Closing the Gap

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I’m coming up on an anniversary.

It was a year ago that my husband died…pretty unexpectedly.

There is a long, strange story that led up to his passing and some trauma in finding that he had died…and then telling the family.

Initially, of course, after someone passes there are things that have to be done. Funeral arrangements, legal arrangements, family arrangements…all the arrangements that come at the end of human life. And all those things - the ceremonies and such that we go through are an important part of the process of saying goodbye…closure…healing…a benediction.

But then what?

It’s amazing to me how fast life goes on. Someone significant is no longer there but the sun rises and the sun sets, seasons change and work happens, holidays come, traditions are kept and the gap closes so quickly…almost like dropping a penny in a snow bank.

Except for the grief.

I’ve been thinking lately though that I’m almost grateful for grief. I’m happy for the chance to smile through tears when I hear a familiar phrase – a reminder of some private joke. I’m grateful for the bittersweet feelings when I hear a certain song. I’m glad for the flood of memories that come with certain mementoes.

Grief is the proof that someone was really there.

The Pirates of Autumn

Pin It Wood smoke drifted lazily through the late evening air as I navigated the streets home from work. Faint touches of autumn had graced the leaves of various trees along the roadway and—with windows down—the air felt not unlike hiking in the desert. I was reminded of camping in distant canyons and lonely mountains where it was just me and the wind. Only I felt just as fresh and clean on the outside as I did on the inside.

Autumn had finally arrived, and the last signs of summer were left groping for brief interludes of balmy afternoons. Also celebrating the passing of the seasons were mornings of frost-kissed grass in the park behind my house—another telltale reminder that the harvest was finally here, and that winter would soon be on its heels. I could only hope for a long, hawkish autumn with Halloween celebrated before the snow flew.

Halloween...however, that’s a post for another day.

As I drove by Medallion Manor, a home for those with mental or other handicaps, I noticed one particular resident—an older man—standing out in the yard again.

I’d seen him on numerous occasions before, sometimes waving, sometimes standing by the fence. At times I’d observed him helping to sell melons in a makeshift stand out on the sidewalk, or simply sitting on the park bench in front of the building watching the traffic as it passed by.

He always waved, and he always smiled.

On this particular day, he wore a pirate hat.

He grinned at me slyly as I drove by, his arms resting on the low, chain-link fence surrounding the yard. As our eyes made contact, he straightened himself and raised one hand in a wave-like salute.

I saluted back.

Oh, to be a pirate…

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Pin It We are taking a break from our regular Friday guest post to issue a call to action...

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We Are Family

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photo by the talented Jason of Backroads Photography

For those of you who are unaware, my husband and I have 9 kids. Why do we have such a large family? I am asked that question in various forms more often than expected. And I guess the simple answer is this: Why not?

I have always loved kids, for as long as I can remember. In high school I told everyone I wanted to have 32 kids. I even kept a notebook full of names that I heard and liked. When I was a teenager I would have told you that I would prefer babysitting to going out on a date on a Friday night. (Okay, maybe if I had actually been asked on any dates that would be different.) The fact is, kids just make me smile and laugh and I think they are some of the most fun and interesting people to be around. My husband comes from a family of 16 kids (same 2 parents, no multiple births, and no, we are not trying to match their number) and has always loved being from a large family and wanted one of his own someday. Simply put, we love kids.

However, when some stranger in the grocery store or mall sees me with all my kids in tow and asks one of the many questions I have become used to, they do not want the long answer.

So I now present for your reading pleasure: my favorite responses to give for some of the frequently asked questions I get about the size of my family.

Are all of these kids yours?

• No, this is not all of them; my oldest is at home with the other 9.

Are you planning on having more?

• I just figured out what I'm really, really good at. Why would I stop now?
  

Are you planning to get fixed?

• Well, as you can see by the size of our family, everything is working just fine.
  

And last of all, my personal favorite:


Haven't you heard of birth control?

• Yes, that's great stuff for people with ugly kids.

Million Dollar Ideas

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Intellectuals solve problems; geniuses prevent them.

-- Albert Einstein

I’ve had an argument with Teachinfourth over the last couple of years about blogging. Now I’m perfectly willing to allow room for my opinion to change and morph, but my underlying feeling is that blogging can be ever so slightly, somewhat possibly, kind of leaning towards the tendency to be self-indulgent, self-aggrandizing and well…pretentious. I actually have a friend that has turned into kind of a celebrity blogger over the past few years and she describes herself as a “professional narcissist” which makes me laugh and makes my point at the same time. As I said, Teachinfourth and I have argued about this from time to time. Teachin’ likes to write and he likes to practice his writing through the medium of the blog – send his thoughts out into the void and enjoy the feedback. I like to write too, but I just find it a little uncomfortable to assume that other people would be interested in my mental musings. Who am I to think that I have anything to teach anyone else or that they would be interested in anything I have to say? My Mother is British – and she’s good at it, so that is no doubt why I have the predisposition to assume that EVERYTHING is bad manners.

Having said that I need to warn you that I’m going to be a little self-aggrandizing today. One of the things that I do as part of my quest to be a good mother is to help my son’s high school team sell concessions at BYU Football games. This is a fundraiser and it is something that I’ve actually done for the past 7 seasons (my older son was on the team too so his 4 years overlapped with Number 2 son’s years to make 7 high school years). I have sort of taken over the organization of this fundraising endeavor because I’m…pretty good at organizing stuff. While I’m bragging about myself, I guess I’ll add that from time to time I have what we call in our house a “flash of genius.” Basically this is something that you figure out how to do to make things faster, easier or just basically better. Number 2 son is particularly clever this way too, so it’s a little joke that we have between us. “Genius” we exclaim to each other when we come up with one of our little ideas. And as much as I am grateful that my mind works this way – it has been a useful talent over the years. I’m not kidding when I say “little ideas.”

For example we had a football game this last Saturday. As part of the set up we have these big water coolers that we fill with ice and water to put water bottles in so that they stay cold before we sell them. Usually I have the kids fill these up and I guess they have over the last 7 years….I don’t think I’ve ever been the one to fill them. But, for whatever reason I decided to fill them this time (there are 6 of them). So I rolled the coolers over by the big sink, took my little bucket and started filling the bucket with water and dumping it into the cooler. I got about two buckets dumped when I realized that this was going to take forever. Basically I thought, “well screw this -there’s got to be a better way” (I know…. language! What would by British Mother say?). So, I thought for a minute, then went and grabbed a big garbage bag. I wrapped the top of the bag around the faucet, cut a small hole in the bottom of the garbage bag which hung down into the cooler. I turned the water on and “Genius”- it worked like a charm and we filled the coolers in no time (I actually didn’t stand there and do it - I bossed some teenagers around to finish the job).

Now, I’m really glad that I was able to come up with this idea – it saved us lots of time and was great. But, I have to say before I get too full of myself, it’s not like I really came up with anything new here. Essentially I invented the hose...which someone already came up with along time ago right? So as grateful as I am for my little talent, I'd like to someday actually think of something to make things faster, easier or just better that hasn't already been invented - the million dollar idea....but nothings coming to me right now....nope, I got nothing. But at least I’m great with garbage bags.