View From a Prairie Home

by Hege Hernfindahl, Columnist

As I write this, the wind is blowing from the north with a ferocity that makes the trees sway and the snow whirl and drift against any little obstacle. I presume the roads are glazed because it rained all day yesterday and today the temperatures are falling. The wind howls against the house and I am grateful we have electricity. The internet is down, so I can’t check the roads or the weather forecast, but I am sure the brave linemen are out to restore the lines that feed the internet for our area.

I didn’t sleep well last night, I am sure that was due to the weather. And I thought about Erland. How his cancer came on suddenly like a winter storm. How afraid I was. How I prayed for healing and health. How I never was able to imagine that he was dying. How could I have imagined the death of my baby? I still hug his picture every day and lament that he had to die before me.

I feel all kinds of emotions, mostly numbness. And fog. Sometimes, when I talk with a group of people, I feel that the words that come out of my mouth don’t make any sense. So I want to go into a corner and hide. Hide from a world where people ask me in a friendly way how I am. And I don’t know how to answer. I don’t want to be impolite, but I am tempted to quote the title of a podcast by Nora McInerny that is called “Terrible, thanks for asking.”  But that is not always true. My grief comes in waves, in gusts, just like the wind.

I am told to face my grief. It is only when I face the circumstances of my life that I can go on living. God says to Moses in Deuteronomy 30; 19: “Choose life.” Which means that I have to again think of sunshine and flowers and that under the snow there is grass that eventually will be green. And that these trees that now move in the cold, cold wind from the north, stark and forbidding, contain buds. Buds that are now getting ready to spring forth with life. And I know from having lived a long life that right before dawn, the darkness is the most intense.

Last week, we went to Kasson to watch two of our grandchildren while their mom, Ingvild, went on a trip alone to Fort Lauderdale. To be alone and relax. And maybe to grieve, with nobody to look after, from the loss of her young husband and two years later, the loss of her little brother.

We enjoyed spending time with her kids. They are mature in a very profound way. The youngest, Torsten, (13) says he is strong because of the tragedies he has had to endure. Our granddaughter, Hanna (16) hugs and kisses us, tells us how much she loves us and when she comes home from her many activities, she sits with us and tells us all about her day. Which I think is very mature of a teenage girl.

We went to Northfield one day to have lunch with their eldest brother, Anders, a freshman at St. Olaf. He loves college, his classes and his new friends. He is learning Norwegian besides majoring in chemistry and biology and minoring in statistics. But at some point during our lunch, he looked us both into our eyes and said: “you have to stay healthy. You have to live.” It came out of the blue, spontaneously.

So, this amazing grandson of ours, echoes God’s commandment to Moses. “Choose life.” And having looked at darkness squarely and survived winter storms, we now have new impetus to indeed choose life.