Ah, the dreaded colonoscopy

By Elizabeth Burr | Published: September 25, 2011

Ah, the dreaded colonoscopy

Today is my final prep day before my first colonoscopy in several years. I really don’t remember much about the last one (which is a good thing, I assume). The reason for this one? My younger sister was diagnosed this summer with Stage 3 colon cancer. One of our sisters had hers about 3 weeks ago and came out clean (no pun intended) other than a couple of polyps. The other one was scheduled for Tuesday but had to reschedule until Oct 4. And our brother had one 3 years ago and came out clean.

After doing some online reading, I have mixed my 2 batches of “gunk” and put them in the refrigerator. I use the first liter at 5 p.m. The 2nd one at 9 p.m. The article that I read suggested that you cover the glass with plastic wrap, poke a hole in the top and drink through a straw. The writer said that at this helps to take away the horrible odor. So I have snatched one of my gkid’s glasses with a lid with a hole big enough for a straw. I made sure that it will hold the obligatory 8 oz per drink (4 glasses per batch) that I have to drink. I realize that I may have to throw away the glass to rid myself of the reminder, but I can always find another one.

I have to admit that I’m a little nervous about this one. You can’t sit with your younger sister who had to take a test for changing insurance purposes, with no prior symptoms, knowing that she has Stage 3 cancer, without having that little nudge in your mind saying, “Hey, she’s 8 years younger than you. She didn’t have any symptoms either. She thought she was fine. So what makes you think the same thing isn’t growing inside your body?” Our paternal grandfather had colon cancer 40 years ago and died from it because he was way too far into the disease before it was discovered, although he had plenty of symptoms and warnings.

So now all of our kids have been put on notice that, thanks to the wonderful Ragan strain, you are short-listed to begin having regular colonoscopies beginning at age 40, not the generally recommended age 50. I think that one of my nieces was recommended to start at age 35.

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The Wedding

By Elizabeth Burr | Published: September 25, 2011

The Wedding Day

Walking the wooded aisle

We are now a week and one day past the wedding day and I have to say that all of my memories of that day are warm and proud and exhilarating and exhausting!

Terry’s mother called yesterday, our first chance to visit since THE event, and she was still glowing about it, too. (Not that we are partial, but …) She mentioned that she had never seen a wedding that the bride enjoyed as much as Amy did. Amy, of course, was a beautifully stunning bride. I know that the dress had something to do with how beautiful she was, but it was the glow from Amy that made the dress more beautiful, too.

It was a very busy week before and couple of days after, but one doesn’t really mind when things go so well. And let me tell you, Nashville weather was on its absolutely best behavior that day. I’ll post some pictures, but the outdoor setting in a wooded meadow area could not be beat. (And it didn’t rain until the next day!)

I’ll write more separately, but thanks to everyone who made the day so special. All the family who was scheduled to come made the trip safely. Friends of Amy and Nate’s helped to make the event extra special. Several were working on decorations Friday and even Saturday morning. Family members pitched in to set the tables up and decorate them, put the lights criss-crossing inside the tent, decorating the dance floor area.

More than once during the evening, I looked out over the landscape and saw “firelies” lighting the woods and the meadow. It was just so magical.

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The Weaker Sex?

By Elizabeth Burr | Published: May 9, 2011

The Weaker Sex?

Strong women in Southwest Nebraska, My Grandmother

Take a close look

Take a really close look at the picture to the left.  This is a combine reel in the early 1930′s.  And that’s not wheat wound around the reel.  That’s my grandfather’s clothes.

Granddad Ragan had done what every farmer, ever mechanic knows NOT to do.  He reached in to clear something out that was clogging the machine while the machine was still running.  And sure enough, it caught hold of his clothes and started pulling them off.  Along with the clothes, it was starting to pull the man into the machine.  His 4-year-old son (my dad) was able to climb into the combine and turn it off just as it was starting to chew on Granddad’s arm.

So what does this have to do with the “weaker sex”?  Let  me tell you.  My grandmother had to take her wounded husband and put him on a train to Seward, Nebraska, across the state so that his dad, Dr. Seth Ragan, could put him back together.  As she watched the train take her husband away, she was left with 4 children, the oldest of whom was 4 years old.  She was also left with an incomplete harvest.  And this was the early 30′s in farm country in the Midwest. And it was July! Hot and windy and often miserable, watching the skies for hail storms to wipe out your entire year’s income.

Just take a minute to think about what needed to be done.  Knowing what farm people are like to this day, I assume that there were neighbors who helped complete that harvest.  I’m sure that there were women to help with the children.  But there was nobody who could really shoulder the responsibility of the farm and the children while she was there “alone”.  And there was nobody who could really feel that pain of knowing what had happened to her husband or the fear of wondering how he would be when he came home.

Bear in mind, I didn’t hear this story from my grandmother, Lucile Blanche Adams Ragan.  I heard it from my mother when we were foraging through pictures for the book that I’m writing about her and Dad.  But Grandma didn’t tell me this or other horror stories that she would have survived as a farmer’s wife in southwest Nebraska.  I never heard her tell any “woe was me” stories.  Like thousands of other young wives and mothers living on farms in the Midwest in the 1930′s, she just did what needed to be done.  And she did it well.  And she did it with pride.  And she did it with love.

That was my Grandma Ragan.

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Yeah! We have a dress!

By Elizabeth Burr | Published: May 7, 2011

Yeah! We have a dress!

"Mother of the Bride" Bride at age 4

September 2011 bride

Well, we don’t actually HAVE the dress.  But it is ordered.  We went back to the bridal shop this morning.  She put the dress on again (just to make sure!) and we fell in love with it all over again.  She looked so pretty and radiant in her dress.  So measurements were taken, order completed (she now has an “event folder” at the shop), debit card presented.

Then we went shopping for me at Coldwater Creek.  Not for my dress for the wedding (you know, the OTHER important dress of the day) but just for fun clothes.  Amy is trying to stretch my comfort zone.  She can tell you that I don’t stretch very far, but bless her heart, she keeps trying.  I’m pretty sure that I tried on as many pieces of clothing as she did yesterday.  In fact, one time when I was trying to get out of yet another change, she ribbed me about my thinking  it was fun when she was trying on dresses yesterday.  Please!  You can’t compare trying to update Mom’s style to the bride selecting HER wedding dress.

Daughters can be so silly.

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Shopping for the Wedding Dress

By Elizabeth Burr | Published: May 6, 2011

Shopping for the Wedding Dress

This has been a fantastic day.  Amy and I started with a manicure and pedicure this morning.  Then we met her friend Sarae at a wedding dress “shop”.  The young gal helping us (and I do mean young) was very sweet.  But thank goodness Sarae was with us because she and Amy have shopped enough together that she knew Amy’s style and what would and wouldn’t work for her.  So Courtney got Amy started with a couple of dresses and Sarae and I started combing the racks and racks of beautiful gowns.

There were some that were easy to discard once Amy put them on.  There were some that were “hmmm, maybe.”  There was one that Amy immediately said, “It’s a pretty dress and I’m sure that it’s someone’s wedding dress, just not mine.”  There were some that were very pretty but too formal for the woodsy setting where the wedding will be.  And then there was one that made Sarae and I go, “Wow!”  And Amy took in a deep breath and smiled and said, “Oh!”  And I could see in her eyes that she realized that this one was special.  I was very surprised because it wasn’t one that I really thought would be her pick, but when it was on her, I could immediately envision her walking through the trees to meet Nate in front of their family and friends.  And I was already thinking, “Hmmm, how are we going to keep that train clean from her walk down the ‘aisle’?”  And I could see her dancing that first special dance with Nate as husband and wife.  And I could see her having a fun evening with all their guests.

She did try on a couple more.  And we even went to another store.  All they did was convince her that she had probably already found “her” wedding dress.  But there were a couple of questions that she had, so we went back to the first store. Amy put the dress back on.   The very young Courtney was able to show her a couple of things that would work to answer her questions.  She took off the dress and hung it back up and asked what their hours are tomorrow.  After she sleeps on it, I’ll be surprised if she doesn’t select that dress.  She could change her mind, but it would have to be a very special dress to be more “Amy’s dress”.

I’m not going to let out any secrets about the dress.  The shop wouldn’t let us take pictures, which has already disappointed her Aunt Linda.  But that’s OK.  One of the thrills of the wedding is seeing the bride in her dress for the very first time.  Of course, anymore, many of the pictures are taken before the ceremony so it’s not quite the surprise for the groom as it use to be when he first laid eyes on his bride walking down the aisle.

But rest assured, Amy will still be a beauty in the dress that she has chosen to be joined with Nate in marriage.  And there will still be many “ooohs” and “aaahs” as she comes down the aisle, even if that aisle is through the trees.  And her Dad will be proudly walking her down that aisle.  And her Mother will tear up to see her baby girl taking those steps.

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Grandma Hardy’s Garden

By Elizabeth Burr | Published: April 22, 2011

Grandma Hardy’s Garden

Frank and Lola Hardy of Stratton NeMy grandparents, Frank and Lola Hardy, were farmers in southwest Nebraska, north of Stratton. I’ve written that Grandma Hardy was a tease throughout her life. One of her favorite targets was her husband, Grandpa Hardy. Of course, seeing how well he took the teasing and jokes at his expense, made him an easy target for us grandchildren, too.

And one of her favorite ways to tease him was through the garden. I won’t say that Grandpa was a perfectionist, but he did like his gardens nice and tidy. He would plant straight rows and would weed that garden throughout the season. That was HIS side of the garden. Then there was Grandma’s side of the garden. And let me tell you, there was never any doubt about which side of the garden belonged to whom.

There was almost a demarcation line – kind of like the Mason/Dixon line of southwest Nebraska. Grandpa Hardy’s side (whether it was on the north side or the south side of the garden) was the Yankee side. Straight lines, clean rows. Grandma Hardy’s side of the garden represented the South – the little bit of wild side, independent streak, with meandering rows (not just crooked) full of WEEDS.

More than once, I heard Grandpa grumbling about “that woman’s weeds!” And I can still hear Grandma chuckling. Except to have fresh onion sandwiches, I’m not sure that Grandma really cared about whether or not she had a garden. Well, fresh onions and wheedling Grandpa without having to say a word.

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Vonna and Her Pets

By Elizabeth Burr | Published: April 14, 2011

Vonna and Her Pets

My mother and her pets

Vonna and Her Cats

My mother, Vonna Glyndean Hardy Ragan, was raised on a farm in southwest Nebraska, about 15 miles northwest of Stratton. She had one older brother, Delbert, and a few years after this picture was taken, brothers Neil and George were added to the family.

A little girl on a farm during the early 30′s didn’t have the latest electronic games that my granddaughter loves. She and her parents didn’t run from dance class to gymnastics class to swim class to t-ball practice that kids do these days. Goodness, she didn’t even have TV to watch Dora rescue the animals and practice her Spanish with her animal friends.

However, she did have the farm animals. There were always cats around, partly to keep the mice at bay. And, as you can see from this picture, she did play with cats – several cats, as a matter of fact. She told me recently that she even played with chickens. They must have been smaller or tamer chickens than I remember being on that same farm because the chickens that I knew were more likely to peck a finger than not.

One day when her mother was hanging laundry, she found another farm animal to play with. So she took it around the corner of the house to show her mother. Poor Grandma Hardy never did remember what she did with the clothes she was hanging once she saw the snake in her daughter’s arms! Especially when that snake bit her darling little girl.

I mean, can you imagine the chaos of that moment! You don’t live on a farm in Nebraska without knowing the dangers of rattlesnakes. And in the rush of the moment, it’s hard to know whether that awful ugly thing slithering away is a poisonous snake or not. (And REALLY, does it matter? A snake is a snake is a snake. And I can assure you that had I been Eve in the Garden, Satan would have had to take a different form to tempt me to eat ANYTHING!)

Anyway, back to Mom. Here she was, bitten by her new playmate, certainly seeing the fear (and a little loathing) in her mother’s eyes and hearing the shaking in her screaming voice! The pain and the fear that she must have been going through while her mother was running her out to the field for her father-in-law to check to see if her precious daughter had been poisoned.

Well, obviously, Mom’s new playmate wasn’t poisonous. But I dare say that she was a tad more careful when choosing a new friend in the future.

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Little Lola

By Elizabeth Burr | Published: April 13, 2011

Little Lola

Grandma Lola Henderson Hardy of Stratton NE

Lola Henderson

My maternal grandmother was born and raised in southwest Nebraska. Lola Almira Henderson was born in 1908. She was the second daughter of Frank and Myra Henderson. Lola and Frank Hardy eloped while Frank was still in high school.

That seems like a really short synopsis of childhood, doesn’t it. Took her right from being born to being married in 2 quick sentences.

Grandma Lola had many wonderful qualities, and I don’t think she ever lost the child-like spark for fun. In the time that I knew her (which was into my 40′s), she could be a little ornery. You can almost see the tendency in her childhood picture. She was a tease.

And you know the best lesson I learned from her as a child? That you can catch a bird if you put salt on its tail. Really, you can. I used to spend hours sitting outside Grandma’s house with a salt shaker in my hand, waiting for just the right moment to shake just the right touch of salt on a bird’s tail so that I could catch him. And how did I know that Grandma wasn’t just teasing me? Because she always had a bird in her house that stayed in a bird cage (except when we let him out to watch him fly around the house). Anyway, I knew that was how Grandma caught her bird — with the salt on the tail. So, if I was just patient enough, I would catch another bird to stay in that bird cage inside the house.

Unfortunately, I was never skilled enough to catch a bird for Grandma Hardy. But my granddaughter has already spent hours in my back yard with a salt shaker in her hand. And when she catches that bird, I am going to get her the prettiest bird cage I can find and keep it in my living room. Just like Grandma Hardy.

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Receiving the Scriptures

By Elizabeth Burr | Published: April 12, 2011

Tears of Joy

When is the last time you celebrated having the Scriptures? Watch this video about the celebration of a group of people who are receiving the New Testament written in their own language for the very first time. It brings tears to my eyes every time I watch it.

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Mother and Child

By Elizabeth Burr | Published: April 11, 2011

Mother and Child

Lucile Ragan and baby Seth

Mother and Child

Have you ever noticed that when you see a picture of a mother and her newborn child, the mother has eyes only for her baby? Lucile Adams Ragan was no different when she was holding her first child, Seth. In earlier pictures, her eyes are looking into the camera. But now she has a child, a baby that she didn’t carry to full-term 9 months, but one who had to fight for life early on. A son who fit in a dresser drawer for his first bed. And she has eyes in this photo only for him. You know that she’s wanting to protect him from the western Nebraska wind, even while she wants to show him off for the camera.

In this picture Grandma Ragan was no longer the new bride or the spoiled only child. She’s the new mother who is head-over-heels in love with her child, the new life resulting from her love for Clement. She was probably thinking that no other child had ever been as perfect. Just the same as this son would one day look at his children, and his children would gaze at their new children, and those children are now gazing at their newborns. The cycle continues. And I thank God that there are still mothers who gaze with love and hope and joy when they hold their newborn baby.

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