Month: November 2025

A day of giving thanks

The last two Thanksgivings were very lonely for me. This has been a year of healing.

I look back to what I wrote two years ago and see that I was thankful for the 26 years I spent with my beloved partner, who had passed on five months earlier — “I’ve spent 26 years writing about her from time to time, but words fail me when I try to sum up those 26 years beyond simply saying I am grateful.”

Last year I was still alone, and some dear friends took me in on Thanksgiving Day — the family celebration was the next day. I did not yet realize that the woman who had hugged me after church the previous Sunday was destined to settle by my side and become my biggest reason to be thankful this year.

I miss Red at Thanksgiving and probably always will. She relished making food to bring to the family celebration — more than a half-dozen dishes most years to supplement the efforts of Son of Red’s beautiful bride. It was always an adventure packing the car to make sure the warm food stayed warm and nothing spilled.

Those 26 years were the best years of my life. I realized my childhood dream and became the editor of a fine community newspaper, but at home I was building a partnership with a remarkable woman, and that was the real dream come true.

That woman who hugged me last November was also grieving and alone, and she had been for five lonely Thanksgivings. We each had a void that can never be filled, but we found a new place in our hearts to be thankful for today.

Last month she was with me when I became a church member for the first time in decades. The people of First Baptist Church in Sturgeon Bay have become family, and they have welcomed me and lifted me up in ways I had forgotten were possible when two or more are gathered in His name.

The last two years I was grateful at Thanksgiving for all I experienced and lost — this year I get to be grateful for all I have found.

Wherever you are this Thanksgiving, I hope you can count your blessings, and if you are in a place of loss or anxiety, know that you are blessed in this and all things.

I find a grandmother

My dad’s mother died when he was 17 years old; she was a few months shy of her 51st birthday. The only thing my brother or I remember him saying about her was that she was a good cook.

But that was my dad; he didn’t talk about his feelings. I tried to get him to talk about my mother’s passing, more than 10 years later, and all he could say was, choking up, “I miss her.” I can only imagine the emotion of losing your own mother at that age.

I found a picture of Frances Mary Ryszczynski Bluhm (1890-1941) online the other day. I’m pretty sure I had never seen her before. It was fascinating to see my eyes staring back at me. I’m not sure which of her five children is in her lap, but that child sure looks startled about something, perhaps everything.

I dug a little deeper and learned that my father’s grandparents were Otto Herman Bluhm (1858-1936) and Auguste Henriette Prange Bluhm (1865-1935), and Francis Xavier Ryszczynski (1844-1921) and Clara Gebmann Ryszczynski (1852-1898). And now I realize I don’t know the names of my mother’s grandparents, my maternal great-grandparents, just as I didn’t know my paternal great-grandparents’ names until a few days ago.

(The name Prange means a great deal in the history of Wisconsin retail business; I wonder if I’m a distant relative of that family.)

It turns out my grandfather had an older brother who died at age 15. I can imagine how that may have had an impact on his life decisions. Given those times, did he feel an obligation to have more children after she bore him three daughters, to try to continue the family name with their fourth- and fifth-born, who were both sons? (My father, like my mother, was the baby of the family.)

Did he call her Fran? Or being the stern, stoic German who had his grandchildren call him “Grandfather,” was she always Frances?

I think of these names and dates and all the life experiences they represent. These were real people who led real lives, and I am part of the evidence they left behind. And I am not the first person to wish I had asked more questions about my forebears while people who knew the answers were still here. 

In this season of thanksgiving, I am grateful for their lives and their love.

Packing up my dinosaurs

Once again, Ray Bradbury: “I have never listened to anyone who criticized my taste in space travel, sideshows or gorillas. When this occurs, I pack up my dinosaurs and leave the room.”

That “never” is not quite true. Bradbury said that one of his formative moments came when he listened to his little pals who made fun of his collection of Buck Rogers comic strips, and he tore them up. Within a month, 8-year-old Ray realized that dang it, he loved Buck Rogers and no one was going to stop him. He wrote years later of his admiration for that kid.

Why do I like Godzilla movies? some people ask. Even I don’t know the answer. I do know I grew up with the 1956 American remix of the film, with Raymond Burr, and when I finally saw the 1954 Japanese original, I recognized not just a fun monster movie but a magnificent statement about war and peace and how technology can be twisted for evil purposes.

I start watching a new Godzilla movie hoping to experience a story with that kind of power, and I confess they almost always fall short of that lofty expectation. Still, I will hold onto my collection of Godzilla movies as long as I live, for the same reason little Ray rebuilt his Buck Rogers collection, not entirely certain why, but knowing in his heart of hearts that Buck Rogers was essential to who he was.

Like Ray, I don’t mind when people criticize my Godzilla fixation, and if it gets overbearing I pick up my dinosaurs and leave the room. To those willing to tolerate  me for a moment, I will recommend they at least watch that 1954 movie or the 2023 masterpiece Godzilla Minus One. We all have “guilty pleasures” we can’t explain, but we are guilty of taking pleasure in them. I won’t try and stop you, and I will try to smile patiently if you try to stop me.