Words

"Words are but symbols for the relations of things to one another and to us; nowhere do they touch upon the absolute truth."  ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Words, we all use them.  Words, they help communicate our needs, desires, pleasure, disdain.  I’m using them right now to communicate with you, Dear Reader.  One of the greatest events I witnessed was my grandsons learning language through sign language before they could talk.  They were communicating with words before most children do much more than cry, point and try their darnedest to make their wants known.  If these two toddlers wanted something to eat or drink, they told me with words.  Exciting!

Sometimes our words run all over each other and at other

times we cannot find the words to express what we feel, need to communicate.  Relationships grow and change and fall apart (not necessarily in that order) through words as well as actions.  Some of us use a language with a set alphabet that is put together in ways to make words which we, who speak that language, understand.  One of the first pieces of knowledge I gained when I traveled to China was that with the Asian languages where a symbol represents a whole word, most people never learn all the symbols for their language.

So what do we do with our language made up with words?  One thing we can do is tell stories.  We can pass down family stories so that future generations know why Uncle Oscar wouldn't speak to his sister and she wouldn't speak to him for the rest of their lives.  How did our parents and grandparents meet and fall in love, or did they fall in love?  How did we come to be?

The folktales and fairy tales which are a large piece of our collective heritage are fun to learn and tell and retell and change a bit and retell again.  I learned how to do this at a young age.  Mom read many folktales and fairy tales to my sisters and me.  I retold them as best I remembered, while sitting in the rock garden, to my imaginary brother who never seemed to be around for Mom’s reading.  It was fun.  I corrected what I’d forgotten with the subsequent readings of the same tales.

Have I told you the absolute truth with my words? No, I have only told you my truth.

What do you use your words for? 

(Come back for the next installment which will include a story or two.)

If you found this post interesting or useful, please let me know by leaving a comment.  Your words will let me know that I am not just blowing hot air into the atmosphere.  Thanks.

Julie Moss © 2015

U is for Unconditional Love

“If you wilt but stay as beautiful as you are today. I will love you forever,” the king told his queen. 

“And who shall judge my beauty?” she inquired of the king.

“Why I shall, of course,” was the reply.

“Will your standards for beauty change as you age?” she asked coquettishly.

“No!” he thundered.

And she wondered if the rewards of queenship were worth what lay ahead.

That passage is not from any story I am familiar with, but it is said in a variety of situations and with a variety of words day after day after day.

Unconditional love does not use the word “If”.  Near on 60 years ago there was a man who showed me what unconditional love for a woman looked like.  My grandparents were making one of their rare visits to our home.  Both Grandma and Grandpa were in the living room with me when Grandma got up and left to go help my mom in the kitchen.  As she left the room, Grandpa turned to me and said, “There goes the most beautiful woman in the world!”

I’d always thought of my grandparents as old, although in the little story above they were probably around the age I am now (and of course I’m not old!).  To my young eyes Grandma did not have any of the attributes the magazine ads and TV touted as beautiful, but in Grandpa’s eyes she was and always had been from the moment he met her, the most beautiful woman in the world.

Their love story was just as beautiful.  They’d never told it to their children, but one winter afternoon in the late 1960’s when two of my cousins and I were exploring the attic with them, the Romantic (Grandpa) told us the story.  We sat still, drinking in the tale we’d never heard before and loving every detail.  It was so much better than the story we’d been hearing all our lives – “I couldn’t teach her math so I had to marry her.”  He told about the “pursuit,” the proposal, the acceptance and the unconditional love.  Ahhhh, yes, that special love that does not fade.  It’s not found by everyone, but when it comes, grab hold with both hands and toss the word “if” from your vocabulary!

G Is for Grandmas

Grandmas, those women who love you no matter what.  Both my grandmas were strong women who made their own way in the world.  They did not choose careers in male dominated areas, they did not make breakthrough discoveries, they did not travel the sea and go through Ellis Island to become American.  They did make their own way on their own.  They raised families.  They told stories.

Grandma Moss as a Young Woman

My father’s mother told me the story of how she became a nurse.  I was four when she told me and remember sitting on the coach beside her, my feet sticking straight out in front of me enraptured by her adventure.  In a nutshell, here’s her story.

When she was 11 or 12 Elsie Mae was delegated, by default, the task of taking care of her sick family as well as the threshers.  (For those of you who may not know back in the days of Elsie Mae’s youth when it was your farm’s turn to house and feed the threshers in return for the threshing of your grains, it was your turn and it had to be done.)  But when she expressed her desire to become a nurse, her family frowned and told her to become a teacher.  So Elsie Mae learned how to teach and taught only long enough to make enough money to put herself through nursing school.  She forsook the thought of marriage for that of career … Until she met the son of the woman she was caring for.  At the age of 30 Elsie Mae and Will married under the firm understanding that she was not an unpaid nursemaid for his mother and that she would have a career.

Grandma was 70 when I was born and left this world at 75.  The snippets I remember of our time together are strong.

Grandma and Grandpa Fisher
50th Wedding Anniversary

My mother’s mother spent seven years of her young life living on a homestead in Nebraska where her father eked out a living until their farm was wiped out either by grasshoppers or locusts.  She told stories of playing hide the thimble (until it became irretrievably lost) and making chickens talk.  They came back to Iowa when she was eight.  The boys were born and her mother died.  Laura went to live with the German aunts back in Germany until her father remarried and gathered all the children again except Willis the youngest who didn’t remember any of his family.  The new mother was, in Laura’s words, a drunkard.  The girls did all the work and one by one left the family during their early teens.  Laura wanted to finish school, but needed help with math.  A handsome young engineer who ate lunch at the restaurant where she worked came to the rescue.  He tutored her in math and eventually asked her to marry him.  Laura consented.  They lived with her in-laws for awhile until in a fit of fury her mother-in-law threw a pair of scissors at her while she was nursing her first born.  Laura and Ed left and never lived with his parents again.  Laura raised five children in various houses throughout the Davenport/Muscatine areas in Iowa.  She dedicated her life to family.

Grandma’s house was a safe place to spend two weeks every summer.  In fact most of my summertime memories are from the Farm where my grandparents lived out their lives.

I'm a grandma myself now and hope that I am making an impression on my grandsons.

How did your grandma(s) shape you?

D is for Dads

Daddies are little girls’ first love.  I’ve found stories about Fathers that I have used for Father’s Day programs on my radio show, but the Dad stories I love most are the ones I tell about my own dad – my first love.

Most of these stories aren’t even about my dad and me; they are about my dad as a youngster.  For instance Dad won a horse when he was eight.  Well a pony – a mean Shetland pony named Fannie Mae (yep, you read that right).  But Fannie Mae was pregnant and so my dad also won Stormy who was more like a big dog that a Shetland pony.  Stormy stayed with dad’s family for a year and a half until Dad was too big to ride him, then he was sold to a man who wanted a pony for his little boy.  Dad, at 9, was in on the transaction.

Or there’s the story about the first “Got Milk?” picture.  Yes, my grandfather came up with the picture idea – not the slogan.  He hired a photographer to come and take pictures of his children drinking milk as an advertising campaign for his dairy.  As my aunt told the story, they had to drink milk and grin all afternoon.  Dad looks like he might have been in kindergarten or first grade, his shock of unruly straight black hair stood straight up from his head, thus earning him the nickname Fritz – from the Katz ‘n’ Jammer Kids comic strip.

Stories about our parents become more poignant as we age and our parents leave us.  My dad, my first love, left early – he was only 60.  But he lives on in the stories I tell about him and his adventures as a child.

 

Breast Cancer Awareness Month

            Thinking about my friend Mary Motz and the annual walk in memory of her daughter, Stephanie L. Miner, who lost her life to breast cancer made me think: most of us have a story about how breast cancer has affected our lives in one way or another.  Because this is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, here’s mine. 



Elsie Mae Andress

            Many years ago Rebecca Haifleigh Moss became afflicted with breast cancer.  As the disease progressed she needed special care.  Elise Mae Andress was hired to be her private duty nurse.  Elsie had wanted to be a nurse from the time she had to care for her whole family and the threshers when she was young.  But her family frowned upon nursing as a profession for “proper young women.”  Elsie became a teacher, saved her money, moved to Chicago and put herself through nursing school.

            While she was caring for Mrs. Moss, Elsie met her son, Will.  Will was smitten and started spending a lot of time with his mother just so he could see Elsie.  Finally he asked Elsie to marry him.  Elsie, who had chosen career over marriage years ago, told him, “I will marry you on two conditions.  One, I will not be a nursemaid to your mother.  Two, I will have a career.”  He gave her this beautiful coral necklace. 

            Will agreed to her conditions and so at age 30 Elsie Mae Andress became Elsie Mae Andress Moss.  She had three children in the next five years each born in a different place, while Will tried to decide where they should live and what he wanted to do with his life.  Norman, the youngest, was born in Gates Mills, Ohio, not far from the community of Chester.  Soon after his birth, Will bought an old barn and started a creamery.  The new business was named Moss Farm Dairy and the family moved into the old farmhouse.

Dora and Norman Moss

            Nancy, the middle child, followed her mother’s footsteps and went to nursing school.  There she met Dora Fischer.  She introduced Dora and her best friend to her younger brother, Norman, when Ciglinda needed a date.  But Norman (or Fritz) was more interested in Dora than his date.  He called the next week and they started seeing each other.  A few years later they were married on July 11.  (That’s 7-11; Norman chose the date.)

            Rebecca Haifliegh Moss was my great-grandmother.  Elsie Mae Andress and William Oscar Moss were my grandparents.  And Dora Fischer and Norman Moss were my parents.  So I am here because of breast cancer.