Homemade

 

Homemade

It has been 45 years this week since my eyes fell on the most beautiful sight possible in this world.  That was when I stood near the altar of St. Michael’s Chapel and turned to see my bride processing down the altar at our wedding.  Her dress was beautiful; it was simple and yet elegant; it complimented her beauty rather than competed with it.  She wore a simple hairpiece with fresh interwoven flowers that spoke to me of the name I referred to her by – Springtime.  Everything about it spoke Michelle and that was because she had sown the dress herself.  She had shared some updates with me as she worked on it, but it was much more than I was expecting.  And that was fitting because she has been much more than I had hoped for or expected.

With her background of growing up on a small dairy farm and being heavily influenced by two grandmothers who personified the Great Depression, I wasn’t surprised when Michelle told me that she wasn’t going to try to buy a wedding dress; instead, she planned to make it herself.  Homemade means made in and for the home.  It has been the way that she has approached our entire married life. 

Her sewing talent continues to come into play.  I remember the matching shirts she made for Jacob, our firstborn and I for my first Father’s Day.  And the Christmas dresses that she made each year for our daughter Elizabeth.  Now the sewing is mostly for our eleven grandchildren.

Our kitchen has been filled with the smells and delights of family.  Michelle grew up in a farm family where Saturday morning was for baking the bread for the week.  I recall when she told me about how her paternal grandmother, a serious and stern woman who seemed to be perpetually sweeping the floor or hanging out wash, would suddenly swat any child who came too near when she was kneading bread dough with the dough across the face and then laugh while the child stood there with eyes and mouth agape and a face full of flour.  If you’ve never ate a thick slice of bread, still warm from the oven and slathered with melting butter, I feel truly sorry for you.  I especially enjoy the holidays when raspberry kringle and butterhorns and dozens of a dozen kind of cookies and pies and bars bring old family recipes onto the next generation.    

But, all I can tell you about are just touchstones.  There are a myriad of simple gestures that make up a life together.  We pray together, she will still slip her hand in mine, and she snuggles into my shoulder in the evening.  She confides in me why she’s sad and why she’s happy.  She tugs on my beard.  Strangely she seldom laughs at my jokes; her reaction is more in the realm of sympathy, but then she smiles warmly.  I have watched her as a wife, a mother and a grandmother.  I have seen her heart, and it is beautiful.  She knows how to love well.  I am blessed that she has been my wife because all she is and does is homemade. 

His Peace

Deacon Dan