Engagement

My brother proposed to his girlfriend today. I am beyond delighted and honored to say that I was there for it.

Sitting across a pond from them, hidden behind a hat and sunglasses and a "torpedo" of a camera borrowed from a friend, I was able to watch them walk to the swing, sit down, talk. I saw my baby brother get down on one knee. I watched her wipe tears from her eyes. I saw them kiss. I took a billion pictures for them. I hope they came out.

I love him and I could never thank my parents enough for making him, and God for giving him to me.

I remember J proposing to me. So sweet, down on both knees on a boat in a country far away from here. The ring held between his thumb and forefinger, he said, "will you marry me?" with head cocked to the side and the sweetest smile I have ever seen on his face.

Marriage is quite the gift. It has such tremendous potential for harm and pain, but only because the potential for good is so enormous. I'm glad I've bound my life to J's. I hope my brother will always be so happy.

Blessings to the newly engaged. Love is always ancient, always new. May it be so for them.

On a shelf

Yes, I've been gone for a while. I work at a camp for gifted high school students during the summer. It used to be 2 weeks. But the "blessed" (read: accursed) governor cut the funding state-wide, so no more camps. Ours was the very last in the state of Ohio into the foreseeable future. Makes my fists clench a little.

But anyhow. It was wonderful. Each week changed me. I am thankful it happened, and thankful I was part of it. I'm thankful for the people I've fallen absolutely in love with because of it. I'm sad it's gone. But the glow of it isn't.

So that's one thing we're putting on a shelf.

Another thing is the trying. At least for now.

I don't remember what I posted last, but J's numbers are still low. Directly in IUI territory.
I'm not ovulating. It's CD20 right now and there's no sign of ovulation. And that's late, even for me.
We want me to go to Italy with him when he takes a group in May.

So we're stopping for now. We'll probably gear up in September for IUI starting in October.

I'm both relieved and empty. I've not by any means given up hope. I'm just putting it on a shelf til the fall.

so then

So, J's to be on a regimen of Ibuprofen and antibiotics for the next three weeks to fight whatever it is that's causing the white blood cells.

We're probably planning on starting IUI in September. Time to start working on my turkey baster fetish. Oooh la la.

Data entry

Got the test results back. His numbers have improved - way improved. Yay. His motility percentages have dropped. Un-yay. And the white blood cells are still there.

We'll hear back later today or tomorrow about exactly what that means, but it looks like we're squarely in IUI territory, with some concern about the white blood cells.

Family

We live in a 160-year old farmhouse on what once was the edge of town. The Irish pub across the street was the milkhouse. The house was built in 1848. It has been around through all but a few of our nation's major wars. I wondered this weekend as I sat in the driveway and watched the fireworks what all this house has seen. We don't know much about the history of the people who lived here. Did someone walk out that front door and head off to the War Between the States (how very un-Yankee of me to call it that - but I can't quite bring myself to call it the War of Northern Aggression either)? WWI? WWII? Korea? Vietnam? Hm.

But I learned a bit about my family history.

I sat on the back deck of my parents' home and heard my grandmother talk about her father - how he liked ice cream, how he adored his wife, how he died, how he said to her after some testing that revealed 100% arterial blockage below his waist, "If there's a hell, I've been there and back." How he died the evening after he said that. How certainly that was the closest to hell he ever got, or ever will.

My aunt is the geneologist of the family and I heard about my father's family's history.

What's funny, she said, is that if you follow my father's parents' two lines directly back, you can't get very far at all.

My father's grandfather was a man named Rudolf Otten. He was born in Germany somewhere around 1898 and came over to the States in the 19-teens sometime. We don't know for sure which town he was from. We know nothing about his family. My grandfather doesn't know if he has aunts, uncles, cousins, or even what his grandparents names were. And what with the bombings in Germany - twice - there are no records. So that's where the paternal line stops. My great-grandfather.

My father's grandmother was an Irish woman named Mary Burke (my Irish friend out there -any relation to any Burkes?). Mary Burke was one of three children - Delia, the eldest, Mary, and a little brother. Her father ran off when they were young, and Delia made the trek across the sea when she was in her teens, in the 19-teens sometime. Their mother died, and Mary came over shortly after. Little brother spent some time in London, then went back to Ireland and breathed life back into the family farm. The Burke family is still there. My grandparents have met them a few times.

Delia married some Texan, a "bum" my grandpa says, and lived in New Jersey.

Mary married Rudolf, had six children, and lived in the New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania region. I'm unclear on exactly where. Mary (Mamie) was born first, then Charlie, Edward (my grandfather), Bobby (died as a child), Helen and Kathy.

Incidentally, though I never met Rudolf nor Mary, I have heard their voices. A recording was made when my father was quite young, and in it, you can hear my aunt as a toddler, my father as a young boy, my grandmother before one of her vocal chords was paralyzed, and my great grandparents. Each with their own accents.

I have yet to learn more about the Lees - my grandmother's side. I know my grandmother was the youngest of three - Eva Mae, Chester, and then her. I know her parents names were Charles and Mabel. I knew my great grandmother. I remember her as being scary and old. She was both scary and old, but then she did raise three children during a depression and all.

So there you have it. For now.

Put down the hammer

Check this out.

Lewis Sonnet

A friend at work tonight asked me, "Doesn't it make you mad - seeing some of the people in this world popping out babies while you aren't?" And this Lewis sonnet instantly was in my head. No, I didn't start reciting it. But it was there.


You think that we who do not shout and shake
Our fists at God when youth or bravery die
Have colder blood or hearts less apt to ache
Than yours who rail. I know you do. Yet why?
You have what sorrow always longs to find,
Someone to blame, some enemy in chief;
Anger's the anesthetic of the mind,
It does men good, it fumes away their grief.
We feel the stroke like you; so far our fate
Is equal. After that, for us begin
Half-hopeless labours, learning not to hate,
And then to want, and then (perhaps) to win
A high, unearthly comfort, angel's food,
That seems at first mockery to flesh and blood.

Thank God for Lewis. His words are always a life raft. Because anger is just a handsbreadth away. Every month that passes, I feel like a big silent space somewhere in me grows just a little bigger. I'm not sure why that's the image that leaps to mind, but it is. These first few days, I always feel acutely aware of the place in my body where someone could be growing, but isn't, and I feel very ... still or empty. Thankfully, the sharpness of the pain I experienced, say, 6 months ago, has passed. This is much more like a prolonged sigh that sounds a lot like "someday".

Someday.

Meanwhile. There are things to do.