My editor at Lookout Eugene asked if I'd explain how I went from back then to now. I was happy to oblige.
I credit the storytelling skills of my foremothers and the discipline of writing letters to my grandmas.
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| I'm on the left, at age 6, with Margaret (2 months) and Rebecca (7) |
People often ask me about that Mennonite novel I've wanted to write for years. It isn't written yet. In fact, I've written very little, fiction or non, the last five years.
However, sometimes I write a bit of fiction just for fun, like this story I wrote the last time I had Covid. I think that was my fifth round of it. So parts of this story may have been based on fact.
Donna's Job
Donna had to keep everything alive. It was her job, and they were counting on her. But her body weighed far more than she could lift off the bed. Fevered dreams swirled around her--parakeets in a cage, listless and thirsty. Hungry children. Cats prowling, scratching at cupboard doors, finding nothing.
She woke up slowly, her head full of a fevery fog and her eyes watering. She glanced around the room–desk, curtains, easy chair, the clock on the wall. No bird cages, thank God. That was just a dream.
But still. Were Mark and Amanda keeping the cats fed? Did the chickens have enough water on these hot days? And her precious straw bale garden with the radishes just beginning to sprout. Was anyone remembering to water it?
Donna glanced at her nightstand. A fluffy pile of kleenex, a glass with an inch of water in the bottom, and a tube of ivermectin. She needed food and water, but Mark was at work and Amanda was busy. She hated to bother them. Surely she could find her way to the bathroom and get fresh water. She considered this monumental task until she fell asleep again.
This time, she was still in her room in the feverish dreams, but a bird hopped out of its cage to bring her a cracker, the cat tucked a thermometer in her mouth, and Amanda appeared with a pot of tea that smelled minty and refreshing.
“Mom! Are you ok? You look terrible!”
Was Amanda real? Donna opened her eyes. Amanda set a tray on the nightstand and threw a wad of tissues in the trash.
Had she really brought tea? Yes, she had. Amanda poured a minty stream from the little white pot and handed it to her mom.
Donna struggled to sit up, motivated by anticipation. She took the cup in both hands and took a sip. The refreshing fluid rinsed her dry mouth and went down her raw throat in a wave of life and hope.
Maybe she’d be ok after all.
“Did anyone water the garden?” Donna croaked.
“Dad did, this morning,” Amanda said. “And he took care of the chickens. I fed the cats. Everything is taken care of.”
Donna felt a rush of relief. She swallowed another gulp of tea.
“Stop worrying and get better,” Amanda commanded. “And let me know what to bring for you.”
“I hate to bother you,” Donna whispered. “You have enough to do, and I feel so bad for not doing my work.”
“Right now, your work is to keep yourself alive!” Amanda turned and left the room, softly closing the door.
Donna lay down, the pillow welcoming and soft. Everything was still alive! She just needed to keep herself alive. That was her job.
In her dreams, the parakeets hopped onto the nightstand and reminded her to take ibuprofen. A chicken marched in and poured her another cup of tea. The cat straightened her mangled covers.
“All right,” Donna told the cat, “I am going to try to keep myself alive.”
“Good for you,” said the cat.
Like my November 2nd update, this is going to read like a letter from my Amish aunts. If you’re not into details of poor health, quietly move along.
The Yoders used the word “doctoring” a lot—actually “doctoring for.” It meant they were repeatedly seeing a doctor, usually for a specific ailment. “Jonas has been doctoring for his arthritis.”
"Jonas is doctoring his arthritis," would mean he was rubbing BenGay on his joints every night.
I am becoming more Yoder as the years accumulate, not only perfecting my grandma’s sharp look that tolerates no foolishness, struggling with my Yoder lungs, and taking frugality to ridiculous lengths, but also, more recently, doctoring.
Last fall I not only dealt with my constant low-key Yoder cough, but I also fought a series of respiratory infections that really scared me.
In November, desperate, I abruptly changed my diet, eliminating dairy, wheat, and sugar. Within weeks, the constant hacking was less than half as bad and kept improving.
However. The diet didn’t improve my immunity to the respiratory infections that followed one another like blizzards in The Long Winter. In December, sick and exhausted, I announced to the family that I couldn’t “do” Christmas for the first time in forty years. Jenny came home from Virginia for a week and made not only the traditional Kenyan dinner on Christmas Eve, but also whipped up an astonishing Christmas dinner of Cornish game hens stuffed with butter and lemon and rosemary, plus mashed potatoes and much more. Meanwhile, I lay on the couch and drank tea, too miserable to feel guilty.
And I agonized over a big decision. I was committed to a big trip in January involving speaking at two women’s retreats plus attending an Open Hands staff retreat and enjoying an anniversary getaway in Belize.
How could I scrape together the energy to take this trip? And yet, how could I not? It felt unthinkable to cancel. All that work already put in by the committees, and all those women expectant and planning to come. I have done harder things than this; I would just do it.
My daughters protested. “Mom, you would rather die than let someone down!”
Well, yes. Isn’t that the good Christian way??
They didn’t think so.
All right. I would make a decision by December 28th, the last day to cancel on the condo on a Belizian island.
I chose a definable metric: my ears. They had been stuffed and inflamed since I flew in October, and I shouldn’t fly until they were better. If the doctor pronounced them clear, I would fly. If not, then not.
The doctor said they were not ok. So I made the wrenching decision to cancel everything and stay home.
It’s hard to describe the disappointment. Missing the Belize segment was especially painful—the tropical island getaway with Paul and also the retreat with the most eager and welcoming women I’ve ever spoken in front of.
So I stayed home, rested, and doctored. My primary care doctor and chiropractor were very helpful. The ENT specialist was not, taking the word of a fancy machine over what he actually saw in my ears, nor was the dismissive functional medicine doctor I saw, hoping to get to the root of my issues. "I think you'll be fine in a month."
Doctoring is always a gamble, one of many approaches to finding a solution to a stubborn problem. You might have more luck with sage tea from your sister than with a multi-degreed physician. You never know.
I improved slowly. Paul started making happy comments about how much less I was sleeping during the day and how much more energy I had. But I still rationed my spoons very carefully. If I went to an event on Saturday, it meant I couldn’t go to church on Sunday. If I went to church Sunday morning, I couldn’t go in the evening. Shopping was out of the question. Paul picked up what we needed.
Last Saturday, almost four months after the Christmas crash, I impulsively decided to attend a children’s concert that a friend’s children were involved in. It didn’t wipe me out. The next day, I went to church. Things are looking up.
I’ve cut back on the doctoring, but I continue to perfect the diet. While milk still triggers a coughing fit, I discovered I can have high-fat dairy products. Once I could have butter on my popcorn I decided life is worth living after all. I cook big batches of rice and Thai soup or taco fillings or roast beef and baked potatoes, and then I eat the same thing for days, and it works very well.
Paul is grateful not to have to cook for himself and insists that he’s fine with repetitive meals. He doesn’t want me to cook separate foods for him, so it’s tacos or beef for both of us.
The daughters have been my sternest monitors, insisting that I need to quit traveling because I always catch some terrible virus when I fly and then spend a month or two recovering. So I meekly obey, most of the time, and even stayed home last week when Paul flew to his niece’s wedding in Wisconsin.
In addition to doctoring as needed, I am determined to do all the healthy things: diet, sleep, walking, vitamins, and so on, hoping to eventually grow a healthier version of myself.
Mostly, this season is teaching me the fine art of saying No. It is a far harder skill to learn than baking without wheat or using coconut milk in cooking. Saying No means changing patterns, breaking old ways of thinking, and letting people down.
When I was debating about going to the two retreats in January, I asked someone for advice.
“Will you be bringing your best self to these events?” she said.
“Definitely not,” I answered.
“In another year, if you take care of yourself, you will bring a much healthier version of yourself. I think they deserve that.”
So do I.
Maybe I even deserve it myself, just for me.
I would like to add that I already had this title chosen when I read my friend Anita Yoder's post about winter seasons, so relevant to my experiences the past year. " Spring is hard-won. Winter seasons are intensely difficult, demanding, distressing—how many other D words?—dangerous, depressing, debilitating, dark, depleting, deserted."
All true. But Dorcas and her Daughters are Determined that she will make it to spring.
I am happy to introduce you to my new column in a new online newspaper, Lookout Eugene-Springfield. I will be writing twice a month and sharing my stories, reflections, and ideas. Topics will likely include gardening, sustainability, family, retirement, travel, and much more. I welcome you along for the ride.
My friend Bob Welch, author of numerous books and articles, invited me to answer some questions for a where-is-she-now update on his Substack.
It was a lot of fun. We covered my writing projects, Paul's recovery, my Amish and Mennonite process, and more.
You can read it right here.
[I posted this yesterday and it looked right on the website, but when I read it on the Feedblitz email this morning, the text was all in a block instead of lined and spaced. So I'll try again.]
When Jenny Leaves
Tightly zipped, the luggage
sits in back.
Her dad slams the hatchback shut.
The world is gray and wet,
water dewed on windows,
a gray bank of clouds to the east
with faint light behind.
The sky is clear overhead, he says.
It will not rain today.
North on Interstate 5 and
she's tidy, zipped, and ready,
alert, alive.
Coffee at hand.
Off to her other life.
"Dad, what are your goals for 2025?"
Behind them, her mom sleeps on a bunched-up coat,
or tries.
Water streams on gray windows:
grief on a gray soul.
Is there no way to keep her here
boxed in a white farmhouse,
a caged parakeet
chirping, to bring me joy?
Tell me about your research, he says.
In the dark, her voice is light
and force and fire.
The only inputs you take in are integers, she says.
He nods. He sees
not the complex math but the daughter,
the calling, the joy, the gifts,
the beautiful chosen life.
Beneath the stunning wooden beams
of PDX
they hug goodbye and smile.
Go, my child.
This is the route for you, this gate right here.
Go far.
Under a wide dramatic sky
they drive home,
south on I-5,
thoughtful, sad, proud.
Bright sunlight all around.
Our youngest daughter, Jenny, is in her fourth year at Virginia Tech in pursuit of a Ph.D. in mathematics. She came home for a week over Christmas.
Tightly zipped, the luggage
sits in back.
Her dad slams the hatchback shut. The world is gray and wet
water dewed on windows, a gray bank of clouds to the east with faint light behind. The sky is clear, he says. It will not rain today. In the front seat She’s tidy, zipped, and ready, alert, alive. Coffee at hand. Off to her other life. “Dad, what are your goals for 2025?” Behind them, her mom sleeps on a bunched up coat, or tries. Water streams on gray windows-- grief on a gray soul. Is there no way to keep her here boxed in a white farmhouse, like a caged parakeet chirping, to bring me joy? Tell me about your research, he says. In the dark, her voice is light And force and fire. The only inputs you take in are integers, she says. He nods. He sees Not the complex math but the daughter, the calling, the joy, the gifts the beautiful chosen life. Beneath the stunning wooden beams Of PDX They hug goodbye and smile. Go, my child. This is the route for you, this gate right here. Go far. Under a wide dramatic sky They drive home, thoughtful, sad, proud. Bright sunlight all around.
Our youngest daughter, Jenny, is in her fourth year at Virginia Tech in pursuit of a PhD in mathematics. She came home for a week over Christmas.
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| Jenny and Paul on the skybridge. |
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| Just before we said goodbye. |
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| The Portland airport was recently renovated, and the result is incredible, especially the new wood ceiling made of locally sourced Douglas fir. |
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I'm actually looking for ideas about what to eat, but first this post will sound like the letters my Yoder aunts would send in the family circle letter. "Was to the dr. yest. to talk about my aches and pains ha."
The "ha" was a frequent insertion in their letters, telling you this was an attempt at humor. I guess you might not pick up on that otherwise.
If you've been around me for over an hour, you know I'm afflicted with the Yoder Cough, a soft persistent hacking that becomes easily-ignored background noise.
The cough comes from the Yoder Lungs, fragile organs which struggle to do their job even on their best days and also catch every respiratory virus in the wind. At that point, the gentle coughing transitions to a deep gasping and rasping, sort of like a choking German Shepherd, that cannot be ignored and causes great worry to any listeners.
Actually, Yoders have a family tradition of being sickly and frail but also living a long time. Dad's mom, "Kansas Mommi", wasn't expected to reach adulthood but lived to 103 years old.
Dad was always thin and forever coughing and also had the Yoder Stomach, [de Yeddah schwache Mahwa] but he lived to 102.
So I coughed a lot for many years, inhaled lots of asthma medications, fought bronchitis and Covid and other recurring respiratory ills, and assumed I'd live a long time despite all this. I am committed to family tradition, after all.
Of course, I have also tried to take care of myself and eat well and get enough sleep and never ever get cold feet. I avoid artificial scents, especially Glade plug-ins, because they are plastic death, probably invented by the devil himself, ha. In addition to prescription meds, I have tried multiple supplements from vitamins to CBD to various MLM products.
The inhaled steroids keep me alive. The CBD cream has helped the most of any potion I've tried. Both took the edge off the cough. Neither stopped it.
In the last month, for the first time, I had an alarming sense that if nothing changed, I would not keep up the family tradition of living a long time.
In late summer, my friend and neighbor Simone said, “You are always sick!” She was right. I cycled through illnesses and in early October came down with a nasty sore throat and what felt like laryngitis. Soon, the sore throat descended into my lungs and turned deep and liquid.
Unfortunately, we needed to travel, and traveling and sickness go together for me like moving to a different house and having a baby always happened at the same time when I was a young mom. I get sick every time I fly. Or if I'm already sick, it gets a lot worse.
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| I wore a mask to avoid spraying pneumonia particles on my seatmates. I was comforted in this ordeal by having a mask that matched my jacket, only a few shades lighter. |
Not only was the cough beyond horrible, but I was so tired that I had to gather my courage to climb a flight of stairs. But I didn't pursue seeing a dr. on our week-long trip because we were away from home, I didn't have a fever, and I figured if I found a doctor he or she would dismiss it as just a virus: get lots of rest and push fluids, goodbye.
We came home. I felt terrible, like a python was squeezing my chest, and like I just wanted to sleep if I could muster the strength to walk to bed. I began to question whether I'd survive to 65, let alone 100. The doctor told me it’s “walking pneumonia exacerbated by asthma” and put me on antibiotics and oral steroids. It took me the rest of October to sort of recover.
This is the thing with modern American medicine: It’s amazing when your husband shatters his wrists and lots of other bones, and they piece him back together and help him survive. It’s frustratingly insufficient with anything vague and chronic.
Asthma is technically not an autoimmune disease, but it’s in the same neighborhood. It’s connected to inflammation and to the body going a little crazy overreacting to irritants.
No one could ever tell me why this was happening.
If you Google causes and treatment of asthma, every major medical site says, “Avoid irritants such as mold,” and “Increase your dose of inhaled steroids.” That’s all my doctor could offer me as well.
So there you are, coughing wretchedly and knowing you need steroids to keep breathing, but also knowing that something is completely and deeply wrong with this picture. The medical world offers zero help for getting to the root causes of your breathing difficulties, so you go wandering among YouTube and Instagram “natural” practitioners who might or might not have the credentials they say they do.
A recurring theme in my research was food sensitivities causing inflammation which then causes asthma and lots of other ills. It mostly made sense.
Dr. Josh Redd, whose qualifications I had no way of checking, offered a free printable guide to an elimination diet to test which foods I might be reacting to. The simplest one, cutting out dairy products, sugar, and wheat, seemed the most logical for my situation. Impulsively, I decided to go for it on a random Friday morning, of course right after I’d bought lots of ravioli and bread sticks at Costco and a big bag of string cheese at Grocery Depot.
That was one week ago. I eat oatmeal in various iterations, cook enough rice at one time for three dinners, and fry eggs and vegetables and meat to go with the rice. I made apple crisp when we had guests for supper, and I didn’t eat any of it.
I am going to get tired of this menu very soon.
However. I am coughing noticeably less. I can hardly believe it. For the last month, I’d been taking cough syrup at night so I could get a few hours of sleep. I quit doing that and slept without waking up in paroxysms of wheezing and gagging. I haven’t used a rescue inhaler in a week.
Today I spoke at a women’s event at a church and embarrassingly coughed a lot, again, and right before I left I suddenly realized there were candles, probably scented, burning on every table. No wonder.
I would say, over all, I’m coughing 65% less than before. It is astonishing. I wonder who I am now. I’m not sure I recognize this person, ha.
The big question is: how will this affect my immune system? Will I keep getting sick? Will I still have to wear a medical mask when I fly or mingle in crowds so I don’t cough on everyone around me or get knocked flat with Covid or bronchitis three days later?
We will see.
I was talking with my sister Rebecca, whose asthma has always been two levels worse than mine. If I need a dose of Albuterol, she needs to be on a nebulizer.
Rebecca said she does best if she strictly follows the exact diet I’m on, which probably means that I’m stuck with this way of eating, because we are very much alike.
I said I don’t understand it. Here we are, needing to avoid the same foods, and we have no family history or anything of food allergies.
She said, “Well! Think about it! All those cakes and pies the Yoder relatives always served. Maybe they actually were sensitive to sugar and gluten, and that’s what was causing the Yoder cough, and no one put it together!”
What a brilliant connection.
I think diet and inflammation and family history are what the medical researchers at Johns Hopkins and WebMD ought to be looking into and testing and sharing. Instead, it’s those of us dealing with asthma every day who are doing the nitty-gritty testing and research, trying dozens of remedies because while we’d really like to follow the family tradition and live to 100, sometimes we just want to survive to see another day.
Before I end this lengthy circle letter, ha, I will put out a call for help from anyone who’s followed this diet. What are some things I can eat? Again, I’m avoiding gluten/wheat, dairy products, and sugar. Please comment your creative menu ideas, if you don't mind.
That would be terrible to decide it’s not worth living longer if it means another meal of oatmeal or rice.
And, as Dad closed every letter from love letters to Mom to Yoder circle letters:
Sincerely,
Dorcas
We have a bumper crop of apples this year, most of which are still very green but they still turned into wonderful apple pies for Sunday dinner yesterday.
