Where have I been?

April 19, 2014
I've been absent but want to come back! Fortunately my blog is kind and has not deserted me....There has been way too much to even go over of what has happened in the last two years so I will begin with what has happened in just the last four months of this year. In January, actually on my birthday January 5th, Gentz's dear mother Mary who was 92 passed peacefully into the next life. There was a terrific snowstorm that day,church was canceled and Gentz and I spent the day over at her house watching over her as she was on hospice and the time left was short. I read Winnie the Pooh to her, we played some music, we had a quiet sacred day. About 7:30 pm we decided to change her sheets and her as she had sweated out her t-shirt...after doing so and Gentz lovingly applying ointment to her back and talking gently to her she stopped breathing. Just like that. Her spirit left her body. We were very grateful to be there with her. What an extraordinary woman! How everyone loved her. We miss her. But she had a long life and was ready to go.

                                                                     Mary M. Franz
                                                                       1921-2014


                                    "If ever there is tomorrow when we're not together..
                                         ..there is something you must always remember. 
                                     You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, 
                                              and smarter than you think. 
                                       But the most important thing is, even if we're apart.
                                       .I'll always be with you." From Winnie the Pooh 

                                              Our last sisters' retreat..Dec. 2013. Minnesota

Our last Scentsy Incentive trip together. Whistler, B.C. Canada June 2013

                                             
Then just six weeks later on Feb. 19, I received a phone call from my younger sister Becki from Minnesota who had just received a cancer diagnosis...with disbelief in her voice she said: "I have cancer!" "Where?" I said.(Isn't that what we all say??)  "In the breast and it has metastasized to the liver and the bone." We knew at that point that it was very bad of course. Gentz and I made plans to get there as quickly as we could...we arrived on Friday, Feb. 21. Her son Peter was there..she didn't look well, but she could still communicate. Brekke and little Luci would be coming in from California on Sunday.

For the next week we watched her deteriorate like 5 years each day. Then on Saturday, March 1, just ten days after her diagnosis she slipped away...again, on hospice, in her home...all of us were there. Peter and I had been in the room with her...he left, I held her hand and encouraged her to go.

...just five minutes after her dear son left the room, she sweetly and softly stopped breathing. She entered that next room, that realm of spirits where Mother and Daddy were waiting to welcome their little girl home.

Gentz and I couldn't bring ourselves to leave the room until they had come to carry her gently out of the house. It felt so sacred...we felt truly altered from being there. How fragile our lives are! How grateful I am to know that she lives on and is not that far away and is so very happy and at peace!!

But I miss her...we live together in families in love and we weep when they die. I am still reeling from this as all who love her are. We can't believe it! How could this happen? She owned a Health Food Store,Grammas Pantry in Aitkin, MN, she ate organic all her life...she was young..only 59..she still had dream! How could this be??? But as we all know, cancer is random and none of us know when our time on earth will be up. I love her...I miss her and wasn't ready to let her go, but she lived her life fully the last year of her life. She only had to suffer with cancer for one week. She did it her way. Just like she would want. 

I will include in the next post two talks from her funeral because they describe perfectly Becki..one is from my son Gentzy, her nephew who aptly called her "A folk Hero" and the other one is from me.

 She loved her little Luci so much and she and Brekke were as close as a mother and daughter can be.

 She loved traveling with Pete as he worked on his different movie sets throughout the world I think this is Spain, but I'm not sure. Her plan was to walk that 60 mile walk in Spain when she turned 65..from the movie The Way..Via Del Santiago....Pete plans on doing that for her.

 This is in St. George from one of our sisters' retreats. We started getting together in 2011 after Mother died...how grateful I am that we did that..we had such fun together!

This was her last day in the hospital..Thursday...she came home on Hospice the next day. It was a peaceful day..she was able to talk a little bit, smile at her friends, sign some papers and here interacting a bit with Luci.

She lived her life with courage and passion.She never complained.She rose above difficulties, she worked hard, she loved hard and she died hard. She is such an example to me. I want to live my life more courageously!

Rebecca Lynn Jones

Oct. 12, 1954-March 1, 2014

"Alice laughed, "There's no use trying," she said, "One can't 

believe impossible things."  "I daresay you haven't had

much practice," said the Queen.

"When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why,

sometimes I believed as many as six impossible

things before breakfast." - Through the Looking Glass

And so, the beginning of 2014 I have said farewell to two women who have helped shape my life. Two women who I loved with all my heart. Two women who loved me and two women because of whom I will never be the same again, but better, kinder, braver and more adventurous!! Thank you dear Mary and darling Becki. You will continue to influence my life and the lives of so many others. 

OUT

I'm heading to a Job Fair this morning at Illinois College to set up a Scentsy booth. This is like my fourth year for doing this; doesn't seem like I ever get anything from it as they won't let you do cash and carry but it gets me OUT! Working from home I can get pretty just into being here and not even coming in contact with another breathing human being except for my husband and I don't count Facebook. So, off I go today, out among real people, smiling, laughing and schilling my wonderful product! There is no way around it...people energize me. This is good.

A Quiet Easter

What a mellow day! Church was great as always; Gentz enjoyed his He is Risen greeting and hoping for the answer he has always heard from his little mother Mary: He is risen indeed! We both sang in the choir today...two of my favorites: He is Risen and Christ the Lord is Risen today!

We had Jeremy, a young friend of ours from church who lives alone over for lunch; Gentz had made chicken and sweet potatoes and oat muffins. Then mother Mary came over and wanted to eat on our sunny front porch. I spent some time on the couch, visiting with Jeremy as best I could since he is deaf and I don't sign well, but we were having fun looking at some things on youtube and he introduced me to hula.com. John was around all day; the highlight of his day was my sharing my netflix password with him. So he has been catching up on episodes of Mad Men, whatever the heck that is!

We went to the cemetery as is our custom on Easter with the Easter lily that kari was so kind to send us. She is well aware of the family tradition. We put it at the head of our Jakob's grave with a little open plastic Easter egg that signifies the open tomb. Someday we know we will see our little boy again and his body will be whole and well because of the glorious resurrection. Gentz spoke a bit of how as he gets older, death doesn't seem to loom so forbidding as he contemplates the reunion with so many family members who have gone on ahead. Mother Mary of course agreed with that as she thought of Edgar...there she is 90 years old, all bent over, still loving life and I thought of how close death is to her now and that someday I will be in that same place that she is now. I heard it said by someone that even if we live to be 100 our lives our short, magnificent and messy! How true....I'm not sure how I got to be 61 years old so fast, and I hope the next thirty won't go as quickly as the last thirty did, but I know there are many good days ahead. So grateful for my family and God and Easter and days like today!

Then we finished off our little outing by going to Bryan Leonard's land where he is building a cabin...such a fun place!

Wow! Where have I been?

Wow, it's been over a year since I last wrote and there is so much to share.
In July we bought our dream cabin in our beloved Minnesota; there it was sitting there waiting for us on 9 acres of wooded land with trails, outbuildings, a great garage, plenty of room and even a sauna in the basement and a wood burning furnace. It was our dream come true. The whole family gathered up there for Thanksgiving and after Gentz retires in December, we will be going up there much more often! And will eventually retire; it is just a few miles from where my parents had their land and just a five minute walk from where they are both buried. Two sisters live in the area, so it will be fun to live near them for the first time in my life.
Life is good and I am grateful. I am also wanting to write in this blog more often, so tonight, I  just make a quick start.

The dream

Three years ago today I started my new business of being an independent consultant for Scentsy wickless candles. I started with $115 and a prayer that I could make a $400 car payment so that Gentz didn't have to with his gas check. My dream was to have a cabin built on our land in Aitkin, Minnesota. I had no idea how that would happen Could this new business be a means? I had never made much money in my other direct sales companies. I had promised Gentz I would even go get a full-time job if I had to (shudder) in order for this dream to become a reality. We loved it up here...it was like home. I wanted our children and grandchildren to be able to come stay here and see the place their great-grandparents had lived so happily at the end of their lives.

                                                                            

I felt as if the land were speaking to me when I stood on that wooded hill so  many years ago when I thought it was going to be gone forever. It said, "peace, peace, this is all going to work out..you won't lose this." The how at that time wasn't important - deep down a seed of belief was planted - belief in my dream, belief in this land and belief that God in heaven was aware of my desire to hang on to this piece of family legacy from Aunt Blanche and Uncle Olaf Flessland, from mother and daddy. So today, years later, Gentz is meeting with a man to build the road up to the hill I stood on so many years ago where our cabin is going to be built. I thank God that this is coming to pass. Yes, Scentsy far exceeded my financial goals and dreams and because of that, we are going to be able to realize our dream. I thank dear old Aunt Blance and Uncle Oley, the ones who bought this 100 acre farm and lived there happily for so many years. I thank my dear parents, now both gone, who saw the vision, loved the land and moved up here in 1979. And I"m so grateful that mother hung on to 32 acres of wooded land that included my hill when they had to move away because of their old age. I"m grateful to my dear sweet husband Gentz who loved coming up here as much as I did...for being willing to pack 4 active children into a car with no dvd player and driving 12 hours to stay with my parents in their attic bedroom for several days.

Now, WE are the grandparents, now WE are laying claim to this land like Blanche and Olaf, like Bill and Lucille - now it's Gentz and Jeri. I hope and pray we will have many years of rest and enjoyment in our little cabin in the woods and that our children and grandchildren will come to call it a haven, a safe and wonderful place, a family treasure, a refuge a gift.

Rest in peace

Zoe, my 5 year old granddaughter picking a flower from mother's arrangement.

I haven't written in a while....my dear 93 year old mother who suffered a severe stroke in October died Jan. 1, 2011...she didn't make it to her 94th birthday Jan. 18, but she did make it to 2011!! Many of her grandchildren and children gathered to say farewell to this extraordinary woman in a beautiful, very fitting service Jan. 6 in Minnesota, home of her heart and where she and Daddy had lived for the past 30 years.

It was a beautiful MInnesota wintry day...clean, cold, crisp, the snow sparkling through the trees.  She was buried behind Dorris Church right next to my dad.

Gentz conducting the graveside services. 

Mother's grandsons lovingly carrying her

My sister Becki called it a Celebration of love which it truly was...we loved her, she loved us...we honor her memory..we will miss her. I've talked to so many people who say, oh my mom died 11 years ago and I still want to call her and talk to her and tell her what's going one! I've never been able to relate to that before, but now I believe I can....and the thing is...she is very aware of what is going on as she watches from above, so until I join her in the next life, I can continue to talk to her and share with her. Rest in peace dear sweet mother!

Lucille M. Jones
Jan. 18, 1917-Jan. ,2011

Christmas is Love

Well, we finally got the tree up Friday night....we would have preferred sitting down with our latest Netflix movie, but reluctantly Gentz dragged the tree out of the attic while I cleaned up the kitchen. I figured he was just going to set up the tree and we would decorate later, but he brought down the ornaments too, so slowly, I started looking through them...no hooks of course! What happens to those danged hooks from one season to the next?  Kind of like the lights..they work when you are putting them away, but get them out and forget about it! Slowly, we got it done and Gentz put the angel on top that we have had for over 20 years..she is looking a little worse for wear...her beaded halo is hanging down in her face and for some reason she is blinking this year, but it makes us laugh, so we are letting her blink away!!

I was thinking of the kids and what a bad mom I am that I don't have all their little handmade or bought ornaments through the years and what is wrong with me anyway??!! Then I got out our ancient Manger scene and as I was unwrapping tenderly Mary, Joseph, a cow, a wise man, baby Jesus, Silent Night started playing on Pandora Radio....here is the magic of Christmas, I thought. God loved us, so He sent His Son...Hark the Herald Angels Sing..Glory to the Newborn King...Silent Night, holy night.  That it was and it still is. Whether I am excited about decorating the tree or not, whether I saved the kids' ornaments or not, whether our angel is blinking or not, Christmas is about love. The greatest gift there is.

As I thought about that, I thought of how my heart and mind is filled with Christmases past when the living room was full of excitement from the kids as we decorated the tree.  Then, we would sit down with cups of hot chocolate and just look at the lights. Where did those years go? Straight into my heart, that is where. Love...Christmas is about love. Life changes, children grow up, grandchildren enter your life and your heart, things happen....good things, bad things, tough things, but still there is love..the greatest gift.