Tag: Carl

The Day I Sold My Husband

Brenda Stratton

As an introvert, I have never liked to be the center of attention. 

I’ve taken piano and organ lessons as a child, and more organ lessons as an adult. But, I never liked to play for anyone outside my family. 

The business world wasn’t any different. A boss once asked my opinion on the subject at hand during a meeting—before I had formed one.

I felt like a deer caught in the headlights and spent the next minute or two feeling like I was babbling.

Carl and I went back to college when I was 36 and he was 39. 

As I was choosing my classes, I realized I needed one extra English class for my English/Writing major. I’d already chosen all the classes I really wanted. Of the ones remaining, speech was the most intimidating. But, I had it on good authority from other students in my class that it was easier (less intimidating) if I took it as a six week summer class.

Fortunately, it turned out that I only had to give one speech during the summer semester. That speech came at the end of the session—and counted as a significant portion of my grade.

The professor gave the class the freedom to choose our subjects, with some gentle direction on possible subject matter. 

After giving it a lot of thought, I settled on giving a sales pitch.

I decided to “sell” my husband. 

Of course, I asked Carl if he minded doing this for me. I explained that he would have to come to class with me and sit in front of the class beside me while I explained what a bargain he was. He readily agreed.

Here were just a few of his best features:

He’s a great cook and baker.

There is nothing that he can’t fix.

He is good-natured and has a terrific sense of humor.

He’s very smart. If you ask him a question, he usually has a ready answer. (This was before the internet.)

He pays the bills.

And there was so much more.

Having him beside me during that speech helped calm my nerves and made it much easier for me to get through it. 

As I had been advised by other survivors of speech class, it also helped imagining the whole class in their underwear. 

Between having Carl beside me and thinking of the class in that state of undress, I actually made it through my sales pitch with a smile. 

I also got a couple of offers for him, which made us both laugh. 

Somehow, between Carl beside me and an imaginary classroom full of people in their underwear, I got through the class and walked away with an A in Speech.

Meet Carl

Brenda Stratton
My husband, Carl, wearing the patient half-smile I came to know so well.

Christmas at our house was always so much fun. Our kitchen was the heart of our home, and our family naturally gathered around the kitchen table.

Our annual cookie baking marathon was a family affair. Carl stirred the huge batches of dough, while I measured ingredients. The kids helped by rolling dough into balls and washing dishes, jobs assigned according to age. Christmas lights twinkled merrily through the wide doorway into the living room. 

Excited chatter came mostly from the kids, along with plenty of sticky hands as they sampled cookies—and occasionally the cookie dough.

With a bitter north wind swirling drifts of snow around our home, we were snug and safe inside with a crackling fire to warm us. Carl always made sure to carry enough wood inside to keep the fire going late into the evening. 

The light scent of wood smoke mingled with the aroma of cookies rich with cinnamon and molasses. To me, those scents spelled home, and it was exactly where we wanted to be.

Carl was a fantastic helper in the kitchen, not just at holidays, but every day. 

He arrived home from work at 5:15 pm through the week. I tried to have supper ready by 5:30 pm so he didn’t have to wait long to eat.

I was usually standing at the kitchen stove when he arrived. After coming in the back door, he kicked off his shoes and slid in beside me to help finish cooking, often before he had time to say hello. 

One night when I was working as a crochet designer, I dropped a crochet hook into my printer as I was preparing a pattern to send to my editor the next day. I couldn’t get it out, and I was afraid I would damage the printer if I tried running it that way. 

So, I woke Carl up. He went to get the long forceps he used for working on TVs and was able to quickly retrieve the hook. The pattern went out to my editor the next day, and Carl was back in bed within minutes. 

Sometimes, I attended needlework conventions in Chicago to meet with my editors. It was a two hundred mile drive, and lasted for three days. He always drove me, and helped me find my way around the convention hall. Whenever I had materials to carry, he handled it for me then stood quietly by, waiting for me to finish talking with my editors. 

He was always up for a road trip, whether it was local or halfway across the country. 

He was the same with the kids when they grew old enough to go places without us. Since we lived in the country, and some of their friends lived in town, they would need a ride and Dad was always ready to take them. 

In the summer, he planted a garden to help provide fresh food for our family. When our family grew, he planted a second garden. 

While he tended the gardens, I was usually in charge of preserving the harvest.

If something was broken, he fixed it. He knew how to fix everything from household appliances and TVs to air conditioning and broken toys. If it could be fixed, he found a way to do it. 

If I could choose one way of describing Carl, it would simply be that he showed up, something that he did every day for the entire 52 years that we were married. 

He didn’t stop to ask if it was something that he wanted to do or might inconvenience him. He just did it. 

His quiet devotion and sense of humor meant everything to me. He was my  home. 

The Yarn Box

Brenda Stratton

My interest in knitting and crochet as a child became more pronounced as I grew older. By the time I was in my early twenties, I left knitting behind and concentrated solely on crochet.

Before long, my yarn collection outgrew the space I had for it. I needed a dedicated place to keep it. Bags and boxes in a closet didn’t work very well because I couldn’t easily see what I had.

Plastic storage totes weren’t common in the 1970s, so Carl made a yarn box for me from tongue and groove lumber.

We had only been married a few years, so his tool collection hadn’t yet grown to the size it would become later. Working with basic tools, the woodworking skills he had learned in high school shop class, and the tongue and groove lumber, he soon got to work on it.

First, he asked me how I wanted it, and I gave him some suggestions. He drew up the plans and started building it.

Before long, it was finished. He added a coat or two of clear varnish, thoughtfully leaving the wood light in color to match the floors, cabinets and woodwork in our home.

You could compare it in size to a blanket box. At first, it held all of my yarn. But as my collection grew, I began keeping my favorite yarn in it and storing the rest in the basement.

When Dad saw it, he was impressed with the workmanship and told Carl so.

That meant something.

Dad had built and renovated houses, and he knew good work when he saw it.

It sat in our living room for years.

When my crochet design career took off, and my yarn collection exploded, we used it to store the assorted blankets that accumulated in a family of six living in the Midwest, where the winters get very cold.

It was his gift. Thoughtfully conceived and carefully made, it meant more to me than I can say.

He saw my yarn beginning to multiply, and without a word, he went to work and made me a place to keep it. That meant more to me than anything store-bought ever could.

That’s who Carl was. If someone he loved needed something, he quietly found a way to provide it. Sometimes it was a ride into town for one of the kids. Sometimes it was helping me finish supper after work. Sometimes it was a yarn box. Whatever the need, he simply showed up.

Forty years later, when we moved into our current home, we had to decide what we could reasonably bring.

My yarn collection had grown incrementally over the years, so it wouldn’t hold more than a small fraction of the yarn I had accumulated over 30 years of design work.

And, our kids all had homes of their own by this time, so I didn’t really have need of a blanket box.

Over time, the yarn box came to represent Carl himself. Every time I looked at it, I remembered the many quiet ways he took care of us.

I didn’t want to part with it, but there just wasn’t room for it.

Then, a solution presented itself that I could feel good about.

Our daughter, Liz, expressed an interest in it, so it went home with her.

Her father built it, and I know that means something to her.

Many years have passed, but the love continues.

My Family Garden

Brenda Stratton

I live in the home I inherited from my parents. It’s not my childhood home, but one they purchased just before Carl and I were married. 

After we were married, Carl and I made my childhood home our own for the next 32 years.

Mom and Dad both loved flowers, and they each put their mark on this yard.

Dad planted daffodils, a lilac bush, ghost lilies, roses, and peonies. He transplanted my maternal grandmother’s rosebush from my childhood home to where I live now.

Mom always loved hollyhocks, tulips, and clematis, which she planted on the south side of the house.

Over the years, I’ve added my own touches to the garden with more roses and peonies, hydrangeas, irises, two magnolia trees, and an ornamental cherry tree.

Not every flower has survived. This year I planted two light purple clematis vines where Mom’s dark purple one had grown for years.

It had been struggling for the last two or three years, and I don’t remember seeing it at all last year. I thought it was gone.

To my surprise, this spring the old vine returned. Now the dark purple and light purple blossoms are intertwined, climbing the trellis together.

On my list of flowers yet to replace are a new lilac bush, tulips and hollyhocks. 

The flowers made me think about my family and the things we leave behind.

Each generation adds something new to what was already there. New family members are added through marriage, birth, and sometimes adoption.

Just as I continue adding new flowers to the garden, each generation adds something new to our family.

It is a continuous cycle of life.

When I look at the flowers in my yard, they remind me of the people who planted them.

Dad is in the daffodils, peonies, ghost lilies, and roses. Mom smiles from the clematis, and Grandma still blooms in the old rosebush. 

They remind me that those who loved us are never truly gone. 

The Accidental Casserole

Brenda Stratton

A Note From The Porch

It was a typical busy late afternoon. Carl and Scott were home from work, and I was in the process of starting dinner. 

I gathered the ingredients together, which included a forage into the garage where our overflow pantry and freezers are located. 

I came back to the kitchen and started assembling dinner. 

Mom always made sure there were at least three different things for dinner, followed up by a dessert of some kind. 

Since she is the one who taught me to cook, I did the same. It worked equally well when there were six of us for dinner as well as just for the three of us after our other three children moved out and established their own homes. 

One of the dishes we were having that night was a corn casserole, a recipe Mom had given me many years before.

After I assembled the casserole and put it in the oven, I put together the rest of the meal and began tidying up the kitchen. 

The corn casserole calls for a box of Jiffy Corn Muffin mix. I picked up the empty box to throw it away and froze. 

Emblazoned across the front of the box it clearly said Jiffy Yellow Cake mix. 

I froze, horrified by the discovery. I had just ruined dinner!

Trying to decide what I was going to feed the guys, I decided the best thing to do was to make a new corn casserole, this time with Jiffy Corn Muffin mix. It would only delay dinner by a few minutes, since it was very quick to put together. I had enough ingredients on hand. 

Less than 15 minutes later, I slid a new casserole into the oven satisfied that I had saved dinner. 

I had every intention of throwing the accidental casserole out. I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to eat a cake with creamed corn, cheddar cheese and green chiles in it. 

Except… Carl and Scott both said they wanted to taste it. 

I thought they were teasing me at first but quickly found out they were serious. 

So I gave them each a serving, fully expecting them to take one bite and push it away.

They didn’t.

They liked it.

So, now I was curious and tasted it, too. 

I was shocked to find out it was actually good. 

We have always liked a little bit of sugar in our cornbread, so I suppose it wasn’t such a stretch to think they might like the sweetness of the cake in it. 

Fifteen minutes later, when the actual corn casserole came out of the oven, they weren’t interested in it. They had polished off the accidental casserole, so I saved the right one for dinner the next night. 

We have talked about the incident at different times over the years. The horror of what I had done soon wore off, and now I find it funny, too. 

But I never made another one with a cake mix. 

I learned several things from the incident. 

  • Mistakes are not always failures.
  • Sometimes the “ruined” thing becomes the memorable thing.
  • Family stories often come from ordinary kitchen accidents.
  • Perfection is overrated when people are laughing and eating.
  • Always read the label. Jiffy Cake Mix and Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix look remarkably alike, and you may end up with an accidental casserole of your own.

In case you are curious, I have listed the original recipe below. And if you decide to substitute a cake mix for the corn muffin mix? I won’t tell anyone. 

Corn Casserole

Prep Time: 10 minutes  | Cook Time: 45-60 minutes  | Total Time: 55-70 minutes  | Servings: 4-6 

Ingredients:

  • 3 eggs
  • ¼ cup oil
  • 2 cans creamed corn
  • 4 oz. can of chopped green chiles
  • 8 oz Jiffy corn bread mix
  • ¾ – 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese (for topping)

Instructions:

  • Preheat oven to 350℉.
  • Combine all ingredients, except cheddar cheese, in bowl, beating eggs before adding the rest. 
  • Pour into a casserole dish. Top with cheddar cheese. 
  • Bake for 45-60 minutes or until the center is set. 

NOTE: If you like a little spice, add a few jarred jalapeno pepper slices and a tablespoon or two of the liquid.

Depression, Grief, and Healing

Brenda Stratton

This piece discusses personal experiences with depression and grief.

Depression didn’t arrive all at once for me.

By the time I recognized it, it was already there.

It’s something I have struggled with at certain times in my life, which always surprised me. I have always thought of myself as a happy, easygoing person.

The hardest times came during periods when my role in life was changing.

The first time happened in my early forties. My children were growing up and no longer needed me in the same way they once had. I had been a mother for over twenty years, and that had become a large part of my identity.

This wasn’t about anything they did—it was simply a change I wasn’t prepared for. I didn’t yet know how to redefine who I was beyond that role.

It came on quietly. So quietly that I didn’t even realize what was happening until I was already deep in it.

I hurt—not physically, but somewhere deeper. I withdrew from people and from things I had once enjoyed. And when it became too much, I slept. When I was sleeping, I didn’t hurt.

Eventually, I realized something was deeply wrong. I went to my doctor and got the help I needed.

It didn’t get better overnight, but with time—and with the patience and support of my family—I found my way through it.

I learned a great deal about myself during that time. I thought I had learned enough to keep it from happening again.

For nearly thirty years, life moved along well.

Until it didn’t.

My husband, Carl, whom I had been married to for more than fifty years, became ill and passed away.

My world changed in an instant.

I believed I was grieving in a normal way, whatever that means. But over time, something else settled in.

This time, it wasn’t the same as before.

It wasn’t the kind of depression I had known. It felt different—quieter, heavier, and harder to recognize.

I didn’t recognize it. I thought I was simply moving through loss.

But looking back, I can see that I was just marking time.

I lost interest in so many things. I didn’t want to go out or see people. I let hobbies go. I withdrew into my home.

My children brought me joy—as they always have—but beyond that, I wasn’t really living.

I even stopped taking care of my health. As someone with diabetes, that is a dangerous path.

It took something unexpected to shake me out of it. A situation that forced me to stop and take a hard look at my life.

Recognizing the apathy for what it truly was became the turning point.

That’s when I began to heal.

I took a serious look at my health and realized I needed to make changes if I wanted the rest of my life to be different.

I got my diabetes under control, and in the process, I lost forty pounds.

But healing didn’t stop there.

I have always been a writer at heart. As a student, I wrote stories, essays, and poetry. Later, writing became part of my work—as a crochet designer and as an editor.

In 2025, I began to explore writing in a different way. I had so many stories in my mind—from my parents, from my life—and I wanted to preserve them for my children and grandchildren.

As I began to write those stories down, something shifted.

I found healing.

I found purpose.

I was no longer just marking time.

My life began to feel meaningful again.

And in ways I didn’t expect, that sense of purpose continues to grow.

When The Quiet Comes

Brenda Stratton

When my family was young and life was busy and noisy, it did not prepare me for the quiet that came after.

As the years passed, life changed. The kids grew up and built lives of their own. They no longer needed me in the way they once had—and that is as it should be. They no longer depended on me for meals, schedules, or bedtime stories. Their lives expanded outward—as they should.

And suddenly, the house was quieter.

It was unsettling at first. My life had revolved around my children for so many years that I didn’t quite know what to do with the empty spaces that appeared when they left. The quiet felt heavy. It surprised me.

At first, I threw myself into work. As a crochet designer, I took on more projects, more deadlines, more responsibility. It helped—but only partially. I still felt the quiet waiting when the work was done.

Then Carl and I began talking about going back to school. Neither of us had ever gone to college. The idea started as a conversation, then became a plan. By the fall semester of 1986, we were enrolled.

Suddenly, there was no quiet at all. We balanced family, home, jobs, and school. It was the busiest season of our lives — and one of the most fulfilling. We were growing in new directions together.

But life has a way of shifting rhythms. Just when you think you understand its pattern, it changes again.

And in time, the quiet returned.

Only this time, I understood it differently.

The quiet was no longer something to fill or escape. It became space—room to think, to create, to remember, to become. It became the place where new parts of myself emerged. The place where stories surfaced. The place where writing began.

I’ve learned that every season has its sound.

And sometimes, the quiet is not an absence at all—but an invitation.

A Quiet Grief

Brenda Stratton

When my husband died, I died too. Not in the same sense, of course, but the life and love I had known for 52 years were gone in an instant. I was lost. I didn’t know what to do or how to go on without him. And yet I did, whether I wanted to or not.

Those first days were surreal. I didn’t know what to do with myself, and I couldn’t get away from the pain. Even brief distractions only reminded me of what I had lost.

Days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months. Then the firsts began. The first Thanksgiving without him. The first Christmas without him. His first birthday in Heaven. 

I had sweet memories of our lives together and returned to them often, picturing where we were and what we were doing. Sometimes, they were how I soothed myself to sleep.

I thought the second year might ease a little. It did in some respects, but there were the seconds — second-year celebrations marked by the empty chair at the table and his recliner no one would sit in.

During this time I stopped doing so many things that had once been enjoyable for me. Carl and I had a multipurpose basement that was part storage and part recreation. His computer sat in one side of the basement, and my paper crafting area sat in the opposite side. He used to go downstairs and peruse social media while I made greeting cards and other paper crafts. When he died, I lost all interest in paper crafting. 

It was during the summer of the third year that I had a sudden revelation that shocked me. I realized that I had been suffering a quiet depression—quiet because it didn’t look dramatic or urgent. It consisted mostly of apathy. I lost interest in nearly everything in my life except my children. I gave up my driver’s license for several reasons and stopped going out except for doctor visits and food. 

Looking back, I can see that the holidays during this third year were still hard—but they landed somewhat softer. His birthday still lies ahead. I haven’t forgotten him. I never will.

Once I realized that, things began to change. I had been in coasting mode with my health, so I took charge of it and made improvements that needed to happen.

It was also during this time that I rediscovered my love for writing. I wanted to start a blog, and what you see here is the result of that.

As they always do, the holidays came around again. I opted not to spend time with my family for Thanksgiving this year. I treated myself gently and spent the day in bed, not from depression, but as a kindness to myself to rest and recharge. I woke up that afternoon feeling good, really good, for the first time in years. I don’t know where it came from, only that it felt like part of my healing—and I was grateful for it.

This Christmas

Brenda Stratton

This holiday season of 2025 is the first one since Carl passed away three years ago that I didn’t long to make into something that it can never be again. And it is okay. I was standing at the kitchen sink looking out at my neighbor’s Christmas lights when that thought occurred to me. I believe I have finally stopped struggling against what was, and accepted what is.