New Year's Regenerations [2012]

Greetings on this last day of January 2011!  Happy New Year 2012!  Enjoy these reflections on the new year:

January Sunset: Live each day as a new "year" (above)

I don't make resolutions on the first of the new year.  Rather, I reflect on themes, and apply them moving forward.  This year, I reflected, journaled, studied, and prayed my way through January amid health-related inquiry, socializing, networking, and the much needed recharge.  I read through the book of Proverbs, a book on wisdom in the Bible.  Conveniently, there are 31 chapters, so I read 1 per day starting January 1st.  I desired to grow in wisdom in part by doing an "all systems check" on myself:  attitude, faith, relationships, goals, career, health, and so on.  I've since filled a journal worth of pages and let myself feel regrets, sadness, sentiment, happiness.  So my new year's regenerations are more desires or mindsets and not necessarily goals.  Recognizing I've only today, I desire to grow in these areas:

• Joy amid pain so much so that memories of 2011 will be... of joy!
• Speak a kind and appreciative word daily to my husband
• Friendship and fun
• Publish or "in press" status 1 book
• Find the value seeded in adversity and then state in the positive what I want
• Succeed in health-related inquiry
• Succeed in earning income at what I'm made to do
• Walk at commencement and enjoy graduation! 
• Trust in God=Love and other's love for me
• Be confident that I've a future
• Represent Jesus w/o shame in congruent word and deed
• Live today as in "give us this day our daily bread"
• Love, love, love more and more
• Choose Life and LIVE!

Why "regenerations?"  Something about mortality awareness kicks me in the pants.  While such seems a sad place to start a new year, I find wisdom and perspective in considering my lifespan and how/why I want to live a certain way.  I recently read a eulogy where an amazing woman wrote her top 3 joys in life shortly before she died:

1.  Faithful love for God

2.  Life with a man who "rolled her socks up and down"

3.  Legacy passed onto children who make the world better

It seems that without these top 3 priorities, all other accomplishments come at the expense of others and my own wholeness. "The last words in her journal are 'It doesn't get any better than this,' underlined, with an exclamation point!" (With respect and appreciation, Shomon, 2011, January 30).

Am I so grateful and in tune?  Regenerating means becoming new, or changing from what was before.  If I've regret from the past it's not pursuing such a mindset.  "Forget the past and see and perceive the new things I'm doing for you... I am making a way in the wilderness..." (Isaiah 43:18-19) reminds me that life is a journey, yes, but often a race needing intent, action, and one's whole devotion, passion, attention... and priorities (not to mention an eternal perspective).  There is a good sorrow that leads to life; a twinge of regret over not keeping your resolutions for 2011 so far?  Cheer up!  This is a new day God has made (Psa. 118:2) and he promised to "redeem the years the locusts have eaten" (Joel 2:25).  Remember that while the past does not define you, how we behave daily will become the substance of our lifetime.  So we choose wisely.

Years back a friend told me to "choose life" during a difficult time for my confidence and health.  Choosing life means believing even in painful or seemingly impossible situations that God will make a way.  Wait and look for it.  Choosing life also accepting responsibility of my actions and choices, learning from the challenges or mistakes, and moving on with this new-found understanding.  As this year seems fraught so far with uncertainty, I enjoyed these quotes on change and want to better rest by truly trusting God loves us, has a plan for us, and we are each other's gift.

So instead of a "to do" list of resolutions, what's on your "renew" list?

I'm already grateful for the professionals helping, networking, and mentoring me for next steps, and for the beautiful friend who treated me to a five course meal to congratulate my achievements in 2010.  While I've much to tackle this next year, I'm glad it's almost February and pause to appreciate the finer things! 

Kindly,

Dena

Darkest Before the Dawn | Remembering Grandma One Year Later

Hi Colleagues, Family, and Friends,

Grandma used to say, "It's always darkest before the dawn."  After a dark and rainy week, dawn shone today light blue dotted with white clouds and bright sun.  Today marks the one year anniversary of Grandma's, as Mom put it, home-going with God.  Here's a photo-roll, followed by text, to honor her life:

Grandma liked family photos (above 2 on her birthday)

 

w/her MU roommate (above)

Her favorite past-time (above 2 photos; seen here talking w/Lisa)

Grandma's roses for their anniversary (above)

w/Judy's clinician of 30 years (above)

My maternal N paternal Grandmas! (above)

w/Grandpa at Christmas (above by Mom)

Once a Mother... (above)

50th Wedding Anniversary, Nov. 1996 (above)

Post-wedding ~1947 (they married in 1946; above)

Growing up in Eastern Wash. railroad towns (above)

w/my uncle N aunt (above)

w/her sister N brother (above)

Dresser-top (above)

Her other favorite past-time (above 3 photos)

Reading a book I made her (above)

Early family Christmas (above)

MU's banquet (we attended for her due to her illness; above)

Our niece's first Thanksgiving! (above)

Classic family photo before my uncle enlisted (above)

One of my favorites (above)

Early Easter (I'm in the center; above)

Military Ball (above)

@my Bridal Shower (above 2 photos by Aunt Ann)

Grandma designed florals for church (above)

Early Mother's Day (I'm FR-1L; above)

After I learned of Grandma's death, I wrote poems and published the poems with photographs and other content on Text and Pixel Reflections labeled Remembrance. Meanwhile, I studied applied research.  The timing of Grandma's death during research and these texts became the substance for my thesis, where I studied how and to what end the texts influenced my emotions, faith, and healing.

Prior to this research, I had written a manuscript with Grandma's knowledge and approval of our interactions over the years.  So you see Grandma has influenced my identity as a Christian woman and my trajectory in education, communication, leadership, performance studies, and writing.  As I wrote in my thesis,

I used to ride my hot pink Powder Puff bike with a floral banana seat and fluorescent spoke dots down our hill and the six blocks to my maternal grandparent’s house.  Those rainbow flourish days later gave way to a darker space after I finished my undergraduate work at and moved home.  By then, Grandpa was in his end of life and died that September.  While I attended his wake, I avoided attending his burial and memorial services.  Prior, I had interviewed him on his World War II experience, wrote the interview in a narrative format with photographs, and gave copies to family.  I witnessed this work comfort family and me; the narrative gave me a mourning ritual. I also have written a manuscript about Grandma and my interactions.  Each of which led me to my vested interest in creating and researching life and end of life narratives for healing purposes.  Beyond that imperative, I photographed and wrote short stories and in journals since I was 12 as a way to experience, understand, and share my world.  I continued my interests as an adult when I studied creative writing and founded a photography [and now a consulting] business.  (Rosko, 2010, December 17, p. 12)

I created a website for others to share their loving memories called The Living Memorial.  Be free to visit and to Like TLM on Facebook to tell your story or read that of others.

Even with these beneficial and exciting achievements, I take a pause now to honor Grandma's legacy.  Love and wisdom come with a cost, but a price not as steep as living otherwise.  We do the best to live life, but without love, even constructive efforts to redeem loss sound pretentious at best.  I tip my hat to Grandma because she lived faithful to the last:  faithful in her prayers, love, and concern for her family and faithful in her choice to trust God amid her situation.  While this sounds self-centric, I thank Grandma most of all for simply loving me and welcoming me into her home with her sing-song voice whenever I visited. 

Her favorite Scriptures:

And in that day you will say:

O LORD, I will praise You;
Though You were angry with me,
Your anger is turned away, and You comfort me.
Behold, God is my salvation,
I will trust and not be afraid;

For YAH, the LORD, is my strength and song;
He also has become my salvation.’
Therefore with joy you will draw water
From the wells of salvation.

And in that day you will say:

Praise the LORD, call upon His name;
Declare His deeds among the peoples,
Make mention that His name is exalted.
Sing to the LORD,
For He has done excellent things;
This is known in all the earth.
Cry out and shout, O inhabitant of Zion,
For great is the Holy One of Israel in your midst!

~ Isaiah 12 (NKJV New Spirit-Filled Bible, a gift from Grandpa)

But He knows the way that I take;
When He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold.

~ Job 23:10 (ibid)

Grandma loved the "precious gems" she found in Isaiah, a book abundant with dismal declarations, but then you find a gem of hope.  Meaningfully, James read Isaiah 12 to Grandma the last awake interaction we shared with her.  Grandma suffered during her life and responded to her adversity by trusting God.  "God is still on the throne," she often said.  Perhaps for this reason she liked Job 23:10.

Said upon looking in the mirror:  "I look like what was sent for, but didn't come!"  Her facetious sense of humor gave her spry as she responded to serious people and issues, though she confessed near the end of her life that she was trying to be less facetious and wished she had been less so overall.  Well, we grow and we learn, but how often do we laugh and smile?  Lots with Grandma:

Good night and God bless, Grandma!

I love you!  Talk soon!

and she said

Until we meet again

and lay our crowns at Jesus' feet.

and James replied,

Oh, it'll be a lot sooner than that!

Indeed.

Evette Hornsby-Minor centered her scholarship and performance on telling the stories of mothers (in her focus, Black matriarchs in her life).  Watch her piece titled, "If I could hear my mother pray again."  While I always felt encouraged and emboldened when hearing Grandma pray, I'm glad she doesn't need to pray anymore.  She's got front-line access to God because Jesus saved her (Rom. 10:8-10, ESV), and that, she said, is the reason she loves her Savior so.

Thank you for reading,

Dena

Reference

Rosko, D.M. (2010, December 17).  Master’s Thesis:  Performing Impressionistic Autoethnographic Narrative in Text and Pixels to Explore Fear of Death in End-of-Life Care-Giving Contexts.  Spokane, WA:  Gonzaga University.  ComL 680, Section A3, Thesis Director Nobuya Inagaki; Mentor Lois Melina.