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RSSBack Issue: April, 2010I did something dangerous.Posted April 30th, 2010 by Jen in family life, the ranch4 Comments » I let my kids visit the neighbor’s little farm.
Technorati Tags: family life, ranch, baby goat, new chick  Pogo: Toxic to the Tongue! A Tragic Tale of Little LPosted April 24th, 2010 by Jen in family life, the ranch5 Comments » Do you remember pogo sticks? As a little girl in the ’70s, this was one of my favorite past-times, jumping and balancing like a happy kangaroo. Besides my stilts, another old-school toy, the pogo stick was IT. One of these spring-loaded poles showed up at my school, and the children lined up for their turn to bounce their way to a new school record. My five year old son was hopping like Tigger with the rest of them, until Wednesday.
The hurry to gather him and my other three children to race off to the doctor was a flurry of emotions, yet in those times of crisis, a mother is somehow able to hold it together. I had no thoughts other than keeping him from choking on the blood that kept coming, and trusted that he was in God’s hands. Because when it rains it pours, of course my husband was out of town for this entire ordeal, and I also put the truck in a small ravine in my haste to get to the hospital in the neighboring city where surgery had been scheduled. Because I live in a rural area, the surgeon actually personally called to find out where I was. “I’ll be there as soon as I get out of the ditch,” I responded calmly. As I was waiting for my neighbor to arrive with his John Deere to pull me out, I placed Little L on a nearby rock and comforted him with hugs and my coat wrapped about him to fight off the chilly spring wind. His jacket had, as might be expected, been left at school in the swirl of events. In these times of calamity, however, as in most watershed moments, there are diamonds in the rough. The staff at St. Charles in Bend were amazing. The ENT surgeon was a father of four children, like me, and he and the nursing and anesthesiology folks just fell in love with Little L and made him feel so special that he said, despite his great pain, “I like it here.” In his new tongue-mangled lisp, he was so charming as he explained that he got hurt when he “wath pogo-ing.” My dear friend Julia showed up to take my other three children to dinner and then home to tuck them into bed. Since Little L couldn’t eat or drink a drop as he waited for general anesthesia and surgery, I couldn’t very well eat or feed my kids in front of the ravenous little soul. She saved the day, and I must say, I had a few other friends call and offer to do the same. We are very blessed. One of the most trying moments was an unexpected one, and the Lord sent me another friend to navigate this part. Have you ever witnessed a child coming out of anesthesia? Howling, bellowing, thrashing, wild-eyed — these descriptions barely do justice to the occasion. So, having Courtenay show up unexpectedly at the hospital was a Godsend. She brought me coffee, gathered popsicles and Children’s Motrin for Little L to aid in his recovery, and offered just the right conversation diversion I needed to not be overly consumed with worry over my baby boy. All stitched up and wranglers back on, Little L was ready to go home. I had promised, however, to take him “somewhere special” and he was holding me to this pledge. Aaaah, it was nearly midnight and after a grueling day like this, I couldn’t, I just couldn’t do anything else. He wanted pancakes, his favorite comfort food. He drifted off as we headed home, and finally, I was carrying him in the house in what seemed like a dream. I relieved Julia who had taken such good care of my other kids, and set about to get Little L ready for bed. I opened the refrigerator and discovered that God takes care of the most minute details. There were the leftovers of my older son’s dinner that Julia had treated them to. Pancakes. Hallelujah, Little L could have his comfort. Not that he could eat much with his tongue in such a shape, but a few tiny bits of soggy pancake were all he needed to feel satisfied. The next morning was met with more moments of being cared for in crisis. The Country Wife took Little L for the day, my fellow teacher picked up the other three kids for school, classroom aides handled the morning classes, and I set about living “the day after.” There is the pogo stick story and why they are toxic to the tongue. Truly, I still think pogo sticks are a classic toy, but we’ll be avoiding them for a long time. It’s been three days, and just so you know, Little L is out happily playing, though he talks really funny for now.
Technorati Tags: childhood memories, faith, pogo stick, tongue surgery Women of The French ResistancePosted April 18th, 2010 by Jen in features, france/french, history, persecuted church2 Comments » Ooops, sorry for those of you who came to this post yesterday or today and found it empty. It was set to auto-post and my whole family was down with the stomach flu. Not much computer time happened in the wake of one kid after another (and then mom) dropping with this horrible vomiting, diarrhea mess. So, I will repost the article I wrote last year on the subject of the French Resistance. You may have noticed that I am fascinated with France, I am gripped by the Holocaust, and captivated by WWII heroes. Thus, the subject of the French Resistance is of great intrigue to me, especially the women who gave their lives in this effort. Please read this post on Berthe Fraser, a brave housewife who contributed to the salvation of her country from her simple domestic position. You will learn about what exactly the French Resistance was, as well as the trials and triumphs of such persons. The subtitle of April’s blog is “What you do matters,” and Berthe truly exemplifies this saying. You do not need to have a position of power or wealth to make a difference, you just need a willing heart of courage and valor. Behind Enemy LinesPosted April 12th, 2010 by Jen in features, france/french, persecuted church3 Comments » I can’t do justice to a complete review on this book at the moment; however, I’d rather give a quick word than to delete this scheduled post. I wish my week wasn’t as full as it is right now, or I’d have so much to tell you! History is simply the story of people, and I’m so curious about people. Behind Enemy Lines: The True Story of a French Jewish Spy in Nazi Germany by Marthe Cohn with Wendy Holden is an autobiographical book about a woman of the French Resistance – those mostly underground forces in France fighting Hitler and the Nazis in World War II. I first mentioned this book on my blog last year in this post on Berthe Fraser, as part of a series I wrote on the women of the French Resistance. At the end of the post on Ms. Fraser, I recommended several books to those interested in other accounts of these brave women of the Resistance. One of these books was Behind Enemy Lines. A few times in the life of my blog I’ve reviewed books and been contacted by the author to thank me. But nothing prepared me for receiving an email from the author of Behind Enemy Lines, Marthe Cohn, grateful that I’d included her book in my follow-up list of recommended reads. Folks, the woman is 90 years old and still living! And she knows how to send an email! Hallelujah! We exchanged an email or two, and she agreed to do an author Q & A for me on this marvelous book of hers. Well, I’m here to tell you that I’ve not yet put that together, and shame on me for that! Which is why I simply cannot do a complete review yet on this book. However, this being Holocaust Remembrance Week, I had to bring this to the table and let you know it’s on my mind, and I’ll be following up, because as we know time is of the essence. One question that I know I have for Marthe Cohn concerns the aftermath of the liberation. There’s a part in her book where she talks about seeing groups of ragged, skeletal, filthy, unrecognizable people with big, empty eyes roaming the streets begging for help. They were ignored. No one believed them. These were the remnant left of the Jews, hanging on by a thread, slowing making their way out of the liberated concentration camps. By this point, didn’t people know about the Holocaust? This was a gut-wrenching and scary moment for me, realizing that still, after all that, people could still turn their backs on humanity. There will be more to come on this story, but I must sign off for now. God bless your week.
Technorati Tags: France, French Resistance, Holocaust, Behind Enemy Lines, Marthe Cohn, World War II Grieving with PolandPosted April 10th, 2010 by Jen in history, politics/world news6 Comments » I’ve been emailing back and forth today with a friend in Poland. I’m hosting a young Polish girl this summer, the student of my friend who teaches English there. We went over the details of Julia’s itinerary and plans for her stay in the U.S. Of course, we talked about the tragic plane crash today that killed the President of Poland, along with 96 other Polish political leaders and citizens. My friend emailed me:
Please offer some prayers for our brothers and sisters in Poland. I was reminded this morning of reason #99 to host a foreign exchange student: as we connect with people around the globe, our capacity for understanding and love expands. I was riveted by the news of the devastating loss even more so because I feel a personal connection to at least two people in Poland. God’s blessings on Poland. It is a very special place. The reform movement that began the dismantling of communism in east central Europe began in Poland. We have the Poles to thank in large part for the fall of the Berlin Wall. I pray that the new leaders of this significant nation will be bold freedom seekers and lovers of liberty.
Technorati Tags: Poland, Lech Kaczynski, Polish President, plane crash, foreign exchange student Suite Française and Irene’s StoryPosted April 4th, 2010 by Jen in features, france/french, history, persecuted church, politics/world news, religion2 Comments » Suite Française has three parts: the two main novellas, “Storm in June” and “Dolce,” and the Appendices that provide essential details about author Irène Némirovsky’s plans for the book as well as gripping correspondence that highlights the tragic story unfolding in her own family. Suite Française portrays life in France from June, 1940 to July 1, 1941. The early German occupation of France and its impact on the daily lives of those involved is told with clarity and deep understanding of a depraved humanity and human conduct under significant pressure. The story opens with residents realizing the Germans are at the gates of Paris. The narratives of a few people are followed as chaos ensues. The reader gets a sense of both the individual and the collective panic, with banks failing, railroads being bombed, houses being overtaken by Nazi soldiers. The mass exodus from Paris is described in “Storm in June” with a beautiful, expressive tone, as the author relates a scene from a boulevard where families are moving with a dizzying agitation to pack up their families and belongings:
The second novella, “Dolce,” describes a subdued and defeated French people in the village of Bussy who must live with an incoming garrison of Wehrmacht troops. We see a settling, an adapting to the new reality of an occupied country. There are collaborators and resisters, and all the characters in between. Suite Française ends with the German regiment leaving the village of Bussy to continue their fighting in Moscow. The final scene describes the village onlookers watching the enemy pull out.
About the Author: Irène Némirovsky, a Jew from Ukraine, was born into a wealthy family that eventually fled the country during the Russian Revolution. The family ended up in Paris, and Irène quickly became a celebrated author in France. Irène was not what one would consider an observant Jew. In fact, some have called her a self-hating Jew. Her willingness to convert to Catholicism for protection, her unsuccessful attempt to become a French citizen, her usage of anti-Semitic publishers to promote her books — all reveal a woman who was trusting in France and not Yahweh to save her. But no matter, none of this diminishes the important place in Holocaust literature of Suite Française. You won’t find the spiritual Jewish perspective of an Anne Frank or Elie Wiesel in Irène’s writings, but this just highlights Hitler’s insanity. He didn’t care if you loved or hated being a Jew. The Nazis dealt the same hand of death to both. Married to Jewish banker Michel Epstein, Irène had two daughters, Denise and Élisabeth. It was these two daughters we have to thank for the survival of the manuscript Suite Française. By 1940, Jews all over Europe were deeply persecuted, and so it was with Irène’s family. She could no longer get her books published, and her husband could no longer work at the bank because of their Jewish ancestry. Despite having converted to Catholicism and being a popular literary figure in France, Irène was arrested in July 1942 as a “stateless person of Jewish descent” and sent to Auschwitz, where she died on August 17, 1942. Her husband shared the same fate a few months later in the gas chambers. And what of the children and this book, Suite Française? Denise and Élisabeth were hidden in schools and convents until the war’s end. Their father, before he was taken away, had given them one possession to guard with their lives: a little suitcase which contained a special notebook. Can you imagine these two little orphan girls, about 13 and 5 years old, in hiding and in possession of this one family memento, too afraid to leave it, too afraid to examine its contents? In fact, for over 50 years, the leatherbound notebook which contained Irène’s two novellas which comprise Suite Française, written in microscopic print to save precious paper, remained unopened inside of this suitcase. Irène’s daughters thought it was their mother’s journal, and knew that reading it would be too painful to bear. Upon preparing to give her mother’s papers to a French archive in the late 1990′s, Denise finally had the courage to open the notebook. She discovered this extraordinary work, incomplete yet whole, written under the most formidable circumstances. The two novellas were intended to be the beginning of a series of five stories which would encompass the whole of the war, to its end. Irène wrote that the rest of the oeuvre was “in limbo, and what limbo! It’s really in the lap of the gods since it depends on what happens.” Irène’s writing in Suite Française is remarkable not just for its brilliant composition but its perspective. Irène did not begin writing this book until 1941, literally as these events were unfolding before her. However, Suite Française reads not like the diary of one writing contemporaneously with the historical events, lacking a certain coherence, but it presents a viewpoint usually reserved for one who is a generation removed from the time in question who has had time to reflect. I wonder if Irène’s placement in the timeline of human history prepared her for such a task? She had already lived as a persecuted Jew through a major war, and experienced firsthand the full circle of events. After the 1918 Russian Revolution, the Bolsheviks seized her father’s bank and the Nemirovsky family had to disguise themselves as peasants and flee to Finland. Denise reported after publication of Suite Française, “For me, the greatest joy is knowing that the book is being read. It is an extraordinary feeling to have brought my mother back to life. It shows that the Nazis did not truly succeed in killing her. It is not vengeance, but it is a victory.” Universal Pictures has acquired screen rights to Suite Française. I think a better choice might be to make a movie about Irène Némirovsky herself, whose real life story is much more moving than the fiction she wrote. sources: In other blogs:
Technorati Tags: France, Irene Nemirovsky, Nazi Germany, Suite Française, World War II |
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I was in the gym when I heard the scream, not unusual for Little L who is dramatic and feisty. But the blood that ensued and the look of fright in his eyes told me this was tragic, not trivial. By the time I got his mouth rinsed enough to see the damage, I discovered he bit clear through his tongue and his bottom lip, in a sort of double-whammy collision, and jarred several teeth out of place in the process. The laceration in his tongue was about an inch across, which is nearly the whole width of a child’s tongue. Seeing through someone’s tongue is very alarming.