Gramma Dorfy's Free at Last

Monday, March 29th, 2004

Words for Today
"I keep my nose out of their business and mind my own - unless they need something."
So said my dear friend, Dorothy Goth Kubik, whose life will be celebrated this morning over in Dickinson on the edge of the badlands in beauuuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful Dakota where 'twill be the grandest of days, for eighty-four-year-old Dorothy is free at last. I'll miss her down-home philosophy and sheer exuberance - I've missed it for years as she sunk deeper into a world we know as little about as death, the great mystery - the lonely world of the sufferer of Alzheimer's. Here's what my nephew, son of my lovin' spouse Leslie's sister, Janet, will say this morning on my behalf. It falls far short of what I remember of this extraordinary woman's giving nature:

Gramma Dorfy's Free at Last,

Her Spirit Will Live Forever

​This is a day to rejoice, for, indeed, free at last is the most loving and unselfish of mothers, grandmothers, wives - and a mother-in-law who proved wrong every joke ever made about the mother of our spouses. The breath left Dorothy Goth Kubik's body and a spirit imprisoned and bruised by the ravages of Alzheimer's this past week, and she passed peacefully into a place where she's certainly to be welcomed warmly by her husband Alfons, son Joe, mother and father and all those whose lives she touched so deeply and went beyond this world before her.

Her spirit will never die - her twinkling smiling eyes and lilting laughter that so delighted her children and grandchildren lives on in two great-grandchildren Tyler and Anna Louise and their children's children on into centuries to come. Gramma Dorfy, as so many of her grandchildren so lovingly called her as they were served up with another treat and encouraged to rattle those pots and pans in the bottom drawer of the stove from whence came thousands of meals. I didn't met this woman until 1975 - she was the youngest of fifty-six-year olds imaginable. She and her Alfons went for supper and dancing every Saturday night at the Eagles - followed by hamburgers and home around 1:30 in the morning. They danced every dance. A modest woman of great intelligence, a book reader, the nineteen-year-old miller's daughter, Dorothy, was teaching in a country school and boarding at the home of Alfons' parents up in Dunn County. Alfons' youngest brother Tony was keeping the fire going in the coal stove in the school - until one day older brother, Alfons, handsome, unmarried, and waiting for the perfect wife at age thirty-two, looked Dorothy over more than a few times and decided that he should really be handling the business of keeping the fire going. He started one - and won Dorothy's heart and loyalty; they married in 1939, began farming, moved to Dickinson with three children and one on the way - my dear spouse Leslie -- in the mid-1940s so those children who were the center of their lives could get the best possible education, There were two more children - six in all - all sent to college from Alfons' frugal farming and Dorothy's never-ending sacrifices. Then came the grandchildren - every one special, each lavished with love and praise by grandpa and gramma - fourteen in all. Every year, the latest photograph of each grandchild replaced last year's in a special frame. Gramma Dorfy was never bashful about talking about the accomplishments of her grandkids - I've watched in amazement as she began conversations with total strangers in a restaurant while on a trip and having them nod in astonishment as she spoke about her grandchildren.

In my sixty-two years, I have never met a more unselfish, completely giving woman than Dorothy Kubik. She changed my life, lifted my spirits, and welcomed me as son. We talked often of this and that - always, of course, about those grandkids - but also of books and ideas and those things that mattered most, after all was said and done. For Dorothy, it was giving - always giving. She brought Alfons back to life - literally - with a squeeze of his hand when he suffered a stroke the doctors said was the end. She rehabilitated him by playing cards every day - and Alfons returned for many a good year of enjoying her company and those precious grandchildren before his spirit - as hers would later - was submerged by that insidious Alzheimers. For years, Dorothy would go each day to the same nursing home where her spirit was released last week where she would sit by his side for almost ten years - knitting and talking. No wife in the history of humankind was more fiercely loyal than Dorothy.

Was she human? Of course - delightfully so. 'Tis no secret that she knew how to cuss, that she was the family enforcer and knew how to let her children know when they weren't exactly acting the way a Kubik kid ought. Among my favorite stories of Kubik family lore was the time those kids were left alone. There was a bit of madness - pillow fights that had feathers flying everywhere. The kids thought they had cleaned everything in a frantic effort to put things in order before the return of Dorothy and Alfons. Upon entering the living room, Dorothy looked immediately to the light fixture and plucked a single feather from the edge - she didn't have to say a word - her kids knew that she knew all.

But she never interfered with their lives - among her favorite sayings was, "I keep my nose out their business and mind my own." If they ever needed anything, however, they knew where to go, and she was ready to help them in anyway she could. She minded her own business until they needed help.

Gramma Dorfy will never leave us - especially those grandkids. Imagine her laughing and cooking while those kids tear around those entries to the kitchen from the living room, opening the bottom drawer of that kitchen stove and welcoming them to bang around her pots and pans, nodding in agreement as Alfons from the couch would say "Such a good boy, such a good girl." So what if a turkey is so overcooked that it collapses when it's finally taken out of the oven? Who cares if there's fifty turkey breasts in the freezer just in case?

We celebrate a spirit of the kind only the luckiest have ever called mom, gramma --or mother-in-law - and honor her by giving each other a small bit of what she gave everyday. Free at last, Gramma Dorfy - but you'll never leave us. The best of what we are is -- in no small part -- because of you.

That you would want me and Leslie to be about the business of staying alive and would understand why we can't be there to honor you is yet another indication of your giving spirit. Thank you to nephew, Jay Bleth, for offering my inadequate praise of your extraordinary life.

A better person because I knew you,
Son-in-Law Everett Albers
Husband of Dorothy's Daughter Leslie
Father of grandkids Albert and Gretchen

And I'm a far better person for knowing all of you, my dear kola. My life is sustained and continues almost entirely because of the love of friendship of family and folk of your extraordinary ilk - I do hope that you are taking the best possible care of yourselves - I know you are, because you're about the business of looking out for your neighbors. Be well - may it be as gorgeously beauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful wherever you are as 'tis in Madison, Wisconsin this morn - from whence my lovin' spouse will sally us forth down to the Cancer Treatment Center of America and yet another shot at continued hope.

I would leave thee this morn with a bit of wisdom from that great voice for justice and peace, Holly Near - a song a friend reminded me of this weekend - it addresses the kind of world Dorothy believed in, for she was fiercely Democratic and unabashedly - and quite vocally - against war and violence caused by a group of old men sitting around and sending young women and men off to be killed. Her father came to this country to avoid the wars of Europe from Prussia. All five of his sons, Dorothy's brothers, served with great bravery in World War II - all five at the same time. Like John Kerry, none of them had much good to say about war - they weren't the kind of fellows to flash their Silver Stars. Only one sister and a brother still travel here in the middle world of that remarkable family of the Prussian miller and his Irish-Canadian-American wife, Bertha, who lived to be ninety-nine. I think Dorothy would say a loud "Amen" to Holly Near's song, "1000 Grandmothers"

Send in a thousand grandmothers
They will surely volunteer
With their ancient wisdom flowing
They will lend a loving ear
First they'll form a loving circle
Around the wounded wing
Then contain the brutal beasts of war
Sweet freedom songs they'll sing
A lullaby much stronger
Than bombs and threats to kill
A force unlike we've ever known
Will break the murderer's will
To the prisons we'll invite them
The most violent men will weep
When a thousand women hold them strong
And pray their souls to keep
Let them rock the few who steal the most
And rule with youthful charm
So they'll see the damage that they do
And will fall into grandma's arms
Two thousand loving arms
If you think these women are too soft
To face the world at hand
Then you've never known the power of love
And you fail to understand
An old woman holds a powerful force
When she no longer needs to please
She can cut your shallow lie to bits
And bring you to your knees
We best get down on our knees
And pray for a thousand grandmothers
Will you please come volunteer
No longer tucked deep out of sight
Will you bring your power here
Will you bring your power here

Available on Holly's CD Edge
© 1999 Hereford Music (ASCAP)
all rights reserved

That's what we need, kola - an uprising of the grandmothers of the world

Ev Albers