Let me tell you about last Wednesday:

After too little sleep, a difficult morning and a stressful day at work, I found myself arriving home desperate for a 10-minute power nap. Within five minutes after walking in the door, I got a phone call from my mother. My first thought was of my 95-year-old grandmother. She’d been declining since mid-December—most rapidly the past week—and by Monday had pneumonia. My heart was spent from tear-filled goodbyes the past three nights and I knew she was close to the end.

My instincts were correct. My dear, sweet grandmother had passed away. I called my siblings, then left to join my mother and my aunt, who recounted to me the tender details surrounding Grandma’s peaceful departure. We spent the rest of the afternoon sharing memories and making plans for the family to celebrate her life (she had forbidden us from holding a funeral). My cousin stopped in. Then my brother and his wife arrived. We laughed. We teared up a bit, but not too much. We were genuinely relieved and happy for her. Grandpa has been gone five years and one day. Grandma missed him every day. It was her time to enjoy a wonderful reunion with him.

I sat on the sofa across from the open door to Grandma’s bedroom, from which I could see her body, lying in the same place and position as she was when I’d held her frail hand and softly stroked and kissed her forehead just the night before. As the hours passed, I was both visiting with the family present and also texting other family members to keep them informed of the emerging plans. Interspersed with my texts from siblings and kids were texts from my husband. I informed him of the possible plans.

He was texting me back about the plans, and also about his afternoon in Las Vegas, where he was attending an education conference.

As I sat there, engraving on my heart the last images and impressions of my grandmother, I received a photo of a giant pawn shop sign.

“We’re at the famous pawn shop waiting to go inside. They’re filming right now.”

We don’t get cable, so I have no idea what he’s talking about. “What’s the show called?”

“Pawn Stars.”

Some time later, while I’m waiting for the mortuary people to arrive, I receive another photo.

“Monster trucks on the Las Vegas Strip.”

So not my world. Especially not at the moment. The people from the mortuary arrived and I noticed one of them is the boy who grew up around the corner. Apparently he’s working there while preparing to go to medical school. I was touched by their thoughtfulness in appearing as though they had all the time in the world and in letting us have a choice in every detail possible. The moment they wheeled the gurney out the door and carried away her body was surreal. I’ve been there before. It is surreal every time.

Finally just before 8pm, we said goodbye. I grabbed some takeout from Spicy Thai for my 12-year-old and I, who hadn’t eaten since noon.

On my way home, I got another text from my husband,

“We’re eating at the Cheesecake Factory in Caeser’s Palace.”

After my son and I ate dinner I remembered it was book group. We read “The Wednesday Wars.” I wanted to go because 1). I actually read the book this time, and after almost putting it down, I ended up enjoying it very much. And 2). I needed to decompress a bit.

Before I left I remembered I needed to check on my baby chicks. They reside in the downstairs bathroom. In a box. Right between the cockatiel cage and the fish tank full of turtles. And one goldfish (who, I regret to say, became turtle food just this morning).

I walked into the bathroom to hear the cockatiel flapping his wings and screeching. He was in the turtle tank. I have no idea how long he’d been there, but the turtle tank is gross and full of who-knows-what germs. I reached in to rescue him.

He bit me.

On the middle finger.

I gently shoved him back in his cage (the one with the missing door) and submerged my hand in hot running water, squeezing out as much blood as I could, wondering what else besides salmonella must be thriving in that green slimy water. The same green slimy water that was all over my skin when it was pierced by the beak of the cockatiel I was rescuing.

I dried my hand with a clean towel, managed to squeeze out some triple antibiotic cream from what I hoped was the clean end of the broken Neosporin tube, and smirked a bit as I bandaged the wound with a bright red Angry Birds band-aid.

This is my life. I wonder how I would have dealt with the reality of my grief if it hadn’t been tempered just a bit by the odd juxtaposition of the false “reality” of the Vegas strip and reality TV. If the attempted numbing of emotional loss hadn’t been brought into sharp relief just a bit by the bite of an angry bird. And if my tendency to (generally) choose to laugh when brought to the brink of “laugh-or-cry” hadn’t been aided somewhat by the presence of an Angry Bird on an angry bird’s bite on what one could call my angry bird finger.

I don’t know how to answer that. Sometimes I am overwhelmed by the heaviness I feel (too much cancer, another death…and those are just the heartbreaks I can talk about). The ridiculous somehow seems to provide a kind of balance while I’m waiting for the sublime. At least it keeps me from tipping over the edge. So far…

So, tell me about your day. Or one of them. How do you keep from tipping over the edge?

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My siblings and I did not leave the house for a date or social activity without hearing those words from my father. I believe it was a tradition handed down from his parents and was just as much a reminder to honor the family name as to be mindful of the name we take upon ourselves every Sunday. Being teenagers, we were likely oblivious to the full significance of both meanings. But there was still a power in those words and in the love we felt behind them.

Now, some thirty years later, I often find myself surrounded by even louder voices trying to make me forget who I am. Not so much in such a way as to tempt me to misbehave. But rather to cause me to forget or deny who I am: a daughter of a loving God, blessed with divine and eternal gifts with which to serve. The voices are everywhere. Not just an invasive and pervasive media and society that continually tell me that in every single way I am “not enough.” But also people in my life for whom, for whatever reason, I will never be enough.

As ingrained as my father’s words are, sometimes I listen to the world. I forget who I am.

A couple of Sundays ago I was standing outside the Primary room, waiting to greet the Primary children as they arrived from Sacrament Meeting. I was tired and also a bit beat up after that weekend’s encounters with the usual naysayers, which had been especially intense and hurtful. A friend passed me in the hall. We said hello to one another, I gave her a quick hug, and she walked on down the hall.

Suddenly, she turned around and came back.

The details of what she said to me, almost in passing, are not important. She simply mentioned something she loves about me and told me how she has known since the day we first met that this particular trait embodies the very essence of my heart. Those were her words, but her message was this:

“I know who you really are.”

As soon as she said them aloud, her words rang true in my heart. I recognized that the words were not just hers. I knew she was heaven-sent from my Father, with a gentle but sure reminder expressly for me, in that moment:

“Remember who you are.”

I am profoundly grateful for the people in my life who care enough about me to look upon my heart. To see me for who I really am and to remind when I forget. Or when God sends them on an errand to tell me so. I want with all my heart to be that kind of friend and messenger for the Lord.

And so, this morning, I’m telling you,

“Remember who you are.”

Seek out the people in your life who will truly know you and who will, when you forget, remind you of who you are.

Who are the messengers in your life?

What can we do to remember who we are, especially as the cacophony of naysayers becomes deafening?

How can we, as women, do better to look upon the heart?

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A slide show through my December would consist of a mad-fast jumble of contrasts.

Twenty crazed minutes mid-Saturday inside a crowded Walmart in Portland, Oregon, accompanied by overloud, carnival-toned Christmas songs.

A quiet, tearful hour or two curled up next to my frail and ailing–to be honest, dying–95-year-old grandmother.

Faces against windows, pressed closer to better see commercial displays of lights and merchandise. Airports full of strangers. Streets and stores packed with shoppers. Some cross. Some kind. Not a one in any way as invisible or insignificant as they all seem to be to one another.

Primary children and cousins pressed up closely against the glass in front of a pink-tiled baptismal font. A crowded but cosy chapel (or two, or three). A dining and living room full of friends and family. Not just known, but also much loved.

Frantic (and exhausting) busyness.

Precious few quiet moments, desperately stolen from the demands of the day.

Smog. Sun. Grey. Green. Hurt and heartbreak. Love and Joy. Crowds. Quiet. Sickness. Health. Death. Birth.

Even knowing what I know, sometimes I don’t quite know what to make of it all.

Do you?

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This is what I saw:

You have to understand, we are not cat people. I was born and raised to loathe cats. I am genetically programmed to loathe cats. Cats make my skin crawl. They induce me to itch and sneeze and cough in their presence. In fact, not even their presence is required. My eyes will swell and itch and water excessively if I even walk into a room where a cat has been.

I cannot abide cats.

And yet there I was in Costco buying cat food.

Bulk cat food.

It’s a long and somewhat amusing story, yet I am now the proud owner of not one, but two cats. We’ve had them for about four years. They are outside cats; but they do come indoors occasionally. One sneaks in. The other asks for permission and leaves when he ask him. And not only do I provide food for them, I have even dished out my hard-earned cash to the tune of nearly $300 in vet bills in order to care for them properly. I talk to them. I call them by name. I scratch them under their respective chins and along their respective bellies. And sometimes, if I have to wash that shirt anyway, I have been known to pick up my favorite and snuggle him to my chest. Just not too close to the face.

I love my cats.

So what stopped me in my tracks that day at Costco? Simply the realization that never in a million years would I have seen myself walking down the aisles of Costco with a bag of cat food in my cart. If you would have told me 30, 20 or even 5 years ago I would one day spend even one penny on cat food, I would have bet you a million dollars (or maybe even ten) that such a thing would NEVER happen.

In that tiny moment I left Costco and travelled back to my past, back to a much younger me who was looking at the older me standing there in Costco with cat food in her cart. Younger me was shocked. I jumped back to present me and thought about how as little girls, young women, young adults, and even as grown women, we have so many ideas about what our future will–or in this case would never–bring. And oh how drastically–or not–the realities of our lives can differ from our imagined course. In many ways, of course. But sometimes in such a way we come to embrace something we once loathed.

What about you? Has your life turned out exactly–or even remotely–as you planned? If yes, how so? If not, what has been the greatest surprise? Are the differences for better or for worse? Most importantly, how have you made the best of what life has thrown your way?

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So today you get a sampling of what’s been rolling through my head. Take your pick:

Tomorrow is our Primary program. I realize people have mixed feelings about this annual event, but I have to say I love it. I love the spontaneity that seems to pop up in even the most well-rehearsed program. I wrote ours this year. That stresses out some people, but not me so much. Mostly because I don’t care if it’s perfect. I want the children to be themselves. I love the little girl who intermittently belts out the words she remembers and then gets all pianissimo over the phrases she forgets. I love the kids who ad lib when they forget the rest of their lines (improv is great!). This year’s highlights include one of our Sunbeams sharing in her own words how she felt the day she went to the temple to be sealed to her little sister, who was adopted and a bunch of our CTR 7 boys telling about how to prepare to be missionaries while looking very missionary-like themselves in their own little suits and ties. Also, I may or may not have encouraged one of our older boys who is moving on to Young Men this week to drop the words “zombie apocalypse” into his talk about how the scriptures teach us all things we should do. We have practice in two minutes. We’ll see how it goes.

My husband texted me this morning and informed me that for the second week in a row, his deer hunt has been frustrated by his truck breaking down. We need a new (new-to-us, we never buy new new) truck. Our two trucks–yes, we have two, mostly because in our house we tend to buy used cars now and then to help out people who need money and because we are too busy to sell things when they die–are both 1985s. Like me, they’ve seen better days. We also need a new roof and a new furnace. Sometimes I consider our ages, our combined educations, and how long and how hard we’ve worked, and wonder why we still can’t afford to just run out and buy things we need. Yes, I do realize that we are living better than the majority of the rest of the world. But still I wonder. And worry. A friend of mine recently mentioned how the money we do have is a stewardship, likening it to the parable of the talents. I know she meant to be encouraging, but I felt like an unprofitable servant in that regard. At the same time, my husband is a very loving and much-loved third-grade teacher. As one friend put it, his specialty is self-esteem. I hope that kind of talent is building a less run-down kingdom in heaven than our temporal “castle” here on the earth. Then again, I’m thankful to have a roof–albeit a leaky one–over my head and a furnace that usually works well enough to prevent frostbite.

Finally, I am also grateful for peace. I’ll spare you the details, but I have wounds and worries just like the next girl. They can use me up, tear me up and make me sick inside. Sometimes I try to distract myself from them, but I know such distractions are just superficial and temporary. This week, however, I have noticeably been blessed with a new calm, a certain comfort and peace that is almost tangible. I recognize it comes from above and not from within. It’s so strong it makes me wonder who is praying for me so hard that I get to receive this blessing at this time. Or perhaps it is in answer to my own prayers. I’ve been praying for charity, which “suffereth long, and is kind, and envieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.” (Moroni 7:45) I want and need to be able to bear, believe, hope and endure all things. At least for the moment, it seems possible.

In any case, I’d like to say this out loud: “Thanks, I needed that.” I hope it lingers and carries me for a bit longer.

How about you? What’s on your mind?

Post Edit:
I feel the need to clarify. I said “I wrote the program.” But the truth is the very best parts of the program did not come from me. They were born of inspiration. Receiving that inspiration and knowing from whence it came was the best part of putting it together this year.

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When she decided to cut it, I was shocked. When she asked me to cut it for her, I felt a little sick inside. No. Really sick. Kind of like those poor husbands who have been sworn under the penalty of never-ending wrath to not let their wives, bent on a natural birth, have an epidural no matter how loud or fiercely they begged for it when the throes of hard labor wracked their bodies. Not even Solomon can get you out of that one.

At the same time, I was sure I’d seen this done somewhere before. Probably Seventeen magazine. A cute little how-to photograph perhaps. Something about pulling the luxurious lengths into a single pony tail and just whacking it off. How hard could it be, right?

My trusting companion grabbed a large, sharp pair of shears, bunched up her shiny locks into a sleek ponytail and turned her back to me, trusting me to the task.

And so I cut. I can still hear the sharp squeak of the scissor blades as they slid across her hair.

It was awful. As soon as I watched the thick tail of dark brown hair fall to the floor I realized my mistake. Not only was the slice across her hair not in any way straight. But the front, being pulled back, was MUCH longer than the back, which was, well, much shorter than my companion had requested.

ACK!

Hand shaking, I did my best to even it out. But in that crazy way hair has of moving over your head and ears and around your shoulders, the length of it—or, by that time, lack thereof—shifted every time. So by the time I was done with the scissors my poor companion’s hair was both way too short and not nearly as neat.

I don’t remember much after that. Whether she found someone to “fix it” or if she just left it poorly cut. But I do remember that despite her attachment to her gorgeous head of hair, she forgave me for ruining it and life went on. Some people said cutting her hair changed her. I’d like to think we both changed. Likely not because of the haircut, but more due to the way your heart changes when you learn to live, love and forgive.

But I still remember the trauma. And I still have a strange fixation with whacking off long hair. A friend of mine just did it. Donating her hair to Locks of Love, she now sports a darling pixie cut that is absolutely adorable on her.

Oh and that Emma Watson! SO CUTE!

So tell me about your hair. Love it or hate it? Long or short? Ever whacked it off? Any haircutting horror stories? I could tell you about the time I unthinkingly ran the non-guarded shears right up the middle of my oldest’s head. Or when I asked for something easy after my fourth child and the stylist gave me The Rachel (the round brush is not my friend) and the theme song from Friends played on the radio as I drove home. And finally, do you wear your hair how you prefer it or to please someone else (you know what I’m talking about–that whole Rapunzel thing so many men seem to have)?

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The other day in between attending the temple and picking up a few things at the grocery store, I dropped by the nicest assisted living home in town to see my grandmother. Grandma Jacobs was, of course, happy to see me. We both enjoy our visits together. If I’m alone we sit opposite of each other so we can see one another’s faces. If one of the kids is with me, sometimes I will squeeze in right next to her and wrap my arm around her in a constant half-hug. Not unlike the many times I would snuggle any one of my babies close to my heart in a desperate effort to breathe in and capture their infant presence forever, I want to hang on tightly to my grandmother. A feisty and funny ninety something, she is ever hopeful that one of these days she will simply move from this life to the next in her sleep.

Because we lived so far away, my childhood memories of this grandmother are few, but wonderful. I remember that in order to promote literacy amongst her grandchildren, Grandma Jacobs used to send us a nickel for every book we read during summer vacations. (As I spent many a night curled up with a flashlight under my blankets long past my established bedtime, I really cleaned up!) When my family of eight did manage to make the long drive down to see them in their San Diego, California home, they took good care of us, often treating us to visits to the beach, Sea World or the San Diego Zoo. To this day I am still amazed that she never complained about the sand we must have tracked in to her meticulously clean house when we returned from our fun-filled days at the beach.

Our visits now are fairly routine. Grandma asks me one by one about everyone in the family and wants to know if I still like my job. She correctly notes by the almost constant yawning that occurs whenever I sit still for any length of time, that I don’t get enough sleep. She catches me up on any news from my extended family. Not unlike in the film Groundhog Day, both the questions and the news bear repeating. Sometimes over and over again.

Often something I say will trigger a memory and I watch as it transports Grandma Jacobs back to the distant past. As I listen intently, I will inevitably kick myself for still not having purchased some kind of voice recorder to capture the memories. Not unlike all the funny things I meant to remember about my kids when they are little, these stories may also vanish if I don’t hurry and write them down.

I have loved watching my grandmother bloom and flourish in this most recent place she has been planted, but it grows old on her now. Her husband and many of her friends have passed on. She wonders if my grandfather, who passed away four years ago, has forgotten to come back to get her as he promised. She recently explained to me that the reason she goes to bed at 8pm isn’t because she is tired, but because she is bored. She can’t see well enough to read or hear well enough for books on tape or TV. And while she makes a wonderful effort to stay active and involved, Grandma can’t help but wonder why she is still here in this place. One can only tolerate so much Solitaire.

During our last visit, she wondered aloud (twice) why she is supposed to keep taking all these expensive (and how!) medicines to keep her alive when what she wants most is to just go home.

I honestly don’t have an answer for my last remaining grandparent. But I am grateful she is still here. I cherish our time together. Grandma Jacobs is good for me. She’s one of the few people in my life who simply accepts me the way I am. Despite my many flaws, she lets me and my quick visits be enough for her. Such a rare gift. I need to understand how she does it, because I want to be like that when I grow up.

Do you still enjoy the influence of a grandparent or two in your life? What do you enjoy most about your relationship(s)? What life lessons can we learn from our grandparents?

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Then a good friend told me an interesting story:

There was once a boy who found himself locked in disagreement with his mother. At the time he knew he was right (this is one thing I do know: parents are not always right–often, but not always). To this day, the now-grown man knows he was right. In the midst of the battle, and as is sometimes necessary, the boy’s father stepped in. To the boy’s surprise and dismay, the father stood firmly beside the boy’s mother. Looking back now, as an adult, the boy could choose to harbor resentment toward his father, as he knew his father knew who was correct. But instead he recalls a most powerful lesson he learned about parenting that day. That more important than who was one what side, was that both parents stood together.

As I listened to the story I was once again filled with my own sense of rightness. Recalling how in my childhood home we were never allowed to sass or be disrespectful to my mother or we had to answer to my dad (often in a very physical way), I felt certain that my spouse should have my back.

Later, as I was driving home from a meet-up with some close friends, the lightbulb blinked on unmistakeably. An epiphany played smackdown with my pride.

The crux of the lesson wasn’t that the second parent stood by a parent who was in the right. It was that the other parent knowingly stood by his spouse even when he knew she was wrong.

Even as the bold truth of it hit me, I realized that I have a choice in where I choose to stand. And sometimes, even in the heat of a battle that feels necessary, there may be greater lessons to be taught than the most immediate.

***********
Tell me about your struggles as a parent. Particularly for those of you with older children, how do you deal with the challenges inherent in parenting teens? Do you ever find yourself not seeing eye-to-eye with your spouse? How do you resolve those differences in your marriage? What lessons do you find more important than being right?

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As a firstborn, Daddy’s girl and still a bit of a tomboy, I now applaud my parents’ ability to create a girl’s name out of my father’s: Dale. But it wasn’t always so. My face still flushes when I recall how in jr. high school I would boldly scrawl “Niki King” in all caps across the top of all my homework. My embarrassment burnt even deeper by the teacher’s stern reprimand “Use your REAL name on your papers.” Props to the younger me, however, for pulling Niki from my middle name, Veronica, and for knowing the Latin meaning of my surname, Rex.

Because people in the northwest were generally unfamiliar with what is more or less Mormon nomenclature, by high school I was well used to the long pause that would occur on the first day of every new school year, as the teacher called the roll. It happened somewhere in between Rusty Nail and Dusty Surface.

[insert awkward silence here]

After some hemming and hawing and for lack of a better frame of reference, any given teacher would read “Rex, Dalene” and call out, “Darlene?”

“The ‘R’ is silent,” I would quietly suggest, knowing full well that because ‘R’ is rarely silent, this would prompt a second look at my seemingly unpronounceable first name.

“But there is no ‘R.’”

Exactly.

“Yeah–it’s DAY-leen, not Darlene.”

And then–long before the days of Caragh, Devaneke and Quathyryn–the teacher would quickly move on to something that would inevitably be much easier to pronounce.

Eventually I matured and, even before my father passed away when I was just 19, I grew to love and appreciate both the uniqueness of my given name and the fact that I was named for someone I loved. Imagine how surprised I was when a Daylene moved into the same hall at BYU’s Heritage Halls and when, the very next year, a girl whose middle name was Dalene moved in and became best friends with my younger sister.

I had a good laugh about my name change a few years back when, at about the same age I had been, my daughter Lindsay started writing her name L-y-n-d-z-i. And because I remembered, I understood. That year I ordered her birthday cake to read “Happy Birthday, Lyndzi!”

Now Lyndzi is back to Lindsay. And I like being Dalene. I’ve thought about it since, wondering why the younger me felt such a need to change it up. Although my name is unusual, I’m sure it wasn’t just about my name. It was also about finding myself, discovering both who I am and who I am not, and growing comfortable in my own skin.

Becoming Dalene.

How about you? Have you ever tried to be someone you weren’t? When did you decide you were good with who you are as well as who you are not? How did you figure it out? Or are you still getting there?

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“The kids and I are sick and have been all weekend. I want some comfort food. I can’t bear the thought of opening another can of Campbell’s. I’m wondering if you’re not busy if you could make us a simple soup. And you know how I HATE to ask.”

We all hate to ask, but the truth is sometimes we find ourselves in need and it just doesn’t seem right to deny others the opportunity to serve while we sit there sick, or needing a ride or a friends or a listening ear. I went home from work that day and cheerfully made some savory chicken vegetable soup, and a batch of these amazing biscuits. I was thrilled that my friend would ask and that her simple request turned what would have been yet another night of menial labor—figuring out what to fix for dinner—into an act of deliberate and loving service. Service which I was not only able to share with my family and hers, but also with another member of our ward who I knew was ill. I was also humbly reminded that perhaps I should perform all menial tasks in my life as labors of love.

All because my friend had asked.

Perhaps part of the reason my friend was not afraid to ask (even as badly as she hated to) is because on a few occasions in the past (even as badly as I hated to) I’ve texted her and asked her if she was free to give one of my kids a ride up to campus (or whatever). Sometimes she was free and gave my kid a ride (she likes my kids, or I wouldn’t have the nerve to ask). Sometimes she’s not and she tells me so (also why I have the nerve to ask–she’s not afraid to tell me “No.” I know not to take it personally when she does).

We’re all aware of so many wonderfully inspiring stories of people who were moved to call, visit or take food to someone who was truly in need at a particular moment. I have complete confidence in the Spirit. But I recognize that I’m kind of thick-headed. I failed Mind-reading 101. Our lives are so full of things to do and places to be. It’s easy to be distracted by the busyness of it all–church, work, home, play, whatever. Some of us need a less subtle hint.

I appreciate the courtesy of someone who is not afraid to tell me what she needs.

What about you? Are you able to ask for what you need? How do you take an “I’m sorry, but no?” Can you accept a “Yes” without guilt when it comes?

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