More Feedback
My sister, Karen (you remember her: the school teacher in Michigan), wrote in response to my posting about the Christmas memory of my sister, Sue.
I hadn't heard the story about Sue at Christmas. I don't know why I hadn't, but it is so typical of her reaction to any emotional situation.Which is exactly what I was telling Aaron on Monday: he's out-numbered, its a Dykstra trait-- not a bad one-- but he's only half-Dykstra so he's going to have a short-coming there, y'know? ;>)Now, since you post everything anyone writes you into your website, I want people to know that in no way is that intended as a derogatory comment. Sue IS an emotional person. If she were not, she would not be Sue.
Of course, being a Dykstra I have to admit that I have the same affliction. I even cried at breakfast this morning as I read a moving story in the last GUIDEPOST magazine. (I eat breakfast at 5:30 in the morning alone--no one else is up--so its OK to read while I eat my frosted flakes.) And I know Marica is also a Dykstra in that department. When I visited last spring and brought a video of my students doing the play she wrote, I saw a few tears, as I recall.
'Nuff said.
Love, Karen
By the way, I'm not sure if Karen's spelling of my name (see Italics above) is intentional or not-- being Christmas Eve, she's been busy with family things and I haven't been able to hook back up with her to ask her. Maybe my name was mis-spelled on my birth certificate and it really is supposed to be MARICA?? Nah! My mother would've noticed that, wouldn't she? Yeah, sure, she would have noticed . . . I'm pretty sure she would've, right?
These things are weird the way that I remember stories about my childhood and my family. Being concerned about the spelling of my name got me to think about my mother filling out the form for my name for the county when I was born which got me to flash onto a memory that my sister, Karen, relayed to me in the last year or two. I hadn't heard it before but I thought it was really cute: It seems that since I was born the day before Karen's birthday, besides being the best birthday present she EVER received, her visit to the hospital was the first time that she got to be "A Big Girl".
The day after I was born, my dad and siblings went to the hospital to visit my mom and I. EVERYONE had to stay in the waiting room at the hospital-- everyone except Karen. She and my dad were walking hand-n-hand toward my Mom's room when one of the nurses called out: "Mr. Dykstra?" She called after them, and raising her finger to point at Karen, "She can't go back there-- she's too young, you know that." He turned and very proudly replied to the nurse's concerned voice, "No, she can come back here now-- she's 12 today and that's old enough to visit in one of the rooms." He looked at Karen and they smiled and turned back to walk down the hall the rest of the way.When Karen told me this story, she said it with a certain kind of pride in her voice; I'm not sure if it was because she was the oldest in the family or because she was allowed to go back into the hospital room when no one else was or because our father "took up" for her. The "Why" of the pride doesn't matter-- just that it was there and instilled in her (as in all of us) from an early age is what's important.
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