Missing Mom

Yesterday was the fifth anniversary of my mom's death. I spent it helping out at a funeral. I didn't know if that was going to be okay. It totally was. It was a good thing to do. I stand in a room full of mourners now and I look around and I know, "I am one of them." I am not separate or apart. I have been there. I understand. 


It was a good day to remember my mom, the kindnesses of others during that time, and to take the morning to pay it forward. 


In remembering her, in thinking about this somber anniversary, I had two small breakthroughs. One will sound dumb to you, but it told me some interesting things about me. Yesterday would have normally been a day where I would decide I had an excuse to overindulge in either food or shopping. "This is a sad anniversary. I think I'll eat a bunch of crud." Or "This is a sad anniversary. I'll buy new shoes to cheer me up." But I didn't have time to do that. Because I was busy helping others. And it felt better than new shoes or pigging out would have. And just like that, in a rough moment, I walked away from two emotional crutches I've leaned on heavily in the past. It wasn't even conscious; those things just didn't matter as much as the other things that needed doing.


I had another realization, too. I wondered what my mom would have thought about my big announcement on Monday. My dad would have been busting buttons and telling everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, that his daughter has an agent, that she's a writer, etc and so on. But my mom wouldn't have. She would smiled and rubbed my arm. And if I said, "I learned how to make bread," she would have smiled and rubbed my arm. And if I said, "I made honor roll," she would have smiled and rubbed my arm. Because it was all the same to her. In a good way. She was not more proud of me when I did more impressive things. She just loved me, whatever level I was at. "Mom, I won the Nobel Prize in Literature." She'd still just smile and rub my arm.

I keep a bookmark in my scriptures with her picture and obituary on it. James stole the one I used to keep upstairs. I read it to him, and we talked about her and shared a couple of memories. The conversation wandered to memories of other things. He wanted to know the funniest thing he'd ever done. He wanted to know about the time he was really sick when he was little. And so on.


It was good to talk about stories from our family. It was good to reminisce and remind us both of where and who we came from. I like that something little every day can become part of my story. I believe so much that our stories matter, that when we share them we grow closer. Stories connect us. 


I used to run a scholarship competition for 8th graders. I organized it for a simple reason. Yes, it gave them experience in essay writing and resume writing and interviewing. But more importantly, it taught them that the winner wasn't the kid with best grades; it was the kid who could tell their story best. That's who the judges connected to and awarded a scholarship to, every single time.


I know you've heard about the Story at Home Conference March 9-10. The info has been floating all over the internets lately. Check it out. It's sponsored by Family Search and Cherish Bound. I'd look hard at the schedule; there are so many great storytelling tracks, for people who think they aren't born storytellers. Guys, it's cool. Super cool.


Go. 

HOORAY!

I've got exciting news. But if you want to hear about it, you have to wander over to the blog I keep under my maiden name. And why I'm using my maiden name has to do with the news. And it's GOOD NEWS. I am still happily married and will stay so forever because I haven't mentioned it a thousand times, Kenny rocks. So don't worry.


Anyway, the point is, you can wander over there and read all about it.


Happy Monday!

Good-bye, Etta James

I'm reposting this because a nice lady died. This is way back from when my blog was a baby (November 2008) . . .


I was a hostess at a Chinese restaurant my senior year in high school that, in its heyday twenty years before, used to get a lot of celebrity customers. There were pictures of the owner with Jack Lemmon and Bill Clinton and a bunch of other famous people all over the walls of the entrance.


My job was easy. Eat as many fortune cookies as I wanted and consume gallons of free Sprite every night. Oh, and seat people. You got five people? You get a five seat table. You got two people? You get a two seat table. It worked pretty well and whoever thought of that system should have gotten a raise or maybe free steamed rice plus free fortune cookies.


Except there was one time it didn't work, and it was this lady and her two sons who came in and always wanted a five people table. But there were only THREE of them. She was a pretty lady (large, though--she didn't back away from the egg rolls), light-skinned black, what the old folks call cafe au lait. I would always gently suggest a smaller table (I don't know why because they always came mid-week when it wasn't busy anyway but I'm uptight like that, shut up), but they just smiled and took their same table they always did.


One night when they were leaving, the lady says, "I'll bring you one of my pictures to put on your wall of fame," and I smiled blankly and nodded, anxious not to disturb the crazy lady, because why would I put her picture on the wall when she didn't even understand about five people tables? I think she saw through it, though, because the next week when she came, she said, "You watching President Clinton's inauguration?" (This was the first one, because I'm old.)


And I said, "Yes" because I had Bush vs. Dukakis debates in middle school for fun (because I'm old), so of course I was watching the inauguration. 


She said, "Okay, well, look for me, because I'm singing."


I said, all perkily, "Oh, are you in a choir?" because that's why any large black lady would be singing at the inauguration, right? (I'm so embarrassed by that question now).


She said, "You just watch on Friday night and you'll see me sing."


I rushed home after my shift that night and made my dad turn off Star Trek and switch it to the inaugural coverage. I said one of our customers was going to be singing that night, maybe in a gospel choir. We watched for about a half an hour, and then, the lights went low, a single spotlight came on and lit up my customer in a magnificent white gown as the emcee announced..."Etta James!"


Aaaagh! I knew who Etta James was. I just didn't know that's who was sitting at my table once a week, who I'd been trying to move to another table every time. And you may think you don't know Etta James, but you do. Oh, yes, you do. Beyonce is playing her in a movie coming out soon.


Check out the clip below (just wait for the first two words of the song. You definitely know it).









Etta Freaking James!


After that, it was, "Hey, Ms. James. It's good to see you, Ms. James. Why don't you come sit at the five people table, Ms. James?"


Coolest celebrity sighting EVER. 

A potpourri. Kind of the cheapy, discount kind. But a potpourri.

Lately blogging goes like this for me: "Haha, that was funny. I'm going to blog it."


Then I clean up another mess, make a meal, or two, write (or most likely revise something), read a painfully average book (by assignment, unfortunately), referee a couple of spats, think of four different activities for Grant to do, and then  . . . 


I sit down to blog. An I stare at the screen. And I go, "Wait, what was that funny thing I was going to write?"


So . . .  sorry.


The more I blog, the more ideas I have to blog about. Now that I'm a tad out of practice, the idea well has dried up. I feel like I should make a breast-feeding analogy here.


Hm. No. Let's not get breasts and blogging all tied up, and yes, you're welcome.


My toddler is riding a toy pony and pushing a toy stroller. At the same time. A couple of months ago, BAM, that would have been its own blog post somehow. Now, it's just kind of funny and also a good reminder that we need to go visit somewhere with horses so she understands the fundamentals because right now . . . she doesn't have it down yet.


But it's okay. I'll do a better job of making mental notes when something funny happens. Or interesting. Or otherwise blog worthy. But I'm also not going to stress it. Because why? I've never used this blog to make money. I don't use it as a family bulletin. I don't have any obligations to blog. I'm definitely at I-blog-because-I-want-to now, and that feels good.


And now for some randomness. I have lost six pounds now. And my BMI is officially in normal range. I am apparently no longer overweight. Thank you, raw almonds, green smoothies, and protein shakes.


Downtown Abbey totally lives up to the hype.


I still really love fairy tales.


My husband makes a mean mango and sticky rice dessert.


The board game Pandemic is fun.


I need my upcoming girls' weekend desperately.


I can't remember the last time I read a book just for pleasure. Four more books to read in the contest I'm judging and I can read whatever I want again. That's not to say that within that category there aren't some really fun books. But I have about six to-read-just-because books on my nightstand and I'm itchy to get to them.


I am craving chocolate far more than normal lately.


Grant just told me I could be Strongbad because I'm writing an email. 


The children are shooting each other with giant pipe cleaners. I just said, "Quit hitting. You can only shoot each other." I find myself making a lot of equally absurd parenting comments. And now I'm going to make more of them because the kids want to play. And I kind of want to, too. So . . . progress.

C'est la vie

It's funny how life is so full of highs and lows. I think whichever one you find yourself in, the trick is to hang on. You either have to soak up every last second of the good times or grit your teeth and tough out the bad times, and those are the times where all you can do is hang on to hope.


I guess it has to be like that. Or maybe it doesn't. Maybe we could be perfectly happy in and of ourselves except that sometimes we're forced to live with the consequences of other people's mistakes and in those moments it's hard to be happy. So maybe it doesn't have to be good and bad. But it IS good and bad. So we have to deal.


I remember the insight that changed my life. I was a teenager. And someone said something about that scripture (it's probably not even a scripture and I don't feel like Googling because I want to pretend it's a scripture even if it isn't) that says, "This too shall pass." And I had this realization that there were things that had seemed earth-shattering the year before when I was fifteen that by sixteen had become no big deal at all. And now twenty years on, I can't remember anything that was a big, bad deal when I was fifteen. I remember some fun stuff, though. And that's a lesson.


It's one I've been able to cling to when I've been in the very lowest troughs. It can't last forever. Einstein proved it with a mathematical formula, I think. At any rate, reminding myself of that makes the challenge of the moment more get-through-able.


I'm braced for the onslaught of messages and comments. "What's wrong? Is everything okay? Can I help?" The answers: I'm not going to tell you, No, and No. But I would also add I have lots of help, the best kind of help. I also have lots of hope. I am not sick. No one is dying. I think we're dealing with something fixable. I'm married to the best man I've ever known and it makes everything doable. He is my rock.


But I appreciate your worry. I feel better venting this tiny bit of steam. And now I'm going to walk into the kitchen and engage in the hundred little repetitive things I do every day that someone how right now make me feel so much better. And I will be fine and on my way to getting finer.


And also, I will probably spend some quality time with Veronica Mars and a pile of clean laundry and that will help tremendously, too

Yeehaw!

It's here! The new cover is here! And I'm sharing it on my Facebook author page! And it's really cute!


Go check it out here. If you don't like that page, LIKE IT. And yes, I intended that to sound exactly that bossy and threatening.


And then tell me what you think--OVER THERE. I'm closing comments here.


HOORAY!

I love you THIS MUCH.

You know what's a big number?

BRACHIOSAURUS.

That's as big as it gets. Ask my four-year-old. He'll tell you. "What's the biggest number?"

"Eleven hundred seventy three seven twenty one hundred brachiosaurus forty thousand two one."

It's huge. A HUGE number. Because brachiosaurus is the biggest dinosaur so it must also be the biggest number.

If Grant runs super fast to the car, he'll tell you. "I ran a million brachiosaurus fast!"

And if you're his favorite, which four of us in this house are tied for first place to be, he'll tell you how much he loves you, too. "I love you brachiosaurus."

Which is how much I love him.