LOESS

Loess (from the German: Löss [lœs]) is a clastic, predominantly silt-sized sediment that is formed by the accumulation of wind-blown dust.

At 5 am on Saturday 12/12/2020, I woke to a stinging sensation under my eyelids. Tears. A terrible feeling of worry for my Dad. I wrote it off to 2020 stress. Hours later, I learned my Uncle Tom died. Tom and his siblings grew up on a farm in western Iowa, in the flat fertile plains near the Loess Hills. Tom was a prankster with a wry sense of humor and a quick wit and he went on to be a family doc in Winterset, IA. Bridges of Madison County Winterset, that is. John Wayne’s birthplace, that is. I laugh through tears as I recollect the many jokes and anecdotes he shared. The best ones are the ones I wasn’t supposed to overhear.

My Uncle Tom’s passing is another step in the unsettling of American rural life. When memories turn into history. The frayed fabric of a culture that is vanishing with him. Small family farms. Saturday dances at granges. Lawrence Welk on tv and in person. Tom had an appreciation for this history, his history. He collected the fragments at farm auctions and I went to a few with him. The auctions were mournful affairs; penniless farmers showed up to support bankrupt farmers. Watch ‘Troublesome Creek: A Midwestern’ to get a feel. Read Wendell Berry. There were antique penny toys made of tin and a box of print blocks to buy for his bookish niece.

Like other grieving families this year, there won’t be a funeral to share hugs or to remember him in person. I’m in Finland and I am missing the comfort of photos, especially the scenes of Christmas Eves past. My images are in my heart and stored in boxes many thousands of miles away.

I like to imagine Tom on the Christmas Eves of my childhood, his nose crinkled in that mischievous Bergstrom way. We went ice skating every year on an oxbow of the Little Sioux River, in the shadow of the Loess Hills. Just us Bergstrom’s. We’d build a bonfire by the shore and play crack the whip and shovel paths in the snow to play tag. Sometimes you’d hear the howl of a coyote driving home in the dark. When I was little, I cried when my fingers got cold but I learned to be tough from people like Uncle Tom. I learned how to find warmth and light and humor in the cold and darkness and I’ll always be grateful to Tom for that.

On Sunday, the day after we lost Uncle Tom, Finland and Sweden celebrated St Lucia day with candles and song. It is always darkest before the dawn.

Editor’s Note: This isn’t a woman’s story, not exactly, and it isn’t entirely secret. It is an homage to a person and a world that is gone. A world that is the origin of mine. My uncle had ‘pneumonia’. We have lost — are losing, will lose — so many precious souls to the pandemic. To the climate crisis. This is a time of profound change. This is my story of loss during this time.