Kinship

Ann Kronlokken Widness

Northern Minnesota at the end of August had a tinge of fall in the air. My youngest sister Ann and I had taken the laundry into the resort town of Walker. As a treat we took tea at a cottage which had sprung up under the trees behind the grocery store. I was impressed that anyone had assembled enough painted China cups and teapots, as well as fancy linens to open such a classic tearoom!

We ate cucumber sandwiches at outdoor tables, served by two lovely Native American girls. We didn’t feel too guilty, as Don had organized a canoe trip half way around the lake for Jesse and Ann’s son Jonas, who was probably five, two years younger than Jesse. We would get groceries on the way home. It was the end of summer and I was thrilled to be sharing the duties of the resident Moms with my youngest sister, whom I longed to know better.

I left home at 17, when Ann was two, and I was rarely home for very long during the next years. I missed most of what the younger kids were doing while absorbed in my life in England, Ann Arbor and San Francisco. When I got to know them as adults, chiefly Ann and David, I found them to be amazing.

What is it that makes those of us coming out of the same soil, so different? Partly our genetics. We all get different combinations of the DNA of our parents, which is the purpose of sexual reproduction. Partly the times we come up in, and partly the places we live affect us. My fascination with the differences between Ann and myself is particularly poignant, as she died of cancer last year, in September.

When she was growing up, I was chiefly aware of Ann’s love of animals, who were more reliable than the sisters who were always leaving. In high school, she raised huskie puppies, hoping to sell them to make money for college. She was also in love with drawing and painting and in college, these pursuits bloomed. In a story she told me, our Mother advocated getting a teaching credential. But Ann wanted to spend all her time on art. When Mother left the room, however, Dad told her, “Go for the art, Annie. Go for the art.”

Ann met Brad Widness in college, married him and they both went on to get Masters degrees in art. Ann was more interested in applied art, and learned and taught weaving and fiber arts. But she also made and exhibited, with Brad, work of all kinds. You can find it here. Ann says, “When I look at what I’ve done, I can see that a story is there, and it is always the same one: that of the human soul’s path through a world full of challenges and unknowns.”

And it did seem to me that Ann had a constant ability to apply her creativity and thoroughness to challenges. One summer I came out to Minnesota and found that her wrists were both suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome. I think she worked that out with whole body exercise. When art didn’t pay the bills, she went on to get an MA in English and worked as a technical writer and editor. I remember once editing a short piece and being utterly surprised when Ann found two or three errors I had missed!

As searchers, I think Ann and I both had a characteristic Kronlokken openness to the world and to reality. In 1955, when my ten-year-old self looked around, I saw a vibrant small town in North Dakota, safe, surrounded by wheat fields, our enemies during the Cold War quite far away. We didn’t get a television for another year, though the house was full of glossy magazines. When Ann looked up at age ten, in 1971, she saw a similarly safe small town in Iowa, but the Vietnam war was still going on, with collateral damage everywhere. At home, civil rights battles, protests and assassinations were reported widely on ubiquitous televisions. The world must have looked more scary to her than to me.

I made my home in California, while Ann returned to southern Minnesota. We were of different generations and I was always trying to find out exactly what this meant. It was interesting to see my baby sister driving, for instance. Driving? Several times she picked us up at airports and provided transportation. I seldom owned a car of my own. She became a serious vegan, while I have continued my “northern” love of butter and cream. She always had a dog or a cat, while I did not unless I inherited a pet. We had a similar strawberry-blonde coloring, and our Dad’s poor eyesight.

I noticed differences in our reading. She had found Laura Ingalls Wilder books “boring,” while to me they were deep and clear descriptions of reality. She revered C.S. Lewis, and found Lucy in the “Narnia” books to be an alter ego. She was capable of enjoying Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, no matter how bleak. And I could not understand her interest in Iris Murdoch, whose books help me not at all!

Ann was a solid Christian, but she followed the Benedictine monk David Steindl-Rast on his journeys into interfaith dialogue. She did not live in an atmosphere of religiosity, but her spirit shined out everywhere. In the months before she died, with a sweet irony, she told us, “I’ll be somewhere.”

She was a person you couldn’t get enough of, and watching family and friends flock around her during the months of her dying, I understood that I was not the only one who thought this. Her husband Brad continues to do fine work and their brilliant son Jonas has just received his doctorate in chemistry, but it was a cruel loss. One we won’t get over.

Nevertheless, life’s rich pageant spreads itself around us. Getting to know our brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, refers us back to our parents and grandparents. We can see our family characteristics in each other. Honoring our families, who have passed the baton of life on to us, gives our own lives meaning and context. We are not isolated individuals, but part of families great and small. How good it is to remember this!