A son who would make things happen...

My grandfather, Edward Strazdins, was born in Latvia in 1918, the year of Latvia's independence. He was the youngest of four brothers and very close to his mother, Anna. When she was pregnant with him, she prayed for a son who would make things happen. And he has. 

Edward's father, Juris, got the plot for their farm in Nitaure after WWI, and created it step by step with help from his older sons. The log house for the cattle went up first. They lived there while the house was being built, and slept in the hay above the cows.

Juris was a skilled carpenter and made just about everything they needed for the house, including cement bricks and shingles. Their home was called Aizups ("beyond the river"), with three rooms, an upstairs, a hallway and an exit to the porch, as well as steps that went down to "Mergupe (the little river). 

The house was surrounded by lilacs. Papa Ed loves to look at the lilac tree that we have here in Dryden, when it's in bloom. Perhaps he's remembering the scent of the trees around Aizups, his first home.

Mergupe was spring fed and very cold, with deep pools for swimming. There were crayfish, trout and northern pike. Edward and his dog Chammie would fish together, and Chammie would catch the fish with his teeth! He's always loved fishing, and spent free time in Newfoundland, Maine and the Adirondacks, boating, camping, and fishing. 

In the fields, they planted rye, barley, oats and wheat. His mama had strawberries and black currants. The boys made webbed baskets to harvest potatoes from their fields, by peeling and splitting the bark from pine roots and weaving the strands together. Edward has always been good with his hands, and still has a surprisingly tight grip.

He choose to study chemistry, finishing his degree while he and his wife and little Baiba (my mother) lived in a displaced person's camp in Germany. Years later, he became a principle scientist at American Cyanamid Company.

In his work as a chemist, Papa saw things that others didn't and was good at finding practical applications. I think the skills and habits he learned on the farm in Latvia played a large role in his approach to life.

Papa has lived with us for six years, and is 101 years old. When he feels lousy, you can tell that he's getting tired of going through the motions of life. When he's feeling well, he might verbalize that he's trapped here and he doesn't like living with us. I understand both. His whole life he was the man to make things happen and the one giving to people. Now, he's on permanent vacation in our home. He needs help, but he doesn't realize he needs help. The things he still uses are kept within his reach. We are his well choreographed back up crew.

Occasionally he gets sick. The nurses at the hospital love to see him on his occasional visits there because he's polite and sweet. He lays in the hospital bed with his red down comforter, red vest and cap that says "4810 Courmayeur Mont Blanc". We sneak in smoked salmon and peanut butter sandwiches so that he'll eat.

Papa has his own way of doing things. When the weather starts to turn cold, Jeff seals the bedroom window with plastic (on the outside) to keep him from freezing during the winter, because the window is always open. He "can't breath" with it shut.  

I am grateful that we can care for Papa here in our home. We don't do it alone. Without outside help, we would never be able to manage this.

But I have to be honest, sometimes I struggle. It's hard to have this at the center of everything we do. I don't sleep well when Papa wanders around the house at night in the dark. We have a hard time finding time for ourselves outside of caring for Papa. And it makes me sad to realize how easy it is to focus on the "problems" that are part of caring for an older relative, instead of remembering who he was and still is inside.