Segullah » families

Black Friday (or not)

Jessie — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 13:00:29 +0000

Today my parents asked me what Thanksgiving memories I had. The truth is, not many. We never lived close to extended family and so the holiday was usually a low-key one. I know we usually had turkey and rolls and pie and all the other fixings, but I don’t have a lot of memories of strong traditions from year to year. Even though I can remember some Thanksgivings more than others (like the time some friends rigged the salad bowl so it would explode when my mom opened it), I absolutely cannot remember what we did on the day after Thanksgiving.

During recent years the day has been elevated in status to “Black Friday” by retail stores hoping to make some money on holiday shopping, but it hasn’t always been that way. I’m sure when I was a kid we just hung around the house like we always did on other days free from school. As a college student I have a few memories of doing things like going to the movies or going out for Thai food—activities that would still create family togetherness without repeating any of the previous day’s festivities. When I was married, my husband and I began using the day as our Christmas season kick-off. We would go get a tree, haul out the Christmas decorations and Christmas music, and spend the day making the house festive.

This year things are different; the kids got to have Thanksgiving with me while my ex-husband spent it introducing his new boyfriend to his family. This morning I will drop them off at their dad’s house so they can spend today and tomorrow with him. My day is both empty of an agenda and full of the shifting, heavy emotions that I have felt over the last few months. I have a few ideas in mind, but I’m not sure which path I will take. I might go to the mall and get my kids some cute matching pajamas for Christmas Eve. Yes, I don’t like consumerism much, but the chance to shop alone and save some money seems like too good an opportunity to pass up. I also have about twenty papers left to grade and a lesson plan to prepare for the college classes I’m teaching on Monday, so perhaps the day is better spent industriously. Then I just checked the temple schedule and found out that they are open; my heart tells me this is probably the best option for spending my time. I think I can do all three if I plan well. I’ll even reward myself with a slice of pumpkin pie after a day well-spent. Perhaps I’ll get out the Christmas music too.

How do you usually spend the day after Thanksgiving? Do you have any traditions or do you just do something different every year?

Pray for me; heal my heart

Michelle L. — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 13:34:25 +0000

After the funeral, the house felt oddly clean and quiet– especially in little Robert’s room where his blue-trimmed crib lay empty. Just days before, Pam’s miracle baby had pulled himself up to standing, laughed at the sunshine and reached for her arms; but in the morning he was blue and still.

Pam stepped onto her back porch, turned her face to the moon and wondered how long her heart could continue to beat when she was so filled with pain. As she stood outside she began to hear whispers, to literally feel the prayers of all the friends, neighbors and family who were praying for her and her husband. They came to her like falling stars, tiny bits of light splintering the great blackness of grief.

I’ve thought of Pam’s experience on the back porch many times since she described it to me. Any time that I’ve thought that my one prayer couldn’t make a difference, or been shy to ask for prayers in my behalf, I’ve pictured that celestial meteor shower of hope and love.

My friend Cheri recently introduced me to the concept of a personal prayer roll. As Cheri is acquainted with a concern or grief, she adds that person to a prayer roll that she keeps at her bedside. And each night, Cheri reads those names, praying for each person individually. When Cheri told me she had added me to her prayer roll last fall, I felt a rush of love and gratitude for her and an extra assurance that God was aware of my needs. I’ve since created my own list with the names of my children, the Young Women I serve and loved ones in need. I believe there is great power in speaking those names out loud. I know God hears my prayers.

In the past, I felt awkward about asking others to pray for me. Now I plea with my friends and visiting teachers to petition God in my behalf. Many, many days I have felt a lightening, an extra strength that I know was a result of prayers offered in my name.

Few actions make me feel more loved than when someone tells me they’ve placed my name on the prayer roll of the temple. I usually stand in front of that little white box, scribbling names and searching my mind for who I may have forgotten– and yes, I always pen my own name.

Last Wednesday, I said goodbye to my oldest son on the curb of the Provo MTC. “Take a good look at that cute face,” my friend advised, “because you’ll never see it again. When he comes back he’ll be changed.”

Ben was so giddy, so glad to leave that we were all perhaps, a little overconfident. But the MTC is hard, especially that first week. He wrote:

“I don’t mean to complain or make you worry but I think it helps to admit that things are hard. I never thought it would be this hard. One night I was having an especially lonely time. I prayed and told Heavenly Father I didn’t know if I could do this. I climbed into bed and as I lay there I saw you all praying for me– Mom, Dad, Stefan, Hans, Xander, Gabriel and silly little Mary followed with her own prayer. I felt so loved. I immediately felt better; I love you all so much.”

And so, I’ll continue to offer, every night, every hour, a prayer for those I love.

How have you felt the power of prayer in your life?

How do you make your prayers more effective?

The Pleasures of the Flesh

Brooke — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 15:02:41 +0000

He seems to love Wii more than me.

And he is six, and who knew this rampant need to play video games was buried inside his fingertips and probably stretches deep: up his limbs to his firm, round shoulders?

I’ve lamented this fact since the Wii arrived for Christmas, and I have people try to console me with the notion that he’s being “active,” but I just wish he was in the backyard gulping fresh air and using his thick legs in long strides. Playing real sports. Running real laps. Using real rackets.

Our only defense and power over Satan are these luscious, strong bodies. And I wonder, in this virtual age, if we sacrifice the pleasure of doing something physically because it’s so much easier to do it virtually via avatar or mii.

Has pornography replaced sex? Would people rather engage in a false identity perversion than work on marriage with an emotional/sexually unexciting/perhaps difficult or unattractive (read: very human) spouse? Has creating an ideal online persona via sprightly blog and Facebook account become more important than working on a real, live person forging their way through experience? Would my kids rather play with a Wii than a live he or she? Has a simulated universe replaced our own yucky, messy one? And do we prefer that?

And I’m not talking generally of course, I think a healthy online persona is easily grasped for most people—I’m talking about the margins. Those I know who have fallen into these virtual worlds. It scares me for myself, my children. Sometimes it’s not a moral choice, I just feel the easy pull of melting into the mindlessness of Stumble Upon or babysitter Wii.

But: when Satan says he will take up those who follow him and posses their bodies, is this what he means? That we’ll give up our physical lives for fake ones?

That’s the complicated question. These easy ones are these:

How do you limit screen time in your home—for yourself and others?

How do you keep a real, balanced, healthy online persona?

Home for the Holidays: The Good Times Abound

Melissa M — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 06:23:05 +0000

I have a *friend* who, although she loves her family dearly, finds her stomach tightening and her left eye twitching when holidays and family gatherings approach. Perhaps it’s the added pressure of having to dust all those high shelves and wipe those fingerprints off of the walls (and cabinets and doors and chairs and floors). Perhaps it’s because even when she does clean the house until it’s spotless and she puts fresh towels on her mother’s bed and mints on the pillow, her mother will invariably mention that the guest bathroom has no soap or that there’s a shortage of cheese in the fridge (don’t ask). Perhaps it’s the thought of having to *entertain* family members in the dead of winter, after the actual holiday is over, when there’s nothing to do except shop at T.J. Maxx and watch football. Or perhaps it’s the knowledge that when family comes to town, there will inevitably be some tension. Unresolved issues. Elephants in the room, taking up all the chairs. And this *friend* will often have to bite her tongue as she slips into the age-old roles of daughter, sister, daughter-in-law (now that one’s a doozy), trying to balance these roles with her current ones as wife and matriarch, finding herself mother and child at once.

As a young married woman, this friend and her husband alternated between his home and hers for the holidays. She found her in-laws’ customs to be foreign and strange—really, who serves creamed spinach as a Thanksgiving dinner side dish? And why did her mother-in-law so obviously dislike her? Holidays with the in-laws left her feeling homesick and unmoored, but when she visited home she still felt out of place; she was a grown up now, with a husband (!), so different from her childhood self. Her husband complained he was cold, with the thermostat set at 62 degrees instead of the 74 he was used to. And her parents hardly spoke to each other anymore and her baby sisters were no longer little girls.

Several years later, after my friend and her husband had a couple of children of their own and her parents divorced, she started hosting holidays at her house, making the transition from daughter to mother. But how nervous she was the first time she roasted a turkey with her mother-in-law in the house! Who did she think she was, pretending to be a grown up woman? And how capricious that bird, taking four hours to roast in the cooking bag instead of two and a half. Now, however, after years of practice my friend turns out a pretty decent Thanksgiving dinner (so she tells me), especially since she discovered the secret of brining the turkey. And when, aproned and smiling, she carries the platter of melt-in-your-mouth turkey to the lace-covered table and places it before her hungry, admiring audience, she feels like a woman in her own right. The matriarch.

Unless one of her parents is visiting, in which case she feels like a fourteen-year-old girl again. Chalk it up to the age-old need to please and seemingly-set-in-stone family dynamics. One visit from her family and my friend reverts to the dependable, boorish eldest child. The example setter. Bossy Boots, as her siblings used to call her. She is the daughter who is serious and straight-laced, a little too churchy, who can’t help but feel that she isn’t as fun or funny as her younger sister—who is the family entertainer and comedian, the life of the party, and (my friend secretly believes) her mother’s favorite. Her sister, on the other hand, believes my friend is her father’s favorite, but my friend knows her father doesn’t have favorites—except maybe their brother, who is the only boy.

Suffice it to say, then, that my friend knows family gatherings on holidays can be tricky. Because families are complicated and messy and sometimes dysfunctional, though we love them to death. Add in stepparents, a couple of in-laws, some buried resentments and unaired grievances, and you’ve got yourself a party. My friend can hardly wait. And I’ve assured her that the twitch is barely noticeable.

Do you find family get togethers during the holidays stressful? What helps you cope? Do you slip into childhood roles when your family visits and if so, what role do you play? Do you take turns visiting your family/in-laws for Thanksgiving or do you host? And if you host Thanksgiving, who comes to your house and do you enjoy entertaining? And finally, do you brine the turkey?

Paths of Agency

Guest — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 13:00:13 +0000

Today’s guest post comes from Natalie H. There’s one word that best describes me: novice. A novice at being a wife and mother. A novice at writing. A novice at the world of blogging. And, most of all, a novice at life (still). Luckily, I love learning and maybe… just maybe… someday I’ll elevate my status to “expert” in one of those areas. By day, I work as a technical writer and editor, piously correcting grammar, sentence structure, and formatting. By night, I’m ready to ditch the play-by-the-rules editor side of me and instead give voice to that pent-up wannabe creative writer. I love writing (specifically blogging), reading, photography, my knight in shining armor, and our one crazy, adorable offspring of a daughter.

It was a night in early March. My husband of just seven months and I were at an institute dance, acting like silly newlyweds and having a carefree time. Amidst the loud music, dim lights, and cheap decorations, my husband held out my cell phone to me. “It looks like your mom is calling you.”

On a Friday night? At 10:30?

Instantly my stomach clenched. My parents never call after 9:30.

In the quiet of the Institute hallway, my mom’s worried voice came through the phone. “We can’t find your brother. He sluffed school this afternoon, came home and got his snowboard, and we haven’t seen him since. We’re worried about him and I thought you should know.”

The rest of the night was a back-and-forth battle in my mind. He was probably just being a typical inconsiderate 17-year old and didn’t call. He somehow got stuck somewhere while he was snowboarding and didn’t have a phone. All reasonable excuses, but somehow in my heart of hearts I knew something was wrong.

The safe, naive world I had known until then came crashing down early the next morning with another phone call from my mother, this time in inconsolable tears. “We’re at the hospital. They found Jake* last night… he tried to overdose on pills. He’s really sick, but he survived.”

My little brother tried to commit suicide.

Amidst the million agonizing questions and thoughts that ran through my mind that day, one in particular stood out.

How could this happen?

How could a smart, comical kid, raised in a typical, run-of-the-mill loving family get to the hopeless point of thinking he had no other way out? Why did the ugly beast of depression decide to choose him, and affect him in just this way?

Now, four years later, he has nothing to do with the Church. The same depression that prompted him to make an attempt on his own life has completely blanketed his perception of his own eternal worth, and he has chosen to give in to that darkness and turn against the teachings of the church and down a road I can hardly fathom. I look at him and remember the horror of that terrible day and I have a difficult time understanding how my little brother, who was raised in the same home as me with the same, loving parents could consciously choose to toss aside every precious truth he had ever been taught, even after almost losing his life. Especially when I, on the flip side, have such a strong assurance of my Savior’s love that it’s almost overwhelming.

It wasn’t long before I started becoming more aware of the blame that’s often unconsciously placed on the parents in this kind of situation. And not just my parents – any parents of kids who have “gone astray.” Nothing makes me want to haul out and punch someone more (as un-Christlike as that may be). My parents were far from perfect, but they taught us the Gospel and, most importantly, they loved us with everything they had. As a mother myself, I now realize how important that was to me… and I wonder why it wasn’t enough for my brother.

Today, I find myself staring at my beautiful, pure, innocent one-year old baby, and the questions still haunt me. Is there anything I can do to keep her from going down a similar path as my brother? Are there any guarantees that she will grow up to have the same sure knowledge I do that Jesus Christ loves us and that this is His church? Sometimes it feels so hopeless and I worry that one mistake, one forgotten family prayer, one missed opportunity to teach her about Christ, is going to send her down the wrong path.
Agency can be such a frustrating thing. I know the answers to my questions, even though they still keep turning frantic circles in my head. Agency is the beautiful, divine center of Heavenly Father’s plan. Even if my parents had been perfect, even if Jake hadn’t been affected by depression, he still could very well have chosen the same path. And even if I were to be the world’s most perfect parent, my daughter is still an intelligent, thoughtful human being who will choose whether or not to believe the things I hope to teach her. And as much as I hate that fact and want to shove it into the dark corner of denial, I know that the decision is ultimately hers and all I can do is teach… and pray.

*name has been changed