All Through Life

It is Sunday + we keep reminding our boy he is one year old.  May God watch over our darling boy all through life.  And each successive birth-day find him as pure + sinless as he now is.  And may God help us to live right + train our little darling up to be a noble christian man.  - Frances, April 1891

Birthdays are a cause for celebration, but particularly so in the 1890s.  Frances had 6 children - one little girl died as a baby, and from what I can gather, she had a stillborn or miscarriage as well.  Birthdays were a celebration of life - and survival.  People didn't talk much about the losses.

Even today, miscarriages are considered a taboo topic.  I have had friends and family members go through this terrible loss, and each one of them has said how lonely it felt.  They felt they couldn't talk about their experience.  

Who do we turn to in the horrible times?  What about the joyous times?  Frances's faith in God was central to her identity.  On her son's birthday, she offered up prayers to God to help her protect, teach, and care for her young child.     

What helps us through the celebrations and and the sorrows?  How do we connect?  Or share?  Or ask for help and guidance?  Some people choose religion.  Others a network of family and friends.  Some have faith in something else altogether.  I don't believe that there is a right answer.  I do believe that sometimes the hardest thing in the world is feeling alone.  What if we all took a moment to share in someone's joy?  Share in their tears?  Share in their anger?  Share in their fear?  Share in their hope?   

He Is So Feeble

Well here again have I arrived at another birth-day.  The come around only too fast.  Why I'll soon be an old woman.  I am looking for Annie + the Dr. on the 17th - their first visit since they were married.  Pa came over when Annie was married, he is so feeble.  I fear he will not live long - but we all pray that the good Lord will spare him to us yet many years longer.  - Frances, February 1892

Frances has arrived at her 28th birthday, and already she feels like an old woman!  Twenty eight seems so young, even to me as a still-young person in my 30s!  How many times do we tell ourselves we are 'too old'?  We have so much to handle in our lives - sometimes, it does seem like the years start slipping away.  Frances is excited to see her sister, Annie, and her new brother-in-law.  Remembering their recent wedding, she thinks back to how her father looked - feeble, frail.  So often it is the burden of adult children to worry about their aging parents.  It is painful, and often overwhelming, to watch a loved one move through the last years of their lives.  It can certainly make you feel older than you are.