Quivering Voices and Fearful Eyes

The unexpected is always upon us.

My mother is dying.  She refuses to visit the doctors because she is afraid of what they will tell her.  I don't know if ignorance is bliss.  She is not ignorant.  I think she knows deep down that this time is different.  This time the cancer is different.  It is the first time that I have seen my mom afraid.  She tries to hide it.  To protect us from the hurt.  But it will come.  When it does come, it will come with no announcement.  And after it has come, we will look back and wonder in what ways it could have been different had we had a sure knowledge.  In which ways would we have lived differently.

Because my mom avoids confronting the realities of her cancer, we too are permitted to avoid confronting them.  Only postponing the inevitable.  

I often try to imagine the reality of losing my mom prematurely.  I guess the word prematurely is all relative.  Maybe I should say, losing her earlier than expected rather than prematurely.  But, I cannot know how I will feel.  How my dad will feel, my brothers, my sisters.  

Death.  It affects us all differently.

If there is one surety, it is that life goes on.  Life does not wait.  It rolls on.  Death may take our loved ones from us.  Our loved ones may simply change and voluntarily walk out the exit door of our lives.  Where are we left?  The same place as we were before they disappeared from our realm of experience.  We are left with the same responsibilities to fulfill.  In effect of our loss, our feelings may be deeper and more intense than anything we've ever known.  Our feelings may paralyze us and leave us numb.  But all the while, life rolls on.  I imagine it much like a large boulder, slowly with little sound rolling forward, on whatever path it will.

When we want life to remain the same, it changes.  When we want life to change, it remains the same.  So it goes with people too.  

There are an endless number of changes happening continually that we are so much helpless to control.  Our challenge, our test is what we do with ourselves.  How we react.  How we govern ourselves.  We are agents that have the power to act and not to be acted upon.  

We can stop and lie wounded as victims on the wayside, allowing fear, anger, resentment, falsehoods, etc. to settle into our hearts.  Or we can accept the challenge with an awareness of what our true task is.

Death will take my mother earlier than I can prepare myself for.  On Tuesday of this week, my close friend lost her father to cancer.  She immediately flew to Mexico to be with her family.  It is hard for me to comprehend that I will someday soon be wearing a pair of shoes that are very much like the ones she now wears.

Everyday at work I see the distressed spouses of cancer patients.  It is very sobering.  However, it is also a great beauty to see them support their spouse through sickness, giving everything and not even knowing or being reassured that there fight and their efforts will be of any saving effect.  I see the fear in their eyes as sometimes their spouses sit on a very fine line between life and death.  They do all they can to maintain themselves, to maintain their strength, composure, and their courage.  The look in their eye and the quiver in their voice as they sometimes talk effects me the very most.

I know that sometimes that same quiver is in my voice when I speak.  For now, they are fears and emotions that I keep reserved internally.  I expect that one day they will escape in all their fury and glory.  We will see what life is like then.  How it changes for my family.  How it will change for each sibling and how it will be changed for my father.  How will we handle the most significant person in our lives leaving from our realms of experience?

No matter how great the loss.  No matter how true and deep our love be for a person.  If they leave voluntarily.  If they leave involuntarily.  We must continue on.  Knowing that in our life will be placed other people to love.  Maybe we doubt that we will not love them as much as we loved the persons prior.  Or that the love of the persons in the future will be as sweet as those that came before.  Maybe that will be true.  But we take our lot and we make the most of it.

Life will not wait until we are ready for it to take my mother from this earth.  It will happen, we will be unprepared, unready, unhappy, but it will happen.  Life will still expect that we fulfill it's demands.  It will not stop and wait for us to recover before it asks us to continue walking our paths.  It will not ask us if we agree, or if we accept.  It is aloof from our cares.  It will do whatever it wants and we are only players in it's game.

When I was younger, my dad always said, "Learn how to play the game."  Ele tinha razão.

Hues of Grays

Just some free writing.  In its roughest draft.

Strength.  What constitutes strength.  So shallow a meaning to measure it with size and muscle.  Strength to me is resilience, courage, hope.  Courage is not the lack of fear, but the strength to confront and move ahead while facing the fear.  I humbly bow with all of my respect to the man who puts his face to the sunshine while seeing the stormy gray clouds scattered across the skyline.  

Life is hard.  Life includes pain.  He who runs from it or shuns it is weak.  Pain, discomfort, loneliness, to feel without, those are emotions equal to any other.  They are meant to be experienced.  They live, they will breathe and they will die, and other emotions will be born and will have a life span of their own.  The sweetness of life does not lie merely in the laughter, the smiles, the sunsets, the scent of flowers, the touch of a lover.  The sweetness is a recipe of dark shades of gray, brilliant hues of yellows and reds, pin pricks of pain, stomachs of butterflies.  To enjoy, to appreciate, to be humbled with gratitude we must experience the spectrum of experience and emotion.

Strength.  Is to overcome.  Strength is to repent.  Strength is to humble oneself and weep before your maker.  Strength is to give all of oneself until there is nothing left remaining to give.  Strength is to be true.  Strength is to walk blindly but accompanied by faith.

The melody of my life will be what I choose it to be.  Rich in sound created by service, love, dedication, and resilience.  My song will be a strong song.  It will be the most beautiful song, a song that will resonate through the eternities...

Mean Girls

What a fabulous end to a crummy day!  My face hurts from smiling so much.  I couldn't have asked for more.  Heavenly Father surely wants His children to be happy and has handfuls and handfuls of sweet blessings to bestow upon us when we do not seek to avoid our trials, but rather instead seek joy despite them.  Britt, if you read this, you are the reason for my smile.  

Reverting to the events that transpired earlier in the day...

Today I was again surprised, like I am always surprised when I observe how I react to being treated poorly by those that I care about.  I was never a part of the mean girls (I assume that you will know what I'm talking about thanks to the recent film, Mean Girls).  Through the years, I have associated with them, sometimes was even close enough to be considered a friend of mean girls and reciprocated their friendship.  I don't comprehend their meanness.  I don't comprehend the desire to exclude and excel above others.  I don't understand ridicule and how it is fulfilling.  When it all gets down to it, I don't care if the Mean Girls want to create a barrier between themselves and me.  There are two principles that contradict each other.  I love unity.  I seek it.  I live for it.  I am passionate about it.  But on the other hand, there should be a division between the Mean Girls and I shouldn't there?  It seems so.  But then, what about unity and loving and erasing the lines that divide us?  That is ultimately what I long for??  Superficially, I do care, and it does hurt to be treated that way.  And I wonder, why does it affect me so?  

We are warned that as time progresses the opposition to The Church and its members will increase acutely.  So, I should not be surprised when I am who the opposition is against.  I am aware of this.  But... the question is, why does it hurt?  And why do I permit it to affect me?  My knowledge teaches me that I should be prepared for it, expect it, and gird my loins for when it happens.  

But the condition of the human soul?  My personality thrives on human interaction.  There are others who do not thrive as heartily on human interaction.  Regardless, all of us need it in some form or another.  Man was not created to be alone.  The Plan of Salvation was created for the purpose of allowing God's children (presently humans) to be bound and linked together throughout all eternity!  CRAZY!!!  The depth of our inherent need and fulfillment of being linked is far beyond my capacity to comprehend!!!  But I know that I love my neighbor (for the most part) and I want to be close to them.  I know that my soul does not react well when I see disharmony and dividing agents among us. 

Yes, it exists in me sometimes and I am guilty of those same harmful poisons.  I wish I were rid of them.  I think for this reason, I welcome constructive criticisms.  I am aware of my ignorance and my frequently blind eyes.  My desires are good but I am weak, proud, and human.  Sometimes I am the antagonist that I so adamantly  fight against.  And in turn, I harm another's soul.  What damage we do to one another on this earth.  Trying to mold, shape, carve, twist people into being what we think they should be.  We ourselves are already flawed and imperfect.  How do we pretend to create a better version of what they naturally are, than what God, a perfect creator has allowed them to be?  I am afraid that the person standing on the soap box is deaf to her own words all too often.

Which, brings us to REPENTANCE & FORGIVENESS.  Two things we are in constant quest of.  I must forgive those Mean Girls.  I must repent when my actions are maybe not as juvenile but very wrong nonetheless.  Only then can I hope to receive forgiveness from those that I offend.  Without forgiveness there could not exist unity.  Hmmm...  I retract my earlier statement.  There should be no division between the Mean Girls and myself.  I am a hypocrite in various ways which requires repentance.  I am pleased with the destination of my thoughts.  Sweet.  Now I can go to bed.  

aka Samantha Falcon

Don't ask me why I love that alias as much as I do.  Perhaps it is because it was created at a time in my life when I was pushing the limits, living on the "edge," and sneaking around.  haha  If my friends only knew what I considered the edge to be, they would laugh.  But, they of course already know that I am no James Dean, I am no true rebel.

Before I meander down a path that I had not intended on.  I will say that tonight I am doing some experimental writing.  Interested in knowing where my thoughts take me and what they reveal about me and how I have changed in this period of life.

I want to write about me.  About what I like, about what I want.

Mostly, I want to be happy.  Deep down inside I want to be loved, but I don't mind so much not having that kind of love that everyone dreams about just as long as I am able to love others.  We are masters of our own selves and we must allow others to be masters of their own selves as well.  There is no tragedy in that.  It is a privilege to love, to have people to love, and to feel the joy that comes from loving.  So long as I have people to love, I will find a way to be happy.  

I am reminded of a conversation I had with a very good friend a short time ago.  We were hiking in the mountains, autumn leaves, frost on the ground, crisp air in our lungs, everything that makes me love the fall season.  We were speaking of relationships and the necessity to accept yourself as an individual without having to be in a relationship and accepted by a significant other.  

Another conversation I had recently was with my uncle.  We were speaking about dependence and independence in relationships.  It seems today that far too many couples or hopeful couples try to remain independent without truly ever relying on the other.  A successful union requires that each contributor depend upon the other.  

To contrast, my aunt and uncle also talked to me about my uncle's struggle when my aunt decided to go back to school and contribute her own portion to the families income.  My uncle said, it was difficult for him to share that responsibility with his wife, when for so long, it was him who was the provider.  There is a fine balance between allowing someone to fly and maintaining a dependancy upon the other.  

We have to know what we want.  We need to know who we are.  We must be able to accept ourselves as individuals before we can successfully merge with another unique individual.  I think that perhaps people who marry at a young age have an advantage.  They have had less time to live independently and so therefore the merging of two individual lives is somewhat easier and without resistance.  The advantage of marrying at an older age is that one has had time to discover one's self and to know yourself as an individual more intimately than perhaps the younger folks do.  I myself, am glad for the time of preparation that I have been given.  I do not wish to rush in the hopes of accomplishing something sooner rather than later.  I am content with the detours that teach me valuable lessons.  

I would be happy to report to my friend that I walked with in the fall of my progress.  Surely, he would not be surprised.  He has seen firsthand the change that has transpired in my life and in my countenance.  

So in the end, I am happy loving.  I am grateful for my quirks that define me in a variety of ways.  I am happy to be an adult, qualified to make decisions with the help of my Heavenly Father, and continue on steadily and faithfully.  

My life is not as adventuresome as it has been in times past, nor deserves any second alias.  My temperament is certainly more constant.  These last months have been an intense time for character development, refinement, learning, and instruction.  But I am not bored... not as of yet.