Ice Cream for Lunch

I was 13 and my baby brother was 9.  Although Dad would pridefully take us on his rental property to turn donuts ourselves in the El Ranchero, we weren't legally allowed to drive.  So on anniversaries or holidays, or days he was just thinking about her, we would slide into the bench seat half car/half truck, moldy carpet smelling, ripped seat and if you're not careful ripped thigh, beat up but beefed up motored monster and head to see Mom's mausoleum stone.

We would stay a few minutes, awkwardly in silence.  Us kids staring for a minute before looking around at other things, as if we were bored, but really we just didn't know how else to break the silence in our own thoughts.  Sometimes, Dad's halitosis breath would bark, "Okay, let's go," and on to Grandma and Grandpa Kilponen's headstone, but not before a brief walk passed our middle brother Christopher's headstone.  It was a family reunion of sorts, I suppose. But sometimes it was his alcoholic weeping that would make it even that much more awkward.  His cries of, "Hee, heeee. HEEEEE," made me both want to cry and hit him all at the same time.  His alcoholic breath--yes, he drove that day too.

Inevitability, invariably, barks or weeps, after the cemetery we hit the Thrifty's across the street before driving home, or off to our Grandparents' to work in the yard at the old house that he never sold.  If you're not familiar with Thrifty's, it was just your early 1990's drug store with the most fabulous ice cream counter. Fabulous on all my 13 year old accounts.  It was the only place in the whole entire world that you cold get chocolate malted crunch ice cream.  Even today, that is still my favourite flavour!

It's kind of a miracle actually, that we would be treated to this.  After all, one of my most significant memories of my dad was that he bought me a bottle of water after the Cherry Festival he took us to on my 18th birthday (in early June in California when it was already HOT outside).  That was like gifts from my birthday, Christmas, and Easter from the last 5 years all rolled into one.  Okay, that was literally what it was. Dad gave us money on our birthday and on Christmas.  No gifts, no wrapping, no fuss. Sometimes his horses had done well and we'd wake up to a pile of money under our congealed oatmeal for no special reason. But then sometimes we weren't allowed to go to the movies, and we certainly didn't have cable most of the time, just because.  He had his reasons.  After mom passed away, we grew up very restricted compared to what she had made us accustomed to.  I suppose it ungrateful to scoff at no presents and a gift of $100 twice a year when others don't even get that. But that's where my 13-18 year old mind sat when he lived and she didn't.

I digress...

So this ice cream after the cemetery was a huge boost to the spirit!  I got a double scoop, chocolate malted crunch on the bottom, pistachio nut on the top.  Sometimes a strawberry cheesecake would switch out with the pistachio, but those were the goods.

I talk about this because ice cream has become a form of comfort for me, especially in times of death. Each time in my adult life upon revisiting my mom, Dad, Christopher, my grandparents, I drag Andrew across the street to what-is-it-called now? Savon? Walgreens? I don't live there.  Next visit it could change.  And I plan to drag the girls there too, actually Abby has already traveled her maiden voyage.

But this is what brings me here today.  Our family has been sick all week with the worst norovirus/stomach flu you can imagine.  The bathroom didn't see us as much as the trashcan on the couch did.  We didn't eat for days.  Nothing would settle.  Nothing felt good.
And then my sweet, amazing Grandma finally took her last breath yesterday.

So when my innocent, learning the art of manipulation, sweet little 3 year old asks me if we can have ice cream for lunch--after a week of not eating, and the days leading up to my emotional state today having wrecked my need to be perfect collide in reality--I say yes.

Because no matter what life has given in the past, life is too short not to forgive others, forgive yourself, and not let yourself say yes to ridiculousness once in awhile.

Ice cream for lunch?--yes.

And as much as Dad didn't give me, or even took away from me, he still gave me lessons.  He still helped shape my heart in the way that I've learned needs to be reshaped.  You see these girls today, how could having gone through that not have been a good thing? We are all here to live and learn, and how do we do that?  With a spirit of love in our hearts.

Flowers on Her Table

My grandmother didn't adopt my mother until she was 40 years old. She was able to conceive my aunt 9 years before that, but a biological second child was not in the cards for my grandparents.

In the 1940's, my grandmother had only 2 children, and my mother blessed them with a completed family after my grandmother was 40 years old. Sounds an awful lot like 2014. My grandmother has always been ahead of her time.

She was a nurse. My grandfather, a pediatrician. They worked together around the world while my grandfather was stationed in Germany during the war, eventually settling for a time in LaJolla, California and remaining in Southern California.

My grandfather suddenly passed from a heart attack at age 55. My grandmother never remarried. She threw her life into volunteer nursing, heading every important auxiliary board and social committee that existed around her. Around 90 years old, she gave a speech for the new auxiliary president comparing nursing of the past and the present. She interviewed me for material on current student nursing, as I followed in her footsteps and studied nursing myself. Our blood may not have matching DNA, but our hearts beat to the same rhythm.

As a nurse she witnessed health and illness, life and death. An independent woman of her time, not wanting to be a burden on anyone, she made the decision to stop driving at 80 years old, and admitted herself into an assisted care facility soon after. She would take care of herself.

Once she was settled, I remember our countless conversations over a cold drink, cheese, crackers, sour cream herring, and See's candy, how she was ready to go, and she wished for a quick stroke in the middle of the night while sleeping.

And every year after that, she knew it would be her last. "I don't have much time," she'd say.

I eventually moved from California to Alberta. My visits with Grammy now included extra visitors, my husband and eventually our first little girl, and were shortened from bi-weekly half days to a couple of hours, once a year. No longer would I take her to the bank, go grocery shopping, or accompany her on her everyday walks around the blocks with her beloved Cindy-dog, who had the worst garbage breath. Grandma would take with us a paper bag and a metal shovel, with a proud little grin as I made disgusting face at her, trying not to laugh. We'd go to the cutting garden and pick flowers for her card table. I loved to pick the fluorescent pink roses that glowed orange near the stem. They were the prettiest and needed to be on Grandma's table.

No longer did I cut flowers, but quickly drove by the garden to show Andrew where I did that once, before we left to fit in whatever else we could in our visit before returning home.

On the visit she met Abby, I cried. I ugly cried so hard when we said goodbye. Grandma cried. I hardly ever saw her cry. I saw her cry when they buried my mother. I saw her cry when I begged her to go see Mom's mausoleum stone because I thought she wanted to go and was just being independent and strong like she always was. The fact is, she told me after that she didn't want her to remember my mom like that. So I hope she understands why I'm not visiting this weekend, or why I haven't phoned her in over 10 months.

I cried because I was sure that was goodbye for good.

See, Grandma hasn't died quickly and peacefully from a quiet stoke in the night. Her strong, brave, well loved (she was the one who knew everyone, everywhere, and they always had a nice story to tell me about her) heart keeps going. On and on. Next week, she will turn the calendar for the 106th time.

And then when I was pregnant with Penny, I met my new grandma. This grandma loved me just the same. She had the same stories she grew up with. But this time, she asked the same questions of me, over and over again. She was repeatedly both surprised and pleased that I was carrying another great grand-baby. She said goodbye 20 times in 20 minutes, and begged for me to stay just 5 minutes more, begged me the entire 20 minutes because she had forgotten she said she wanted another 5 minutes. This grandma told me how she loved going on walks, and taking me to the movies, 8 times during our 20 minute goodbye. This grandma wasn't forgetting us. This grandma was remembering us, but she was giving information of the past, not remembering our present. Life was no longer living. Life was done being lived and was now stuck on repeat before skipping to the end. This was surely the goodbye.

But then she kept breathing.

So I called her on her birthday last year when Penny was 4 months old. I couldn't wait to tell her how the day-to-day as a mother with two beautiful children was the happiest I'd ever been in my life. I couldn't tell her. I couldn't say anything because she couldn't hear me.

I hung up on her mid-sentence.

She was handed the phone, left on her own, and then she couldn't hear me. Everything I said, she asked what I was saying. I couldn't communicate to her that we should hang up. So I hung up. That was the last time I spoke with her.

Heartbroken. That grandma is gone.

Periodically my aunt updates me with her declining health status.

I haven't spoken with her in 10 months. My aunt hasn't emailed in about 4 months.

Last week I got a strong impression that I needed to go to the temple. I thought of my Grandma. When I was finally there last night, I wrote my sweet grandmother's name on the prayer roll. I prayed to Heavenly Father to please give my grandmother peace. Please bless her with comfort. Please, please, please give this woman what she wants. She's given her life in service and volunteer work, a faithful member of her Congregational Church, a loving, mothering, beautiful woman who deserves rest.

And the flowers that I had sent for her birthday--pink azaleas, her favourite--from her local florist, arrived this morning...curiously one week earlier than I scheduled them to.

And this morning, as per my aunt's email, she refused her medication, food, and water.

I can't help but think that through my faithfulness to attend the temple, and to do God's work, I was able to serve her, like she's always served everyone else, with a strong side of educating them to help themselves!

I was able to ask for her peace when she cannot.

I was able to put flowers on her table for the last time.

What it means for me when I'm up starting a brand new blog at 1:18 in the morning

I decided that I needed to update my wardrobe tonight.

That decision came to me at 8 pm and by 9 pm I had ordered over two hundred dollars worth of clothes online. Once I did that, I started thinking about how not stable that decision was, for me. Did these wonderful flooding of ideas start after almost fully recovered from my tonsillectomy nearly 2 weeks ago when I started working again? Am I just excited for this promotion that I'm working on? Perhaps I just thought since I'm ordering so much bling for my home business, that I needed proper clothes to match and this was a fair and logical step.

I am in the fashion industry, after all, and this 300+ pound model (Disclaimer: let me be clear that the term "model" is used with heavy sarcasm) isn't winning awards by wearing holy yoga pants and a dingy, almost stained long sleeve shirt.  I mean, the jewelry that I sell from my amazing parent company, Park Lane, is arguably gorgeous.  It can quite miraculously transform this average looking, mature (in age) mama of 2 littles under 3 years into a put together, decent looking mother of 2 beautiful young daughters. So it makes sense that I need some clothes to match my product if I think that I want to present it as well as it deserves.

So two hundred dollars down, I am immediately aware of my decision.  I allow my thoughts to permeate.  I reflect on the fact that this is a good step in my business, but a wary step in my life.  It's not that hubs and I cannot afford the two hundred dollars, it's what the two hundred dollars represents.

Impulse spending.

Then on my way to sleep for the first time tonight, I type up a title for a convo Facebook message to friends: "Hot Thursday Mornings," referring to our sweaty dates at the gym.  Ahhh, what a deliciously fetching blog name! I should start up a blog!  And at 1:18 in the morning, Hot Thursday Mornings was born.

Impulsive decision making.

Racing thoughts.

Earlier in the evening on my way through Facebook before punching off the phone for the night, for good, a friend had commented on her own status how she feels inadequate to receive compliments. I do not blame her.  We have all felt less than deserving, however, we ARE all deserving of love and acknowledgment of our own awesomeness, and I'm quick to offer my own status in response: 

"Let me tell you that if you receive a compliment, receive it like any other gift. 

'(Gasp!) Thank you so much!'

Of course you deserve it. You gift people that you love, right? Some part of them loves some part of you. 

How lovely is that? <3"

This friend proceeded to share my status, commenting, "Wise words."  (Stay with me here. This boast serves a purpose.) Okay, only a few times have my thoughts ever been raised up to celebrity status.  I'm feeling great at this point--an exaggerated sense of my own importance.

I'm a flipping genius and I will write a best seller.

And each time I think I'm going to write a best seller, my dreams come crashing down.  My therapist once shook her head at me, with a little smirk, "So you know what happens now when you're at risk for becoming hypomanic."

Little known fact about me, I have bipolar 2 disorder.  If anyone knows about bipolar, or thinks they know about it, I'm not the kind that people think of when they think of the Hollywood definition of mania.  I hardly ever give myself a Britney Spears shave and start hitting cars with umbrellas. Mine is more mellow--hypomania to use the correct term.  I have had bouts of debilitating major depression, and continue to have swings of intense, on-top-of-the-world creativity scattered around, typically, seasonal lows. I have been in over a year long weekly treatment of psychodynamic therapy before and during my entire second pregnancy. Proponents of medication may scoff at me for declining medicinal therapy.  As I stated earlier, my highs are quite tame and do not, for the most part, interfere with my daily life.  I have learned how to manage them through sleep hygiene (as I'm ironically dirty awake right now), and reflecting on spending (ahem) and decision making; self affirmation, prayer, quiet time, self enforced happy activity making during my lows. I'm okay.  My family is okay.  I am, however, not beyond getting help if needed.  I have practiced over and over, and make it a mission to be self-aware.  I just have a little disruption a few times a year, and it's all just about me, aside from an unpleasant swing of mood as a moldy cherry on the melted ice cream.  Honest.  If there ever comes a time that my family tells me otherwise, I'm going to revisit prescriptions. I am truthfully reflective and self-aware (thank you nursing education!).

Close friends don't even know this about me.  I'm assuming now they do if their reading comprehension is up to date. That's okay.  Hopefully it sheds light on my mood swings--how one day maybe I'm too closed off, and the next we're having a party in 2 days.  Funny that: an introvert wanting to go outside and play with friends! It does happen.  The point is, this is what it means for me when I'm up starting a brand new blog at 1:18 in the morning: 

High energy, goal-directed activity.

I am forcing myself to go to sleep after I post into the internets.  This thought process has brought me to 2:30 am.

Restlessness and difficulty relaxing.

We have play dates, and dishes, and laundry, and office making tomorrow, along with all the other beautiful living that comes along breathing in day to day life.  I hope to not speak too much of my disorder, maybe even never again, as it's just a tiny part of me. But it's the tiny part of me that started up this blog and was worth an explanation. The goal of this whole slapping the keyboard really is to spread joy. I'm on a personal mission to live a good life and make up for all the not so good life that has been lived. Small regrets encapsulated in huge opportunities for growth. Keeping an optimistic heart open to the world. Serving.  Loving. Throwing in some creative outlet for good measure.

I hope you enjoy!

-Erica 

P.S. Too many thoughts and too much energy aside, time is still a constant and a few hours of sleep is required. 2:55 am.  Eventually I'll be making this blog a little prettier on the eyes. Please forgive the lackluster viewing.