed my opinion as I matured and developed my own desires to be artistic.

       In his later years, just before he retired, he began sculpting in clay. He would buy a block of clay and carve an image, sometimes it was an image of my mother and this one of me at about age 20. After the clay sculpture was finished he would mix plaster and coat the outside of the clay, creating a seam where the plaster and clay could be pried in half. When the plaster was dry the sculpture was opened and the clay removed. Then he would secure the plaster halves together and fill the middle with wet plaster. After all that was dry the sculpture was sanded and refined and would be just like the original clay creation. It is quite possible that he would have created more sculptures had he not developed lung cancer at age sixty-six. Years of breathing in the fine dust from the stones he carved left his lungs damaged beyond repair. He should have, could have, been wearing a face mask while he worked. 

  While digging through his studio drawers after his death in 1978, I found his brushes, pastels, special drawing pencils and easel. I didn’t know then that I would have desire to be an artist. Now his sketches, paintings, sculptures, and stonework feel more refined to me as I treasure them. I no longer flippantly call him a craftsman. My artist heart is reaching towards his even though he is gone. I understand more of the fear of creating what the mind sees and feeling that the actual creation is elusive.  I wish I could talk with him about my artist fears and receive his wisdom. I would like to tell him how precious his creations are to me now.