OLGA & BENNY – CARVED IN LOVE

A SQUEAK  PREVIEW

What better way to christen a new website than with a blog about my dear Olga and her Benny. This site will be called “A Symphony of Squeaks.” How cool it is to be able to invite you right into my oasis in this world, in St. Mary’s Church in Fishkill, N.Y., where Benny and Olga generously donated this pew from the depths of their everlasting love.

Come on in…Stroll down the aisle…SCROLL DOWN the page. Sit with me a while on this love-bench, and run your hand over the beaten, battered wood, where they and I and so so many other weary, weeping warriors have sat, caught their breathes, and let it all out. Let me share with you some of the “SQUEAKS” which I have found…in this kneeler and others like it around the world. By “squeaks” I mean the blessed stories of faith and hope and love of extraordinary, yet ordinary souls who sanctified these blocks of wood with their blood and sweat and tears.

I never had the pleasure of meeting Benny, just seen him in so many photographs. But I do KNOW BENNY, as there is no knowing Olga without knowing him. For 57 years they were married; or, should I say married in this place, but truly MARRIED FOREVER. Look into her eyes, and there he remains in her soul.

Mitch Albom may have had his “Tuesdays with Morrie,” but for me and for my family any day with Olga is such a tremendous gift and a testimony to the Wonder of Life. Again I can think of no better way to start this squeaking than with that of a little lady who has been WRESTLING WITH GOD for 95 years.

 OLGA CELEBRATING 90 with my Molly

The Big Story of our day, of course, both here and around the world, lies in that nagging question which I keep getting, “Who are you voting for?” Heck, even the gorillas in the Bronx were discussing it the other day

Two responses immediately come to me. #1 – Not Donald! That was decided just days after he threw in his hat, when he declared that John McCain, whom I don’t even like, is “NOT A HERO!” because in Vietnam he was only captured and held in miserable conditions for over 5 years. A thousand more disqualifiers may have come after that, but I needed no more. #2 – it must be a lady!!!! We have waited and waited and needed and needed for so long  a woman’s touch, a lady’s wisdom and strength. Maybe it’s why we are in such trouble nowadays! BUT, listen! That has never meant Hillary to me. Hillary and “strength” in the same bowl always whipped up as something too hard for me to swallow.

And so, millions of us are facing a moral dilemma unlike any we have known before. “Vote Conscience,” they say, but the Jiminy Crickets are sounding alot like the tinnitus in my ears. So much noise and confusion! How shall I vote in this extraordinary election?? For over a year now my solution has been to vote for my mother, Phyllis Robinson. She would be totally awesome as First Lady President, adding that job to 88 years of wonders. However, she doesn’t want it. Her knees hurt too much, and “a President needs good knees.” So, what am I to do?

ENTER OLGA MIHANOWICH!!!!! here now at 95 with my Van. “I’d be honored to take the job. Just be sure to spell my name right!!!” Now, does she look Presidential, or what???!!!

I have been working for/with Olga lately at her home. Doing “Spring Cleaning,” haha, yes, though a tad late in October. The job from earlier in the year got delayed – by a minor setback. In the words she loves to use to describe it, she “went airborne…flew off the basement stairs” and broke her pelvis. Now, she has known and buried enough dear friends to know that that very often spells THE END for one her age. And so, she did not want hospitals or nursing homes. She was not ready to die! She is definitely GOING FOR 100…and will surely make it. So, here we are, whether I say, “No, let me do that” or not, Olga with healed bones is READY FOR ACTION getting her house in order for another year. Lugging blinds to the bathtub and then to the clothesline outside, giving me directions…to do it the way her mom did it in the 20’s. None of these modern chemicals!!! And behold! there are the original items Olga bought from the Fuller Brush Man when she and Benny moved into their first home in 1943. These things are as good and as clean as the day she said OK to the guy. Imagine, a 73 year old broom!

Trump says he  will “Make America Great Again,” but I tend to agree with Hillary’s “America is already Great, and we just need to remember why!” Much has to do with people like Olga. Lives of hard yet whistling work! And imagine the agonies of outliving almost everyone dear to you. Her wrestling with God most often revolves around the question, “Why? Why me? Why am I the one still standing here?” And here it is, at least one small answer to that question: I would like Olga to know that alot of us would love to call her “Madam Mihanowich.” Of course she wouldn’t win (though maybe so in 2020, at 99?) I have met or heard of hundreds who still are not sure for whom they will vote. Even ex-presidents! John and Cindy McCain said that they intend to find some decent person out there. My own adjective of choice would be “HUMBLE,” something very rare and awesome in Washington anymore. Wow! Could Olga be awesome! Granted, her knees are little better than my much-younger mother’s, but like Abe she would know how to choose the right people to get the jobs done. She would listen to everyone and at 95 learn and learn, love to learn. Olga loves to teach Sunday School at her age, but even more so she loves to take any and every class she can – to learn some more.

Already I have found a dozen who are voting for Olga Mihanowich this Election Day. Wouldn’t it be great if she could add to her life’s adventures that she received a thousand? There are not many days left, but I will campaign for her. Maybe you can as well.  They say that life consists of two dates with a dash in between. WOW, what a dash Olga’s has been!!! I’d just love to carve under her dash on the stone someday (granted that I outlive her), that she coulda and shoulda been the First Woman President of the United States.