Sunday, December 30, 2018

Graber Christmas Letter 2018


A warm, cheerful, heartfelt and tardy ‘Merry Christmas’ from my family to yours! Also, I extend our wishes that your New Year is filled with all of the very best blessings, including finances and health and laughter. My New Years’ blessing might be tardy too, depending on which day you read this.

Heidi and I would have loved to send you a personal Christmas card, but we didn’t set aside enough time to get it done. So here is our Christmas card! You can print this photo out and hang it on your refrigerator. 
 Merry Christmas from Shawn (353 months), 
Heidi ([redacted] months), and Owen (11 months). 




 Photo credit: Lynda Halteman

Much has happened this last year in the Graber household, and I’ll try to briefly highlight some of the events of the past 12 months. I’m having a hard time concentrating, because my wife is still cackling about the thought of me describing anything “briefly”. 

On the last day of January, my wife started having contractions. We were two weeks earlier than our due date and had recently returned from a lovely “babymoon” getaway. Owen took 24 hours to arrive and was born February 1st

On February 16th, we took Owen home from the hospital. He was having difficulties breathing when he was born, so he spent his first two weeks in the NICU. We are so grateful for all the prayers, love, and money that were poured over Heidi and I during that stressful time. Owen is now chipper and lively and makes horses look sickly in comparison.



In March, I took Heidi to the hospital. She was suffering from intense abdominal pain, which turned out to be a gallstone stuck in her bile duct. The gallstone was removed, but bile had backed up into her pancreas. Gallstones are fairly common, but Heidi’s case had advanced into the very-rare-and-sometimes-fatal Necrotizing Pancreatitis. Nearly 75% of Heidi’s pancreas was dissolved. Heidi was in the hospital for two weeks, where Owen and I made frequent trips to her bedside. Doctors had hoped to stabilize Heidi enough for surgery to remove her gall bladder, but with her pancreas in such a fragile state, we were sent home instead. Heidi was placed on a feeding tube for 10 weeks with a pump that constantly fed her a liquid diet of what looked like Ensure and tasted like fiber supplements. Those months were filled with a lot of tears. Heidi felt like her bonding time with Owen was hijacked by the two hospitalization events. During Heidi’s stay in the hospital and months recovering at home, we were given donations of breast milk from several incredible mothers. We had hoped that Heidi would be able to return to breastfeeding but we still had to transition Owen to formula. On top of that, Heidi was unable to eat anything when we met with friends, hung out with family, or went to social events. Only during a fast do you realize how often people gather around food…even Bible studies often have snacks or dessert. Heidi’s feeding tube would often clog and leave her starving. Yet through all these soul-crushing trials Heidi maintained her sweet spirit.

 Heidi talking with her team of doctors

 My brother Shaylon's birthday was in April, and I helped 
him build his massive Lego Batmobile


In May we attended the Pella Tulip Festival. Heidi was still on her feeding tube and was more than ready to get out of the house. The Tulip Festival was a beautiful field trip. Owen spent the day in a stroller and thoroughly loved it. I ate some Dutch-themed fair food, which was greasy and delicious but didn’t come with a complimentary set of wooden clogs like I had hoped. 


 Windmill in Pella, IA

 I got to see my dear friend John Lamansky at his Priestly confirmation. Here John and I are with Rebecca. We three were teammates years ago in Future Problem Solving. 

In May I completed my four-year HVAC apprenticeship training 
and became a licensed Journeyman.


Our second anniversary came in June, and we spent a weekend together with Owen in a local hotel. You know those moments when you feel like you procrastinated too long on something important? Failing to book a hotel until they were all full during Memorial Day Weekend was my moment like that. Heidi and I love to travel and would have enjoyed a road trip to another state, but the accumulation of traumatic events had left us too weary to even consider a trip. 


A weekend after our anniversary, I met with several of my high school classmates for our 10-year high school reunion. It was so good to see them again. 

From left to right (classmates noted with *): Shawn* & Heidi, Onassis and Sarah* Rivera, Terry* & Samantha Miller, Harmony* Headings, Bethany* Kramer
We missed our classmates Ilene and Joanna! 

Celebrated Father's day with four generations of Graber boys: 
Grandpa Lynn, Father Barry, myself, and Son Owen

In July, we traveled to Michigan for a Maust reunion at my uncle Larry’s home. He and Aunt Cherie live on the edge of a magnificent lake and we spent five days splashing, swimming, playing games, kayaking, tubing, and eating more ice cream than I thought was humanly possible. Uncle Larry had rented an ice cream machine and furnished over 200 ice cream cones. Thanks to the diligent efforts of myself and my fellow cousins, the cones were gone in the first 36 hours and we switched over to bowls. We had a lovely time with my Grandpa Clayton Maust, who passed away shortly after the reunion. At the end of the reunion, I sensed this was the last time I’d see him alive. As I cried and thanked him for being such an amazing blessing to me, he wept and blessed me one last time. 

 
 
This photo of Grandpa Clayton and Grandma Thelma 
was taken in 2016 at my wedding

A few weeks later, we traveled back to Michigan for Grandpa’s funeral. Several of us grandsons were the pallbearers, and I shared this memory at the funeral:

-----
Back when I was a young whippersnapper, well, younger and snappier than I am now, I wasn’t sure how to go about finding a bride. Grandpa Clayton had managed to find not one but TWO beautiful soulmates, and he let me in on his secret:

“Marriage isn’t about finding someone you can live with;
It’s about finding someone you can’t live without.” 

Grandpa left an amazing example to follow; he was humble, good-natured, open, honest, and kind. I took it for granted that Grandpa loved Bernice, [and when Bernice passed away] loved Thelma. I took it for granted that he loved his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Over the years I realized how rare and precious that is; a man who loves and speaks life over his family. 

Grandpa was generous with his time, his possessions, his wisdom, his laughter. He was able to discern what was important and what wasn’t.  I watched him navigate effortlessly through hundreds of emails to find the ones he needed to read. The emails from his children and grandchildren were read, as were all emails with “THE MAUST CORNER” in the heading. He was searching for some important stock trading articles and found them. As for the rest of the emails blurring past, he didn’t seem to be bothered. The unopened, unimportant emails totaled over 13,000.

The last time I saw Grandpa Clayton was a few weeks before he passed away. I thanked him for all the ways he blessed my life; for setting a Godly foundation that I had long taken for granted. His rich bass voice that once flowed so smoothly was gone. He had to labor to speak, but he responded anyway. His last words to me were “I bless you.”

He’s now with his first love, Jesus Christ. I knew this “goodbye” was coming, but I also know that it’s temporary. How wonderful is that? 

-----

Myself and my cousins with Grandpa's casket


Also in July, Heidi and I ran up to the Iowa State Fair for an evening. We went to see Casting Crowns and Matthew West in concert. It was a hot, sticky Summer evening but there was a lovely breeze as the sun set. Heidi and I shared an extra giant corndog and strolled around the closed-for-the-night agriculture booths. We took it easy on the greasy fair food this time, since Heidi was still feeling tender in the stomach and I was feeling tender in the wallet. But the fryers were churning out all sorts of deep-fat-fried delicacies.

Oreos? Sure.
Snickers Candy bars? Yep.
Pickles? Got those too.
Sticks of butter? Deep-fat-fried and served hot before your eyes right next to the cotton candy. 

I’m not sure how the Iowa State Fair got to be such a big deal, but it’s one of the largest fairs in the U.S. In 2017, 1.1 million people passed through the gates during the 7-day event. For a state that only has 3 million residents, that’s mind-boggling. “It’s because Iowans have nothing else to do! Hyuk hyuk!” I can hear the Pennsylvanians say. Surprisingly, 2018 was my first time at the Iowa State Fair. It was lovely and I’d go again. 

In August Heidi took me flying for my birthday, which was a complete surprise. Like, I got to fly a small four-seater airplane.
 Heidi rode along and got only a tiny bit airsick. 

Heidi served a Low Country Boil for my birthday and it was tremendous. 

 
Heidi and her friend Harmony flew to North Carolina to visit some 
of Heidi's cousins this Summer. Heidi took Owen and spent a week 
out there. Shawn missed them both sorely.

On September 19th, Heidi had her gall bladder removed. Heidi’s gall bladder had to be removed in order to prevent any additional gallstones from harming the remains of her pancreas. Before her surgery, the doctors had Heidi take a pregnancy test. This was because they didn’t want to perform surgery if there was a pregnancy. The test returned negative, and a laparoscopic [small cameras and tools fished through three tiny holes] cholecystectomy [removal of the gall bladder] was performed. The surgery went smoothly and the doctors were very pleased with the operation. 

Heidi, getting fitted with a sweet hospital gown that had 
warm air ducts in it to keep her comfy.

 Owen and I surveying the flooded yard at the trailers
 Heidi came to the rescue with coffee and donuts while we pumped water out of the shop

In September and October, Iowa experienced torrential downpour after downpour, which flooded our shop twice. Graber Heating celebrated our 80th Anniversary with an open house. We hosted over 200 friends and family only days after our shops were flooded. Many friends came to help us clean up, which we are supremely grateful for. 

If I asked you to tell me “where is the most photographed location on earth?” You might say “Eiffel Tower, Paris” or “Taj Mahal, India” or maybe “Kim Kardashian’s bathroom mirror”. These are all close, but incorrect. Evidently, it’s a location in Northern Canada, and I went to look at it with my own eyes. In October, I traveled to the northern reaches of North Alberta, North Canada to attend my dear friend Brooks’ wedding. Brooks had tried to get his fiancé Fallyn into the U.S., but the process is complex and expensive and could take several years, so he elected to move to Canada and get hitched there. I road-tripped with several of my close manfriends (Jordan Shebek, Shane Schwartz, Truman Shetler, and Stu Yoder) and we had a blast. We’re still on speaking terms with each other after more than 60 hours of road time in a single vehicle, so I count that as a win. I keep saying “North” because Fallyn lives in Peace River, AB., which is 20 hours NORTH of the U.S. Border. The scariest thing is, after all that driving, we were still only north enough to reach the bottom islands of Alaska. There is so much land that keeps going northlier and northlier… I can’t even process it. 

Speaking of the border, we crossed with a nearly-illegal amount of cheese. My friend Stu had brought along nearly 80 lbs of the stuff in giant tubes. Cheddar, Pepper Jack, and Marble. The crossing guard asked us if we had any dairy along with us. When we mentioned the truckload of cheese, she nearly croaked. 

“Are you planning to sell any of it?” she asked, while frantically short-selling all the stocks she had in Canadian Milk Farming.
“No, we’re gonna eat it or give it away to friends,” we replied.
“Normally, you’re only allowed twenty dollars of dairy per person, but I suppose I'll let you through this time” she said.
“Oh, we have under that. There’s 5 of us so that would be $100-worth of cheese. How much did you spend on this stuff, Stu?”
“Oh about 85 bucks or so,” he replied.
We were under! But the crossing guard seemed a little incredulous. 

Stu, cheese aficionado, napping during a sunrise in Canada.

 
 Shane, Truman, Jordan and myself in Canada next to a giant Moose statue 
While in Canada, we swung though Banff and Jasper, two large national parks located in the Canadian Rockies. To say the parks were beautiful would be like saying “the Pacific Ocean is damp” or “Grabers tell stories sometimes”. We drove to Lake Louise, which is (according to the Lake Louise official website) the “most photographed location on the face of the earth”. In the Summer, over 15,000 people visit the lake EACH DAY. My friends and I arrived right at the end of the touring season. With heavy snows making their way into the forecast, several of the roads and trails around the lake had been closed for the year, along with all of the restrooms, strangely. Shane and I remarked that the “CLOSED FOR THE SEASON” signs hanging on the bathroom doors could be used year-round and nobody would know the difference. But even on a cloudy, overcast day, the emerald-tinted crystal-clear ice-cold water in the lake was sensational. Lake Louise is fed by six glaciers and is over 230 feet deep. It’s not as deep or as blue as Crater Lake in Oregon, but it does give Crater Lake some stiff competition in the beauty department. In fact, all of the things we saw in those two parks (three, if we count the brief detour into Yoho) were absolutely beautiful. My dear friend Jordan has toured much of the Western United States and has visited Yellowstone and Yosemite and many other national parks but as we walked and drove through Jasper, he declared that the Canadians had us whipped in the Rocky Mountain department. The Canadian Rockies are really, really beautiful. Of course, Canada plays this nicely by putting Saskatchewan in your way before you get to Alberta and the mountains. After hours of driving through what we now refer to as “North Nebraska”, even a speed bump would have looked magnificent. 


 Lake Louise, Alberta
 

Found some elk grazing in a campground. Classic Canadian wildlife just struttin' around.


We arrived in Peace River, Alberta and found, to our delight, a bare minimum of snow. We had expected that we’d have to fashion igloos out of ice blocks in order to survive the first night, but instead we were treated to a balmy 40-degree afternoon. “Oh yah,” the locals said “we had aboot 29.5 centimeters of snow a month ago but it melted. This is kinda rare weather to be having this time of year, eh?” 

Brooks gave us a tour of his wife’s hometown and made sure we got a hot, steamy bowl of poutine, which I wouldn’t mind seeing as a booth at the Iowa State Fair. A massive pile of golden French fries slathered with gravy and cheese curds? Ideal. My mouth is watering right now just thinking about it, mostly because my body requires the extra saliva to survive the salt intake. While shopping for some groceries, we discovered why that crossing guard seemed so astonished at our cheese hoard: an equivalent amount of cheese would have cost us $250 in Canada, or three beavers and a good hatchet.

Brooks' wedding photographer captured this excellent moment in the Canadian bush.

At Brooks’ wedding, we helped set up the reception hall. Over the coffee table was a banner that read “SWEET LOVE” so I found the craft supplies and made a banner with the word “MAKING” and added it above the first banner. The groom and the bride found it and, instead of tearing it down hastily like I suspected they would, left it up for the entire wedding and reception. 

 
In November Heidi and I moved out of our trailer. I had been living there for 8 years, two of those years with Heidi. She had transformed the place, repainting every wall and bringing her sparkle and charm to the decoration and layout. She had built such a cozy nest for Owen; we really were reluctant to leave. But we found ourselves caught between two events: the sale of the trailers and the purchase of a home. We needed an in-between house. Heidi and I prayed and prayed about it. Some dear friends of ours offered us a giant farmhouse to stay in and house-sit for them, so we jumped at the chance. It has truly been an answer to prayers. At the time we were moving, Heidi and I were just telling close family that we were pregnant, so it felt extra bittersweet to leave our little trailer that we had prepared together. Heidi and I made the choice to move together, but I still felt awful that our move happened during pregnancy. A preggo momma wants to feel safe and secure. She wants a cozy little nest for her baby. Moving into a new house is the opposite of all of those things. But yet again my wife met each new challenge with bravery and determination, even when we discovered that the house was very, very cold. There had been a woodstove in the living room but it had been removed and replaced with nothing, mostly because the homeowner wanted another woodstove but his children wanted something a little less high-maintenance. They ordered a gas-fired stove to replace it, but it took four weeks to arrive. (My dad and I joked that, upon placement of the order, an elderly man took a pickaxe into the mountain to extract the ore to make the stove.) In those four weeks, we kept the house from freezing by using little electric heaters. There were several windows that had been left open over the Summer, and we didn’t find the last open window until AFTER the blizzard that left 12” of snow on the ground. With 19-degree air pouring through a small window in the cluttered office, we finally discovered why the adjacent laundry room always felt so drafty. Heidi has been marvelously adding her signature to this house. We’re here for just a year, but in the meantime, Heidi has made it our home. It has been a lovely adventure. 

The farmhouse is connected to a smaller guest house, which in the Amish circles is referred to as a “Dawdy Haus” I don’t speak Pennsylvania Dutch but my online searches tell me I’m in the right ballpark. Several helpful references I’ve found online tell me I’m referring to a “Granny Flat” in Australia or a “Mother-in-law house” in Norway. We’ve become good friends with the young couple that lives in whatever-it-is that’s connected to us. Their names are Merlin and Kimmy and they have a darling little girl a few months younger than Owen. We’ve played Rook late into the night on several occasions with them. 

Speaking of wee little children, we’re expecting! Heidi is due June 5th. We traced back the due date and discovered that Heidi was about a week pregnant when she had her gall bladder surgery. Evidently it was too early for the pregnancy test to detect? We were again grateful for how well the surgery went, since there appears to be no harm or trouble with our Lil Sprout. When Week 20 rolls around, we’ll find out the gender, but Heidi already suspects it’s a girl. Her reasoning is that with this pregnancy, she’s craving all the sugary and sweet things that she normally doesn’t crave. So evidently boys aren’t sweet?? She craved radishes and beets and all sorts of red vegetables with Owen, so I’m not sure what that says about boys. 





This year-end summary has really reminded me of all the things we’ve been through this year; so many blessings and trials all intertwined. I haven’t hardly even scratched the surface of all the things we’ve been up to, but this will suffice for now. God has carried Heidi, Owen and I through so much this year, and we give Him all credit for our health, our home, and our happiness. We love each and every one of you and wish God’s presence in your lives this coming year!

With love,

Shawn, Heidi, and Owen.


No comments:

Post a Comment