Holly Varni's Blog

If there is an elixir to life, I believe it is the saltine cracker, or, as my mother called it, the soda cracker. The remarkably plain and humble cracker has been the silent, unsung hero for generations, and I think it’s time we give the appropriate appreciation to this staple in our cupboards. Similar to the great-aunt or uncle who showed up every Sunday for dinner during your childhood, it never occurred to you that the spot at the dining room table would not be filled by them. That is what the saltine cracker is—the distant relative who is there without fail. It is the companion in the kitchen in the middle of the night when you aren’t really hungry but you can’t sleep and need a little something, and it’s that secret remedy for every flu bug, tummy ache, and digestive discomfort.

Tried and true, the soda cracker has withstood time. I looked it up, and the saltine cracker originated in 1876, so my great-grandparents were among the first to benefit from it. I find that thrilling. I called up my grandchildren and said, “I may have been around for the invention of the computer, but your great-great-grandmother was around for the creation of the saltine cracker.” Oddly enough, I didn’t get the enthusiastic response I was expecting.

Maybe they’re still too young to understand that the saltine cracker is the answer to most problems—physical, emotional, and otherwise. For instance, when my friend called and was worried about her dog who hadn’t moved from its bed all day, I told her to give the dog a few saltines. The next day, the dog was a right as rain again.

My grandmother always kept a few saltines wrapped in a handkerchief that she tucked in her purse. If the Sunday sermon ran too long, she’d slip a couple to me and it gave me the strength to endure the long liturgy. Saltines played a role in my salvation as a child.

In my house, I don’t just have a single box on hand; I keep a stockpile. When my kids were growing up, if one of them was going to be up late doing homework, I’d leave them a whole sleeve of crackers for good luck. If they were worried or nervous about something going on at school, I’d put some in their lunch. The cracker is like a hug and Tylenol in one.

In my long life, I have found the solution to most problems to be, “Give them a saltine.”

Have a homesick kid at college? Send them a box of saltines to remind them of the warmth of home. It’ll give them that little extra oomph to help make it through being separated from family.

Have cranky kids whining about dinner not being ready? Give them a couple saltines to tide them over. Remind them that licking the salt off first will make them last longer.

Have a friend crying about the woes of life? Give them some saltines with a cup of tea. They’ll settle down so you can talk.

That’s the magic of them. There is something about this ordinary cracker that seems to set the world right again. The boring, unpretentious saltine cracker is a reminder that there is good in the most basic things. The pure and simple things in life are just that.

If you don’t believe me, put out a plate of peanut butter on saltines and time how long it is until they’re gobbled up. No one can resist the token from childhood. Saltines are wonderful as a snack, in soup, or simply nibbled for comfort.

After watching the news, it seems our world is in need of saltine crackers more than ever. The president was having a meeting with another world leader, and from their troubled expressions, all I could think was, “Somebody needs to give them some saltine crackers.”

If I had been there, I would have given them some from the stash in my purse, but I guess I’ll just have to mail a box to the White House. I’m sure eating some, will set the president straight, just like my friend’s dog.

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Family is a funny thing. Blood may be thicker than water, but that genetic roll of the dice sure can have different outcomes. I attended a wedding recently and studied the fish in my own genetic pool. I don’t think it’s uncommon to wonder at some point during any family gathering, “How on earth am I related to this person?”

You’d think the DNA running through our cells would make us more similar than different, but I looked at some of the people at the event and thought, “You’re an odd duck.” I don’t think I’m the only one who has had these thoughts. I’ve heard friends talk about the outliers in their clans, and there is comfort knowing there are common components to every family. No family tree is without the wild one, the boring one, and the embarrassing one. The really fortunate are gifted with the know-it-alls and troublemakers.

Then there are always the family members who over-do and those who don’t do enough. Those who are the first to show up and those who are the last. You’ve got those you are close to and those you can’t get far enough away from.

Family is what it is.

Or is it?

What about the tagalongs who come into your life and stick around? The college roommate who became like a sibling? The woman at church who seems to get you like nobody else? The colleague at work who laughs at all your jokes and smiles every time you see each other? The neighbor who collects your mail when you’re gone and shows up with cookies at Christmas? Or the parent of one of your child’s friends who ends up becoming your best friend?

I don’t think we give enough thanks to the people we adopt and who adopt us. Some people may or may not have been there as we grew up, but now they stick to your side through the good and bad. They are the individuals who remember and celebrate your birthday year after year. They are the ones you call in a crisis. They keep your secrets, are the first to cheer at your wins, and sit with you in the losses.

They are the people who wander into your life and eventually became a part of your heart. They make every day less lonely by coming to your home on the weekend or staying on the phone into the night when you need to talk. Their support and love aren’t bonded by blood but by choice.

I think what ultimately connects us may not be those who we are related to but those who can relate to us. The heart is fickle about love, and sometimes strangers end up meaning the most.

I don’t know where I’d be without all the adopted souls in my life. I only know that life would be less—less happy and less full. Don’t get me wrong—I’m thankful for family, but I’m even more thankful for those who complete my family.

Whether by blood or bond, family are those we choose to love and who love us back.

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I couldn’t fall asleep last night. It’s a common problem for us old folks. We go to bed in anticipation of getting rest for our weary bones and aching joints, hoping for relief from the constant tiredness that plagues us. I climb into bed, eagerly longing for the familiarity of my mattress beneath me. Sometimes I find myself wishing I could put on my pajamas at three in the afternoon because I’m ready to go to bed. But I wait. I’m always afraid someone is going to come to the front door and think my bedtime is 5:00 pm.

When the blissful moment of bedtime finally does arrive, I lie down with a heavy sigh ready to sink into a deep slumber, and then . . . nothing. I just lie there awake. Sure, sometimes I may doze off for a while, but then I inevitably wake up. It’s been years since I’ve slept through the night.

If you ask me, it’s a total waste for the elderly who, have all the time in the world and relatively few demands in life, to have insomnia. The deprivation of sleep should be blessed to the young who are trying to make their mark in the world, or parents who are trying to keep up with their children. When they go without sleep, they may look a little fatigued, but they recover. When an elderly person goes without sleep, we look like the walking dead in a zombie apocalypse. There are mornings I wake up and scare myself when I catch a glimpse of my reflection.

It’s also not as if I’m productive during my sleepless nights. My mind may be awake, but my body sure isn’t in agreement. There is no part below my nose that wants to move once I lie down, so I stare into the darkness.

Worries are catastrophized because they have time to stew. Prayers turn into conversations lasting hours. Dreams are substituted with contemplation over how life turned out differently than expected . . . which then leads to thinking about how the kids aren’t kids anymore, and the surprising adults they’ve become. They have young children and mortgages to prove it.

I shake my head and think, “How did I get to be this old?”

It’s said that busy hands accomplish much, but what about a busy mind? I’ve concluded that the life review that runs through my head at night is nothing but a bother. I can’t change the past and the future is such a short and unpredictable road that it’s not worth fretting over. That leaves the present, which is filled with this jumbled mixture of extremes. I have a list of complaints, but a litany of things I’m grateful for. There’s confusion but also great clarity. I’m content in the calm, and grow tired in the chaos. I relish the small things that used to go unnoticed. I’m irritated instead of energized by the noise in the world. And any wisdom I’ve gained is wasted because those who need it are too busy trying to find it themselves. 

So, what is a little old lady to do with herself as she lies staring into the night?

I’m not sure.

Let me sleep on it and get back to you.

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I’m pretty sure some of us are born with the “worrywart” gene. No matter what you call it— being anxious, feeling uneasy or apprehensive, having a tendency to agonize, or simply losing yourself to utter despair—that creeping dread in the pit of your tummy is a pretty common thing today.   

Polite people with dainty dispositions say they’re “troubled at heart” or “fretting” about something. Personally, I’ve always appreciated those with a dramatic flair who lean toward hysterics. The way they anguish over things, torment themselves, and exist in a state of fear, makes me feel a little more normal and less lonely on my sleepless nights. We’re all on Team Distressed.

Diehards like me, the true alarmists who worry like we’re competing for an Olympic medal, have the gift of getting ourselves into a good tizzy about nearly everything—what happened, what is happening, and even what may happen. I like to believe that only the truly talented are able to bundle up the past, present, and future into a good panic attack.

To the disappointment of my family, my worrywart gene hasn’t diminished with age. Many think a calm descends in the golden years, and older folks become Zen about the problems around us, like we’ve exchanged worrying for tai chi and water aerobics, but that’s not the case. I worry because I care, at least that’s what I tell me kids. “I will always worry about you because I love you.”   

But my logic is turned upside down when I’m reminded that the words “do not fear” appear 365 times in the Bible. You don’t have to be the brightest crayon in the box to notice the coincidence that there’s a reminder for every day of the year. The good Lord apparently knew the state I’d work myself into about, well, just about everything, and He wanted to make sure I got the message every day. A bit of an overkill for those less neurotic, but it certainly drives home the point for the dedicated doomsayers.

The Lord’s encouragement to let go of our worry and exchange it for trust is repeated enough for even someone as committed to stewing over things as me. Then to show off His omnipotence, He wants us to hand over our heartache. Trust Him with the next breath, the next moment, and the one after that, until we feel peace.

So, I do. I take a big breath and remember all that is good and all I have to be grateful for. I hand over my burden to a heart and hands immeasurably bigger than mine.

I experience the blessings of right now and don’t dwell on what may come. I’ll worry about that tomorrow.

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I went to the doctor today, and I’m pretty sure they drew enough blood to paint a wall. At my age, they test for just about everything. It goes beyond good and bad cholesterol; there are a hundred other things about the inner workings of my body doctors can discover. If you stop and think about it, it’s absolutely astounding the information these smarty-pants people get from a little—or in my case a lot—of blood.

For science and technology to give us the information of the chemical make-up of who we are at a cellular level is really something. Medicine has advanced so far in my lifetime that I can’t fathom what is to come for my grandchildren. When I tell them how things used to be when I was a child, they look at me like I grew up in the same time period as the cave men. How quickly we become spoiled by the miraculous, for doctors to get a microscopic peek into problems.

It got me thinking . . .

I know people who have traveled the world to see some of the greatest sights. Whether it’s vast mountain ranges, specific shades of blue of the ocean, rock formations that were made “millions” of years ago, waterfalls, or jungles, people want to be amazed. There is something inside us that yearns to see the most incredible views of nature. We take vacations to be surrounded and stunned by beauty.

I see countless pictures on social media where people capture a sunrise or peaceful lake in the morning, leaves turning color in the fall, or the first snowfall of winter, and post it because it made them feel something.

Or rather reminded them of something—the Creator behind it all.

In this busy world, where drama and demands distract us so easily, it takes something spectacular to stop us in our tracks. A sight that is so out of the ordinary, that for a moment, we are shaken out of our sleepy states and the extraordinary is seen and felt.

In that split second, on the most primal level, we are reminded of the bigger picture that we had no part in making. That we are only spectators to the greatest masterpiece.  

I haven’t gone to the places I see posted, but I have felt those same feelings my friends try to put into words. “I felt God,” they say.

As I sat down to get my blood drawn, I rolled up my sleeve, stuck out one arm, and with the other placed my hand over my heart and concentrated on the steady beating. As the nurse filled vile after vile of my blood, I thought of the Creator who made every detail of my body, down to the cells in my blood, which I will never see but are a blueprint of who I am.

God made not only the largest formations on the earth, but the smallest ones too. To know I contain an imprint of His creation in the tiniest, most microscopic way, making me a part of the greatness outside . . .

Well, that right there, truly puts me in awe.

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There have been many changes in my lifetime, some obvious, some subtle, some groundbreaking, and some rather confusing. I think the types of food available today fall into every one of those categories. Not only do we have access to diverse cultural food without ever having to travel or leave our house, but there is now an entire line of “fake food” that is, food that looks one way but it made of something entirely different.

I was recently at a restaurant and ordered what they called their “super” burger. I thought it was delicious and had no complaints until the waitress asked me what I thought of it. “It was super!” I replied. “Why do you ask?” She went on to explain how it was their new vegetarian burger and they wanted to know what customers thought. I frowned. “Honey, you shouldn’t have put the beef in there if you wanted it to be vegetarian.” I then got an education on the “fake meat” that I’d unknowingly ordered. Fake meat? I’d never heard of such a thing.

It happened again a week later when I ordered a pizza with barbeque chick’n and was told it was fake chicken. How do you make fake chicken? Where are they raised?

My trust in all eating establishments dwindled after that. When did things become so complicated? When I was growing up, we had basic foods that came from basic sources, and there were no imitations. The biggest food marvel at the time was the invention of margarine, and the people who came up with that were forthright about it not being actual butter. Now I question everything on my plate. Is that fish or some soy science concoction to make it look like fish? Is this really applesauce or some substitute that resembles applesauce? I’m having a late-life food crisis of sort.

I went to a friend’s house for dinner to lament about the chaos of the world of food and complimented her mashed potatoes. The comfort food brought me just that—comfort. It’s good to still have the staples in life. She smiled and told me they weren’t potatoes but mashed cauliflower. I nearly choked! Since when did we start disguising cauliflower as potatoes? I missed that memo. Healthier version or not, I want my potatoes to be actual spuds and served with genuine butter!

So now I’m in a tizzy about what’s real or not. Maybe I’m making a bigger deal of this trickery than it is. I’m sure the vegetarians who were sick and tired of being ignored are all doing a happy dance over finally having fake food choices. Does wanting the real stuff in my burger and on my pizza make me a fuddy-duddy? Perhaps.

People can eat anyway they like. As for me, I’ll stick the originals, like my Tofutti ice cream. It’s delicious. You should try it.

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Take time to be quiet. That was the main message of the sermon on Sunday. Apparently, the pastor thought the idea needed to introduced as if it was something unusual. “Be quiet,” he kept repeating. “Sit in stillness.” Well, anyone can do that. I do it daily. All it takes is for me to turn off the TV and go to bed. You can hear a pin drop.

I live in quietness most of the time. I’ve become accustomed to quietness, and I can’t say I’m a huge fan. Yes, there is wisdom to be learned in silence, blah, blah, blah. And yes, I agree that prayer time can be enriched and reveal wonderful perspective when we settle ourselves down and block out the outside world, but really, I’ve had my fill of peaceful moments.

I have so much quiet time that it lulls me to sleep during the day. That’s the true reason behind old folks taking naps and dozing off in their recliners. We’re not tired; we’ve just fallen asleep from the lack of sound and stimulation. One of the maladies of old age is that time drags on with quietness hanging on as its companion like the grim reaper. Have you ever noticed that none of the images of the grim reaper ever portray him as a chatty fellow who talks your ear off right until your last breath? It’s always eerie silence. That’s no coincidence.

Well, I say, “Enough with all the quietness!” I’ve had it with quiet mornings where the clink of the spoon in the cereal bowl can be heard; quiet afternoons where the rant from the TV offers the only voices that echo in the house; quiet evenings where the pulse of the crickets is my only interruption. I would appreciate a little chaos to shake things up. Old age shouldn’t carry with it a punishment of never-ending silence.

I want noise, big and small. Give me the sound of a clang and bang, chatter and clatter. I want the ruckus of little kids running around while adults are trying to talk. I want people talking over each other as they pat the back of a fussy baby. I want a teenager shouting my name from across the house. I want the laughter of friends sharing a meal. I want the racket that comes with a family living together and sharing a bathroom. I want silly giggling and every day chit-chat to be the music playing in the background. I want commotion to wake me up, and for my mind to be blasted with a symphony of sweet and blissful, random and rowdy sounds to remind me I’m alive.

I’m so fed up with all this quietness that has been imposed on and now suggested to me that I have the inclination and moxie to step outside my door and shout, “Hello! Is anyone there? Make some noise, world!” I’d keep shouting, too, until I got a response. The only problem is my neighbors would come running because they’d think I’d fallen and couldn’t get up, or I’d forgotten where I was because I’d lost my mind.

Feeling irritated, I stomped the best I could in my slippers to my husband and said, “I want to hear noise! Make some noise, you big ol’ lump!”

He stared at me before responding, “Hold on, give me a minute. I need to put in my hearing aids so I can hear what you’re prattling about now.”

I waited for him and then said, “I want noise in this house.”

“Noise?” he chuckled. “You make plenty of noise. Why do you think I keep taking my hearing aids out?”

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I was having dinner with my family when I looked across the table and saw my Aunt Tilly and Grandpa Gus looking back at me. What made this strange is that both people have been gone for a long time. On the other side of Tilly, I could see my father. I wasn’t hallucinating. There hadn’t been any mistakes with my medications, and I hadn’t had so much as a drop of alcohol. I also wasn’t having a stroke or on the brink of death, being beckoned to the other side by dead relatives.

After blinking a couple times, I could see plainly the people across from me were my son and grandchildren. The shared physical features, like the arch of an eyebrow, eye color, or that crooked half smile that has been passed down through the family tree took me back. And it got me thinking. . .  

Our children and grandchildren carry parts of the ghosts that walk among us. This is intentional. I believe God understands the depth of our sorrow and sometimes debilitating grief when we lose our loved ones, and these similarities and glimpses are like winks from Him that those people still live on. Those we dearly loved are imprinted in unique ways on the following generations. When you notice your grandson has the same dimple on his chin as your father did or your granddaughter has those same gangly, long legs as your grandmother, it softens the blow to the circle of life.

There is something reassuring about life continuing after we’re gone, but it goes on in the smallest ways in the people left behind. It happens more than you realize. When you stare at your child and wonder where they got their musical talent because you can’t play a note, or that ability to sew or knit anything when you haven’t so much as even threaded a needle, they are all remnants of ghosts. My son from an early age had an interest in woodworking and gardening, neither of which my husband or I ever did, but my son’s natural ability is identical to both his grandfathers. He also was gifted with their patience, neither of which my husband and I have much of, but he has a bottomless reserve that truly feels out of this world.

These coincidences, similarities, quirks, and correlations are all winks from heaven.

I also include people who are not connected to our genetic lineage. There was a woman who lived across the street from our family when I was growing up who made the most wonderful Christmas cookies. Every holiday season we received a big box of them. There would be neat little rows of different varieties. She kept doing it right up until she was moved into a nursing home. Of all the traditions of Christmas that my parents tried to instill, the cookies from Mrs. Reitburger are right up there at the top. As soon as I was on my own and had my own kitchen, I worked at making a wide variety of good cookies, wrapped them in small boxes, and distributed them to my neighbors and friends.

I suppose my point is that, whether it is the natural curl in your hair that you inherited or the hobby you adopted, the people from our past make an impression and are never forgotten one way or another.

All the traits and traditions, talents and temperaments we possess, carry within them the ghosts among us.

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I had a neighbor who would mow his lawn wearing pajamas. Every Saturday morning he’d be out in his light-blue, long-sleeved pajama set and walking from one side of the yard to the other, making horizontal lines with the mower. It was like clockwork. He wouldn’t do it too early when people were sleeping but he wouldn’t do it too late to let people sleep in either. And the pajama custom never changed. He never wore anything else while trimming the lawn, and it didn’t occur to any of us to question it. 

The constant drone of the mower was as much a staple of Saturday mornings as pancakes and cartoons for kids. With his head down, he’d plod along until the job was done and be back in his house before the noon sun got hot. Since our backyards lined up to each other, I would watch him as I washed dishes and didn’t think anything of it until all these years later, when I learned of “reality shows” on TV. This generation actually believes they created it. The nerve.

Reality shows have been the highlighted entertainment of people’s lives long before TV was even invented. The original shows were captured by looking out our windows and sitting on our front steps watching the world go by. We knew when someone got a new car, when a kid fell off his bike, when teenagers came home after curfew, which couples fought as they put up Christmas lights and plastic snowmen, who had relatives visiting, and who was having a party we weren’t invited to. Everything was seen by everyone. Everyone’s business was considered interesting.

That’s why when the concept of “neighborhood watch” was first introduced, it made me laugh out loud. We all knew who had left for their summer vacations and how long they’d be gone. Do you think those newspapers just magically disappeared? We picked up our neighbor’s newspaper and mail, in addition to hauling out their trashcan on garbage day. We operated like a community of ants in a colony, crawling over each other’s business without giving it a thought.

But times changed, and neighbors moved in and out. We all began to politely nod to each other from across the street rather than go over and talk. But the one thing that has remained the same is peeking out our windows to catch the commotion and watch any activity for our daily entertainment. The curiosity of what someone else is doing hasn’t gone away. A TV show won’t replace what’s right outside my front door.

Though I’ve moved homes, I still find myself looking out the kitchen window every Saturday morning in hopes of spotting a blue pair of pajamas, and every time I am a little disappointed when I don’t see it. My new neighbor wears shorts and a T-shirt. The nerve. He sees me watching and I wave. Maybe I’ll bring him a pancake.

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Well, I’m upset, and there’s nothing to do about it. My church is getting rid of the old, worn-out pews and replacing them with chairs. I realize pews are hard and nothing more than glamorized picnic benches, and that chairs are easy to move and will have some padding, but nevertheless, the decision leaves me a bit heartbroken. Apparently, pews are too expensive and “old-world” style. Chairs can be stacked and arranged in fancy ways depending upon the size of the crowd. When my despair didn’t lift with that rationality, someone said, “We can fit more people in with chairs.”

“Nonsense!” I said. There is always room for one more person on a pew. It’s simply a matter of everyone scooching down and making room, which is something we seem to be doing less and less today. In a society where we are giving each other more space, it feels as though that space is creating more than physical distance between us. There’s something to be said about having to be squished together. How often or in what other situations can you say that you sit next to someone so closely? Family or not, we are losing touch with each other. In a world where there is such a loss of connection, less familiarity, and fewer occasions to really be with friends and family, we are more in need of pews than ever.

When I sit down in a pew, it feels intimate. I feel as though the wood is imbued with all the people that have sat upon it with their heavy burdens, joyous hearts, and reverent spirits. The next generations will not have memories of being pressed between the strength and protectiveness of their parents and falling asleep during the sermon against one of their shoulders. The feeling of sitting next to someone as a stranger but by the end of the service sensing a kinship. That will be lost.

You may think I’m being dramatic, but I believe I’ve got a valid point. There is something special and unspoken about what happens when you see a person who needs a seat, and you instinctively move down and make room. It’s not only courteous but it makes a broader and bolder statement about belonging. Without a word, you are telling the person, “There’s room for you.” And we need that. We need that in our church family, and then to branch out into our community and workplace, and then the world beyond.

Squishing together to add one more person is important. Making an effort, comfortable or not, to make sure there is a seat for everyone, then settling in whether it’s cramped or not to where you meld together is a unique experience that shouldn’t go away.

In your shifting, scooting, and scrunching, you are saying, “We’ll make room because what we experience in this church, in these pews, is sacred and needs to be shared.” You can’t do that with chairs. What are you supposed to say to someone needing a spot? “Hop on my lap?”

From the old cathedrals I visit to the small country churches, the first thing I do is go over and touch a pew that countless of hands have grasped. And then I take a seat and imagine the music, prayers, and people that fill it on Sunday. Before all the pews are gone, I encourage you to do the same. But don’t sit at the end; go to the middle of the pew so that a person passing knows there’s room for one more.

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