It started with a life, manifested in a death.

I can't believe it has been four years since my grandpa died.  I wanted to share a part of my journal that sums up what July 19 means to me now and forever.  Maybe, it was mostly important for me to type it out and revisit each word.  It isn't even really about my grandpa dying.  It is just to mark and celebrate 4 years of post experience learning.

I still remember being in Italy and debating when it was time to go home and say goodbye to him.  I woke up one day knowing.  I went home and remembered the promise I had made to myself when I spent hours with a 99 year old woman named Helen.  I told myself if I ever got the chance, I would take care of my grandparents in this same way.  I got to take care of him for a few weeks; about 1 1/2 months.  One promise usually leads to another.

July 19, 2012
Exactly one year ago today, at 7:30 p.m. LaVerle M. Bingham died in his home, in his bed.  He died the way he probably dreamed of dying, surrounded by family with all of his living children present.  I saw him die.  The air was still in the last few moments of his life.  It was quiet.  we all listened to his gasps that began after my grandmother had whispered at his bedside, "I will be all right."  After weeks of taking care of him, I watched him let out one final breath, and with it his spirit.  I looked at the frame of him.  Curled in the fetal position and on his side, he laid in his final resting form.  His mouth was open with his jaw slackened crookedly.  It was a Tuesday.  

That was a moment that changed my life.  As I contemplated it over the next hours I came to understand that it was the greatest lesson my grandpa could teach me.  His lesson, taught by his life and presented by his death was that all the blessings of the heavens and the earth were actually attainable.  I know this because I believe he succeeded in attaining them.  He was a simple farmer, a social butterfly, a father.  HE watched movies and got grumpy.  He has some of the worst penmanship I had ever seen.  He was an average guy.  But I believe now he is becoming a god.  This event that caused me to understand is now one of the most significant in my life.  

Today is a Thursday.  Today I went through the Twin Falls temple to become endowed with power from on high.  I wear the symbolic garment of the priesthood as I will do for the remainder of my life.  The beauty of ancient rituals, symbols, covenants, and truths alleviate my need to understand them today.  It was an eternally important day for me.  I chose the day my grandpa died because I wanted to sanctify the day he taught me the greatest lesson.  I didn't want to remember his passing with sorrow, for it was one of the most spiritual experiences of my life.  It seems so natural to me to celebrate that in the temple.  

Love,
Megan 

Fraudulent Memories--but oh so happy

I had this idea that the whole world would share their favorite memory of Lindsey.  Then I thought, what is mine?  Then I was like, "Don't we always talk about the same old memories even though they remain funny forever?"  Then I thought, "What I really wish is that we had tons of new memories."  Then I got sad, but then I thought, "I basically assume she is here all the time anyways."  So then I thought, "I should just make up a bunch of fake memories to celebrate because they probably happened in some alternate universe anyways."  Did you love hearing that entire thought process???

So here we go.  A trip down fake memory lane.   


Do you remember that one time with the canoes?  There we were canoeing around the river bend with peaceful strokes when suddenly we heard a cry for help.  we looked around and OH MY GOSH!!! It just so happened to be Lindsey, Rosie, Trevor, and Smiley stranded on a log!  I was like "HEY YOOOOOOOUUUUU GUUUUUUYYYYYYSSS!"  And you said, "Megan Megan, this ain't the kind of place you go to the bathroom in.  Dead things MEGAN DEAD THINGS."  Phew.  Good thing we saved you guys.  That was a good time.  I don't even know how you came to be stranded in Utah.

Then there was that other time that I ALMOST pushed you off of a cliff when Schmoopy kisses got OUT OF HAND.  

Then there was that time when we all had that party at the Randall's cabin.  Everyone was way cool and chill until a pigmy version of Trevor dressed as a zombie and tried to go all Walking Dead on us.  At which point Lindsey rolled her eyes and got all introverted and went to write that hit song "Alone In My Principles"  

Basically, Happy Birthday.  I always wish you were here because it would make my group of friends that much more amazing.  Love you too much.  #istillwantyoursongtabs  & #irecognizethisasmydudyearbutidon'tfeelbadbecauseiwarnedyoulastyearthatthismighthappen

Chatter

Ruth is my new roommate.  Ruth loves to eat tomatoes with a little bit of sugar.  She and I share a love of scarves, although she wears hers with greater poise than I do.  All of Ruth's possessions are carefully crafted and were thoughtfully chosen.  The plates are Swedish.  The jewelry box is from Jerusalem.  The little sauce dishes are from Japan.  Sometimes, Ruth stays up all night long to read a book.  My kind of friend.

Ruth and I are new friends so we have talked a lot about each other's families, friends, and where we have been.  We watched the old version of Sense and Sensibility together and I can't wait to show her my favorite version.  She is pretty funny, but mostly she is really smart.  We have had really great conversations.  I feel like I can talk to her about a lot of things, but she will always talk about things that I don't know.

Tonight she was telling me about her trips to Jerusalem.  Whenever people talk about Jerusalem, I feel like time stands still.  Yes, I get so confused about dates and significant places there and history and facts and conflict, etc.  But, I could listen to a person's experiences there all day long.  She talked about traveling to Qumran and visiting the cave where they found the Dead Sea Scrolls.  "When I came out, the limestone was all over me and I was as white as a ghost.  But my smile was huge."  She told me about the Pyramids of Giza.  "Every geography book has a picture of these pyramids.  You've seen them your whole life, but there is nothing like being there."

The way she talked reminded me about some of my experiences in Italy.  I told her, "I believe we don't have to travel to feel apart of the world, but you are right.  Being in one of those places is an inspiring feeling."  Ruth agreed and then kept telling me about some of her favorite moments, like riding a camel or praying at the Western Wall.  She said that she was passing a bar mitzvah and the celebrators insisted she eat some of their food.  "They wanted to share some of their happiness with the tourists."  As she talked, she brought up her friends that she traveled with.  I could tell they had made a special bond, and it reminded me of my Alison.  Then she said, "All of the people I shared this with are dead.  Sometimes I wish I could talk to them about it and we could remember together."

Did I mention Ruth is 95-years-old?

Because it is me, you might have guessed that I have found a living arrangement that involves me being a caregiver again.  You are right.  I live for free in a basement and care for Ruth by cooking her dinner, eating with her, and helping her get ready for bed two nights a week and every other weekend.  After general conference, she made the goal to study the scriptures more.  So while she takes her pills, I read to her (which is helping out a lot because she can take forever on those pills sometimes--the scriptures keep us on track because I will stop reading when she needs to take one again).  She had me start in Isaiah (yet another example of something she understands and I don't).  Each night, I will read something that reminds her of something.  She will start talking about that something.  Then, she will look at me, wink, and say, "You don't mind if I chatter, do ya?"

No Ruth.  Chatter.  Chatter on.  I don't mind.

I think I just heard her turn off the television so I am going to stop this and tuck her in.   Insert in your minds: Trevor saying, "Oh finally, she will stop writing!"  He is always baffled when it comes to matters of my verbosity.  

She loves being tucked in.  It is the one moment that she enjoys having to be taken care of.  Every time I tuck the heated blanket closely under her back and up over her shoulders, she smiles at me and says, "I love that so much.  Thank you."  It is the sweetest "thank you" I have ever heard.

Why creativity is so important to me. Go.

So sometimes I have these totally aquarian moments (see here if you are curious about what that means) when I think an idea I have is OBVIOUSLY the best choice one could make for an evening.  I have been dying to take a hike and paint at the top.  Am I a painter?  NOPE.  Do I care?  NOPE.  Fortunately, I have two great friends who didn't make this extrovert spend this nature-loving moment alone.  We hiked 3/4 of the way up and thought we might lose light so we pulled off the trail and sat down to paint.  We were pretty much left alone (other than the 45 year old guy who tried so hard to impress us with his remote control airplane.  I have it in me to attract these type of men . . . sadly.) 

Both Natalie and Krista had some beautiful landscape stuff going on.  Inspired by Giggles (my client who is the best abstract artist), I just started doing crazy, mad brush strokes with all the colors.  It seriously looked like a painter's palette before Krista saved it.  It was getting to the point where I was so embarrassed that I was trying to hide it from the other girls.  But Krista saw it and said, "Oh, I see that girl flying."  I shifted my eyes and slowly said, "Yeah . . . it is a girl . . . I mean, it is totally supposed to be a girl . . . " Not true.  It was supposed to be a sun.  But I smeared it all up because it looked like an attempt by a 5 year old (and not the exceptionally artistic Autistic 5 year old that I know).  So I made it into a girl flying.  I kind of love it.  It probably represents exactly how I have been feeling lately.  So that was lucky.  

Here is the thing.  I love being creative.  I fail more often than not at the demonstration of skill, but I don't care.  I love it so much.  It might be one of the things I love the most about me.  I used to stress about it having a place in my life.  I would question if it would ruin my love for creative things (like sewing and writing) if I tried to make them my career.   What I have found is that the more I have worked with people, the more creative I have had to be.  What I love about creativity is that it isn't always about what you can create from nothing.  It is more about how you can connect anything.  Everything.  How does what you know allow you to think about a problem in a different way?  I am kind of just rambling about this thing I love about being a human.  This is all leading to the way I feel about people.  I have struggled reading fiction lately because I keep finding books full of characters that are no where near as ironic, brave, kind, true, complicated, simple, loving, etc as real people that I know.  I am semi-addicted to solving people.  I love to figure them out.  I love to think about what makes them the way they are.  With my clients, I love that moment when I can make something so full of fun and adventure and happiness that they learn without even knowing it.  I can do that because I know them so well.  And I know something like prepositions.  And I have to find a way to entice them to care about prepositions.  I never would have predicted how creative I would get to be on a daily basis because of the extraordinary opportunity that I have to work with people of all ages.  I love art because I love how it can use this same concept to represent something.  It can capture experiences that the artist might not have ever had.  Even just connecting to a piece of art is a process of creativity.  To look at something and connect it to an emotion or an experience or a memory or a concept that you personally have is to be creative with your own story.  To imagine it or to see it in someone else's language.  This is by far not my most eloquent blog post.  It is super scattered and incomplete (insert Trevor's comment: "How can it be this long and still be incomplete?") , but I am so excited and happy to be alive.  Way too energetic to calm down and edit this post. I just can't imagine that figuring out the right words to say will make any of it more understandable anyways.  If I have learned one thing lately, it is that words are sometimes the least effective way of communicating.  

And everyone should watch this talk by Elizabeth Gilbert. I don't care what you think about "Eat. Pray. Love." because it really doesn't matter.  

Wanna see me at work?

My friend Nicki suggested I write about one of the kids that I work with.  For those who don't know, I am a behavior interventionist.  I work with children with Autism and go to their homes to do different therapy programs with them.  Here is one tiny glimpse at the things I get to witness:

We will call him Giggles.  Mostly, because by the way he laughs at his own jokes you would think he is the funniest person in the world.  Which, he might be.  I arrive at Giggles' house the same time he does.  He spots me and immediately groans and follows it with a "NOOOOO.  Hate you!  Hate you!"

Oh the games we play.

"Giggles, show me how to use nice words.  Hi Giggles!" Now he knows I won't leave him alone until he is a tad kinder.

G: "Hi May-nan (Megan)."
M: "How are you?"
G: "Gate (Great).  How you?"
M: "I'm so good. Thanks for saying hi and using nice words.  Why don't you have a few minutes of free time."
G: "NOO LONGER! LONGER!!"
M: "Do you want one minute or five longer minutes?"
G: "Longer."
M: "Ok.  5 longer minutes then."

So I unload and start getting ready for the session by gathering materials.  With this particular kiddo, I ignore him completely after he greets me because as we can see a year has gone by and he still hates seeing me at first.  He will usually hide in his bed or play or run around with his usual vocal expressions of "AHHHH AHHH AHHHH ER ER ER NA NA NA NA" Honestly, they are no longer funny or strange sounds to me.  They are just Giggles.

Today he has chicken nuggets so he is at the table with me.  I walk away.  I come back and find him giggling over spilled chocolate milk that he is rubbing all over himself and the furniture.  His mischievous smile shines when he looks at me and explains in one word both the mess and his glee, "Bubbles."

M: "Oh dear.  Bubbles in the chocolate milk.  Next time try small bubbles."

Well that was an invitation.  Process repeated.  I carefully train him on the art of maintained bubble blowing and we clean up and get started.  For him we have a visual schedule that has pictures of what we are going to do with my time there.  We take turns choosing.  His favorite choice is the star that means FREE TIME.  My favorite choice is the snack time because then I get to convince him to try food he hates.  I don't know why I love desensitization programs so much, but they are my favorite!  He has gone from sobbing when I hold turkey in front of him to licking it, to holding it on his tongue, to holding it in his mouth, and the other day he chewed it for the first time!!  Something about getting people to do stuff they hate makes me happy?  Am I a torturer?  Don't answer that.

Today, Mom gave us a cool rock that we got to break apart to find gems.  Duh, breaking stuff?  Fun.  Giggles was in heaven as he took the hammer and chisel and repetitively crushed every bit of sandy plaster.  His actions were accompanied by the face he makes when he is crazy focused on something: jaw locked, forehead furrowed, one eyebrow higher than the other, eyes wide, and all kinds of crazy noises from his mouth.  The kit came with a magnifying glass.  Giggles LOVES hunting.  He loves pirates and treasure maps and scavenger hunts and finding hidden candy etc.  He was pretty motivated today.

Giggles is kind of difficult to understand.  He often will say something and pantomime it until we can figure out what it is (a year ago we couldn't get anything but vowel sounds, now he is using full sentences but to the un-Giggle ear not much would be understood).  He usually ends a question with "Now."  When crossing the street, "Hand now?" When wanting a snack.  "Hungry now." When face-timing mom on her vacation and sweetly asking her to come "home now?"

Today I saw a band-aid on his elbow and asked what happened.  He got that look in his eye.  That Giggles look.  He smiled and said, "Bah-beye".  Then he raised his arm to his mouth and pantomimed biting.  The charades begin.

M: "Bug bite?" "Did a kid at school bite you?" "Did you bite yourself?" "Did a spider bite you?"
G:  No. No. No. No.

Mom tried to help but we couldn't figure any of it out.  After 5 minutes of intense interrogation, Giggles was fighting back laughter as if he had a joke coming on.  Finally, he said it one more time "Bah-Beye" BUT this time, he followed it up with a "Grrrrrr," and brought his hands to his face with his fingers curled.  Mom said, "A vampire?"

And then came the giggles.  Fired with machine-gun rapidity his low chuckle tumbled out infectiously.  "YEAH! A Bah-beye!"  See?  He knew what he was saying this entire time.  He insisted that it was a vampire.  He later told me his name was Dracula and he came and bit him when he was in bed.  I asked if he was a goofy vampire or a scary one.  He said with all seriousness (and a look like "duh May-nan") "Scary."  I asked him if he was a vampire now and with the same look of condescendence towards me he said, "NoOOooo."

He is always playing tricks on me.  Right when I think he just wants to cuddle, he rips my scarf off of my neck and chucks it across the room.  He laughs hysterically when I accompany him to retrieve it. I fall for it every time (but I finally stopped wearing scarves.)  He tries to steal candy. He distracts me with a "this chicken nugget is HOT," hoping I will inspect it so he can try to run away.

Funny side note:  The other day I had to eat his candy because he wasn't focusing on his work and the timer went off.  We had a deal, but he clearly didn't believe I would follow through.  So I ate it and he started sobbing in disbelief (umm there was a huge pile of candy in the corner but I guess he really wanted this one).  He was so shocked that he pried my mouth open with his hands to see if the candy was really gone.  Multiple times.

There are no words to describe how much I love this kid.  And he knows it.  One time I asked him who loves him and he listed his family members and then said, "And May-nan!"

But don't worry.  I know he loves me too.  He may start the session with "HATE YOU" but secretly, his mom told me that she asked who to invite to his birthday camping get-away.  Do you know what he said?  "Momma, dad, sister, Grammy, and May-nan."

HAH.  I win.

Siobhan

Why am I so terrified?  It is just a phone number.  You dial it and someone answers.

Where did I get this number, you ask?  Oh, that story begins with homesickness.  Like all of my stories from the beginning of Italy do.  I was homesick for Halloween, of all things.  So I went to the market.  I stood there stupidly until I watched enough people take a ticket to know that standing in line was an idiotic thing to do.  I was the only person who was buying a pumpkin for carving rather than soup.  Then I heard someone speak English.  As I always did in Pecetto, I immediately sought out the human making those sounds and struck up a conversation.  It lead to her giving me the number of a coworker who was looking for friends.

The coworker's name was Siobhan.  I finally dialed her number.  She answered and we had a good chat.  She sounded so friendly and so nice.  However, I knew that our cultures were a little different (Irish + Mormon).  What if she drank all the time?  What if she only wanted to party? What if she was a cool person (those and I don't get along much-not like unique=cool but a person who is literally 2 cool for school)? What if she thought I was stupid?  What if she got too clingy and I suffocated from friendship?  What if she watched movies that I absolutely hated?  These are the things I worry about when making new friends.

I remember walking up her stairs the first time and seeing such a beautiful blonde.  Her Irish accent rang delightfully throughout the seven times I had to ask her to pronounce her name.  (Sh-iv-on).  It turns out, the first night we hung out we watched a mutual all time favorite (French Kiss).  Turns out, she was really accepting of all types of people (even non-drinking Mormon friends who were a little timid about exploring the Torino world).    Turns out, we loved so many of the same movies.  Turns out, she had lived an exciting life full of so many destinations from which she had come and gone.  Turns out, making that phone call gave me a friend who didn't know me for very long, but still housed me when my job as an au pair fell through.  Turns out, the more she drank the wiser she got.   Long chats with her when I was desperate and lost still sound in my ears when I feel myself getting anywhere near the darkness of fear.  She was so kind to me.  She had such beautiful hopes and dreams, most of which involved finding a soul mate and getting married.  Today, that dream came true.  I saw videos and pictures go up of a wedding in Torino of one of the humans in this world who has literally saved my life.  My heart could not be fuller.  Congratulations my wonderful friend!  Tanti Auguri!!!

Here comes the Bride

Remember how an eternity ago I said I made a wedding dress?  Well, friends.  I didn't lie.  So the catch is they didn't do a bridal shoot like I thought they would so you can't really see all the details that I did.  I tried to go through the photos enough to find ones that showed as much dress as possible.  My dear friend Sarah was sick as a dog in all of these photos.  Her wedding started an hour late.  Poor dear.  But she still looked stunning and danced her heart out.