On this fifth anniversary of Jeanette Hardage’s passing, it seems fitting to contemplate her death through the lens that she provided as she reflected on her own experience of losing someone dear. The poem below is included in her Faith and Other Matters anthology. Lastingness …
Read MoreI Have Known Rain
Some of Jeanette Hardage’s most powerful verses are those that dwell on painful subjects. She frequently employed nature as a metaphor in her poetry. In the poem below, published in Faith and Other Matters, she uses rain to express her heartfelt sadness, melancholy, even despair. …
Read MoreIn Love With the Sea
Owen Hardage started going to sea when he was just a young boy, making his first trip across the Pacific Ocean at the age of eight in 1934. As a young man, he served in the Navy during World War II, then later made a …
Read MoreSpring Rebirth
As spring bursts forth again, enjoy Jeanette Hardage’s poem below, originally entitled “April 10: For Doug,” which celebrates the growth, beauty, and hope of the season. She penned this sonnet in honor of her younger brother Doug, pictured here with a teenaged Jeanette along with …
Read MoreA Child’s View of Death
On January 24, 1935, Jeanette Hardage’s younger brother Patrick died when he was not quite 7 weeks old. She included a poem about this experience in her Faith and Other Matters collection under the title of “Susie’s Question.” Since she was only just approaching her …
Read MoreChristmas Gifts
In letters to friends, Jeanette Hardage thanked people for myriad gifts, but the ones that she seemed to cherish the most were gifts of hospitality, of ministry, and of self. Her poem below draws attention to the subject of gifts, and to the source of …
Read MoreAutumn Leaves
In a Thanksgiving 2000 letter to family and friends, Jeanette Hardage first shared the poem below evoking the glory of autumn. She followed it with lines from a hymn by Matthias Claudius, “We Plow the Fields and Scatter,” which celebrates the changing seasons as good …
Read MoreA Reluctant Saint
Jeanette Hardage always wanted to be thought of as a regular gal, definitely not as a “saint.” Perhaps she feared that if others thought of her as living on some higher plane of existence, they would not be receptive to her ideas and would impede …
Read MoreAddicted to Words
In a never-completed essay that she began in 2002, Jeanette Hardage admits to being a “word addict,” prone to studying not only dictionaries but also any written words put before her, on everyday objects such as a cereal box or a medication information pamphlet. She …
Read MoreLove in a Time of Epidemic
August 21 marks the anniversary of Owen and Jeanette Hardage’s marriage in 1948. They were familiar with the kind of societal disruptions that we are seeing now due to the coronavirus and they would be able to commiserate with people who are celebrating important milestones …
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