A memoir to my Grandmother

My Grandmother will soon be celebrating her 90th birthday. I was asked to contribute to a book for her. This is my entry. Since I have been lacking on posts, here is one made with love for her and you too. :)
Grandma is a magical woman. I can’t think of a time when I have not been confident of her love for me. When we were together, upon meeting one of her many acquaintances, old or new, she would politely introduce me by saying something like, “This is my granddaughter; she is my very special birthday present!” She is a magical woman with her care for others. I remember sleeping over and kneeling with her and Grandpa for evening prayers. I can remember being impressed at how in every prayer, they remembered many people by name, including people I didn’t even know. She lovingly and faithfully spoke and prayed for others, even those not in our immediate family circle, this strengthened my assurance of her love for me. She and Grandpa have served us all who make up the ever-growing family, with all of our memories together. I enjoyed playing games at their home, games like Rummy-O (1983 Dutch game of the year J), Othello and Skip-Bo. I also loved looking through at her framed pictures and art, and especially her photo albums. I loved all of them, vacations that she and Grandpa had taken together (like the picture where Grandpa was on both sides of the group photo in front of the capital!!), time spent at the pool, St. George, Vail, Jackson Hole, and on and on. I remember the furniture that she and Grandpa shipped home from Asia and how cool and unique they always were. I admired her travels. I also love how fun she made it to be in her home. She always has had the magical candy dish. Sleepovers always had the official breakfast table setting even when it was cold cereal, with the glass for milk and orange juice. Grandma’s way was always a magically sweet. She was even sweet when she didn’t quite agree with your conduct or way of dress. One time I was wearing a skirt that was a bit too short, she lovingly said, “You better put some sugar on your toes to coax that skirt down.” An important point on modesty had been made but the feelings of the culprit had not been injured. I am thankful for her example of church membership. Many of my first trips to the temple were with Grandma and Grandpa, participating in baptisms for the dead in the Jordan River Temple. I knew temple service was important to both of them. Now, it is important to me. I admire her diligence in keeping records, both her own and by compiling those of her ancestors. I am thankful to have copies of many of those records accessible to me, even in the far northern reaches of the earth! Grandma is magical with her optimism. I have talked about her many times to my acquaintances about her independence and optimism despite her poor eyesight. I hope that I can be like her in my sunset years. Recently she joined us for a picnic. She was tired and I walked with her back to the car to rest. In her loving, magical way she thanked me, praised me and then said, “Oh, I.L., keep smilin’.”
So, is that your secret, Grandma? Is that how you have become so magical in my eyes, by smiling your way through the sun and shade of life?
Well, you have given me the challenge, and I accept.
I will keep smiling, through sun and shade, and hopefully, I will have your same magic in me to push and pull me along.

All My Imperfections

I have been thinking a lot about my physical imperfections. It seems my whole life has been plagued by extra weight. I think it started with being young, having parents who worked and raised us on fast food. I think it started with being lonely and feeling very neglected as a child because my family definitely didn't fit the LDS standards and it was tough not having my parents raise me. I ate to feed the void. I ate to feed many voids. I also realized, at a young age that I didn't like the attention of guys because of some things that had happened to me in my childhood. I realized that the best way to hide my beauty and to not get that attention (something I still struggle with honestly) was to create a pillow around who I really was. And I did, and it has worked, I have been able to stay out of a lot of relationships because of this.

There are a lot of reasons why I am overweight, yet I have never, not once, openly addressed them. I figure that friends and family should accept me for who I am. And for the most part I do think they do, but there have been many times with friends, families, strangers, and children where I feel that there is something very, very , very wrong with me. There have been many times when looks and judgements from others really, really hurt. There have been many times when parents and siblings and friends have said hurtful things about the way I look. It's been a tough road to walk.

I was skinny once, from about 14-16 I developed an eating disorder. If I could write a book about the transformation that came over people about me!!! My young women leaders praised my beauty and held it up as an example, my parents, my friends they all told me daily about how beautiful I was!!! This idea of physical beauty became an obsession for me. Boys started asking me out in High School and making comments and paying attention to me and wanting to be with me. This experience, first of all, made me hungry. I lost my hair, I messed up my thyroid, I wore away lots of enamel on my teeth, I became a compulsive exerciser and I basically changed one addiction for another. But, more than anything, the eating disorder made me very, very dark. I felt dark and alone and I felt like I didn't deserve to be with any man because I just wasn't a good person. These thoughts were strong all throughout France and the time you guys got to know me, but again, I am very good at acting like I don't care, so I think many people actually do think that I don't care about what I look like, when it's all I have focused on for a long time.

For the first time in my life I am finally starting to feel ok in who I am. This has taken me 30 years. I am actually ok that I am not a size 6. For the first time I am trying to look at myself and see someone healthy. Losing weight isn't my goal right now, it's getting healthy. Because to stay overweight, as neither of you would know, takes a lot of work. You have to eat a lot. You have to be a bit out of control and you have to give into your sugar addictions and other type of compulsions. It truly is a hard place to be. Frankly, I'm tired of being here, but I am also tired of not liking who I am. So, there's the catch 22. That's why my exercising can't just be about getting skinny, because that's what it's always been about and as soon as I lose any weight I get scared of the attention and I put it right back on.

The thing is, I think we all have addictions like this, I just don't think that all others are as obvious. What do you think? Do you girls struggle with something addicting? I was always upset that caffeine addicts, smokers, pornographers, gossipers, and other addicts never had a huge Scarlet Letter so to speak marking their addictions. When the addiction is food, it's obvious and people are hurtful.

I always felt like I missed out on so much in life from being overweight, but it was truly my thoughts putting my limitations on myself. Also, I believe the Lord has taught me so much about empathy and caring and openness and acceptance. I truly don't judge people on their appearance. This is a major feat in American in these days I think. Thirty years of being judged on my appearance or feeling bad about who I am has taught me a lot in dealing with others, loving others, being patient.

Anyway, these are my thoughts this morning, no one has posted for awhile, and I was worried that with my current struggles that you all might not think I want to blog. But I do. This blog is a really good thing for me!

Any Person May Become Great

Every woman comes into the world with a predisposition to grow along certain lines, and growth is easier for her along those lines than in any other way. This is a wise provision, for it gives endless variety. It is as if a gardener should throw all his bulbs into one basket; to the superficial observer they would look alike, but growth reveals a tremendous difference. So of men and women: they are like the basket of bulbs. One may be a rose and add brightness and color to some dark corner of the world; one may be a lily and teach a lesson of love and purity to every eye that sees; one may be a climbing vine and hide the rugged outlines of some dark rock; one may be a geat oak among whose boughs the birds shall nest and sing, and beneath whose shade the flocks shall rest at noon, but every one will be something worth while, something rare, something perfect.

There are undreamed of possibilities in the common lives all around us.


And this season of spring, Easter, remembrance, gratitude, faith, hope, and charity is the time to be reminded that we each are becoming great in our own right.

I love you girls, Happy Easter!

Week of Easter

Happy St. Patty's Day girls!
I just wanted to remind you all that this is the week before Easter. Have you read/Do you have the Easter book made by Lynne's sister? It's fantastic with loads of ideas for each day starting with Palm Sunday. We haven't gotten started but I'm tossing the school books mostly out the window this week so we can really focus on Easter week. After our green lucky charm breakfast we're going to read about Palm SUnday and make palm branches, go on a walk and find Easter items and make a wall to appreciate family memebers. Then tonight for FHE we'll focus on the cleansing of the Temple and activities that go along with that. I'm going to try and take pictures and put them on my blog!
It's a great opportunity for your first housewarming party D'Arcy, you could have a Sedar on Thursday night! I am working to kindle sentiments of 'I Stand all Amazed at the Love Jesus Offers Me'. It's my next step. I feel that having Charity for others starts with our passion for the Christ and His sacrifice. That is my focus this week before Easter. Maybe in doing this, my children will also grow in their love for their Savior.
Happy EASTER!!!(week)

Lovely beyond any singing of it

In spending the last few weeks reading Cry, the Beloved Country, I have been amazed at the wealth of pain, redemption, charity, and sad irony that has been present. If you don’t know the story, allow me to share with you the basis, and forgive the length of this entry.

A priest, Kumalo, from a small village receives word that his sister is sick. He is also concerned about his brother and his son. These three people have all left the small, peaceful village to live in the big, bustling, harsh city of Johannesburg, South Africa. The priest decides he must go to his sister and he must find his son. His wife, fearful that maybe he too will not return, gives the money she had been saving to buy him a new clergy collar and robe. He takes the money he has been saving to buy her a real stove and with the combined funds, he travels to the unknown.

In a nutshell he learns that his sister has become a prostitute, his brother has become a corrupt businessman, and his son has impregnated a girl without marrying her and has been arrested for killing a white man. He is devastated.

The white man who has been killed happens to be the son of a rich farmer in Kumalo’s small village, a man who has been kind and good and honest and fair to the blacks during apartheid. It is now up to Kumalo to take his sister’s son and raise him, to take the young girl who will have his grandchild and provide for her, to watch his son hang and die, and to go and tell the white man that his son is the reason for all of his grief.

The white man who was murdered, ironically, was fighting for a free Africa, fighting a battle for justice and equality. The final words he wrote in a letter are as follows:

“What we did when we came to South Africa was permissible.

It was permissible to use unskilled men for unskilled work.

It was permissible to develop any resources if the labour is forthcoming.

It was permissible when we discovered gold to bring labour to the mines.

It was permissible to leave native education to hose who wanted to develop it.

It was permissible to allow the destruction of a tribal system that impeded the growth of the country.

It was permissible to believe that its destruction was inevitable.

But it is not permissible to watch its destruction, and to replace it by nothing, or by so little, that a whole people deteriorates, physically and morally.

We are caught in the toils of our own selfishness.

No one wishes to make the problem seem smaller than it is. No one wishes to make the solution seem easy. No one wishes to make light of the fears that beset us. But whether we be fearful or no, we shall never, because we are Christian people, be able to evade the moral issues.

It is time---”

He never got to finish the last sentence.

This book has hit me as very allegorical to the preexistence, our life here as a test, and the paths we choose while here. We know the problems are not small, the solutions are not easy, the fear can be great, but we cannot evade the moral issues. We cannot make excuses for what we do. We cannot justify sin. We cannot live under the toils of our own selfishness. Man people will fail to live the standards that they should be living while in their metaphorical Johannesburgs. And for that, one person may be called on to raise his sister’s son, to provide for his son’s wife and child, to share the burden of sins committed by his loved ones against the good and innocent. One person will be called on to do many things. And then they will get to return to the small, peaceful village that Alan Paton described, “There is a lovely road that runs for Ixopo into the hills. These hilss are grass-covered and rolling, and they are lovely beyond any singing of it.”

Benefits

I exercised again this morning. That makes the 3rd, or 4th time in the last week. For me that says progress towards becoming a happy, self-confident, active human being again. The apathy is beginning to wear off. The story? Well, it came on slowly for a while. Then Christmas and lots of pressure. Then with the HUGE financial hit we took over Christmas and New Years, I went into an apathetic fit. I didn't care what I looked like, I didn't care about my duties to the church etc. . . The crisis was Matt's new calling and my new shackles. It was time for a decision. Do I continue giving up or do I accept the lot I've been given. I accepted slowly. I made the decision not to let Satan have me and though I'm not perfect in it(give me a new ear and sometimes I can't help a sigh or two) I'm good. I'm fighting again. Fighting for tighter muscles, fighting for new knowledge and progress with my house. It really is a fight, an uphill battle at that. My next move. Invite people over and try to have friends. I got released from my calling and will be put in as RS chorister, not exactly full of accolades but I took it better than I thought I would. Sunday will be tearful and I HATE that. I won't go into anymore details, but I want to say thank you. Thank you for sharing your personal struggles and also for staying strong, we can be a crowd all together and not feel as alone as we might. Thank you Wysteria for asking questions. Thank you IL for sharing your empty re beginning. I'm so glad that we're all going uphill though. No matter how steep it is for each of us, or how slow our pace, isn't it great that we're all going back uphill?

I Proclaim A Date!

I proclaim a date!! A time online to look at pictures, reminisce, laugh, ....etc, etc. Lest we forget.... It will be fun!
Amber is available after 7:30pm or 8pm Eastern Time (That's 6:30pm UT time and 4:30pm AK time)
Would everyone please check Tuesday and Thursday nights and comment on when you would be available?

Thanks!!

To Magical Women--I love Mrs Sowerby

As it is Mother's Day tomorrow, I am posting this since I wrote it a few months ago.
I am including a quote from Sheri Dew from one of my favorite talks:

Every one of us has an overarching obligation to model righteous womanhood because our youth may not see it anywhere else. Every sister in Relief Society, which is the most significant community of women on this side of the veil, is responsible to help our young women make a joyful transition into Relief Society. This means our friendship with them must begin long before they turn 18. Every one of us can mother someone—beginning, of course, with the children in our own families but extending far beyond. Every one of us can show by word and by deed that the work of women in the Lord’s kingdom is magnificent and holy. I repeat: We are all mothers in Israel, and our calling is to love and help lead the rising generation through the dangerous streets of mortality.

I love the character of Mrs. Susan Sowerby. In reading the final pages of the Secret Garden, as this character made her appearance in the garden so many thoughts were brought together in her. From the jumprope given shortly after Mary's arrival at Misselthwaite to the moments just before the sweet ending, Burnett creates a character who possesses a great number of nourishing and magical qualities that I should like to perfect. I think the part of her that I most admire is that aspect which persuades all three children in the garden to adore her, by her very nature. In many ways I consider myself more childlike than adultlike but, in other ways I am the contrary. I love the muppets, both the musical and the theatrical talents of Jim Henson. I share a love for them with my children, that has come very naturally for all of us. I love discovering life in general with them and finding ways to explain a true principle in a simple way that is true but in a way they can understand. (For example, Susanna once asked about how water is in the sky and on the earth. I was at the kitchen sink and I grabbed a washcloth and showed her how the washcloth (like a cloud) picks up water from the bowl (like a lake or body of water) and then can't hold on to it anymore and it squeezes it out.) I have a difficult time playing with my children at certain games, where my husband excels. I enjoy cooking and drawing with my children but, I almost have to force myself to put myself in their pretend world and not get distracted. Pretend is more likely to hold my attention if there are definitive pretend objectives. I feel bad that I have to impose some aspect in order to hold my attention, instead of just sitting and allowing myself to be encircled in their little world, to see what they are thinking and how they create the world around them when I am not adding my ideas.