So, today I tried something new. I tried to start the day deciding it would be good and ignoring all clues otherwise. It's a bit tiring...believe me there are a LOT of clues to ignore...but I'm pretty sure there is no way out of this pit I've fallen into other than this, so here is to trying. Actually it was chocolate chip cookie dough and sunflowers to trying - I needed SOMETHING to brighten my day by 5:00 because the world was certainly NOT helping! I'm going to need to try this a few more days and get some words of wisdom before I recommend to anyone else just how to do it, but I could certainly feel my mom inside me rising up and screaming 'get off your lazy butt and do something, stop moping around already'. So, up off the lazy butt I went.
Many people may think I should 'let myself grieve', but you have to understand who I'm related to. When my mom's white blood cell counts were super low prior to the bone marrow transplant, but she was still working, one of the patients was whining about something. She pulled out his chart, looked at the counts and said 'Give me a break, my counts are worse than yours so either stop your whining or move over and let me in that bed and you can do my job.'
Sorry depression stage, I have too many of her genes in me to allow you too much of my time - self pity is a slippery slope and I'm not interested in being taken further down this pit...the top seems far enough away as it is!
Monday, September 27, 2010
Friday, September 24, 2010
My Mom
Brandy and I jointly wrote and read the eulogy at my mom's memorial service. It just seemed right that way. Below is the text in case you are interested in reading it and the pictures that went along with it. Brandy read the bolded text and I read the unbolded.
Brandy and I always joke that it takes both of us to equal our mom. So, it seemed only fitting that we would both write her eulogy. Our eulogy can be summed up by a card our dad got in the mail which captures mom’s loss well. It read:
There is little on earth we loved as much as our mom. And there have certainly been tears. But we are not going to focus on that line. We are going to focus on the second two lines. We are blessed with so many memories we had to sit and edit them down to make our eulogy a reasonable length. God gave us our mom for a very specific amount of time. An amount of time that only He knew. And we have faith that it was not one minute too short. We wish it was longer, but really it is for our own selfish reasons that we wish that. She told our dad in the hospital, that she had taught her children how to ‘love life and love the Lord’. So we want our eulogy to celebrate these lessons. We want our eulogy to celebrate the memories we have of our mom – the things she did that made us laugh. And, a eulogy that celebrates the joy that we will continue to have because she lived.
So our eulogy can in essence be titled, “The Most Important Lessons We Learned From Our Mom”
If you are sitting here today, then you know there are very few moments you could be around our mom without laughing. So please feel free to laugh throughout this eulogy, because this would not be a eulogy about our mom if you do not feel like you are going to pee your pants at least one time.
Hotels were a big deal for my mom. At the first mention of a road trip I would see the glint in my mom’s eye as she began to peruse through her head the hotels she knew along the road I would be traveling. As she reviewed the list of hotels in her head she had very specific qualifications for which hotels she would stay at. Most recently Holiday Inn Express were her favorite hotels, before that it was Best Western, and when she’s paying for me to stay at a hotel it’s Motel 6. I’ll bet few of you can tell me which hotels have the soft and firm pillows for every person in the room. Which hotels serve my dad’s favorite kind of yogurt for breakfast. Which hotels have a pool for Nikole to swim in. And which hotels are located next to a Waffle House. But I know these details, because like I said hotels were a big deal for my mom. Of all the offered amenities by hotels, a continental breakfast was by far the most important one. She always toss out the comment, ‘oh, and they have a continental breakfast, I wonder if they serve biscuits and gravy’. Like she didn’t know if they served biscuits and gravy. In closing I want to draw you a picture to explain to you how important hotels were for my mom. After returning home from the hospital, we found a stack of mom’s items that she would usually throw into a bag to carry everywhere with her. In the stack was a small box of tissues, chap-stick, her prayer journal which Aunt Dona knows only the first 4 pages were actually completed, her planner, her bible and this book. For those of you who can't see what I'm holding it is the Motel 6 guide. Taking this book everywhere we traveled was a family tradition, so our second lesson is:
It’s sometimes nice to try new things but never break tradition
Every meaningful tradition in my mom’s life started with family. Trips to the beach, holiday dinners, Christmas cookies, and of course eating at our “favorite restaurants” in cities we’d only been in once. In our family, it is a tradition to make traditions. My mom made our family into an example of what a family should be. We loved and we fought; we laughed and we cried. She taught us that unity is not uniformity – we can all be different, but your family is your family and nothing on earth can replace them. When I come back from being at home people always ask what we did, and usually I can’t think of anything specific. Really what we did was just sit around and talk, or sit around and not talk. It didn’t matter what we did, what mattered was that we did it together. My mom’s family was the most important thing in the world to her. She taught us to love through the hard times, that the relationships are worth the struggle, and that families are the most incredible gift God ever gave us.
Everyone on the East Coast remembers the blizzard we had this past winter. Of course that blizzard came shortly after we had completed our bone marrow transplant. Forseeing the bad weather we were going to have, my mom whipped our her hotel book and placed a reservation at the Holiday Inn Express closest to Johns Hopkins – of course this included the soft and firm pillow, biscuits and gravy on the continental breakfast, and the only kind of yogurt my dad eats. The blizzard was worse than we even anticipated and while Becky and I were breaking windows to get the cable to work so we could watch Cake Boss, and while the National Guard was attempting to keep people off the streets and clear the roads, my mother donned her winter cap, her big red winter jacket (I’m sure we’ve all seen her wearing), her toasty winter boots, and headed out with my dad to walk the one mile to the hospital. Now let me preface this by saying, she had already called the hospital and they told her she should call for an ambulance to bring her there. Her response was ‘why would I call an ambulance when I have two good legs on me.’ The nurses didn’t say anything that day, but the following week after checking her chart, the nurse commented on the day she had bloodwork taken…which was the day of the blizzard. When my mom told her she had stayed down there to keep her chemo treatments on track, the nurse responded with ‘oh, yeah, we heard about you, all the doctors were telling the nurses that said they couldn’t get to work that one of the patients had walked in so why couldn’t they.’ In case you were wondering this was at most a week after the bone marrow transplant. My dad just decided to go ahead and walk along with her, because once she made her mind up there was nothing you were going to do to change it. Our third lesson was something our mom always said to us when it was time for us to get feisty:
Brandy and I always joke that it takes both of us to equal our mom. So, it seemed only fitting that we would both write her eulogy. Our eulogy can be summed up by a card our dad got in the mail which captures mom’s loss well. It read:
Because we loved, there will be tears.
Because we laughed, there will be memories.
Because she lived, there will still be joy.There is little on earth we loved as much as our mom. And there have certainly been tears. But we are not going to focus on that line. We are going to focus on the second two lines. We are blessed with so many memories we had to sit and edit them down to make our eulogy a reasonable length. God gave us our mom for a very specific amount of time. An amount of time that only He knew. And we have faith that it was not one minute too short. We wish it was longer, but really it is for our own selfish reasons that we wish that. She told our dad in the hospital, that she had taught her children how to ‘love life and love the Lord’. So we want our eulogy to celebrate these lessons. We want our eulogy to celebrate the memories we have of our mom – the things she did that made us laugh. And, a eulogy that celebrates the joy that we will continue to have because she lived.
So our eulogy can in essence be titled, “The Most Important Lessons We Learned From Our Mom”
If you are sitting here today, then you know there are very few moments you could be around our mom without laughing. So please feel free to laugh throughout this eulogy, because this would not be a eulogy about our mom if you do not feel like you are going to pee your pants at least one time.
Becky, Mom and I had a morning ritual of calling each other and I can remember every day as I was backing out of my driveway attempting to find the phone in my purse and not hit the neighbor’s mailbox, when I would be talking to my mom on the phone and telling her about all the things I had to get done that day. After I got done telling her my plans for the day, which usually consisted of an 8-10 hour work day, studying for graduate school, making phone calls or attending a Special Olympics practice, getting ready for an upcoming jewelry show, and grocery shopping or cleaning which was always last on my list, she would proceed to give me the run down on her plans. My mother’s busy schedule typically consisted of a hearty breakfast at the local Cracker Barrel, followed by a mani and a pedi, then rushing up to York to meet her next friend for lunch, just in time to get over to get her 1:00 massage, and then she would always finish the conversation by saying ‘and then I gotta get back here and make it look like I did something before your dad gets home.’ Little did she know my dad could track her around town with her debit card. I always laughed at my mom’s idea of a busy day. Yet, every time I was at home I found myself exhausted after a day of breakfast, manicures, lunches, massages, and doing 10 minutes of cleaning to make it look like we had done something that day. So the first lesson is:
There is very little more important than a good cup of coffee with someone you love
My mom made friendships a priority in her life. She went out of her way to fit other people into her schedule. She filled her day by spending time with people she loved because she knew that time was the most valuable thing we can offer a person. If you ever walked in our house, you know the kitchen table was never clean. It was full of stacks of paper, and only Nikole knew where anything was. It was like this from the time we were little. The reason was, breakfast with Bev was more important than cleaning the table. A walk with Patti was more important than doing the dishes. Coffee by the pellet stove with Della was more important than mopping the kitchen floor. And a Bible study with Aunt Dona was more important than doing the laundry. Granted, they probably talked more than they actually studied the Bible because it took almost three years for them to get to the month of November in the ‘Read Through the Bible in a Year’. Sadly, we each only learned half of this lesson. My budget is busted every month by coffee and lunch dates, and Brandy’s house is always dirty. But like I said, it takes both of us to make my mom. She went out of her way to make sure people knew that they were loved. We learned this lesson, not because she told us to love others as we love ourselves, but because she lived it out in front of us. She taught us how to keep from taking our family and friends for granted, and through this loss I’ve learned that these friendships she taught us how to cultivate are what walk us through the hard times.
Hotels were a big deal for my mom. At the first mention of a road trip I would see the glint in my mom’s eye as she began to peruse through her head the hotels she knew along the road I would be traveling. As she reviewed the list of hotels in her head she had very specific qualifications for which hotels she would stay at. Most recently Holiday Inn Express were her favorite hotels, before that it was Best Western, and when she’s paying for me to stay at a hotel it’s Motel 6. I’ll bet few of you can tell me which hotels have the soft and firm pillows for every person in the room. Which hotels serve my dad’s favorite kind of yogurt for breakfast. Which hotels have a pool for Nikole to swim in. And which hotels are located next to a Waffle House. But I know these details, because like I said hotels were a big deal for my mom. Of all the offered amenities by hotels, a continental breakfast was by far the most important one. She always toss out the comment, ‘oh, and they have a continental breakfast, I wonder if they serve biscuits and gravy’. Like she didn’t know if they served biscuits and gravy. In closing I want to draw you a picture to explain to you how important hotels were for my mom. After returning home from the hospital, we found a stack of mom’s items that she would usually throw into a bag to carry everywhere with her. In the stack was a small box of tissues, chap-stick, her prayer journal which Aunt Dona knows only the first 4 pages were actually completed, her planner, her bible and this book. For those of you who can't see what I'm holding it is the Motel 6 guide. Taking this book everywhere we traveled was a family tradition, so our second lesson is:
Every meaningful tradition in my mom’s life started with family. Trips to the beach, holiday dinners, Christmas cookies, and of course eating at our “favorite restaurants” in cities we’d only been in once. In our family, it is a tradition to make traditions. My mom made our family into an example of what a family should be. We loved and we fought; we laughed and we cried. She taught us that unity is not uniformity – we can all be different, but your family is your family and nothing on earth can replace them. When I come back from being at home people always ask what we did, and usually I can’t think of anything specific. Really what we did was just sit around and talk, or sit around and not talk. It didn’t matter what we did, what mattered was that we did it together. My mom’s family was the most important thing in the world to her. She taught us to love through the hard times, that the relationships are worth the struggle, and that families are the most incredible gift God ever gave us.
Everyone on the East Coast remembers the blizzard we had this past winter. Of course that blizzard came shortly after we had completed our bone marrow transplant. Forseeing the bad weather we were going to have, my mom whipped our her hotel book and placed a reservation at the Holiday Inn Express closest to Johns Hopkins – of course this included the soft and firm pillow, biscuits and gravy on the continental breakfast, and the only kind of yogurt my dad eats. The blizzard was worse than we even anticipated and while Becky and I were breaking windows to get the cable to work so we could watch Cake Boss, and while the National Guard was attempting to keep people off the streets and clear the roads, my mother donned her winter cap, her big red winter jacket (I’m sure we’ve all seen her wearing), her toasty winter boots, and headed out with my dad to walk the one mile to the hospital. Now let me preface this by saying, she had already called the hospital and they told her she should call for an ambulance to bring her there. Her response was ‘why would I call an ambulance when I have two good legs on me.’ The nurses didn’t say anything that day, but the following week after checking her chart, the nurse commented on the day she had bloodwork taken…which was the day of the blizzard. When my mom told her she had stayed down there to keep her chemo treatments on track, the nurse responded with ‘oh, yeah, we heard about you, all the doctors were telling the nurses that said they couldn’t get to work that one of the patients had walked in so why couldn’t they.’ In case you were wondering this was at most a week after the bone marrow transplant. My dad just decided to go ahead and walk along with her, because once she made her mind up there was nothing you were going to do to change it. Our third lesson was something our mom always said to us when it was time for us to get feisty:
You’re not just another pretty face
My mom was amazing at teaching us how to do things whether she did them or not. Brandy and I discussed the other day how the idea that we couldn’t do something, has literally never crossed our minds. My mom and dad told us from the time we were little that we could do anything we wanted, and they never made the slightest mention that this wasn’t true for everyone, so why would we question it? They may have questioned their ability to do things, but they never showed us any doubt. I saw my mom go back to school while still caring for a family and raising foster children. I watched her face cancer head on, and not bat an eye. I think part of the shock of her death was that I still had that childlike belief that my mom was invincible. What I came to realize though, was not that she was invincible, but that she was a fighter. She stood up for what she believed to be right, and she did not back down from anyone. Matthew told her one time when he was 16 or so that she couldn’t do anything to him because he was bigger than her. She had him on the kitchen floor with one hand free and one putting soap in his mouth before he knew what had happened. Every time I had a good idea, or finished a difficult project, or came up with a new way of doing something, or even if I just cooked a new recipe, I would call and tell her and she would say ‘See, I told you, you’re not just another pretty face.’ She taught me by believing in me, to believe in myself. And I have learned over the past month that she taught a lot of people this lesson. She believed in people even if they didn’t believe in themselves, just because that was who she was. The older I become, the more I’ve realized that she instilled in me the ability to do this for others. I’ve actually found times when I didn’t want to believe in a person and yet deep down I did. My mom was a beautiful woman, but it takes more than just a pretty face to teach someone how to do that.
I cannot guarantee the validity of the following story, because I am telling it second hand…from my mom’s point of view. She was as feisty with doctors at work as she was with her own doctors regarding her care. The reason was, she cared about how her patients were treated and always wanted to respect their wishes. After advocating for a patient with a doctor, my mom would typically finish her argument with ‘What are you going to do? Fire me? I don’t work here for the money.’ And for those doctors in the crowd if you had looked behind you as you walked away you would have seen a flip of the hand and heard the comment, ‘Get thee behind me Satan.’ At least that’s how the story goes. I don’t know she really said, if anything at all, but I do know that she was devoted to her work. So, our forth lesson was:
Do what you love, and love what you do
My mom taught us how to look at the world and see what we want it to be and then go out and do something about it. She never gave us the option of having an opinion that didn’t mean following it up with action. And she taught us how to find joy in our work, not because we saw the change we were making, but because we were trying. She taught us that we are defined by more than our paycheck. It’s what we do, not what we get paid for what we do that gives us worth. She taught us that we should not measure ourselves by what others think of what we do, but by what God thinks of what we do. My mom taught me to know that I can make a difference in the world, and that I can stand strong in the midst of my weeping by remembering to live every day in love with what I can do in this world. My mom taught us to do the best job we could do, regardless of how well everyone else was else was doing theirs – this lesson was often encouraged by stating, ‘If I did my job as well as them, there would be dead people lying all over the streets.’
My mom could brighten up any room when she walked into it. Usually because she was doing the ‘new earring dance’ or the ‘new shoe dance’…sometimes both. I cannot replicate these dances although I tried. So I know this is blurry, but just sing the tune Jingle Bell Rock in your head as you watch this video. I don’t know when this was taken, but I know that’s when this video was taken. The new shoe dance also typically occurred as she was headed into my Aunt Dona’s for a Bible study. Again, I cannot replicate this dance, but ask my Aunt Lib during the time of sharing because she’s pretty good at it. She danced all the time. And anyone that went to a wedding in the Walker family knows that she would encourage you to:
Dance to your own tune, but that tune should be ‘It’s Raining Men’
One of the grand traditions in our household, is the 10 days, yes I said it, 10 days of baking Christmas cookies prior to Christmas day. My sister loves baking Christmas cookies, and I hate it. Yet, I would sit at the kitchen table and talk and probably eat a lot while my mom did her psycho obsessive baking of the perfect Christmas cookies. Every year I heard how the Whirligigs had to be rolled tight, but not too tight. And how the Sand Tarts could be thin and crispy, even though I liked them thick and soft. How I couldn’t help with the Pecan Tea cookies because my thumb wasn’t big enough. And how the Chocolate Roll cookies had to be icinged with the appropriate colors, especially the candy canes which had to have red and white stripes. I cannot even count the number of times I saw an entire tray of cookies dumped into the trash because they cooked for one minute too long. Granny, I know you’re thinking – well one minute, they’ll be burnt. My mom was so crazy about Christmas cookies that she would actually segregate what we were allowed to eat and what would be given away as gifts. So, I never ate a perfect cookie until I moved out of the house, and got them as a gift. In order to get the perfect cookie, my mom had to have intense quality control over the cookie. I want you to take note of the picture up on the screen in which I’m wearing a wedding ring…which means I was married.
This was the first time I was ever allowed to pour the syrup in the Pecan Tea Cookies. Can you see the tension in my mom's face? And the first time I was ever allowed to make Whirligig cookies, we were at the beach house, without her typical cookie utensils, and the chocolate did not melt right. Even though the dough was already made, she was going to throw all of it away and was not making Whirligigs. So, Becky and I took that chunky chocolate, slapped it in some peanut butter dough, and in the words of my mother, ‘we made some pretty delicious Whirligig cookies, if I must say so myself.’ Our sixth lesson is:
My mom had this very uncommon ability to make people feel loved and accepted even after not mincing words on what she thought they should do. She said what she felt needed to be said and then let it go. Whoever she said it to (after they got over the shock of what she had just said to them) could take it or leave it, but in the end she still loved the person she knew you would be once you were done making all those stupid decisions. I always loved when she would throw out a ridicioulously inappropriate comment and then pretend to be shocked she had said it outloud. One thing no one can ever say is that they didn’t know where they stood with my mom. She did not have a problem telling you. The incredible thing about her though, was after she told you, she didn’t have a problem loving you anyway. She was able to wake up every day and live a life of love because she knew that one action did not define a person. One experience did not define a relationship. One mistake was one mistake. She accepted imperfection in people, not because she thought it was ok, but because she knew life was a process. She accepted that God’s job was to judge, and her job was to speak the truth in love. Sometimes the truth came out with a little less word-smithing than it may have needed, but deep down you knew she only ever told you what she thought because she loved you. This is one lesson I’m still learning how to do, but I figure I’ve learned how to make perfect Pecan Tea cookies, perhaps I can learn how to perfect this skill as well.
I said hotels were a big deal. They were nothing compared to food. If you notice, many of my stories included some type of food item. Whether it be going out to eat, Christmas cookies or continental breakfast. Not even the bone marrow transplant could interrupt her dining schedules. The night before the bone marrow transplant I was so nervous I was broken out in hives and physically sick to my stomach. Yet mom was doing her food dance because her blood counts were high enough that the doctor agreed she could go out to eat that night. After donning her Darth Vader mask, Aunt Dona, mom, Becky and I headed into McCormick and Schmitz.
After explaining the situation we were sat in an entirely empty room to be away from the crowds. We all know what happened the next day except for me because I wasn’t awake for any of it. But the next thing I remember, I was hobbling back into our little apartment, saw my mom washing dishes and passed out. The next morning, I woke up to mom doing ‘the food dance’ once again.
Her counts were still high enough for one last meal. It had already started reving up for that blizzard, and with snow on the ground we once again headed out for another meal. This time she planned for us to go to a little breakfast place she saw on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives on the Food Network Channel. I could barely sit and she had to remove her mask in a packed full room to eat her potato pancakes. Aunt Dona and Becky had to run interference to keep mom from being touched by strangers and me from slipping in the snow. But potato pancakes she wanted, and potato pancakes she had. Nothing was going to stop her from enjoying her food. Our seventh lesson came straight out of mom’s mouth more times than I can count:
Girls, You can’t let this world get you down
A close second on the count would be the number of times she said ‘Lord give me the strength to get through the day – that’s all I ask’. No matter how bad the prognosis got, my mom never allowed cancer to define her. Her life was her life, and even cancer wasn’t going to have a say in that. During the first round of chemo, she, my dad, Brandy and I had plans to go to Belize. Her chemo treatment wasn’t supposed to end until the day we were supposed to leave, so she just took care of it herself rather than going to the hospital. And the doctors let her do it because she wasn’t going to have the chemo if it meant she wasn’t going to go to Belize with us. She worked until the week they put the port in for her bone marrow transplant. She loved her job and a low white blood cell count was not going to stop her from doing what she loved. Patti had to convince her to not go to work the one day that she could barely stand from all the fluid in her legs caused by the graft vs. host disease. ‘Do you think I should call in’ she asked her. Apparently it was still worth asking.
My mom spent seven years fighting cancer, but she never let it get her down. In the words of my dad ‘She had a way of making life’s problems small enough that it was easier to see the big picture.’ When you came in the church you saw all the scarves and the wig she had from the multiple times she lost her hair from chemo. And all the pill bottles of medicine she took every day. All of it so she could spend more time on this earth with us. She knew where she was going when she died, but everything she went through was worth it because she wanted to spend more time with us. My mom taught me how to appreciate the good times, but more importantly she taught me how to appreciate the bad times. We laughed in the hospital as much as we cried. The reason we could do that was because she had taught us that life can be defined by what we choose it be defined by. Hers was defined, not by cancer, but by joy. Although it’s hard to imagine right now, our lives will not be defined by loss, but by joy. My mom taught us that no matter how bad it gets, stand on the word that ‘Weeping may remain for a night, but joy comes in the morning’. I know that my mom would be telling me to get over it. It’s just harder this time because she’s not here to help me.
These memories that we’ve given you are just the tip of the iceberg of the ones we have of her. I’m going to miss hitting my shin on the open dishwasher door, plastic water bottles sitting around the sink, detailed explanations of what she was cooking while I was fasting, getting packages of things that were ‘screaming my name’, googleing something for her because the computer is the antichrist. And I’m really going to miss, after telling all these stories about her, hearing her say ‘I do not do that’. These memories and everything our mom was taught us our last lesson:
We are blessed
Blessed are those who mourn because they will be comforted. I never understood this verse. The reason I didn’t was because I didn’t understand the word blessed. In essence I understood blessed to mean that life was good and everything was going great. What I have learned in the past month, is what my mom taught me every day through her life. We are blessed, not because of our circumstances, but because of who we have with us in those circumstances. I am blessed when I have friends who give up their time to spend with me as I mourn. I am blessed when I have a family who loves me through every trial I face. I am blessed when can stand on my faith alone and know that God is present and involved in my life, even if my life doesn’t make sense. I am blessed because I had a mother who taught me these lessons when she was alive, so I could live them after she died. My mom did not only teach me how to live, she taught me how to die. With dignity and strength, surrounded by those who you have taught to love, and standing in faith that God is in control and loves you even if the circumstances look different. She never wavered on her love or her faith. My challenge now, is to take the lessons she taught me and to do the same.
C.S. Lewis, at the end of the Narnia books, describes the characters as they enter heaven.
"(T)he things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before."
“Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary and the young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. The will soar on wings like eagles: they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” (Isaiah 40:21-31)
I cannot guarantee the validity of the following story, because I am telling it second hand…from my mom’s point of view. She was as feisty with doctors at work as she was with her own doctors regarding her care. The reason was, she cared about how her patients were treated and always wanted to respect their wishes. After advocating for a patient with a doctor, my mom would typically finish her argument with ‘What are you going to do? Fire me? I don’t work here for the money.’ And for those doctors in the crowd if you had looked behind you as you walked away you would have seen a flip of the hand and heard the comment, ‘Get thee behind me Satan.’ At least that’s how the story goes. I don’t know she really said, if anything at all, but I do know that she was devoted to her work. So, our forth lesson was:
My mom taught us how to look at the world and see what we want it to be and then go out and do something about it. She never gave us the option of having an opinion that didn’t mean following it up with action. And she taught us how to find joy in our work, not because we saw the change we were making, but because we were trying. She taught us that we are defined by more than our paycheck. It’s what we do, not what we get paid for what we do that gives us worth. She taught us that we should not measure ourselves by what others think of what we do, but by what God thinks of what we do. My mom taught me to know that I can make a difference in the world, and that I can stand strong in the midst of my weeping by remembering to live every day in love with what I can do in this world. My mom taught us to do the best job we could do, regardless of how well everyone else was else was doing theirs – this lesson was often encouraged by stating, ‘If I did my job as well as them, there would be dead people lying all over the streets.’
Dance to your own tune, but that tune should be ‘It’s Raining Men’
I remember being woken up to mom singing ‘good morning, good morning, it’s time to rise and shine’, or driving with her in the car and her suddenly busting out the chorus of the song playing on the radio. She always had a song on her lips. Half of the time it was the wrong words, or the wrong tune, or in the case of being woken up, at the wrong time, but that didn’t stop her. She was filled with joy, and it came out in a song. I think she, more than anyone else I have ever met loved life. She appreciated every moment. And she taught us we should do the same. You couldn’t be around her and miss it. I can honestly say that there is nothing I wish I had done with my mom or said to my mom – there are certainly things I wish I could have done or said in the future, but I have no regrets in our past. The reason I can say that is because she taught me to appreciate every day, do everything in that day you can, say ‘I love you’ to every person you love…every time you see them. A lot of people say to do that, but there are few people I have ever met who do. My mom was one of those people, and she taught us how to be one of those people every day of her life.
One of the grand traditions in our household, is the 10 days, yes I said it, 10 days of baking Christmas cookies prior to Christmas day. My sister loves baking Christmas cookies, and I hate it. Yet, I would sit at the kitchen table and talk and probably eat a lot while my mom did her psycho obsessive baking of the perfect Christmas cookies. Every year I heard how the Whirligigs had to be rolled tight, but not too tight. And how the Sand Tarts could be thin and crispy, even though I liked them thick and soft. How I couldn’t help with the Pecan Tea cookies because my thumb wasn’t big enough. And how the Chocolate Roll cookies had to be icinged with the appropriate colors, especially the candy canes which had to have red and white stripes. I cannot even count the number of times I saw an entire tray of cookies dumped into the trash because they cooked for one minute too long. Granny, I know you’re thinking – well one minute, they’ll be burnt. My mom was so crazy about Christmas cookies that she would actually segregate what we were allowed to eat and what would be given away as gifts. So, I never ate a perfect cookie until I moved out of the house, and got them as a gift. In order to get the perfect cookie, my mom had to have intense quality control over the cookie. I want you to take note of the picture up on the screen in which I’m wearing a wedding ring…which means I was married.
This was the first time I was ever allowed to pour the syrup in the Pecan Tea Cookies. Can you see the tension in my mom's face? And the first time I was ever allowed to make Whirligig cookies, we were at the beach house, without her typical cookie utensils, and the chocolate did not melt right. Even though the dough was already made, she was going to throw all of it away and was not making Whirligigs. So, Becky and I took that chunky chocolate, slapped it in some peanut butter dough, and in the words of my mother, ‘we made some pretty delicious Whirligig cookies, if I must say so myself.’ Our sixth lesson is:
Imperfection is OK, except when baking Christmas cookies
My mom had this very uncommon ability to make people feel loved and accepted even after not mincing words on what she thought they should do. She said what she felt needed to be said and then let it go. Whoever she said it to (after they got over the shock of what she had just said to them) could take it or leave it, but in the end she still loved the person she knew you would be once you were done making all those stupid decisions. I always loved when she would throw out a ridicioulously inappropriate comment and then pretend to be shocked she had said it outloud. One thing no one can ever say is that they didn’t know where they stood with my mom. She did not have a problem telling you. The incredible thing about her though, was after she told you, she didn’t have a problem loving you anyway. She was able to wake up every day and live a life of love because she knew that one action did not define a person. One experience did not define a relationship. One mistake was one mistake. She accepted imperfection in people, not because she thought it was ok, but because she knew life was a process. She accepted that God’s job was to judge, and her job was to speak the truth in love. Sometimes the truth came out with a little less word-smithing than it may have needed, but deep down you knew she only ever told you what she thought because she loved you. This is one lesson I’m still learning how to do, but I figure I’ve learned how to make perfect Pecan Tea cookies, perhaps I can learn how to perfect this skill as well.
I said hotels were a big deal. They were nothing compared to food. If you notice, many of my stories included some type of food item. Whether it be going out to eat, Christmas cookies or continental breakfast. Not even the bone marrow transplant could interrupt her dining schedules. The night before the bone marrow transplant I was so nervous I was broken out in hives and physically sick to my stomach. Yet mom was doing her food dance because her blood counts were high enough that the doctor agreed she could go out to eat that night. After donning her Darth Vader mask, Aunt Dona, mom, Becky and I headed into McCormick and Schmitz.
After explaining the situation we were sat in an entirely empty room to be away from the crowds. We all know what happened the next day except for me because I wasn’t awake for any of it. But the next thing I remember, I was hobbling back into our little apartment, saw my mom washing dishes and passed out. The next morning, I woke up to mom doing ‘the food dance’ once again.
Her counts were still high enough for one last meal. It had already started reving up for that blizzard, and with snow on the ground we once again headed out for another meal. This time she planned for us to go to a little breakfast place she saw on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives on the Food Network Channel. I could barely sit and she had to remove her mask in a packed full room to eat her potato pancakes. Aunt Dona and Becky had to run interference to keep mom from being touched by strangers and me from slipping in the snow. But potato pancakes she wanted, and potato pancakes she had. Nothing was going to stop her from enjoying her food. Our seventh lesson came straight out of mom’s mouth more times than I can count:
A close second on the count would be the number of times she said ‘Lord give me the strength to get through the day – that’s all I ask’. No matter how bad the prognosis got, my mom never allowed cancer to define her. Her life was her life, and even cancer wasn’t going to have a say in that. During the first round of chemo, she, my dad, Brandy and I had plans to go to Belize. Her chemo treatment wasn’t supposed to end until the day we were supposed to leave, so she just took care of it herself rather than going to the hospital. And the doctors let her do it because she wasn’t going to have the chemo if it meant she wasn’t going to go to Belize with us. She worked until the week they put the port in for her bone marrow transplant. She loved her job and a low white blood cell count was not going to stop her from doing what she loved. Patti had to convince her to not go to work the one day that she could barely stand from all the fluid in her legs caused by the graft vs. host disease. ‘Do you think I should call in’ she asked her. Apparently it was still worth asking.
My mom spent seven years fighting cancer, but she never let it get her down. In the words of my dad ‘She had a way of making life’s problems small enough that it was easier to see the big picture.’ When you came in the church you saw all the scarves and the wig she had from the multiple times she lost her hair from chemo. And all the pill bottles of medicine she took every day. All of it so she could spend more time on this earth with us. She knew where she was going when she died, but everything she went through was worth it because she wanted to spend more time with us. My mom taught me how to appreciate the good times, but more importantly she taught me how to appreciate the bad times. We laughed in the hospital as much as we cried. The reason we could do that was because she had taught us that life can be defined by what we choose it be defined by. Hers was defined, not by cancer, but by joy. Although it’s hard to imagine right now, our lives will not be defined by loss, but by joy. My mom taught us that no matter how bad it gets, stand on the word that ‘Weeping may remain for a night, but joy comes in the morning’. I know that my mom would be telling me to get over it. It’s just harder this time because she’s not here to help me.
These memories that we’ve given you are just the tip of the iceberg of the ones we have of her. I’m going to miss hitting my shin on the open dishwasher door, plastic water bottles sitting around the sink, detailed explanations of what she was cooking while I was fasting, getting packages of things that were ‘screaming my name’, googleing something for her because the computer is the antichrist. And I’m really going to miss, after telling all these stories about her, hearing her say ‘I do not do that’. These memories and everything our mom was taught us our last lesson:
Blessed are those who mourn because they will be comforted. I never understood this verse. The reason I didn’t was because I didn’t understand the word blessed. In essence I understood blessed to mean that life was good and everything was going great. What I have learned in the past month, is what my mom taught me every day through her life. We are blessed, not because of our circumstances, but because of who we have with us in those circumstances. I am blessed when I have friends who give up their time to spend with me as I mourn. I am blessed when I have a family who loves me through every trial I face. I am blessed when can stand on my faith alone and know that God is present and involved in my life, even if my life doesn’t make sense. I am blessed because I had a mother who taught me these lessons when she was alive, so I could live them after she died. My mom did not only teach me how to live, she taught me how to die. With dignity and strength, surrounded by those who you have taught to love, and standing in faith that God is in control and loves you even if the circumstances look different. She never wavered on her love or her faith. My challenge now, is to take the lessons she taught me and to do the same.
C.S. Lewis, at the end of the Narnia books, describes the characters as they enter heaven.
"(T)he things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before."
We know that our mom is in heaven, not because she was a good person, but because she knew that God so loved the world that he gave his only Son and whoever believes in Him will not perish but will have life everlasting. Our Aunt Dona said to mom as we were standing by her bed in the last moments, ‘You did a good job Sue, you did a good job.’ Because mom knew who Jesus was and she taught us who He was by her life, we know that when she got to heaven she heard Him say ‘Well done, thy good and faithful servant.’ I can only hope that I love life and love the Lord as beautifully as she did.
“Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary and the young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. The will soar on wings like eagles: they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” (Isaiah 40:21-31)
Resuming Life...
30 voicemails and 255 e-mails later, I'm home, the two day meeting I was running is over, and I'm ready to resume life in the office...I guess.
I'm pretty sure I'm in the depression phase of the grieving process. And all I can say about that is I didn't know it felt much more like numbness than it did sadness. Not numbness in a nothing bothers me sort of way, but numbness in a nothing really matters sort of way. Whew, my mom would be telling me to 'get over myself' right now!
To end on a happy note, here are Nicole and Chris hanging out on the porch after the meeting ended yesterday. We got coffee together downtown and then Chris and I went out to eat at Basil. So between the porch on a September day in Charleston, coffee with friends, and a tasty Thai dinner, I really shouldn't complain.
I'm pretty sure I'm in the depression phase of the grieving process. And all I can say about that is I didn't know it felt much more like numbness than it did sadness. Not numbness in a nothing bothers me sort of way, but numbness in a nothing really matters sort of way. Whew, my mom would be telling me to 'get over myself' right now!
To end on a happy note, here are Nicole and Chris hanging out on the porch after the meeting ended yesterday. We got coffee together downtown and then Chris and I went out to eat at Basil. So between the porch on a September day in Charleston, coffee with friends, and a tasty Thai dinner, I really shouldn't complain.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Saying Goodbye
The process of leaving anything and everything has become a new reason for internal panic. I started crying today when we dropped the flowers from my mom's service off at the retirement home (the residents use them as an activity to make arrangements for the rooms, so we figured it was a better way to spread the flower love than keep our kitchen looking like a florist). I had to smell one last carnation really fast and more or less run out of the room so I didn't become a crying mess in front of all the people telling me what beautiful flowers they were.
Brandy and I sat for a long time in the dark sanctuary after the service was over and everyone had cleaned up and left. We just sat there staring at the three baskets of flowers we kept there for the Sunday service. It was only flowers. Flowers that we had only seen for 3 hours at the most. But they were my mom's flowers.
We tried to decide why it made us feel like we were going to have a panic attack if we left the church. It was only an empty church. But for those few hours it was my mom's church, and as soon as we left it would be everyone's church again. I'm pretty sure it's not normal to feel like you have to say goodbye to flowers or an empty church. But we did. For those few hours everyone felt a piece of what we felt, and so as hard as the service was to go through, in a strange way it was comforting. Now it was over. Life was normal. Except it wasn't. And it never will be.
Every time I have to say goodbye to something that was my mom's it's another aspect of saying goodbye to her. Leaving the church was saying goodbye. Dropping off the flowers was saying goodbye. Taking pictures off the boards from the service and putting them back in the frames was saying goodbye. And that is why every day it doesn't seem to get better. Because everyday there are new things I'm leaving, or seeing, or putting away, or reminded of. Everyday I have to keep saying goodbye.
Brandy and I sat for a long time in the dark sanctuary after the service was over and everyone had cleaned up and left. We just sat there staring at the three baskets of flowers we kept there for the Sunday service. It was only flowers. Flowers that we had only seen for 3 hours at the most. But they were my mom's flowers.
We tried to decide why it made us feel like we were going to have a panic attack if we left the church. It was only an empty church. But for those few hours it was my mom's church, and as soon as we left it would be everyone's church again. I'm pretty sure it's not normal to feel like you have to say goodbye to flowers or an empty church. But we did. For those few hours everyone felt a piece of what we felt, and so as hard as the service was to go through, in a strange way it was comforting. Now it was over. Life was normal. Except it wasn't. And it never will be.
Every time I have to say goodbye to something that was my mom's it's another aspect of saying goodbye to her. Leaving the church was saying goodbye. Dropping off the flowers was saying goodbye. Taking pictures off the boards from the service and putting them back in the frames was saying goodbye. And that is why every day it doesn't seem to get better. Because everyday there are new things I'm leaving, or seeing, or putting away, or reminded of. Everyday I have to keep saying goodbye.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Bunny Horseshoes
Today I'm working from Brandy's classroom so that we can leave to drive to PA when school is over. As a reward for finishing math and a break before starting language arts Brandy offered the two kids that are in her class right now an option to go outside and play for 10 minutes (she's a special ed teacher so kids come and go from regular ed to her classroom). Being kids of course they accepted.
And thus I found myself playing bunny horseshoes (the sticks look like carrots and the horseshoes look like bunny ears) and jumping rope on a beautiful September day. Laughing at our inability to even hit the stick, let along hook it, and the kids reaction to us telling them the phrase 'Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades' Brandy and I had a fleeting moment of normalcy I think. It's amazing how children can offer that. Something about them speaks more than any words to say 'life will go on'.
And this is why I love children. In the rest of my life I agree with my new friend in Lament for a Son "All these things I recognize. I remember delighting in them - trees, art, house, music, pink morning sky, work well done, flowers, books. I still delight in them. I'm still grateful. But the zest is gone. The passion is cooled, the striving quieted, the longing stilled. My attachment is loosened. I can do without them. They don't matter. The joy that comes my way I savor. But the seeking, the clutching, the aiming is gone. I don't suppose anyone on the outside notices. I go through my paces. What the world gives, I still accept. But what it promises, I no longer reach for."
But while laughing with my sister, and playing bunny horseshoes with these sweet children that I've known for only 4 hours, I'm ok. Teaching them how to jump rope is much more important than all the strategic plans sitting inside on my computer that I'm supposed to review. I'm not sure exactly why, but bunny horseshoes made me truly smile today.
And thus I found myself playing bunny horseshoes (the sticks look like carrots and the horseshoes look like bunny ears) and jumping rope on a beautiful September day. Laughing at our inability to even hit the stick, let along hook it, and the kids reaction to us telling them the phrase 'Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades' Brandy and I had a fleeting moment of normalcy I think. It's amazing how children can offer that. Something about them speaks more than any words to say 'life will go on'.
And this is why I love children. In the rest of my life I agree with my new friend in Lament for a Son "All these things I recognize. I remember delighting in them - trees, art, house, music, pink morning sky, work well done, flowers, books. I still delight in them. I'm still grateful. But the zest is gone. The passion is cooled, the striving quieted, the longing stilled. My attachment is loosened. I can do without them. They don't matter. The joy that comes my way I savor. But the seeking, the clutching, the aiming is gone. I don't suppose anyone on the outside notices. I go through my paces. What the world gives, I still accept. But what it promises, I no longer reach for."
But while laughing with my sister, and playing bunny horseshoes with these sweet children that I've known for only 4 hours, I'm ok. Teaching them how to jump rope is much more important than all the strategic plans sitting inside on my computer that I'm supposed to review. I'm not sure exactly why, but bunny horseshoes made me truly smile today.
100,000 miles
Yesterday my car went from...
to...
5 years ago I bought my car brand spankin' new off the lot. A lot happens in 100,000 miles.
to...
5 years ago I bought my car brand spankin' new off the lot. A lot happens in 100,000 miles.Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Words
I considered not writing this post, but I think that for the sake of those who will come after me in loss I will. Ad suggested today while Maia and I were trying to find a dress for me to wear this weekend that I should write a book on how to deal with loss. Perhaps I will, but part of that book will be on how to deal with someone who has lost. The book will need to capture all the things that grieving people think, but do not feel the right to say. Because as much as people want to say 'you can do whatever you want while you are grieving' - you know they don't mean it and they know they don't mean it. They are certainly not expecting for you to turn around and tell them just how hurtful what they just said was. Just because you are grieving, does not mean you have been removed from society, and so as much as I may want to say some things sometimes, I and the rest of the world who grieves does not.
So, rather than respond emotionally when I just can't handle it anymore, I figured that I would address the issue head-on. It's what my mom would have done, so here you go. Like Brandy told me today on the phone 'take a deep breath and remember they are just trying to help'.
So in case you think that what I am writing here is my own crazy thoughts, let me quote for you from the 'Lament for a Son' book I mentioned before. If I do write a book this book will be what inspires me, because reading on paper what I'm thinking in my head is incredibly helpful. Nicholas Wolterstorff says "What do you say to someone who is suffering? Some people are gifted with words of wisdom. Bun not all are gifted int that way. Some blurted out strange, inept things. That's OK, you're words don't have to be wise. And if you can't think of anything at all to say, just say, "I can't think of anything to say. But I want you to know that we are with you in your grief." Not even the best of words can take away the pain. Express your love. But please: Don't say it's not really so bad. Because it is. Death is awful, demonic. If you think your task as comforter is to tell me that really, all things considered, it's not so bad, you do not sit with me in my grief but place yourself off in the distance away from me. Over there, you are of no help. Some say nothing because they find the topic too painful for themselves. They fear they will break down. Sot they put on a brave face and lid their feelings - never reflecting, I suppose, that this adds new pain to the sorrow of their suffering friends. Your tears are salve on our wound, your silence is salt."
So, here is my version:
1. If (and I mean this) you have experienced a similar loss to the person who is grieving, please offer them words of truth. These in the end are the words of wisdom. I do not need motivation or comfort, I need truth. I needed to hear that some of this pain will never go away, that there will always be a dull ache of longing. I needed to hear that it's going to get worse before it gets better. I needed to hear that in the happiest moments of your life you will still think of your mom and have a tinge of sadness no matter how long she has been gone. I also needed to hear that you would feel happy again, eventually. I needed to hear that I will be able to reach a new normal. This normal will not be the same, but it will be better than now. These are words of wisdom, because they are words of experience.
2. If you have not experienced that loss, or if your loss was of someone not as close as the person, please please please, do NOT give advice. Don't tell me how to get through it, don't tell me how it will get better, don't tell me it will all be ok. Don't tell me how she is with me when she is not, or how I can talk to her even though I can't, or that what I'm experiencing is normal and it will go away. If you have not experienced it, please do not give me advice on how to experience it.
3. If you don't know what to say, it really is ok to say 'I don't know what to say, but I'm thinking of you'. These are some of the most comforting words I've heard.
4. If you think it may be better to not say anything, you are very very wrong. His example of pouring salt on wounds is exactly right. When Brandy and I post our mom's obituary and you don't write anything it hurts far more than if you write something and it makes me cry. I want to cry. I cry all the time. When you make me cry it means you gave testimony to the wonderful person I lost. I'm sad that I lost her, but I'm happy that you knew her. Or I cry because you took the time to acknowlege my pain. You took the time to say 'hugs' - just that means more than I can explain.
5. But there is one caveat in this. If you didn't know them well don't act like you did. If you don't know me well, don't act like you do. Don't say something so you feel better about having said something. Say what you feel you should say and then let it be. If you were not my best friend before this happened, 'helping me through' will not make you my best friend after. My best friends know who I am already and can deal with the fact that the way I'm acting today is not me I'm just angry, or the way I'm acting today is not me I'm depressed, or the way I'm acting today is not me I just need someone to sit and talk to me about my mom. If you didn't know me you can't know that. It's nothing against you, it's just life. You can't be everyone's best friend. So, if you are someone's best friend, please take the time to be there for them. If you aren't, take the time to listen when they choose to talk or offer your help and say you are thinking of them, but remember that they have friends who know them deeply and pray that they can be there instead.
6. In everything you say, remember that 'not even the best of words can take away the pain'. If you are saying something in order to comfort me, it probably won't. If you are saying something to show me you love me, it probably will. I appreciate words when they are given to show me love, not when they are given to try to fix things. I appreciate Bible verses, when they are given to show me you are standing with me in my faith, not when they are given to try to fix things. In the end, it's only me and God that can fix the hole that is in my heart. Your words can be precious and beautiful, but they can also hurt. Sitting down and telling me a story about what you remember of my mom is one of the most beautiful gift of words you can give.
And really, if you read all of that, you probably already knew it all. But thank you for reading it anyway.
So, rather than respond emotionally when I just can't handle it anymore, I figured that I would address the issue head-on. It's what my mom would have done, so here you go. Like Brandy told me today on the phone 'take a deep breath and remember they are just trying to help'.
So in case you think that what I am writing here is my own crazy thoughts, let me quote for you from the 'Lament for a Son' book I mentioned before. If I do write a book this book will be what inspires me, because reading on paper what I'm thinking in my head is incredibly helpful. Nicholas Wolterstorff says "What do you say to someone who is suffering? Some people are gifted with words of wisdom. Bun not all are gifted int that way. Some blurted out strange, inept things. That's OK, you're words don't have to be wise. And if you can't think of anything at all to say, just say, "I can't think of anything to say. But I want you to know that we are with you in your grief." Not even the best of words can take away the pain. Express your love. But please: Don't say it's not really so bad. Because it is. Death is awful, demonic. If you think your task as comforter is to tell me that really, all things considered, it's not so bad, you do not sit with me in my grief but place yourself off in the distance away from me. Over there, you are of no help. Some say nothing because they find the topic too painful for themselves. They fear they will break down. Sot they put on a brave face and lid their feelings - never reflecting, I suppose, that this adds new pain to the sorrow of their suffering friends. Your tears are salve on our wound, your silence is salt."
So, here is my version:
1. If (and I mean this) you have experienced a similar loss to the person who is grieving, please offer them words of truth. These in the end are the words of wisdom. I do not need motivation or comfort, I need truth. I needed to hear that some of this pain will never go away, that there will always be a dull ache of longing. I needed to hear that it's going to get worse before it gets better. I needed to hear that in the happiest moments of your life you will still think of your mom and have a tinge of sadness no matter how long she has been gone. I also needed to hear that you would feel happy again, eventually. I needed to hear that I will be able to reach a new normal. This normal will not be the same, but it will be better than now. These are words of wisdom, because they are words of experience.
2. If you have not experienced that loss, or if your loss was of someone not as close as the person, please please please, do NOT give advice. Don't tell me how to get through it, don't tell me how it will get better, don't tell me it will all be ok. Don't tell me how she is with me when she is not, or how I can talk to her even though I can't, or that what I'm experiencing is normal and it will go away. If you have not experienced it, please do not give me advice on how to experience it.
3. If you don't know what to say, it really is ok to say 'I don't know what to say, but I'm thinking of you'. These are some of the most comforting words I've heard.
4. If you think it may be better to not say anything, you are very very wrong. His example of pouring salt on wounds is exactly right. When Brandy and I post our mom's obituary and you don't write anything it hurts far more than if you write something and it makes me cry. I want to cry. I cry all the time. When you make me cry it means you gave testimony to the wonderful person I lost. I'm sad that I lost her, but I'm happy that you knew her. Or I cry because you took the time to acknowlege my pain. You took the time to say 'hugs' - just that means more than I can explain.
5. But there is one caveat in this. If you didn't know them well don't act like you did. If you don't know me well, don't act like you do. Don't say something so you feel better about having said something. Say what you feel you should say and then let it be. If you were not my best friend before this happened, 'helping me through' will not make you my best friend after. My best friends know who I am already and can deal with the fact that the way I'm acting today is not me I'm just angry, or the way I'm acting today is not me I'm depressed, or the way I'm acting today is not me I just need someone to sit and talk to me about my mom. If you didn't know me you can't know that. It's nothing against you, it's just life. You can't be everyone's best friend. So, if you are someone's best friend, please take the time to be there for them. If you aren't, take the time to listen when they choose to talk or offer your help and say you are thinking of them, but remember that they have friends who know them deeply and pray that they can be there instead.
6. In everything you say, remember that 'not even the best of words can take away the pain'. If you are saying something in order to comfort me, it probably won't. If you are saying something to show me you love me, it probably will. I appreciate words when they are given to show me love, not when they are given to try to fix things. I appreciate Bible verses, when they are given to show me you are standing with me in my faith, not when they are given to try to fix things. In the end, it's only me and God that can fix the hole that is in my heart. Your words can be precious and beautiful, but they can also hurt. Sitting down and telling me a story about what you remember of my mom is one of the most beautiful gift of words you can give.
And really, if you read all of that, you probably already knew it all. But thank you for reading it anyway.
I tried...
Really, I did. I forced myself to go to the grocery store to get creamer to put in the Keurig coffee at work rather than paying $5 for a coffee at Starbucks. I kept walking right past the Starbucks that is at the front of the Piggly Wiggly by work and went to the creamer aisle. And I even bought creamer. What did me in was that it is Pumpkin Spice Latte season...can you really blame me?
Sunday, September 12, 2010
The Facts
Wow. I thought that each week feeling so different was wild. Then I thought that feeling different each day this past week was intense. Today, I feel like every hour has felt different than the last. Let me just say I am really hoping we don't start going down to the minute to minute emotional state change tomorrow because I'm not quite certain if I can handle it.
Yesterday Brandy and I realized that my mom's obituary would be posted today. It made my stomach drop thinking about it, and today when Brandy called and said it had been posted it made my stomach drop again, but coming home tonight and actually seeing it...I don't know that there are words to describe that. I honestly felt like I was in some kind of movie and I was going to realize that all this was some weird script and real life was still there behind all of this. I know, it's crazy - this is why we called Patricia yesterday because sometimes the things I think sound like a crazy person.
We were looking for pictures for the service and found this dark grainy video with no sound of my mom dancing at Christmas time. Brandy and I both knew from the 30 seconds of quiet video that she was dancing to Jingle Bell Rock and she was bobbing her Christmas ball earrings and my first thought was, 'oh man, I love when she does that, it's hysterical', my immediate second thought was 'how it is possible that I'm not going to see that dance again?'.
Just a few months ago one of my close friend's dad's died. As I sat looking at my mom's obituary site the first thing I remembered was sitting on Rachel's dad's obituary site thinking of what I could possibly write to at least let her know I was thinking of her. My second thought was 'how it is possible that this is real, this is not real'. I've honestly looked at it 3 times just in an effort to tell myself it's real. I can tell you I still feel shocked every time I see her face on that page. It's amazing how long it takes for your brain to wrap itself around this.
I am going to spend the rest of my life on this earth without my mom. The thought of it makes me want to throw up. And scream. And cry. And curl up in a ball and go to sleep for days. And not necessarily in that order. Even writing this post, I have to remind myself that she is not going to read it. I've never needed to remind myself of so many facts that just don't seem true.
And so, I need to do the same thing with my faith. I need to remind myself of the facts, that just don't seem true right now. Every day I will wake up and remind myself that God sent Jesus to bind up the brokenhearted, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve - to bestow on me a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. I will be called an oak of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor. (Isaiah 61:1-3)
I will remind myself of the facts, good and bad, and I will walk through the day knowing that 'The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." (Isaiah 40:28-31).
Yesterday Brandy and I realized that my mom's obituary would be posted today. It made my stomach drop thinking about it, and today when Brandy called and said it had been posted it made my stomach drop again, but coming home tonight and actually seeing it...I don't know that there are words to describe that. I honestly felt like I was in some kind of movie and I was going to realize that all this was some weird script and real life was still there behind all of this. I know, it's crazy - this is why we called Patricia yesterday because sometimes the things I think sound like a crazy person.
We were looking for pictures for the service and found this dark grainy video with no sound of my mom dancing at Christmas time. Brandy and I both knew from the 30 seconds of quiet video that she was dancing to Jingle Bell Rock and she was bobbing her Christmas ball earrings and my first thought was, 'oh man, I love when she does that, it's hysterical', my immediate second thought was 'how it is possible that I'm not going to see that dance again?'.
Just a few months ago one of my close friend's dad's died. As I sat looking at my mom's obituary site the first thing I remembered was sitting on Rachel's dad's obituary site thinking of what I could possibly write to at least let her know I was thinking of her. My second thought was 'how it is possible that this is real, this is not real'. I've honestly looked at it 3 times just in an effort to tell myself it's real. I can tell you I still feel shocked every time I see her face on that page. It's amazing how long it takes for your brain to wrap itself around this.
I am going to spend the rest of my life on this earth without my mom. The thought of it makes me want to throw up. And scream. And cry. And curl up in a ball and go to sleep for days. And not necessarily in that order. Even writing this post, I have to remind myself that she is not going to read it. I've never needed to remind myself of so many facts that just don't seem true.
And so, I need to do the same thing with my faith. I need to remind myself of the facts, that just don't seem true right now. Every day I will wake up and remind myself that God sent Jesus to bind up the brokenhearted, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve - to bestow on me a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. I will be called an oak of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor. (Isaiah 61:1-3)
I will remind myself of the facts, good and bad, and I will walk through the day knowing that 'The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." (Isaiah 40:28-31).
Resisting Returning
It seems as though I've figured out my physical and emotional state, as described by Granger E. Westburg in the book 'Good Grief'. I've had a migraine for 3 days. I hate migraines and as Brandy and I were perusing the book we wondered if perhaps it was part of Stage 4: Physical Symptoms of Distress. In reading this stage we found out that "some of the people who have physical symptoms of distress have stopped at one of the stages in the 10 stage grief process. Unless someone can help them to work through the emotional problems involved in the stage in which they seem to be fixed, they will remain ill. No amount of medicine will significantly change the situation."
I decided I didn't want to remain ill and so I really needed to find out what stage I am fixed in so I can move through it. We determined I am stuck on page 75 - Stage 8: Resisting Returning. (please note, these stages unlike what everyone thinks they learned in 5th grade health class do not go in order, so don't think I only have 2 left) As Granger says "my loss has been something special, and I feel that other people just don't understand how great the loss was. They are off talking about other things, and I am left alone with my sorrow. Everyone has forgotten my tragedy. Somebody has to keep the memory of it alive." I recognize that you may find this ridiculous, because you think it's not true that people have forgotten. But I would beg to differ. I think that everyday I realize more just how long it's going to take to deal with what I'm feeling. And it makes me realize, that by the time I do this, most of the people I know will have forgotten the pain of this experience. I will not. I don't think people will forget that my mom lived, but I think they will forget the pain of her loss. I will not. See why I'm on page 75?
Granger continues, "When many of us were children people grieved more openly. The men wore black arm bands, and the women wore black veils for 6 months to a year while in mourning for a loved one so that everyone was reminded daily of their loss." I used to think the idea of outward mourning was absurd. But I totally understand it now. It lets people see that I am still trying to act normal. It's not easy, but I'm trying. I don't want people to feel sorry for me, I just want them to understand I'm not normal, and I'm probably not going to be for a long time. It's just how it is.
So, Brandy and I have froogled 'black mourning hats' and found a pretty sweet one for $25 dollars. It seems a little over the top, but all the other ones were $300. I feel like wearing a mourning veil while answering e-mails would be very comforting right now. I also think it would be pretty awesome to see people's faces when they turned the corner into my cubicle.
We considered a mourning bonnet for Brandy because the hat may throw her kids off. One of the great things about the 'Good Grief' book is that Brandy, my dad and I are finding it hysterical to determine which stage we are in. If you don't, you are definitely not on page 75 and you may not enjoy Brandy and my eulogy on Saturday...we are not ones to let this world get us down (that's a shout out to you mom!).
I decided I didn't want to remain ill and so I really needed to find out what stage I am fixed in so I can move through it. We determined I am stuck on page 75 - Stage 8: Resisting Returning. (please note, these stages unlike what everyone thinks they learned in 5th grade health class do not go in order, so don't think I only have 2 left) As Granger says "my loss has been something special, and I feel that other people just don't understand how great the loss was. They are off talking about other things, and I am left alone with my sorrow. Everyone has forgotten my tragedy. Somebody has to keep the memory of it alive." I recognize that you may find this ridiculous, because you think it's not true that people have forgotten. But I would beg to differ. I think that everyday I realize more just how long it's going to take to deal with what I'm feeling. And it makes me realize, that by the time I do this, most of the people I know will have forgotten the pain of this experience. I will not. I don't think people will forget that my mom lived, but I think they will forget the pain of her loss. I will not. See why I'm on page 75?
Granger continues, "When many of us were children people grieved more openly. The men wore black arm bands, and the women wore black veils for 6 months to a year while in mourning for a loved one so that everyone was reminded daily of their loss." I used to think the idea of outward mourning was absurd. But I totally understand it now. It lets people see that I am still trying to act normal. It's not easy, but I'm trying. I don't want people to feel sorry for me, I just want them to understand I'm not normal, and I'm probably not going to be for a long time. It's just how it is.
So, Brandy and I have froogled 'black mourning hats' and found a pretty sweet one for $25 dollars. It seems a little over the top, but all the other ones were $300. I feel like wearing a mourning veil while answering e-mails would be very comforting right now. I also think it would be pretty awesome to see people's faces when they turned the corner into my cubicle.
We considered a mourning bonnet for Brandy because the hat may throw her kids off. One of the great things about the 'Good Grief' book is that Brandy, my dad and I are finding it hysterical to determine which stage we are in. If you don't, you are definitely not on page 75 and you may not enjoy Brandy and my eulogy on Saturday...we are not ones to let this world get us down (that's a shout out to you mom!).
Friday, September 10, 2010
How are you?
I never know how to answer that question. I'm obviously not good, but at the same time I could always be worse, and at the point when people are usually asking the question I have been worse so I hate to answer bad. This morning I determined this is a good example of how I am.
Every morning I wake up feeling normal, and then I remember. I assume this searing pain of remembering goes away eventually. As of this morning, however, it has not. And I've never in my life experienced anything as horrible as that moment that I remember. So, the rest of the day in contrast is technically better. Until the next morning. Sometimes I'm glad I don't have to share that moment with anyone except the dog. Other times I want someone to hold me a let me cry. Eventually that moment passes and I get up and start my day.
That is how I am.
Every morning I wake up feeling normal, and then I remember. I assume this searing pain of remembering goes away eventually. As of this morning, however, it has not. And I've never in my life experienced anything as horrible as that moment that I remember. So, the rest of the day in contrast is technically better. Until the next morning. Sometimes I'm glad I don't have to share that moment with anyone except the dog. Other times I want someone to hold me a let me cry. Eventually that moment passes and I get up and start my day.
That is how I am.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Sea is for Caramel
Today at 1:53pm I received possibly the coolest gift ever...chocolate delivered to my office. My sweet, sweet CTP friends, Tina, Lisa, Whitney, Steve and Nicole, sent me the most delicious stack of sugary goodness imaginable. As you can see I promptly ate the first of two chocolate bars called 'Seas is for Caramel' which is made from 62% dark chocolate, sugar, heavy cream, glucose, butter, vanilla bean, and sea salt...can you think of one awesomely delicious item that this tasty little treat doesn't have in it? I for one cannot.
Oh and did I mention the apple pie Andrea got me last week to compliment the spaghetti and garlic bread Dave brought to my house? Oh and Rachel fixing my blog...again. And Maia taking many (many) chai tea latte breaks to talk me back off the edge of the emotion cliff. And Allison dropping everything on her Labor Day to come to my house and help me rearrange furniture. And Leslie and Craig (and one of their med school friends who doesn't even know me) going out of their way to get me a new bedroom set so my bedroom feels like a grown up. And that was just in the past week, it's not even counting all the friends who sent me cards and flowers and called to say hello and they love me. My friends are amazing!
Oh and did I mention the apple pie Andrea got me last week to compliment the spaghetti and garlic bread Dave brought to my house? Oh and Rachel fixing my blog...again. And Maia taking many (many) chai tea latte breaks to talk me back off the edge of the emotion cliff. And Allison dropping everything on her Labor Day to come to my house and help me rearrange furniture. And Leslie and Craig (and one of their med school friends who doesn't even know me) going out of their way to get me a new bedroom set so my bedroom feels like a grown up. And that was just in the past week, it's not even counting all the friends who sent me cards and flowers and called to say hello and they love me. My friends are amazing!
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Weepy Week
I'm not really certain that any of you in the blog-o-sphere care to hear each week's emotional update, but I guess you'll just have to deal with it because that's all I got for you. At some point during the third week I have lost my ability to distract myself. So I think the feelings are in essence the same as last week (and likely the week before), but now that the shock has worn off and the distractions can't hold a candle to the overwhelming sense of my life having made a major turn towards unhappy town (which by the way was NOT programmed into my life GPS unit), I am left with crying. Lots of crying. Far more than week 1 and 2 combined in fact. Not nearly as much as the week leading into mom's death, but definitely more than anything since. I've never carried tissues in my purse - this week there is a package of them there, and it's getting good use.
One of my friends sent me a book called 'Lament for a Son' written by a man after his son died at age 25. I picked it up last night and started reading for the mere fact that I felt the need for someone to show they knew how I was feeling, because I didn't know how to put in words how I was feeling other than awful. For a good portion of the book there was nothing too similar, but there on page 15 it was. And this is what he said, "It's the neverness that is so painful. Never again to be here with us - never to sit with us at table, never to travel with us, never to laugh with us, never to cry with us, never to embrace us...All the rest of our lives we must live without him. Only our death can stop the pain of his death. A month, a year, five years - with that I could live. But not this forever." Now, I'm not saying that I don't think I'll see her again, I know that I will see her in heaven, and truly that is my consolation. But to be quite blunt, I'm not in heaven, I'm on earth and I don't know how long I'm going to be here. So for all intents and purposes it is forever, as far as this specific reality is concerned.
That neverness is what I'm noticing this week. Take for instance yesterday when I was sitting in a meeting, minding my own business, trying to focus on work, and since I was in a meeting it was relatively easy because I could focus on what people were saying and such. And then a chick across the table from me opens up a container of greek yogurt. The exact greek yogurt that my mom specifically requested the week I was up there with her when we were in the hospital from the skin thing. And immediately my mind went to the conversations we had about the yogurt and then my mind went to us laughing about it and then my mind went to the very plain and simple reality that I will no longer have conversations or laughs with my mom. The fact that when I saw that yogurt last time I thought my mom was going to be ok, she was coming out of the scary GVH and she was going to be ok. But she's not. And I'm not. Yeah, guess who for some reason needed to get out of the room to get coffee IMMEDIATELY! Thank goodness I had a coffee cup so I had some semblance of sanity when I shot out of my chair and out the door.
Or Tuesday when I was walking through the grocery store trying to find the 4 things on my list and not being able to find any of them and thinking about a post I wrote one time about how it's so frustrating walking through grocery stores and not being able to find stuff, and the fact that my mom was laughing with me the next day saying that her and the people at work were "peeing their pants laughing" at my post, and thinking about the multiple times I would call her and say 'hey, where in the aisles do they usually keep such and such', little calls to say hi and hear her voice will never happen again. And suddenly the fact that I couldn't find soy sauce and there were too many options of cream cheese made me want to either have a temper tantrum on the floor or run out of the store screaming, neither of which a sane human being should do, and so I focused on getting the milk until someone passed me to ask about soy sauce and then I got out of there before I could start crying in the bread aisle or something.
Or the multiple times that I have thanked people who said they liked my shirt, everytime thinking my mom had bought it for me, in fact my mom has bought me most of my wardrobe and it reminded me that I would not longer get random little packages of a shirt of flip flops or a hair clip or purse, or whatever was "screaming my name" to her. The void of her in my life seems overwhelming this week. I went 10 days without talking to her when I was in Panama, I even went almost 2 weeks not talking to her when she was in Ghana. But hitting 3 weeks today officially makes this the longest I have not talked to my mom in my entire life. And it's taking it's toll on my sanity. Half of my brain is the kid who just got dropped off at the nursery and doesn't have any concept or understanding of time and has no idea when they will see their mom again. And the other half of my brain is trying to keep it together and not act like that kid in the nursery crying and screaming and throwing themselves on the floor in frustration and anger and confusion. It doesn't matter how many times the nursery worker whispers in their ear that their mommy is coming back, all they know at that moment is that their mommy isn't there.
I guess in week three I just really miss my mom.
One of my friends sent me a book called 'Lament for a Son' written by a man after his son died at age 25. I picked it up last night and started reading for the mere fact that I felt the need for someone to show they knew how I was feeling, because I didn't know how to put in words how I was feeling other than awful. For a good portion of the book there was nothing too similar, but there on page 15 it was. And this is what he said, "It's the neverness that is so painful. Never again to be here with us - never to sit with us at table, never to travel with us, never to laugh with us, never to cry with us, never to embrace us...All the rest of our lives we must live without him. Only our death can stop the pain of his death. A month, a year, five years - with that I could live. But not this forever." Now, I'm not saying that I don't think I'll see her again, I know that I will see her in heaven, and truly that is my consolation. But to be quite blunt, I'm not in heaven, I'm on earth and I don't know how long I'm going to be here. So for all intents and purposes it is forever, as far as this specific reality is concerned.
That neverness is what I'm noticing this week. Take for instance yesterday when I was sitting in a meeting, minding my own business, trying to focus on work, and since I was in a meeting it was relatively easy because I could focus on what people were saying and such. And then a chick across the table from me opens up a container of greek yogurt. The exact greek yogurt that my mom specifically requested the week I was up there with her when we were in the hospital from the skin thing. And immediately my mind went to the conversations we had about the yogurt and then my mind went to us laughing about it and then my mind went to the very plain and simple reality that I will no longer have conversations or laughs with my mom. The fact that when I saw that yogurt last time I thought my mom was going to be ok, she was coming out of the scary GVH and she was going to be ok. But she's not. And I'm not. Yeah, guess who for some reason needed to get out of the room to get coffee IMMEDIATELY! Thank goodness I had a coffee cup so I had some semblance of sanity when I shot out of my chair and out the door.
Or Tuesday when I was walking through the grocery store trying to find the 4 things on my list and not being able to find any of them and thinking about a post I wrote one time about how it's so frustrating walking through grocery stores and not being able to find stuff, and the fact that my mom was laughing with me the next day saying that her and the people at work were "peeing their pants laughing" at my post, and thinking about the multiple times I would call her and say 'hey, where in the aisles do they usually keep such and such', little calls to say hi and hear her voice will never happen again. And suddenly the fact that I couldn't find soy sauce and there were too many options of cream cheese made me want to either have a temper tantrum on the floor or run out of the store screaming, neither of which a sane human being should do, and so I focused on getting the milk until someone passed me to ask about soy sauce and then I got out of there before I could start crying in the bread aisle or something.
Or the multiple times that I have thanked people who said they liked my shirt, everytime thinking my mom had bought it for me, in fact my mom has bought me most of my wardrobe and it reminded me that I would not longer get random little packages of a shirt of flip flops or a hair clip or purse, or whatever was "screaming my name" to her. The void of her in my life seems overwhelming this week. I went 10 days without talking to her when I was in Panama, I even went almost 2 weeks not talking to her when she was in Ghana. But hitting 3 weeks today officially makes this the longest I have not talked to my mom in my entire life. And it's taking it's toll on my sanity. Half of my brain is the kid who just got dropped off at the nursery and doesn't have any concept or understanding of time and has no idea when they will see their mom again. And the other half of my brain is trying to keep it together and not act like that kid in the nursery crying and screaming and throwing themselves on the floor in frustration and anger and confusion. It doesn't matter how many times the nursery worker whispers in their ear that their mommy is coming back, all they know at that moment is that their mommy isn't there.
I guess in week three I just really miss my mom.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
I Scream for Ice Cream
It may have taken us 5 hours, 3 computers, a trip to Walgreens to refill the printer cartridge, a printer driver CD, an online printer driver download, 3 facebook accounts (one of them breaking into Nikole's account by answering 7 tagged friends, of which we actually only knew two), and one phone call made to a trusted friend who also tried to help us...but WE WERE SUCCESSFUL. And tonight we will dine at the Cold Stone Creamery as we enjoy two like it size create your own ice creams for 5 (yes count them, 5) dollars.
And we will dine there tomorrow as well. Thank you very much.
And we will dine there tomorrow as well. Thank you very much.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Lunch at Ft. Johnson
So, I was going through my posts for this year and labeling them...I know good bloggers do this from the beginning, but I never did and then once I realized that maybe I should have I forgot, and then when I realized maybe I should have reminded myself I had posted so many blogs I thought that maybe it wasn't worth it, and then yesterday I realized that people who don't really follow my blog but come on for one specific post may actually want to see posts about that topic...oh for instance like when I was posting all the stuff about the bone marrow transplant...right. So, I finally decided to bite the bullet and do it. Granted I only got through one year worth, but hey, it's one year that was not labeled before. Right now you can find the labels at the bottom, but eventually I'll have them on the sidebar. Still a work in progress...
All of that is to say that as I was going through my posts to label them I noticed that this was listed as draft. Apparently I loaded the pictures of Maia and my lunch one day but never actually wrote the text and posted them. It made me laugh, so I figured, hey, why not? So, here from 9/23/09 is Maia and my lunch, with my guess as to what in the world I was going to say...
these are the makings for my lunch...I tend to have an issue with preparing lunch BEFORE I come to work so I bring in a random assortment of items and go with it
this is Maia's lunch pre-prepared
this is Maia's lunch mid-preparation...I know we thought it looked gross too, but it doesn't taste as bad as it looks
an this was the completed package...not bad eh?
Now you see why I had to make an 'only me' label...some of my posts really couldn't be captured by 'life in general' :)
All of that is to say that as I was going through my posts to label them I noticed that this was listed as draft. Apparently I loaded the pictures of Maia and my lunch one day but never actually wrote the text and posted them. It made me laugh, so I figured, hey, why not? So, here from 9/23/09 is Maia and my lunch, with my guess as to what in the world I was going to say...
I would have guessed this was my lunch because I've been known to do it before, but below is my actual lunch so I have no idea what this picture is
these are the makings for my lunch...I tend to have an issue with preparing lunch BEFORE I come to work so I bring in a random assortment of items and go with it
this is Maia's lunch pre-prepared
this is Maia's lunch mid-preparation...I know we thought it looked gross too, but it doesn't taste as bad as it looks
an this was the completed package...not bad eh?
Now you see why I had to make an 'only me' label...some of my posts really couldn't be captured by 'life in general' :)
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Week Two
So, to follow up my post on week one, I figured I would post on week two. Actually the fact that I'm posting this is part of the reason I realized I had something to say. I was sitting on the internet thinking 'what can I do now other than go to bed'. Distraction seems to be the name of the game for week two.
It's definitely different from week one, for instance I just now realized that we officially past two weeks this morning...last week I knew it the moment it hit. On the surface it seems like that would mean I'm thinking about it less, but in reality I think I'm thinking about it more, just not in relation to specific times. Last week I thought about mom every time I would have called her or laughed with her or mentioned her, this week I thought about her every time my mind got quiet. And hence my dislike for bedtime. There is no time you HAVE to allow your mind to get quiet like bedtime. In the morning I can distract myself with the plans of the day, during the day I can distract myself with work (I've been an efficiency queen this week! There is not an e-mail left unanswered, a document left unread, or a task left undone that I had planned for this week...and I still have tomorrow at work), during the evening I can distract myself with the internet or reading or playing with Kaylinn, but when it's time to go to bed...well distractions have to end. Monday night I had bad dreams, Tuesday night I couldn't fall asleep, Wednesday night I cried, tonight...well we will see. I could sleep all the time last week - in fact I logged mass sleeping hours, I took 2 hour naps every evening and THEN slept through the night. This week, I'm not tired all night, but in the morning I'm exhausted and don't want to get out of bed.
The other big difference I noticed was while last week I thought about heaven, this week I'm more focused on earth. What we will miss with her, what she would have said to this, what she would have thought of that. It's not that I don't think of heaven, but it's a conscience effort to focus on where she is, and not on where she is not. I have found comfort in Scripture like never before though, so that is an aspect of color in the otherwise gray canvas of life these days. It's now a matter of renewing my mind daily, not letting myself focus on the bad, but instead keeping it on the good, focusing on the promises that if I believe are true in the good times are true in the bad. That is one thing I've come to contemplate often. If I don't believe God is good when things are bad, do I really believe he's good when things are good, or am I just riding a wave of emotion? I know my experiences of God have been real, so by conclusion I was not riding a wave of emotion, and as a result I will not allow myself to ride one now. That is a very scientific way to look at it, but it's where I've come to this week. Next week may be less logical, we shall see.
When I turned the calendar page to September on the calendar my mom got me last Christmas is says this: Our hope in difficult times is not based on positive thinking, wishful thinking or natural optimism. It is a certainty based on the truths that God is in complete control of our universe and He loves us. (Purpose Driven Life) And so, if I believe that my faith and hope can rest in Him alone (1 Peter 1:21) and if I believe that there is faithful love with the Lord (Psalm 130:7) and if I believe that all things work together for the good of those who love the Lord (Romans 8:28), then I can believe God is in control and He loves me. And if I believe that then I have hope.
I wait for the Lord; I wait, and put my hope in His word (Psalm 130:5). My short term hope is that insomnia goes away. Insomnia will, however, be useful for scrapbooking with Brandy this weekend :)
It's definitely different from week one, for instance I just now realized that we officially past two weeks this morning...last week I knew it the moment it hit. On the surface it seems like that would mean I'm thinking about it less, but in reality I think I'm thinking about it more, just not in relation to specific times. Last week I thought about mom every time I would have called her or laughed with her or mentioned her, this week I thought about her every time my mind got quiet. And hence my dislike for bedtime. There is no time you HAVE to allow your mind to get quiet like bedtime. In the morning I can distract myself with the plans of the day, during the day I can distract myself with work (I've been an efficiency queen this week! There is not an e-mail left unanswered, a document left unread, or a task left undone that I had planned for this week...and I still have tomorrow at work), during the evening I can distract myself with the internet or reading or playing with Kaylinn, but when it's time to go to bed...well distractions have to end. Monday night I had bad dreams, Tuesday night I couldn't fall asleep, Wednesday night I cried, tonight...well we will see. I could sleep all the time last week - in fact I logged mass sleeping hours, I took 2 hour naps every evening and THEN slept through the night. This week, I'm not tired all night, but in the morning I'm exhausted and don't want to get out of bed.
The other big difference I noticed was while last week I thought about heaven, this week I'm more focused on earth. What we will miss with her, what she would have said to this, what she would have thought of that. It's not that I don't think of heaven, but it's a conscience effort to focus on where she is, and not on where she is not. I have found comfort in Scripture like never before though, so that is an aspect of color in the otherwise gray canvas of life these days. It's now a matter of renewing my mind daily, not letting myself focus on the bad, but instead keeping it on the good, focusing on the promises that if I believe are true in the good times are true in the bad. That is one thing I've come to contemplate often. If I don't believe God is good when things are bad, do I really believe he's good when things are good, or am I just riding a wave of emotion? I know my experiences of God have been real, so by conclusion I was not riding a wave of emotion, and as a result I will not allow myself to ride one now. That is a very scientific way to look at it, but it's where I've come to this week. Next week may be less logical, we shall see.
When I turned the calendar page to September on the calendar my mom got me last Christmas is says this: Our hope in difficult times is not based on positive thinking, wishful thinking or natural optimism. It is a certainty based on the truths that God is in complete control of our universe and He loves us. (Purpose Driven Life) And so, if I believe that my faith and hope can rest in Him alone (1 Peter 1:21) and if I believe that there is faithful love with the Lord (Psalm 130:7) and if I believe that all things work together for the good of those who love the Lord (Romans 8:28), then I can believe God is in control and He loves me. And if I believe that then I have hope.
I wait for the Lord; I wait, and put my hope in His word (Psalm 130:5). My short term hope is that insomnia goes away. Insomnia will, however, be useful for scrapbooking with Brandy this weekend :)
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Living on Mountain Time
So...I started this about 2 weeks ago, but never got to finish it, so here we go at long last - the review of my trip out west...I decided at some point during the 2300 miles that I drove I would organize my thought by 'what I learned during these 9 days'. So, here we go (and yes I drove 2300 miles in 9 days, no joke - and it was worth it!)
1. In Glacier National Park night and day are relative terms.
I had never experienced being far enough north that you found yourself ready for bed when it was still dark outside. It was pretty insane. The really great thing is it gives you ample time to take in the gloriousness of Glacier National Park. It truly was one of the most incredible places I've ever been. I will post a few pictures here, but you can't imagine it's beauty based just on these - you have to experience how you feel looking at this place. It is the first place that made me think 'if God chose to put this on earth, how amazing is heaven going to be?'
2. There are some pretty incredible hikes out there
I hiked for a bit on the Highline Trail - you can see the trail if you move up the hill from the road...pretty amazing view looking out over the valley
Lisa, Mike and I did the first half of the Grindall Glacier hike...once there were snow bridges we had to cross we decided it would be a great idea not to go sliding down the side of the mountain. I think it was a good decision :)
3. Bears are to Glacier as sharks are to diving
There is a MASSIVE amount of information about bears and pretty much all you hear about is how dangerous the bears are and how they are going to eat you. Case in point, the signs on the trails...
Now, I'm not saying bears aren't dangerous. I didn't want to run into one any more than the next person, but they aren't running around looking for hikers to eat. The actual number of attacks is so low it's amazing, and most of them are in the back country...i.e. where the bears really have the greater right to exist in my opinion. That being said, the reason I think it's just like sharks and diving, is people are super crazed about seeing a shark when they are on a dive, but when you do see one usually they really don't care if you are there, they are doing their shark thing and if you stay out of their way, they will stay out of yours. I kinda felt the same way about the bears at the end of the week. You stay out of their way, do the things they suggest so that you don't sneak up on them without them knowing you are there, don't carry things that attract them, and be smart (i.e. don't go LOOKING for bears or run towards them to take a picture when you see them...you'd be amazed that you actually have to say this), and they will leave you alone.
In the end I did have a few bear encounters, and all of them left me feeling like they are amazing, beautiful animals that I don't need to mess with. Kinda the same way I feel about sharks :)
second bear sighting - black bear in the valley below us
4. Montana and Wyoming appreciate randomness as much as I do apparently
there is a LOT of wide open roads - notice I wasn't concerned with randomly stopping my car and walking around...because I hadn't seen another car either direction in 10 minutes
They are also the home to the most random assortment of body parts on an animal that exists - the moose. I mean really, you have got to be joking me that God is not funny when you look at a moose. I do have to say I was pretty psyched that I got to see one, even if he was just a teenageer moose.
oh, and they have this location - so now I've been at the equator and half way between there and the north pole, so I guess now I need to go to the north pole :)
Mammoth Hot Springs - we spent a lot of time trying to understand how these work...and think we may have figured it out, but really wish there was 'an app for that'
we happened to hit the hot springs at sunset which really worked out for spectacular pictures with super shadows
no, this is not a fire, it's a random smoking and churning hole of hot water...so weird!
I loved the name of this one :)
artist paint pots - we were a bit dissapointed by these because for some reason both Mike and I totally had it in our minds that there were going to be these incredible colors like an artist's paint...oh, maybe because that's what they are CALLED! They were kinda cool regardless :)
the chicken and I at the Grand Prismatic
Old Faithful
the trees were covered with the minerals from the geysers - pretty cool looking against the blue sky!
there are elk in the foreground of this grazing...not a bad backdrop for your dinner
10. I love that I have friends who live all over the place
I got to travel with Lisa and Mike, stay with Caitlyn and Tom, and see Kate and Mark get married. All 1000 miles from where I live. I love my crazy friends who live and travel all over the place - and I love that we keep in touch so I know I have crazy friends who live all over the place :)
Shire trying to convince me to throw the random stick she found on our walk to the waterfall
I heart aspen trees!
Kate and Mark's wedding ceremony
me, Kate and Lisa...Kate and I met I think in 1st grade - how CRAZY is that!!!
11. I will never stop being amazed at sunsets and rainbows
I don't think it matters how many times I see a sunset or a rainbow, it is still (and I hope always will be) absolutely and utterly beautiful. I'm kinda a bad driver at sunset because I'm looking around at the colorful sky.
What more can I say? How about a buffalo for one last smile :)
1. In Glacier National Park night and day are relative terms.I had never experienced being far enough north that you found yourself ready for bed when it was still dark outside. It was pretty insane. The really great thing is it gives you ample time to take in the gloriousness of Glacier National Park. It truly was one of the most incredible places I've ever been. I will post a few pictures here, but you can't imagine it's beauty based just on these - you have to experience how you feel looking at this place. It is the first place that made me think 'if God chose to put this on earth, how amazing is heaven going to be?'
2. There are some pretty incredible hikes out thereI hiked for a bit on the Highline Trail - you can see the trail if you move up the hill from the road...pretty amazing view looking out over the valley
Lisa, Mike and I did the first half of the Grindall Glacier hike...once there were snow bridges we had to cross we decided it would be a great idea not to go sliding down the side of the mountain. I think it was a good decision :)
3. Bears are to Glacier as sharks are to diving
There is a MASSIVE amount of information about bears and pretty much all you hear about is how dangerous the bears are and how they are going to eat you. Case in point, the signs on the trails...
Now, I'm not saying bears aren't dangerous. I didn't want to run into one any more than the next person, but they aren't running around looking for hikers to eat. The actual number of attacks is so low it's amazing, and most of them are in the back country...i.e. where the bears really have the greater right to exist in my opinion. That being said, the reason I think it's just like sharks and diving, is people are super crazed about seeing a shark when they are on a dive, but when you do see one usually they really don't care if you are there, they are doing their shark thing and if you stay out of their way, they will stay out of yours. I kinda felt the same way about the bears at the end of the week. You stay out of their way, do the things they suggest so that you don't sneak up on them without them knowing you are there, don't carry things that attract them, and be smart (i.e. don't go LOOKING for bears or run towards them to take a picture when you see them...you'd be amazed that you actually have to say this), and they will leave you alone.In the end I did have a few bear encounters, and all of them left me feeling like they are amazing, beautiful animals that I don't need to mess with. Kinda the same way I feel about sharks :)
my first bear sighting - grizzly out the window of the car
second bear sighting - black bear in the valley below us
4. Montana and Wyoming appreciate randomness as much as I do apparentlyI loved this bear statue at the gas station :)
no, not a real horse, cowboy and calf, just a random HUGE metal statue - pretty cool
there is a LOT of wide open roads - notice I wasn't concerned with randomly stopping my car and walking around...because I hadn't seen another car either direction in 10 minutes
They are also the home to the most random assortment of body parts on an animal that exists - the moose. I mean really, you have got to be joking me that God is not funny when you look at a moose. I do have to say I was pretty psyched that I got to see one, even if he was just a teenageer moose.
oh, and they have this location - so now I've been at the equator and half way between there and the north pole, so I guess now I need to go to the north pole :)
5. The people who started the park system were brilliant!
I had a moment driving into Yellowstone that I realized how awesome it is that we as a nation have these places saved for generations to enjoy. I know it sounds all mushy and patriotic, but seriously, these are amazing places and I'm glad we had people who fought to keep them protected . I'm starting the 'America's Best Idea' series on my Netflix cue...should be fun!
6. Geology really is cool
I remember always thinking - who really studies geology? rocks are so boring. Well, if you feel the same way, then make your way to Yellowstone, you will very quickly change your mind. The entire time we were there Lisa, Mike and I kept saying 'this is crazy!' just because it's insane that in this one random spot on earth all these weird geologic processes are happening. It's pretty cool, and to be quite honest (and completely dorky) I now love geology and have decided it's way cool.
I remember always thinking - who really studies geology? rocks are so boring. Well, if you feel the same way, then make your way to Yellowstone, you will very quickly change your mind. The entire time we were there Lisa, Mike and I kept saying 'this is crazy!' just because it's insane that in this one random spot on earth all these weird geologic processes are happening. It's pretty cool, and to be quite honest (and completely dorky) I now love geology and have decided it's way cool.
Mammoth Hot Springs - we spent a lot of time trying to understand how these work...and think we may have figured it out, but really wish there was 'an app for that'
we happened to hit the hot springs at sunset which really worked out for spectacular pictures with super shadows
no, this is not a fire, it's a random smoking and churning hole of hot water...so weird!
I loved the name of this one :)
artist paint pots - we were a bit dissapointed by these because for some reason both Mike and I totally had it in our minds that there were going to be these incredible colors like an artist's paint...oh, maybe because that's what they are CALLED! They were kinda cool regardless :)
the chicken and I at the Grand Prismatic
Old Faithful
the trees were covered with the minerals from the geysers - pretty cool looking against the blue sky!
7. You can play car games with yourself (and be successful)
When there are as many people in one place as there were people in Yellowstone National Park in July, you truly can play your own version of 'how many state license plates can I find' and not only do you only need one person to do it, you only need two days to get through more than half of the states and a good number of Canadian provinces. About 3 hours into my Yellowstone adventure I realized just how many different license plates I was seeing and decided to start playing the same game Brandy and I played when we were little (except by myself). In the span of the rest of the day and half the next day I saw Virginia, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Vermont, Minnesota, Nevada, Iowa, Nebraska, Florida, Montana, Oregon, Texas, Ohio, Illinois, Idaho, South Dakota, Mississippi, Alaska, Washington, Arizona, Wyoming, Indiana, California, Wisconsin, New York, Tennessee, Alabama, Oklahoma, Michigan, Missouri, West Virginia, Connecticut, Georgia, New Jersey, and Colorado. And then for our neighbors to the north I found Ontario, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. Pretty darn good, I would say!
When there are as many people in one place as there were people in Yellowstone National Park in July, you truly can play your own version of 'how many state license plates can I find' and not only do you only need one person to do it, you only need two days to get through more than half of the states and a good number of Canadian provinces. About 3 hours into my Yellowstone adventure I realized just how many different license plates I was seeing and decided to start playing the same game Brandy and I played when we were little (except by myself). In the span of the rest of the day and half the next day I saw Virginia, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Vermont, Minnesota, Nevada, Iowa, Nebraska, Florida, Montana, Oregon, Texas, Ohio, Illinois, Idaho, South Dakota, Mississippi, Alaska, Washington, Arizona, Wyoming, Indiana, California, Wisconsin, New York, Tennessee, Alabama, Oklahoma, Michigan, Missouri, West Virginia, Connecticut, Georgia, New Jersey, and Colorado. And then for our neighbors to the north I found Ontario, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. Pretty darn good, I would say!
rather than only taking pictures of Old Faithful, I decided to take pictures of the crowd watching Old Faithful - that is a crazy amount of people waiting for water to spit out of the ground!
8. It's very possible ALL of the reconstruction money is being used in these three states
I cannot even count the number of 'your reconstruction dollars being put to work' signs I passed. It seemed like every road was under construction about every 5 miles. And Going to the Sun Road was not left out! You were driving along this crazy road in the midst of these crazy mountains and there is a make shift traffic light so that they can direct traffic so this construction equipment can do it's work on the side of a cliff. It was actually pretty impressive.
I cannot even count the number of 'your reconstruction dollars being put to work' signs I passed. It seemed like every road was under construction about every 5 miles. And Going to the Sun Road was not left out! You were driving along this crazy road in the midst of these crazy mountains and there is a make shift traffic light so that they can direct traffic so this construction equipment can do it's work on the side of a cliff. It was actually pretty impressive.
9. I really need to spend more time in the Tetons
I kinda went through the Tetons because well, I hate to say it but they were a National Park and they were on the way. I remembered them being pretty, but they really are amazing, and I really wished I had more time to spend there. I think a trip back to Jenny Lake is in my future.
I kinda went through the Tetons because well, I hate to say it but they were a National Park and they were on the way. I remembered them being pretty, but they really are amazing, and I really wished I had more time to spend there. I think a trip back to Jenny Lake is in my future.
there are elk in the foreground of this grazing...not a bad backdrop for your dinner
10. I love that I have friends who live all over the placeI got to travel with Lisa and Mike, stay with Caitlyn and Tom, and see Kate and Mark get married. All 1000 miles from where I live. I love my crazy friends who live and travel all over the place - and I love that we keep in touch so I know I have crazy friends who live all over the place :)
Caitlyn finishing up our gelato and almond croissant breakfast in Steamboat Springs, while Tom assists Shire in catching sticks in the river
Shire trying to convince me to throw the random stick she found on our walk to the waterfall
I heart aspen trees!
Kate and Mark's wedding ceremony
me, Kate and Lisa...Kate and I met I think in 1st grade - how CRAZY is that!!!
11. I will never stop being amazed at sunsets and rainbowsI don't think it matters how many times I see a sunset or a rainbow, it is still (and I hope always will be) absolutely and utterly beautiful. I'm kinda a bad driver at sunset because I'm looking around at the colorful sky.
12. I never thought I'd see a mountain goat in real life, let alone in essence hang out with them on multiple occasions!
can you see him?
13. Staying in the original lodges built in the parks are well worth the money!
I'm pretty sure I'd like to live in the Many Glacier Hotel :) Huge central area with a fire burning and families playing games and chairs to quietly read. Amazing views, cute old time sinks and bathtubs. It was incredible!
14. At the end of it all, I think I have a new definition of beautiful
can you see him?
13. Staying in the original lodges built in the parks are well worth the money!I'm pretty sure I'd like to live in the Many Glacier Hotel :) Huge central area with a fire burning and families playing games and chairs to quietly read. Amazing views, cute old time sinks and bathtubs. It was incredible!
14. At the end of it all, I think I have a new definition of beautiful
What more can I say? How about a buffalo for one last smile :)
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