Life is Good

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There comes a point in life when one looks at what they truly have. They see beyond the difficulties and hardships of the run-of-the-mill, and they notice—maybe for the first time in a long time—the blessings that their life truly affords. However, sometimes, this awakening takes time to completely appreciate.

Life is good.

Today I saw the sun setting, amid a cloudy evening. The screen of grey hung in the skies above me like a veil, as the light of the setting sun marinated the countryside around me.

It was intoxicatingly amazing.

Life is great.

Tonight I sifted through the blessings I enjoy—the lives that have touched mine over the years for good, and those that I’ve had the opportunity to touch in return. It was somewhat overwhelming.

Life is unbelievable.

I thought of the challenges that my very existence affords me. The challenges that destroyed me from the inside out, and tested my intestinal fortitude beyond the limits I thought I had.

Life is hard.

It brought to mind the difficulties yet to be faced in the future; the changes in life that will undoubtedly come, those small moments that will help define an existence.

Life is cruel.

I thought of these many things that have made me into who I am, those things which are good—as well as bad—that sculpted me, which continually define, and that which will undoubtely recreate me. As I thought of these things, I came to a final realization:

Life is so beautiful.

So it is for all of us, but if only we’ll take the time to see it.

Death of a Tabernacle

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Many of you have undoubtedly heard of the death of a historical landmark here in Provo. I don't wish to reiterate here, other than to say that standing there in the midst of the fray gave me a feeling something akin to being sucker-punched in the stomach. To see a beautiful, old building be consumed by flames is a loss for us all…

I apologize in advance for the graininess of the photos. I didn't bother to take my tripod and shot these at a higher ISO than I normally would have.

November 26, 2009

Pin It My mind is a tumult of thought.

I thought about Mom today; as I did, I found it strange that someone you care about in this life could suddenly be whisked away. Photographs still remain. Videos might be left behind. Recordings of their voice might still be in existence…yet they are no longer with us.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to write about Mom, about how I’ve felt, about the good and the bad moments over the previous months since that fateful day this past summer. A whole lifetime has passed since those heartrending moments, and yet, it feels like it was only as long ago as a whisper shared amongst friends.

Time keeps going on whether or not we’d like it to.

The house was a melee of smells as family members were preparing the food for our Thanksgiving feast; however, I just felt that I needed to get out for a little while—to be alone—to think.

I decided to take out the trash.

I moved outside into the bitter crisp of November as the Thanksgiving wind buffeted me from all sides. In the distance, the pale light of the sun shone through the horizon’s misty clouds. I wanted that sun to bury its warmth deep into the empty and dark places of my soul. I stood, breathing in with lungs capable of still doing so, feeling the oxygen filling me.

I thought of the meal we were about to eat; the meal that she would not be taking a part in. It just seemed so inequitable, so unfair.

I retreated to my basement office to escape everyone and everything. I decided to organize files—as well as the accumulated slices of decades’ worth of living—to take my mind from the pummel of reflection. I settled down and found boxes rising about me in the minefield of disorganization…

Letters, photographs, various knickknacks and paddywhacks; they surrounded me like a vestibule of yesterday.

As I sifted though these fragments of my own life’s history, I felt myself remembering this particular student, that specific moment of childhood—a fragmented memory which had long-since been forgotten and lain dusty and dormant.

It wasn’t long before my dad came into the room.

Against the wall was a collection of artwork Dad had given to me on that last visit home, nestled amongst them were the sticheries, those which Arlene had done while she was still alive. Dad stared silently at each of these pieces in turn and then asked:

“Did you know that she wrote to you on the back of this one?”

I looked up from the papers I’d been sorting through, and shook my head. I arose from my place and moved slowly to where my dad was standing. The stichery was large, proclaiming “Welcome to the Zimmerman’s” proudly from its frame.

I turned the frame with trembling fingers and looked down at the brown paper backing. There, scrawled in curls I immediately recognized, I saw a message written to me. Mom had written it, she’d written sometime before—before the final days and moments that had taken her inescapably away.

I read over the note she’d written, my mouth dropping open. I was devoid of speech for several moments—I simply gazed at the writing before me.

And, just for a moment, she was there. Whispering those things I so much needed to hear, a message spoken from beyond the blistering confines of this thorny life.

When my dad departed from the room, I remained a few moments longer, gazing at the letter written to me.

I smiled.

Photographs still remain. Videos might be left behind. Recordings of voices might still be in existence…and testaments of love will not be forgotten.

The Mark

Pin It A teacher has students which enter the doors of his classroom every year. Every single one of those students leaves an imprint.

For some of them that impression fades slowly over time; like telltale footprints left in the shifting sands of life—

For others, their tracks are made in the proverbial ‘wet cement’ of memory. Small marks are left behind to call attention to those who’ve made a lasting impression; whether that is from responsibility they’ve evidenced…perhaps because of their kindness, or simply it was from their positive attitude which set them apart and made them so memorable.

These are the students which are so hard to see move on.

These are the students you hope that you’ve made your mark on as well.

Let it Be

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The June wind stirred the chimes out on the front porch, its six notes sounding randomly in that sorrowful soundtrack life seems to have been writing this past week. For some of us, this is not the fairy-tale story or that one with the happy ending.

I stumbled into the bathroom this morning and saw the image of a young old man staring back at me from the mirror hanging above the sink. The few grey hairs I’d been noticing lately seem to have multiplied tenfold, and the lines which previously had been weakly etched across my face now seemed to line it like that of a well-used roadmap.

Life was a highway—I was a municipality.

My mother lie in bed, her breaths coming in labored gasps. She took hold of my hand and gazed at me through her one good eye. Every breath she took I was sure was to be her last.

“Bummer,” she croaked from somewhere deep in her throat, attempting a smile in one of her lucid moments—which were rapidly becoming more and more infrequent.

“That’s an understatement,” I replied.

Really, it was.

The grip of her hand tightened around mine. How many hours had I sat here? I’d lost count. The only way I’ve been able to even track the days was by reminding her every time she woke what day it was, what time it is, where she was. She doesn’t ask, but I tell her all the same. If it were me, I’d want to know.

The worst part is that emotion—that dreadful little feeling of helplessness, that deep understanding that there is nothing I can do—I can only be. Doing is the easy part; it’s the being that is the hard thing.

It’s so much easier to run someplace, to buy something, to go on an errand; but to simply be there…that is the hard part. To be there when her eyes open, to see her when she smiles or grimaces, murmurs disembodied thought, and falls back asleep; and through it all, to not have the ability to stay the inevitable.

She asked today, “Am I going to die?”

“We all are,” I responded a few moments later, choking on my sullen reply. “All of us will one day die.”

There have been days now, days when the bitter fount of tears has been emptied and dried. Tears become no longer an option; they become something more of a luxury, like a well run dry in summer’s oppressive heat.

In the quiet of the back room I held her hand, the hot tears stinging my cheeks yet again from sources unknown. She continually faded in and then out of consciousness, her requests slogged and pieced together in a mismatch of jumbled words.

I simply held on to her hand; I could only be…there was no to do.

I found myself becoming angry at God in watching this suffering go on without recourse; I found myself questioning that which I knew—that which I’d always believed. If God really were merciful, he should either heal her, or let her die.

God—I unpremeditatedly decided—was cataclysmically cruel.

I felt a nettling anger surge within me, bitterness directed at heaven itself, at the God who allowed such suffering.

“What is your faith made from?”

I was taken aback at the thought which pervaded my mind—a whispered rivulet.

What? I thought in return.

“This is but a moment of time; if you remember, My son suffered for a moment, too.”

But that’s different, I countered. You’re God.

“Not while he was on the cross…she has you, but My son was left alone—if you remember. Now you have the smallest idea of what it was like for Me when he was helpless, and I could only watch when he was crying out in anguish.”

Then let it be finished. I thought. Let it be finished.

“When it’s time.”

The oxygen machine continued to drone in its rhythmic pattern as I held onto Mom’s hand.

For now, I can only be.

Come what May

Pin It I have not responded to your individual comments; I don’t know as how to respond to be completely honest; just know that I am thankful for them.

I am also grateful for the phone calls which I have not answered, the emails which I have not replied to. For the Facebook messages which I have not ignored and for the text messages which you know that I usually never read. For each of these, I offer up a hearty “Thank you…I’m so glad that I can count you as friends.”

To save time I will reply to the one incessant question which has been universal through most of these forms of correspondence: “Teachinfourth, what happened?”

Please be patient and indulge me just a bit as I answer as I can. I find myself doing what writers do when they are faced with a dilemma…they write about it. It is with this in mind that I put tremulous hand to page—

The steady beat of the windshield wipers scraped away the waves of water as the miles of highway fell away beneath the tires of my Honda CR-V. I hadn’t made this trip in years. The clouds overhead were gray and ominous; they were a good mirror for my thoughts—reflecting back the mood of what I had been feeling.

Wait, let me go back.

It was Saturday. I’d been in St. George when the phone call came

No, I need to go still farther.

18 years.

My parents got divorced.

Yes, that was hard. But that is a whole story in itself which could fill volumes. The life that I’d once known had become fractured into two. I at times wonder about the life that would be now had that dreadful event not come to pass, however I’ll never be privy to that information; what I do know is the life which ensued because it did.

That’s the one I am currently living.

To surmise: both my parents eventually remarried.

My dad married a woman named Arlene. To sum up nearly two decades in just a few sentences: she helped my dad and me to finally have a positive relationship. She always made it a point to make sure that we were all included as family. She cared about my father’s children just as much as if she had given birth to each and every one of them herself.

Is it any surprise that we call her, ‘Mother’?

I have two Moms. Two women I credit with varied parts of my life.

Fast forward sixteen years into the future—July 2007; Arlene was diagnosed with cancer. She was given between one and eight weeks to live.

This was the time I received a ticket for the emotional rollercoaster known as life, which would offer up its myriad of twists and turns over the next several months. I ended up flying home in October, thinking that one of my Moms was going to die.

She surprised everyone.

She began to get better.

She began to respond to treatments.

The cancer spread.

Saturday, June 20, 2009—1:34 P.M: The call came from Sandpoint, Idaho. My dad phoned to let me know that Arlene’s condition had rapidly deteriorated and it was not looking good. She had been admitted to the hospital just a few days before because of various complications which inevitably led back to the cancer. She had requested to come home—she told my dad that this is where she wanted to die.

There were to be no miracles this time; no saving graces where she would baffle the doctors and glean extra years to her lifespan as she had done so many times before.

This time, it was for real.

I was on my way. I bid farewell to the friends I’d been visiting and began the arduous trek to the panhandle of northern Idaho—a seventeen hour drive from my current location.

I ran the gambit of emotion as I drove in the rain nearly the entire distance to Tremonton, arriving at 9:00 P.M. and staying with an old friend so as to get an early start out the next day.

I was up before the sun, fumbling with contact lenses and car keys—slipping out into the early morning light, inking over the distant hills like warm butter. I drove along in silence. My jumbled thoughts were mismatched as town after tiny town nestled securely in and amongst the bosom of rolling hills passed in my wake, their inhabitants still aslumber.

As I drove, I passed from sunny skies to those of rainstorm. I traveled through storm after storm. Like the tempests in my own life, I traveled through he sun, rain and back again as the miles still fell away. From time to time I was in the sunlight, but I could see the dark clouds out on the horizon, and I was moving right toward them.

Bring it on.

Was this to be a metaphor of the events coming to pass in my own life? Leaving blue skies behind and trading them for heavens of ashen gray?

Makeshift crosses on the roadside served as sordid reminders of what was to inevitably come to pass. I winced every time I saw one, and quickly averted my eyes, as if having seen something repulsive.

I drove into the downpour.

Down it came, harder…threatening to dislodge my little vehicle from the road, but still I drove, unimpeded.

On the other side of the storm was a sky which was bluer than the one I’d left behind. It made the storm feel worth it, just to see what lay on the other side.

Joni Mitchell once talked about having seen clouds from both sides. I think I understood—finally—what she was trying to say….a road trip of this nature was the best thing for me at this time. It was just me—me and an iPod full of music and a head jammed full of thoughts and a heart full of emotions needing to be worked through. Like the trash strewn along the highways of my life, someone needed to pick it all up and sort through it.

Me.

So I kept traveling the road, with new sights waiting to be seen with the billboards of my life spelling back their messages in the broad moments of quietness.

This second day’s drive took 11 ½ hours, it was nearly 5:00 P.M. when I pulled into my parent’s suburban neighborhood. As I climbed out of my car I realized that had I flown, so many things would have been missed.

It was with a heavy heart that I cut across the evenly cut grass of the lawn and entered through the back door, silent as a wisp of smoke. The problems of the world were still gathering around me, pushing and shoving; they were mine to be conquered, mine to be vanquished.

But for now, let come what may; after all, there is nothing I can do to stop them.

Raintears

Pin It I don’t know as if you came to my blog today looking for advice. If so, read on. If not, stop now, and click on somebody else’s.

Today’s post is the result of a proverbial ‘conversation’ I had with a friend who was feeling down. One who looked through a window of familiar ‘raintears’ streaking the glass.

I wonder…how often do we look at another person and think that they’re never sad, never have problems, or never worry?

If you’re anything like me, and have such amazing friends, you look at many of them and think that their life is perfect—or nearly so. It’s so easy to become envious of the monopoly they appear to have on the happiness of daily living.

Isn’t it?

I have recently been reminded that we all have problems—we all have struggles—we all have moments when we’re sad. There are even moments when we feel the weight of life pressing down on us, sometimes in a way which produces, genuine, physical pain. It doesn’t matter who we are—nobody is exempt from the pain life can sometimes induce.

There are times in my life, in my ‘adventures and misadventures’ where I reach a state when I just feel down. I hate my life. I almost wish to be someone else.

Have you ever felt that?

Sometimes, when these feelings come, I think that I just need to feel that way. I need these terrible moments to make the good times even more vivid and wonderful when they happen. However, I can’t allow the feelings of despair to consume me, for consume me they will.

I have to keep myself busy.
I need to remember why I’m here.
I need to do things which fill my life with purpose.
I have to create my own ‘holidays’ and celebrations which I can look forward to.
I must listen to songs which bring me up when I’m down.
I have to choose to remember all of the good times I once had, and know that I’m grateful that they were once mine.
I have to write to express what it is I am feeling.

So, do these always work?

Not always.

I had a thought while standing at the brink of Little Grand last week. In fact, I keep reminding myself of the decision I made while standing on the edge, with the winds of change buffeting me from all sides, and my incessant desire to fly: “To enjoy each and every moment, because before you know it, they’ll all be gone.”

I imagine how much I’ll laugh about my life existence when it’s over. How much I’ll put things into perspective. How much I’ll think to myself, “Self…that wasn’t so bad, was it?”

I envision those words when I am feeling down about my weight, about plans which didn’t work out, or when I find myself still struggling with habits.

Do I still feel sad?

Absolutely.

There are times I allow the sadness to take me over, to engulf me, these are the times when I turn my eyes to the heavens and cry a penitent, “Why me?”

Always comes the same reply, “Why not you?”

Touché.

In my life I’ve come to discover that when you're feeling that you're in a proverbial Hades...go through it. In fact, if you don't go through it, Hades is where you will stay.

Why I am I writing all of this? I guess because by writing this to you, I’m writing it to me. This is something I force myself to remember when the times get so bad I don’t want to go any further. I have to. If I let the pain or disappointment of life consume me, nothing will remain but the charred ashes of a worn-out soul.

I hope this helps. If not, simply click on another blog and pretend that you didn’t read this one. If so, I’m glad I was able to help with your own ‘raintears.’