Easter, Death, and Life

This post just showed up in my Facebook feed, and I realised I once again forgot the date. It seems like it shouldn't be that hard, but I guess dates have never been my strong suit anyway. 

It's curious to look back on that experience with Mom and wonder if I'm getting any better at this. Does one actually get "better" at doing things like grief? No, I doubt it. Every loss and every person is different.

It feels strange to be sitting here, on a tropical holiday, while Dawn is back in the US taking care of K-onna's body and estate and stuff and all of that. And I can't do anything to help. And I didn't cancel this holiday, even though we literally left on the plane four hours after K-onna died. I found out while I was in the middle of getting grumpy at Koa for not packing his swim shirt yet. 

It feels wrong in some ways, but those ways are largely because I know it looks wrong from the outside. I'm quite certain there are people appalled that I'm on holiday right after my sister died.

But on the other hand, it doesn't feel wrong at all, not internally. I didn't cancel because what could I do if I cancelled? Nothing but sit around and be miserable. And K-onna would be so mad at me for that. She would be mad at the very idea that I'd stay home when I could be out celebrating life and drinking a non-alcoholic umbrella drink on a beautiful beach. So I'm sitting out on the sand, staring at the waves and watching the kids play and alternately having a marvelous time and also crying because I miss her. 

I miss her more than Mom or Dad, to be honest, which is a whole different muddle. I miss all the things she wanted to do on earth and never got to. So many things she didn't do because she was taking care of me. I miss all the times in the future when I'll get a line from a movie stuck in my head and I won't be able to call and ask her to help me remember what movie it was. I miss knowing I can call her and plot out our next story together. I'm sad that I didn't finish our novel before she died (it's still in the works, getting closer, but I meant to be done before now). I want to steal more story ideas from her, have her come up with plots, and have me write them. I'm sad I don't get another "Chickens in My Shower Cap" song.

And then, as I think that, I suddenly feel sure that I will in fact get another silly song from her someday. Because I know she lives on, and I'm confident that weird, quirky sense of humour and all her really great meter and rhyme didn't die with her body. And maybe she'll be willing to occasionally send angels down to whisper a fantastic plot idea in my ear. And if not, I at least have her files that she shared with me a few weeks ago, all the little scraps of story ideas she never got around to.

It's Easter time again, and if nothing else, I'm grateful both Mom and K-onna died at this time of year. There's been solace this week in reading that "surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows," that "He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces." It doesn't make the sadness go away, not at all, but it does feel like it's a little bit easier to manage.

I'm grateful for Easter and for the promise of good things to come and for the comfort while I'm sad. And I'm grateful for drinking fresh coconut water from the coconut and watching hermit crabs skitter on the sand and trying not to melt from the humidity. 

It should also be noted that in grateful most of our luggage (which got left behind somewhere in Australia) has finally showed up and I at least have deodorant again. Sometimes it's the little things.

Week #2 Review

Week #2 Review

Hey, look at that! Two weeks in a row! Again, in no way is this going to continue. Stop your crazy thinking right there.

This week has been a bit more ho-hum overall, but here are a few highlights.

The most fun thing is that Brice attended a pre-release party for the Magic: The Gathering Ixalan set. He got to go at midnight and play cards for four hours-ish and just have fun.

The most exciting and life-changing thing for our family is that all four children love to sleep together—and Ammon slept through the entire night three of the last four nights (the other night, he only woke once, briefly, and once I settled him down, he went back to sleep). This really is life-changing stuff. For a lot of reasons, none of our children have easily slept for long stretches as babies. And that has been fine, up to a point, but we’re so happy to see that he is growing to love sleeping with the siblings.*

We also rearranged a lot of furniture! You know how much I love rearranging furniture! This time it was in the conservatory (which is just our fancy and completely incorrect name for the third bedroom). This is where the kids have taken to sleeping, but it was just jammed with junk and furniture (ever since we had to move everything out of the living room and I discovered how much happier I was with very little stuff in the living room). But now it’s looking much better.

Also, I hung curtain set #3 of 4. And it turns out my DIY skills are even worse than I realized. It was not my favorite experience ever, and it’s possible I cried. But hey, at least I did my math right when deciding spacing of curtain clips. And also, it’s done. Now onto set #4...

We’re doing a 31-day read-aloud challenge where Coriel, Addra, and I each read aloud for ten minutes. It has been good motivation and practice for Addra—I can already see that she is improving in her skills. She’s our little daydreamer, though; she’d definitely prefer to be read to instead of doing the reading. Still, she’s doing great. (Coriel and I don’t actually need the practice, but it’s a good reminder to me to actually spend time reading picture books with the boys instead of just listening to longer books with the kids.)

Brice and I are both learning Italian using Duolingo. He’s way ahead of me. I’m still back here saying things like, “Io scrivo un libro” (at least it’s semi-true?).

We started up co-op again. It was good and fun to be back. There were also martial arts, babysitting, and a branch potluck. Overall, a nice week. I feel so very blessed to have this life that we live. Even when things are rough, we have each other’s love and the love of the Lord, so I’d say the balance is strongly on the side of life being awesome.

P.S. No pics at the moment. Because reasons.

* This whole topic of sleep is maybe something I’ll write about in greater detail at some point, though I’m likely to offend or annoy or cause eye-rolling in probably every single person who reads it, so ... maybe not?

Miracle(s) of the Ceiling Fan

Home ownership. Ah, the joys. Every week there's a new adventure in "this was really not installed correctly the first time." I blame MacGyver. A whole generation of us grew up thinking there was no need for appropriate materials. A wad of chewing gum and a paperclip, and voila! Fixed.

So, for example, our coat closet has been nearly impossible to shut correctly for months, if not years. This week, I finally decided to figure out what was going on. It turns out that the screws that someone had used to replace one of the bottom hinges were completely wrong. They were really long and threaded on the end but not toward the head. The closet door, of course, is mostly hollow with just a half inch or so of solid wood to screw into at the beginning. So the screws went in with grippiness (a technical term) but then had nothing to grip with when it actually mattered. I took those screws out and replaced them with ones that worked.

Sadly, because I didn't have matching screws for the job, my replacements--though they work--are also, essentially a juryrigged job. Thank you, MacGyver.

We also have a pipe that was installed--by a licensed professional, ugh--that is not correct to code. We can't get hold of him to fix it. There's also the fact that nearly every door in our house has had problems, the really cheap matte paint throughout the whole house that looks disgusting at this point (because, hello!, children), the fencing that we had to replace when we moved in and that was not well-done (the gate is impossible to latch anymore; it hangs too low), and the wallpaper in the bathroom that someone just painted over instead of removing.*

But this week, we finally conquered one of the Things That Should Never Have Happened. The outdoor ceiling fan and light fixture.

Here's the thing: When you put up a fan outdoors, you're supposed to use an outdoor fan. Outdoor fans have nice covers that keep out the birds. Outdoor fan blades are not made out of cardboard that wilts and droops. Outdoor fans are meant to be used ... outdoors.

Our old fan/light combo was awful. I mean, the birds liked it (except that dead one last year that I found just hanging from it, upside down, stuck in all the nesting materials that were dangling from the motor housing--but that bird probably just died of old age). At least one new generation of offspring called that place its home. But we never used it, and it looked like the plague was coming for it. So we finally bought a new one, and I began to install it.

Look, I know everyone makes jokes about IKEA instruction manuals, but I think those IKEA manuals are amazing. I have never had a problem with them. The instructions for this Harbor Breeze fan, on the other hand--nope. And it's not the first ceiling fan/light kit I've put up, so I do have some basis for comparison. To be honest, actually, I think the thing could have been constructed to be easier to put together. It was surprisingly difficult, especially compared to the ones I've done in the past.

This is where we finally get to the miracle portion of the story.

In the process of removing the old fan, I was supposed to save the screws that attached to the outlet box so that I could attach the new fan. I knew this. But I was just not thinking very well, and so I allowed them both to drop to the ground (of our deck, which has slats that things can fall between). Then I got down from the ladder and actually threw one of them away in the bag full of garbage (including tons of nesting materials) from the old fan. I could not find the other.

And suddenly I remembered that I was supposed to save them. Argh. I hunted around the ground, tried to sift through the garbage bag, and couldn't find either. I had to give up for a while and figure out what to do (also to feed those pesky children who keep insisting that they need to eat occasionally!).

Fast forward to hours later when I explained the problem to Brice and he suggested we use our uber-strong magnet to try to find them. I found about five or six screws in the nesting junk, and it looked like one of them might be it. But only one. We needed two. So we sifted a little more, sorted again, and suddenly there were two. Seriously, I really don't know how we found the second one, but we did. It was just there. Miracle!

I went through the next several steps of installation, did all the wiring, and got the fan blades ready to attach. The design for this was really bad. It was extremely difficult to attach the fan blades because of the positioning of everything. I tried and tried, and I kept dropping the screws! This time I knew it was bad, so I put a rug under me to catch things, but it was still going badly. I dropped one that rolled off to who-knew-where. I got down to look around a bunch, and again, just when I'd sort of given up, I turned and saw Ammon playing with it. Yay!

Anyway, making a long story short, it was a little thing, but I really believe we were blessed with little miracles to help us finish the project. And now we have a nifty new ceiling fan/light that is meant to be used outdoors. Hooray!

* By the way, despite all the frustrations that sometimes attend home ownership, I'm so grateful that we have the opportunity. Our home has been such a blessing, and I'm grateful that we found it and grateful for our neighbors and friends, etc. But there are the downsides.

Scattered Thoughts

I’ve started avoiding blogging again because I only have little bits and pieces to tell, not any sort of coherent narrative of really anything. But that means stuff is piling up, so we’re doing another random pile o’ junk post. (Also, I started this a week ago, so it’s all old news, but I’m not going to try to fix any weird verb tenses or time references. Ptui.)

Major Minor Miracle. Yes, I know “major minor” doesn’t make sense, but here’s the thing: it was a total miracle to me, and really huge for that particular moment in my life, but it’s also ridiculously small. Yesterday I was so stressed out over preparing for our co-op’s class fair that is happening tomorrow. I had a list of performances on a sheet of paper, and I needed it so I could type up the programs for the fair, but I couldn’t remember where I’d put it. I’ve been on high stress about this activity for a while now, and this was the last straw. As I searched, I prayed—please, please help me find it. I looked in every spot I could think of that it could have possibly ended up, and I finally hit the last spot—the car—and it wasn’t there.

I came back inside the house feeling utterly defeated and on the verge of tears. Again I prayed. Please. Then my eyes wandered over to our fireplace mantle, where our family yearbooks are lined up, and there was the paper, sitting with the yearbooks. Exactly where I had put it and completely forgotten it almost a week ago. I was so grateful.

Koa the Earthling. This just barely happened—Koa walked out into the living room with a box on his head. He told Brice he was an earthling.

The Anthology! My latest gigantic and insane project is finally finished and printed and distributed! I’m enormously proud of it. It’s a collection of stories written by the teens in the writing class I’ve been teaching at co-op this last year. I’ll be posting more about it on my other blog soon and I’ll link there if I can remember. But let it just be said that it was a large undertaking and I am so thrilled to be done (but also thrilled to have done it).

Short Fiction. Speaking of writing, I have been returning to short fiction a lot lately and really enjoying it. It’s been so much fun, and I think I’m going to spend more time in short fiction for the next little while. I have several places I’d like to submit things to, so we’ll see.

Mormon Lit Blitz. Also speaking of short fiction, go look here! Pay particular attention to the entry for June 10th.

Mother’s Day. Brice is so wonderful. He made Mother’s Day quite lovely, as he always does. This year he made me a delicious breakfast frittata and said, “Fri-tada!” Complete with a “tada” gesture. It was pretty great, but it doesn’t translate on paper very well. Also, he bought me a lock-picking set! Yay! Now I can start learning a new skill. It comes with a see-through lock, which is pretty cool because then you can actually see the mechanisms, which I’ve never really understood before.

I love this about Brice—he is always supportive of my whims and desires to expand my learning, even when it’s silly.

Compliments. Okay, this is probably weird, but I keep two compliment files—one is informal, in my memory, and the other is actually in a file in my email. The email file is where I put emails or facebook messages or other communications that people sent me that were really touching and made me feel all glowy and happy. I get to go back and refer to it occasionally when I’m feeling particularly crappy. The other file is my internal list of the weirdest/funniest compliments I’ve ever received.

This last week, I got to add two potential compliments to the weird file.

1. As part of our class wrap-up, I was asking the teens what their future plans were with writing. Many mentioned how they felt about the class (overall positive), but this was my favorite: “It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.”

2. Driving home from church on Mother’s Day, Brice and I were talking about how our various parenting abilities had improved since the beginnings. I mentioned that I was much better with small children than I used to be (though still not very good), and he replied that he thought I was “pretty decent.” Which was both honest and amusing, given that he said it on the day we’re supposedly telling all the mothers how incredibly awesome they are. But actually, “pretty decent” felt like a pretty great compliment. It was real and completely believable (not like “you’re the best with babies!” which would just be a lie).

Must update photo! Holy crumbs, I just looked at the photo that’s on our blog header, and we are two babies behind. Yikes. I really need to fix that. Someday...

The end. Oh so many times in the past little while I’ve thought of something to add to a blog post, but I never do remember them long enough to add. So we’ll just end here.

Yesterday and Tomorrow

 Yesterday was the anniversary of my mother's death. Maybe I'll sound callous saying this, but I didn't remember it. I rarely do. The only reason I remembered today was because I was doing a critique for someone who'd written a story about grieving, and part of her story was so much like mine that I suddenly noticed the date.

When my mother died, I was in grad school. It was break, and we were all meeting with our professors and planning our schedules for the summer. I had a lot to do. It's not like we were super close. I hadn't lived with her growing up, and things were complicated. And we all knew her death was coming. So really, I told myself, I should just be carrying on and getting stuff done. I had clients to see, a meeting with my professor, some case notes to type up. After all that, then there would be time to grieve or feel whatever I was supposed to feel.

I remember one of the other students really wanted to be in the practicum class I had been assigned to. She came to talk to me in the computer lab to see if I'd be willing to trade. We talked for several minutes, and I never once mentioned Mom's death. Later on, when she found out, she felt terrible for putting those details on me at such a time. But really, it wasn't her fault. She could not have known. I had given her no clue.

The facts and feelings finally came spilling out when I was meeting with my professor. We were discussing my progress in the program, and he was concerned about some of the things I hadn't gotten done yet. Like the good therapist that he was, he was kind but firm, and there was definitely some reprimanding to be done. I took it all in, silent and perhaps a bit withdrawn. A call in his office took him away for a moment, and while he was gone, I burst into tears. The poor man returned to the room to find me bawling, and at first he thought it was because of his comments. I quickly explained the real reason--funny that I felt the need to reassure and comfort him instead of receive comfort. It was strange that those few minutes alone, in the silence, were what finally brought on the breakdown.

I don't remember exactly what he said, but I suddenly realized that the way I was dealing with things wasn't quite right. I couldn't just pretend everything was the same. I needed to take a break. I needed to get back home to be with my siblings as we planned the funeral and dealt with her possessions. I needed to let people know.

I remember the weird awkwardness of calling all my clients to tell them I was cancelling appointments because of a "family emergency." Some of them asked if everything was okay, and I just told them yes. What else could I say? I was their therapist, not the other way around. So I still wasn't telling it all, but at least I wasn't pretending to myself anymore.

Even now it all seems surreal, this strange detachment, this desire to just keep moving.

And yet.

I fast forward now to the preparations for Mom's funeral. My older sisters and I gathered at the funeral home to put the finishing touches on Mom's body. It sounds morbid and weird--and at first it felt that way too--for us to work over her body, doing her hair, trying to get that ghastly orange makeup to not make her face look too fake. Who knew that a dead body's hairstyle was so hard to get right?

It sounds awful, but it wasn't. It was, for me, the most important step in my grief. I looked down at this body lying before us, and the overwhelming feeling came to me: This is not my mom. This is the house she used to live in. She isn't here anymore, and that's okay. She's just moved out of town. It wasn't so much about being detached finally as it was about realizing that it was okay.

Tomorrow is Easter. It's the day we celebrate the life, death, and resurrection of the one who made it possible for me to say that--she is gone, but I will see her again. There are things for us to sort out, apologies and forgiveness to be had, hugs to be given. Knowing my mom, there's probably some crocheting to do.

I am grateful to know that even when sadness comes--and it does--it doesn't have to last. He is risen, and we will too.

Wolves

A few days ago, I prayed so hard that I would be able to be patient and be kind and see the positive in the kids. I've been really struggling with them lately.

But then Addra wanted a YouTube drawing video. And then she didn't like the one she chose. Then she wanted a new one and wanted to scroll through tons to find it. Then she started getting upset because it was too hard, she said.

All this time I was getting increasingly frustrated at her. Just pick something! Just try again! It's okay if it's not perfect!

She was crying and upset and just curled up in a blanket by the computer, and I just didn't think I could be nice about this. I knew she needed a snuggle and some comforting, but I didn't want to do it. I went to find Brice to get him to help her so that I didn't make it any worse, but he was eating breakfast and I didn't want to stop him in the middle of a bowl of cereal.

So I took a breath and went back. I sat down beside the red blanket lump and pulled her partially into my lap and started rubbing her back. I told her that I loved her, over and over, and listened to her sadness at how hard the video was. At first I had to bite my tongue to keep from getting cranky at her, but slowly the back rub and snuggling soothed me too.

Five minutes later, I asked if she wanted to try again. Brice brought another pencil and paper, and we both watched the video and tried to draw from it. I paused it frequently so she could erase or catch up, and eventually we were both done.

She was totally happy again and was satisfied with her wolf drawing, and we'd had some happy, loving time together. 

Without a doubt I can say that this was a gift from God. Brice being busy so I had to handle it. My recognition and acceptance of what she needed just then--not criticism or pushing her to try harder, just a snuggle. And most of all the inner strength to actually do what was needed when I didn't want to. It turned an ugly interaction--the kind of thing that we've been having far too frequently these days--into a loving one. I'm so grateful for that gift.

After the Fire

From lds.org. Also, I know it's not the portrayal
of the events I discuss, but it's all I've got. :)

After Addra was born, I really struggled emotionally for quite a long while. Looking back, I was probably (definitely) bordering on PPD (if not officially over the border)—but I hid it well enough that I was sort of getting by. In the wake of a new baby, I have felt like I need to do all I can to be better off this time than last. So I’ve been perhaps more receptive than usual to new interpretations of scriptures. It is in this state that I reread the story of Elijah and the still, small voice last week. While the part that we usually read is still beautiful and powerful, I was struck by the verses before and after the famous story (in 1 Kings 19, if you’re reading along). I don’t think this is any definitive interpretation of the story; it’s just the one that makes sense to me right now. I think that’s the great thing about stories and scripture stories in particular—they can reveal different things at different times

In this time period, Elijah is struggling, depressed. He is in hiding, his preaching has only earned him enemies, and he is watching the people he loves destroy themselves by wickedness. So I suspect that when he lies down and asks for death, he doesn’t do it lightly.

An angel comes and tells him to “arise and eat.” And sitting before him, without any effort of his own, is food and drink. This is especially poignant to me right now because after Koa was born, we were so blessed for many days in a row to find food appearing repeatedly on our doorstep, over and over, until our fridge could barely handle the leftovers. Friends and ward members fed my family during a time when what we needed most was rest and sustenance. We did nothing to receive it; it was a tiny but beautiful miracle to us.

Elijah eats, drinks, and rests. Then the angel gives him food and drink again because the journey set out before him is “too great.” And Elijah eats and drinks and goes “in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights” until he gets to Horeb, to commune with God.

I love the beauty of this—Elijah is sustained in his long journey, his struggle. Doesn’t the journey sometimes seem very, very long? But are we not sometimes sustained in that journey by gifts freely given?

So when Elijah arrives at a cave at Horeb, the Lord asks him what he’s doing there, and this is Elijah’s response:

“I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.” (v. 10)

To me, this feels exhausted, lonely, perhaps questioning his mission: “What’s the point? Nothing I’ve done has made a difference.”

And then he experiences all those powerful events—a wind, an earthquake, a fire. Then the voice, still and small, the only thing that the Lord was in. I can’t help feeling like all of this was just another piece to a process that had already begun with the moment he wished for death. Elijah had been supported, strengthened, and now shown that powerful manifestations aren’t necessary to feeling the help and love of the Lord.

But this is not the end of the story. The scripture explains that Elijah gets up after he hears the voice, and he goes to stand in the entrance to the cave. When a voice asks him again what he’s doing, he answers almost exactly the same thing as he’d said before. In other words, Elijah recognizes that his physical circumstances remain unchanged. The manifestations from the Spirit do not suddenly soften the hearts of those who hunt him; they do not resurrect dead prophets and friends; they do not convert the children of Israel.

What did all of this do, then? It strengthened him, it changed his heart. The Lord gives him instructions on what to do next, and here’s what the scripture says, simply, about his reaction: “So he departed thence.”

I hope that simple statement of obedience can someday be said of me.

A Divine Signature

Note: I wrote this one a while ago and forgot to post it. Oops. But I’m still reading the book, I’m just farther along now.

I’m reading a book right now called Divine Signatures by Gerald N. Lund, talking about ways the Lord shows his hand in our lives. It seems appropriate to be reading this now because my very own “divine signature” event is what brought me to it.

This past Sunday, I was sitting by myself in sacrament meeting at church. Sitting by myself is a rarity, of course, but the kids were home sick and Brice was taking care of them so I could teach in Primary. Generally when I’m at church alone, I try to pay extra attention—since most Sundays I’m a tad bit distracted by two small wild creatures sitting on my bench. (Actually, to be honest, they both are usually pretty tame and quiet during sacrament meeting, but I do tend to use them as my excuse for not listening.)

But this week, I just couldn’t seem to focus. I say “couldn’t,” but that’s not true. I just didn’t really want to. We had just sung an intermediate hymn, and I noticed the next one was super short.* And suddenly I found myself wondering which was the shortest song in the hymnbook and which the longest.**

In mere seconds, I was barely listening to the next speaker at all. There was some sort of story about a film the Church produced for the World’s Fair, something something something. I was too busy flipping pages and counting lines and verses. Then the speaker said this: “Why am I here? Not on earth, but here today?”

You know that part in a book where the character suddenly straightens up, like a hound on point, all attention riveted?

That was me.

Okay, yes, my finger was still in the hymnbook marking my place, but those words jumped out from the background mumble that the words had become in my mind. They really did, like suddenly Charlie Brown’s mom was using words instead of “wah wah wah”s. “Why am I here today?” The speaker went on to discuss reasons like socializing and chatting with friends, obligation, habit. Internally I nodded, especially at those last two. But I also knew it was not enough. The reason we should be here, the speaker went on to say, is faith.

I closed the hymnbook and began to think and to listen again. It was what I needed, at exactly the moment that I needed it. It was a direct reminder, personal and loving, that I was known. And that God knew I needed a little gentle nudge of recommitment to nurturing my tiny little plant of faith. There is something so sweet about these moments. They are enduring and life-changing in ways that I don’t think angels or grand symphonies of heavenly manifestations ever could be.

Of course I know I will eventually falter and waver again. I’ll forget again. But I will have my scripture journal and this story to remind me, and I will have another moment, and the clarity will return as I recognize God’s hand and His love for me.

*“Praise God, from Whom All Blessings Flow,” two lines, one verse.

**In case you’re wondering, I think the longest is probably “A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief,” but I didn’t finish checking. “The Wintry Day, Descending to Its Close” is also surprisingly long.