Emblems of my Life

1. Car.
2. Snow Globe.  People find me interesting when they shake me up.  I have a main focal point in my personality, but there are parts of me that float around.
3. A game of Monopoly.  Taking vacations, money, houses and moving, travel
4. Sponge.  I soak up information and then it seeps out as my mind gets bogged down with too much imformation.
5. Jenga: Made up of many layers and pieces.  If you take a piece out (family, faith), my life may stay stable or it may collapse.  Some characteristics are perfectly shaped and some have knots in them.  I make you mind work and your ability to understand each part of me changes as you learn more about me and the people "playing" the game in my life.

On Death: Only the Good Die Young...Everyone Else Dies Later

The fear of death follows from the fear of life.  A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.  ~Mark Twain

The idea is to die young as late as possible.  ~Ashley Montagu

The saying that "only the good die young", contrasts with my hopes in dying of senescence.  Senescence is a rather easy way to die - nothing like being burned alive in a fire, eaten by a shark, or struck by lightning.  

World death rates: 151 people die every second.  You breathe in, you breathe out.  Another 151 dead.  150,000 people die every single day

Obituaries are seen in the paper, usually at the end, after all of the headline news, stocks, sports, etc.  Death is not an uplifting or popular topic that people wish to address first thing when they look at a paper, so editors make sure to put it near the back.  I've looked over obituaries and thought how people are able to have their lives condensed into two or three short paragraphs: work, family, favorite activities enjoyed during their lifetime.  After death, they may be remembered for a while, but as is the natural course of things, they are then forgotten (unless they have achieved "miracle status" such as Moses, Deborah, or Jesus).  Specific countries have their heroes too, but how many people in Zimbabwe or Brazil remember or know anything about George Washington?  If I were to die right now at age 21, would my obituary contain as many details and illustrate to others that I have lived as full of a life as someone who lives until the age of 100?  The thought hardly seems possible, yet I think of the travels I have been on, hobbies, my family members, schooling, trials, and friendships and believe that my life so far couldn't be condensed into a book, let alone a short paragraph.  And if it were, what would I want it to say about myself?  That I lived a full life even though I died at such a young age?  That I missed out on the great things in life to come?  

How families deal with the death of a family member.


World Causes of Death
                                                               Deaths in millions            % of deaths
Ischaemic heart disease                                      7.25              12.8%
Stroke and other cerebrovascular disease      6.15                10.8%
Lower respiratory infections                               3.46                6.1%
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease              3.28                5.8%
Diarrhoeal diseases                                              2.46                4.3%
HIV/AIDS                                                              1.78                  3.1%
Trachea, bronchus, lung cancers                           1.39                2.4%
Tuberculosis                                                              1.34                2.4%
Diabetes mellitus                                                      1.26                  2.2%
Road traffic accidents                                              1.21                2.1%
Source:  http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs310/en/index.html

Juan Ponce de Leon's search for the "Fountain of Youth" led him to no such discovery, but the idea of everlasting youth still draws many.  Botox and face lifts are prevalent in our American culture as we try to maintain the youthful look of our 20's and stave off the "look" of death for as long as possible.  But that only leads me to the question...

What if we never died? Often, a discussion of faith and death coincide.  Once you die, where do you go?  Into a pine box 6 feet deep in the ground, where your dead corpse will lie only to be eaten by worms?  Perhaps you will be among those you go to the streets "paved in gold" that the ever hopeful and optimistic Christian holds as their final place of glory.

Winter Wonder - Memoir Essay

          Growing up in South Dakota I experienced some rather harsh winters – below zero temperatures, four feet of snow in our backyard, and being stuck at home because our roads were secondary or even  third in order of importance for the county snow plows.  Without a doubt however, the most conflicting winter of my childhood would have to be that of 1997.  The pure, white snow came in the form of a blizzard and swirled rudely by our windowsill, taunting us.  Here and there it swirled, free as could be.  Temperatures hit below zero and when the wind chill factored in, temps would fall as low as negative forty.  The wind didn’t just affect the thermometer.  It also brought about extraordinary, compacted drifts of snow that we all knew would make our chore of shoveling nearly impossible. 

The blizzard wouldn’t allow us to go outside either because of the cold, harsh conditions so the only place that we could watch all of the happenings from was inside our house.  I would often lean over the top of my mom’s La-z-boy recliner to look out the window behind.  The snow was so thick that at times you couldn’t see more than four feet in front of the windowsill.  At other times, it calmed enough to see the barren maple and cottonwood trees thickly covered in snowflakes that weighed the branches down so much that many of them were beginning to break off the tree.  It lasted for what seemed like days upon days to me as a six year old child ready for adventure and scoping out the new landscape that the snow was creating. In reality, the blizzard didn’t last for more than two days.  

The heat blasted out of our electric baseboards constantly.   As I leaned over my mom’s recliner, the heat would hit me in intense sporadic waves, but it only made it seem more so that the severe conditions outside couldn’t actually be that bad.  My sister, who was three years older, and I tried to use our rationale on our mom, but she wouldn’t accept that excuse by any means; she knew better.  By the time we were allowed to go outside, my sister and I were ready for a grand escapade.  Sure, we had schoolwork, but with being homeschooled the “teachers” could easily change our schedule.  Plus…the snow wasn’t going to last forever!

“Freedom!” my sister Tirzah and I shouted in unison as we began to pull on all of our snow gear.  First, on came the wool socks that I still hate to this day because, while they were indeed warm as my mother claimed, they were scratchy and they itched.  Next were the coverall snow-pants.  My sisters were purple and mine were hot pink.  Then it was our ski masks, bulky winter coats, hats, snow boots, and lastly…mittens!  The mittens always had to come last.  I’d learned this over time.  One time I tried to go out of “putting on” order and realized it was just not possible to zip yourself into a winter coat with them on.  I had called my mom over and had her do it for me.  Once I was encased in all of my winter apparel, I stood by the door tapping my boot on the linoleum in a steady rhythm. 

“Come on Tirzah!  Hurry up!” I spoke as the impatient younger sister.

“Just hold your horses you nut!  I’m going as fast as I can!” came the voice of the ever reasonable older sibling.

If you went any slower…

“Were you saying something Han?”

            “Nope.  Not a thing.”  I made it pointedly obvious that I wanted to though as I raised my eyebrows, pursed my lips together and flashed my eyes quickly between her and the door.  She didn’t take the hint.

Our house was right next to an old Lutheran church no longer used for services except once a year during the summer months.  The snow had drifted into the alley behind our house and the church.  When I say drifted, I don’t mean we got a couple of inches of snow and it had rippled gently in the wind before settling.  I mean that there was 12 foot drift of snow that some “skiers,” such as me, might have been happy to go on.  The drift had formed because of a fence, trees, and a perfect direction of blown snow.  The snow crunched loudly, stiff as could be, and compacted on all surfaces as we had earlier predicted might happen.  Instead of skiing down the slope my sister and I created our own mode of transportation down the hill.  We took a basic plastic sled, looped a rope through two holes that my father drilled in the front of each sled, and would hold on to it as a horseback rider does.  We made the trek up the rather steep incline of the snow drift, balanced the sled on the tip, and put one foot in, and then cautiously added the other.  A slight shift of your body weight forward and you would cruise down the hill for 30 or 40 feet.  We had our very own private ski hill - it was like nothing I had experienced before. 

            We played outside from lunchtime until a little before dusk.  Tirzah and I heard our mom call from our back doorstep, “Time to come in girls!”

            “Tirz, can I please go one more time before we have to go back in? Plleeaasse?” I begged.”

            “Sure you can.  Only one more time though!”

That’s when it happened.  The slow motion scene…I falling from my perch in the sled, smacking the snow bank with my face, bending the nose piece on my glasses.  I don’t remember it fully, only the weightless feeling that overcomes a person when they go into a free-fall and the sharp pricks of tiny snowflakes that felt like knives on my face we became very well acquainted.  Being outside in the cold for the past four hours had also numbed my senses.  Toes and fingers were barely moving.  Conceivably, that’s what contributed to my ungracious exit from the sled in the first place.  I slowly gathered my wits and I back together, stood up and said,

“Okay, I’m ready to go in now.” 

We took a few steps toward our house until my sister halted, “Hannah…”

“Yes...?” I waited for her to finish her thought.

“Is one of the lenses from your glasses missing?”

“No, I can see just,” I started to say as I took my mitten off to feel my glasses. “No!  It’s missing!  It can’t be missing!  What are we going to do?”

“We’re going to look for it that’s what we’re going to do.”

The next hour we looked for it to no avail.  My mom had called us several more times since her initial announcement to come in and had given a last warning to get inside before she would be coming out to get us.  I was terrified at what the ramifications of my actions would be.  When we traipsed in to the house, I was close to tears.

            “Mom? I,” sniffle, “I lost the lens in my glasses!”  It wasn’t supposed to be a wail, but it ended up coming out that way.  Another sniffle and then some tears started falling.  I’d been scared to come in and tell my mom that I lost the lens.  I don’t know why I thought my mom would be upset, but I did.  My sister and I had looked for over an hour and I thought it was hopeless.  Now my mom was going to have to buy me a new pair.

“No use crying over it Hannah.  We’ll go out and look for it.  When did you lose it?”

“About an hour ago.” Sniffle. 

            “Was this before or after I called you to come inside?”

“Well…right afterward.”

“So you waited until it’s nearly pitch black out to come ask for my help?”

“I’m sorry Mom” and my head drooped in shame. 

Our troop of three headed back outside equipped with only a flashlight.  Imagine yourself searching for a clear piece of glass with a diameter of one inch by two inches against a white background that reflects back in prisms of color – the same as glass.  Needle in a haystack anyone?

            “About where did you lose it Han?”

“Somewhere over here about I think?”

            My mom walked over to the area, searched and shined the flashlight, and within five minutes, she caught the glare of something.  Was it?!  No.  Then…

“What’s that right over there?”

“YES!  Mom you are a miracle worker!”

The lens was found by pure graciousness from the Lord.  My sister and I had spent over one hour, I repeat, one hour, looking for my missing lens and in less than five minutes after we had all come outside my mom found it.  MOMS!  As my mother also reminded me after the event, if I had come into the house when she first called all of my worry and angst would never have happened.  The whole incident would never have happened.  Turns out mothers know best too. 

When You're Walking - Walking by Henry Thoreau

    Thoreau is walking away from industrialization and into a state of wonder.  He chases the idea of reverting back to the "good old days" when the landscape was free of logging crews tearing down the tall pine trees and being turned into a different kind of tree almost - telephone poles.  It provides an interesting contrast to think of how the things we take from an area are reused in it later.  Trees also provide the walls for the homes in which we live.  I think Thoreau does not focus on the positive things that come from going into the future.
    As for the style in which Thoreau writes, I feel that it is almost a question and answer style.  He speaks with a rhetorical tone that allows the reader to engage and question in their own mind what it is that they feel about life and nature.  Can you imagine walking 15 or 20 miles a day and not seeing something new or learning something about yourself?  What if we didn't have a building surrounding us?  What if we were always surrounded by nature alone?  Thoreau wants us to live in a dream world where all humans can commune with nature and I do not believe this is possible because it is not nature that we are to be communing with, but rather God.

Window Blinds - Annie Dillard's "Seeing"

Annie Dillard approaches the idea of sight and how we view life in a very interesting manner.  Starting with a story from her childhood about hiding pennies, she continues in the next setting of how a penny isn’t worth that much to someone as you get older.  She connects this with seeing as well.  How people view the world around them changes dramatically as they get older.  A young child seeing a fish for the first time might take in the slimy, wet scales on the body and feel a prick from getting too close to a sharp fin.  They would see the fish gasping for breath; red gills rising and falling rapidly as they were searching for water in the air.  They would hear the splash as the fish is tossed back into the water.  Now though, close your eyes.  The whole scenario has changed.  Yes, you can still feel the fish with your eyes closed, but how would you know it’s even a fish anymore?  Only because someone tells you it is so?  Now maybe the prick they tell you is from a fin is really just someone poking you with a needle.  The struggle that a fish has out of water goes unnoticed. 

With this thought in mind of what it would be like to be blind, I think Annie Dillard flawlessly transitions to the end of her story in sharing the details about people who have undergone corrective eye surgery to correct their vision problems.  If I was 21 and was just being able to see for the first time, I can’t imagine how I would react, but I feel it would be much in the same way as her examples.  If I had learned to walk around my house without seeing anything, would I not be more comfortable with doing so for the rest of my life?  Your eyes are the windows to your soul, but maybe that’s why so many people put blinds on them.  The harsh realities that can come with seeing (such as witnessing a brutal crime) are forgotten by those that have been blessed with the gift of it throughout their life.