Category: Uncategorized

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When the phone rang

Mary Elyn Bahlert

Summer mornings in a small, narrow, Milwaukee flat, I’d sleep in a bit when I wasn’t in school, and spend my summer days bicycling through the city streets with friends, reading, or sitting on the front porch, taking in the sun, summer days so precious in the Midwest.

Every morning at 9, I heard the phone ring on the heavy black rotary phone that sat in the alcove in the small hallway that separated the bedrooms and the bathroom with its claw foot tub. Mom hurried from the kitchen to the hall, and from my room I could hear my Dad’s deep voice, loud above the noises in the factory, as he talked to my mother on his break from work. He must have made sure he had a dime in his pocket every day to be able to call home. He talked; she listened, saying a few words now and then. Then she’d go back to her housework, and the house was quiet again.

Later each morning, the phone in the alcove rang again. Mom walked from the kitchen to the hallway again, this time to answer the call from her sister, my Auntie Anne. Anne talked; Mom listened, answering with a word or two. Years later, I’d learn that Auntie Anne was a victim of domestic abuse, but I expect she didn’t talk about that, even with her sister. It will be a mystery that continues in my life as to whether my mother knew. Like all of us, I was surrounded by family secrets, unspoken agreements that had been alive before my days and will be alive when I’m gone.

Mom hung up the phone and returned to her work. Sometimes, she’d call to me to come out of my room, to go outside – it was summer! Or she’d see me reading in the big arm chair next to the door to the front porch, calling again to me to go outside – it was summer! The air is heavy in the Midwest, heavy with humidity and with secrets.

nostalgia, reflecting, remembering, Uncategorized

Like a Thief in the Night

Mary Elyn Bahlert

I don’t remember when Dad began to talk about it, but he said many times in the years before he died: “I hope the Lord comes like a thief in the night.” I expect he thought about it more after his diagnosis of colon cancer at 65. At the time, he had a colonoscopy, and he was always grateful for the next ten years of his life, before he died at 75.

He’d learned to live with the colonoscopy, he and Mom able to enjoy many years of retirement together, years that were the gift at the end of all those years in the steel mill. Dad had a union job and a retirement income as a result of that union job. I expect he thought he was living on borrowed time. In the years after he retired, there were trips to Hawaii to see his grandson, Colin. In those years, there were trips to North Carolina to see the older grandchildren. And there were trips to California to see Uncle Johnny and Uncle Pete, my mother’s brothers, and to see my husband and me. Using maps charted out via AAA, they traveled together, Dad the driver and Mom reading from the guide books, pointing out the sites.

Now, I’m grateful that they had those years together, to be able to travel together, to enjoy. They had fun. When Dad had symptoms of cancer again, the traveling stopped abruptly. He suffered again under another regime of chemotherapy, his illness made worse by the effects of the drugs. He spent his last days in St. Joseph’s Hospital in Milwaukee, never leaving the bed, the room often filled with friends he’d known from his days at A.O. Smith, union friends, and family from various parts of the country. My sister, pregnant with her youngest, and Colin were there every day. A few days before he passed, his sister Edna traveled from Gills Rock on the Door Peninsula of Wisconsin to see him once again, and for the last time.

On my last visit, as I sat in a chair next to the bed, I asked Dad to talk. He said he was tired; I should talk, instead. I sat silent, not sure what I wanted to say. Dad had always been in the talker in our house, my sister, and I quiet, “like their mother,” Dad had told their pastor. I was sitting in that chair when Dad looked at me and told me – the night before, when he’d had an episode and the hospital staff rushed to bring him back – he had seen Christ, and he was not afraid.

Thankfully, the Lord came like a thief in the night, not many nights after.

Sunset over the Pacific, 1/24/2023, Mary Elyn Bahlert

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Dinner with Dad

Mary Elyn Bahlert

When I’m talking to friends about our families, how we grew up, where we were from, about our siblings and our education, many of my friends refer to their parents in “formal” ways. I hear them speak about their “Mother,” and their “Father,” as opposed to how I refer to my parents: Mom and Dad.

Dad was an old school guy. Educated to the eighth grade in country schools, he was a worker. He was strong and he loved to work. When I describe him now, I say that he spoke in a dialect that is common to the northeastern part of the State of Wisconsin. When I travel to Door County now – a pilgrimage I like to take every year or so – I hear other folks who speak in the same dialect, even in my generation.

Dad was a Steelworker, a proud union man, proud of his strength and his long seniority at A.O. Smith Corporation in Milwaukee. The site of A.O. Smith remains to this time, but the place has changed names. Last Christmas, I received a large black coffee mug from my sister in Hawaii; across the sides of the mug, in big white letters: “AO Smith.” Most days, I use it now to have my morning coffee.

Dad was an old school guy, and in that era – I grew up in the 50’s and 60’s – that meant that he went to work and Mom stayed home to take care of the house – the flat – to cook, to tend to the children. Dad loved us, and he loved my mother. When I think about that now, those facts form a certain framework around my child, which like most childhood’s, had its share of losses, of sadnesses, of things lacking, even with my parents. In my middle years I had to take those relationships – mother to me, father to me, siblings to me – apart in therapy, but I came away with the love intact. I’m grateful.

When Dad retired at the age of 65, he left behind forty years of hard work as an inspector in a steel factory. He had been grateful to return to work after he suffered a heart attack in his early 60’s, and he credited his doctor with giving him that gift; Dad loved his work, hard as it was. When he’d been retired for several years, he told me that he still dreamt about his work at A.O. Smith from time to time.

Dad was an old school, hard-working laborer, and he loved us. His love and his pride for his family shone in his eyes – one blue, one brown. He loved to laugh, to share something fun with us. For all I lacked in childhood, love was not among the lack. He loved to talk – an extravert in a home of introverts.

A few years after Dad retired, I was living on my own on the other side of Milwaukee. Mom was away for the day and evening, and Dad invited me to dinner. He talked and talked as he and I sat in the kitchen, waiting for the chicken he had baking in the oven. I saw how he’d set the table for the two of us, and for the only time I remember, I sensed a formality about this invitation, about this dinner. For him – as it was for me – this was a special time.

A few weeks ago, I preached at a retirement center just out of the Bay Area. When the worship service was over, a man in a wheelchair came up to me to say a few words, to introduce himself and to thank me for being there that day. He had some thoughtful comments to say about my sermon, and then he surprised me by saying: “You did a lot of research to preach that sermon. You must come from a family of researchers.” Surprised, I simply told him that I was the first in my family to receive an education. I felt proud.

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Epiphany

Mary Elyn Bahlert

Epiphany, 2015

I started to follow in my sleep,
touched by the star.
The star paraded over my dreams,
night after night.
One night, I sat on a hill and watched the star
until the morning.
Then, I knew it would lead me if I chose to follow.

I followed.
I followed the star.

The route:  circuitous.
The country:  rugged.
The ruler:  vicious.
The companions:  odd - and wise.
The nights:  cold, colder than in my land.

I followed.
I followed the star.

Stories say the Star led to a child, The Child.
This I know now:
The star led to Light.
                                                                                                                                                                 Mary Elyn Bahlert, 2015

























































		


			
		
	






	
	

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Light in the darkness
	


	

							

			 Mary Elyn Bahlert		
		
		

			

I love to be aware of the changing light as each season gives way to the next:  spring to summer, summer to autumn, autumn to winter.  Sometimes now, as I grow older, I note the times of sunrise and sunset in my calendar, watching one season gently curve into the next season. 





It’s not a coincidence that the date of Christmas follows closely on the heels of the winter solstice.  Through the ages, people have observed the changing seasons, the days with darkness fast on their heels, coming before it’s time for dinner.  When I was younger and not conscious of how quickly one season rolls into the next,  -and how unrelenting the changing of light was/is, I complained as I left work at 4:30 in the afternoon, the sky already in nighttime darkness.  Night falls early in northern climates.  It takes the strong spirit of a human being to hold on to hope when darkness is the longest part of each day.  
No wonder the ancient people honoured the darkest days.  No wonder they lit fires, bringing warmth to the darkness.  No wonder our ancestors danced in the darkness, dancing to remind the light to return!





No wonder that people of different faiths honor this time of darkness, before the Light comes! 





Thankfully, each cycle of the year continues to roll in a circular fashion, bringing us back to the time of darkness, not stopping, but rolling on, the end of this year, the beginning of the next.  

As Christians, we honor this season of darkness by telling the story of the Child, born into a dark world to bring Light to wounded hearts.  We tell the story again and again, because, like human beings of all times and places – we need to be reminded.  We hold on to hope, the promise of the child whose life lays before them, and in that way, we hold on to hope for ourselves.  In a Season of darkness, we come with our begging bowls, begging for Light.  





Merry Christmas!





Reflections at Sunset, 12/2022, photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert