My Goal to be Green Arrow

If you know me at all, you'll know I have a love for Smallville. "That old TV show?" you say. Well, yes, that old TV show. I've watched every episode and re-watched most of them as well. (That Emily episode, I just couldn't do it. Talk about nightmares)

Well, there is a quote from that show that has stuck with me for years. I think about it almost every time I'm on Facebook or Instagram.  Or every time I want to blog, this quote comes to mind. It makes me question my purpose, but I think in a good way.

Let me tell you about this quote. In the show, Oliver Queen has just come out in a press conference and told the world that he is the Green Arrow. He did this in hopes of getting back his girlfriend, who had left him to protect his secret. The world has mixed feelings about his announcement, and he gets a lot of flack for his choice of nighttime activities. The world seemed a lot more understanding of his 'Play Boy' attitude than of his 'Vigilante' one. In an interview, the following conversation takes place:  

Oliver Queen: I lost someone. She meant everything to me.

TV Reporter: So, for that you want what, a merit badge and special rights?

Oliver Queen: No. No, you're right. I'm not special. This isn't about who I am. It's about what I do. And I don't think I'm the first rich boy who felt that way. It was John F. Kennedy who once said, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country."

TV Reporter: So now you're comparing yourself to a fallen hero of this country?

Oliver Queen: Well, why not? He saw the hero in all of us. I'm not dwelling on revenge of past atrocities or looking from to what I can personally gain from a few tax breaks, drilling oil wells in the ocean, putting up razor-wired fences to keep out immigrants who only want what our grandparents wanted. In this world of armchair bloggers who created a generation of critics instead of leaders, I'm actually doing something, right here, right now, for the city, for my country. And I'm not doing it alone. You're damn right I'm a hero.

I'm not saying we should be an arrow slinging vigilantes. (Although, I for one, do love archery) But I am trying to say something. I told you I think about this quote, I think about it a lot. It's our generation to be out there on social media and to be known and 'Liked' and 'selfie-d' (I made that up) and just out there. I like that too, I like to be recognized in that way. But what I want to try to remember to ask myself before I post is, 'are you being an armchair blogger and a critic?' or, 'are you commenting on this just to comment, or do you actually have value to add to a discussion?'. Sometimes I fail in my attempt and make a knee jerk comment or post that I later cringe at.  Sometimes I get defensive in my conversations instead of just willing to listen.

But I am trying to make the decision to act in this world instead of just react.  

Change is not easy for me. (And I quote: Change fills my pockets with pennies of uncertainty -Girl Meets World)  But I am learning that this world is full of change daily and I can learn and grow from that. I hope you'll accept me while I do that.

In my last post, I said that my goal was to be the good in this world. I want everything I do to add to the good in this world and not take away from it. 

My Goal

Here is my confession. I love blogging in many ways. I want to blog.

"But," you say, "then why so long between blog posts?"

The thing is. I also have this huge fear when it comes to blogging. A fear of being labeled a hypocrite. Of being judged of something, or of my words being taken the wrong way. I'm afraid of appearing to be someone I'm not.

But I want to have a voice out here. I don't know why exactly it's a goal of mine. Maybe because it's cleansing, and writing helps me sort out my thoughts and dreams. but still...

I'm afraid of...putting myself out there. But I want to. I want to be...the good. I want to be a positive light and I want to write, and write and make a difference. I figure out who I am when I write and I want to do that.

So if you read my blog, then I'm grateful to  you because I WANT people to read my blog. And I want you to comment, to put yourself out there too ...but be the good! Let's stop filling the internet with criticism and hate, state your opinion and state it clearly, but without arguing and without bullying and putting another person down.

That is my goal. To be the good and show that good!

I have loved this image since I first saw it on Pinterest.
It's not mine, but it's exactly how I feel!!

Are you in? 

Lessons from Dad and a Happy Anniversary

After my recent post about my mom, I thought it only fair that I say a few things about my dad too. But what to say about him? His example of patience and endurance, the relationship I had with him, the lessons he taught me...there are so many things that my dad was to me. One of the things I miss most was our nightly routine. For several years after my mission, my sister and I would help put my dad to bed every night. The three of us had it down pat and every night at nine, we knew where we would be and what we would be doing. One of my favorite things to do was to tell dad stories or jokes that would make him laugh. Getting him to laugh was a small success every time. It was because of my nightly comedy routine for dad that my mom thought I should try out to be a stand-up comedian. But seriously; my dad is one of the few people who got my jokes, so the comedy route just wouldn't work out.    

I didn't know my dad when he was a young dad. He was 49 when I was born in 1986, but what was neat, is that when my sisters and I were writing his life sketch, we were able to read through the life history he had written over the past several years. It think that my favorite part about that was realizing that he had been someone just like me at one time. He had outrageous dreams, like playing as catcher for the New York Yankees, and he had fears too, life providing for his wife and family after he had been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.  

All these things about my dad are important things for you to know, but last Saturday, September 12th was their 58th wedding anniversary and so I thought I'd tell you a little love story.

I don't know all the details, I know they met on a blind date in October of 1956. I know that dad called mom for a second date, but it wasn't until later that she found out that he had been too terrified to call her and he had asked his friend to call, pretend he was Bob and ask mom out for that second date. They dated that whole winter (Mom said her grade in math that year when from an A, to a B, to a C and a D) And then on Mom's 18th birthday and graduation day, the two were engaged and set the wedding for that fall.

The years that followed brought more schooling, kids, job hunting, moving to another country, a MS diagnosis, grand kids and a million other life experiences they shared together.

Dad's health was one thing that he dealt with for many years. In 1999, dad suffered a heart attack and had triple bi-pass surgery, with his MS, any infection could send him to the hospital. Medications were a delicate balance at times, because with one thing off, it could be another trip to the hospital. In 2010, my dad wasn't doing well and we ended up taking him to the hospital in the middle of the night. My one sister, Karen, and I were with dad in the emergency room that night when the Docter, serious and blunt, but also kind and gentle told us and my dad that due to an infection, his heart was out of rhythm and was slowing down. Which meant there was the risk of it slowing down and then stopping, or that blood clots would form and cause a stroke, both cases would likely be fatal and not to far distant given the current condition of his heart. Dad had a decision to make. He could continue living as he was and let his heart alone with a small amount of time left, or he could go to a specialist and have a pacemaker put in, greatly reducing the risks he currently dealt with.

We let dad make that decision, and he was quiet for a long moment before he looked back up at the doctor and told him that he wanted to have the pacemaker put in. That pacemaker gave him four more years with mom and the family and so I consider it worth it. But there was a greater cost I will come back to, something I didn't consider until four years later.

Those four years were not easy, the included many more hospital trips and a stroke in 2013. My dad did not complain though. He never regretted, or at least he never expressed regret, at his decision for that pacemaker because he was with my mom and with our family.

When my mom got her terminal diagnosis with brain cancer in March of last year, we took dad to the hospital to see her that day. In that room, he looked at her in her hospital bed and said, shaking his head, "This isn't how it's supposed to be. I'm supposed to go first."

Mom in her typical fashion looked at him and said, "well, maybe you still will."

Despite the how hard and tiring the daily trips to the hospital and care center were for my dad, he wanted to visit mom every day. He wanted to be there for her, to hold her hand when it was hard for him to talk, and to make sure she wasn't alone and that us kids were doing our part to take care of her.

In those few weeks, he had his own doctors and hospital visits as his his was finally winning the war it had waged on him for so many decades. When we took him to the hospital for the second time, dad never work up and he passed away on April 12th, 2014.

It was then, that I realized the significance of the decision he had made four years earlier to get the pacemaker. We don't get to decide when we are going to leave this world, but I believe that my dad was given a lot of say in that matter. His life with MS was not easy, it was not comfortable, and it was very limiting. When I think back on all the times dad could have left us;  when he had his heart attack several years earlier, when he needed the pacemaker, when he had his stroke, and many other times when infection or MS raged through his body. He chose to do what he needed to do to say here because he wanted to be there for his wife.

He had reached the point though, where he could no long be there for her in a way that he wanted to and so he left so that he could be there on the other side to comfort her at night when she needed comfort. To be there to greet her when she left this world just 63 days later. When I wrote about mom, I wrote about her love of people and her gift of happiness. My dad, he loved my mom. 

Every love story is different, I recognize that clearly, but I also recognize that my dad loved my mom, and so even when it's hard that they aren't here, I'm grateful that they are together for 58 years now and an eternity to come. 

A Lesson from My Mom

I've been thinking a lot about happiness. I took a college class a few years ago on the Psychology of Happiness, and it has interested me ever since.

I would say, that in general, I'm a happy person. Everyone has their moments of course, but happy is the happiest way to be. (also, happy is a weird word. Just say it to yourself a couple of times and then you'll look over your shoulder, slightly embarrassed and wondering if you're crazy because obviously, you've been saying that word wrong for forever. Such a weird sounding word can't really mean something so big and life altering. But I think it does.)

I have decided that happiness is a learning process, and I learned something new today so I wanted to write about it. My disclaimer is this: Even happy people will sometimes be sad. They will sometimes feel stress and anxiety and even fear of an uncertain future. But they will come through it because they know there is something greater out there.  (Also, a disclaimer to my disclaimer just in case: I'm not talking about clinical depression or anxiety, there are cases like that out there and I'm not trying to lesson those in any way. BUT I think that even with those things, people are seeking happiness and so don't stop seeking!)  

Now I want you to look out at the world, the radio shows, news reports, popular books, magazines, conversations with friends. I bet that somewhere in your moments of musing, you can come up with some recent mention of lack of happiness. News stories start because someone wasn't happy with their life. New and popular books give you formula's to happiness. People who have all the attention, all the money and all the things you could ever want, still complain about being happy. I know that I've complained before. (and obviously I don't have everything, see, still complaining!)

Well today I was on Pinterest, I was looking at the recent things I've pinned and I focused on how many of them were about happiness. Like I said, it's something that has been on my mind lately. Another thing that is never far from my mind is my mom. My dad too, but in this case, it's my mom I've been thinking a lot about. Let me tell you a little bit about her and then we'll go back to talking about happiness.

My cute little mom and with my niece, Emily

My mom had a million friends. Probably more because she talked to everyone she met-even people she never met! In elementary school they had a pen pal and she was given the names of three from different parts of the world to write. I remember the stories she told me about two of them. One lived somewhere in England and they wrote to each other well into high school. When Queen Elizabeth was coroneted that pen pal sent my mom a handkerchief to commemorate the event. One pen pal was from Australia and sent her books and other mementos over the years. They kept in contact, although less and less, but they told each other about their families and sent pictures.

Here at home, mom had just as powerful of friendships. When my nephew and I were in Jr High, we went to dinner with my mom and some of the friends she had kept in touch with since high school. My nephew and I choose not to sit at the table with the 'old people' because they were so loud, laughing, and embarrassing that we wanted it to be known we were separate. They sat at dinner for nearly 3 hours, talking and laughing and just having so much fun. I envied those friendships, that after nearly 50 years, were still meaningful to my mom and my dad, her friends and their spouses as well.  

When my mom got sick last year, I was given the task of going through her phone book (Which requires a Rosetta stone for translation purposes) and calling all the important people in her life. I eventually had to share the task with some of my siblings as well because it was simply too overwhelming to try to call everyone who wanted to know. But the thing was, as we talked to all those people, almost all of them had talked to my mom within the previous month. These were not just family members, although many of them were. But they were her friends from high school, they were some of MY friends from high school, an old neighbors son, her AVON customers through the years. The spouses of my dad's old co-workers. When I told my mom about who I talked to, she knew about the things that were going on in each person's life.  Her old Senior Class President was a Patriarch who was caring for his wife with Alztimers, an AVON customer who had just gone through a divorce, a cousin who had been lost for years that she had found with $20 and a PI company out of California. Even the kids of her dad's old friend living in Oregon. She knew them all, they had all talked to her about their problems just days before and none of them could believe that she was dying of a brain tumor.  

Mom with the Bachelor-her favorite show for some reason

I'm not saying this all because I'm trying to point out how great she was (although she was!) but just because these were things I had not fully realized about my mom and I'm even just now realizing. By my view point, my mom had every reason to be unhappy. She had lived for over 10 years with painful Rheumatoid Arthritis, my dad and her husband of over 50 years had suffered with MS for nearly as long as they had been together. My mom loved to go and see and do things, but because of her health limitations, many time she couldn't do what she wanted. She could have been very unhappy.   But she was not! And she was a major factor of brightness and happiness in the lives of others. So as I read all these Pinterest quotes on happiness, I thought of my mom and I thought of two things:

1. Often, doing something [that seems] small for someone else will make YOU feel happier than doing something big for yourself.

2. My mom was the kind of person who when the world said, "Remember, to take time for yourself" she would take that time and go do something for someone else.  

So I have to conclude that while the world will tell you that your happiness depends on what you get from someone else, it is wrong. It is what you give to someone else that makes you truly happy.

All those number one selling books on happiness out there will tell you that happiness is mostly a choice that you make. And they are right. But it a choice that you make for others that really makes you happy.

I know that when I am not happy in life, I can look at myself and realize that it is something that I am not doing. Something that I am not choosing. And when I choose happiness, it makes all the difference in my day. Remember my Disclaimer? (My disclaimer is this: Even happy people will sometimes be sad. They will sometimes feel stress and anxiety and even fear of an uncertain future. But they will come through it because they know there is something greater out there.) This is what I want to add to that. Do not let sadness, stress, anxiety, fear, frustration, anger or pride keep you from being happy. Do not use it as an excuse. Find a way to be happy. That is my new goal. I bet you'd be happy if that was your goal too.

A Poem

See...here is a Poem I wrote: 

So, here's the deal. I'm not a poet, In fact, I typically avoid writing poetry, but I woke up with these words in my head and I had to write them down. That was a couple weeks ago, and I've hesitated to post it because I was afraid how it would be seen. 

Not because I'm afraid people won't like it, I don't really care what people think regarding my poetry skills; I'm amateur at best. But I was afraid to post it because it gives the impression of sadness and while there is a sadness in grief, over the past year I've also learned the beauty in grief. 

I miss my parents, and that's a good thing. I want to be missed when I'm gone as well. But the emotion of grief has also taught me so much this past year. It's so much more complex than I ever thought it was before. I used to think that grief was just being sad, but I have learned that it's not just that. I'm not even sure that they are sort of the same thing. 

I think that grief is the bridge that helps us cross over from sadness to moving on.  

In my psychology classes over the years, I learned about the stages of grief, and we can categorize them if you want, but it doesn't really work like that for every person. If I had to define my grief, I would say that it is memories. Little memories and big ones too. When they come, especially through everyday little things, I've started to record them because I want to always be able to remember those things. 

For example, at a fireside Sunday the speaker talked about the old church primary song, "Little Purple Pansies" and I realized that the song I thought my mom had made up (She had a knack for making up silly songs) was real. Whenever she saw Pansies - and most especially in the fall and winter time- she would sing that pansie song. I wrote that down to remember her and the pansie faces she loved.

I have a knack for getting paper cuts, the hazards of a lot of filing at work, and for some reason, I seem to get paper cuts in groups and usually just on one hand at a time. This last week, my right hand was all bandaged up with cuts when I got another cut. I shook my head at my own clumsiness and in that moment I thought of my dad, who when I was little would tease me about always injuring one side of me. One time when I stepped on a upturned nail, he pulled it out of my foot and while I cried, he comforted me by saying, "well, at least it wasn't on the side with all your other injuries!" Which made me giggle and forget some of the pain I was in. 

I think those memories are grief. They are at times tinged with sadness, but most often than not, they bring a peace that lets me know that everything is okay. 

But as my poem says, there are days that the grief comes hard and fast and not in slow and trickling memories.I've learned to appreciate those days as well because they are human days that we have to have in order to get stronger. 

Grief doesn't go away in just those well defined stages-grief stays with you and turns you into something more. It turns you into the person that those lost loved ones know you truly are-who they see you as. And that is why it is so important. And so, as you read this poem, remember, it's not in sadness that it was written, but in growth and in grief. 

And don't forget:

What I Learned: Tough Guys Turn into Little Boys When Trains are Involved.

I'm typically not too excited for Christmas. As much as I love it, I've always had mixed feelings because it just seems like there is so much to do to get ready. Granted, as my mom's Christmas helper, I have always had to help buy and wrap gifts for around forty people, and somehow that put a damper on the Christmas Spirit. We talk about how Christmas is too commercialized, and too busy, too complicated from how it should be. And maybe it is, but...I don't think it would exactly be 

Christmas without a little bit of the madness.

I want to love Christmas, I want to love the holiday spirit, and so I'm working on that this year. I've got my tree all set up. (A real one this year!) I've got my snowman collection out, and the Nativity out on display. I watched "White Christmas" which is my favorite of all Christmas movies.  I've even allowed the Christmas music to be played on my ipod already. That's pretty good for me! There is a sadness there, knowing this will be the first Christmas of many without mom and dad, but I also know that they are having a great holiday together and that they would want me to have the best holiday as well.

Despite all of that, I was being very grouchy and grinch-like about the ward Christmas party I got to be in charge of. It just seemed like things were falling apart. I had planned it for early on in December, (December 1st to be exact) so that it wouldn't get cluttered up with everyone's family parties and traditions. My committee and I decided on a Polar Express themed party, complete with train-arranged tables, 'dinning car' and 'forest' surrounding our train adventure. I threatened to cancel it more than once, in my head and out loud just because I was sick of having to think about it.

In the midst of running around yesterday, I was waiting for some baking to be done and so I checked facebook where I saw a post asking how to get into the Christmas Spirit. This post was from a family member, who's been through just as much this year as the rest of the family, and I could relate to her feelings. The Christmas spirit seems so hard to come by anymore. There were a lot of good

suggestions from her friends on Christmas-spirit giving ideas. Her post was still on my mind as I went to start setting up the church for the party. I had some amazing help from my friends, all of which were boys, helping me with not only setting up tables and chairs, but putting on and smoothing each table cloth and putting the train center pieces out on each table. They were all willing to take time out of their day to help me, for which I was very grateful for, but then something happened.

In the train sets that we had gathered there was one giant "North Pole Express" train set that I decided to have them set up on the stage. Imagine this, four, big, strong men, army men, lacrosse playing men, heavy metal listening men, all putting together this one train set. These four boys turned into the most excited little boys when we pulled the train set out. I just had to step back and watch, unobtrusively trying to get a picture.

In that moment, despite all the running around I had done all day, and how excited I was for the whole thing to be over and done with, I took a step back and saw the Christmas Spirit in action. I wish my blurry snapshots could capture for you the magic of that moment. There was excitement, imagination, cooperation and just plain fun.

I think I learned an important lesson. The Christmas spirit is magic. It has the ability to let each of us take a step back and look at the world around us and see the good that is in it.  It does not make everything perfect, but it can make us grateful for what we have. Yes, the way we celebrate Christmas in the world today makes Christmas about presents and shopping, madness and crazy drivers on snowy roads. And I'm not going to say that's good or bad. It's just Christmas. But when you take a moment to think past what Christmas has become, you'll see that Christmas spirit wrapped all around it.

There is a deeper reason that we celebrate Christmas. We remember what happened in a stable many years ago, and what the birth of a Savior means to us. I don't mean to take away from that reason, or the sacredness of the true meaning of Christmas. So take a moment and stop to think about how you will honor that reason. But I also think that it's okay to get caught up in the fun and the magic of the season too. Set up the trains, dress up in your Santa suit and have some fun. The spirit of Christmas is already there, we just have to look for that magic in the moments where it wraps us up and takes us back to when every Christmas tree looked twenty feet tall and every day felt like an eternity as the presents piled up under the tree. It seemed like Christmas would never come!  

My parents told me, once long ago, that although Santa Claus does not exist as I wanted to believe he did, his spirit is the Christmas magic and we can always believe in that, no matter how old we get. So my challenge for myself, and to you if you want it, is to just Believe. Believe in Christ and the Father that sent him. But also Believe in Santa Clause and the magic of the season.

"At one time, most of my friends could hear the bell but as years passed, it fell silent for all of them. Even Sarah found one Christmas that she could no longer hear its sweet sound. Though I've grown old, the bell still rings for me, as it does for all who truly believe." -The Polar Express, Chris Van Allsburg

Exceedingly Great Faith - Alma 13:3

I had just a few weeks left in my mission when this scripture (Alma 13:3) wormed it's way into my thoughts, my study and probably my teaching as well. If you get a chance to read it, do! It talks about the great war in Heaven before we came here and how the war was won.

It was Brother Carpenter, the father of a family we were really close to, who first asked me the question that made me look at this scripture so differently. The scripture talks about the 'exceedingly great faith' of those who fought on the Lord's side. Brother C. asked me, "What did they have faith in? How can they have exceedingly great faith in God and in Jesus Christ when they were living with them? They were taught by their presence. So, what does it mean in this scripture that they had exceedingly great faith?"

This question made me think. It made me study and research. I wanted to find an answer for Brother Carpenter. In the end, I came up with a few reasons.

This is what I think it meant to have "exceedingly great faith" in the context of those living with God before they came to this early life.

There were two plans presented in Heaven, there was God's Plan, the Plan of Happiness that centered on Christ and his Atonement for all mankind. His plan was also based on our agency, our ability to withstand the trials and temptations of this world and to make the right choices. To repent when we made mistakes and to accept Christ and his gospel in this life.  The other plan was presented by Lucifer, it was a plan that he said would ensure that every single one of God's children would make it back. There would be no agency, there would be no choice. All of God's children had to make a choice right then and there as to which plan they would support. Two-thirds of those children chose God's plan and those two-thirds are here on this earth. Those two-thirds are those who exercised our great faith. But HOW?

There are three things I came up with:

1. We had faith in our Heavenly Father that his plan was the right one for us. We had faith that agency was the only way we could learn and make our own choices-even our own mistakes. We had faith that his proposed plan was the only way that we could become more like Him-which is what we really, really wanted.

2. Once we had faith in the plan, we then had to have faith in Jesus Christ, our older brother. We had to have faith that he would fulfill His earthly mission. He would come to earth, he would be sinless though tempted, he would teach and minister, he would suffer for our sins and all our hardships on earth, he would die for us, and then He would be resurrected so that all of us could one day be resurrected. We had to have exceedingly great Faith that he would be able to do all of that because of his eternal, and unsurpassing love for each of us.  

But again, although there was a war in heaven over this decision, we were there and we saw and were taught the Father's Plan by the Father! We saw, and we knew of Christ's love for each of us! We still exercised our faith and choose the plan, but there is one more thing that we had to have faith in.

3. We had to have exceedingly great faith in OURSELVES. The plan in opposition the plan of happiness said that every person would make it back to live with God. That sounds very easy.

But we had heard the Father's plan, we had faith that he was right. We heard Jesus say he would go and be our Savior, we had faith in him. That final and maybe most hardest part to accept was to accept that we would have to go down to earth, away from our Father, and we would have to make choices, face temptation and trials, and make the right choices that would get us back to God. We had to have faith that we could do it. We had to look inside ourselves and ask if we could do it, if we could make all the right decisions, if we could give our will to the Father so that he could make us into the person that He knows we truly are. We had to exercise 'Exceedingly Great Faith' in ourselves.

But guess what? You did that. I did that. Because you and I are here, I know that we had Faith that we could do it. 

Sometimes, I forget that. Sometimes, life is hard. But then, luckily I'm surrounded by people who remind me that I am a Child of God and that He loves me, and He also has Faith in me. That makes a big difference. Whenever I come to this scripture in my study of the Book of Mormon, I'm reminded of Brother Carpenter and his question, and I'm lucky that he asked it and that it stuck with me. And just when things start to get stormy in life, sometimes Heavenly Father reminds me of this scripture. He did that this past weekend and I'm grateful for his constant love for me.

I know that sometimes I get caught up in everything going on around me, but there is so much more to life and to eternity than what is just right here surrounding you. There is so much more to the Plan of Happiness that we don't understand yet. But it is a plan of Happiness. So if you're not happy right now, remember that you can be and that it will all be okay.