So many things

January 2011

I can tell I have a fever.  I almost wrote January 2007.  Maybe this isn't the best time to write a post, but I woke up today having this strange, but strong desire to write it.  I don't want to forget the things I have learned, and I have felt grateful and desirous to express my gratitude.

Oh by the way, I don't feel too sick.  I just have the flu, but I don't feel awful.

Things I am so grateful for now that I am BETTER and not sick anymore.  I was really sick for a lot of years and it was a big part of my life.  It's what I know about, so I am going to write about it.  I am sorry if you're sick of it.

1.  Walking by myself to somewhere only a few hundred feet away.  I really am so grateful I can do this again.  I remember in Idaho I would want to get outside so bad, that Matthew would take me in our back yard and we'd walk about two or three houses down and then I couldn't do anymore.  Sometimes we could make it a little farther, and sometimes we couldn't even make it to the first house.  Matthew was there to help support me if I couldn't make it home by myself.  We did it on the road too, but I was often embarrassed so we went out in the back a lot.

2.  I am grateful that I can take the sacrament each week.  When I was sick, I'd miss church weeks in a row, and then when I would go back I could only make it to sacrament meeting.  We even left sacrament meeting many times...I'd try to make it through the sacrament and then couldn't sit up anymore, so Matthew would take me home.  I remember one time I had missed the sacrament so much that I begged Matthew to take me to church to take it.  He didn't want to, because he knew I could barely stand, but he did.  We made it to the foyer where I couldn't stand up.  Matthew ran and got me a chair, I sat in it, took the sacrament and went home.  Matthew got frustrated with me a lot because I was so stubborn and wanted him to take me places like this.  I didn't want to accept I was too sick to do it.  Then as years went on, I realized he was frustrated because he was so worried about me and didn't want me to push it.  He'd always do what I wanted though, even sometimes when I shouldn't have gone.  I felt bad thinking he was mad at me, and then one day when he seemed mad, it all came out about how much he loved me and was worried and my brain clicked.  He wasn't mad, just worried.  There were many times however, we started to church, but just getting ready had worn me out.  I couldn't get out of the car when we got there and Matthew would turn right around and take me home.  I bugged myself by doing this, but I didn't want to not try.  I was too stubborn at the beginning (for a year or two...it took that long to help me to accept my problems.  Let's not talk about how long that is :)  One day after Matthew had taken me home from church yet again, I asked him why he did it so much without complaining.  I did not think I would be the same as him.  He just looked at me from across the table where I was sitting waiting to try to eat something and looked in my eyes.  "It's not hard.  I love you, Becky."  Ridiculous how simple his answer was.  And what have I learned from this man during the last few years??  So very much.  Let's move on.

3.  Are you still reading?  Wow.  Third one is how grateful I am to be at family gatherings and not worry about being too sick or just worrying if I'd make it through!  It wasn't just for friends, I couldn't do a lot of things with family either.  We have missed weddings, gatherings, etc. because of my health.  It has been very hard.  We've tried to go to all of them, but I learned if I couldn't do it, I couldn't.  There was nothing else about it.  But this is the first year where I've had family gatherings and felt well!!  I can't even express the giddiness and smile on my face.

--we saw the lights on Temple Square with my brother and sister's families.  I felt well!

--I did Christmas stuff and felt well!!

Wow!!!!  I can't even express how much I appreciate that.

My family even though they were supportive sometimes were sad that I couldn't make it to one or two things.  But I learned to improvise.  I could come if I laid on the couch all day.  It totally stank, but talking with my family got my mind of how sick I was and it was always wonderful anyway, even if I missed shopping with my sisters almost every year and going skiing, and going to museums and zoos and even the temple.  Because it was too physically exerting.  The tears shed for the loss of these things were a lot.  But I got through it.

4.  Am I on 4?  I have a fever, remember?  I really am not funny.  Tangent:  I ask Matthew if I am funny and he tells me I am, but he is laughing on the inside, or he secretly thinks it's funny.  Super rude.   Back to number 4.  I am grateful that I don't wake up every day worrying if I can take care of my kids.

I did that everyday.  Every single day for years.  Feeling dependent on others is a horrible feeling.  Not having adequate help (for no one's fault, just life!) is a horrible stress and feeling.  The last few months, even with the babies, I haven't worried when I have gone to bed if I will wake up too sick!!  It's amazing.  Can I tell you that again?  What a blessing.

3.  I just wrote 3.  I am sorry, it's 5.   My fever is only 101.  Really, Becky?  Dementia?  It would be true.  My brain hasn't worked the same since I had babies.  I have forgotten people's names, things, so much.  It's worse than ever.  I think it's DOUBLY worse.  But number 5.  I am grateful for learning more about my self-worth.  If I could skip this section entirely I wish I could.  But I feel that it's something I am so grateful for, and I feel not right about leaving it out.

You know those things you would NEVER want to go through, or think how awful it would be?  Let's talk positive now.  I don't really know how to talk about it, and I don't want to make anyone feel uncomfortable, for I do not now.  But sometimes things we haven't experienced or hard things make us feel uncomfortable and we'd rather not discuss them at all.  When I first got sick, I expected a lot of things to happen.  I expected tons of help and support and everything.  Why wouldn't I?  I thought.  I had been righteous my whole life.  I had served others my whole life.  I had so many friends my whole life--or really good ones.  And now here I was in the worst trial I had ever gone through....feeling so alone.  It was the most uncomfortable feeling for me.  It stunk.  I wish I never had to go through it, but I believe 100 percent that if I didn't feel that uncomfortable and lonely I would never be what Heavenly Father wants me to be.  In fact, I know it.  I am so grateful for the Savior in His suffering because I understand Him a little more.  I love him so dearly.  I hope someday He will be proud of me and that I can hug Him.  He is the best friend ever.  But it stunk being that lonely.

I remember going months without any social interaction whatsoever.  (this is not complaining, the next part, just informing)  No home teachers.  No visiting teachers.  No phone calls.  I couldn't go to church, play groups, enrichments, stores, dates, anything whatsoever.  I remember looking out the window, lying on the couch watching people go by and not feeling good enough to call or even open the door to yell at them to get their booty over to hug me.  I remember lying in bed and lamenting how no one in the world was as lonely as me.  Don't worry, I was immediately chastised by the Lord for that thought.  It was a soft chastisement, a reminder of those in the scriptures who were more lonely--A LOT more lonely.  The next part is embarrassing, maybe.

I got so desperate to be involved that I would do strange acts of service.  I made treats for people, but because just making the treat wiped me out so completely, I made Matthew deliver them.  I don't think the people receiving them had any idea how I was trying to say:  "I want to be involved, I want to serve" by having Matthew deliver treats, but I was.  It then moved on to garden produce.  We had so much squash one year that Matthew and I drove around giving it away.  Sad, but it was like the only social interaction I had in months.  I could only sit in the car sometimes and watch Matthew give squash to people who might not have wanted it....but it was an effort anyway!  Once or twice I got out of the car and handed the squash to people, trying to smile and have some kind of interaction.  Usually they were polite, but busy and our conversations were only a minute or less.  Little did they know how HUNGRY I was for support, starving, it felt to me for people's attention and love.  If I never had to experience that again, I would count myself happy.

I didn't have internet to distract me, I didn't have TV most of the time--it was downstairs and it was too hard to walk down there even once some days.  So all I could do was sit and be sick.  The circumstances might have made my suffering even more intense, but I would like to bear my testimony now, that even though it was downright the most awful thing I could even imagine---no---it was worse than I could imagine--that I believe it was the only way for me to learn what I needed to.  I am being very honest and these things are sacred to me.

I felt like the most incapable, weird, lonely, lack of self-worth person ever.  I couldn't serve.  I couldn't hold a calling.  I couldn't go anywhere.  I was suffering physically, emotionally, and mentally, and perhaps spiritually as answers did not come right away or easily whatsoever.  I still had responsibilities of taking care of my kids and even when I reached out to others, they did not always accept my reaching out (I do not think on purpose of course).

I feel like sharing this.  I remember one time so desperately wanting to have a friend that I bundled my kids up and walked to my next door neighbor.  I remember it clearly because it was perhaps the only time I had done it.  I knocked on her door and asked how she was.  She was polite, but busy and didn't invite me in.  She had just mowed the yard and was busy getting ready for her husband to come by.  I walked home and had to rest for hours just because of going over there and getting the kids ready.  That stinks, doesn't it?

I think, honestly, that I was a little ignored.  Perhaps because people didn't know what to do with me, not because of any ill-intent.  I did express my need for friendship and help, but most of the time was incredible loneliness and sadness.

Why did it have to stink so much I asked my Heavenly Father...actually I didn't use that word at all.  I am not even trying to be funny, but I don't want to go back and erase it, I am too tired.  I felt that I never got an answer.  Why did all the variables of this time hit me at the same time?  No friends, sickness, little kids, getting our house ready to move?  I will tell you.

At first I thought it was a fluke--that it was just how life happened.  Perhaps there's some variable to that.  But after I started to heal, and a year or so after asking this question I had a simple dream.

I'll share it, or I wouldn't have brought it up in the first place.  I dreamt I was back in Idaho in my old ward, but when I had the dream I was living in Utah.  I was at the home of a person in the ward.  She was getting really stressed with her kids.  I remember I could see myself standing there and I said to her:  "Let me take your kids."  She looked at me, almost in surprise and stared at me for a while.  Then she said to me:  "You know, when you lived here you didn't get enough respect."  I could see myself smile calmly and answer:  "But if I had, I wouldn't have learned what I was supposed to."
That was my entire dream, but I learned a whole lot.  Was that too much sharing?   I actually don't know.

Let's move on anyway since I am not deleting it.

So how did I overcome all this pain?  You might be asking, or if you're not because you don't want to, I will tell you.  Of course it was the Atonement.  So amazing.  I don't really know how it works, but I know it was the Atonement.  But it was slow and long and hard.  And I thought I could never feel the same about myself again.  I thought my mistakes and all the pain emotionally of being so alone could never be healed.  But then I knew it could--it just seemed utterly impossible.  But I held on as much as I could to the Atonement, to just believing in it, even thought I didn't know how to hold on tighter at the time.  And healing did happen.  But, in all fairness, one of the greatest healers in this hell of an experience (excuse the correct choice of words) was gratitude.  Gratitude for the littlest thing.  At first I didn't see how this would help me, only that I felt prompted to express gratitude.  At first, I felt like saying to those promptings..."Are you kidding me?  Express gratitude when all that happened to me was like the most unfair thing EVER?"  But yes, that was my prompting.  Finding things seemed quite difficult.  What?  Express gratitude for what?  I could see the big ones--for Matthew and that my kids were healthy, but what else??

Anyway, after that long process, gratitude helped me heal.  I see now it worked, but at the time it almost seemed so ridiculous that I felt like not doing it.  But I did anyway.

And one more thing that I can't get out of my mind.  Was those who made the biggest difference ever.  Should I say the names?  No.  But one girl watched my kids every time I called and was happy about it.  She never seemed too busy and I always felt guilty calling her, but a few times I felt prompted to ask her again, so I did.  Another lady watched my kids, visited me a few times, and brought me dinner on those days where my stomach was in such pain I couldn't get out of bed at all, or without help, etc.  She treated me like I was special.  I love her.  And to the last lady who visited me twice before I moved just to talk.  She, with exception of that one, were the only people to ever visit me (oh...the bishop did once) during that year that I can remember.  She talked to me and made me feel just like Becky--not a sick Becky--just a normal Becky.  I don't think she can know what a gift she and those other sisters gave me.  I know that Heavenly Father loves me, but my suffering was difficult.

I couldn't go to someone's house--it was too hard.  And I was too embarrassed to admit it.  Until the end, until I was hungry for any kind of attention that I felt so malnourished.  Starving.  Sick.  Broken.

I felt guilty for feeling that way.  For feeling so run down.  But I don't feel that way now.  It took a long time to feel and know that I was a normal person, a person healing from a hard trial.  I felt Heavenly Father taught me that because He loved me enough to let me suffer it.  At first, I didn't get that--it felt a little like the other way around, that He might not love me a lot since I was suffering and alone so much.  But now I believe it was BECAUSE He loved me that much.  It was hard for me to not be mad at myself for feeling all the things I did.  I have since not been angry, but it has been a process.  And I never gave up...never, never.

Please don't think I am weird for writing this.  I tell this plea, not for myself, but so hopefully you do not feel sad for me or uncomfortable.  I feel really, really good about writing this, for whatever reason.

Now, am I all the way healed?  Yes, from the pain.  But there are things I still struggle with that I never used to--doing things in front of people, wanting to raise my hand and say my opinion in church.  It was really hard at first.  I didn't bear my testimony in church for three and a half years.  Not because I didn't have one (I always did), but because I missed so much church and the days I was there I didn't feel good enough to get up there and then it became because I felt timid about it.  But after praying for a whole year to help me bear my testimony I finally did.  And I did the next month too.  It's been since the babies were born, but I was like--Becky, get your booty up there!

I am glad to know there are people who have suffered similar health problems and have had similar emotional responses.  Like a girl in my sister's ward.  She has tumors in her head and a small child to take care of.  She didn't make it to church for a whole year at all.  Then one day I heard her talk in church to someone in the hallway and she was describing her experience and all her emotions with someone.  I wanted to scream saying "  You have described me perfectly!!"  I wanted to interrupt her, hug her, and yell about how glad I was knowing someone knew how I felt.  Because although I knew the Savior did, I still thought I might be crazy cause I had never met someone who had experienced ALL the things I had--the craziness for feeling couped up in the house to where you feel literally like you will go insane, the sadness, the feelings of frustration at yourself wondering why you can't do something.  All that junk.  And SHE said it all.  I was so enthralled I wrote her a note, explaining my gratitude for hearing her.  I did contain myself at the time and didn't jump up in the hallway and attack her with happiness for hearing her description.  Thank goodness.  She did get my note, and my sister said it meant a lot to her.  Coincidence, or was something else at work here to bless us both?  I'll let you decide.

That's all.  I hope I am never sick again.  And if I am....I learned there are always miracles.

In time, things happen to us because time always brings change.  I thought I would never have to go through what I did.  But my self-worth is still the same.  My Heavenly Father loves me.  He sent me two babies to take care of that are special.  I think he trusts me to some degree.  And I am normal, wanting love, to give love, and to just be happy.  Isn't everyone like that?

Last of all--you CAN heal from hard things--the Atonement of Jesus Christ covers it.  All the junk.  All the sadness, all the feelings that hurt.  You CAN heal.  There are MIRACLES!


Sigh, because it all feels good to say and share.