8 Months Late

It was in November 2012 that I should've written this post.  It was a very sad day indeed.  Things would never be the same in my life again.  Something was taken from me that I would never get back---WAIT---On July 15th all was right with the world.
The return of the Twinkie.

I know.  What a ridiculous thing to post about.  Not so.  I love Twinkies.  And Ding-Dongs.  They have childhood memories embedded in them.  And not the type of memories you might guess.

When I was in the 2nd or 3rd grade, back when kids still took the buses and went on field trips, I got to go to the Wonder Bread/Hostess factory on a tour.  It was the best thing ever.  We got to bring home a mini-loaf of bread and a package of Twinkies.  The clearer memory of the day however, is where we had lunch after the tour.

Wow, stop the presses.  In the middle of typing this post, I actually got a phone from my favorite grocery contact who told me it will be another 2-4 weeks before I can buy a Ding-Dong.  What a coincidence huh?

Okay, back to my youth.  When we finished at the Wonder Bread Plant, we went on a tour of the fire station next door and then we boarded the buses to our lunch destination--the deaf and blind school.  Is is okay to say that it was the first time I realized I had it good?  Can you say that?  Every time I say I'm thankful that I don't have the trials that someone else has  I have a guilt pang, like I'm a Zoramite on the Rameumptom or something.-- 'Thank you God for making us so much better than our brethren."
Back to the initial point.  I didn't know anyone who was deaf or blind and it certainly wasn't the time of inclusion in the schools.  I don't think it had ever occurred to me that Helen Keller wasn't just a movie.

I've never forgotten that day.  I don't think of it often, but it is linked to Twinkies.  Pretty cool.  Twinkies make me realize how thankful I should be for my body that works the way it is supposed to.

There is one right way to eat a Twinkie too.  You have to split in half lengthwise so you can see all the filling inside and eat one half at a time.  What a treat.

Then there's Ding-Dong memories.

My brother and I didn't get along too great when I was young.  He's a lot older than me and I was probably not only the sibling that took away his baby of the family status, but I was also the first girl in 4 generations.  Let's just say I was spoiled.  (Not that I remember provoking him to tease or anything remotely deserving of his torment.)  Anyway, one of my good memories with him was eating Ding-Dongs--well, not the eating.  The unwrapping.  Taking off the aluminum foil perfectly without a single tear and seeing who could smooth it out into a pristine perfect rectangle again without any wrinkles.

That,  and contests of who could keep the hiccups the longest.  Isn't childhood great.  Silly things that come back to our memory 40 years later when we are informed that Hostess is going to be gone forever.  I'm so glad it's not.  I've eaten 5 or 6 Twinkies in the last 2 weeks and plan to eat that many Ding-Dongs when I can find them.

I wish all good things that are taken away could make a comeback!

Another Maxwell Quote

I guess one of my all-time favorite apostles is Neal A. Maxwell.  The only thing I can ever remember him saying that I didn't like is,  "O'Driscoll?  I ate rhubarb out of your parents garden last week."  I was in Hong Kong and missing a few of the comforts at home plus I was excited to be meeting an apostle and wasn't thrilled that he already know my brother in such a familiar way.  Ah, sibling rivalry.

Anyway, I digress.  Here's the quote that I love:

One's life. . .cannot be both faith-filled and stress-free. . ."Therefore, how can you and I really expect to glide naively through life, as if to say, 'Lord, five me experince, but not grief, not sorrow, not pain, not opposition, not betrayal, and certainly not to be forsaken.  Keep from me, Lord, all thaose experiences which made Thee what Thou art!  Then let me come an ddwell with Thee and fully share Thy joy!'  "Real faith. . .is required to endure this necessary but painful developmental process."

"Lest Ye Be Wearied and Faint in Your Minds,"  Ensign, May 1991, 88,90.

I hate to say it, but, yeah, that's kinda what I want--no hard stuff, but all the blessings.  Oh well, it's a good thing you don't get everything you want.

Not 6th Sense, But 6th Stage

Everybody has heard of the steps of grief.  Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.  There's lots of books about them and psycho-babble that makes pretty good sense.  I've bounced around through these stages over and over again.  It seems when my hormones shift, I can run  through all the stages  in a couple of days.
There's a stage that isn't covered; a stage that I've been struggling through for the past several months.  It's one of the many reasons I haven't been letting out any of my feelings.  Simply put, it's avoidance.  It's not the same as denial, even though it might seem similar.  I've had enough time now to figure out how to"not think".

Thinking about fun times and talking about them; writing  them down used to make me feel connected.  It used to be the umbilical cord that flowed between Ian and I.  Now I know that if I allow myself to feel, I will cry for hours and get a headache and bring my family down.  I won't be productive at work.  I will lose my appetite.  I will feel the horrible guilt of every parenting mistake I ever made.

I swear I can cry in less than 10 seconds if I let myself.  If the car is silent, I'm still there--in that place  when he first left me.  Now, very close to 3 years out, I've adapted, to survive.  I avoid.  I write less in my book of letters to Ian because if I sit down and do it at bedtime like I used to, I can't sleep.  That used to be okay.  I used to revel in that time that I had to tell him everything that was going on without him.  Now I've learned that sleep is an escape--like TV and overeating, sleep is my friend.

I don't go to the cemetery as much.  I avoid it.  And it's not just that time has passed.  It's not that at all.  I avoid the cemetery because it's very apparent that Ian isn't there.  I know now that the presents I take there are just going to be stolen by people who can't possibly understand what it takes to buy things for your son and leave them next to a piece of marble.  It's like Lucy said a long time ago.  "Why put yourself through it?"

I avoid being as happy for others as I should be because it hurts.  The happy feeling fades in a very short amount of time and leaves a gaping hole where I can't be happy for me--where I can't be that parent who gets to beam about their child and tell everyone what he is up to.

We went on vacation this past week.  I cried before we left.  I cried while we were gone and I cried on the way home.  He's not here.  While we were mini-golfing, I actually said how great it would be if he were there wanting to hit Lucy with the putter for being such a pain.

We are trying to tell ourselves now that Ian wouldn't be here anyway.  He would be on his mission.  But, you know what?  He's  already been gone more than a mission's length of time.  I've said it before, but I don't even know what he would like anymore.  I don't know if he would still like Batman or if he would have decided that he was too old for that.  I see clothes in the stores he would have loved 3 years ago, but would he want them now?  I don't know.

So I avoid that section of the store.
I avoid a lot.
I see a danger though.  I don't want to avoid all the things that make me smile--like this.

First day of  2nd grade and Birthday.  Added extra bonus--balance was finally good enough to stand on one foot.