Libby Baker Sweiger

Weaver of Everyday Tales

Archive for the category “Love”

18 Oct 2011
4 Comments

First Love

“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”
― Dr. Seuss

When I was a senior in high school, all of 17 years old, I was very much in love for the first time in my life. His name was Dimitri and he had been born in France. It was the 70’s and our type of love was not widely accepted. Dimitri was black. That was not my attraction to him. He was handsome, but also older, an artist and the kindest young man I had ever met. We met through my best girlfriend who was dating his friend, so on a double blind date. Blind dates have always been good to me! (See post “Made for Each Other”) He went to the University in our town and I lived in a conservative suburb. The police, he told me, often followed him into my neighborhood when he got off the freeway. He endured humiliation to date me and I only had to endure love. I adored his parents. His mother loved the ink and watercolors I used to do back then and framed them and hung them in her house. I considered it high praise, considering her son was the artist.

I was going to a very non-traditional, non-denominational new church back then and I was pretty into it. I loved my God and felt the church was filled with true Jesus People as they were called in those days. As you will see these two worlds were destined to collide.

Dimitri and I had a lot of fun together. Our favorite places were an Italian restaurant near his house, and hanging out at each other’s parent’s houses. I didn’t see him a lot. He was busy with his studies and the National Guard, it was Vietnam War time. The country was troubled and there were protests at the U, some of which he took me to. He respected my belief in Jesus and soon we were thinking alike on that subject. I was so in love, he could do no wrong and really, rarely did, except to get quiet on me sometimes. But he was a guy!

My whole family loved him. Almost all. I had been raised to believe that God loved all the children of the world, as the song goes, regardless of color. The only one who was having a problem was my dear grandfather who was raised in Missouri. He couldn’t be estranged from me though, so one day when Dimitri and I were at my house he drove over and talked with us. It was honest, painful, heart-wrenching and difficult for all of us to face his feelings, but we had the conversation. My grandfather saw the man Dimitri was and we were fine from that day on. Grandpa drove home and Dimitri and I went to the Italian place to talk about our relationship. We discussed if it was worth taking resistance for, decided it was, ate spaghetti and recovered like young hearts can do.

We rode this wonderful wave of young love for my entire Senior year. I had never been in a relationship like this before. I never wanted it to end. Then came the springtime. I went off for a retreat with my church. It was uplifting, captivating and as it turns out, maybe a little brainwashing time. Towards the end of the retreat the pastor who I thought was the next thing to God (WARNING!!!) asked to meet with me. He prayed with me and told me that God wanted him to be my spiritual father because my parents were divorced and I needed guidance. I bought it. I almost cry now to think of the next part. Then he said that God didn’t want Dimitri and I together, because my ministry was very important to God and that the race issue would get in the way. (OUCH!) I feel so bad now that I believed this. Never a prejudiced bone in my body and I fell for this because I wanted to be used of God more than anything. He took my greatest heart’s cry and used it! I was manipulated out of my first love.

One disagreement Dimitri and I had always had was that he didn’t believe men and women could be friends. He thought love got in the way, feelings would always intrude. So it didn’t surprise me completely when I told him we couldn’t date anymore that he refused my offer of friendship. What really killed me was what he said, “I love you too much Libby to stand being just your friend.” And there went my first love.

“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”
― Dr. Seuss

Posted in Forgiveness, Love and tagged
16 Oct 2011
6 Comments

Girlfriend Power!

“A hug is worth a thousand words. A friend is worth more.”
True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it be lost.”
― Charles Caleb Colton

I have three best girlfriends, well one is hanging by a thread, but is still dear to me in my heart. The first one, Lynn, I have written about many times. We have been friends since we were thirteen. I would have known her sooner because she lived in my neighborhood, but she went to the Catholic school through 7th grade. I met her when she started at my Junior High in 8th grade. She is beautiful and funny and so great to talk to — I have loved her like a sister for many, many years! I just had coffee with her Friday. Lynn and I will always be the very best of friends.

The second is Laura. She went to my church when I was it my late teens but I didn’t know her well. She dated my brother Bill for a short while. I thought she was beautiful and sweet. Later when I was in the hospital with the life-shattering first bout of Bi-Polar disorder that knocked me down when my son was 9 months old, she visited me. I remember her coming after Davey had died.

Yes, my little Davey died while I was in the hospital. It broke me and nearly finished me to lose him and not get to say good-bye. I went to his reviewal and funeral, that was all. I was accompanied by a loving, strong psychiatric nurse to help me. My family was wonderful, I remember my dad and my brothers the most for some reason. Possibly, they were holding me up. They’re all big guys. My dad is 6 feet and my little brothers are 6’4 (Scott) and 6’2″ (Bill). Somehow I got through. I don’t remember much of it, so I must have been pretty medicated, but I do remember my dad and my brothers. I remember the minister and some of the soothing things he said. He was my favorite pastor is still my dear friend and Facebook buddy, Arthur. We go for coffee together. What a dear man he’s always been to me. All this is probably why I remained in the hospital another month trying to kick back the depression that had followed the severe mania. It took many years for my heart to heal.

I know Laura wanted to help me. She and my mom were good friends, so she knew I was in a depression. She stopped by one day with a ball of yarn and some knitting needles saying she was there to teach me to knit. I wasn’t much interested in learning to knit, but I was very interested in getting to know Laura better. We became fast and forever friends. Laura and I share the same birthday and are only a year apart in age, me being the oldest.

Jessie is my third best friend. We got to know each other at age 18 and were fast friends. We met through our moms who were in a bible study together. Jessie is fun and funny, beautiful, full of faith and yet slightly irreverent, loves her family and is a great gal. Somehow though we have managed to grow apart.

For over 30 years Lynn, Laura, Jessie and I celebrated our birthdays together, every year, around mine and Laura’s day. Lynn and Jessie were born in July, Laura and I in June. It was a fun summer luncheon at a restaurant of our choice each year. Hours of conversation packed with love and friendship, laughter, hysterical birthday cards, party favors and general merriment ruled the day. And from the very first lunch, even though they are my best friends and had never met each other before! Here are some pictures:

Laura Lynn and I in June of 2010

Jessie and Lynn

But Jessie didn’t make it to all of them. She started missing more. Last year we talked about not inviting her. I was hurting our feelings a bit. But now I don’t know. Jessie is a great friend to me. My first Valentine’s day without my ex and my son, she and her husband Don stopped over with a Valentine for me that evening in the middle of their date. I was pretty moved. It made the night wonderful, not unbearable in fact. I’m calling Jessie tomorrow to see how she is. Her grandchildren keep her pretty busy. None of the rest of us have that dimension in our lives. I want to see how she is and tell her I love her. It’s pretty hard to top the powerful bond of girlfriends who have been with you going through what I went through. It’s just not right to ever let them go!

Posted in Forgiveness, friendship, God, Love
15 Oct 2011
6 Comments

Growing Up Close!

I like this quote because it reminds me so much of holidays and Sunday dinners with my brothers and sisters, my cousins, auntie and uncle, mom and dad, Grandpa and Meme — as we called my maternal grandmother:

“I like to see people reunited, I like to see people run to each other, I like the kissing and the crying, I like the impatience, the stories that the mouth can’t tell fast enough, the ears that aren’t big enough, the eyes that can’t take in all of the change, I like the hugging, the bringing together, the end of missing someone.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

We had such fun together, such incredible fun. We all talked at once when we first got together as if we hadn’t seen each other in ages. Things never quieted down from there, but we did organize. We each had matching cousins. Somehow my mom and her sister had managed to have their children at about the same time. We each had a cousins in our same grade in school. Linda and I came the closest, the first-borns, being only one week apart in age! Now that had to be a little miracle! I think then everyone liked it and tried to keep it up from that time on. 🙂 My sister Suzy had Marnie, my brother Bill broke with tradition and had little Muffy for his twin cousin and my brother Scott had David. Then my parents separated and broke the streak — and my cousins kept coming with a delightful bonus: Danny!

Here is a recent picture of my beloved childhood playmate and lifelong friend…my cousin Linda and I at my brother Bill’s wedding this summer:

Linda and I

When I said we got organized at our family gatherings I meant we broke into groups and put together plays and entertainment for the grownups as we always called them! How this got started I’m not sure, but it was in our blood. My grandparents were both wonderful at acting, Meme in school and Grandpa was the best Scrooge ever in The Christmas Carol at Hennepin Avenue Methodist Church for many years! We performed for their delight, praise, laughter and applause. And our parents’ too of course. Whose did we covet the most? My grandfather’s. He had the biggest, deepest, most wonderful laugh in the world. What a fabulous time we all had and the love was thick in the air! Of the nine of us, I acted in High School and College and my brother Scott went on to act professionally!

The bonus for me was that years later — when I was hospitalized for bi-polar disorder — that hit me at 9 months post-partum with my second child, Davey I had a this wonderful hugging bunch of people in my corner. Meme came to visit me nearly every day and brought me my favorite: red licorice. My grandfather was too sensitive. I cannot imagine he would have been able to see me in there, but perhaps he did. His heart was so tender that he wept when he said grace for our brood on Sundays and every holiday I remember. He loved us so much. So did Meme, but I think she was made of sterner stuff.

I’m so happy they lived long enough to see me happily married to Mike. We were a happy foursome for two years before my grandfather passed at the age of 83. He loved Mike. And why not? They are a lot alike! Tender-hearted family men who laugh and cry at the triumphs of their family!

My grandfather had many wonderful sayings. He loved to scramble words up and say things backwards like, “You’re feeling well, how are you looking?” And we would howl with laughter! His best one ever was after we had spent a glorious wonder-filled, laughter-busting-out-all-over hugs and love fest day together at he and Meme’s house he’d say goodbye with a big smile and tears in his eyes: “Come again when you can’t stay so long!” Hahaha Love you Grandpa! Next time I see you we will be seeing each other forever! 🙂 Love, Lib

Posted in Children, Family, God, Hope, Love and tagged , , , , ,
14 Oct 2011
8 Comments

Made For Each Other

Mike and I -- A Dream Come True

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.”
― Dr. Seuss

I have thought hard over the past years about why I survived all the loss that I had in my twenties. The obvious answer of course is God and His Supernatural love and power in my life. The second was my will to live and continue on and be a part of my own little family again, and then there’s the old, I came from hearty stock argument. I do not dismiss any of these and rather think it was a strong combination of the three factors that pulled me back from sorrow, and depression, kept me from self-pity and bitterness — and helped me rebuild my life on a the rocky foundation of a condition that reared its ugly head 9 months post-partum with my son: bi-polar disorder. That was the hardest battle. When it hit, it hit very hard. I was very sick and it took the best minds and hearts in the psychiatric community in the Twin Cities to put together the plan that saved me. And it took an enormous force of will on my part. Pure fight and will to live and build and have a new life. Get my job back, get a family again, be a whole person again and I really didn’t know or care in what order. The quote above was like an echo for me. I was stripped bare in every way. Lost my nuclear family: my husband and my boy, my job was on hold, my mind was in turmoil and not my friend as it had always been. I was just raw Libby. So I was honest about everything. I put up no fronts, sugar coated nothing. No more cockiness of my youth, my smart mouth had been replaced with bare bones honesty…what you saw was what you got. My best girlfriend and I were remembering this time today together at lunch. She said she felt inadequate to know what to do for me. I said, “You were great! You were there for me. You visited me in the hospital. The cage. How much better does it get?” We laughed together. The first guy she met in the hospital told her he was Jesus Christ. She told me. I said yeah, he told me the same thing too, his name is Michael.” We laughed again. Boy if you can laugh about your life, not just later, but during the nightmarish times, you have been given the greatest gift of all. Which brings me to my other theory: I come from hearty stock. My paternal grandmother was the strongest woman I ever met. And she could find something funny in any situation. She was a survivor. My dad, now that I’m older says I remind him more and more of her and honestly I couldn’t be more complimented!

I don’t have a picture of her, but I’ve got one of dad and I which is almost the same thing, the three of is look alike!

Dad and I


Well my dad saw me making a new life for myself. I had a new job at a different company. I didn’t like the old place when I tried to go back to it. And I was doing some writing at this job. I was happy and fit, jogging, that sort of thing. He said, “Would you like to meet someone?” I said, like a guy? He said yes. and I said sure. So two weeks later he picked me up at work and drove me to his place and introduced me to the man I was made for: Mike Sweiger. Needless to say we hit it off and were married approximately 4-1/2 months later, all the while planning a beautiful wedding. How did things progress so fast? I don’t really know. We were best friends from the start. Fell in love and were engaged within weeks and started to plan the wedding. Mike even asked my Dad to lunch to ask for my hand! In all solemnity, my dear dad said yes, but promise me one thing Mike, make her wait at least 3 years before she gets pregnant again, her body and mind need the rest. And I did! And he was right. Both Dad and Mike. I was married to a dear man, one I could trust to look out for the very best for me. One with a heart who loved God and loved me and loved and would always protect and keep strong our little family. It was the happiest end to a really tough story and all I can say is we were made for each other.

Posted in Children, Christianity, Family, God, Hope, Love and tagged , , , , ,
13 Oct 2011
32 Comments

A Mother’s Ring

Davey and I Laughing!

“A baby is God’s opinion that the world should go on.”
― Carl Sandburg

Davey was not my first baby, he was my second. I think about this story often in the fall. My first baby was a girl named Shirley Deborah. Though sometimes people talk about little Davey who lived nearly a year and was a joy to all who knew him, no one ever mentions little Shirley and she is all but forgotten, except to me. She was a lovely dark-haired baby girl like her sister Abby who was born healthy and strong 7 years later. Little Shirley appeared healthy, but was a preemie, only 7 month gestation and she died, unfortunately while I was in labor in October of my 23rd year. They were preparing for a preemie and I’ll never forget when the inconsiderate doctor yelled out when she was born: No need to get ready for a preemie! But the nurses who tended me were angels. Their names: Shirley and Deborah. They told me just what she looked like and encouraged me to hold her and bond with her and mourn her passing. I couldn’t do it. I was so young. I felt she was torn out of me like the infected placenta that had cut off her blood supply and killed her. I didn’t want to bond. I was afraid my heart would break. Now I wish I had. All the memory I have of her is of a tiny casket on a hillside, that is until now and the mother’s ring, but I’m skipping ahead.

The very foolish small town doctor that delivered her so insensitively said we could get pregnant right away again and we did. This time we went full term. Davey was born. At 6 pounds 7 ounces he was no giant, but he looked healthy and we rejoiced. Our joy was short-lived because the next day the pediatrician said he must be moved to Children’s Hospital downtown because he had a bad heart murmur. We stayed in a hotel near the hospital and I stood with him every day and barely cared for myself, hoping and praying him back to health. At two weeks he went into heart failure, we called my now ex-husband from school (seminary) and kept vigil. I tried and prayed so hard to put him in God’s hands during his angiogram. He did not die, he started to improve! We had him for 11 glorious months. He was a precious gift! But our little angel was not made for this world, he had a very complicated heart problem and what we didn’t know….didn’t have a spleen. His first cold killed him. No one’s fault. No one could have known. Our precious Davey was gone. And so it would seem was my ex. Still wounded from the loss of Shirley, he couldn’t bear to look at me, so I was without my little family. But not alone. My own family rallied around. My faith in my Lord gave me strength…eventually I began to live again. And now I have two stones for my ring.

A year after my divorce I met and later married the dearest man on the planet. Three years into the marriage, we got pregnant with my darling Abby girl.

Me, Abby and Mike

She was and is healthy and strong and a treasure for her dad and I. Abigail in Hebrew means her Father’s joy or Initiator, Life Giver of Joy! And she truly is!

Last night I ordered a mother’s ring at my husband’s encouragement. In it are the names and birthstones of your children. No longer will Shirley be my secret and Davey rarely talked about for everyday. I will wear on my right ring finger a gold band with the names: Shirley, Davey and Abby on it and each of their birthstones. Now this mother’s heart won’t be kept in darkness, but live free in the light of day!

Posted in Children, Family, God, Hope, Love and tagged , , , ,

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