Sweet Lorane Community News, December 31, 2020
Fern Ridge Review
Creswell Chronicle
Sweet Lorane Community News
December 31, 2020
By Pat Edwards
In the summer of 2018, my sister and brother-in-law, Barbara (I call her B.J.) and Dwight Isborn, moved from their beautiful home above Cottage Grove Lake to an equally beautiful home in Redmond, Oregon, where they’ve always wanted to live—out of the rainy winters into the cold-but-sunny, snowy ones. The problem with that is, they left family behind in Lane County and none of us enjoy driving the snowy passes between here and there during the winters. As a consequence, we haven’t spent any of the winter holidays together since. With the arrival of the pandemic in 2020, we haven’t gotten together as a group for a year now and even though we are relatively close in distance, they might as well be living on the East Coast. B.J. did make it over the hill this summer for an outdoor, socially-distanced, memorial service of an extended family member, but she drove home the same day, and one day during the early part of spring, before the mandates, she and Dwight came over to see their daughter and we all had lunch together in Cottage Grove, all properly masked.
This Christmas, I made B.J. promise me that she would rein in her gift buying for us. I promised to do the same, as I had decided that we would mainly just get gifts for our little ones in the family. She reluctantly agreed and a week before Christmas, a package arrived in the mail from them. I was late in sending theirs because I had been waiting for an on-line order. When it hadn’t come in time, I put together a couple of token gifts for them—a jigsaw puzzle for her and 3 pairs of socks for Dwight—as promised. When we opened their package on Christmas day, we had a good laugh. They sent me a jigsaw puzzle and Jim 3 pairs of socks. We thanked each other for the great gift selections and came to the conclusion that we could have saved a lot of postage if we had just kept the ones we bought.
The Isborns and Edwards on a 2014 trip to Alaska. Dwight and Barbara Isborn (back); Jim and Pat Edwards (front). We’re looking forward to another trip with them soon.
I miss them.
Like so many others, I am anxious for the people of our nation to get enough vaccinations so that we can once again lower the restrictions that are keeping us from our loved ones, our jobs, our schools and our good friends and neighbors.
I want to get away from the television news shows with their reports of political divisiveness, the occasional days of wearing pajamas all day, taking naps in the afternoons, trying to focus on the various projects I have taken on, and eating way too much.
I want to get on with the pending sale of our store; to be able to travel while we’re still able; to once again be able to research and work on the book I put aside in 2020. Most importantly, in 2021, I want to freely hug our family and friends in greeting, take caravan vacations, and go to chick-flick and Disney movies with my daughters, granddaughters and great-grands. (We do invite any male family member along who wants to go, too.) I want my great-grandchildren to experience what “going to school” is really like—the excitement of walking into that pre-school or kindergarten classroom for the first time to take that first step of independence. I want to be able to eat out again.
I think that what I wish most for our country is for the huge, deep wound of division to begin to heal; that our leaders in all branches of government—executive, legislative, and judicial—reach out to us in kindness and concern, regardless of party, and to each other in order to not only heal that wound, but to make any remaining scars fade.
Happy New Year—2021, and God Bless America!
Sweet Lorane Community News, December 17, 2020
Fern Ridge Review
Creswell Chronicle
Sweet Lorane Community News
December 17, 2020
By Pat Edwards
The 2020 holiday season is here and like so many others I have talked to, I’m having difficulties feeling any excitement or joy. We have all been surrounded by so much turmoil, throughout the year — dealing with the pandemic, racial unrest, the destruction of homes and families by the wildfires, the major hit to our local, small business economy and the on-going, heart-wrenching political dissent with its finger-pointing and blame being laid at the feet of whoever disagrees with us. Depression has been common.
Families are nervous about making plans to get together—trying to find compromises about what they want to do and what they know they should do. Ours is no exception. Like most families, we do not all share the same ideological beliefs. The degrees vary, but one thing that Jim and I do know—our family is unanimous in shielding us from the virus in any way they can.
We are a large, loving family that until 2020, gathered a lot throughout the year. We cherish our family barbecues during the summer, our large family vacations, our birthday and achievement celebrations throughout the year and, most especially, our holiday traditions.
During the last two years, Jim and I have both been able to cuddle a baby in our arms while we watch their older siblings and cousins swim in our daughter’s pool, or ride their ponies, hold baby lambs, swing and slide on their play sets and otherwise form bonds so tightly that these great grandchildren of ours will carry the same traditions on to their own kids some day. We are very much aware of how much we have been blessed, and also how much we need to hold on to the memories that we are making now even though we must limit them. It has been our hope that our family’s willingness to sacrifice this year may mean that we can all be together next year.
This past week, I realized that I had no desire to decorate our home for Christmas. We have made no plans to have our cookie decorating party this year, or the Christmas morning breakfast that we usually have. I have been getting and making gifts for the little ones, but I have no idea if I’ll be able to see them open them on Christmas Day. But, when Jim and I went out to fill the orders on the two ornaments we took off of the Lorane Angel Tree, we enjoyed searching for gifts that would be special to the unnamed local kids who had requested them. Then, we got to meet our son’s new St. Bernard/Mastiff puppy that he just brought home. Happy puppy kisses and the beautiful decorated tree in his living room brightened our day.
The next day, I brought home my Christmas decorations and began putting up our tree. I decided to get out the original decorations I had used when our own kids were small this year. When I opened the tub they were in, on the top I saw a familiar box. I lifted the top and, amid the cotton that filled it, was a small purple drawstring bag. I replaced the lid and set the box aside until I had strung the lights and hung all but one of the ornaments on the tree. I reserved a limb at the front and the very top of the tree as a place of honor for that last 
ornament. I carefully opened the royal purple bag and took out the very fragile, faded Santa Claus that had adorned so many of our trees over the years. It had been given to me by my mother many years ago. It had belonged to her when she was a little girl in Long Beach, California… and I realized that it was now over 100 years old. Just placing that special ornament on the tree brought back not only the love of the angel who has been sitting on my shoulder since my mother passed in 2012, but the peace and goodwill that I’ve always felt at Christmas time.
May we all experience goodwill and peace in our hearts this holiday season and may we all have an angel sitting on our shoulders to remind us of our blessings!
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