Sad...

If I get to go for a walk, I usually head down to the nearby park which has a trail around a little pond, a playground, tennis and basketball courts, baseball fields, and one of the town pools. It has been lovely to get out this past week, seeing robins and other birds flying about, forsythia bursting into yellow, tiny green buds on some trees, and the grass turning brilliant spring green. On Sunday morning, I had the opportunity for one such walk. I went up near the playground that day and saw a sign posted. You may have seen a similar one, stating parks are closed on account of whatever-governor’s orders. I sighed and continued on with my walk.

Sunday was a windy day, but the sun came out and warmed the earth so many people were out. My kids played out in the yard for hours. It was nice and more normal than past days had been. This morning I went out for another walk. As I walked around the trail at the park, I looked up at the playground on the hill and saw the saddest thing of the past two weeks I have seen so far:

Doubtless, kids had been caught playing on the playground during the lovely Sunday weather and so the town felt it important to give a better warning than a mere sign…to remind parents and kids alike that kids are no longer allowed to enjoy their childhood.

This is not a sign of the virus.

This is a sign of fear.

Happy 25^th Birthday, Caleb!

My baby brother – age 6

Social Distancing

About two years ago, I overhead a rather loud debate when we were out enjoying ice cream on a summer evening between two men out with their wives/girlfriends who were also eating ice cream. The older of the two men was probably just a bit older than me, part of the “Generation X” I narrowly missed by being born just after the start of 1980 (which most statisticians use as the starting point of “Millennials”). The other man was somewhere on the tail-end of the Millennial generation and start of Generation Z and in his early-to-mid-twenties. Their debate was all about being social.

The older man was arguing that the current generation (a.k.a. the Millennials), don’t know anything about being social. They don’t want to meet up somewhere. They don’t return phone calls. They don’t even want you to call them: please text, message on some app, or – as a last resort – e-mail. The younger man argued that studies proved his generation to be the most social generation ever. A generation with more connections, peer associations, and interaction than any other generation that has ever existed. I quickly realized that their endless debate hinged on one thing: the interpretation of the word “social”.

Unlike some words in our English language that I have watched completely change in meaning during my lifetime (i.e.: gay, queer, and now – apparently – even the word “they”), “social” does not have a new definition. But it does have new interpretations. Previous generations understood the word social to mean outings with friends, being around people, and – in a pinch – having one-on-one conversations on a phone. The current generation, the up-and-coming generation, and the generation now being born will interpret the word social as any sort of interaction between humans. This has come to rarely mean an actual face-to-face conversation or even words exchanged over a telephone. It usually means texting or messaging over some form of social media. No talking required. In fact, you don’t even need a proper use of the English language. Emojis will do.

The reality is, both men were right in their arguments according to their interpretation. The older man saw a downward spiral of meaningful, face-to-face interactions among those younger than himself. And he is right. The younger man saw a spike in momentary interactions among his peers. And he is also right. But one can’t be compared to the other. It’s not apples and apples. It’s oranges and bananas.

But Millennials do pride themselves in being social. They seem to mark themselves not by their career achievements and families but by how many friends they have on Facebook or followers they can count on Instagram. For that matter, they seem to find great standing on how many social media apps they maintain, seeking relationships with people they have never and, probably, will never meet. And yet they call all these people from around the world their “friends”, spend hours upon hours a day “chatting” in half-spelled words and virtual hieroglyphics, and go to bed at night thinking they have been very social. Only to find themselves now faced with the reality that they don’t have a meaningful relationship to bank on.

It’s one of the ironies of this coronavirus pandemic. The term “social distancing” has become a catch-phrase, politicians using it to demand we stay in our homes, don’t go to the store, close all sit-down eating places, work solely on our laptops from our couches, keep the kids occupied until we’re ready to tie them up, and – basically – never get within two feet of another human being. It’s actually the very definition of what Millennials pride themselves in: being social without having any actual contact with anyone. So, this whole “social distancing” thing shouldn’t be a problem, right? Life just goes on as it always has with the Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and whatever apps happily connecting people all over the world as they share the best way to keep the kids driving them insane locked away in a closet.

Only, that’s not how it’s turned out at all.

Suddenly, social media apps aren’t sufficient. With no one in the next cubicle, or the check-out line, or the water cooler to talk to for a few minutes; people are closing in on themselves and it’s not good. As a stay-at-home mom, I know what days on end inside four walls are like. Problems that really aren’t that large grow and grow because they are the only thing you face every day for days. Chatting with another stay-at-home mom for two minutes after church (before chasing Ethan down to tell him to stop running) and hearing how her week has gone allows me to realize that my problems aren’t abnormal, I’m not the only stay-at-home mom who feels isolated, and there is someone I can pray for. That two-minute-chat does me more good than all the Instagram pictures of stupid cats from the last year will ever do. And people who thought their whole social life existed on the internet are realizing that. Twitter does not take the place of even a ten-second exchange of words over a cubicle wall. We were not created to be “socially distant”. And, deep down, we know it.

I don’t know what the outcome of this pandemic will be. People are trying to forecast it, but I’m not sure we can fully understand the effects that, not the pandemic itself, but our response to it are going to create. It certainly won’t be pretty, but maybe some good will come from it all. Perhaps an appreciation of those around us instead of those across the world we “know” from Twitter. A new take on what being social is and how it plays such an important part in our lives. More gratefulness for the people God has placed in our lives. I certainly hope I can find that good…and maybe a five-minute-chat instead of a two-minute one!

What is Truth?

Pilate saith unto Him (Christ), “What is truth?” John 18:38a

This passage in Scripture came to my mind several weeks ago. I don’t remember why. Something that had happened during one of my days. But I do recall thinking about it quite a bit. Was Pilate asking Christ this in faint despair? As if he had tried to find truth during his lifetime and simply given up that it didn’t exist. Or was he scoffing? As if in his search he had found that truth was relevant and so didn’t care anymore? From the reading, I don’t get the sense that he was being sincere in his question. After all, he immediately goes out to speak to the Jewish leaders after asking it. He wasn’t really seeking an answer. To him, the question was rhetorical. Whatever his thoughts on truth, he had given up that it actually existed. And yet he was looking Truth in the eyes.

Two weeks ago as I sat at Emry’s dance class, one of the other mothers who says just about everything that comes to her head declared to rest of us as she looked over the e-mails on her phone, “Purdue has just shut down it’s campus.” Instantly, visions of the Berlin Wall came to mind, built around the campus to keep everyone inside enclosed and everyone outside from entering in. If I, a mostly sane 40-year-old imagined that, no wonder the late teen/early twenty sorority girls of the house she manages were in utter panic and desperately sending out e-mails as their final lifelines. 

But what she stated wasn’t the truth. The truth was that Purdue suspended all face-to-face classes (as most colleges were) and put a hold on all events that would bring visitors to the campus. Spring break would start early, classes would resume online following it, and all students who could were highly encouraged to go home. No Communists had suddenly invaded Indiana and locked up thousands of kids against the world around them. But that’s certainly what just about everyone believed.

Two days later as I pulled the two fruit-crate boxes we use to put our groceries in at Aldis from the back of our car, the lady loading her van next to me look at the boxes, looked at me and then matter-of-factly stated, “There’s not much food in there.” Even my imagination can’t quite stretch to their not being enough food available to fill nine-square-feet of space. Were the eighty or so people already in the store fighting over the last box of Raisin Bran? Could I still buy a jar of peanut butter? Not sure what to imagine, we walked into the store where we did find 95% of the canned goods gone, only skim milk remaining, no bread, certainly no toilet paper (because no one has that right now), and a meat section where remained only the sort of meat people who are on some diet or other even know what to do with. But I still left the store with 95% of my grocery list checked off. We weren’t going to starve.

But I could imagine that same women, thinking a store only 90% stocked means practically empty, going home and getting on every single social media platform she has and then posting, “Lafayette Aldis’s shelves are mostly empty!!!!” A statement that would be reposted by all her “friends” and their “friends” that had not checked the store out for themselves (or remembered that said store would be restocked every morning), causing undo panic as people started imagining they would starve to death on top of getting coronavirus that would also kill them. A total and complete lie.

Over the past few days, I have just about come to the conclusion that the only truth to be found in the midst of this pandemic is that no one knows the truth. Or is telling it. Or is even bothering to discover it. I have had to stop even looking at my news feeds, fed up with both right and left media as they battle to give us their own biased “truth”. Certainly no politician in the whole United States is doing anything right now except trying to one-up their neighbor on the latest power-grab this virus has presented them with. Our real pandemic is no longer COVID-19 but utter and complete fear. Something that grows on an hourly basis, stoked by half-truths and exaggerations – both, of which, are ultimately lies.

What is truth? In the end, I’m not sure we’ll ever know the truth of the coronavirus pandemic that is reshaping our world. But, at least, some of us do know the Truth. The One who never changes no matter what the world around us looks like. The One whose word is never exaggerated or twisted. And that is the Truth I stand on every day as I navigate even the small changes that are coming to my life. It’s the only thing that keeps me sane.

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad World

If you had told me that sometime within my lifespan, shelves in every store imaginable would be stripped empty of toilet paper, I would have laughed in your face.

If you had told me that apparently perfectly sane people believe that toilet paper has magical powers that keep one from getting sick, I would have said you needed to be put into a mental asylum.

And now both of those things are true.

I don’t understand the rolls on toilet paper at all. Exactly how is a roll of tissue thin paper going to protect you from getting sick? Is it the use of it? Or do you need to simply have a stash of it somewhere in your house? And how many, exactly, do you need to have to be sure you are thoroughly protected from said virus? With the way people are buying it, the number must be somewhere in the hundreds. For those of us who have a grand total of three rolls remaining in their house (and, so, I guess, are more likely to get sick), I have one request: can those who are stockpiling it against the day of Armageddon please leave a pack or two for the rest of us? I don’t need a lot. Three or four rolls last a week in my house, so just a dozen or so is good. By then, hopefully, I’ll be able to find it in the store again.

In all honesty, it’s not the lack of toilet paper that bothers me. Some will show up and we’ll make do. It’s simply the frustration of how insanely crazy this coronavirus has made the world I live in. All I’m trying to do is supply a few weeks of groceries for my family. Not anything extravagant. I don’t need twenty of every possible can good in the store. Or ten packages of chicken. Nor do I need to buy a freezer in order to stock up (yes, I saw someone doing that). A few extra things on hand never hurts. After all, the reality of living is you never are sure what could happen tomorrow. Which, I think, is why I’m frustrated to tears over the insanity this virus has caused. Tomorrow I could go for a walk and get hit by a car. Tomorrow I could catch the flu, have complications, and die. Tomorrow the Lord could give me a stroke or a heart attack. The list could go on and on. But to live in anxiety every moment over what might happen or what I might catch tomorrow is an awful way to live. And so I’m not going to get anxious about this either.

Honestly, I’m not trying to push aside what may be a very serious virus (certainly for some people, it is). Nor am I mocking those who may be sincerely worried about it for one reason or another. But this world is a sinful place. Pandemics, wars, natural disasters and any number of other horrendous things have happened in the past, have occurred in my lifetime, and will continue to go on when I am dead. To stock up on toilet paper just because you think the world is going to end is not going to do a thing. So, do something practical instead. Read your Bible. Pray. Spend time with the kids you’re now stuck with. And stop panicking. It’s not helping you, and it’s certainly not helping anyone else.

My Grandpa

It’s not often a person turns 40 years old and can say she still has a living grandparent. But I did. I could also say my grandfather had met both of my children, something they may not remember but I am certainly glad they did. I think he was glad to meet them, too.

My grandfather, Joseph John Sturm, Jr., was born on August 1, 1933 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His father carved burial stones (and quite beautifully) and his mother was a homemaker. When he was seven-and-a-half, he would finally have a sibling, his brother David. (Although, I’m not sure if anyone saw them in a crowd they would pick them out as brothers. They don’t look very similar.) The one time we were in Milwaukee, we drove around a tour of his life and he told stories of growing up there. Just as he was as an old man, he was a child and a teenager: mischievous. Not the rob-a-bank kind of trouble, but the twinkle-in-your-eye kind of mischief. Rather like my son…

I’m not sure he was done with high school when he met my grandmother. She had come to Milwaukee (from upper peninsula Michigan) to attend a Catholic girl’s college there, the town where one of her elder sisters lived. The college would allow boys from the local Catholic churches to come for dances there, and my grandfather attended them. They would marry shortly after meeting in June of 1953, when my grandmother was just turned 23 and my grandfather not quite 20. Just over a year later they would become parents when my dad was born.

My dad was four when they moved to Tennessee, a surge of Catholic Yankees moving to the Southern Bible-belt for jobs with Heil Quaker. They would live there until the late 70s, raising my dad and his five sisters (one who died as an infant) until they moved to Iowa, near family, in an attempt to start their own business. By then, my dad had married my mom and would announce in 1979 that I was on my way, prompting my grandfather to respond, “But I’m too young to be a grandfather.” He was only 46 when I was born (which would be like Ed becoming a grandfather this year instead of having a third child). Despite his youth, I think he took to being a grandpa pretty well.

This past weekend, I spent some time finding pictures of my grandfather with his grandkids (fifteen of them) or great-kids (going on twelve of them). It was both fun and bittersweet to remember past times with him. I can’t say we saw my grandparents very often as I grew up, for we didn’t live near them until I was sixteen and then for only three years. (In Texas where they had moved in 1985 just as we left Texas and went to Tennessee, so they bought the house my parents had built down there.) But the times we did see them were always fun. Even if my grandfather was never in good enough health to play around with us, he liked to tease and enjoy our company. As I got older, it was more fun to watch him tease my grandmother. (Who was Polish, so 95% of the jokes and teasing went completely over her head. Which was the truly funny part.) 

I have been very blessed to have a grandfather for forty years of my life. And while I’m sad that he is now gone, I am glad he is now with his Savior in Heaven. As Emry said when the tears came the week he died, “Don’t cry, Mama. You’ll see him in Heaven when you die.” And I will.

 My first meeting with Grandpa and Grandma Sturm. He had a head full of dark hair then – something I have no memory of. (The mustache would come and go over the years.)

Grandpa and Grandma with their grandkids in 1986. (From left to right, my sister Katey, brother Daniel, me, cousin Candace, and cousin Lauren.)

The Sturm men in 1998: (L to R), my brother Daniel, Grandpa’s brother David, Grandpa, my brother Caleb, and my dad. 

 Me and Grandpa in 2008, the summer after my grandmother died.

Grandpa meets Emry, Thanksgiving 2015.

And now Grandpa meets Ethan, summer 2017.

Stores, Shopping and Crazy People

I don’t remember a time in my life when my mom did not have a calendar hanging on some wall in our house where the dinner meals for the month were planned out in two-week intervals. I’m not a 100% sure she did it when I was a baby, but she still does it today even though my dad spends most of the week away on business and the one sister still living at home eats on her own schedule. The night before grocery shopping day, my mom would take the calendar off the wall, fill in meals for the next two weeks, and then make her list based upon those meals. When I was young, we went shopping in the evening. She’d take one or two of us while the rest stayed home with Dad. As I grew older, she’d take one or two of us during the day because either Katey or I could stay home with the others. Today, she takes Emry every two weeks, an outing Emry always enjoys.

When I first moved from home, I lived with my grandfather for a year and he went shopping every week so I’d create a menu in my head for the week and write down what we’d need. When I moved out and lived with a friend, I’d run by the store when I needed to. Rarely did I cook anything particular for me. In fact, even later, if you had gone through the cabinets in my apartment in Minnesota you would have probably thought I was half starving myself. But I confess oatmeal was a staple. I also ate at camp quite a bit. And, yes, I did have ice cream once or twice for dinner. (Those were the days!)

When I got married, I had to adjust to cooking for two and quickly resorted to what I had grown up with: a calendar on my refrigerator with meals planned out in two-week intervals based upon Ed’s pay schedule. Other women who come into my homes and see this hanging on my fridge are amazed at my organization and planning, but I don’t know any other way. And it works…at least until the entire world decided to go crazy this week.

The truth is, making a meal plan and grocery list has been my least favorite task for the past six months. Thinking about food when 95% of it is always unappetizing is sickening. So, I waited until the very day we would go to make the list. It was one of those weeks where every little thing had been emptied: chili powder, parsley, toilet paper, all meat in the freezer. So, my list was a bit longer than usual. We go shopping in the evening because we have only one car, so after dinner Thursday we piled in and went to one of the three stores we needed to go to. Not feeling well and tired, I thought we could do the two less item stores Thursday and the more item store Friday. Thursday should have been an indication of what was to come. I’ve never seen not one piece of chicken available in the freezer section, even the small one at Fresh Thyme. But I was too tired to realize the dominoes were starting to fall. Or maybe I’m just naïve enough to believe humanity is somewhat sane.

You’d have to live with your head under a rock to not know about coronavirus. I’m not going to add my soap box to the millions on social media who have something to say on the matter. We all know our inboxes are full of warnings. Schools are closed. The media talks of nothing else (both right-wing and left-wing), adding to the pandemic, a word which now means PANIC. The reports are too conflicting for me to take the time to follow it all and try to read the truth between the lines (I’m not sure anyone – right or left – is actually reporting the truth anyhow), but you would honestly think we’re facing the Apocalypse. It certainly looks that way at the grocery store. Everyone in Lafayette had to be have been there. Toilet paper is all gone. The meat freezers near to empty. Can goods are almost non-existent. Even all the sugar was gone. 

One soap box moment: People, if we are facing the Apocalypse, neither a garage full of toilet paper, a freezer full of chicken, nor a basement full of can goods is going to save you. Those who have stock-piled sugar…well, at least you’ll die happy.

All I wanted to do was my bi-weekly shopping. Not wade through idiots who think the end of the world has come but somehow toilet paper is going to protect them. I was so frustrated by the end of the night, I was near tears. I went home and did something I have never done: ordered chicken, hamburger, and toilet paper online to pick up in the store. Why? Because I think hamburger might ward off coronavirus? No. I’m merely trying to feed my family for the next two weeks. The same thing I’ll do again in another two weeks. I’m just praying things have calmed down by then.

Spring...is Coming

I had high hopes of a good, long winter. Snow on Halloween helped those hopes. Surely if it started early, it would last a long time. Right? Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case. It has been a mild winter, not a huge amount of snow and only a couple of days of very cold mixed in with just the general cold. Now the weather is certainly turning towards spring. Which has its good points, certainly. After all, it does mean the kids can be out running off all the energy their little bodies contain. I have sent mine out as often as possible, armed with a jump rope, chalk, and whatever else they want to play with. We’ve gone on a couple of bike rides around the neighborhood. On Sunday at small group, they spent the whole time outside jumping on our host’s trampoline and playing whatever out in the yard. Yesterday, we walked the mile down to the park (well, Ethan rode in the stroller and Emry rode her bike) and spent at least an hour and a half running about and enjoying lunch on the swing bench we always do. It is nice to get out and get some fresh air, which also – hopefully – means we can avoid yet another bout of severe colds. (Although, I must say, at least we avoided the second part many families I know had which was a stomach bug that never ended!) 

Still, I was hoping for a longer winter. For one, I like winter. But, two, I don’t have any spring/warm weather maternity clothes. The times I’ve been pregnant in warmer weather was always at the beginning of my pregnancies when I didn’t need maternity clothes yet. Now I’m trying to figure out what very few things I can get by with until this baby comes and I can fit in most of my clothes again. Fingers crossed the spring will be somewhat mild and I can drop off enough of this weight to fit into my summer clothes quickly. I’m not sure I have much hope on either count.

But there are certainly worse things having to wear the same two shirts or pairs of pants for a month or six weeks. There’s always the anticipation that once I can wear my regular clothes again, it’s like getting a whole new wardrobe. And one much better than maternity clothes!

Haircuts

I will be forever grateful to Ed’s Aunt Sandy for being a hair stylist who always cut Ed’s hair, had him working in her salon, and taught him enough that he can cut Ethan’s hair (and his own). Getting a haircut is expensive…and as often as Ethan needs one, well, a set of clippers has already more than paid for itself. 

Emry’s hair is more difficult. For one, it is very thick. And wavy, like mine. Which is just hard to deal with. I have cut it a few times, but I always miss pieces. Thankfully, she is a girl so it can grow out for a while before it’s in sore need of a cut. The last couple of times I’ve taken her to get it done when I have a coupon or they’re having a special. After all, that’s when I get mine done…every six months or more!

Last week, as we were getting ready for dance class, I grabbed Emry’s hairbrush, pulled out the ponytail and started brushing. Only to have a chunk of hair come out with the brush. Maybe “chunk” is an exaggeration, but it was not a few pieces like always comes out when I brush her hair. I was shocked. More came out when I brushed again, and again. By now I was a bit scared. What in the world was going on? These were long pieces, as if they came from the top of her head, but I couldn’t see from where. And then it suddenly hit me…

“Emry…did you cut your hair?”

For a moment, there was silence. And then tears. 

I was so relieved.

“Emry, I’m not angry,” I promised, “but did you cut your hair?”

“Yes,” she confessed. “It was stuck.”

As any girl knows, sometimes hair gets pulled by a ponytail holder. I think that happened while she was settling down for her nap, she couldn’t figure out how to stop the pull, and so she found her scissors. A couple of clips at the top of her head solved that problem…and freaked me out a couple of hours later when I took out the ponytail and brushed. 

Promising again I was not angry, I also made her promise not to ever cut her own hair again. Every girl has to try it once, and we’ve done it.  So that should be the end of that. 

Hopefully.

Baby-Moon

I’ve noticed in recent television shows or movies (the very few I watch) that going on a “baby-moon” has become some new millennial thing. When I first heard about it, I thought how little sense that made. A honeymoon I understand. You get married and go on a special trip. But a “baby-moon” comesbeforethe baby. I guess, because, you certainly have no time to make a trip afterthe baby. Or the desire to. 

We’ve never taken one. There is way too much to do before the baby comes and both of us have worked until their arrival. After Emry was born, I didn’t really need a vacation. It was just the two of us at home. After Ethan, rest certainly didn’t happen even though Emry was an easy kid. But since we moved just three weeks later, I had too much to do. After this one comes, I don’t plan on any rest at all. Not with both Emry and Ethan. We’ll just take it as it goes.

But, for my 40^thbirthday, I really wanted to just get away and do nothing. No cooking, or laundry, or school, or work, or kids, or anything. Just a pile of books and quiet. I had actually wanted to do it for my 39^thbirthday, but it was one of those things Ed didn’t really believe I wanted. So, as my 40^thapproached, I was determined to get away…determined even before I got pregnant. Even if I had to plan it myself. I did choose the place, but Ed made the arrangements while I made sure the grandparents could take the kids (which they could). And off we went.

We went to a little touristy town called Nashville about an hour south of Indianapolis. You wouldn’t expect a place like that to be busy the last weekend of February, but because the Beach Boys were having a concert in town that weekend, quite a few….um, older people, were there. Still, it was a quiet weekend. We got there Friday night, I read myself to sleep, slept late, walked around the little town till about noon, read some more until I fell asleep again, read some more, went to grab a bite for dinner, read more, watched a move, read more, fell asleep, woke up to enjoy a nice breakfast, and finished my book before we left Sunday morning. It was WONDERFUL!!!!

And now it’s back to life, although at least I feel a bit more rested now, something I sorely needed. For lack of sleep is one of the triggers of making me terribly sick all day. Now that I’ve realized that, I’m just trying to keep a better eye on getting to bed at night. If only I didn’t have so much to do! But the weekend was lovely… J