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.

KINDNESS

Easter morning we had planned to mount this mountain peak, very small, with a wonderful view. A sudden change in the weather made spring into a wet and snowy day. Nevertheless none of us thought of staying home, and we spent a wonderful day together. The kind people who owned the land let us borrow dry clothes and fed us with an excellent Easter Lamb dinner after our excursion.

My first cousin Vivian came all the way from Chicago to be with her two ill and aging uncles and their wives for three days in November latest.

She moved us all beyond tears and words.

Husband Gunnar drove six hours in the middle of a roaring hurricane one dark November night to bring home this blue oil barrel. Daughter Serina was granted this special instrument from her favourite group "Kaizer's Orchestra" after a concert in Bergen. She was overwhelmed by the gift, and did not hesitate to ask for her father's help. Their relationship exceeds kindness.

Everyone who's being kind to my baby, here at her confirmation day, is a friend of mine.

If some should try to hurt her, I have no mercy at all.

We've had three cats. One died at the age of eighteen, one was only three. Marcello, the happiest and kindest of them all, disappeared at the age of two.

We have organised searching, have advertised in the paper, on the radio and in the shopping centres. No results in three ears. Our hearts are bleeding.

Serina's grand aunts who have been more than kind to all of us sitting at our terrace. Their concern, cordial and munificence are beyond borders.

One has got to love them back plainly and simply.

Guess that I, like amongst others St. Paul, have an honest will to do the good, but lack the power. I therefore was not happy at all when the word to contemplate on for this week was kindness.
I am more of a bitch than that of a saint personality. Hence the name of my blog.
"Didn't mean to be unkind.
You know that was the last thing on my mind," Tom Paxton wrote.

Actually I am being kind to helpless children, animals, elderly, the mentally retarded and some of the mentally ill.

I claim that virtue.

I am, however, not a kind person, not to mine or my nearests' and dearests' experience, - alas.
Most of all I'm acting like a hedge-hog when I feel frightened, angry or insecure. I curl up to a ball and unfold my hundred spikes. I kill mice and snakes, though, and am an extermination threatened species myself.
I humbly let those who feed me pat me on my head, and spread shit on their terrace, if they scare me.
Guess I need kindness, and like to show kindness, but not always or in general.
Hmm.. I'll have to reflect more on this theme.
"Tomorrow is another day," Scarlett O'Hara would have said.

THE GOOD AFTER EASTER LIFE

My word of meditation for the two Easter weeks was "openness". Yet I have not had time or power to write a single word in my blog.

We were gathered at my parents home in the snow sport village Sauda and about the only ones who did not go skiing and obtaining the attractive Easter-tan.
Good Friday Gunnar's aunt had to undergo a major aorta surgery. (Which by the way seems to turn out well.)

It's both tough and rewarding to be together with my parents. Sad to see my father grow weaker every day. Wonderful to see him smile, get his blessings and be allowed to tell once more how much he has meant and done for me throughout the years.

My mother is of course also getting more and more worn, but she's got her foremothers' stayer-genes. She works eagerly in the garden, and is seriously considering investing in an oven for burning porcelain.

It's great to be at my parents', to know we mean a difference. That we are able to add some light in their too hard life.

Even so, we have kind of had to put our lives on a hold for almost four years now.

With Gunnar's aunt to care for as well, and our own "daily over- struggle", I certainly appreciate being at ease in our own home.

I've come to love the days with no plans, must do or ought to do.

Reading, listening to music, doing a bit of gardening and the odd cooking for Gunnar and Serina. A walk on the beach, picking the newly sprung white anemones in the woods in the neighborhood. While the birds are pouring their hearts out in the evenings, trying to find a mate.
The birches outside our kitchen window have got "mice-ears". Next week they'll fold out and form a green wall against the street outside.

I am indeed enjoying and embracing life's many small wonders.
In addition I am gratefully aware that there's only one thing worse than having too many duties to fulfill.
That is, not being able to, or allowed to participate.