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Under Mom's Wings
December 1, 2008
My mother, Elna Schmitz Polis, has returned home for good,
gently picked up and carried away by the Lord before dawn this morning. She was
just over 88 1/2 years old, and had lived much of her life anticipating this day
with some apprehension, having almost been called home at the age of 13 from a
ruptured appendix, before antibiotics were an option. That near-miss seemed to
haunt her, filling her with worry that it was a mistake that she survived that
episode at all. Yet she thrived despite the anxiety, and ended up, much to her
surprise, living a long life full of family and faith.
She was born in the isolation of a Palouse wheat and lentil farm in eastern
Washington, in a two story white house located down a long lane and nestled in a
draw between the undulating hills. It was a lonely childhood which accustomed
her to solitude and creative play inside her mind and heart. All her life and
especially in her later years, she would prefer the quiet of her own thoughts
over the bustle of a room full of activities and conversation.
Her childhood was filled with exploration of the rolling hills, the barns and
buildings where her father built and repaired farm equipment, and the chilly
cellar where the fresh eggs were stored after she reached under cranky hens to
gather them. She sat in the cool breeze of the picketed yard, watching the huge
windmill turn and creak next to the house. She helped her weary mother feed farm
crews who came for harvest time and then settled in the screened porch listening
to the adults talk about lentil prices and bushel production. She woke to the
mourning dove call in the mornings and heard the coyote yips and howls at night.
As a young woman, she was ready to leave the farm behind for college, devoting
herself to the skills of speech, and the creativity of acting and directing in
drama, later teaching rural high school students, including a future Pulitzer
Prize winning poet, Carolyn Kizer. She loved words and the power and beauty they
wielded.
Marrying my father was a brave and impulsive act, traveling by train to the east
coast only a week before he shipped out for almost 3 years to the South Pacific
to fight as a Marine in WWII. She must have wondered about the man who returned
from war changed and undoubtedly scarred in ways she could not see or touch.
They worked it out, as rocky as it must have been at times, and in their
reconciliation years later, I could see the devotion and mutual respect of life
companions who shared purpose and love.
As a wife and mother, she rediscovered her calling as a steward of the land and
a steward of her family, gardening and harvesting fruits, vegetables and
children tirelessly. When I think of my mother, I most often think of her
tending us children in the middle of the night whenever we were ill; her
over-vigilance was undoubtedly due to her worry we might die in childhood as she
almost did.
She never did stop worrying until the last few months. As she became more
dependent on others in her physical decline, she gave up the control she thought
she had to maintain through her “worry energy” and became much more accepting
about the control the Lord maintains over all we are and will become.
I know from where my shyness comes, my preference for birdsongs rather than
radio music, my preference for naps, and my tendency to be serious and straight
laced with a twinkle in my eye. This is my German Palouse side--immersing in the
quietness of solitude, thrilling to the sight of the spring wheat flowing like a
green ocean wave in the breeze and appreciating the warmth of rich soil held in
my hands. From that heritage came my mother and it is the legacy she has left
with me. I am forever grateful to her for her unconditional love and her
willingness to share the warmth of her nest whenever we felt the need to fly
back home and shelter, overprotected at times but safe nonetheless, under her
wings.
Grandma Elna meeting her newest greatgrandson Noah Bianchi 5 days before she died
Emily