July....

My last blog entry I was facing this month. I had already geared up my mind waiting to set off summer with a bang. The month of July when hot dogs and hamburgers begin sprouting from grills across our great nation. With a bang it becomes summer and everyone is geared up for fun. However not always so much for us, the Klein family. Remember me touching on my last entry of my wise sage of a grandfather and his papa stools. Well Papa Rudy left us all here and went to be with his Lord the 5th of July. So for those who knew him July comes not with a hunger pain for the grilled goodies, but rather a pang of the heart.

Feeling out of sorts all week, I have tried to busy my mind. Keeping away from just how gosh darn much I miss him. But when you have a papa like we did, when your blessed enough to have known someone like him, it sure ain’t easy.  Tears seemed to jam up like ice on a river in the spring. I could feel the power behind them yet they just stayed tangled like the yard on the scarf I am still trying to learn to crochet.

I loosened tonight…. my little Hannah and her daddy Ky were cleaning up her bedroom and moving around some furniture. With me being so incredibly laid up I am pretty much useless for packing around old furniture. She was doing her best to help. She is small, tiny like me. She was trying to get a grip on the old dresser and walk awkwardly in tow with her dad. It wasn’t going well. “It’s too heavy”, “I am too little” . She is little- itty bitty in fact. And it is a huge dresser some all wood monstrosity from some era before I was born when they used real wood to make furniture.

That is when I heard myself use a Rudy-ism as we called them. Wonderful little quips, clever nuggets of wisdom and wit from the mouth of my papa. The tears who had been too frustrated to come all week finally let loose and began streaking down my cheek like the kids to on their slip and slide. I was suddenly back with papa. In his den when he was pulling out the old carpet. I cant remember how old I was, probably not much more than little Hannah is now. And I remember his bright blue eyes , his white newsboy cap cocked on his head, his gingerbread cookie skin and the long crooked finger pointed at me when he said these words “It doesn’t matter how small you are, or how big it is, you just pick it up and go”. And I did. The dirty smelly carpet, heavy and wrapped in a roll, scraped my arms and I thought for sure the burning down my arms from the weight would surely leave me limbless above the waist. But down the hall, through the kitchen, pass the living room and out the slider door we went. I just picked it up and went!

WOW! Who knew ? Something that simple could be so profound and I haven’t realize it until this moment just what “Pick it up and go” had meant all these years. So often folks have asked how I used to get done all the things I did back before my health packed up and left. I don’t know, I just picked it up and went. I tore down sheds, I built sheds, I took out radiators and put new ones in,  I hauled boats, I chopped wood. I wrangled cows. I drug massive deer from the woods, I built fences. I installed carpet, I took out carpet. I built shelves I tore down shelves. There never seemed a task I was afraid to tackle. Less than 100 pounds has never stopped me from doing anything. Even my work bounty hunting teenagers. I never once considered my five foot two frame and my 90 something pounds with a heavy woolen sweater dripping wet. I just went!

So often too emotionally…things happened, life? God? Whatever… has thrown some really tough curve balls, things that should have decimated me. I mean really big life changing earth shattering bad bad ugly things. But no. I picked it up and went. It didn’t matter how little I felt, how big the problem I just picked it up and went. I am still doing that. Right now this very moment I am doing just that!  I am picking up this enormous weight of losing my independence and mobility and somehow I am just going to go. I am going to find a way, to pick this up and go, even if it means this stupid wheel chair. At least I will be going.

I miss my papa so much. I may be all grown up, but there is just so much Papa the fix it could do for me if he was still here. Not just mend my broken toys but mend the broken parts of my life. I miss him. I mean really miss him. I know though that in his wisdom he has given us all the tools we will need to fix our own lives and mend all our broken parts and hearts. More than any Rudy-ism he has given us the Lord. And I know with out a doubt whatever advice he would give me right now about this struggle with my body that is betraying me it would end with “Well pray about it and see what the Lord has to say about it”

And so...that is where I will leave this. I will go and pray and see what the lord has to say about it. But my guess is the answer will not be delivered quite as witty or cleverly as a Rudy-ism would be!