December stuff

December is filled with anniversaries and remembrance days for me.

 

The 1^st marked my three year anniversary at my job as a full time employee.

On the 7^th I was endowed in the temple. As a member of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day saints there are a few ordinances we participate in at the temple; endowment is a covenant with God to live my life, and conduct myself, with certain standards in mind at all times. I’m still working on the “at all times” part.

Also on this day in 2017, my grandmother on my mom's side died. She had that terrible flu that went around last year and couldn’t survive it.

The 15th was the birthday of one of my very best friends.

The 16th is the birthday of my first husband, Colin. He would have been 51 this year. I can't imagine what 51 looks like on him.

The 17th marked one year since my dad passed away. I have missed discussing books with him; we talked about so many things- the news and current affairs, our thoughts about life. We would talk about the characters in the books we read as though we knew them in real life. I miss his calm, steadfast demeanor and his unwavering love. I miss last minute Christmas shopping him; darting into the stores for this-or-that and darting right back out. We didn’t need to dally, didn’t actually like “shopping”. After the necessities of Christmas gifts were over, we would go to the yarn store where I *did* like shopping, and Dad would dutifully follow me around suggesting colours and chunkiness (“fat yarn”, he called it) and he would hold my purse so I could put both hands on every single ball of yarn.

After the yarn store we would go out to eat, then to the bookstore. The Christmas shopping would take us about 30-60 minutes. The rest of the day we would chat and browse books.

 

The 19^th was my mom’s birthday; this is her second birthday without Bill and I know that is especially hard for her.

There are other birthdays – my brother in law and his wife, both my husband’s parents, many other friends and family. There are other losses as well.

December also has significant religious meaning for me as well. The birth of the Saviour, which has a depth of meaning for me that I can’t even begin to explain.

I have so much joy and so much loss inside me at this time of year, I feel like I can hardly contain it. As though, if I move too much at once, all the feeling I have will combust and consume me and I am lost as to how to keep it from spilling out.

Merry Christmas, I guess.

Books

A few weeks ago my mom gave me some book store gift cards; cards my dad had been given that he didn't spend. So I took myself off to the book store for some free books, courtesy of Dad.

I love book shopping. It's one of the few things I truly enjoy shopping for. It was something Dad and I did together every year at Christmas - except last year, he was too sick to go shopping. I've been to the book store without him, of course, but it was sort of our thing. He would get a coffee and I'd get hot chocolate and we would browse together, talking about our favourite authors or books we really hated. He would always buy me a book - a secret pre-Christmas gift. Not that we had anyone to keep it secret from.

I had a little cry and I missed him terribly but I got some cool books. And in the category building weird memories that don't entirely make sense, whenever I make soap I'll think of Bill and the book he bought me.

Book review: The Glass Castle

Book: The Glass Castle

Author: Jeannette Walls

Genre: Memoir

Dates read: April 3-7, 2018

It’s not often that a book will have me crying and laughing, from one sentence to the next. Jeannette Walls takes us through a life sketch that is beautifully horrifying, written in the way that people who live with dysfunction normalize those experiences.

From catching herself on fire during unsupervised cooking at age three to facing hunger, poverty, and abuse as a young woman, we are taken through her lifetime of being dragged from one place to the next by parents who refuse to put down roots.

The Walls family is nomadic at best. They suffer a father who drinks what he earns and has grandiose plans that are never realized; their mother sees herself as an artist and writer but remains direction-less and seemingly out of touch with reality. It is easy to despise the parents; while reading this I was at times enraged by their irresponsibility, their lack of planning, their disregard for social norms and basic necessities.

Rex Walls is an alcoholic; he gambles and lies, and he doesn’t take responsibility for his actions. Mary seems sweet at times, but expects her children to be grateful for what they have, when in reality they have nothing. Often living in ramshackle conditions in homes that are falling down around them, Mary refuses to work for much of the time, claiming that she can be a successful artist if she just had the time to devote to her paintings. They rarely have money for food or shoes without holes, but Dad always has cigarettes and booze and Mom always has art supplies.

As we read more about the family and Jeanette’s experiences, I am struck by her perseverance. And despite the deep flaws in her parents, I am reminded again and again that people aren’t just one thing.

Broken things

My dad loved gadgets. Computers, cell phones, game systems, VCRs... anything with a hard drive and a power supply. He liked them when they were new; he liked them when they died and he could take their brains out and bang around on their insides. Whenever a gadget quit working, it would go into dad's pile of dead electronics. He claimed he could get anything working if he could figure out what made it tick- all you had to do was tighten up some screws or replace a something-or-other on the inside, and it would be all fixed. He never fixed anything, but he enjoyed tinkering with old electronics.

He also liked it whenever anyone got something new. I have an affinity for accessories, and would routinely change out my phone case. Every time I had a new case, he'd ask me if I got a new phone. He never seemed to be able to tell that it was just a new case. Every couple of months for 4 years this would come up. I would roll my eyes and laugh and explain it was the same old phone in a new case.

But if I did get something new, I would always want to show him because he would oooh and aaah in just the right way. Over the last few months I've had a few new things; I got a new cell phone and I felt sort of sad that I finally had a new phone and couldn't tell him. I think he would have had very strong opinions about facial recognition, and that would have been fun to debate with him.

I also got a new laptop recently and while he would have liked to play with it, I think he really would have just wanted my old, broken one. The touch screen and mouse were both broken and I think he would have enjoyed pretending that he could take it apart and fix it, and I would have enjoyed pretending I believed him.

It's sort of funny how when someone dies and suddenly everything in your life reminds you of them, of their mannerisms and attitudes and their sense of humour. My dad's way of being just a little silly might be one of the things I miss the most: how he'd set his jaw and insist that he could fix something that was broken when we all knew that he couldn't really.

It's been 105 days since my dad died, and the conversations I need to have with him are piling up. We are going to have so much to talk about when we're together again.

Thorns

He who wants a rose must respect the thorn. —Persian Proverb

 
 

I’ve been drinking this tea lately- roasted dandelion root tea. My dad called it “dirt tea” because it tastes a little ... earthy. It’s supposed to be good for cleansing the liver; my dad was drinking it daily after his cancer diagnosis and he lived a lot longer than his doctors thought he would. So, I drink it too. I’m not sick, and a recent blood panel shows my liver in great health but I’m really trying to be health-conscious. If Bill had thought about his health when he was my age, he might have lived longer so I’m learning from his example-of-what-not-to-do.

 

I’ve been reading the labels on the tea bags while waiting for my water to boil, and I’ll be honest- usually the sayings on tea bags are so corny. Clichés I’ve heard my whole life, they lose meaning for me the more oft-repeated they are.

I’ve been thinking a lot about regrets and mistakes and mortality and these bits of tea bag wisdom are really resonating with me. I don’t have the sort of personality that is comfortable heeding the warnings of others. I’ve always wanted to experience life on my own terms, firsthand and bloody. 

My mom tells this story of me when I was a little girl- maybe two or three years old, playing around the stove, and I reach out to touch the oven door. Mom’s been baking and she tells me “it’s hot”. I reach out again, and she tells me not to touch it or I’ll burn myself. According to the story, I glared right in her face and leaned over and laid my cheek against the hot oven door until it burned bright red.

 

This pretty much characterizes how I like to live life. I’ve gotten a little smarter and I now understand that hot things will burn my face off and sharp things will cut me open; but I’ve still got that rebellious little girl inside me who will glare at you when you tell her what do with her life. 

Give me thorns, and I will happily slice my soul open to receive them.

Expectations

Not everyone gets to be what they want all the time

I’ve been thinking about this and wondering what it means to me. I think I have this vision of myself, of what sort of person I am: I think I’m smart, and funny, and spiritual, and open minded, and inclusive. 

Am I really all those things? Ask me and I’ll tell you that I am. It makes me wonder what other people think about themselves, and how accurate our vision of ourselves really is. I recently wrote a life sketch about my dad to read at his funeral service. I really struggled to find the best words to describe him, as this was the one opportunity I had to speak publicly about his nature and his legacy as a dad and a husband.

I know my dad thought of himself as a total badass. And most people who knew him when he was younger, or who only saw him at work, saw that too. But he was also loving and kind, and intensely loyal to his family. And I don’t know if he saw that about himself. I wonder if he knew that there was a big, soft, teddy-bear of a man inside his badass shell. 

That shell was created to protect him, to guard him from life and those who would hurt him. The shell was made up of a bad attitude, bad choices, and a pit bull of a personality. If you’ve ever owned a pit bull, you’ll know that underneath the hair-raising growl and terrifying demeanor is a sweet, loyal, protective creature. That’s how I think of my dad.

I don’t know if my dad got to be what he wanted. I know he wanted a family, and to be loved by them. I know he wanted to provide- to go to work and earn his way in life and be productive. Did he know he was accomplishing those things, every day that he was able? I don’t think he was tremendously self-aware, so I wonder if he knew what an amazing job he was doing at his life. 

When I think about what I want to be in life, I’m reminded of this saying: “Not everyone gets to be what they want all the time”. I don’t remember where I heard it, but it makes me think about the need to take a good, hard look at myself. Am I being the person I want to be? Am I living up to my own expectations? To God’s? To my family’s? I’ve never cared much about what other people think of me, so it’s hard to worry about whether I’m living up to everyone else’s expectations; but there are a few people who count and it’s a struggle for me to consider what they think of me. 

When my life sketch is being written out, what will be said about me? I hope no one talks about how messy I keep my house, or how my night stand is overflowing with candy wrappers and soda cans.

If I don’t get to be what I want all the time, how will I handle that? What will I do when my expectations out of life are not met? When I am disappointed by people or circumstances? My hope is that people will be able to say that I handled that with some sense of grace. 

I guess I’d better start working on that, so people will want to say it.

A time before

Somewhere in a corner of our hearts we are always 20  -- Lilac Girls

 

When I read this I immediately rankled. This can’t be true, can it? If it is true, it means that we go through our later years feeling as though the best times of our lives are behind us, that we yearn and long for a time of naïveté, a time of before.

I’m in a sad time of my life right now- I’ve just lost my father to cancer. Do I yearn for a time before? A family photo when everyone was healthy? A time when I wasn’t constantly worried about getting the phone call? An outing, while he still had the energy to walk and to laugh? When he still had a sparkle in his eye?

Yeah, I yearn for that time. I yearn for missed opportunities and book store dates and family dinners.

I’m trying to remember me at 20... where was I? What was important to me? Did I know I was having experiences that would make older me look back at and think, "Ah, those were the best times"?

I married Colin the year I was 20. I had a fun-but-going-nowhere job as a dispatcher. I drank too much alcohol. I had amazing friends that I saw regularly. I would have classified myself as happy, if someone had asked me back then.

But looking back I now know that I was just on the verge of life. Real life. Money problems and job instability and a dead husband and depression and a deep and upsetting lack of surety about my future.

Now, today, I’m steeped in real life. I’ve lost three family members in the space of 3 weeks. Mortality is making itself a nearly-tangible presence in my head. I have concerns- the tax bill and mortgage rates and my loved ones and health care. Real life concerns, things that me at 20 had no idea about.

Do I yearn for that time? That time of blissful ignorance, before real life kicked me in my soul? Not even a little bit.

Give me pain and death and sadness. Give me rage and unbridled passion. Give me everything the world has to offer- the dirty, raw parts and the parts so filled with beauty that it sets an unbearable aching in my heart.

Me at 20? She taught me things. She gave me experiences that would shape the person I’m about to become. She knew stuff, important stuff that helped her then, and helps me now. But you can keep her, in the past where she belongs. Because in that secret little corner of my heart, I am exactly who I am right now.

Aunt Janet

I married into a large family- my husband has lots of aunts and uncles and cousins. I don’t know most of them very well; they're scattered around between California, Arizona, and Tennessee (and possibly other places - I honestly need a chart to figure out some of the extended family) and we don't see each other often enough.

We lost one of those aunts the day after Christmas. Aunt Janet was one of the kindest people I have ever met. I had heard quite a lot about her and her husband before I ever met her. Steve stayed with them one summer when he was young and has fond memories of that time and his connection with them both, and with their daughters.

I liked Aunt Janet and Uncle Wes straight off- partly because of the memories Steve shared but also because of the kindness they showed me. Uncle Wes was very ill by the time I met him and that time of their lives was probably so hard on Aunt Janet. Even so, she made me feel like I belonged in the family. I had an opportunity to talk with her during a family reunion and she listened to me with such genuine interest that I loved her immediately. She made me feel special every time I saw her. 

Unfortunately for me, I only saw her a few times. When I heard that she passed away, my first incredibly selfish thought was that I wished I’d had more time to get to know her. I attended her funeral service this past weekend and through the memories shared by her daughter and others, I was able to see a little more of Aunt Janet. She was indeed kind; she was also loving, and is known in her family and community as someone always willing to help others. 

One of her daughters gave a talk and described an occasion where Aunt Janet was loading boxes with food out of her own cupboard; big boxes, filled with food. When questioned by her young daughter, Janet remarked that one need not look very far to see someone whose need was greater than their own. Not only was Janet loving, she also taught those around her about charity and compassion as those boxes were anonymously delivered to families whose need was greater than Janet’s.

I heard so many people describing Janet as someone who would immediately and quietly fill a need. Someone who loved others and showed kindness to those around her. Someone who had endured so much, and used those trials to strengthen herself and her faith. Someone who had hope and a strength of character. 

When I think of Aunt Janet, I think of someone who inspires others to be their best self; to learn from trials; to not give up on hope and faith when life is bleak. I am saddened that I will not have a chance in this life to get to know her better; but I am grateful to be part of her eternal family and see her again on the other side of the veil.

I was able to get a few photos at the service.

 

In St. David, the family digs the grave in the cemetery. This group of shovels waits for eager hands to put them to work. The grave is dug the day before the service, and then it's filled in after the casket is lowered into it.

 

 

Everybody helps. Men in their suits and ties; children as soon as they are big enough to hold shovel; ladies in dresses and fancy shoes.

 

There's something remarkably touching about seeing the family gather round and shovel. This foot belongs to my daughter. She worked alongside the rest of the family as several people took turns filling the grave (and occasionally her shoe). Seeing her there, covered in sweat and dirt, doing her part to honour Aunt Janet made my heart swell with both pride and sadness. In the few days we were together, we did so much: we played games, we laughed and had silly moments; we got dirty together and we mourned an aunt, a sister, a mother, a role model, and a beautiful soul.

 

Thinking of Aunt Janet these past couple of years without Uncle Wes makes my heart break. For the rest of us still labouring at life, my heart also breaks.

 

 

As Aunt Janet and Uncle Wes are together again, so are the rest of us. Scattered around though we may be we share a bond of love, faith, and the knowledge that families are eternal. We are separated by time, distance, and mortality but we will meet again and oh, what a joyous reunion that will be.

 



A poem for Bill

A friend of mine wrote this poem about my dad. He had never met Bill, but was inspired to write these words that so beautifully capture the essence of my dad, and I’m sure of many dads around the world.

A son of God.
A noble spirit.
A humble patron.
What did he add to the creation of this world?  What did he accomplish for 4.5 billion years before he ended up in this fleeting trial of humanity?

He is valued, deeply, passionately, by a Father in Heaven who called him Son.
His contributions here may have been small, but they were profound and touched lives in meaningful ways. A man of gifts and a man of means, he connected with his daughter and offered his most precious gift: Time.

Perhaps you did not notice there was nobility on his brow?  Maybe you did not know that he comes from a Royal Lineage?

His circumstance in this realm may have been humble, but make no mistake that this man was a Son of God, a Prince with an eternal purpose.

Flaws and shortcomings molded his character and failure at times was his friend, yet on he goes to a new step in fulfilling the measure of his mandate.

Let us rejoice that he accomplished so much and that he is headed toward greater things.  His love for you does not die.  His care for you cannot be stricken.

Let's use that love to inspire us to become bigger than we are.

The best part of his legacy is found in you.  Let it shine forth!

-From a friend

Year in review: 2017

Like many of us I am inspired by the new year to look around, take stock, and figure my life out. I have often reviewed my blog posts to really get a feel for how my year went. If we look at all the posts for 2017, it looks like a pretty uneventful year... or at least less eventful than it was.

I turned 39 in January and that was the first day I figured out my dad was really sick - he missed my birthday dinner and he never misses a birthday dinner. He was admitted to the hospital and didn't come home for a couple weeks. At that point, we were given a cancer diagnosis and some treatment options.

In May the home that my husband and I were having built was completed and we moved into a wonderful new space; my in-laws also moved from Tennessee and are right next door!

June, July, and August were filled with outdoor stuff like never before! My husband built a shed, mowed 3 acres, and had a small pen fenced in for the goats that arrived at the end of August.

Also in August, I participated in my last ever (probably) Portland to Coast relay race. It was a hard decision to make this year my last, but one I needed to make. We'll see how I feel when this August rolls around and my friends all troop off for the best/worst 36 hours ever.

November brought with it braces for me, and the nastiest flu ever for both me and Steve; we spent the latter half of the month and a good portion of December sick.

December saw multiple fairly serious injuries, more dental work, and the deaths of my grandmother, my dad, and one of Steve's aunts. My brother in law and his family visited for Christmas and I really enjoyed having them here. I'm lucky to have a wonderful relationship with my in-laws, and they're some of the best people to be around when I'm suffering emotionally.

2017 has been a rough year for me. It has also been amazing. I love my new home; I love having Steve's parents next door; I love my goats! My dad gave me the goats as a gift, so they're double-special.

As with everything else I've experienced in my life, I'm doing my best to focus on the good parts. The parts that need to be nourished, or improved. The parts that bring me joy and uplift my soul. It is proving to be hard work; my natural pessimism keeps dragging my mind to the darkest corners of this year and I'm struggling not to give in to it. The last time I was suffering this much I did not handle it gracefully. One of my biggest fears is acting foolish where others can see me, so I'll be working on maintaining my dignity in 2018.

Journal Day: Room for improvement

Journal Prompt #11, from Danielle at Sometimes Sweet:

Sometimes it can be hard to hear criticism from others. I know for me it's something I may always struggle with- being a people pleaser, etc. At the same time though, constructive criticism can be very helpful, and allow us to look at ourselves in a new light and maybe even grow and change. Take a step out of yourself. If you were on the outside looking in, how would you critique yourself? What things do you see that could change or work on? This isn't about tearing ourselves down; it's about really looking at ourselves and seeing where there's room for growth.

I found this in my drafts from... last year? The year before? I used to do these journal prompts, but clearly I didn't do them all. Usually when I find drafts like this I smile with fondness, usually not remembering what I was going to say, and delete them. I don't even know if Danielle is still doing these prompts, but it seems worth writing about.

What could I observe about myself that I need to work on? It's the time of year when built-in reflection seems so appropriate; new year, new goals, new beginnings so I've been thinking quite a bit about what I need to work on. For several years now I have chosen a theme for my year rather than "making resolutions" and I'm finding myself in need of several such themes (for those of you who have followed me long enough, you'll notice that in itself is a theme of mine: make a plan, abandon it; make a new plan with more focus and bigger goals, also to be abandoned. Whatever.)

Fitness: You know the term "fat and happy"? Well, that's me. My life is full of love and friendship and all the things that fulfill my soul and for me that means that I don't exercise. No yoga, no running, no contemplative walks with my camera. These things also fill my soul, but I'm not doing them. Why? That's the mystery, but I can change it without understanding it, right?

Artistic ability: I have a piano, a guitar, and a camera. I am a novice (or whatever less-than-a-novice is) at all of them. I need more music in my life.

Spiritual development: I'm not really suffering in this area, but I'm not maximizing myself either. I spend time scrolling through my Facebook feed that goes far beyond "catching up" with my various interests/responsibilities there. It's impacting my ability to concentrate on the written word, and to really focus on other, more important tasks.

I had an employee once who hated me. She didn't care for my management style and did not have any regard for the concept that as her manager/a human being I deserved a bare minimum of respect. She often said things that were so disrespectful they almost seemed designed to elicit a response from me. Because I'm not the sort to be manipulated in that way, I refused to give her any response except to thank her for her feedback and promise her that I would consider her position in my decision-making. It took her a little while, but she started to be a little more constructive in her criticism of me and a little less disrespectful. While I didn't appreciate her attitude, I was able to really listen to her complaints and find some thread of something that I could use to be a better manager. I'm grateful for that exercise, and the ability to turn it into something positive.

My name is Daddy

When I was a little girl I discovered that my dad had a first name, and it wasn't "Daddy". I started calling him Bill and he would insist, "my name is Daddy!" For as long as I can remember, I've called him by his first name. Not exclusively, and not all the time but it has become a joke in our family. He will often sign cards or letters as "my name is daddy". Sometimes I forget that "Bill" isn't what all dads are called, and I'll refer to my father in law by the same name. In my mind, "Bill" means "Dad".

Bill passed away on December 17th. For those who have kept up with our family, my dad was diagnosed with cancer in February; he had a baseball-sized tumour on his liver. Various treatments and medications were tried and he did fairly well for a few months, until he didn't.

We put a death notice in the newspaper, but didn't have an obituary published. I have been wanting to write one here, and I've been working on it but I'm stuck. When I get to the part about listing his family, it gets a little complicated for me. You know the part, where we say so-and-so is survived by a loving wife, daughter, grandchildren...

Survived by... we're not really surviving all that well. Or maybe it would be more fair to say that we're barely surviving. I have been intellectualizing my dad's illness for so long- we've known that this was a possibility for him, and the treatments he received were palliative, so there was not much in the way of hope for him. The question of how long has been looming over us for most of the last year, so it shouldn't have been a surprise. Even so, I find myself shocked and surprised and offended by his death.

Intellectually I've always understood that one doesn't prepare emotionally for a death; we tell ourselves we can, and we think about it and maybe even make plans around it, but there's no way to get ahead of the grieving. I've done plenty of grieving in my life over traumatic events, I think I honestly believed that I wouldn't feel so raw about this because it wouldn't be a surprise. I was sure that because I knew it was going to happen it wouldn't hurt so much. Now I can't even wrap my mind around him being dead. Where is dead? It feels like a place I should be able to get him from, like maybe he just needs a ride home. I'm a really good driver, why can't I just go get him?

Survived by... I don't have biological children so there's not much in the way of posterity, so to speak. Oh, but people love my dad. My husband's family in particular adore him- grand children and great grandchildren, my in-laws. Everyone has embraced my dad so unconditionally and considers him "family".

My parents have these friends, Markus and Patricia, who have become like family with ours. Their little daughters know my dad as "Papa" and he's the only one they have; the love between our families is no less real than if they had been born into ours. I am heartbroken for them, that they won't get to grow up knowing him. He's really good at being a grandpa and I'm angry that they will miss out on that. I'm devastated that my mom has to live without him.

My dad has so many friends who look up to him; guys at work that he has become like a mentor to, people who respect his opinion and look to him for guidance about life.

I don't even have words strong enough to express how much I miss him. His generosity and sense of humour and our shared love of books... I loved talking about books with my dad. He was genuinely interested in my thoughts about books and life and morality. My dad is one of my favourite people in this world, and something like heartbroken rage is seething on my insides and I don't know what to do with it.