Grandpa Howard and the Meaning of Family

He leaned toward the center of the table with smiling blue eyes and said "You know you're not really my granddaughter, right?"

We were in the church basement for potluck and I paused eating my Jello salad.

"Yes." I said.

He continued, "We have different last names but no one pays attention to it and it doesn't matter."

My grandpa smiled and I returned my attention to the Jello Salad.  It had mini-marshmallows and Cool Whip; it was the highlight of potluck. As a smallish girl of 5 or 6 years old, mini-marshmallows took the sting out of getting up early and going to church.

Grandpa Howard was my grandpa by marriage.  My grandma's first husband, my dad's biological father, died in a hunting accident when my dad was around 4 years old.  Grandma Lois was alone with two young children.  She also had epilepsy with frequent seizures.  I don't know how she carried on.

Grandma wasn't alone for long, though.  About year after her first husband passed away, she married Grandpa Howard.  Grandpa said that when he was courting my grandma "she was as shy as a bunny rabbit." He brought her a bouquet of carrots.

Her response to any of his stories, including this one, was to declare "Oh, HowARD!" and wave her hand at him, as if she was trying to shoo him away like a fly.

Now that I think about it, when my husband says something outrageous, I say "Oh, honEY!" and wave my hand at him as I were trying to shoo him away like a fly.

Grandpa was strict when he was raising my dad and his older sister but he wasn't with me or my brother.

He let us tag along when he was picking rocks out of the fields before planting.  The fields in Northern Minnesota always have rocks that need to be picked before planting.

Grandpa & my brother on the tractor in 1983

Grandpa had an old Ford tractor and a trailer he made from scraps.

When we got a full load and emptied it, we would go home and have ice cream and mince meat.

Mince meat, in case you didn't know if pulverized meat of some sort, usually venison or beef or both, mixed with ground up candied fruit.

Gross.  I can't believe we ate that.

But Grandpa liked it, so we did too.

Sometimes my grandma would have a freshly baked cake and we would go pick strawberries so that we could have strawberries and ice cream with the cake.

Me, walking by the clothes line at my
grandparent's home.  1991 or so.

There was a strawberry patch growing next to their little house.  Their house was originally intended to be a wood shed and chicken coop.  The Great Depression hit before Grandpa's family could build the house they planned, so they turned the wood shed/chicken coop into a house.  My grandpa lived there his entire life.

Grandpa also had a big garden and he didn't get mad if we ate the snap peas.  My brother and I would help take care of the garden as well.

He taught me the value of hard work.

And the importance of rewarding yourself for hard work.

He taught me the importance of having a garden.

And the importance of sharing the harvest.

He taught me the importance of family.

And the importance of knowing that family is not just blood, it is who you choose to love.

Tardigrade and Resilience

Photo from www.bbc.com 
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150313-the-toughest-animals-on-earth

The tardigrade, or water bear, is a microscopic animal.  It is water dwelling, eight-legged and segmented.

They are my second favorite animal.

Giraffe at the Oregon Zoo
photo by S. Clark 

Giraffes are my first favorite animal and they are unlikely to ever be removed from their first place position.

They came to me in a dream during a very stressful period of my life. The feeling in the dream was peace and contentment, which is something I definitely didn't have at the time.

I vowed to find that peace and contentment in my real life and used Giraffes as visual reminders of that goal. I now have giraffe stuffed animals, pictures, blankets, figurines and assorted ephemera.  I even have a 5 foot tall stuff giraffe that hangs out in my living room, next to the chinchilla cage.    

But tardigrade just bumped Okapi's from second place.  Okapi's are giraffes' only living relative. They look like a horse zebra hybrid with velvety ears and a long tongue.  I think they are much cuter than a tardigrade.

Photo from https://www.africananimalday.org/animals/okapi

But...

Tardigrade are such survivors!

They can survive in space, on their own.  Scientists sent a bunch of them into space, sans little space suits and many of them came back alive.  Some of the females even laid eggs, which hatched and resulted in healthy babies. Did I mention this happened in outer space with no oxygen or anything that is supposed to support life?

They can live through temperatures ranging from −458 °F (close to absolute zero) to about 300 °F.   

If a tardigrade finds itself in an environment without water, it sorta dehydrates and it waits until better conditions return.  Or sometimes the wind blows the dried up little husk to a better environment.

Then it re-hydrates.

They exemplify resilience.  

Their capacity for recovery is unparalleled.  

Interestingly, recent research suggests that this is because they have absorbed DNA from other species.  I didn't know this was actually possible but evidently even humans have some DNA that have been absorbed from bacteria or viruses.  

Science is weird.

Tardigrades are my second favorite animal because of this amazing resiliency. Tardigrades now serve as a reminder that I can be resilient.  

I've been thinking about resilience a lot lately.

My husband was just diagnosed with Lyme Disease.

My daughter might have Lyme Disease.  We won't know for a couple more weeks when the test results come back.

We are going to need to be resilient AF.

For those of you not in the know, "AF" stands for "as f*ck."  AF is something the hip, young people on the internet use.

I'm not hip or young but AF seems appropriate.

This illness creates limitations and we cannot possibly carry on with our usual lives.

I wish I could just absorb some DNA that would up my resiliency but as a human I have to make an effort.

So, we are going to have to identify what factors we can control, those we can't and use our resources accordingly.

We are going to take tardigrade as our mascot and survive the extremes that life hands us.

Because that mofo is resilient AF.