Category: memories

memories, nostalgia, remembering

Magic

Mary Elyn Bahlert

I suppose that what I miss most during the holiday season – besides all of those before me who have passed – is the magic. And I suppose the magic has been gone now, for a long, long – long – time.

There was a certain magic to bringing Christmas to the people of a congregation when I was an active Pastor. I loved the liturgical seasons, and I loved to hold onto Advent for as long as I could – a feat that was impossible to the folks who came to church: they wanted Christmas season to begin – they wanted to sing all the old carols we all know by heart – as soon as the Thanksgiving dishes had been cleared away.

“But there’s Advent” – I’d try to win them over – “a liturgical season of its own, and a season that is longer than the Christmas season itself” – to no avail. But I did love the music, the old, old music we love so well. I tried to hold off on the congregation singing the Christmas carols until the four Sundays of Advent had been honored. But no. It didn’t work – not even once.

To me, even the season of waiting – of the Coming of the Child – is as rich as Christmas – call it the Arrival of the Child – itself. The Coming is filled with something: hope, expectation, longing – all tangible, all filled in themselves with a reality that we have all lived at some time in our lives.

The magic captivated – captivates me.

I have a memory of my childhood that is still a mystery to me. It was Christmas Eve, and I was in bed, in the narrow room I shared with my little sister, Suzie. Maybe she was already asleep. My bed was pushed up against the wall with the window. I could hear Mom and Dad in the living room, only a few feet away, shuffling around, making things happen. Like tradition in the Old Country, they were decorating the Christmas tree which Suzie and I would only see in all its glory for the first time on Christmas morning. There was always a layer of ice on the second story window, the cold of Milwaukee’s winter coming through the storm window Daddy had carefully hung in autumn. And on that Christmas Eve, I heard the bells – outside my window. I heard the bells of Christmas! I raised my head from the pillow, looked out into the cold, dark winter night. The only sound I heard then was the rustling of my parents in the next room.

The magic was gone. As quickly as it had arrived – gone.

And I fell asleep then in anticipation of Christmas morning, when, in the old European way, we would open our gifts around the decorated tree, the gifts that had arrived – mysteriously – sometime in the night.

Magic! photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert, 12/2025, View Place

memories, remembering, Uncategorized

Something’s always missing

Mary Elyn Bahlert

One of the most poignant emotions, to me, is the feeling that something is missing. I expect the feeling is one of loss, or maybe nostalgia. It’s hard to put a finger – a word! – on it, but it’s there, a feeling that sticks to my insides, that doesn’t go away. Something is not quite right.

I think it’s the temperatures in the 50’s and 60’s that betray this time of year, the precious days between Thanksgiving and the end of the year. In Milwaukee, dark blue skies hanging over colorful trees of autumn give way to a bleak gray that marks the coming of the end of the year, of the beginning of months of cold, cloud-covered skies, of cozy homes, of night coming on early.

And I’ve lived in this temperate climate for most of my life, but the longing in me still comes on strong in late fall. After Thanksgiving Day, Jeff and I go out together to a Christmas tree lot to pick out a newly picked tree, take it home and begin the decorating as soon as the tree arrives. We love the lights that light up the early darkness each evening, and I move myself from my study into the living room, as often as possible. The pleasure of this season lasts for such a short time: the intense longing that accompanies the season will give way to the closing of the year. As a pastor, I loved bringing the Christmas story and the Christmas songs to the gathered community, often to a community of folks I did not know well, on Christmas Eve; now, I enjoy the lights and the early dark of the season alone, with Jeff. We seem to bring nostalgia into the house with the Christmas tree we’ve carefully picked out from a local business, always remembering the cold evening of a long ago December when my Dad would take a long time to pick out the best tree in the lot to take home to our cozy flat, carrying the tree up the narrow staircase to the second floor where Mom’s holiday baking filled the air with sweet smells.

All of these memories come to mind, as I sit near the tree. I like to play Christmas music on my iPad – quietly – as background to the moments we cherish now.

Before the end of the year, we’ll sit together in the room with the tree and remember moments of the past year that are highlighted in our memories. Jeff will write a list of what he intends to accomplish in the year ahead. I’ll remember those who are gone now, most for many, many years. It’s that time of year.

Our tree, waiting to be dressed for the holiday!

photo, Mary Elyn Bahlert, 12/1/2025

memories, reflecting

Walking Through Covid

Mary Elyn Bahlert

It’s hard to remember what we thought about COVID-19 when we first heard about the virus in early 2020, and even when we ourselves were subject to a “sheltering in place” order, an order that changed our lives dramatically and for a long time.

How did we do it? A vivid memory of mine is listening to the new on NPR Radio at 3 pm, day after day. And I listened as each Friday, after recounting the news of the day, Judy Woodruff spent a few moments remembering in a few sentences the lives of five people who had lost their lives early in the pandemic, which swept across New York City before it reached across the rest of the country. We listened carefully to the wisdom and knowledge of Anthony Fauci as he gave us simple but extreme guidelines that would shape our lives for many months.

Jeff and I live in the Bay Area, which has a Mediterranean climate, and for that, we could be very grateful. We took to walking together early in the morning after rising and drinking our first cups of coffee even earlier – 5:30 am – in one of the two cemeteries that stretch for acres into the hills of the East Bay, just a block away from our house. We made new friends from the neighborhood as we saw some folks each day and others once or twice a week. We hosted gatherings with our friends as we sat huddled together in a circle in our yard in our down jackets. We ate our meals with friends on paper plates. For several months, I had our groceries delivered to our door by the brave and kind folks who did that work on our behalf, until I began to shop at the local supermarket early in the morning; I still like to shop early in the day, a habit formed during that time. Jeff was serving a church in downtown Oakland as interim pastor, and he preached each week as he sat in our yard and as I taped his sermon on his phone to be sent to the church secretary who put worship together for everyone in the parish.

Even so, the days and weeks and then months stretched on and on before us. Ugh. How did we do it?

Early in the evenings, Jeff and I would get into one of our cars and drive along Broadway in Oakland, through downtown, and to the Bay, where the ferries to Alameda and San Francisco left the dock, still on schedule, during the day. We would park along the narrow streets at Brooklyn Basin, a new development in Oakland, and walk along the shore of the Bay. Young people roller-skated on the pavement along the shore and loud music formed the background for all of us.

These memories came to mind – I’m certain there will be other memories – when Jeff and I drove into San Francisco – the City – on Saturday to attend a fall gathering at California College of the Arts. We parked our car a few blocks away and walked up some steep hills before we attended a luncheon on the campus. We remembered how we hiked in many places in the Bay Area, on Mount Diablo, at Martinez – and how we walked in San Francisco before the months of sheltering gave way to our getting vaccines. We sat outside on folding chairs carefully spaced safely apart at Kaiser in San Francisco as we waited to receive our first shot. We haven’t counted, but we’re sure we walked up and down those hills in at least 15 neighborhoods in the City over the months that stretched into years. Early on, traffic was light; as the months went on and as each one of us stretched our limits, tested our limits – traffic increased. Things were returning to normal.

Mary greets us each morning as we walk – up hills and down – in St. Mary’s cemetery, Oakland, 2020.

community, memories, remembering

Meeting the Bishop

Mary Elyn Bahlert

The year was 1981. That was the year I declared my intention to be ordained as a minister in the United Methodist Church at my local congregation, Kenwood United Methodist Church in Milwaukee. I had plans to attend the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California. Marjorie Matthews, the first woman to be consecrated a Bishop in the Church – the whole Church, across the world, across history – was Bishop of the United Methodist Church, Wisconsin Annual Conference.

At the time, I was still working as a Public Affairs Officer for the Food and Drug Administration, a position I’d taken the year before, after an early career with the Social Security Administration. Through my Sunday attendance and activity at Kenwood UMC I had learned about a trip to England, the “birthplace of Methodism,” where John Wesley, known as the founder of Methodism, had been born, in autumn. I signed up for the trip. I hadn’t been part of the United Methodist Church for very long, and I knew little of the history of the denomination (having been confirmed in the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod, I knew a lot about Luther and I had even memorized Luther’s Small Catechism) and I thought the timing of the trip was perfect for me as I prepared to leave my career to go to seminary. I signed up for the trip to visit Wesley’s England after securing a passport. I’d never traveled outside of the United States before.

And so the thought of the trip was exciting and well-timed for me. I would be traveling alone, and I hoped to meet a few folks who were also part of the tour. I had learned that Majorie Matthews, the Bishop, would be traveling on the first leg of the trip to London. Knowing this, I’d teased several friends that I’d be traveling with the Bishop, as if she and I were friends.

Apparently, Bishop Matthews was on my flight from Chicago to London Heathrow. When the flight landed, I made my way to the bus that waited for the group to take us to our hotel. As I stepped into the bus, I saw Bishop Matthews standing at her seat. I nodded to her, and she reached out to touch my arm. “Sit with me,” she said. She explained that she’d be in London overnight, as I would, and she asked if I would be interested in being her roommate for the night, to spend some time seeing London. After that night, her obligations would begin, and she would no longer be traveling with my group.

Bishop Matthews loved beautiful clothes. In our free hours that first day, we shopped together in London. I purchased a beautiful black skirt and matching blouse with a floral print that was more elegant than anything else I owned. Bishop Matthews served as my encourager. I was learning by being with her that as an ordained woman, who I was now would be part of who I would become. I could still enjoy the beautiful clothes I loved. I owned that outfit for many years.

And – I had a story to tell my friends when I returned home. Yes – I had traveled with Bishop Marjorie Matthews, the first woman Bishop – ever in history – in the world. I had an outfit to prove it!

*

The following Spring, when I was in Berkeley as a student at PSR, I received a note from Bishop Matthews that she’d be attending a meeting of the Council of Bishops in the Bay Area. She invited me to come to see her. When I did, she introduced me to the Bishop of the Northern California-Nevada Annual Conference, a kind and politic action. I was beginning to learn about the importance of community and how we can be generous to one another.

memories, reflecting, remembering, Uncategorized

Sue

Mary Elyn Bahlert

At home, I was the big sister. And so I was thrilled when my brother Ronn brought home a friendly and fun young woman – Sue – and introduced her to the family as the “girl” he was going to marry (this was the early 60’s, when young women were still referred to as “girls).” And I was thrilled when Sue, who was the middle of three sisters in her own family, took an interest in me.

Sue was the big sister I had never had. She listened to me and she made me laugh. (Sue and me laughing would play a big part in our lives as the years unfolded). I cherish a vivid memory of Sue and me together in the cramped bathroom of my family’s upper flat on the north side of Milwaukee. We sat together as she cried about an argument she was having with Ronn. More often those days, Sue made Ronn laugh, and Ronn made Sue laugh. As I bring Sue to my memory now, I can see her wide smile and the light in her eyes. She liked me, just as I liked her. And – she would never fail to tell me the truth. Never.

*

Early in their marriage, Ronn had had an accident as he drove alone on a Milwaukee street; he ended up in the hospital for several weeks. As the years unfolded, he would need to be hospitalized again and again. And so one summer, as Sue was Mom to three children under five already – David, Alicia, Vicki Sue – she was about to give birth to her fourth child. I stayed with her in their house in the suburbs of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, slept in her bed with her as she tossed and turned, unable to sleep a full night in the last days of this pregnancy. Ronn was hospitalized again.

Most nights, the two of us would sit together on the screened in porch, talking and laughing in the dark. All night long. That year, the cicadas arrived to fill the air with their loud screeching calls, early in the mornings, just before daylight. The children were still asleep, although we didn’t know when that would change, and our world was just the two of us, facing one another in the dark. Sue was a smoker – she smoked until she died in 2015 – and I listened and laughed to her deep voice as I watched the light of her cigarette go up and down in the dark, sitting there together until the morning light broke the silence that surrounded us.

*

The last time I saw Sue was in the spring of 2015. I’d taken a trip to visit the family in Northern Florida on my own that year, and the day before I left, I went to lunch with Sue and Alicia, her older daughter, who was her caregiver. It seems that a medication that Sue was taking was also taking her memory, and from time to time, she’d stare at me quizzically, trying to recall who I was. Then, at one point in the conversation, a moment of clarity, she said to me: “you’re a minister.” Yes! She did know who I was.

After lunch, I drove Sue and Alicia back home. I got out of the car to give them each a hug, and Sue held on to me for a long time. As I drove away a few moments later, I watched in the rear view mirror as Sue stood, waving and waving.

*

“Sue, Sister, Sweet”

I remember when I first knew you were my sister –
you, sitting on the edge of the claw footed bathtub
in the crowded bathroom of an old Milwaukee flat, crying.
I listened to your tears, and then, I knew:
You are my sister, Sue. 

I remember you, 8 months pregnant – again (!)
I remember your voice all night long
in the dark Carolina night,
the light from your cigarette, up and down, up and down,
the two of us, laughing, laughing:
We laughed until dawn.
During the day, you were Mom.

Years later (in my new life)
you brought me a home-baked goodie
while I was still in bed – insisting that I accept this gift of love!
I remember you marching me to the classical music CD’s in the back
of Barnes and Noble:
You bought me Beethoven.
I listened, all spring long, to the minor notes,
mourning another Sue.

Now, these notes, this mourning, is for you.
I mourn for you.

 I remember – I will remember always –
you waving goodbye (I watched you in the rear-view mirror),
as I drove away from you – for the last time.
“I don’t know when I’ll see you again, Sue,” I said into your silence.

You knew, you knew, you knew, my sweet, sweet sister, Sue. (poem by meb, 2015)