In Memory of Helen

 

My big sister died last week. Here’s the short version of the obituary:

Helen Margaret Martin Jungemann Schmeling passed away, January 22, 2021 at home in Scroggins, Texas, following a short illness. She was born December 20, 1941, in Aurora, Illinois. Her parents were Albert Gould Martin, M.D. and Ruth Baker Martin. She graduated in 1959 from West Aurora High School and from SMU in Dallas, Texas in 1963. She was married to Roger Jungemann for 50 years; then to Daniel Schmeling for four years. A 30-year resident of Scroggins, Texas, Helen volunteered for the El Dorado Property Owners Association, and Christus/Mother Frances Hospital in Winnsboro, Texas. She was also employed to teach parenting classes at the North Texas Child Advocacy Center. She was preceded in death by her parents and brother, Tom Martin. She is survived by husband, Dan; daughters Leslie Jungemann (Thomas Moran) and Amy Jungemann Hidajat (Arif); grandchildren Erin Marie Moran and Andrew Thomas Moran; sisters Ruth Ann Martin and Emily Martin. Many more nieces and nephews also cherish their memories of Helen.

There’s so much that doesn’t go into a death announcement like this. I wanted to record some of my own memories.

Helen was 10 when I was born and a lot of the responsibility of taking care of my mom’s fourth baby fell to her. Last September, when I visited Helen in the hospital, she told one of the nurses that I was her “first baby.” Indeed, Helen was very much  a mother to me.

I remember, vaguely, riding on her back and being fascinated by her ponytail. When I was about five, she took me with her to stuff paper napkins into chicken wire as the high school choir made homecoming floats. She went to college in Dallas when I was in third grade. One of my happiest surprises was seeing her come home for Thanksgiving. (I’d been told I wouldn’t see her until Christmas). Another year, there was a deep, beautiful snow on the ground the morning after she came home for Christmas, and I felt as blissful as I ever have.

A lot of my memories are about summer camp, Minne Wonka Lodge in Three Lakes, Wisconsin. Helen first went to the eight-week camp for girls when she was nine. By the time I was nine, she was a counselor, and as cool as could be. My sister Ruth Ann was there, too, and I completely idolized them. My second year at camp, I was terribly homesick, so Helen and Ruth Ann snuck me out of my cabin after lights-out one night to walk me around and help me feel better.

Helen and Ruth Ann preceded me at SMU where all three of us were Delta Gammas. They both came to my initiation in the spring of 1970 when Helen was expecting her second baby, Amy. (Her first baby, Leslie, managed to be born on my 17^th birthday, November 8, 1968.) Later that same year, December 1970, I called Helen about a boyfriend problem. She calmly gave some advice, then said she had to go…to the hospital because she was in labor.

During college, Helen coached me on other issues. One time, she and Roger hosted me and an off-beat boyfriend for dinner and a lesson in playing bridge. (The boyfriend was snarky and disdainful because I wasn’t catching on quickly enough or taking it seriously. That was my first and last foray into playing bridge.) When I graduated, Helen hosted a luncheon for me and some of my girlfriends.

She was there for all the major events in my life, good and bad. When I got fired from my first job, Helen reassured me that I’d move forward. Christmas and Thanksgiving were usually at her home for years, until I had a house of my own so we could alternate. She and Roger and their friends Dan and Ellen Schmeling did all the serving at my (very modest) wedding in the DG house.

No one was happier than Helen when John and I finally got around to having our first baby, Jett. If I was Helen’s first baby, Jett was her first grandson. Three years later when Lily came, Helen made supper every night for John and Jett during the weeks that I was confined to a hospital bed. Lily was born eight weeks early and spent the first five weeks in the NICU. On day three, Helen brought her Lutheran pastor to baptize Lily. John and I, Baptists who believe in believers’ baptism, were deeply touched by this compassionate gesture of concern.

We did a lot of things together over the years. When my mother was battling cancer in New Orleans, Helen and I had some surprisingly enjoyable road trips to visit. She invited us to come to her lake house in Scroggins, sometimes even when she wasn’t able to be there. During the last year or so before she moved out to the lake house full time, we had lunch together once a month. How I enjoyed those regular get-togethers!

A couple of years ago, she went with John and me on a hilarious road trip to Iowa to visit her granddaughter Erin. One of my greatest disappointments is that we had to cancel our Viking river cruise last summer due to COVID. During the time we would have been gone—along with Dan and Ruth Ann and her daughter Jennie—Helen got her diagnosis of stage IV melanoma.

The last few months have been rough. Let’s just say that I was relieved when she passed away because the suffering was over.

We Christians take comfort from our faith that Helen is in the arms of Jesus now. She has a new life, rejoicing in the presence of the Father. Yay.

I also take comfort that her spirit lives on in the warm, happy memories cherished by her surviving friends, family, and especially her baby sister.

Morning Star

 

On clear mornings, when I get to my prayer chair before sunrise, I can see the planet Venus in the east. It’s so bright, sometimes I have to stare at it for a while to make sure it’s not an airplane heading toward Dallas Love Field.

There’s something reassuring, perhaps even friendly about that star/planet. I’ve taken to saying “Good morning, my friend.” Venus is sometimes called the Morning Star. Apparently, Sirius (the Dog Star) and the planet Mercury are sometimes a morning star, too. If I were more of an astronomer, I could give a cogent explanation of why it’s usually Venus.

By the way. Is it just me, or does it seem like I write a lot about celestial lights? This is the third post I've done about sunrise, stars, lights, etc. 

The term “Morning Star” appears in the Bible a few times. In Isaiah 14:12, it’s in a well-known passage that some think describes Satan (“son of the morning star”) also known as Lucifer. More likely, that reference is to the king of Babylon, the personification of arrogance and oppression.

In the New Testament, the term is used quite differently.

2 Peter 1:19 -- We also have the prophetic message as something completely reliable, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

Revelation 2: 26-28 -- To the one who is victorious and does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations—that one ‘will rule them with an iron scepter and will dash them to pieces like pottery’—just as I have received authority from my Father. I will also give that one the morning star.

Revelation 22:16 -- “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.”

The Revelation 22:16 passage is clearly a reference to Jesus Christ. The references in Revelation 2:28 and 2 Peter 1:19 are a little less clear, but very likely are also references to Christ.

As I see it, the Morning Star is associated with Jesus. While it is still dark, the morning star is a bright light, a promise of the coming sunrise. I think Jesus, as we know Him now, is similar. A bright, guiding, comforting light that we perhaps see dimly and intermittently. But the morning star is an early sign, a herald, of something much more brilliant and glorious. Venus presages the blazing sun; Jesus presages the glorious, promised New Heaven and New Earth.

I don’t know about you, but in these very, very dark days (January 2021), I really treasure and long for that Morning Star, the promise of the coming Brightness.

Check out these two YouTube videos of a couple of anthems I love that are relevant. The hymn, “O Morning Star, How Clear and Bright,” and “Choose Something Like a Star,” from a poem by Robert Frost. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do. 

The Case for Quality

 

I was admiring the progress on my “All Is Vanity” cross stitching the other day. It feels so rewarding to see how the image is emerging. I admit that I congratulate myself on all those tiny stitches and my surprising attention to detail on the piece. You can see my first post on this topic, published on November 11, 2020. 

I noticed, though, that the area I had stitched in black floss didn’t look as good as it should. The white Aida cloth showed through. This surprised me. The other floss colors covered the canvas very well. Even the other dark colors. The only problem was the black floss, and I had used two strands just as I had with all the other colors.

My first thought was that perhaps I wasn’t using actual DMC floss. Over the years, I’ve accumulated leftover floss from stitching kits. Most of those kits enclosed their own brand of floss, which, honestly, is rarely as good as the DMC brand. DMC floss appears to have a slight sheen to it; most of the non-DMC brands do not.

There might be a life lesson here. (I love to deem random observances as life lessons.)

The quality of what goes into a project determines the quality of how it turns out. I know. This is not rocket science; I’m not the first to figure this out.

In fact, it made me think of something my mother told me when I was learning to cook. “Use the best ingredients,” she taught me. “Then, even if it doesn’t turn out quite the way you expected, it will still taste good.” That’s assuming you measure correctly and don’t burn or undercook it, of course. A corollary idea is attributed, I think, to Julia Child. “If you make a mistake and a dish is still edible, just change the name.”

How else can we apply the principle of good materials? Here are a few other examples.

My Thread Head friends are very particular about the yarn they choose for the caps, scarves, sweaters, socks or mittens they knit or crochet. Some of them start with wonderful yarn, then figure out what to do with it.

We used dollar-store puzzles in our church library (when we had patrons there all the time). The pictures were nice, but the die-cut pieces were substandard, making the puzzles really hard to complete. On the other hand, maybe we just weren’t as good at puzzling as we thought we were.

I have had bad results with cheap nail polish. I strongly prefer gel ink pens to stick Bics. I once had a wool suit that I paid way too much money for, but it lasted for more than 20 years.

Back to the cross-stitch. I bought more DMC 310 and tried using three strands. That seems to solve the problem. And, at some point, I plan to redo or stitch over the wimpy black portions that I discovered the other day.

Do you have any additional applications of the “use good materials” principle? Let me know!

Here's an update on my All Is Vanity stitching, as of January 5. Most of the image is complete. Since the background is black, there's a LOT of DMC 310 stitching in my future.