Author: Sylvia

Dear Eddie,

Spring Break in St. Augustine! Even with Covid carefulness, we did not forget our dedication to a two night minimum getaway. We celebrate the couple time of shorter dates, for sure, but it takes that long for us to really relax. You insist that we set the quarterly goal, but you also insist that we follow through. Thank you for that persistence.

Spring Break took working together. Planning and carrying out a plan makes for conversations that are out of our ordinary interests. There is planning what to do together, there are the actual trips, and there are the shared memories to revisit. All three contribute to our shared history, our couple glue.  Our planning starts with joint idea popping. Then it is my turn as the dot and diddle girl to visit the websites, check out the maps, find the lodging, and survey possible things to do. Your job is to keep bugging until I get a plan. Your question is often, “How are we coming?” Then, we get to take off.

Spring Break fit our pattern. First, we got quiet. This time the quiet was in full amazement that we were actually “on the road,” not having been “off the corner,” as your mother used to say, since October.

On the road, our Spring Break chatter began and mixed new experiences  with old memories. The further south we got, the more south Georgia bloomed; the more the red maples and the yellow Jessamine winding in the treetops showed their faces. Do you remember?…the Savannah meeting, the Okefenokee field trip? On arrival, we had our expected last scuffle over traffic, directions, u-turns, all much simplified by GPS…and lightened by the memories. Do you remember?…San Francisco in the dark with the firetrucks at the hotel?…the Kleinschmidt Grade, and “Here’s Johnnie?”  And we did find our hotel, fed ourselves and chilled.

Waking, we activated our Spring Break plan with travel brochures, maps, and the weather app. In St. Augustine, we wanted to explore the Castillo San Marcos and the old town, and we wanted beach time and shrimp. We started with a city tour, your forever go to,—let someone else do the driving.  Do you remember?…D.C., Baltimore, Seville, Montelcino, Quebec                      ? Hopping on and off, exploring, chattering, eating, and, oh look, Sylvia’s forever go to, a cruise–a little history, a lot of sun and wind, and snuggling tight for warmth. We could almost hear harbor pirates growling, “Covid be hanged!” And off for the shrimp tacos. Waking again, we headed to the beach for more sun and wind, not warm, but, wrapped in jeans and jackets, we walked and basked and enjoyed a picnic with an expectant gull. Heading north toward home, we felt delighted with our experiences and with each other.

Thank you, dear heart, for prioritizing us. Yes, we have indeed checked off our two night getaway for winter quarter. I am looking forward to another Spring Break run with you real soon when Michigan comes out of the snow.

Much love,  Sylvia

Dear Eddie:

When I was growing up, I was Big Sister to three little brothers. Mom would tell them to do something, and I would immediately repeat her words. She would get ticked. Dad would say, “Peat and Repeat.” Mom would say, “Peat is perfectly adequate.” I would attempt to shut up. Repeating was not my best trait.  Lately, however, I am mindful that many things do bear repeating. Sometimes, that means repeating words, but often it means repeating actions. In this holiday season, our ritual repeating grows and celebrates our memories. It is part of the glue that makes us a couple and all of us into a family.

We repeat as we prepare and celebrate holidays together. We are stubborn about celebrating Thanksgiving before beginning Christmas preparation. Our pumpkins mix with garland and lights in the first weeks of December. We hang the greens at church and at home, we set up the Advent wreath, and we follow the liturgy each week. Our grandchildren expect that we light candles as well as eat daily chocolates. We repeat the stories that surround the things and practices. The liturgy comes from Bartlesville FUMC from Christmas 1980. The kids acolyte at church and problem-solve that, even though the refillable candles don’t burn down, the first purple candle is opposite the third pink Joy candle. There is the proper way “we” do things.

You and I first, then our children, and now our grands see that our traditions are tied to memories and shift to include new members and new memories in the repeating. Little Bear and his family have resided in the quilted “house” on our kitchen door in the month of December for many many years. Little Bear has looked for Christmas over and over again. Grown kids afar may be told or ask where Little Bear looked for Christmas on any given day. This year, Little Bear went walk-about. He was missing when Aryn went to move him on December 22. We looked everywhere. I tried not to panic, or as you well know I can, “go Freaknik.” I made up a silly story in my head about what his parents were thinking. I pondered sewing a new bear.  Thankfully, Little Bear was found in the laundry room in the back of the house, collapsed face-down on top of the sunflower seed bucket. Go figure. We all speculated about what in the world happened.  I do know that Little Bear’s wanderlust will repeat in Christmas story-telling for another generation. We will laugh together in the repeating.

So, in the afterglow of Christmastide, I ask of you darling partner, please keep repeating that you love me, keep repeating and rehashing our trips, our holidays, our giggles of our many years. I love you.

Sylvia

Dear Eddie:

I heard you singing. I was chilling in the gazebo one morning in July and harkened to your voice coming up from the garden. “And a partridge in a pear tree.” I chortled; you lifted me up, yet again. Your singing expresses your “glass at least half full” approach to life. You are not Pollyanna, but you are positive most of the time. I am thankful for your gift.

I am thankful that your singing family traveled to Grandma’s with hymns and choruses since there was no radio. I am thankful that in your all in one small town k-12 school Peg Milnes was in charge of chorus, glee club and talent shows—your repertoire is awesome. Added was that Mrs. Milnes expected all Methodist teens to sing in the choir at Michelsen Memorial with her and their folks.

I am thankful for the singing in our parenting and grandparenting years. You give us repeated lines, bursts of joy, seldom whole compositions. “Little Champ” from your cornet audition for band, “Choke a cholo cholo cha laylee,” “Mares eat oats, and does eat oats,” “Beautiful Blue Eyes,” “You are my Sunshine.” All the camp choruses resound and set a day’s tone.” This is the Day,” “Revive Us Again.” At how many 6:15 am Cline Store bus stop mornings did you rouse our pack of three, and probably the whole neighborhood, with “Rise and Shine and Get those children out of the muddy muddy?” At least one of the kids would get into it, complete with motions, while the older ones at least grimaced and sometimes deigned to join you. You and I might have dragged up that hill in the dark, but we handheld back home with the sunrise behind us.

Your singing is part of garden season for sure. You are up and at it at daylight. When I get up to fix breakfast, I am often greeted with snatches of song from the twilight. You are out there happily planting, weeding or cutting. At random times of day, I will hear some random sound, and realize Eddie’s singing.

I love you, songbird. You lift me up.

Sylvia

Dear Eddie: I have always known that you have a special relationship with dirt. I have always enjoyed your being my garden boy and the beautiful things you grow. At the same time, I have done my share of griping about dirt, mud, tracks, and all. Today, I realized that something had shifted in my attitude about you and dirt. (yes, I know it is soil).

Two dirt related things happened this morning. I was fluffing last night’s load of clothes before folding. I knew that load would be followed by yet another day’s load. There would be one set of my clothes and at least three sets of yours. It is plant the garden, get ready for Farmers’ Market season. One set of wet stinky work clothes follows another. They may be too wet even for your taste, but you are also thoughtful enough to decide that they are too muddy to come in for lunch or reposo. Icky clothes; yet, I smiled. And, then, right there inside the back door, between the door and the mat, I spotted one perfect, very distinct, size 11 shoe print on the champagne carpet; yet, I laughed. You are totally comfortable with dirt. I have decided that comfort with dirt is one of your most endearing characteristics.

When I got you, I got Tom Robertson’s greenhouse child. When our two-year-old son was selling “million-dollar petunias,” at Dad’s greenhouse, Pete’s Auntie Ruth said, “Well, Eddie was always the dirtiest little boy in Grayling.”  And so, it continues with you and dirt. When we were courting, I remember a trip to Aunt Nellie’s farm to “get a load of dirt.” It was my first time to really watch you and dirt. No bags from the garden center. You cut sod, broke the blocks apart with your fingers and shook out the dirt. You were patient, meticulous, enthralled. Year after year, I have watched you condition flower beds, lifting bulbs, trenching in compost, planting again. Last week, we took apart the sand box in our yard and moved it to our daughter’s home where the kids reassembled it into a raised bed. Two shoveled Mighty Max bedloads of compost, one of garden dirt and another of sand followed. You tilled it all to uniform consistency ready for planting. I texted our grandson that Papa had brought him dirt for his birthday, and he responded, “Yay!” Auntie Ruth’s jibe hurt your feelings a little bit, but you and dirt are really something wonderful to behold.

I asked myself why I am so much less grumpy about you and dirt. Heck, I’m grinning about you and dirt. I think that growing and sharing beautiful things is a way you care for my love languages. It takes dirt. You make our home beautiful. In the big orchid bloom, there were orchids on the mantel, orchids in the bathroom, orchids in the kitchen. In the vases on the back of the kitchen sink, chives and mint have made way for roses and daisies.  And I experience all of that beauty as your gifts of service, of appreciation, of love.

Our family knows their gifts of dirt, of potting soil, vermiculite, and peat pots never disappoint you. The seedling mixture with coir was perfect for your winter greenhouse babies, and you have repeatedly said so. You and I have been basically at home for seven weeks due to Covid-19. The closest to a quarantine crisis we have had is needing Potting Mix. Trying to limit social distance, I heard you say, “I’m cutting myself off from dirt.” Sure, that really lasted; we stopped for three more bags this morning.

Keep playing in the dirt, darling one. Love, Sylvia

Darling Orchid Boy:  Yes, my dear Eddie; you are forever my Orchid Boy. What eighteen year old boy, especially back in the days of our beginnings, loved orchids? So it was Spring of our Sophomore year at Alma College. You were dutifully going home every weekend to work the greenhouse and the USGS, paying tuition for the terms that were your financial responsibility, not on the folks or your scholarship. And late on Saturday, you would come back to school so we could see each other. I was the girl with a choice of corsages for every dance. Bronze mums, carnations, sweetheart roses with trailing arbutus. I would choose, and your frat brothers who took the others would look really good to their dates.  I knew you loved plants, but I did not yet understand how that love of plants would impact our life together.

Then, one Saturday, I was doing the ritual girl in my day thing of drying my “hair down to there” in the big pink bonnet over the huge brush rollers. I was not yet ready for prime time viewing. The intercom speaker blasted over my head. “Sylvia, Eddie’s downstairs and says to get down here.” As independent a woman as I was, I responded, “I’ll get there when I get there.” A few minutes later, the freshman on the desk was back on the intercom. “He left, but, oh my goodness, come see what he left.” That got my attention. And to my wondering eyes did appear a full spray of pale purple Cattleya–the whole spray,  five of them. And we laughed, and I learned you were an orchid boy. You had your own aquarium home for your orchids. And you have had them ever since; and you have been my special orchid boy ever since, too.

In fifty plus years of living and loving with you, we have also lived with orchids in one way or another. We have visited a zillion botanical gardens. When you were teaching at Reinhardt, you had wide shelves built as window sills in your lab to accommodate your teaching collections and your orchids. As the big cattleyas came into bloom, you would bring them to live in my office. The most blooms at one time was 16 huge white blooms. Sometimes, the whites and purples would bloom at the same time. The students would say, “Dr. Rob loves Mrs. Rob.” I would think “Orchid Boy.”

Now, your orchids reside in your backyard greenhouse. The collection has grown; the orchids summer out under the oak tree, and come into the house to grace the mantel, the kitchen sink, the bathroom counter… We factor orchids into decisions about how to play. We have enjoyed Orchid Daze at the Atlanta Botanical Garden, but our new favorite stop is at Peach State Orchids. You found them while looking for baby orchids on the web. They are a delightful spot right in our own county. We wrote their name on a list of dates we promised to each other. How lovely to go there with you. We ooh and ahh. We shop for gifts. You come home with a box of small, not blooming, question marks, and you baby them and wait for surprises to share with me. Daily, we check out the Facebook page where Danielle posts beauty after beauty. And, we enjoy together. You and me Orchid Boy.

I love you. Thank you for playing with me. Thank you for having an Orchid Boy soul.

Love, Sylvia

Dear Eddie,

Here we go again, planning another gathering at our home. This time, it is to celebrate our 50^th Wedding Anniversary. The wedding planning website where the invitation is posted is counting. Every time I open the site, it tells me how many more days until the party. The site is counting down to the Big Day.

I remember counting down to our wedding day. There was the previous Summer, waiting for the engagement ring to come from the mail order house that your brother, Joe, and his best friend, Larry, had used for the diamonds for Mary Ellen and Lewie. There was a dress to be bought and bridesmaid dresses to choose.

That Spring, there were showers for kitchen and home; there were blood tests and licenses from the right county. There was the upstairs apartment in the Grayling house to paint.  And, for you and for me, there were final exams and graduation at Alma College and being accepted into graduate school. So, we walked for graduation with our family in attendance, you said, “See you Friday,” and we were counted down to the Big Day.

That counting was over on the first day of Summer, June 21, 1969. We had arrived. We were finally married. We were our own twosome. We got there. And, we were off to our future together.

As we prepare for this celebration, I am very aware that we are counting, but I am not counting down. I am counting up. I am so very grateful that we are able to reach this occasion. We have so many friends who have not had the opportunity. I am enjoying the projects of preparing our home, inviting our loved ones, and getting ready. I am enjoying the play of remembering and planning. I am counting up these days as cherished.

I want you to know that I will be counting up every day we are given. Our grandkids link their playlists to our car stereos. There are lyrics I could do without for sure, but a lyric I really like says, “I like me better when I’m with you.” I really like you, and I really like me when I am with you. Our dads barely made 70. Both pairs of our parents were excellent couples who enjoyed life with their life mates.  It was a shame that our moms and dads did not get more years to enjoy life together. Every day can be cherished, whatever it brings.

I will take every day we are allowed together. I will count up those days with you as the very best I can imagine. I love you. Happy Anniversary, darling.

Sylvia

_{Darling Eddie, There, you did it again. You made something beautiful; more accurately, you made something else beautiful in my world.  are dependable to show appreciation of me, to be there when I need you, and to look toward a future together and participate in making that future. Today, I find you dependable to bring beauty into my world.}

_{I don’t know anyone who has as many beautiful bouquets in their house all year long as we do. Who has orchids in the bathroom, snapdragons in the kitchen, blooming cacti on the mantel?  We do. I know that when you see beauty, you want to share it with me. I have been hearing about the swelling Catylea buds for days; I can’t wait until you bring those plants to the house to share.}

_{We have had a WET Winter and Spring. We thought it would never stop raining. And then the mud. Oh, the mud. Now, finally, some days of sunshine.  In spite of the rain, you have brought beauty into this yard. Maybe because of the rain, the bulbs you planted last fall have put on a gorgeous long-lasting show. We have had weeks of daffodils, weeks of yellow, purple and white crocus, tiny new blue hyacinths to join the old-fashioned grape hyacinths along the drive. Now, the tulips are in gay profusion in front of the house. Yesterday, I found those tiny red tulips with the white daffodils by the pond. I laughed. I remembered the bag with that set of colors that was one more Eddie Aldi impulse buy along with our groceries.}

_{Today, you are once again out in the garden. You have prepared the soil with bone shaking days with the tiller. You have built this year’s addition in the continuing war with the deer who munched your roses. The electric fence will or will not help, but not for your lack of trying. You are setting out the first transplants from the greenhouse. The bare dirt is going to bring forth color for the farm market. You will see that we have a beautiful world until first frost next fall. I will enjoy every bit of your contribution and our granddaughter will once again exclaim, “I love it when the garden is full of color and we can see all of the beautiful butterflies!”}

_{Thank you, sweet beauty provider. I love you.}

_Sylvia

Dear Eddie: We have a wonderful dining table. We have probably spent years of our lives at the table. We discovered the table in your parents’ basement the summer we married. It was dusty and covered with Contac Paper. We were told it was a hand-me-down from the Puffer’s parsonage. We later determined that it was a product of the Robbins Table Company, founded in 1873 in Owosso, Michigan, and was fashioned of oak with an ash top. For us, the table was not an antique but the beginning of “our” furniture. We loaded it on our U-Haul trailer with Aunt Nellie’s rollaway bed and the barrel backed chair from my home. In years to come, the table traveled from Minnesota to Alberta, to Texas, then to Michigan and back to Texas and Oklahoma, moving finally to Georgia over 30 years ago.

At the table, you and I learned about cherishing and appreciating each other. We learned about sharing each other’s days in evening conversations. We had a few memorable “Hair in my Soup” fights at the table and learned how to repair those fights and even how to avoid some of them. We made “family” around the table for holidays when we lived far from our biological families. We welcomed high chairs and, very quickly it seemed, high schoolers. Around the table, we have hosted family birthdays and Christmas Eves, youth groups, church picnics, and countless college student gatherings. In the last few years, there are six or seven very much loved people at the table. On most days, our multigenerational family begins its days with vitamins, allergy meds and breakfast at the table. We enjoy the less busy evenings when we all can gather for supper together.

I had been puzzled and a little annoyed by your insistence on downsizing the table when the kids left for the weekends or school breaks. I somehow thought it was a bother or felt devaluing of the larger family. Because you were adamant, I kept pretty much quiet and thought that at least it made a good excuse to vacuum between the table legs. But, now, I get it. You value our larger family group, but you want to honor our twosome as well. You clarified for me, and I can hear you. I can get excited about setting our space as we did for the years before and between kids. We eat at the table together, corner-corner with me to your left. We don’t default to eating in front of the TV. And, when the gang is expected, we happily anticipate by adding the two leaves that have been hidden inside our special table.  I love you, Eddie Bert. See you at the table.

Love, Sylvia

Dear Eddie, Sometimes, I feel like we are being chased by lists. Lists help me to organize, and lists work for pleasant tasks, but being chased by lists messes with my sense of calm. I don’t want to add to your anxiety, but I am certainly happy to have you as a partner in facing the lists of the less than pleasant parts of living.

Lists make demands in different ways. We laughed about the difference between the window sticker in your ‘91 Mighty Max truck and the digital panel in the 2015 Sonata. Your sticker quietly suggests that you are about 100 miles short of needing an oil change. The Sonata computer, on the other hand, warned us as we approached the scheduled service date; with every start, we were told “You are due for service in — miles.” When Zero day arrived, the panel kicked up a Diamond Exclamation Point warning. With every ignition, it threatened, “You are – miles overdue for service.” And the warning indicator sat there until the service was completed. I am the list maker and the rule keeper; your attitude toward problem solving safeguards our coupleness in dealing with the lists, in whatever manner they present..

With lists of recurring responsibilities, you either put up with, go along with, or share in what needs to be done. If I can take care of the tasks like paying bills on time, keeping up with biannual bills like insurances and taxes, you let me do it, and you thank me for the attention I pay to the detail. When we both have to be inconvenienced by the same things like regular blood work and flu shots, we accompany one another. When it is your thing like pacemaker checks, or my thing like eye specialists, we express our appreciation for the company given. We can grouse about the necessity of these tasks, but you affirm that we are a team. It may seem dumb but we even have a Shingles shot date for January when the resupply comes in. Yes, it is on the list again even though we were responsible about that issue ten years ago.

There are some doozies In the list of financial things that chase us. They threaten our sense of security. Some of them look innocuous enough like painting the house. We sat for years, commenting on the soot darkening the living room ceiling from our enjoyable wintertime fires. But dipping into liquid funds to do something about it was a major effort. Likewise, not everyone drives vehicles until they drop. Even using liquid funds to buy pre-owned vehicles may take us years of “if-then-whens.” Thanks for having learned that I have fiscal security buttons, You honor them and me while also being insistent that we move ahead even if it is difficult.

And, heavens, let the lists chasing us be about more than money and threaten our life together in the ultimate sense, we can put something off ad infinitum. Thank you so much for repeatedly having the painful conversations with me. Updating wills and checking on beneficiaries takes saying words like, “If —- should predecease, …” Yuck! But we are responsible grownups, and you are my excellent teammate. Let’s march right in to the refrigerator and put some stars and “way to gos” on that Growth Plan. We get some big check marks this six months. The paint is renewed, the car is sweet, the wills and beneficiaries are updated—for now, anyway. Together, I am confident we will deal with what comes. I love you. Sylvia