COMING UP FOR AIR

Sigve has been hospitalised once more. We're all mourning.
Maybe just therefor I need to hold on to some of the bright moments of this summer.
Last week at "The Sand", the local term for the wonderful beach 20 minutes from our home.

Gunnar having a lonesome night walk at the Sand

Only in Norway can such beauty be combined with perfect peace.

Popping in at aunt Lilly's. She has knitted Gunnar a new Islandic sweater, recovering from a severe op at the age of 86.

Serina also doing some recreating in her very best corner.

The great heaven painter spreading his brush.

Sundown time is when we are at our thriving peak.

Three minutes from our house is Harald the Fairhaired,the king credited to unite Norway in the year 872, buried.

Sun in from west. I in my garden gnome outfit, gathering herbs.

Beach wild flowers.

I once had a boat...

Serina V has made this self portrait with Garden Jasmine.

NOT A SAINT, NOR A WHITCH, BUT A WEAK BITCH

Serina II
Serina III and IV

I am a descendant of coast women, mostly.

My fore-mothers were a long line of strong, conscious, educated, but family oriented females.

Farms on the south west coast of Norway were often too small to breed the large families.

Husbands had to seek a second outcome either by fishing, market trading, or as very often was and still is an option; Cross the Atlantic for work either in farming, mining or fishing.

Their housewives then were left alone with everyday responsibilities for house-holding, animals, feeding young and old, cultivating land and educating youngsters. A poet said, "they believe in the shilling, but seek their comfort in God."

They had to, though, 'cause the times were rough, they became worn, but their souls stayed warm.

They were trusted members of the community, but treasured cooperation the most.

They laboured as if in front of God's face, not to attract humans.

Half of my genetical inheritance come from these hardworking, stubborn, outspoken, at times, alas, self righteous..and a tiny bit narrowminded, proud and gifted survivor women..

To me that means I've got to do and say what to my best knowledge is true and right.

I've got to defend the ones that are weaker than I am, who cannot stand up for themselves.

That's how I choose my education, my occupation and later on family life.

I guess that is as far from American middle class culture as one can get.

No climbing culture, no sucking up, no backstabbing, always calling the thing by its right name.

I cannot be otherwise.
I'm struggling keeping my mouth shut, though.
"He who can strain his tongue is stronger than he who can conquer a whole town," my father used to teach me.

My best friend and colleague said, "Why do you always have to be the first to put your head on the block? Give us a chance as well!"

The other thing is learning to distinguish between people who really do ask for advice or just seek consent to keep on doing what they anyway are determined to do.

There's no use in discussing when the answer is already given. A complete waste of time and effort.

I'd rather go collecting snails in my garden.

My intention with this blog was actually to show more than one dimension of my life.

I first and foremost am a God fearing mother and family oriented woman.

I also have many skills, interests, thoughts and ideas about malfunctions in society, about hypocrisy and the real evil doers.

I actually want to be bitchy when pointing finger at topics usually swept under the carpet.

I have not been directed that way lately.

I have had to learn a hard lesson of being dependant on others, above all on God.

I don't at all like the feeling of being small and weak, it's threatening to the very core of my personality.

Nevertheless I am a richer and wiser person now than I was 6 months ago. I have endured a great loss, but also experienced what really is fireproof.

God and His Grace alone.

MY HUSBAND'S CANADIAN LOVE

I am a bit distressed over mixing the date of Canada Day.

So I'll reveal a secret to make up for it.

Gunnar has had a long going affair with an English/ Canadian Lady.

She's younger than me and he fell in love with her at the age of 21, AND HE'S STILL MADLY IN LOVE.

I am a fourty-niner, she's born in 1954.

English born, but set sails for Canada the same year.

She landed in Vancouver and was immediately adopted by a Vancouverian family, whose name is still unknown to us.

Her name is Morris Garages, if that rings a bell to anyone..

and she's formally addressed as MG TF 1954.

In the years she stayed with this Vancouverian family, her skin was changed from black to salmon pink and ended up as ebony white.

Our spring of 87

English Jeff and Norwegian Thurid met in Vancouver 1963. They fell in love, bought themselves the car and drove Canada coast to coast, before the three of them went to live in Norway.

My Gunnar was a poor student when he first met with the MG in 1970. (Jeff and Thurid were running a farm and had meanwhile changed to Rovers.)

First he asked Thurid if he might be allowed to buy the car of his dreams, and then he pledged his father for financial support.

The girl of his dreams became his for 1200 American dollars, and that was quite a sum in those days.

He also had to give his word, never to let her out with a salmon pink coat again.

By now the two of them have stayed together for 36 years. Gunnar has picked her apart and rebuilt her two times. She's changed from dark blue to ivory white, including eleven layers of special coating.

20 years ago, when Gunnar and I became a pair, she carried us all over the county.

Gee, was I proud, when he drove me to work in that little, white wonder.

Spring of-07

Being a genuine vintage car enthusiast, Gunnar has all the facts, books and papers of his car, except for one.

What was the name of her first owner??
Does anybody remember seing this beaty riding the Canadian roads from 1954 to 63??

The person able to supply us with information, will be offered a free ride....at least in Norway.

Any kind of information will be highly appreciated by the whole family.

It's all about roots, or rather about peerage when the Noble Lady MG's concerned.

Good night, sweet princess of the garage.

BLESSED MIDSUMMER DAY

Oh, gift of God, oh, perfect day,

where I am allowed to harvest gifts for free.

Monday is hiking day. On our way we found big bushes of bog myrtle.

Serina searching in our old American recipe box.

The smell of bog myrtles make insects disappear.
Leaves are antibacterial, helps both animals and humans

Gunnar drove me to our special place to gather Black Elderberry flowers.

I spent the rest of the evening making juice for the winter.

2 litres of water boiled

1 kilo brown sugar

3 lemons

25 grams citric acid

poured in a bowl with about 60 composites of Black Elderberry flowers.

Let stay cool for three days.

Strain the liquid and poor into freezer cartons.

Store them in the freezer for a rainy day.

Black Elder even fights virus, and is a real

helper to the immune system.

The vikings always had a Black Elderberry tree close to the barn. To cure sick animals, and because the goddess Freya was said to stay in those trees.

Even today one can find BC trees growing high and strong beside the barn, though only few seems to know the reason why.

New barn, old tree to the left.

MISSING GRAND DAD

Mother,this is how I think of Grand Dad, Serina says.



Sonnet 18
by William Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

BLOND NIGHTS

Slowly I'm regaining the feeling of being alive.

Yesterday I went to the grocery store, buying food, for the first time in weeks.

I've been totally worn out from the dramas the last 60 days.

Sitting on the terrace, eating, sipping cautiously white wine, dreaming by the fire with my near and dearest, finally made my blood tingle.

The blond nights of Norway. I don't know if heaven is better than those seldom caught moments.

There's gonna be a new heaven and a new earth, and God self shall live midst amongst us.
My father often talked about the new earth, where the lion and the lamb would grass side by side.
He even prayed for our dead cat Mieuman, bless our cat on the new earth.

How it comforted my brother and me to think that he was not lost forever.

This summer I have hardly worked a week in our garden. Somehow the garden has crept in on our terrace. The flowers embracing us.
I feel so thankful, for my family, for our garden peace and for my beloved blogger friends, with whom I can share joy, sorrow and prayers.

Rose, I'm still resting in psalm 37, especially verse 5.
I'm going down to my prayer room.
Hoping you all will have a blessed Lord's Day, wherever you might be.
I'll have to do like my father name each and everyone, Rose, Terry, Will and his family, Pilot's Mom and Dad, Lil Pilgrim Siblings, Jim, Sioux Sue and her grandchild, Justin, Dad Golden, Jel, Arlene, little Billy, Vivi.

God, bless, encourage, protect and heal.
Thine is the power and glory for ever and ever.

WE'LL MEET AGAIN

In this church my father was christened 86 years ago

My mother, brother, husband , Serina and I were allowed a moment alone.

Greetings came all the way from Chicago

My father is resting beside his parents.

My mother gave her heart.

Gunnar and I by my father's head.

We're looking forwards to be meeting him again.

IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE

My father is struggling dying.
With his strong and willful heart, that might take some time.
My poor, kind, wise, caring, loving and yet humble daddy.

My daughter is making her final exams.
In some short months she'll leave the nest, flying.
I know our lives are about to change dramatically.
For the time being I'm living in limbo.
Can hardly breathe.

I'm squeezing Gunnar's hands till mine ache.

NORWAY IN RED, WHITE AND BLUE

We've had some extraordinary tough fifty days from Easter to Pentecost. One of Gunnar's aunts died, another was hospitalized to have an immediate aorta operation, then my father came to hospital in our town, same day he was sent home we came down with 14 days of stomach flue and then my father was sent to a minor hospital in his hometown.

We've had good days in between. And we have been able to celebrate and enjoy the birthday of two aunts, three close friends and best of all, daughter Serina finishing Senior High. There's a huge, traditional festivity for those who have finished 13 years of elementary school.

For two months they dress in red or blue (be it a humanistic or a mercantile education they've chosen), they are RUSS. When finished they are allowed the title of student.
The main day is not graduation day, but May 17th.

That's when all Norwegians are celebrating their constitution, which was signed 17th of May 1814.

We have a morning parade, school parade, citizen's parade and russ parade, with lots of brass bands, herds of children in their national costumes, flags of all sizes and formation and one single policeman in front of the parades. No vehicles, no army, no fireworks.

A formal cannon salute at seven hundred, then the scouts will run up the flags, several memorials will be garlanded, and the parades keep on going till about five in the afternoon. Then there are gatherings at the different schools with games and food, sing and dance performances at the homes for the elderly, choirs spread all over the town, rowing races at the harbour, and feast service in the churches.
We got our own constitution after being a Danish colony for four hundred years.

The Napoleon and his Danish allies lost the war game at Waterloo, and the English handed Norway over to Sweden.

The Norwegians rebelled, and was granted the right to form their own constitution, much inspired by the American and French constitutions made after the freedom wars some thirty, forty years earlier.

With one exception, though.

"Norway is a kingdom, entirely and non-dividable."

It took yet another 91 years until we finally became free.

In between the poets were the front figures when it came to May 17th celebration. Two of our greatest, Wergeland and Bjoernsson, would for a period of eightyone years write patriotic songs and organize children's and student's parades. That's how we won our freedom war. Children marching and singing. Not a single shot was fired. There might be a lesson or two learned from that.

Hurray, hurray for the 17th of May!

Our national anthem?

"Yes, we love this land"!

GOD'S GREATEST

Street paintresss in Florence Autum 2006

I have been reading the Bible more these days than for years. My father's last gift to me, "be a reader; the answers lie in the Scriptures."

I got my Bible from the congregation May 10th 1964. The pastor had written the words from John 17, 24 as a greeting on the inside cover.

Here are my 10 Bible favourites:

1. Psalms 139

2. Psalms 121

3. Romans 8

4. John 3, 16-18

5. 1 Cor. 13

6. Isaiah 53

7. Isaiah 45

8. John 6, 68-69

9. Rev. 21 1-7

10. Matthew chapters 5 and 6.

GIFT OF LIFE 3

My dad has had another brain damage, caused by a blood clot this time, and he is probably going to die.

For nine days we have been around him all day, doing everything possible to ease his pains and make contact.

We see him following us with his eyes as we move around in the room.

His face is calm and relaxed when he's listening to his favourite music.

When we touch him, touch his skin lightly, balm his body, put cold towels to his forehead, he shows small signs of contentment.

Yesterday when I accidentally made a scar inside his mouth when cleansing it, he rose up in shock of the sudden pain.

Yet the doc who is in charge has ordered all medical treatment stopped.

No oxygen, no antibiotics, no i.v.

She has promised to give him painkillers, though.

Our entire family is in sorrow at the aspect of loosing a highly beloved father, husband, brother and grandfather.

Watching his pains, seeing him trapped in his body, unable to speak, that's beyond description.

Even so we've had to fight a horrible fight against the doctor stopping the i.v.

His heart is steadily beating 80 strong strokes pr. minute, he's breathing without an oxygen mask, he feels pain, reacts to sounds and light.

Pulling out the i.v. tube will make him die a slow, painful death of thirst.

That's murder.

It's done every day in every hospital in our country.

My mother firmly stood against the young career woman from Germany.

"I've believed in God my whole life," she said, "and I will not let people take my husband's life, even if it's more convenient than having to sit by his bedside day after day. God is our creator, let him also be the one to take us home in his time."

Gee, was I proud of my mum.

It would have been so easy to say "the doctor knows what's best, and dad's perhaps better being put out of his miseries."

It would have been all wrong, though. It would also have been a betrayal of all my father believes in. For four years he has endured the slow decaying of his body after his brain hemorrhage. No complaints, top effort to manage every day problems, with lots of help from my mother and nurses visiting five times a day.

No, he shall neither suffer, nor have his days shortened by some money counting godless health worker.

We fight, mourn, pray, and cling to our Lord's promises. My father has very likely finished his journey on this earth very soon. That I must accept.

When he leaves, however, it must be the Lord's will being done, not any none-caring medic's.

Thanks for all care and prayers. We would not have managed without.

PS. The nurses have been devoted caretakers all the time. They work around the clock to improve their patients' situation. They are neither paid nor appreciated by their employers as they should be.

GIFT OF LIFE 2

We've come down with a really bad stomach flue, the three of us this last week.
Serina became ill the day my father went home from hospital, three days later I joined her, and today Gunnar went down likewise.
Being totally sat out, as we all were one after another, really changes perspectives on what a precious gift life and the little things in life are.
I lay longing for the day I would be able to drink one glass of cold water in one draught.
At that time it seemed to be an impossible fantasy.
Or getting that kicking horse away from my stomach.
At least be able to turn around in bed without every joint screaming from pain.

I felt I'd come a long way, when I was able to read small, cozy stories from old Reader's Digests.
(I have an arsenal of old copies stabled in my bedside cabinet, for "rainy days" or sleepless nights.)
When I started planning how I'd like to redecorate our living room without extra expenses, I knew I was going to survive this time too.
The wonderful thought of standing relatively firmly on my two feet again...


Praise the Lord for the little things, which are fundamental to functioning slightly normal.
The things we take for granted, even claim to be a right He owes us.
To walk, sit, read, listen to music, eat, drink, play, talk, enjoy art, smell flowers, relaxing in the sun, being safe, strengthened and inspired by the company of relatives and friends..
Wow!!
I am so overwhelmed by His blessing every day.
I guess I needed to be set aside for a short while, to fully appreciate God's gifts given by grace alone.
Today He's hung up his summer curtains in our living room. The unique Clematis.

GIFT OF LIFE

April 5th sixty years ago my parents were engaged to be married.


My parents loved long walks in the mountains. 1960.

Celebrating their gold wedding, fifty years of marriage.
Are they not a handsome couple?

Arm wrestling after my father's brain hemorrhage.

Christmas 2006, still happy together.

"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death.
Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more:
it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."
--From Macbeth (V, v, 19)

I'm always thrilled and carried away when I read Father S. In the gymnasium we used half a year just on this very play, Macbeth. Growing up has luckily made me think twice about so many issues.
Like, what are the real values of life?
Who deserves to get the best available treatment when ill, be it body or soul?
How has it gradually become common right to leave one's children and parents into the care of strangers, just to be able to have an occupation for oneself? Strive for things that can be bought, instead of treasuring the things and human beings we have been given for free.
Am I more valuable when I nurse the children of strangers and send my only child to a kindergarten?
The Good Lord blessed me with illness, so I was able to stay home and take care of my child, do old-fashioned housewife chores and have an open house for children in the neighbourhood.
Now I've got a terminally ill father, living with my mother in the home they've used a lifetime to create. For the four years that have passed since my father had a brain hemorrhage, we've heard over and over that he should be sent to a nursing home.
As if his life should have no value because he's now in need of a nurse's assistance to manage fundamental activities of everyday life.
He and my mum still love each other, they are well connected and have shared good and bad for sixty years.
How can anyone encourage my mother to send him away like an unwanted, wrecked car.
(A good thing, though, he's getting nurse's aid four times a day,- for free. Our politicians have figured that to be cheaper than putting more and more people away in public "homes".)

I don't get this attitude of thrashing the ill and old. It's making me furious and makes me question what all our public wealth has done to us.
Use and throw away has long been the norm when it comes to clothing, furniture, and - yes, cars.
The rich and beautiful have for decades thrown away their wives and children as well.
What a waste, what an emptiness.
When I see my parents keeping together in spite of all the well meant advice, I'm feeling proud.
They've always stood up as an example of values, ethics and belief. (Even though I have not always agreed with them on either topic.)
Now they amount to heroes.
God, let thy will be done, and let us all live and die respecting Your gift of life and our hopes of sharing an Eternity.