A New App

This weekend I had an idea.   I'm sure it's not original and it already exists but...   Wouldn't it be a great app if you could press a button on your cellphone and the screen would turn into a mirror?   You could check yourself anywhere,  anytime.

I wish I had that app.   I need to check myself--about 100 times a day.  Maybe with that I could see what everyone else sees.  I could see what I put "out there".   I could see why my daughter and my husband think they need to apologize to me all the time.  I could see the looks I toss around that distort the words I say.    I could start there--start being the key word.

I told Keith that all  he's sees in me is anger.  That's not fair.  Maybe that's all I would see if I was on the outside.  I do it to him too. 

This weekend was indescribable.  Can something be wonderful and horrible at the same time?  It can and it was.  It was great to see my brother.  It was great to see my niece and nephew.  It was great to go away for 3 days.  It was great to see Lucy and Mikey laughing.   It was great to see Keith relaxing, even if I ruined for  him off and on. 

It was horrible to actually feel Ian's absence--not that we don't all the time.  I don't even know  how many times I actually turned around looking for him, thinking we had lost one of the kids.   I almost called out a time or two,  "Wait,  some one's missing."     It's horrible to  be doing something and  think,  "Ian couldn't do this.  We wouldn't be doing this if Ian were here.  Ian could never walk this far.  Ian couldn't take this heat.  Ian would just be watching them;  he'd be exhausted."   It's horrible to see Mikey throwing up and laugh and say,  "Well it wouldn't be the Gleasons if there wasn't throwing up during a fun activity."     It was horrible thinking about what souvenirs Ian would be begging for.  It was horrible seeing how much his cousin has grown in a year.  It was  horrible to say to my brother,  "We've never had the luxury to stay this long and get this tired at an amusement park,"   and then feel guilty about the way that sounds.  The worst horrible--trying to pretend all the way home the Ian would being here playing video games when we got home,  just like he was when we went to Yosemite without him.

I think maybe that might be the reason  Keith and I think the other is mad all the time.  How can we possibly be in this much pain unless someone is mad?  It's like people describe having a phantom limb.  Even if it's gone,  it's still right there in the room,    in the car,   at the beach,   in the restaurant--aching. 

I think, truth be told, if I had to pinpoint the emotion that shows as anger,  it would be fear.  I know things can die.  What if I kill my marriage,   my friendships,   my testimony,    my children's confidence,    my husband's spirit?   I could be wrong.  I'll admit that--upfront.  Maybe it is anger all the time.   Maybe there isn't room for all the rage I have to be focused inward and it's coming out all around me.   I don't think everything Keith does is wrong, but he thinks I do.  I don't think everything Lucy does is wrong, but she thinks I do.   I think they are fantastic and even though they both think I mean it as a negative that they are so alike--I don't.   I even had to go back and edit the previous post because I was worried that it might hurt Keith's feelings. 

If only there were a mirror to look at that showed you your insides.   Now that would be a million dollar idea!

Symbols

I was driving  to the cemetery this afternoon with the windows down.  It was a breezy day.  My bow blew out--the bow that Keith and the kids put in my new  van on Mother's Day 10 years ago.  I pulled over,  put on my emergency flashers and jumped out.  I had to cross the road and look around until I found it.  When I got it,  I started to cross back;  a semi truck stopped for me and even let me go in front of him.

As soon as I started to drive the tears flowed.  It was like I just recovered my long lost best friend.  That bow was a symbol--a symbol of being a good mom.  I've been pushing back my feelings for a while and refusing to sit at the computer and think about how I'm doing.  When I got to the cemetery and saw how the grass looked,  I just couldn't help but think it was also a symbol.  We tried so hard to get green beautiful grass to grow and cover Ian's grave this past winter and spring.  Leave it to me to plant seed that wasn't resistant to the hot sun.  Now it's dead.  Good Intentions;  Hard Work;  Love;  Still Dead.

I guess bawling over a iridescent bow is a  pretty good sign of how I am.  Not to mention standing over a grave and begging my son to please go with us on our trip this weekend.

Judging Others

William George Jordan wrote:

There is but one quality necessary for the perfect understanding of character, one quality that, if [a] man have it, he may dare to judge--that is, omniscience. Most people study character as a proofreader pores over a great poem: his ears are dulled to the majesty and music of the lines, his eyes are darkened to the magic imagination of the genius of the author; that proofreader is busy watching for an inverted comma, a misspacing, or a wrong font letter. He has an eye trained for the imperfections, the weaknesses. . . .
We do not need to judge nearly so much as we think we do. This is the age of snap judgments. . . . [We need] the courage to say, "I don't know. I am waiting further evidence. I must hear both sides of the question.   It is this suspended judgment that is the supreme form of charity.

"The Supreme Charity of the World," The Kingship of Self-Control (Old Tappan, New Jersey: Revell, n.d.), pp. 27­30;
 

Pioneers

I haven't been a 'Utah Mormon'  for a long time.  I didn't know there was such a thing until I moved away.  I don't understand the distinction.  Even so,  just because I live in California now,  it doesn't mean I don't still honor the pioneers who settled the Salt Lake Valley and respect them for the sacrifices they made.  I'm able to see and appreciate how their dedication benefits us all,  even today.

I'd like to Give Up

Ian never gave up--at anything.

No Title for This

How many days, weeks and months can I feel the same way?
How many times can I complain about church or what people stupidly say?  They aren't getting better.  Church is still about miracles and how great your life is if you do what's right.  People are still frightfully ignorant and insensitive and if they are lucky, they will never be able to understand.

I feel like I'm stuck and there's nothing ahead on the horizon.  Others peoples'  lives are going on.  I see them like I'm looking out a window on a train and the scenery is moving--but I'm still,  in the vacuum of it all.  There's no epiphany.  There's no lesson.  There's void.  There's exhaustion.  There are permanent valleys forming from the rivers that run from my eyes.  There's the PowerPoint  flowchart from rage to guilt to denial and back again.

In the past few days somebody looking in from the outside would've seen me go swimming with my family;  go out on a date with my husband;   go to a family holiday party;   and  light fireworks on the 4th of July.  Today,  I went on a bike ride, out for sushi and bowling with Mikey.  It all sounds so normal and pleasant, doesn't it?  I think I cried either before, during, or after each activity.  I could see Ian in the  pool.  I even said to Lucy,  "I wish Ian were here fighting with you."   I could see him jumping in excitement at the fireworks.  I could see him bowling--not as an almost 17 year old, but at about the same age as Mikey when he thought it was the funnest thing ever.   I thought how much he would've enjoy the sushi and how it's probably because of him that Lucy and Mikey love the raw fish the way they do.  I could see him complaining and refusing to go to the old folks party, especially at Charley's house.  I couldn't really help but think about him during the date--it was dinner after a funeral.

So if all these great activities leave me just as numb as sitting in front of the TV,  why even bother?   I guess the answer to that is:  Mikey and Lucy.

I'm already worried about next month.  When it's been a whole year,  it should either hurt less or I should be a master at faking it, right?  My life should be moving by then, shouldn't it?  Don't I have to stop feeling sorry for myself by then?  I know that eventually  my perpetual mood swings will just drive people away.  People can only tolerate a downer for so long, then they just move on.  Oh, the things I worry about.

In this awful post, there's one good sentence.  Keith and I are still one--even in our suffering.

The Rope

I had the great privilege of attending another funeral last night--even had to lead the opening song  "Love at Home."  It was a nice funeral.  Keith conducted and spoke--spoke well,  but the stake president gave an outstanding closing message.  It was about a rope.

He said the atonement is like a rope.  It's strong and sturdy.   You could tie a box shut with it and know that it would get to it's destination.  Then he said,  if you really get it,  the atonement is so much more.  If you are stuck or stranded or hurt,  you could tie it to a tree and trust your life hanging on it to get off a cliff.

I'm so not saying it right.  I should've written this last night when it was fresh.  It was the best message ever.  Keith and I both really felt it.  It's one thing to know the atonement's there if you need it.  It's a whole other thing to depend on it for your very life.  Or to realize that you do.  That's where we are right now.  It's everything.