Circa September 1994
When the telephone rang tonight, I knew why it was ringing before I answered it. I felt it. Clear down inside my heart. I knew My Grandmother was gone. As I answered the call, my uncle confirmed my thoughts, and with my Dad away on a fishing trip he asks if I would have to convey the message when he returned home that his mom was gone. That was a hard piece of news to deliver to my dad at 3.a.m. Yet, she lives on so VIVIDLY in my heart.
In May of 1921, my grandmother met my grandfather while they were both living at a Boarding House. Stan was a third-grade teacher by day and took classes at night. He was within six weeks of obtaining his pastoral degree and had plans of going west to teach on a reservation and preach the gospel. Doris was a stenographer. They were introduced by a principal that was also staying at the house, and within days they both felt deeply towards one another. By May 20, of 1922 they were married, and had seven children together.
My Grandfather, Stanley Arthur Haas, had left this earth on May 16, 1948. He was only 47 years old. The two of them were barely married 26 years when he died at home on a Sunday afternoon. He had danced a jig around the Livingroom, excited that the farm they had bought together on May 18, 1946, was paid off. They had let their home in Vicksburg go back to the back during the depression rather than loose it.
Four years later, after living in a small outbuilding at Grandma’s parent’s home, they found a farmhouse and some acres home, the whole top story was broken in. A large pine had fallen on it. There was snow a foot deep in the upstairs when they first looked at it. By Springtime, they used a team of horses and block and tackle to hoist the massive tree off the house and they set about replacing the walls and the rebuilding the roof. They had paid off the note in full, and soon after his celebratory dance, he sat down in a chair and died. (At the age of ten, Stan had his appendix removed on the kitchen table by a doctor who told his parents then, that he had a smaller than normal heart and heart rate, and a small tear it in.) Afterwards, his parents were careful not to allow him to jump and run as other children did. He played, but never to the point of real exertion.
Forty-seven years had come and gone since Grandma lost the love of her life. There was never a moment that lapsed that she didn’t think of him. In many ways there was a part of her that left when he did. Her grief justifiably was debilitating to her.
I never met my Granddad face to face, but I felt like I knew him from all the stories Grandma would tell me. Each Sunday, of my youth I would walk the mile west from our farmhouse (the same house they bought in 1946) and I would sit at her feet while she talked about their life together. She shared stories and poetry she wrote for him or about him. She never held back when it came to talking about Stan and I sat and soaked it all up like a sponge. She kept his memory alive and graciously shared him with anyone who would listen. She was proud of him.
Grandma had three of her older children married, the fourth was a teen, and my dad was ten when he lost his dad. Little Fred named after grandma’s Dad was six, and young Kathleen Eva was four. I cannot begin to imagine how hard her life was during the years that followed. By the time I was soaking up her stories, she had remarried a man at the end of the road, Mr. Labadie and My Dad bought the farmhouse from her in 1961.
I believe with every fiber of my being that Grandpa Stan was waiting at Heaven’s Gate for “his dearest one” no doubt as anxiously as he awaited the birth of their seven children. (Though their last baby was born in a hospital he was very cross about that, and insisted on standing outside the room and the moment the baby was born, the nurse had to bring the little one to the door so he could tie a string to the arm. He was afraid they would mix up the babies.) You gotta love that kind of thinking. Otherwise, they delivered their other six babies in the same bed they were made in, and she spoke frequently of the love, coaxing, the nurturing and strength that he offered her during those times.
(Their Seven kids behind Grandma. Merle, Wayne, Kathy, Fred, Mary Helen, Lola and My Dad Jim)
I imagine, their oldest son Wayne, is with him. I could almost feel his excitement once he received the news that she was finally coming to join him. I am sure he has had many wonderful reunions up there, but this is the one he must have been waiting for. The one important part of his heart that has been missing far too long.
I want to imagine him with his arms stretched out wide, leaning as far forward as he can to make her journey to Heaven smoother and quicker. I can almost hear his laughter and see his face all ashine. As I write this tonight, I can see my grandma walking with grace and eloquence towards his waiting arms. The arms that held her and always gave her such warmth and comfort, the arms that she has missed wrapping up in for 47 years.
I want to believe GOD IS THERE. He is watching them and nodding his head in approval as if to symbolize “Yes Doris, the time has finally come, your time on earth is through my good and faithful woman. I can almost see their embrace, feel their tears as their hearts overflow at their feet. This is the moment they have both waited for, dreamed about in separate realms.
I like to imagine them walking hand in hand again. Strolling across heaven now instead of their small Volinia farm with Grandpa almost absent mindedly whisking Grandma off to show his dearest to the Lord, as if the Lord didn’t already know her, know of her kind and gentle spirit. As if he didn’t KNOW exactly when she was coming.
Like so many years before, they walk hand in hand again. Together they will look down and view their every growing family. There are many new generations now since 1948.
For the last several years of her life, Grandma was in a Nursing Home, and she missed out on a lot of changes in the family. Births, deaths, weddings, graduations, new careers, new homes spreading all across this great country of ours.
UNITED once again, they will watch over us all together now and are no doubt praying for those of us who linger behind them.
For me, at this time of great loss, I reflect on what a positive role model she was for me. Within each of our little visits SHE taught me how to be a wife and mother. She tried to instill in me how to love, and how to find a man as good as special as my grandfather. She taught me how to write simply because she shared her stories and journals and poems with me. No matter the weather, every Sunday we would walk up to her home. If she had company my Dad would ask that we just come back home and not bother her and Grandpa George.
Those were sad Sundays for me. Not because she always dished up some little dab of sherbert in a glass bowl for you or whipping up some homemade apple fritters by cutting up an apple and stirring it into a bowl of bisquick and plugging in the little deep fryer soon the house would fill with the best aroma while she dropped Spoonfuls of the batter into the hot grease.
A missed Sunday visit for me meant, I missed out on hearing a new story, or sometimes the same stories, but I would pick up on another little tidbit I missed the first time she told it. She began painting at 55 years old and painted the most beautiful scenic landscape pictures. She had seven children and way too many grandchildren and greats to count but she NEVER forgot anyone’s birthday, Christmas or graduation. The gifts were big candy bars, a pack of pencils, a journal, a book, a stack of comic books, a wooden whistle, a box of notecard, a pack of gum or cookies. As little as those gifts were, those are the ones that us adult remember the most today.
TOGETHER, may their spirts go well into the days ahead and may their great SEPTEMBER LIGHT shine will all their joined Brillance down upon us all, and may we feel their warmth and love trickling into our own busy lives.
Of all the many gifts that I gleaned from Grandma Doris, and there were many, the one that will remain with me as long as I live is I KNEW where I came from, it made me feel proud of the two of them and all that their love built together, and I wanted to be sure that my children KNEW where they came from also. And they do. And that, is a good feeling for this momma to carry on around in this troublesome world.
(My Children, Tonya, Catherine and Thomas 1990)
Goodbye for now Grandmother, you will surely be missed, and yet I know, that you have waited a long time to be with the man that has held your heart since you first met at that Boarding House. I WILL see you again one day, and may I make you both proud.
September 02, 1994
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