All Personality All the Time

Grandma's Marshmallow Contest

How do you sum up a whole life on a tombstone?

We picked the shape, the color, the size. 

Now we just need to figure out what our last words to our son will be.

Lemon Aid

I  picked lemons yesterday--if you can call it that.  You have to cut them off with pruners and no matter how careful you are, the thorns kill your hands.  It actually hurts to type today.  I think a picked maybe a tenth of them, maybe.

You know the saying, "When life gives you lemons..."  Well, I've been thinking.  Why are lemons such a bad thing?  Why do you have to make lemonade to "salvage" something good from something not so good?  How come lemons aren't a good thing just because they are?  They are a gift and blessing just like any other fruit.  They are bright yellow and cheerful and on our tree, they  produce almost year-round.  They are fresh and you can use them to bleach your hair; clean stubborn stains and making a nasty disposal smell good.  They are great in a million recipes and I like them squeezed on salad.  Not to mention, they are the only fruit used to make yucky tap water taste good.

I'm glad life gives me lemons.  They are worth the trouble it is to get them off the tree.  I like sharing them.

My Favorite Things

I love the Sound of Music.  It's a great musical that makes me happy every time I watch it.  I know all the songs by heart and most of the lines.  I could upload photos of me as Gretl when I was 7 if my scanner wasn't broken.  I was cuter than the girl in the movie.  I still have the white dress with the blue satin sash.

"My Favorite Things"  is the best.   I  practiced it on the  piano today--the real Rodgers and Hammerstein version.  It's really hard.  Lucy was singing it before dinner.  She doesn't know all the words and I have to prompt her.  I thought about the song all afternoon.  I saw a silly thing on the internet  that asked people to post their favorite things and win a Mother's Day prize.  I have a lot of  favorites, but when I thought about answering the question today, I thought,  "My favorite thing is gone.  No Mother's Day prize can fix that and how pathetic would it be to give that answer?"  So I clicked exit and walked away from the computer.

I guess I should watch the movie more.  Maybe it would help me remember, "When I'm feeling sad,  I simply remember my favorite things, and then I don't feel so bad.

(And no, Lucy, whenever I let you read this blog, this doesn't mean Ian is my favorite child.  I don't have a favorite child.)

Skipping Rocks

This past week I  had so many thoughts.  I considered and  pondered hundreds of things.  But I did a little self-preservation.  I stayed right on the surface--didn't delve down into the deep thoughts.  I did a little proverbial rock-skipping.

I also spent some good quality time with friends.  Talking is good.  Talking about anything--even a book that hardly anybody finished.

It Will Be Again

It was my parents 54th wedding anniversary today.  That's a long time.  I called them on the phone.  It was too snowy for them to go anywhere today.  They said it wasn't a big deal.  They'd had a lot of anniversaries and they could celebrate this one on another day.  I told them I couldn't comprehend how long that is.  Then I told them that I said to Keith the other day, "Wow, can you believe we've been married almost 18 years?"  I told them it made him sad--not us, not our anniversary,  just that our marker for how long we'd been married was gone.  Ian.  My mom was sad and quiet for a minute.  She didn't know what to say--but she did.  She said,  "Our measuring stick is gone too, Michelle."  It's an odd thing to share with my mother.  We talked about how events are remembered by where you live and how old your kids are. 

My brother Stan, who was 15 the last time I saw him, would be 54 the end of  this year.  I don't remember much about him, which is horribly sad.  I don't remember much about the months after his death.  I know the family isn't whole without him, just like ours isn't whole without Ian.

There is a great, bright spot.  It will be again.

 

Busy

I kept busy today.
Made a list a mile long.
Checked off almost everything.
Gotta leave something for tomorrow.
Keeping busy is good.
Body busy--mind busy.
I'll make another list--
Tomorrow.

Another Sunday

I have to say the powers in the universe aligned today to make church as bad a s possible.  The first was foreseeable.  I started dreading it yesterday.  Keith got a new counselor in the bishopric today--Steve Bond.  That's not the bad thing.  He's a great guy,  but I knew his parents would come for the occasion.  I knew his father would be ordaining him.  I didn't ever want to see him again--ever.  You see, while I barely know this man, he was the one with his arm around me as the alarms sounded in the CCU.  He was the one who had to stand and listen as Keith couldn't bless Ian to be healed.  He was the one who tried to say comforting things as I was curled up on the floor.  I knew I would have to see him again eventually, but eventually came today. 
And yet, I did okay.  He sat directly in front of me and we spoke casually.  There's no reason for him to know what it does to me to see him.

Then Keith announced the speakers, one of which was Mike Farrens.  He was Ian's teacher of record  (home room) last year.  It was him that said, "tough" when Ian said he didn't want to watch a movie of open-heart surgery.  Ian didn't like him at all.  Said he was always hovering--acting like they had some special connection because they had been on scouting activities together. 
I was dealing.  Then he started his talk.  It was all about the heart.  He quoted all the scriptures I had studied years ago with the word heart in them.  I wanted to leave the chapel, but I didn't.

The thing that finally broke me was Mikey doodling on the program.  He was drawing all sorts of cartoon people.  I looked over and they looked exactly like the figures Ian used to draw--on everything.  I can't even guess how many times I told him to stop drawing on his homework.  Anyway, I lost it.  Again.  It was all too much.  I think the worst part was nobody in the room could've possibly understood  except Keith and he was looking down at me from the stand and knowing.  I saw him staring at the man in front of me with a look only I knew.

The last thing (I hope, it's only 8) is that we went to my mother-in-law's this afternoon.  Sure, there were things that weren't great there--no big deal, but when we got nearly home, I started crying in the car.  I didn't want to come home.  I was thinking of where I could go or what I could do to not have to come home.  Ian wouldn't be here.  He wouldn't be with me.  He's not  here  now and he's not with Keith and Lucy at a fireside.  When they walk through the door he won't be with them either.

R.I.P.

Driving through cemeteries used to be one of my favorite things to do.  No, really.  They are so calm and peaceful and it's so interesting to read tombstones--interesting in a way that nothing else is.  They are beautiful too.  

I remember the cemetery in Chester, NH.  It's my favorite.  There are stones from the 1700's and they are covered with moss and there are huge trees.  I've always said I wanted to be buried there.  The cemetery in downtown Boston where Paul Revere is buried is cool, as is the one in Plymouth.  I loved the Jewish cemetery we visited one year in Dallas.  We took the kids there for memorial day.  All I remember about the cemeteries in Hong Kong was that they were all concrete.  We spent one of my first days, in the heat of August, weeding between all the cracks in the cement.  That was possibly the hottest day of my life. 

I  never used to wonder if the people under those granite markers in the cemeteries were cold, or damp, or afraid, or lonely.  Putting your child in a cemetery does weird things to a person.

Today, on a blustery, dreary day, we drove through cemeteries trying to decide on a color and shape for our son's tombstone.  Mikey was with us, so we kept it together pretty well.  We don't like Maroon and we do like flat square tops and smooth sides.  The black ones get so messed up with the hard water.  We think we want just the numbers, not August written out.  We talked about things that could go on the back.  "That's All Folks"  "Thanks, Come Again"  "No Vacancy" There were many of them.  I can't remember them all. 

We saw one epitaph online we liked.  "Forget I died, just remember I lived."  It's nice when you think about it hypothetically, but how in the world can people sum up a life in 25 words or less--especially a life as special and unique as Ian's.

Who knows what we'll put on it.  We can only stand to think about it in tiny spurts.

My 3 Words

I've seen it on Good Morning America and read about it on the internet.  Maybe it's a twitter thing.  I don't know.  I don't twitter.  I haven't been able to find the beginnings for the 3 word craze.  I read a "3 words to live by" blog today and it made me want to puke.  It was a Mormon writing for a Mormon audience and they were all great things--inspirational things--words I shouldn't want to  puke at.   I just wasn't in the mood for it today:

Faith, Hope, Charity
Love One Another
Lengthen Your Stride
Choose the Right
Or the 50 others that followed.  Sometimes what I hear is Blah, Blah, Blah.

Here are my words to live by:
Don't Let Go

When you do what's right, you don't always prosper in the land. 
Even though there is a blessing that follows every obedient act, you may not get to see it. 
If there are angels to your right and  your left, chances are you can't tell they are there, so,  Don't Let Go. 

Karaoke

Some days, I just need a happy face to look at.

Metaphors

After Mikey finished rock climbing today, we still had an hour before Lucy was finished with guitar.  While he was busily doing his homework,  I saw his language assignment was about finding the similes and metaphors in poetry.  I thought as long as I had an hour to kill maybe I could write something.  Here is a rough, rough draft of what was in my head:


Grief makes me brittle--
Like toffee that comes with a hammer.
He pounds on me,
over and over.
I crack and fracture and shatter.
Some days I stay in big chunks;
Other days I'm dust.

Grief stands in front of me--
With his arms out.
Not letting anyone past
To touch me.
Not letting me step around him,
Or push him over.
He smiles, because he knows--
He's winning.

Grief is a robber--
Wearing a disguise.
He breaks into me, and steals
My sleep, my confidence and my ability to reason.
He siphons the faith
Out of my tank
A little at a time.

Grief startles me--
With sound.
He's transformed music and laughter
into weapons he can throw at me,
At will.
His favorite though, is silence.
It's the loudest sound of all.

Yoke

How many times have I heard the scripture:  "Come unto  me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me;  for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."?  About a thousand.

I have to say I got something new today--not from anything anybody said, just personally in my own head.  I think I always pictured the Savior being the one with this big, heavy,  I have to say, awful thing strapped onto him--Him with all the burden, asking me to join him in the yoke and trying to convince me that it would make my life easier--like the commandments.  They seem restrictive and heavy, but they actually ease the burdens of life.  I never saw it as me with the load, even though that's exactly what it says.  How could I see it as my load when he was weighed down with that once already?  Should he really have to help me pull it now, when he already pulled it for me by himself once?

Taking on Christ's name (yoke) isn't an easy thing though.  There's a lot of responsibility that goes with giving him my cares.  There's humility and trust, not to mention all the time and hard work involved with trying to be enough like him to even keep up when he starts pulling. 


I drive a widow in our ward to church every week.  She was telling me a story this morning which I was thinking about the whole time we were discussing yokes and loads.  She said when her daughters were in young women's many years ago, they fund raised all year and took a trip to Hawaii.  She said how great it was and how much the girls loved it and what a treasured memory it was.  Then she told how they raised the money.  They had 5 girls whose fathers worked for an airline, so they could fly free.  She then said that those girls still  had to raise the same amount of money, thereby spreading the load evenly and lessening it for the ones that didn't have an advantage.  It was a simple, practical example for my literal mind--much closer to my realm of thinking than oxen.

Brotherly Love

Mikey needed that arm around him today. 

Keith started watching a movie that I knew wasn't a good idea and Mikey got inerested too.  It was "Jack" with Robin Williams.  He has a rare disease and ages really fast.  At the end he is graduating from high school with his friends as an old gray-haired man. He is the valedictorian and gives a great speech about life.  Keith was crying, which I expected, but what I didn't realize was Mikey was too.  He sat on my lap and cried for quite a while.  I assured  him that Ian misses him just as much and loves him just as much.

If only that would fix things!

No Shoes to Wear

No, this isn't a photo of Lucy's closet

I had 2 situations today that made me think how incredibly frustrating it must be to be a heavenly parent. 

1st, every Friday Mikey has a lot of homeschool work to do and he gets really upset about it and makes it take twice as long and be twice as hard.  This morning I called him in on my bed and said,  "Do you remember when you loved homework?"  I explained that it was because he worked fast and didn't get all caught up in all the distractions of why it was assigned or whether it was just busy work.  I told him to go downstairs, have breakfast and finish up the week's math and language.  At which point, I made an hour long phone call.  When I came down, he was reading a book.  He hadn't started his homework and when he saw me the emotion on his face was obvious.  Now we had to deal with not only frustration at the amount of homework still to do, but also the guilt of not doing what he was asked.

Hmm.  That sounds like me and God.  I've certainly been told a zillion times what to do and how to do it to make my life as good as it can be.  And as painless as it can be--what things to avoid etc.  Do I choose any better than Mikey does at 10?  Sometimes, but sometimes I'm just as oblivious to the consequences I'm setting in motion as he is.

2nd, Lucy's closet was such a mess today she couldn't find a pair of shoes.  (There's a lot more to it than that, but that'll suffice for this anecdote.)  I lost it.  Absolutely lost it.  Finally in the post-blowup discussion we got to the point that where I told her that I had been ignoring how bad her room was for weeks and trying to keep my cool, but I couldn't stand it one more second.  I asked her why she only feels like doing what she's supposed to when I lose it and otherwise she's great living in a mess.

Hmm again.  That might sound like me too.  Not that God loses it on me, but sometimes I don't do what I'm supposed to until I can see how far I've let things go.  What I'm supposed to do hasn't changed.  I have just put in all in the closet where neither I nor anyone else can see it.  Maybe that's why we're supposed to pray in the closet.  It's God's way of nagging us to clean it out.

It's no wonder our understanding doesn't compare to God's.  He has to figure out how to deal with all of us and our quirks and problems and weaknesses.  Whew, are we really supposed to want to become like him?

Distraction--The only Happy Place

I kept myself distracted today.  I left the house to take the kids to school and didn't come home until they did.  I didn't even have to psych myself up to visit my mother-in-law in the hospital, because at least I wouldn't be at home--alone.  That's the key to my existence.  Stay distracted.  Read, listen to the radio, watch TV (even if it's 'til 2 or 3 in the morning), go out to lunch, surf the web, and my personal favorite:  crossword  puzzles.

Crossword puzzles are the best because they are difficult enough that it takes my whole brain figure them out.  I can't think about anything else while I'm doing them.  That's great, plus they make my brain tired so I can fall asleep without thinking.  I guess it's a good thing too that I'm improving my vocabulary.  For example, I learned what hie means and it makes the hymn so much more meaningful to think of hastening to Kolob. 

Our trip to Hollywood for the Rose Parade was  a great distraction--new things and new places really stimulate the mind and there's no old memories to trip over.    My parents came out and 2 of my closest friends came out to stay with me.  They kept me occupied, both in time and thought.  All these distractions were great for me but they did have a downside.  The lead up was excruciatingly stressful.  "Can I do it?  Can I keep it together?  Should I be trying to feel good?  Am I pulling away from Ian, if I pull away for the pain, even for a short time?"  Then there is the crash and burn when the distraction is over--the void left by opening myself up to feel anything at all.

There's one more thing about keeping myself distracted.  I tune out the Spirit.  My spiritual radio dial is stuck on static--scratchy, white noise.  I've become an expert.  The things that were once the most spiritual and the happiest are now the most painful.  Duh!  The best source of my happiness--family is broken.  So to compensate, I now have a spiritual "personal space" and I don't really let much in.  I am starting to wonder though, if by shielding myself from that, I might be missing the sweet messages that Ian is happy, that he loves me and most of all, that it's not my fault.  Keith gave me a blessing last night and promised me I would receive those assurances and for now I'm going to hang on to his faith or knowledge of that, whichever.

Elephant

My friend Laura sent me a quote in an email and asked if it resonated with me.  It does.  I might have to read the book.

“He learned to live with the truth. Not to accept it, but to live with it. It was like living with an elephant. His room was tiny, and every morning he had to squeeze around the truth just to get to the bathroom. To reach the armoire to get a pair of underpants he had to crawl under the truth, praying it wouldn’t choose that moment to sit on his face. At night, when he closed his eyes, he felt it looming above him.”

The History of Love, Nicole Krauss

My Gift

I was thinking today while I was playing the piano in primary--not something I should ever do again if the kids want to be able to recognize the melody!  I was thinking about how my piano playing is a great metaphor for life.

When I was very young--7 to be exact--my grandmother bought me a piano and had it delivered on my birthday.  I didn't ask for it and was very surprised when it came.  I've said many times that they brought the bench in first and I was excited to have a fancy tea party table.  It was something that my grandmother thought I would love and excel at.  I started lessons right away.  It was really fun and I enjoyed it.  My aunt Jeanne was an accomplished pianist and taught me every week. 

I progressed, not as fast as I'm sure I could have.  I didn't practice the way I should have.  My parents didn't push as hard as they would have if they had been shelling out for the lessons.  That's pretty good.  In those three sentences I said, "coulda, shoulda, and woulda" without even meaning to.  Those three words sum it up pretty well.

In high school I got busy with many things.  Looking back, none of them were nearly as meaningful as music.  Every time my grandma came over though, I always played something for her.  I'm sure she realized I wasn't any better than I was the time before.  Then I left for college.  I got my first calling--pianist for relief society in a student ward.  I have to say I was teetering already, but that first week when somebody snickered at my playing, that was it.  I never went back.  I was inactive for nearly 2 years.

We've had the piano in our home almost our whole marriage.  Sometimes I played.  Sometimes I didn't.  When my grandma died, my dad asked me to play at her funeral.  That was terrifying, but I really thought I could hear her humming along that day as I played.

I had a pretty good run teaching Lucy the basics a couple years ago.  Then she got busy with softball...   We weren't paying someone for the lessons and it got away from me.  Now I play for primary.  Poorly.  I'm all the ward has.  I practice some days.  It's hard.  Ian's picture is on the piano and I refuse to move it.  He loved it when I practiced.  So, it's hard some days to practice.  Some days my vision isn't the best.  I can't wear my reading glasses to play because then when I look down at the keys, I get dizzy.  Some days my hands hurt or my two fingers are numb--residual from the freaky nerve damage in my twenties.  So, really it's a good thing I never mastered correct fingering, right, because some days only part of my fingers work.  But I play for the primary.  I play for the Lord.  I play because my husband asked me to.  It's a good place for me.

Okay, so, the metaphor.  I was given a gift.  I was excited about it, used it, built on it--a little.  Then, I wasted it, turned away from it, even resented it--a little.  Mostly I ignored it.   Isn't that just like life?  The forks in the road really do take us all over the place.  Decisions really do matter.  I don't think we are punished for ignoring and wasting our gifts from God, (any of the myriad He can give) we just don't get the enjoyment and blessings that could be coming our way regularly.  He still loves us and tries to help us see the beauty of those gifts.   He never gives up on us getting to the full potential of our gifts, but often we make it so hard on ourselves, even impossible sometimes.

I've wondered a few times if he wants me playing the piano now to help my hands, to keep them limber and free from pain.  That sounds like God doesn't it?

Father

In my reading tonight, I came across something I've been pondering a long time.  I have to be careful how I a address it, because my reading also included "Judge Not."

Here goes.  When I hear other people pray I always wonder why they use so many words which I consider to be superfluous.  I'm really bad.  Sometimes I count how many adjectives they put before Father in the opening.  That's bad, right?  I know He's eternal and loving and kind and all those other things.  I guess for me it's kind of a toss-up.  Am I talking to God--the omnipotent ruler of the universe or my dad.  I choose dad.  Who knows?

In Matthew 6:7-9 it says:  But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions as the heathen do:  for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.  Be not ye therefore like unto them;  for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.  After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

I think the name Father is the most hallowed thing we can use to address God.  I want my communication with him to be personal.  It's not that I think others are heathen or hypocrits.  I don't.  I concede that I should spend my energy and pondering time on doctrine and not wondering about motives in prayers.  It doesn't matter what I think about how others pray.  It's wrong to care how others pray.  It matters how I pray. 

My Father and I both know I could be doing it more often and with more conviction.  I hope the love I feel for Him comes through no matter how I say it or how often I say it.

The Village Blacksmith

Under a spreading chestnut tree

The village smithy stands;

The smith, a mighty man is he,

With large and sinewy hands;

And the muscles of his brawny arms

Are strong as iron bands.

His hair is crisp, and black, and long,

His face is like the tan:

His brow is wet with honest sweat,

He earns whate'er he can,

And looks the whole world in the face,

For he owes not any man.

Week in, week out, from morn till night,

You can hear his bellows blow;

You can hear him swing his heavy sledge,

With measured beat and slow,

Like a sexton ringing the village bell,

When the evening sun is low.

And the children coming home from school

Look in at the open door;

They love to see the flaming forge,

And hear the bellows roar,

And catch the burning sparks that fly

Like chaff from a threshing floor.

He goes on Sunday to the church,

And sits among his boys;

He hears the parson pray and preach,

He hears his daughter's voice,

Singing in the village choir,

And it makes his heart rejoice.

It sounds to him like her mother's voice,

Singing in Paradise!

He needs must think of her once more,

How in the grave she lies;

And with his hard, rough hand he wipes

A tear out of his eyes.

Toiling,--rejoicing,--sorrowing,

Onwards through life he goes;

Each morning sees some task begin,

Each evening sees it close;

Something attempted, something done,

Has earned a night's repose.

Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,

For the lesson thou hast taught!

Thus at the flaming forge of life

Our fortunes must be wrought;

Thus on its sounding anvil shaped

Each burning deed and thought!

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

I heard this poem read in church a few weeks ago and it really stuck with me.  I think there are some great lessons to be learned from this man.  Stay busy is probably the best one for me.  It sounds to me like he earned all the good nights of sleep he got while he was thinking about his wife in paradise.  He kept his faith;  He stayed out of debt; He continued to live a good life. 

I used to love to write poetry.  I remember filling notebooks of it when I was a kid.  It was one of my favorite classes in college.  I haven't done it for years.  Keith used to write a lot too.  I guess we just got too busy with life to give the time and effort it takes to write poetry.  I certainly have the deep well of churning emotions now.  Maybe I'll give it a try.

I Don't Love Roller Coasters

I've stopped at the computer 4 or 5 times in the last 2 days.  I don't have anything to say.  Yesterday was one of the worst days in a while.  It's all relative.  All days are bad, so to be one of the worst is pathetic.

My roller coaster is at the bottom of the hill.  It would be great if the days that it's headed upward and the brief second where the view is good wasn't always followed by the dive that takes my breath completely away.

Don't Let Me Pick the Movie

We've been getting movie channels for free the past several weeks and I've taken more than my share of advantage of them.  They are a good escape.  Last night I started "The Last Song" which I thought was going to be pretty benign.  It's starring Miley Cyrus.  It can't be too deep right?

It's another death movie.  Keith and I have a joke about never letting me pick a movie because it will always be about death.  I remember when we went to "City of Angels" starring Nicolas Cage.  I cried all the way home because he finally found someone to love and gave up everything and then she died.  Keith ended up really angry with me for being so emotional and ruining the night.

I've always been afraid he would die--ever since we got married.  I was so sure that I would never find someone to love and when I did and he was so great I was just sure it couldn't last.  I think I even tested him for a long time to see if he would leave if I pushed hard enough.  I couldn't believe he wanted to be with me forever.  Then I got to a point where I trusted he wouldn't leave me and  I was sure he would be taken.  It is so dark in New Hampshire so early in the day in the winter and every time it was horrible weather and he was late, I could imagine the highway patrolmen at my door.  I've been so afraid for years that he would die and I would be alone and have to take care of the kids myself--on my own, because I couldn't move back to Utah close to my family.  Ian couldn't live in that altitude.  How would I find a job and have insurance good enough to take care of him?  I've been so afraid for so long.

It is so irrational.  I've  pushed it out of my mind thousands of times.  Now I'm worried about his health.  I can't make it stop and now It's worse because I know what's it's like to lose a piece of myself.  My mother-in-law's husband took it upon himself to tell me how much worse it is to lose a spouse than to lose a child.  What the hell does he know?

I don't want to know!  The title of my blog really scares me sometimes!