Grandparents

I started this on 2/16/2011, when my Grandpa was put on hospice. I wanted to add a picture before publishing, but clearly have never gotten around to scanning any....so here it is 5 months later. As I read through this though, I thought of my trip to Utah last weekend and listening to Grandma "Weez" and how depressed she is. She not only is getting up there in age and is unable to do the things that she once was able to do, which I think would be depressing in and of itself, she also is feeling the loneliness of Grandpa (and me) not being around. It's sad to listen to her. I wish there was more that I could do...

2/16/2011
This whole emotional saga has brought up some sharp memories of the 3 year span between my Grandma Staley passing and when my Grandpa Staley finally passed. Grandma seemed to leave so quickly, I hardly remember her being down and out. But oh do I remember the morning she left us - the first of my Grandparents. Mom came and woke me and Steve up while it was still dark outside, (probably around 5am?) to let us know. I think they waited until the other three woke up on their own before telling them. It was heart-wrenching to watch Grandpa those following months and years though. His pain was emotional - he missed her terribly and wanted nothing but to be "put in his hole next to her". Sadly those are actually the last words I remember him saying to me. I unfortunately was in the middle of nowhere, off the coast of Italy - Sardinia, to be exact - when he passed. Unable to make it back for his funeral or the last week he was around, I was very grateful that I had taken advantage of the afternoon before I left for Italy to spend with him. It was hard being away from my family through that. I was grateful that I was surrounded by my Clog America family that was supportive until I reached my (at-the-time) fiance, who held me up and emotionally supported me until I was able to make it home and have some closure, with family. Closure for Grandpa Staley was difficult for me to find. After talking things over a lot with my dad and uncle, I decided it was best for me to stay in Sardinia and not attempt to make it home for the funeral. As much as I hate funerals, they are good at offering some closure, which I never realized until this situation. I searched for that closure for some time after coming home. I think it came collectively - I watched my dad mourn, we talked, I sat in their lonely house as my mom would clean it out and organize their valuables. Eventually that closure came. I am not sure when or how, but it came and I was at peace. There is a moment mixed into that time period though that I don't share with many, because it is so close to my heart that it still brings tears to my eyes. The day I got home from Italy, we went and dedicated Grandpa's grave. They had waited for me to do that part (usually done at the burial service by those of the LDS faith, but was not done, since Grandpa's funeral was conducted by his Presbyterian Pastor...so Dad did this later on). Afterward, my mom asked me if I wanted to go to their house. I said yes, but I wanted to go alone, with just the two of them. For some reason, I didn't want all the other siblings going. We wandered through the house for a bit and then mom and I got looking through a few things in the kitchen and the back green-house/patio area. After awhile I realized that Dad had been MIA for quite some time. I found him upstairs, in his old bedroom, crying. He came down when he was ready and we went to leave. We hadn't made it halfway out of the driveway before a bit of an argument erupted. Dad wanted to know why mom had put the flower box (yes, the one that was on the side of the house, decaying) in the garbage. After mom had explained herself, Dad got even more upset, "you can't just throw that stuff away - my dad made that, with his own two hands!". Dad lost it. He is such a gentle man, with so much emotion. Watching my dad mourn not just the loss of his father at that moment, but of both of his parents, still brings a tear to my eye today. I dread the day...

I never published this post that I started a few months back (like most of my posts that I started between Jan and June). I want to work on putting them all on my site though and catch things up a bit. So if some of my posts seem a bit out of order or even out of date, that is because they are!

Today was Grandpa's funeral. What an emotional day. I think holding back my emotions for so many weeks caused an even bigger issue for my tear glands today. They couldn't keep it in any longer. My eyes were already so puffy from last night, but then somehow I ended up the one sitting by Grandma during the funeral. Maybe this was a good thing, since she and I have shared a lot over the last year...I know she is comfortable with me and we have a special bond, but it was almost a cruel things to do to one another! Neither one of us could hold it together during the song that the whole family sang, Always (Frank Sinatra). She wasn't supposed to sing it, but she wanted to.

I'll be lovin' you, always

With a love that's true, always

When the things you've planned need a helpin' hand

I will understand always, always

Days may not be fair, always

That's when I'll be there, always

Not for just an hour, not for just a day

Not for just a year, but always

Days may not be fair, always

That's when I'll be there, always

Not for just an hour, not just a day

Not for just one year but always

Always

Always

All the time

Making her grand entrance!

Me and my baby sis

Never a Larsen event without the strings!

WWII Veteran

When the flag was presented to Grandma

Me, Grandma, and my great Aunt Virgie

Larsen kids

Staley family

We color coordinated really well!

He learns from the best of us!

Such a ladies' man!

His funeral was definitely a celebration of his wonderful and exemplary life. It was also a great excuse to be able to have the Larsen family all in one place. I am very close with the cousins my age and it was nice to be able to all be together and share some quality time together. 

Brunch (the morning after the funeral) with a few cousins

To end, another Frank Sinatra song, because I think it is fitting to Grandpa...what a great life he lived! His exit was beautiful - quietly with Shirl and Grandma by his side, but with all of his children and many grandchildren close by within hours before he left us and the home filled with lots of reminiscing of childhood memories of him and lovely music. He was very thankful to everyone and graciously expressed that until he could no longer say anything at all. I am so grateful to have been blessed with such a wonderful person in my life and the opportunity I had to live with him and be with him while he was moving on to the next life! 

And now the end is near

And so I face the final curtain

My friend I'll say it clear

I'll state my case of which I'm certain

I've lived a life that's full

I traveled each and every highway

And more, much more than this

I did it my way

Regrets I've had a few

But then again too few to mention

I did what I had to do

And saw it through without exemption

I planned each charted course

Each careful step along the byway

And more, much more than this

I did it my way

Yes there were times I'm sure you knew

When I bit off more than I could chew

But through it all when there was doubt

I ate it up and spit it out, I faced it all

And I stood tall and did it my way

I've loved, I've laughed and cried

I've had my fill, my share of losing

And now as tears subside

I find it all so amusing

To think I did all that

And may I say not in a shy way

Oh no, oh no, not me

I did it my way

For what is a man what has he got

If not himself then he has not

To say the things he truly feels

And not the words of one who kneels

The record shows I took the blows

And did it my way

Yes it was my way

Love you so much, Grandpa!

Pushing Elephants

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”  Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

I LOVE this quote...I mean absolutely love it! The first thing that instantly came to mind while reading it, was a documentary I saw last summer while I was at the Global Health Conference here in DC. It always blows my mind when I see/hear of someone overcome an unbearable past and then become an advocate for others, in a similar situation. I saw this documentary though and not one person walked out with a dry eye! Incredibly powerful! 

Premise of the movie:

In the late 1990s, Rose Mapendo lost her family and home to the violence that engulfed the Democratic Republic of Congo. She emerged advocating forgiveness and reconciliation. In a country where ethnic violence has created seemingly irreparable rifts among Tutsis, Hutus and other Congolese, this remarkable woman is a vital voice in her beleaguered nation’s search for peace. Now, Rose is confronted with teaching one her most recalcitrant students how to forgive—Nangabire, the daughter who remained behind.

When war came to Rose’s village, she was separated from her five-year-old daughter, Nangabire. Rose managed to escape with nine of her ten children and was eventually resettled in Phoenix, Arizona. Over a decade later, mother and daughter are reunited in the US where they must face the past and build a new future.

Rose struggles to find balance in her life as a mother of ten and a full-time advocate for refugees. She is the co-founder for Mapendo New Horizons, a humanitarian organization named in Rose’s honor that protects and cares for forgotten refugees. Her speaking engagements have her traveling around the world from the White House to the UNHCR in Geneva to peace talks in Goma, Congo.

Meanwhile Nangabire, now seventeen, must adapt to America and discover how she fits into the sprawling Mapendo family. As mother and daughter get to know one another, they must come to terms with a painful past, and define what it means to be a survivor, a woman, a refugee and an American.

Through this intimate family portrait unfolding against the wider drama of war, we will explore the long-term and often hidden effects of war on women and families, particularly those in traditional societies—financial despair, increased susceptibility to rape, and social ostracism. Pushing The Elephant will capture one of the most important stories of our age, a time when genocidal violence is challenged by the moral fortitude and grace of one woman’s mission for peace.

FGM

FGM.

There will be no heroes here
No gods, though the stench of sweat
And the drip of blood
Will hint at creation

How long
O flesh
O knife
O muffled screams
How long will you taint the air of our lands
With your echoes?

There will be no transgressions here
Only girls
Trapped forever at the cusp of womanhood
Sliced up and stitched back together
To cut the sins out and keep the virtue in

Where are the heroes
While our daughters are being circumcised
And I will judge, though
Circumstance gave birth to me in the audience and not onstage
Though I have never seen the tip of the knife
The eclipse of a neighbor’s face blocking the sun

But how long
O sky
O land
O grim-faced mothers
How long can you watch without seeing

The battered virgins decorated in tattered skins
Scabs and stitches to keep out the sins
When even a mother’s embrace is not tighter
Than the embroidery on her
Pretty
Pure
Painless daughter
When does this go too far?

There will be no heroes here
With their t-shirts and their picket signs
This will be no fashionable cause
Because these are the wars that lie hidden under skirts

No poverty pornography
Of big-eyed babies posing beneath their coating of flies
These are the scars of a society
That the documentary crews
Do not have the stomach for;
There are no gods here

Though every outsider’s view is judgement day
I’m going to judge today though I
Have no bruises on my thighs
No suspicious mother listening at the bathroom door
Because the volume of her daughter’s urine
Was testament to her innocence:
If she could only manage a quiet trickle
She was still stitched up tightly

And if she wasn’t,
If she wasn’t, o honor
O stones
O broken face
If she wasn’t, her father would find
The power to crush her life to liquid
Encased in a bruised sack of skin

The newscasters
Will call it an honor killing,
Disdain for “those people” crumpling their features
As the cameras pan with a zoologist’s fascination
Speaking as one would of another species
About those barbarians and their bloodlust

Or was it an act of love by father and brother
When stones smashed into tainted skin to
Release the soul from its dirtied casing
Gazing tearlessly at the husk of what was once their baby girl

Before her thighs were taught to mash so tightly together
That bruises bloomed on the insides
Before scarlet letters spilled monthly from a joyless womb
A loveless girl
Soaked crimson in her own sin
Punished preemptively for the hips and breasts
Soon to come
Of which her twelve-year-old frame already hints
For the way she will soon make monsters of men
Revenge will paint itself
As ritual
Carving the joy out of creation
Into a tradition of loveless wombs
Of mothers who find no pleasure
In the creation of their child

And so,
There will be no lovemaking
No making of children born from joyful unions
Only manufacturing
Of loveless generations
No creation
So, no-
There are no gods
Here
-Safia

This poetry was recited (and gave me chills) at an event I attended not long ago on refugee health. This touches a topic many know little about or  chose to ignore.

An estimated 100 to 140 million girls and women worldwide are currently living with the consequences of female genital cutting, also called female circumcision. Female genital cutting includes several different forms of cutting practiced for hundreds of years. Infibulation, the most severe, involves cutting some or all of the external genitalia, leaving only a very small opening for urination and menstruation.

The procedure can also cause serious health and social problems that follow a woman her whole life. The health complications from infibulation can include chronic and severe pain, infection, prolonged and difficult labor and difficulties with menstruation. Psychologically, cutting can cause tension between couples due to painful or difficult sexual relations. Socially, cutting makes it harder for girls to go to school or earn income by making them more likely to marry early.

Every year, in communities around the world, as many as 3 million girls are at risk of this painful procedure despite its many risks. We must do all we can to encourage the governments in the communities where female genital cutting most often occurs to put a stop to it.

The practice of female genital cutting is hard to talk about. It is part of deeply-held religious and cultural beliefs in communities that practice it. But it also is recognized internationally as a violation of the human rights of girls and women. But ignoring it only guarantees more suffering, and leadership from the United States would go a long way in urging the countries where FGC occurs to end this human rights abuse.

Time and Reason

Everything changes; it's exciting; lovely; such an alluring part of life. Everything happens for some reason. Everything will work out; it will be such a beautiful ending to an adventurous tale.

When things feel awful it's hard to see the outcome. It's hard to stay positive; stretch our limbs to the sky each day. People leave, we leave; it's always hard because you think: why didn't they love me? what did I do wrong? do they care? what about me? You let those questions, each question, hollow you out a little more until your body is the heaviest hollow there could be. You can feel the question, each question, ache in different parts. Why didn't they love me, how could they love someone more? It aches in your belly, keeps you from eating. What did I do wrong? Your constant retelling of every moment spent together, analyzing, it aches your whole skull. Do they care? The thought that they don't care, that they don't think about your needs or worries or wants, well that aches in all the limbs. These aches make us weak, they keep us in bed fearing sleep. They keep us from telephones, from computers, from friends...because, 'why did they leave, why did they leave ME?'

We are self centered by nature. People exist in our lives because they are menat to. Each person, lovely or awful. They exist for exactly the amount of time they should. They teach us things. Little things, extraordinary things about ourselves, our lives, the everything around us. That doesn't make it easier to say goodbye. It doesn't make it easier to think that they have finished their task, made you stronger; we must be strong...we must be strong. You exist and that is extraordinary.

I saw this on a random blog that I follow, awhile back. I recently came across it again and got thinking about how applicable this has been to my life, in a variety of circumstances. Of course, the big one that comes to mind, thinking back three years ago - this was me. I was a wreck. Every last part of me was a disaster, working through pieces of my life, "post-Owen; post-engagement". I was in the middle of an intense semester at grad school - couldn't think, couldn't sleep, couldn't eat (yes, it was the best diet plan I've ever had...so much to the point, I had doctors at work asking if I was sick or if I was okay). I was so unhappy and basked in that sorrow and pity and pain. Thinking back now, I pity myself; I feel sorry for that girl I think about. It's so important to keep the advice given above in perspective - there is a time and a reason for everything; each person that walks into your life is there for a purpose - it is okay to eventually say goodbye, despite how difficult it may be. A friend asked me night before last if this situation, for lack of better words, still bothered me or if I was still in love with Owen. After putting some thought in to my answer, I think for the first time in the past three years, I was able to admit how much I cared for Owen and how I honestly hope he is happy and wish him the best, despite any wrong doing. While I am not in love with him anymore, he, like any person you deeply care for at one point or another during your lifetime, will always have a special place in my heart.

I sat watching the fireflies last night...love them!

I believe in fairytales

And dreamer's dreams like bed sheet sails

And I believe in Peter Pan and miracles

And anything I can to get by and fireflies

In honor of the late Bob Marley, who passed away 30 years ago (yesterday)

"Continuity gives us roots; change gives us branches, letting us stretch and grow and reach new heights." 

Pauline R. Kezer

Emotions of change...

I am terrible at updating this lately! For those of you that did not know, one month ago I accepted a job offer as a Global Health Specialist with APHL (The Association of Public Health Labs). I have been very excited to get back into the global realm of public health, after working for PAHO. Thursday was my first day and thus far it's been great! I really miss the girls at UDOH (aka the "Beaver Dam") and teaching sex ed and risk reduction type of stuff, but I am excited for what is ahead of me!

That being said, what an emotional couple of weeks! I never thought leaving Utah would be so emotional for me. I have found myself breaking down in tears left and right for the past 3 weeks! For the longest time, majority of the reason I wanted to leave was because I didn't have any really close friends that were single, which meant I rarely had anyone to go out with. I've always had a group of close friends, but they have been spread out, living elsewhere, or have been in serious relationships. Within the last month or so, about the same time I was offered a job in DC, all of my friends have moved out of their boyfriends' places and my other close friend moved back to Utah. I have also reconnected with a few old friends and met a lot of new, great people lately. I know most of these friends, especially my girlfriends, will always be around and will always be there for me, but it has still made for a very difficult and lonely move! Thankfully to my best friend, I am very mobile right now, with my flight benefits, and can always make a quick trip back to Utah to visit...which I plan to do on a variety of occasions throughout the summer!

Tonight one of my best friends (who I met in grad school) called, out of the blue...it was a little bit after midnight my time, but was my saving grace for the night, right as I was feeling a bit down. I stayed in tonight and was feeling lonely and bad that I wasn't out and about, prowling around town with my best girlfriends. How she always knows the perfect time to reach out to me, I'll never know...but I love that girl and am so glad that she will always be in my life! Can't wait to make monthly visits to St Louis to visit you, Miss Scarlett!

The other really hard part about leaving Utah was leaving Grandma! The night before I left, we just hung out in her bedroom, talking and crying. It was hard to leave her, knowing how lonely she's been feeling lately. I think springtime has been hard for her, with the nice weather and not having Grandpa to sit in the yard with. I look out the window occasionally and see her sitting by herself in the front yard. It breaks my heart and I wish I could do more for her. She told me before I left, how much I will be missed; we've been through a lot together the past 2 years - her ER visit, her surgery and recovery, Grandpa's illness and passing...lots of raw emotions. She has really appreciated having someone in the house, even though we don't always spend the time together when we are both there, but it's been nice for her to feel less lonely and like the house isn't as empty. It made me feel bad I was leaving.

Onward and upward though, right?! Ugh...how can something that is supposed to be so great leave me feeling so blue :(

Don't believe the things you tell yourself so late at night

You are your own worst enemy, you'll never win the fight

Just hold on to me, I'll hold onto you

It's you and me up against the world, it's you and me

-Ingrid Michaelson