Cancer's Claims

Dying can become our greatest gift if we prepare ourselves to die well.  Jesus died well because through dying he sent his Spirit of Love to his friends, who with that Holy Spirit could live better lives.  My own mother died well, but not of cancer.  Cancer seems to bring a different dimension to death.  My dad died of cancer. It was horrific and left me shaken and broken.

A dearly loved cousin died of cancer last week.  She chose not to be burned, poisoned or cut, as she called the typical cancer treatments.  She died so, so sick and in such unimaginable pain it is hard to speak of it.  She told me she fought the devil every step of the way through life.  Her mother walked away from her home, her husband, and her five children and went away on the "mail" with a small suitcase and wasn't heard from again for 40 years. My cousin knew loneliness and too many short term homes to give her much security.  She was my age and I loved her for her optimism, her faithful Christian life, her grit and her life experience stories.  I miss her and will miss her forever.

A daughter in law's niece just died of cancer yesterday.  She was young, beautiful, and expected a miracle. She blogs "My Cancer and Me."  This is her last entry; it includes her beautiful photo.

2.20.2011

A new beginning...

Today at 9:20am I received my wings! ...I'm crusin the beach in my shiney new jeep with my hair blowing in the breeze and my dog Taz riding shotgun! 

What I am thankful for: HEAVEN!!

The Librarian

Library school in the early '70,s in reflection seems archaic.  We had to learn to write library cards for the catalog; getting every single bit of information regarding a book in the right place on the card, in proper wording or abbreviating, and the subject heads and cross references had to be by the book bible, the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules, 2nd Edition.  My irritation in college was the working librarian who would come to class with her cards empty and whine till I let her copy my cards.  People like her should burn in hell and people like me should be there to dip my finger in water for her parched mouth.  That is a bit strong, perhaps.

This does not include determining the subject headings.  Working in the K-12 educational libraries, which was my end goal, I and my class mates, later my library colleagues, classified our material by the Dewey Decimal Classification system.  Melvil Dewey has had his system modified about 22 times.  I wouldn't be surprised if he will be  thrown under a table soon, if he hasn't been already.  When I sent the biography of my dad, "Artist and Blacksmith: Axel Sacrison" to the Library of Congress for cataloging and copyrighting one of the subject headings listed for that book was "Outsider art."

Below will show you how tedious this business was/is.  Today I have the card catalog cabinet from the high school at which I taught. I chose the cabinet from the Math department and saved one drawer of the old cards.  I should have saved more.  But what did I know then?  Not much. When the catalog was automated the furniture went to the librarians who had to live through this brutality for most of their working years.  It now makes very nice jewelry drawers.  Not that I have much of that.  I do have two pieces of jade in it that a New Zealand Maori artisan gave me with sandpaper to work it into a brilliant square and oblong when I get old.

LC Control No.:	2003277187
LCCN Permalink:	http://lccn.loc.gov/2003277187
Type of Material:	Book (Print, Microform, Electronic, etc.)
Personal Name:	Boe, Willo B.
Main Title:	Artist and blacksmith, Axel Sacrison / by Willo B. Boe.
Published/Created:	[Omaha, NE] : W.B. Boe, c2002.
Related Names:	Sacrison, Axel, 1899-1966.
Description:	1 v. (various pagings) : ill. (some col.) ; 22 x 28 cm.
Notes:	"With partial catalog of art work by John Axel Sacrison."
	Includes bibliographical references.
Subjects:	Sacrison, Axel, 1899-1966 --Catalogs.
	Outsider art --South Dakota --Catalogs.
	Finnish Americans --South Dakota.
LC Classification:	ND237.S14 A4 2002
Geographic Area Code:	n-us-sd
Quality Code:	pcc
CALL NUMBER:	ND237.S4213 A4 2002
	Copy 1
-- Request in:	Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms

Gentleness

Dressed in Gentleness
The paragraphs below are from Henri J.M. Nouwen's Bread for the Journey.

"Once in a while we meet a gentle person. Gentleness is a virtue hard to find in a society that admires toughness and roughness. We are encouraged to get things done and to get them done fast, even when people get hurt in the process. Success, accomplishment, and productivity count. But the cost is high. There is no place for gentleness in such a milieu.

Gentle is the one who does "not break the crushed reed, or snuff the faltering wick" (Matthew 12:20). Gentle is the one who is attentive to the strengths and weaknesses of the other and enjoys being together more than accomplishing something. A gentle person treads lightly, listens carefully, looks tenderly, and touches with reverence. A gentle person knows that true growth requires nurture, not force. Let's dress ourselves with gentleness. In our tough and often unbending world our gentleness can be a vivid reminder of the presence of God among us."



Reading the above Meditation brings to my mind all of my Sisters-In-Law.  I have seven of them and for this only child, what a blessing these gentle women are in my life.  They " tread lightly, listen carefully, look tenderly, and touch with reverence."  Being together is all too seldom.


When I was small I longed for a sister or brother.  It was not to be, so the 11 cousins nearer to my age on the street where I lived were my playmates. These cousins could be called gentle in spite of the fact that they were all boys.  I was accepted in my braids, and bib overalls; I dug wild onions, picked wild sweet peas, played marbles, one O cat, rode Aunt Muriel's milk cow calves, sledded down nearby small hills, and down larger ones on a tobbagan with these kind gentle boys.  My girl cousins lived on ranches and it was a great gift to spend time with them.  It still is so.