In Memory Of - Grandma - Elizabeth Hanks Clark

On Friday, October 25, 2013, in the afternoon, my grandmother Elizabeth (Beth) slipped away peacefully in her sleep.

She was 93 years and 49 weeks old. I thought for sure her goal was to reach 94 years. But, she decided to leave peacefully while still having her wit and senses about her.

I shed a few tears, but am content in knowing that I made a special trip to see her in May earlier this year because I knew it was close to her time. My constant priority to write letters to my grandparents these past few years has come from that gnawing feeling I've had from other experiences and regrets.

It is important to me to take time this weekend to write down my memories and thoughts about her as a final tribute to a woman that made it possible for me to be on this planet! Remembering her reminds me of where I've come from and where I want to go. These moments of reflection are invaluable to modifying our paths in life to ensure that we are seeking the right things and that we can take with us when we pass to the next step after our lives on this earth end.

And so it goes, a long tribute to my grandmother - a woman who led a long and meaningful life!

Don't know much

I don't actually know a lot about my grandmother. She was one of the rare women who graduated from college back in the day. She attended Brigham Young Academy (now Brigham Young University - Utah). She met my grandfather when they lined up across from their partners and someone counted one off. Wa-la! There was grandpa!

They married and started having children - nine to be exact.

Since I'm the oldest grandchild of 42+ grandchildren, I might have the longest memories of her, but there were a lot of children and grandchildren in Idaho at that time and I grew up primarily in the Mid-western United States. My memories are most often associated with the summers we traveled "out West" to see "Grandma's house" each summer and when my grandparents came to see us wherever we lived.

My sister RaeLyn prepares to blow out three candles. I'm in the background sitting on grandma's lap anticipating the event. This is the first time I remember clearly being with my grandmother. P.S. I'm realizing that my anxiety started really young. I still don't like suspense!

Hardworking Woman (aka Stay at Home Mom)

Grandma always seemed to be busy - busy preparing music to teach children at church, busy canning peaches and other fruit, busy cleaning the house or yard, busy playing the piano or organ, busy with genealogy, and busy with other church and family responsibilities.

Genealogy project in May 2013 - she couldn't rest until we started working on it

After seeing her example, and that of my own mother, I've never understood why "Stay At Home Mom" is used to describe women who choose to spend time with their children during the hours of 8-5. I never got the feeling that this was a negative thing because at my grandmothers house and my own home, it seemed like there were never ending projects and activities going on that kept everything active and busy. That didn't even count all of the time spent going outside, traveling around town and perhaps even over to another town for a day. 

LtoR: Mom, Me, and Grandma - in my Pentagon City, VA apartment in 1999

To this day, I hope to be a mother like my grandmother and my own mother - thinking outside the stay at home box and thinking more about using time and resources toward creating a wonderful learning environment for my family.

A Loving Inspiration to Children

She was hardworking, but whenever a child entered the room she was right there greeting them with all of her love and attention. She read stories in her special storytelling voice, helped them play with the toys in her special children's area downstairs, and taught them to love music.

One Christmas we were staying at my grandparents house and my parents wanted to take me out on an errand. It was right after receiving the Christmas gifts and I've always been a bit possessive of ALL my belongings and wanted to take everything with me. My parents would not let me. I cried and complained and my grandmother assured me that everything would be ok. It ended up more than ok. While we were gone she whipped up a new dress for the doll I received that Christmas. I was amazed and in awe that this could come about while we were out on a simple errand. I think I still have that doll and that dress hidden in my cedar chest (which has a flat screen TV sitting on top of it right now and so I'll just keep writing). 

Music

It seemed that much of her life revolved around music. She was the chorister for the children at church into her 90s! She played the piano and the organ and she loved to sing. I still remember summer evenings when her children (my aunts and uncles) would gather in the living room to sing and tell stories. It was fun to sit back and listen and it the deep rich voices all blended into wonderful harmonies.

Missionary and Willing Traveler

Right after my grandparents got married, they went on a mission to New York. Or, at least my grandmother joined my grandfather at least partway through his mission. After their children were raised, they decided to go to New Guinea and New Zealund. I was in grade school and perhaps junior high school during these years. I remember that my first computer programming was a picture of a kiwi bird, inspired by a picture from their mission of a kiwi bird. I was so proud that my grandparents were off in an exotic foreign land teaching the gospel of Christ, educating the villages, and setting up singing programs in their local communities.

Most recent form of transportation

I served a mission in my early 20s and was able to visit them on their last mission in Pittsburgh, PA. It was great to be involved in similar work and know the same joys they had experienced.

Gift Giver

Grandma was known for making birthday gifts and Christmas gifts a year ahead of schedule. With so many brothers, sisters, and grandchildren it was quite the task. But, she did it. There were moments of fun when clothing was made or purchased a year ahead of time and the gifts didn't quite fit. But, it was the thought that counted and we all had large families where the article of clothing was bound to fit someone!

Wife, Sister, Mother, Grandmother, Great-Grandmother

I don't have children, but I'm an aunt to over 20 children and find joy in celebrating their successes and seeing them grow. She was from a large family, she raised a large family and she was there for all the grandchildren and great-grandchildren along the way. 

She took her roles as wife, sister, mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother very seriously until the end. In fact, until yesterday she greeted family and other visitors by name and held conversations with them and made their children feel special.

Legacy and Example

My grandmother has created a legacy. A posterity that has gone on to have great faith, pursue high goals and to obtain education (both formally and informally). There are some things she never said, but her example showed what was important to her - God, family, church, education, music, and teaching children. 

At the end of the day, what really matters is how we feel around a person. If they make us better for having known them. If we aspire to higher goals because of their influence. If we gain faith by feeling their Spirit.

My grandmother made me a better person. I'm proud to be her grand-daughter. I'm proud to be her posterity. I hope to continue to honor her as I make decisions for this second half of this wonderful life. 

Many people often say R.I.P. signifying "Rest In Peace." I'm sorry. I don't think that is happening right now with my grandmother. I think she is already whispering in the ears of all of us to get started on that next project swishing around in our heads. Or, maybe she is leading a singing group in a heavenly choir or perhaps telling some children a story.

No matter, I know she is pain free, busy and awaiting when she can see the rest of her family. It  may take a while. Some of us have some work still to do here!

Good-bye Grandma! I love you and am grateful for the many years we've had together - my entire life and just 1/2 of yours.

Love you,

Rebecca

Your Oldest Grandchild

...in a moment

...life can change.

Mine did today. Not like September 11th or anything. But, in a way that makes you slow down and remember what is important.

I started off the day great. I went into the office today and started bionic-ing through my inbox around 7:30 a.m. Around 8:15 a.m., I found out that my morning meetings were cancelled because the main client had a sickness in the family.

So, I sat down and went through 350 emails in three hours! It is so rare I get three hours of uninterrupted time, that I truly acted as the bionic woman.

Around noon, the fire alarm went off.

You have to understand our environment. We work in an old historical building. One that was rocked by a recent DC earthquake. Talk about feeling rickety. Plus, there are often weird smells, false alarms, and right now....contractors putting in a new roof. We experience the full on tar smells at times.

So, it is always a guess as to whether there is a real emergency or not. In this case, those of us that were there, did go.

Most of us gathered the person, phone, keys combinations and left our laptops. That in itself is rare because we all carry our laptops to meetings and if we want to work in a quieter spot for a few minutes. But, not this time.

I trotted off to the post office a block away to mail a letter and was shocked to see smoke rising from the building on my way back. Wow! It was real!

Apparently, as I write this the fire still isn't out. Some news stations showed water pouring out the windows on the left side which wasn't looking as badly damaged as the right side of the building. I sit in the right wing. The latest footage shows that the entire roof is gone and I'm assuming that my space has been caved in, water logged, and maybe even in flames since the attic was the first to go and we had one of those flimsy tile ceilings above us. It was a new office space as of this time last summer. So, we got one good year out of it.

We are all safe.

That's the important part, right?

Just a reminder that all our "things" can go up in flames, but our values, skills, knowledge, relationships and beliefs will stay with us. That should give us our laser focus on what is important.

Here's the video from a local station.

http://www.wusa9.com/video/1783654574001/1/Sky9-Video-3-Alarm-Fire-At-Fort-Belvoir 

Growing in His Light - priorities, fulfillment and a quote

My efforts to blog this year have been minimal. In fact, from January to June has been one big stress for me. Most of the stress was from March - June, but anticipation can be just as alarming for the body and mind, right?

Here's the chain I put on my blog a few months ago with each stress event as a link.

Thankfully, here's the chain in June. I opened up each link as the event happened.

At many of the events, I was a speaker which was a great honor. As I gathered the lanyards in the picture below, I realized that there was one that I was most proud of.

The Young Women's Camp Assistant Director (gofer, photographer, trainer of Youth Camp Counselors) was the one! After months of preparation typically taking 10-15 hours out of each week, I ended up having a wonderful week at the camp.

The theme was "Grow In His Light" and I think that many of us leading gained just as much or more of a testimony than the Young Women at the camp. Plus, being away from the day-to-day work allowed me to get closer to the Spirit and ultimately helped me with some upcoming decisions that my family needs to make. Ok, so our family is only two of us, but we are still a family. (-:

Here's a lantern that we had the Youth Camp Counselors carry for the night time activities.

Here's the website I created to house all of the info for camp. I really do like it and it was a way to leverage some things I've learned over time toward a meaningful resource at church.

http://www.growinhislight.wordpress.com

All the camp photos (mine plus others) are now at http://photobucket.com/YWCamp2012. I took about 1,000 and others took about that many too, but as I look through the individual shots (toward the end of the pile), I am amazed at how wonderful all the teens look even though they sometimes dreaded having their photo taken. They are all truly beautiful young women!

Here's me posing with the training manual I created with the help of materials gathered by others. It truly was a team effort and I'm so grateful for all of the friendships that I was able to form with the other leadership in our congregation and the surrounding congregations.

My biggest worry was all of the stresses from work, but by day 3 of camp those had left me. We were there a while (Monday - Saturday) and normally that would mean I'd have a few thousand emails and multiple project updates to worry about. But, with the storm and with people deciding to go out of town at the last minute, catching up wasn't so bad.

It reminded me of one of my favorite quotes:

“When we put God first, all other things fall into their proper place or drop out of our lives. Our love of the Lord will govern the claims for our affection, the demands on our time, the interests we pursue, and the order of our priorities.”

― Ezra Taft Benson

Again, I had a chance to realize that this principle was true. Now, to keep living it!

Alone Time

So, the biggest surprise of marriage for me is that I have no alone time.



Is it because I'm older and am used to a little space? Or, just anxious to take full advantage of the time we have together now?

Before, he'd leave at night and I'd stay up really late reading, getting on the computer, and catching up on emails.

Now, some of those things seem to have fallen by the wayside as I figure all of this out.

For about 8-9 hours a day I am interrupted at least every 15 minutes. It is a good thing I enjoy the people because I never get to fully concentrate. Now I don't get that at home either.

So, here's to those little moments in the car on the days I drive to/from work where I can pray, listen to music and books, and think a little bit.

Oh, I'm not complaining. More like realizing that I am entering a new phase of prioritizing and planning in different ways.

...at least I've hauled off a few more things to the Goodwill and am starting to feel less stuffed in here.

Calendar - does yours hurt your brain?

A few minutes ago I was wondering why my brain was hurting - until I realized that my calendar might be a little full.

Does your calendar look like this? I bet it does - even if you don't write it all down. I don't even have any of those day-to-day activities on here. You know - driving to work (commuting) or other meetings, working on blogs or websites, eating, errands, laundry, etc.

I've started color coding different key areas so that I can gage how much time I spend on them.

Now that I've taken a two minute break - back to the next item which is apparently to work on a mobile learning strategy. So, here I go back to work.

Time to Blog

A lot of people say they don't have time to blog.

For me, it's more of a decision not to for most of the week.

However, it doesn't really take that much time - does it?

I spent about 5-10 minutes on an entry. This one will take two minutes.

Is that bad? Maybe others spend more time. With me it just comes flowing out.

Perhaps I need to hire an editor to go back and make sure the wordiness of it all is trimmed out.

But, then it wouldn't be my blog with all of the imperfections of a stressed woman quickly emptying out her brain to free up the thoughts.

Ok, it took 50 seconds.

Oops.

55 seconds.

Happy Mother's Day to all mothers!

It's Mother's Day today and I just wanted to thank all of the mothers out there that make all our lives possible.

I was just able to talk with my mother and one of my sisters (who is now the mother of six!) and express to them my gratitude.

When these occasions come about (mothers day, Christmas, mother's birthday, dad's birthday, father's day), most of us always ask the question - "Mom, what do you want for ....?" and the answer is almost always "we just want happy children."

So, since we are primarily happy children, we created a blog - http://dianne-online.blogspot.com/ so share our happy thoughts about years past. Sometimes it is happy for both the giver and the recipient. Well, I guess that is how it goes most of the time actually. It brings back a lot of memories when you write down feelings of gratitude for someone that you've known for a long time. It also reminds me to keep family and friends as a priority regardless of what else gets in the way in the daily grind.