Valentine's Day

Sarah and I cleaned our room this last week - part organizational challenge, part therapy - and as I came across the smallest of items, each links my heart directly to my dad. Organizing my bookshelf, I came across something that has been the most poignant discovery of recent. It is a heart-shaped box, originally containing chocolates, but since used to hold my jewelry.

You're probably aware of this, but my dad loved his girls. He treated us - his wife and daughters (as well as the other important women in his life) - as divine daughters of a Heavenly Father, and pampered us accordingly. Every special occasion was exquisitely special. Perhaps one of the most special of all was Valentine's Day. My dad was so good at expressing his love, which I wonder may have stemmed from his own experiences with a father who was not there in his life and who rarely shared such. Accordingly, my dad never held back in showing his love to our family on the holiday that we celebrate love.

No matter where we were in the world (and I mean WHEREVER we were), my dad found a way to send his girls flowers. It's always been one of my favorite traditions! It became particularly meaningful in college, when I was away and yet every year had beautiful flowers arrive with messages of love from my parents.

                      My flowers from my parents, freshman year:

The year I lived in London, my dad called many places trying to get flowers delivered to me with no luck, finally finding a woman who owned a local floral shop who was touched by his plight and agreed to hand-deliver the flowers to my flat.

That heart-shaped box came last year, when my parents sent me the most beautiful bouquet of flowers. Did I mention that I was living in Cambridge, England at the time? (Oh, and by the way, I was suffering from unrequited love in the post I've linked to. You may have noticed). I didn't think that my parents would be able to send my flowers, and it was the most exciting thing to come into my house and find that EXQUISITE bouquet sitting in front of my room.

With his emphasis on sending flowers ever Valentine's Day, my dad taught me that distance did not matter, but love did. It's hard to think that I won't get those flowers from my dad this year, I won't get that reminder of that deep paternal love that means so much to me. But I know that my dad loves me, and his love is shown in different ways now. Rather than in physical elements or material goods, he is showing me love by being an angel and advocate.

And I should mention, as I was working on this, the doorbell rang and my visiting teacher delivered a beautiful bouquet of flowers for our family, and then we received a phone call from some loved ones inviting us to lunch. What a perfect example of an answer to prayer. I know that my dad still lives and still loves his girls.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Despite our sorrow over the loss of Dad's annual expression of love, Sarah and I also know that we have a special, perhaps even sacred, responsibility to represent my dad and express his love to our mom. Before my dad passed away, I think I felt slightly skeptical when people would do things on behalf of a loved one who passed away, because I felt as though it wasn't really an authentic action. I know much better now. I feel this guidance and this duty to do what my dad would have done when it comes to special events, ones that I know my dad would have celebrated, and I find comfort in helping in those situations. So, while Sarah and I may not be getting flowers directly from Papa this year, we know that we can help him pass along his love to my dear mother!

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! I hope it's full of all types of love.

The 5 Stages.

Today, I was reading and came a paragraph about the "five stages of grief". While I am familiar with these stages, as I think most of us are, since my dad has passed away, I haven't thought about them whatsoever. And so, coming across the five stages:

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

I have a difficult time finding myself and my own experiences in them. A term that we've heard a lot, first in the hospital and now in discussion of mourning, is "process". It's part of the process, we're in a process, you have to understand the process. Frankly, I do not want to be in a process and I kind of hate this process.

In terms of this process or the stages of grief, I feel as though instead of experiencing a type of linear progression through the different levels, I am jumping back and forth between the stages rather quickly and experience each element every day. I still want to deny what has happened has happened. I look into my dad's study to think that by some chance, he'll be there. Waves of realization hit me where I cannot even believe that he has passed away. I get so angry that he isn't going to be here when Sarah and I are married and have children or when I think about how wrongly I felt he was treated in the hospital, even though I also realize how richly blessed we were to have my miracle father around for such a substantial part of our lives, when he was told he would not live countless times and yet was physically here for 25 amazing years of my life. But then, even though I wouldn't want him to have to come back and experience pain again, as he is now pain-free, I bargain that if by some miracle, I could have him back for just a little bit longer to talk to him once more because time passed by so quickly and it's already been a month since I've last spoken with him and I need him in my life. I experience the depression - not in a way that you have to worry about me, but in that I lived my life to make my dad proud and I feel as though I cannot imagine a life without my father physically present as a constant companion and support. The acceptance is not in any large means, but instead is composed of small moments when I feel that we are going to make it through and that life will become meaningful again. Those moments are triumphs. But then I bounce back and forth between the stages - from denial to depression, from bargaining to anger to acceptance and back again.

The acceptance is particularly difficult for me to comprehend. The idea that eventually grief can turn to acceptance seems completely impossible and painful to even fathom. But the above-linked article by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler gives me a bit more comfort in the idea that it's not acceptance in the manner of life returning to normal:

"Acceptance is often confused with the notion of being “all right” or “OK” with what has happened. This is not the case. Most people don’t ever feel OK or all right about the loss of a loved one. This stage is about accepting the reality that our loved one is physically gone and recognizing that this new reality is the permanent reality. We will never like this reality or make it OK, but eventually we accept it. We learn to live with it. It is the new norm with which we must learn to live. We must try to live now in a world where our loved one is missing. In resisting this new norm, at first many people want to maintain life as it was before a loved one died. In time, through bits and pieces of acceptance, however, we see that we cannot maintain the past intact. It has been forever changed and we must readjust."

 ~~~~~~~~~~~

Tonight, even as I was thinking about my own grief process (there's that dreadful word again) and the five stages, I suddenly remembered something that brought a smile to my face in the midst of troubled thoughts. My dad always found some way to bring something light or humorous into difficult situations in a manner that always made it possible to cope more effectively, and maybe he was sending me a little reminder of doing that just as my heart was heavy, because I suddenly had pop into my mind one of my favorite scenes from Monk. It's when Adrian Monk is quickly cycling through the stages of grief, in a type of microcosm of the grieving experience, over his psychiatrist's decision to quit his practice. I showed it to my dad about a month and a half ago and we laughed about it together. It somehow makes my thoughts about grief tonight all a bit better, to know that they are somehow tied to a light moment that my dad and I shared recently.


The 5 Stages of Grief from John Duncan on Vimeo.

Peering into the world with all joyous expectation.

This photo perfectly describes what I feel like I learned from my dad - 

inquisitive wonder, joy, and enjoyment of all that life has to offer.

Or, in my father's own words, discussing the death of his dear brother Craig eighteen years ago:

"Those of us left behind should also wait for our time, and not actively seek the world where Craig is now. Craig's greatest wish, as well as others who have passed beyond, is for us to seek out and experience the joy that can be contained in literally every moment of life, if we will but open our eyes and see it."

Dad, thank you for teaching me, in your own words, how to approach both death and life. What I will try to remember in the coming days is what my dad taught me about cherishing life and finding joy. 

Because that is what my dad did, and that is the purpose of life.

 

Overwhelming love - the good kind of overwhelming.

Since my father has passed away, there have been moments when I am going about my day and I suddenly experience a deep, overwhelming knowledge that my father loves me. The latest time this happened was just a few minutes ago, as I was hanging photographs. There is never any particular event that the feeling is attached to or prompted by, it seems - instead, it feels as though it encompasses all. These feelings, when they occur, speak peace to my heart and bring a poignant smile to my face. I know it is my father reminding me, as he did so often, that he loves me and is proud of me.

I am grateful that I never for a second doubted that my father had immense love for me and my sister. I find peace in the fact that in every moment of my life, I have known that my father was proud of me. And I am so thankful that my father is still telling me of his pride and his love in sweet, still times of peace and assurance.

Love, love, love, love, love.

Some things are too meaningful/painful to put into words, such as the last several weeks. Let me just say that I love my father more than I can ever possibly express or describe, and I am so proud of him for graduating with honors to the next life. My dad loved when I talked about him on my blog and that will come, but let me let one of our dear family friends speak for me a bit.

Updates. (Figurative and Literal).

~ We hopefully will find out what is making my father so ill in the next day or two, so we can then get him treatment and help him feel better. A hard thing about the situation for the past two weeks is that when he's been released from the hospital, it's not because he's better, like many would assume, but because they couldn't do anything for him - first, because everyone was gone over Christmas weekend and second, because they were waiting for test results. It's hard to see him so sick. Have I mentioned how much I love this guy?

~ I finished the first drafts of my two NMUN background guide updates. During this process, I remembered (as I always do) how fascinated I am about the world around us and also about the UN. And I'm feeling pretty grand about completing my drafts!

~ I discovered that this song happened to #1 during the week of my birth:



Who knew. Maybe I'll have to dislike it slightly less.

31 December

I cannot believe that it's the end of 2011. This year seemed to pass excessively quickly. It was a wonderful year, and though it ends on feelings of uncertainty and worry, I am hopeful for the next year and look forward to the blessings it will bring!

Speaking about blessings, my blessing for today is the accomplishment of long-held goals. For me, this is the writing of at least one blessing each day for the entire year. I have been looking over some of my blog posts in retrospective, and was amazed to find that there were many days where I listed several blessings that I had found in my day. What I have learned over the course of the past year, in counting my blessings and approaching life through positivity, is that there are so many blessings in our lives. Some we realize; many we do not. However, they all enrich our lives and when we pause to think about them, we can focus more on how our lives are blessed and beautiful despite difficulties. In fact, the difficulties often help us understand our blessings better, if we allow ourselves the proper way of viewing our circumstances. As a wonderful quote says,

"Every day may not be good. But there is something good in every day."

That is one of the conclusions that I came across this past year, as I daily focused on my blessings. And what I also found is that, in retrospect, there are many more of the "good" days in life than we may initially realize.

I also realized, as I have discussed before, how much God loves us and how much He promises us. We are His children. Just as our parents do, He loves us conditionally and wants the best for us. And, He wants us to be happy in life and find joy. That is our purpose during our lives and what we must constantly seek - not fleeting happiness or pleasure, but real, deep happiness and fulfillment. 

I had many amazing experiences this year. A few highlights of some of the most wonderful/important days are as follows (in chronological order, not order of importance):

~ Meeting Prince Charles

~ Celebrating Holi (and pretty much everything I did ever with my Cambridge friends) 

~ Visiting the Netherlands and Belgium

~ Attending the temple for the first time

~ National Model United Nations conference in NYC

~ The Royal Wedding

~ Finishing my dissertation

~ Exploring Poland

~ The once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to travel through Europe with my family

~ Cambridge graduation

Other amazing things that enriched my life included making and building relationships with life-long friends, having the opportunity to visit many domestic and international temples, and spending time with my family.

As the new year approaches, I plan on continuing my blog - writing about my many new adventures in life that will invariably come in the following year, as well as many of the blessings that fill my life. However, just to let you know, one of my big goals for the following year is to write more in my personal journal as another source of recording my life {and a way of recording my deep dark secrets that you haven't seen on the pages of my blog - I'm not about to talk about who I'm crushing on here, after all! :)} This means that I will probably not blog every day, but more likely once or twice a week. But I promise - there will be great experiences and positivity shared in 2012, and I would love for you to continue to share in those with me!

Happy New Year, merry 2012, and as we begin the new year, keep in mind one of my favorite sayings:

And remember to keep on shuffling:

Life is Beautiful:

One more important thing that we can remember in the New Year:

"And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

     And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things."

~ Moroni 10: 4-5

 

27-30 December

A few fantastic things and a few stressful things happened in this amount of time. Let me share the stressful first: Dad is still ill and the doctors don't know why. (And meanwhile, due to complete non-communication on the part of the doctors, an important test that was supposed to happen last week can't happen until next.) But he is home again for New Year's and then my goal for the first part of 2012: figure out what's wrong and help him get better!

Of course in life, the difficult often makes you appreciate the better even more. This week was one that I have been looking forward to for quite some time - several of my friends from BYU and Cambridge returned to the great land of Utah and we were able to get together! Most of my beloved friends are no longer in the area, and so it felt like a feast of friendship. Tuesday brought sushi with Alex (in which we ate much more sushi than I ever thought possible) and then the dynamic visiting combo of Dan and Alex; Wednesday was the amazing experience to dine with Courtney, Dan, Peter, Tim, Alex, Lyndon, Courtney, Ruth, Jeff, and Sam at Old Spaghetti Factory; and Thursday featured a delightful brunch with Amy, Dave, Lyndon, Christine, and Dan. I am kicking myself for not taking more pictures; the only photos I have of these moments are as follows:

 too much sushi should not ever be possible, but after approx. 10 rolls and 20 orders of nigiri, it became so

 brunch at Denny's with some grand people:

Sometimes I wish it was possible to export photographic memories into actual images, because I'll hold on to the memories of those moments as long as I can.

Speaking of memories to remember forever, Friday brought the sealing of my cousin Jessica to her husband and daughter in the Salt Lake City Temple. It was a great blessing to be in the temple for a few hours with our family to worship and to celebrate Jessica and Tavish on such an important day. I am amazed with the blessings that God has prepared for His children. We are truly blessed beyond what we can imagine and should treasure all that we have.

So, there were many blessing for these days, but I'll highlight:

~ the sealing power, referred to in the Bible and now restored on earth to bind families together for eternity
~ the promises and blessings that God bestows upon His children
~ reunions with dear friends
~ OSF (ask Sarah about that one)

Life is Beautiful:

I inscribed this quote:

“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” – St. Augustine

On the Courtney's Christmas present (with the places that we explored together this year):

Because that quote encapsulates my friend Courtney perfectly! It also embodies why we should travel - in order to understand the world and its people far better, thus allowing us to understand ourselves better as well.