Have you ever noticed that nothing written In Memoriam is ever adequate to the situation? I honestly didn't think I would be composing this tribute for a few more decades, but as the reality of death is that it comes to everyone unexpectedly, I'm now sitting at my computer, trying to compose something in memory of my beloved mother-in-law, Judi.
A week ago, as I was sitting in church preparing to join my small group in leading worship, I got a phone call. My husband was calling from work, telling me that his mother had died. It was unexpected. She was only 51, and while she wasn't in the greatest of health, she had no life-threatening conditions. The family was at Disneyland for a final family vacation before the girls graduated from college. She went to the hospital for what the doctors thought was a minor heart attack. It turned out to be a pulmonary embolism, and then she was gone.
A lot of people complain about having trouble with their inlaws. That was never the case with me. Judi and I were kindred spirits from almost the moment we met. (Jake is wonderful too.) She was an unabashed geek, had read all the books that I had and then some, and had dabbled in every art that I had ever wanted to try (plus a few that I had never thought about). She had a real eye for beauty and a real ability to transfer it to her current medium. She worked in photography, oils and watercolors, fabric art and multi-media sculpture, books and beads, dolls and dairy farming. Her favorite room in the house was the kitchen. Her least favorite was the laundry room. She was a competent, confident woman who always made me welcome, even during my lower periods, and to be perfectly honest, I always felt a little inadaquate stepping into her shoes as the primary woman in Seth's life (a feeling she laughed at). There was so much that I wanted to learn from her, and she was always willing to teach.
It seems too soon. I loved Judi. I was looking forward to decades under her mentorship in the areas we had in common. Whenever I had a sewing question or a cooking question, I would call her first. She was always willing to dispense some experience and share her joy in the things she enjoyed. She called me a "willing victim" because I didn't tire of asking questions that incurred floods of information.
And there were so many people that I wanted to introduce to her at some point in the future. I wanted my friend Theresa to know her. I think Judi could have overcome some barriers. And just this morning, as I was enumerating the wonderful things that she did to a couple of well-wishers, I discovered another kindred spirit for her (she had oodles, especially online) in my pastor's wife. And poor Boogaloo won't get to know her Nana as she should. She probably won't retain many memories of the nice lady who lived in the house by the cows. I know that from experience. I lost both of my grandmothers before I was seven, and my memories are indistinct.
I feel like all of these lost opportunities and regrets should be weighing me down, but I also find that I can't bounce too low. This is where faith comes in. Christians disagree on whether we enter heaven immediately when we die or we sleep until the Lord comes back and judges the quick and the dead, but either way, Judi's next conscious thought upon opening her eyes will be the face of Jesus, the incarnation of perfect Truth and Beauty who entered this often ugly, persistently deceitful world in part to claim her. Judi was a consumate believer, the one who often quelled my fundamentalist worries with the reminder that "God is in control." Her faith penetrated every level of her being, and she had no difficulty lifting up her hands in praise or prayer.
She once told me, "I can't see why all these people get so involved in these fantasy worlds when the real world is so magical as it is." That's a little ironic coming from someone who made fairies for fun, but I take the point. This world and this life are just as magical as anything we can dream up in our heads, and glimpses from the Kingdom of God that is to come are more epic than anything we can imagine. Judi has seen the veil drawn back and stepped onto those wide green shores. Everything that held her back or made her ashamed has been stripped away. Her tears (and there were a few in her life) have been dried, and she now looks on the face of Love. Go with our blessing, Mom. Rest in peace.
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
This might take a while.
When she isn't thinking about Christmas (which is big in her mind right now. I think she's finally figured out that with Christmas comes presents), Boo had discovered pbskids.org. Her current favorite is Dinosaur Train, but Curious George and The Cat in the Hat Know a Lot About That are right up there in the running too.
This week, the Cat built a kite and made it fly with his Huff-Puff-a-Tron. So Boo made herself a kite out of a piece of cardstock and rope, and she's been trying to fly it all weekend. Since there isn't any wind inside, she hung the kite from a hook on the banister and ran up and down the corridor shouting "Whoosh. Kite flying."
She was determined that we were going to take the kite to the park while the wind was blowing, so we bundled up and took the dog for a walk. I couldn't make her understand that the rain would be bad for her cardstock kite, and I wasn't going to try to explain that rope is too heavy. We ran around the park for about ten minutes, dragging her kite through the puddles and over the leaves. Then, when the cardstock was so soggy that the tape that was holding the rope in place wouldn't hold anymore and the cardstock itself was coming apart in soggy bits, I convinced her to go home and build another one. We put it together with cardstock, sticks, tape, and yarn. Then she took it for a test flight.
Sleepy, Aggravated, Downright hungry
I think the Boo and I both have Seasonal Affect Disorder (SAD). SAD is a chemical disorder resulting from a lack of natural light that causes depression-like symptoms in wet wintery climates. Ther seratonin levels in the brain decrease making alertness and happiness more difficult. You'd think after eight years of living on the rainy side of two states, I would be used to living without constant sunshine, but man, this year I've really got it bad. Long, weak sleep schedules, irritability, big appetites, carb cravings. I can't walk through the kitchen without veering toward the cookies on top of the fridge, and last time I made soup, I put away half a fresh loaf of bread with one bowl, all by myself. I'm like a bear packing food away for winter, but the hibernation won't kick in properly.
I kind of expect these things for me. I've got a tempermental nature, and I've always been inclined to slide into a little depression if the situation allows. But the Boo took me by surprise. She's always a bundle of energy. She only takes proper naps when she's sick. However, right about at the beginning of December, she started curling up next to me after lunch and actually sleeping! I thought at first she was entering a growth spurt, but then I noticed other things. Crying more frequently. Craving carbs. She's sitting across from me right now, shoveling away twice the normal number of cheerios than she usually eats for breakfast, and this is her third bowl today. Oh my goodness, I thought. My poor husband is going to have to put up with two of us.
In the rainiest November/December that Portland has seen for a while, I guess I'm not too surprised that we should manifest hitherto unfamiliar symptoms. I just find it annoying that in the first winter that I finally have everything I need to keep me balanced -- my husband home, an anti-depression system in place, the munchin in school and doing well, a convenient side job to stimulate the brain and bring in a little money -- the weather decides to sit down on the scale and throw everything else up in the air again.
The part that annoys me most is the fatigue. There are days when I can barely hold my head up unless I've been eating carbs or doing pushups (exercise helps a lot). I can control the irritability somewhat. I can stop myself after my second piece of toast and say, "It's just a craving. Eat an orange." But when my head bobs over the stove as I'm cooking dinner, I find this whole winter slump business a tad bit problematic. Two days ago, I was so tired that I pulled up to a familiar intersection and momentarily didn't recognize it. I thought I had pulled up to it from the other side. That alarmed me a little. Being that tired is not really conducive to driving safely.
So I did a little research. I learned that you cannot get vitamin D from fruits and vegetables, but you can get it from beef, milk, and mushrooms. I also learned that you can fight SAD with tryptofam and vitaminB12, which are found in beef, turkey, milk, cheese, nuts, mushrooms, and avocados. So we've revamped our diet a bit. I've taken to sprinkling mushrooms and cheese over everything, and three times a week, I try to work in some avocados. They're in season right now.
I also learned that 30 minutes of aerobic exercise can help minimize sleep disturbances and smooth out energy fluctuations. That one is a little harder to adhere to. Munchin doesn't like to run, and I don't like to leave her alone. And I've found, that unlike normal depression, the SAD-fighting effects of exercise don't carry over from day to day. If I should desire to take Sunday off, I will miss the seratonin I could have otherwise been generating.
A friend of mine suggested buying an aerogarden. Check them out. They're kind of cool. They let you grow herbs inside, and the light for growing plants also lifts the seratonin levels. I haven't gotten around to it yet (Christmas crunch and all that) because I'm trying the remedies that don't cost extra money first, but if worst comes to worst, I might just have to break down and buy a bumblebee.
A plus side to having a glitch like this inserted into my system is that it forces me to prioritize, and it also forces me to suck it up sometimes. I've always thought of myself as a motivated person. Now that my motivation has been removed (zonk! right into the spaghetti), I'm learning to say, "I don't care how tired I am. This is important. It needs to get done." I am also learning to say, "This isn't really important. It can sit a while." That's a valuable lesson. It's one I hadn't learned learned through four years of college and eight years of military wifedom.
A third thing I've learned is that I don't need to be alert and active to be happy. (I can hear some of my friends and family saying, "It's about time.") Happiness can be a static thing. It is possible to nod off involuntarily in the easy chair and be exquisitely happy, even if the vacuuming isn't done. The roots of joy are not in sunshine or vitamin D. The faithfulness of God does not vanish because my spirits are low, and the work of the Kingdom at large does not grind to a halt when my energy level bottoms out. Leaning on the faithfulness of God in these little things has made me much happier in the big picture.
I kind of expect these things for me. I've got a tempermental nature, and I've always been inclined to slide into a little depression if the situation allows. But the Boo took me by surprise. She's always a bundle of energy. She only takes proper naps when she's sick. However, right about at the beginning of December, she started curling up next to me after lunch and actually sleeping! I thought at first she was entering a growth spurt, but then I noticed other things. Crying more frequently. Craving carbs. She's sitting across from me right now, shoveling away twice the normal number of cheerios than she usually eats for breakfast, and this is her third bowl today. Oh my goodness, I thought. My poor husband is going to have to put up with two of us.
In the rainiest November/December that Portland has seen for a while, I guess I'm not too surprised that we should manifest hitherto unfamiliar symptoms. I just find it annoying that in the first winter that I finally have everything I need to keep me balanced -- my husband home, an anti-depression system in place, the munchin in school and doing well, a convenient side job to stimulate the brain and bring in a little money -- the weather decides to sit down on the scale and throw everything else up in the air again.
The part that annoys me most is the fatigue. There are days when I can barely hold my head up unless I've been eating carbs or doing pushups (exercise helps a lot). I can control the irritability somewhat. I can stop myself after my second piece of toast and say, "It's just a craving. Eat an orange." But when my head bobs over the stove as I'm cooking dinner, I find this whole winter slump business a tad bit problematic. Two days ago, I was so tired that I pulled up to a familiar intersection and momentarily didn't recognize it. I thought I had pulled up to it from the other side. That alarmed me a little. Being that tired is not really conducive to driving safely.
So I did a little research. I learned that you cannot get vitamin D from fruits and vegetables, but you can get it from beef, milk, and mushrooms. I also learned that you can fight SAD with tryptofam and vitaminB12, which are found in beef, turkey, milk, cheese, nuts, mushrooms, and avocados. So we've revamped our diet a bit. I've taken to sprinkling mushrooms and cheese over everything, and three times a week, I try to work in some avocados. They're in season right now.
I also learned that 30 minutes of aerobic exercise can help minimize sleep disturbances and smooth out energy fluctuations. That one is a little harder to adhere to. Munchin doesn't like to run, and I don't like to leave her alone. And I've found, that unlike normal depression, the SAD-fighting effects of exercise don't carry over from day to day. If I should desire to take Sunday off, I will miss the seratonin I could have otherwise been generating.
A friend of mine suggested buying an aerogarden. Check them out. They're kind of cool. They let you grow herbs inside, and the light for growing plants also lifts the seratonin levels. I haven't gotten around to it yet (Christmas crunch and all that) because I'm trying the remedies that don't cost extra money first, but if worst comes to worst, I might just have to break down and buy a bumblebee.
A plus side to having a glitch like this inserted into my system is that it forces me to prioritize, and it also forces me to suck it up sometimes. I've always thought of myself as a motivated person. Now that my motivation has been removed (zonk! right into the spaghetti), I'm learning to say, "I don't care how tired I am. This is important. It needs to get done." I am also learning to say, "This isn't really important. It can sit a while." That's a valuable lesson. It's one I hadn't learned learned through four years of college and eight years of military wifedom.
A third thing I've learned is that I don't need to be alert and active to be happy. (I can hear some of my friends and family saying, "It's about time.") Happiness can be a static thing. It is possible to nod off involuntarily in the easy chair and be exquisitely happy, even if the vacuuming isn't done. The roots of joy are not in sunshine or vitamin D. The faithfulness of God does not vanish because my spirits are low, and the work of the Kingdom at large does not grind to a halt when my energy level bottoms out. Leaning on the faithfulness of God in these little things has made me much happier in the big picture.
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