Christmas from us and a Little about the Bus

Deb asked me yesterday, “When are you the happiest?”.  The answer to that for me is simple.  I told her I am happy when I am writing something.  So that is what I am going to do right now. I want to write a Christmas letter.  Bluntly put it is a little harder here to be as happy as normal.  Gotta tell ya that if the word cancer was not in our picture we would both be happier but as most of you know the strong adventures of that disease has made its visit to our home.  But that is not what I want to talk about today. I want to send a Christmas greeting.

It is hard when I write stuff to not include a few things about bus driving which I am doing right now for our local school system.  I climb on the bus at 6:30 every morning. We go get high school kids first and then elementary.  On my high school bus I do a riddle each day.  The kids are getting pretty good at solving these.  Here is one from this past week. “What is as small as an ant, as big as a whale, as slow as a snail, but you can never catch up to it.”

Another one is “what goes up but never comes down?”.  The answers to those come later but for now I feel like telling you some stuff we have gong on.  For some years I worried that many of our friends had grandchildren but somehow this part of life had escaped us.  I was worried that I had not done a good job of explaining to our kids what was needed to have this happen.   But nature did take its path and now we have been blessed with three and one on the way.  Alden and Mary have a 2 year old named Ainsly and this past summer had a fine boy named George.  I call him King George.  Mieke and Aaron have Lorelei born this past summer. One of the finer and better behaved babes I have seen.  And Ross and Rumy are expecting a little boy to arrive sometime in April.  I can kind of picture their baby being born with a harmonica in hand.  In any event I am not sure I can find the words to describe the joy we have all experienced as we now  enjoy this portion of our lives 

One nice thing is that the adventures of these children have provided for Deb a strong reason to keep fighting the battle she fights on a daily basis.  The will to survive is aided by the joy we experience in the relationships we experience with these grandchildren.  In the Dutch language the word is “klinekindren” and in any language I think for all of us who have experienced this we find a special bond.  Mine are the best though, just had to say that.

Deb had to give up something precious to her.  She has had some events of falling at unexpected times. With the pain meds she experiences some times of weakness and on several occasions has suffered a fall.  She worries that if this would ever happen when holding a child that injury could result so she had to give this up.  The kids have been very understanding of this as they have given us plenty of quality time with the grandkids without risking this event. Driving has also been more of a challenge for her and many friends have assisted in this on trips to GR.  Our friends have really helped us.  Thank you.

As for the riddles the answers are really simple.  They are “a shadow” and “age”  In some ways for us life goes on as sort of a shadow of times past.  And yes our age is going up and not coming down.  It will be a strong challenge to reach another Christmas for Deb.  Recently the pain and pain meds have been very intense and hard to deal with.  Knowing her though you all know the lights are strung and the tree is decorated. She even bought a Santa suit for me for 7 bucks at a garage sale.  It is a nice one and I am going to put it on and hold the klinekindren on my knee and we are all going to make the best of it.

In every event there is always a note of humor.  It has been important for me to have the bus job. Had a kid from the fourth grade get on the bus the other day.  He told me he was going to have a baby brother or sister.  I asked him when his parents had told him about this.  He said they never said a word to him.  He could just tell by the noises coming out of his mom and dad’s bedroom that there might be a baby on the way.  Not sure he had it all figured out yet. It sure did bring on  a smile to my face. Almost every day I have something happen that brings on a smile.  Not sure this is the right way to end a Christmas letter but you would not believe the stuff the bus drivers hear and know.  (The kids on my bus have a good time and they all call me Stan the Man. We have fun on the way to school.)

For now all this driver really knows is that through some of the trials is the fact that I wanted to write to you and I want you to experience a Christmas season that lives on the highest level.  We will try to do the same. The spirit of our friends as we deal with some of the issues mentioned above and the fine treatment and care we have received make us realize some of the true meaning of this season.

Stan and Deb