Category Archives: Family

Really Dark Blue

Family,

As we were walking home tonight, Jacob started singing, over and over:

Really dark blue,
really dark blue,
really dark blue…

The tune changed a bit, but the words didn’t. Terah and I wondered what was really dark blue, until finally we heard:

Really dark blue,
really dark blue,
really dark blue sky.

Really dark blue…

Then a little while later, we heard:

Really dark blue,
really dark blue,
really dark blue with morning stars.

It was such a cute moment that it’s hard to convey it in words.

I even got an audio recording of it on my phone, which I’ll perhaps post someday.

Update 21:05: For Jacob’s usual bedtime song tonight, I offered to sing the “really dark blue” song for him. When I sang “really dark blue with morning stars,” he said, “no, that’s not it. It’s MOONLIT stars.” So I guess my 3-year-old just corrected my blog post.

I see a career in copy editing in his future…

Once, We Were Makers

Family,

I saw an article on Wired today: The Lost Tribes of RadioShack. It is well worth the read even if you’re not into electronics. A key quote:

[H]is shop is a lone outpost; in a single generation, the American who built, repaired, and tinkered with technology has evolved into an entirely new species: the American who prefers to slip that technology out of his pocket and show off its killer apps. Once, we were makers. Now most of us are users.

I remember as a kid eagerly awaiting each year’s new RadioShack catalog. I’d read them pretty much cover to cover for fun. And who wouldn’t? The catalogs had fun things like radios, telephone gadgets, calculators, tape recorders, electronic “lab kits”, books, components, LEDs… I loved the catalogs and loved the store.

My parents bought me a electronic kit (if memory serves 20 years later, it’s the “deluxe 160-project electronic kit” from page 156 of the 1988 catalog, though it may have been purchased a different year). I had endless fun with that thing. It had resistors, diode, capacitors, oscillator, speaker, LED, relay, etc — plenty to make a bunch of kid-friendly projects.

Just looking at the catalog makes me excited even today. On the next page from the kit I had is a $5 crystal radio kit which needs no power source — “Solderless. With earphone, instructions, theory.” On page 28 there was a revolving red light, and some microcassette recorders on p. 36 (I had one of those for awhile).

I had enthusiasm for building and figuring out things for a long time. My dad let me take apart an old lawn mower for fun once — I’m sure he knew ahead of time it would never be back together. One of his friends from work built homemade contraptions out of things like an old vacuum cleaner (attach a cardboard tube to the exhaust and you get a great tennis ball shooter). And there was always all sorts of fun junk to discover up in the barn.

I eventually shifted to a different sort of “making things”: programming. It has kept me busy for quite a number of years.

But the Wired article has a point. RadioShack is struggling. Many people have no interest in making or fixing things anymore. The best-selling smartphone in the world comes sealed in a metal case where not even the battery can be replaced, the software is dictated by a company in California, and good luck trying to program for it without signing your life away first. A far cry from the first computer I used, a TRS-80 Color Computer II, bought, yes, at RadioShack. Turn it on, and in a few seconds you get a BASIC prompt. Can’t really use it without programming. Being able to read its manual was an early motivation for me to work at learning to read.

It is sad that so many devices can’t be worked on anymore, and that so many people don’t care. It is difficult for me to give Jacob (and later, Oliver) the sort of experience I had as a child. Companies would love to sell us $50 DVD sets, $300 “educational” game systems, $40 educational games, and any number of $30 plastic toys (some of which we have and the boys enjoy).

I’d rather give him a $10 bag of resistors, capacitors, wire, battery holders, LEDs, and a book, and see what he can come up with (when he’s a bit older, of course). And, in fact, he and I built his first computer together. We installed the ultimate in operating systems for tinkering: Linux.

This all brings me back to RadioShack. I’ve been working on ham radio lately, with an eye to that being a project for Jacob (age 3.5), Oliver (just turned 1), and me to enjoy in the future. I needed some cable, and had been told by many people to visit the RadioShack in Derby, KS. It’s like the one mentioned in the Wired article: huge, selling everything from washing machines to bulk cable, except this one specializes in amateur radio.

I asked Jacob if he would like to come with me to a radio store. “Dad, I would LOVE that!” He brought his little semi-broken walkie-talkies with him to use during the hour drive there. At one point, he was concerned that a radio store is like a library and he might have to leave them on a shelf. I assured him he could keep them.

We got to the RadioShack and he loved it. He couldn’t even really contain his excitement. He ran back and forth along the bright green stripe running down the middle of the carpet. He excitedly watched them measure out 60ft of RG-8 coax for me. He pushed buttons on the demo clothes dryer, looked at all the antennas, and just had a great time.

And he’s been interested in my radio, too. When I was talking to somebody on it the other day, he said, “I think he is at the radio store. He is having fun there.” Right now, everybody I talk to on the radio is at the radio store to him. Jacob loves the fact that the backlight on my FT-857D can change colors, and often comes into the office just so I can put it into setup mode and let him spin the big wheel to change the colors. He enjoys opening boxes of components, and came out to help (and run around) while I suspended a dipole from some trees last Friday.

I had told Jacob when we got to the store that “This radio store is called RadioShack.” He obviously took that to heart, because now if he hears me talking about “a radio store”, he will say, “Dad, actually it is radio SHACK.”

So I say thank you to the Derby RadioShack for keeping the magic of making things with your dad alive for another generation.

Jacob has a new computer — and a favorite shell

Children & Computing, Debian, Family, Linux

Earlier today, I wrote about building a computer with Jacob, our 3.5-year-old, and setting him up with a Linux shell.

We did that this evening, and wow — he loves it. While the Debian Installer was running, he kept begging to type, so I taught him how to hit Alt-F2 and fired up cat for him. That was a lot of fun. But even more fun was had once the system was set up. I installed bsdgames and taught him how to use worm. worm is a simple snake-like game where you use the arrow keys to “eat” the numbers. That was a big hit, as Jacob likes numbers right now. He watched me play it a time or two, then tried it himself. Of course he crashed into the wall pretty quickly, which exits the game.

I taught him how to type “worm” at the computer, then press Enter to start it again. Suffice it to say he now knows how to spell worm very well. Yes, that’s right: Jacob’s first ever Unix command was…. worm.

He’d play the game, and cackle if he managed to eat a number. If he crashed into a wall, he’d laugh much harder and run over to the other side of the room.

Much as worm was a hit, the Linux shell was even more fun. He sometimes has a problem with the keyboard repeat, and one time typed “worrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrm”. I tried to pronounce that for him, which he thought was hilarious. He was about to backspace to fix it, when I asked, “Jacob, what will happen if you press Enter without fixing it?” He looked at me with this look of wonder and excitement, as if to say, “Hey, I never thought of that. Let’s see!” And a second later, he pressed Enter.

The result, of course, was:

-bash: worrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrm: command not found

“Dad, what did it do?”

I read the text back, and told him it means that the computer doesn’t know what worrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrm means. Much laughter. At that point, it became a game. He’d bang at random letters, and finally press Enter. I’d read what it said. Pretty soon he was recognizing the word “bash”, and I heard one time, “Dad, it said BASH again!!!” Sometimes if he’d get semicolons at the right place, he’d get two or three “bashes”. That was always an exciting surprise. He had more fun at the command line than he did with worm, and I think at least half of it was because the shell was called bash.

He took somewhat of an interest in the hardware part earlier in the evening, though not quite as much. He was interested in opening up other computers to take parts out of them, but bored quickly. The fact that Terah was cooking supper probably had something to do with that. He really enjoyed the motherboard (and learned that word), and especially the CPU fan. He loved to spin it with his finger. He thought it interesting that there would be a fan inside his computer.

When it came time to assign a hostname, I told Jacob he could name his computer. Initially he was confused. Terah suggested he could name it “kitty”, but he didn’t go for it. After a minute’s thought, he said, “I will name it ‘Grandma Marla.'” Confusion from us — did he really understand what he was saying? “You want to name your computer ‘Grandma Marla?'” “Yep. That will be silly!” “Sure you don’t want to name it Thomas?” “That would be silly! No. I will name my computer ‘Grandma Marla.”” OK then. My DNS now has an entry for grandma-marla. I had wondered what he would come up with. You never know with a 3-year-old!

It was a lot of fun to see that sense of wonder and experimentation at work. I remember it from the TRS-80 and DOS machine, when I would just try random things to see what they would do. It is lots of fun to watch it in Jacob too, and hear the laughter as he discovers something amusing.

We let Jacob stay up 2 hours past his bedtime to enjoy all the excitement. Tomorrow the computer moves to his room. Should be loads of excitement then too.

Introducing the Command Line at 3 years

Children & Computing, Debian, Family, Hardware, Linux

Jacob is very interested in how things work. He’s 3.5 years old, and into everything. He loves to look at propane tanks, as the pressure meter, and open the lids on top to see the vent underneath. Last night, I showed him our electric meter and the spinning disc inside it.

And, more importantly, last night I introduced him to the Linux command line interface, which I called the “black screen.” Now, Jacob can’t read yet, though he does know his letters. He had a lot of fun sort of exploring the system.

I ran “cat”, which will simply let him bash on the keyboard, and whenever he presses Enter, will echo what he typed back at him. I taught him how to hold Shift and press a number key to get a fun symbol. His favorite is the “hat” above the 6.

Then I ran tr a-z A-Z for him, and he got to watch the computer convert every lowercase letter into an uppercase letter.

Despite the fact that Jacob enjoys watching Youtube videos of trains and even a bit of Railroad Tycoon 3 with me, this was some pure exploration that he loves. Sometimes he’d say, “Dad, what will this key do?” Sometimes I didn’t know; some media keys did nothing, and some other keys caused weird things to appear. My keyboard has back and forward buttons designed to use with a web browser. He almost squealed with delight when he pressed the forward button and noticed it printed lots of ^@^@^@ characters on the screen when he held it down. “DAD! It makes LOTS of little hats! And what is that other thing?” (The at-sign).

I’ve decided it’s time to build a computer for Jacob. I have an old Sempron motherboard lying around, and an old 9″ black-and-white VGA CRT that’s pretty much indestructible, plus an old case or two. So it will cost nothing. This evening, Jacob will help me find the parts, and then he can help me assemble them all. (This should be interesting.)

Then I’ll install Debian while he sleeps, and by tomorrow he should be able to run cat all by himself. I think that, within a few days, he can probably remember how to log himself in and fire up a program or two without help.

I’m looking for suggestions for text-mode games appropriate to a 3-year-old. So far, I’ve found worm from bsdgames that looks good. It doesn’t require him to have quick reflexes or to read anything, and I think he’ll pick up using the arrow keys to move it just fine. I think that tetris is probably still a bit much, but maybe after he’s had enough of worm he would enjoy trying it.

I was asked on Twitter why I’ll be using the command line for him. There are a few reasons. One is that it will actually be usable on the 9″ screen, but another one is that it will expose the computer at a different level than a GUI would. He will inevitably learn about GUIs, but learning about a CLI isn’t inevitable. He won’t have to master coordination with a mouse right away, and there’s pretty much no way he can screw it up. (No, I won’t be giving him root yet!) Finally, it’s new and different to him, so he’s interested in it right now.

My first computer was a TRS-80 Color Computer (CoCo) II. Its primary interface, a BASIC interpreter, I guess counts as a command-line interface. I remember learning how to use that, and later DOS on a PC. Some of the games and software back then had no documentation and crashed often. Part of the fun, the challenge, and sometimes the frustration, was figuring out just what a program was supposed to do and how to use it. It will be fun to see what Jacob figures out.

Tunnels and Slippers

Family

“Dad! Shall we play tunnels and slippers?”

If you spend much time in our house, chances are you’ll hear Jacob, our 3-year-old, ask me that question. It might sound a bit mysterious, but in 3-year-old logic, it totally works.

One day, Jacob and I accidentally invented “tunnels”. I would sit on the couch, the footstool a foot or two away, with my legs on it. Jacob started crawling underneath the resulting “tunnel”, then got excited about crawling on top of it, crashing down off of it, or slowly sliding down. Sometimes I would take one leg off, and he would “fix” the tunnel. Afterwards, he’d excitedly tell me, “Dad! I fixed the tunnel all by myself!”

This being winter, I usually wear slippers around the house to keep my feet warm. Jacob steadfastly refuses to wear anything but bare feet, maintaining his feet are warm when asked.

One day while we were playing tunnels, Jacob started trying to steal my slipper. I defended it by using my other foot to tickle him. He eventually got it, much to his delight. Then he’d try to get the other slipper. If you were to listen to a CD of this, you’d hear a frenzy of cackling, laughter from both of us, and eventual shrieks of delight as he steals the second slipper.

At this point, what’s a 3-year-old to do with two ill-gotten slippers? Why, put them on and try to run off with them, of course! So Jacob puts them on, and if I am too slow trying to recover them, will helpfully prompt me with “Shall you get the slippers back?” When I stand up, he’ll shriek, and waddle off at top speed — which isn’t that fast, considering he’s wearing slippers that won’t fit his feet for another 15 years.

Eventually I will make a big show of having very cold feet and wanting my slippers back. He will laugh in delight, and continue trying to escape. Eventually I’ll catch him, lift him up high, and shake his legs until the slippers fall off. Then it’s a mad dash to see which one of us will get them back on first. If I do, then it’s back to the couch for more tunnels and slippers.

So there you have it: tunnels and slippers.

Interestingly, I asked Jacob the other day if he wanted to wear HIS slippers. He predictably said no. I pointed out that if he wears his, he’d be just like me. He said, “Here they are. Shall you help me put them on?” I did. He walked around proudly. I asked him if his feet were warm. Yes, they were, he said. “So you won’t need to steal my slippers anymore?” A brief look of panic crept across his face! I felt bad, until he replied with, “No, my feet still VERY VERY cold, dad! Shall we play tunnels and slippers right now?”

Resurrecting Old VHS Videos (and Panasonic DMR-EZ38VK Review)

Family, Reviews, TV,

I have a problem that I’m sure is pretty common. My parents used to rent a VHS camcorder from time to time. Not only that, but various school plays, musicals, etc. are on VHS tapes. As a result, they and I have a library of family memories on VHS. And it appears those tapes go as far back as 1987.

You might imagine there are several problems here. One is that VHS tapes degrade over time. Those that were recorded in EP mode (6 hours on a T-120 tape) are especially prone to this. I’ve been worried about how well those 22-year-old tapes will perform even now.

Another problem is that VHS tapes are getting hard to watch these days. We own a VCR, but it’s probably been 7 years since it was hooked up to anything on a regular basis.

So I have meant for some time to convert these old VHS recordings to DVD format. My initial plan was to use the PVR-250 hardware MPEG-2 encoder card that is used with MythTV to do that. But it’s in the basement, used with MythTV, and would generally be a hassle. As a result, I’ve been “meaning to do” this project for about 5 years, and haven’t.

Last night, I found that tape from 1987. It has a few priceless seconds of my grandpa Klassen on it — he passed away in 1990.

The Panasonic DMR-EZ38VK

I initially set out looking for a dedicated DVD recorder with an S-video input, but wound up buying one with an integrated VHS deck as well: the Panasonic DMR-EZ38VK.

I started with a DVD recorder review on CNet. I was primarily interested in video quality. Surprisingly, it seems there is significant difference in video quality among DVD recorders, which was what led me to the Panasonic line.

I was initially planning on a DMR-EA18K or DMR-EZ18K (the difference is whether or not they include a TV tuner). I was having trouble finding them in stock at the vendors I normally use, and wound up with the DMR-EZ38VK instead. B&H had a open-box demo unit at a special discount, so I snapped it up.

Video Quality

I’ve been recording most items to DVD in “SP” mode, which stores 2h per single-layer DVD. I’d concur with CNet: this produces spectacular results. I don’t think I’ve noticed any MPEG compression artifacts at all in this mode.

Some items, such as TV programs or home recordings with little motion, I’ve recorded in “LP” mode. This mode stores 4 hours on a single-layer DVD. It’s also surprisingly good, considering the amount of compression needed. I have noticed MPEG artifacts in that mode, though not to an extremely annoying degree.

The copying process

I start by popping an empty disc in the drive. Then I’ll put in the VHS tape and position it to the place where I want it to start copying. Then I hit Functions -> Copy -> VHS to DVD -> without finalizing, and away it goes. It automatically detects end-of-tape and helpfully won’t copy 6 hours of static.

When a tape is done copying, you can copy from more tapes to the disc, eject it and finalize it later, or work with it.

When I’m ready to finish a disc, I’ll go and change the “disc name”, which is what shows up at the top of the disc menu that the unit generates. If I feel ambitious, I might change the titles of individual titles as well. But all of this has to be done with an on-screen keyboard, and thus takes awhile, so I usually don’t. Finalizing commits the menu to disc and fixates it, and takes about a minute.

Track Detection

This feature is both a blessing and a curse.

The Panasonic recorder can often detect the break between a recording on a VHS. Newer VCRs would explicitly mark these, but it can detect it even with older camcorders with reasonable accuracy.

When it detects this, it creates a new title on the DVD. This takes a few seconds, so it also rewinds the VHS tape a few seconds, then starts copying again.

Unfortunately, if you’re just wanting to watch one long recording all the way through, this results in a few seconds being duplicated right before each scene transition, which is rather jarring. There is no way to disable this feature, either. The only workaround is to read from an external VCR. But if you do that, you lose the end-of-tape detection.

Generally I’ve decided to just live with it for now. It’s a cheap price to pay for an otherwise pretty good workflow.

Other annoyances

While copying, you can’t access the position indicators for either the VHS deck or the DVD recorder. So you don’t know how far along on the tape you are, or how much space is left on the DVD, until copying stops.

Also, it would be very nice to be able to tell it “copy 23 minutes and 15 seconds from VHS to DVD” when you know you don’t want to copy the whole tape.

The unit also has SD and USB ports for reading digital video. Frustratingly, a USB keyboard can’t be used to edit disc or track titles. That seems like an obvious and cheap feature to have.

Overall

Overall I am happy with the unit. It produces very good quality results, and is pretty easy to use overall. I don’t think I’d pick a different one if I had to do it again. But it could be made better for people that are copying large numbers of VHS tapes to DVD.

Generally, though, I can just start the copy and let it sit for a couple of hours, trusting it to do the reasonable thing with a tape. That’s convenient enough that I can get other things done while it’s copying, and takes little enough of my time that I’m actually working through stacks of tapes now.

Update 8/27 I have now tried some discs from this playing back on my PS3 connected to a 1080p HDTV. On that setup, compression artifacts are noticeable at the 2hr setting, and more are noticeable at the 4hr setting. I don’t think that they are any necessarily any more noticeable than any other home-produced DVD, though, especially on the SP setting. They had not been very visible on SD equipment.

Flowers, Music, and Grandparents

Family, Music, ,

Flowers

I’ve written a lot lately about my Grandma Klassen, who passed away this week. But I’m going to start this post about my Grandma Goerzen.

She died when I was just an infant. I never knew her, but as the years pass, it seems that I remember her better and better.

After we moved out to the farm where she and Grandpa Goerzen lived for decades, we noticed some flowers she had planted 30 years ago were still coming up, having withstood hail, hot summers, frost, construction equipment, and neglect all that time. Terah said, “It’s like your grandma left us a housewarming gift.”

Some of these flowers had never bloomed. Until this week.

One bloomed for the first time the day Grandma Klassen died.

A second bloom appeared the day of her funeral.

Music

My jr. high and high school band teacher loves music (and old engines, but that’s another story). You couldn’t sign up for “band” at my high school; you’d sign up for the class called LIFE. To him, music and life are indistinguishable. He says that anybody can speak to somebody, but music is the best way to speak to the heart.

My Grandpa Klassen died when I was 11. Grandma Klassen, before her health declined, loved to tell me the story of the music at his funeral. At his funeral, my mom and I played a piano duet of Nearer, My God to Thee which we had already learned for a different event. When we were done, Rev. Epp went to the pulpit and said something along the lines of, “If the music in heaven is as good as that, it’ll be a great place indeed.”

I was just 11, and though music did speak to me at that age already, I don’t think I understood how it moved people, such as my grandma, until many years later.

Music

Grandma Klassen loved music, too, and that’s reflected in each of her children — all of them play trumpet, for instance. So it’s no surprise that there was a lot of music this week.

She died as two of her children were singing hymns to her at her room in the nursing home.

Two of her grandchildren played trumpet for her at her burial.

And my brother and his wife played trumpet and piano at her funeral.

It was all beautiful, and like my band teacher said, it spoke to my heart.

Music #3

I knew about gradma’s love of music for quite awhile. When she was in better health, I took her to concerts sometimes. One of her favorite hymns was Joyful, Joyful, but she hadn’t known it was based on Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. I learned that the Wichita Symphony Orchestra was performing the 9th, and took her to the performance. She loved it, and I seem to recall that she kept talking about it for a few years afterwards. It certainly didn’t hurt that the singing on the 4th movement was in German. I burned her a “new-fangled” CD of it, which I frequently saw in or near her CD player.

The Kansas Mennonite Men’s Chorus is an all-volunteer choir with about 300 members. They give a couple of concerts a year, and occasionally tour throughout North America and Europe. Their motto is “we sing that others may live” because 100% of money collected at their concerts goes directly to charity.

Attending one of their concerts is a powerful experience not easily forgotten. I think the only time I’ve heard a choir come close to being as amazing as that was when I had the opportunity to attend a Robert Shaw concert a few years ago.

I went with grandma to one of the Kansas Mennonite Men’s Chorus performances a few years ago. As you might expect, she loved it — I think she called it “powerfully good.”

This year, I finally joined the choir. I still remember that first practice. We “warmed up” by singing Holy God, We Praise Thy Name — a song that has opened every KMMC concert for years. These people hadn’t sung together for almost a year, and there were plenty of new people like me there too. But it only took a few bars of singing before I realized just what it was I had joined. The choir started out with the quietest, but most powerful singing you can imagine: “Holy God, we praise thy name.” By the time we got to the end of the page, the building was ringing from 300 men singing “Infinite thy vast domain, everlasting is thy reign!” at the top of their voices, in perfect harmony. We got to the end. The director said. . . “Wow.”

I don’t think a first practice ever spoke to my heart before that day.

Music #4

Nearly 20 years ago, Grandma Klassen bought me a new bible. After she gave it to me, I asked her what some of her favorite passages were. She took me straight to the blessing in Numbers 6, and made sure I underlined it and bookmarked it. It goes like this:

“The Lord bless you,
The Lord keep you,
Make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you,
The Lord life up his countenance upon you and give you peace.”

My uncle had read this blessing to her the last time he talked to her. And the KMMC for years has ended their concerts with a beautiful benediction based on this passage. Grandma heard it at the concert I attended with her. It has been a favorite of my mom for years, too.

So I had the thought: we really ought to sing it as a benediction at her funeral. It was hard to find the right mix of people on short notice, but we wound up with me singing baritone, my brother singing 2nd tenor (we both normally sing bass), and his wife both playing piano and singing 1st tenor, and relying on the piano to fill in the bass part.

We had a little chance to practice before the funeral, but not a lot. The two of them have done a lot musically, but I haven’t nearly as much, so I got in some extra practice at home, too.

When it came time to sing, it was an emotional moment for sure — more than a bit hard to focus, knowing the history and meaning of these words. When we got to “and give you peace”, and moved into the chorus of “amen” that finishes the song, I almost broke down right there, but didn’t quite.

We didn’t give a perfect performance, for sure, on such short notice. (And they had me singing with them, so we wouldn’t have been perfect even with plenty of notice!)

But it didn’t have to be perfect. After we ended the last, quiet “amen”, I think I heard about a half-dozen noses blowing all at once. My band teacher was right about music speaking to the heart.

Later, during lunch, my aunt said to me, “Wow, John, I’ve never heard you sing before!” “That’s right, and this may be the last time you hear me sing, too! I don’t normally sing in a small group like this.”

A few minutes later, my uncle that gave the message came over and talked to the three of us. “John, today you three brainwashed me.” “Oh?” “Yes. For years, I thought that there was no music as beautiful as the trumpet. After hearing you three sing, I have to reconsider.”

And so my band teacher was also right: music is life. My grandma was a person that could hardly speak without touching the heart. That beautiful melody of her life didn’t stop when she died Tuesday afternoon. I’ve been hearing it all week.

Goodbyes

Family

Yesterday was my grandma Klassen’s funeral at Alexanderwohl Mennonite Church, where she had been a member for decades.

My uncle, a pastor, gave the meditation. He had been a missionary in Vietnam during the war, and he remained there after the United States withdrawal. During that time, things were very dangerous for him, and all means of communicating with the family back home were completely cut off. My grandparents had no way of knowing if he was OK.

He later heard of a conversation my grandma had with a neighbor one day during this time:

Neighbor: “You must be so worried about your son in Vietnam!”

Grandma: “Not really. I gave him back to the Lord the day he graduated high school.”

Neighbor: “If you’re not worried, then I’m REALLY worried!”

Grandma: “Why worry? Heaven is just as close to Vietnam as it is to Kansas.”

That exchange sums her up pretty well, I think. She was so deeply religious that it gave her a great sense of peace about life.

We heard so many stories about her this week. We heard how, when she was already in her upper 80s, she helped a farmer get his equipment out of the mud and ran some heavy farm machinery. She was in charge of my cousin’s schoolwork for a little while (she lived with them back then, and his parents were taking a trip). She apparently made sure he did every little assignment left for him in exacting detail, even the ones that his mother had said were “extra”, just in case he needed something else to do. Apparently when his parents got back, he said he loved his time with grandma, but begged them to never put her in charge of his schoolwork again!

I told the story of learning to play chess when I was a child. My grandpa was teaching me the game. I was having some trouble learning some of the rules, and was frustrated because he was also beating me (like usual). After a little while of me getting more and more frustrated, grandma said something to him in German and all of a sudden I started winning.

Yesterday evening was the community Good Friday church, with the combined choirs of our church and Alexanderwohl singing. That wasn’t the easiest thing to do after the funeral in the morning, but I’m glad I did. Tomorrow I’ll be singing again for Easter.

Goodbye

Family

Jacob has lately been telling us “gate gamma kassen so sick” (Great Grandma Klassen is so sick), after his visit to the hospital, and it’s true.

Today started normal enough, but by 2:45 I got an email from my mom, saying that grandma had taken yet another turn for the worse; her pulse was racing, her temperature feverish, and her breathing shallow and difficult. The last grandchild that was going to be there made it, and got the last flicker of recognition from grandma. I wrapped some things up at work.

Then I made the short drive from work to the nursing home, and got there just after 4. I went in to her room there, and it was full of family. Two of her children were singing her favorite hymns. I can never forget my uncle’s deep bass voice as he stood at her bedside, holding her arm, while my aunt patted her head, both of them singing. Grandma’s only remaining sibling, her younger brother Melvin, sat on the other side of the bed, looking on.

Grandma’s white table and chairs, which were in grandma and grandpa’s house as long as I can remember, and followed grandma through all of the four other places she lived in the last years of her life, were in her room at the nursing home too. It always felt like home to be with grandma and those familiar things that she always took with her. Despite what was happening, I was glad she was back at home.

My uncle motioned me over to her bedside, and I took her hand for a few minutes. It felt cold and weak; for the first time, she didn’t grab my hand at all.

A nurse came in to check oxygen saturation, but the machine wasn’t able to get a reading due to poor circulation to her hand. She wasn’t able to get a heart rate either because the heart was racing so fast. She discussed briefly whether the family wanted them to continue giving her oxygen, and they decided that they would, for her comfort.

My uncle and aunt kept singing. I blew my nose and dabbed at my eyes, and there were hugs all around. And just a few minutes later, grandma peacefully stopped breathing, maybe 20 minutes after I had arrived.

They went to get the nurse, who came back to listen to grandma’s heart again, though we knew what she would find. She took the stethoscope off, and she almost lost her composure, but managed to say “you can turn the oxygen off now.” Several people gave grandma a last hug.

After a few minutes with just the family, they told the nurses to go ahead and call the funeral home. That set off a lot of activity making arrangements for the next few days, funeral plans, and the like. I stepped back into grandma’s room a few times, while the family was in the sitting area right outside it discussing. I looked around at the family photos on the wall, the old table and chairs, the recliner. Now, these are the things that were grandma’s. It didn’t feel like home anymore.

Terah and Jacob were stuck at home — Terah’s car was at the mechanic for repair today. I called to give her the news. She wanted to come to be with the family, but I didn’t really want to leave. She tried calling some friends to see if they could give her a lift to the mechanic, but not one of them was available. I talked to her again and suggested she just call the mechanic. She wasn’t even halfway through describing the situation when he interrupted with, “We’ll have it at your place right away!” “Well, I don’t expect you to have to do that, or you could certainly wait until you close.” “Nope, this isn’t your average community, we’ll bring it right over. You should be there.”

Grandma has enjoyed a simple life and had requested a simple death: no extraordinary measures at the end of life, no embalming either. So, by law, the burial must happen within 24 hours of death, and will be tomorrow.

After all the arrangements, people realized nobody had supper yet. We went to the quickest available option — pizza — and ate there. It was paid for out of grandma’s remaining money — the last meal of so many that she provided for her family over the years. It was a happy meal.

As I drove home, NPR news was on the radio. There were the same stories we hear all the time: the economy, the mideast, the president. Normally I’m interested, but today I shut it off. Today is different.

Tomorrow, for the second time in four years, I will help carry a grandparent’s casket a few days before Easter.

I’ll end tonight with this photo. It was taken soon after Jacob was born. Grandma came to the hospital and held him. That smile sums her up perfectly.

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Today

Family

This morning started with a call from my mom. She was calling to let us know that my grandmother had apparently taken a turn for the worse, and we didn’t know how much time was left.

Terah, Jacob, and I got dressed and went to the hospital to visit. Grandma had been in a partial coma that left her able to hear, nod, and hold hands, but unable to speak. Apparently she came out of it overnight, and was talking and even singing with my mom and aunt some. She seemed happy, loved to hear the old German prayers she grew up with. She said some memorable things I’ll have to write about later too.

By the time we got there, she wasn’t that active anymore, and was about like she was yesterday. She could see us, and give our hands a squeeze, maybe nod occasionally. She drifted asleep often. One time when I saw she was awake with her eyes open, I lifted up Jacob to where she could see him. Immediately her face brightened, and I saw the biggest smile on her face that I’d seen in days! She smiled and waved to him, and with a small bit of coaxing, he waved back. Then she wiggled her foot, and when Jacob noticed, he wiggled his foot back at her. He’s 92 years younger than her, and they still managed to communicate just fine.

Grandma held my hand for awhile this morning; she loves to have a hand or two to hold. My cousin showed up for a visit, and I was going to get up to let her sit down, and when grandma felt my hand leaving, she grabbed on tighter. I went around to the other side of the bed and held the other hand.

In the last couple of days, grandma’s hearing has become much sharper than before, and I’m pretty sure her memory has too.

When it was time for us to leave and go to church, I was holding her hand, looking into her eyes, saying goodbye, and how much I loved her. I got a hand squeeze, and saw a few tears at her eyes — the first I can remember seeing that. As I pulled my hand away to leave, she once again grabbed tighter and was still looking at me. I think she thought this was the last time she’d see me, and didn’t want the moment to pass too quickly. But that also guaranteed that I’d be back in the afternoon.

It was Palm Sunday in church today, and as every year, the Palm Sunday celebration ends with Bill singing I walked today where Jesus walked while Dale carries in a heavy cross. Right when Bill is singing “I climbed the hill on Calvary, where on the cross He died!”, Dale is climbing the steps to the stage and laying the cross there. Hardly a dry eye in the room at that.

For lunch, my parents were still hosting their monthly college student get-together/home cooking event — which we usually attend too. After that, I dropped off Terah and Jacob at home, and went back to the hospital.

By the time I had left, grandma had 27 visitors just today. When I arrived, my great uncle (her brother) and aunt were there, along with her pastor and a deacon from her church, plus my mom and my aunt. More people came and went throughout the afternoon, and I enjoyed visiting and hearing stories about the family and grandma all afternoon. She was sometimes awake and able to look at people, and sometimes deeply asleep. I heard her say “God bless you” to several people.

It was awhile before I had a chance to go be with her, and when I did, she was asleep, so I sat beside her bed and held her hand for quite awhile, maybe an hour, while visiting with family in the room. At one point, a nurse came in to give her some more morphine by IV. I got up to get our of her way, but the nurse said, “Don’t think of it; I can work around you, and what you’re doing is more important than what I’m doing anyway.”

Some of her old friends from church came by, and prayed with her in German, and recited the words to some German hymns and poems, which I think she really enjoyed. Her eyes were closed through most of it, but when they got to the end of each item, they opened, saying thank you, I believe.

Eventually things calmed down, and it was time for me to head home. Grandma was awake by then, and I looked at her and said goodbye, and that I was glad I got to see her again. We gave each other a final hand squeeze, and then she let go of my hand this time. I’m glad I came back for sure.

They say sometimes that people that are dying feel like they need permission to die, before they will let themselves go. I wondered if grandma was feeling that way today. But then I hear that my uncle, who is driving in from 8 hours away through wintry weather, called and ask that she be given this message: “Tell mom that I’m coming, but if Jesus gets there first, she should go with him.” That might not work on everybody, but for her, it’s the best way I could think of to give her permission.