The Haunting of Hill House and me

I blog a lot when I feel high emotions. It's like my way of coping with things. A lot of my heightened emotions these days hover around depression and sadness. I don't like to talk about being sad or depressed because I feel like no one understands because no one has lived in my body with my brain. I don't know, but there's my disclaimer for this potentially depressing blog post.
Recently one of my book clubs read "The Haunting of Hill House" by Shirley Jackson. I found the book to be a creepy discussion on mental illness with a lot of dark humor. The book club was conveniently timed because Netflix just released a new series based loosely on the book.
It's a pretty well reviewed series and there's been a lot of buzz about the show. Dave and I started watching it almost immediately. I have found that sometimes art immitates life. The show struck a heaavy cord with me last night and I can't get it out of my head.So spoiler alert I'm going to ruin this show right now.
The show kind of surrounds the events at the house in the past and the present. The youngest in the family, Eleanor (Nell), hangs herself at the house in the present day.
I know you might say, "Hello, why are you watching this show?" In my defense, it felt very different from my personal life so far. Mark's suicide wasn't pushed through paranormal events or visions. So it didn't feel real until episode six.
Episode six is all about the family coming back together in the present day for her funeral/viewing. They are all together talking and arguing about the past and their ugly parts in both the present/past. In a flashback the family is trying to find Nell in Hill House. After a lightning strike, she appears out of nowhere hysterical. She keeps crying and it flashes to the present. Her body is in the casket and her bent neck ghost standing in front of it, while her twin looks on.
The voice-over is when she was a little girl saying something like, "I was here the whole time and you didn't see me. I was always here.You didn't see me."
I'm crying all over again now. It's so heartbreaking. This is a family I understand, a family that can get lost in their own lives. I get a little too involved with my own stuff. The twin in the show is a long time addict. I may not be addicted to alcohol or drugs, but priorities can push people in different ways. I can't help put myself in the twin's place and Mark where Nell was.
Mark was not killed by "a house". I think my family knew he was struggling,. some more than others. I run through those last months in my head, the impressions I had. I went with him to see the single's ward bishop (the first time he probably stepped in a church in 13 years. I went with him to get him help to see a counselor. They denied him because he wasn't ready to come back to church in any capacity.
I remember the phone calls and the text messages. I remember last August, sitting in Carl's Jr with him, while my kids played in the play place. His back to the glass divider from the family section. I remember the way he didn't meet my eyes. The defeat and the weight he carried from depression, mistakes, loss, and pain.
I think I listened to every prompting. I can't help wondering if I missed one while a kid was screaming or when I was scrolling through Facebook. I texted him and called him, but he still made that choice.  I want to scream, "I see you! I saw you!"
I know that in this life I will not know or truly understand his death. Sometimes I don't know what to do with that knowledge. I want to demand it. It's not about me. He was always there, but sometimes I didn't really see him. Do we ever really see someone for who there in their entirety? I don't think so. It's easier to hide things we don't like or are ashamed of.
I feel like I've written myself in circles. Did I see him? I don't know anymore. Does anyone really see me? I don't know. This is the true horror, I guess-despair in ourselves. 

When Life Goes On

No wonder today feels weird. Mark died exactly one month ago. The power in my neighborhood went out and right now the wind is howling. The weather feels more real than I do this week.

I vaguely remember similar feelings after my dad died. The world feels out of touch and I wonder about the value of life. So often these days life is found in money, jobs, images, and things. I feel like Mark pushed me back out of those things. Like I'm on the outside looking at my life. Is this what life is about? What priorities could possibly matter more right now than my brother? 

I've skipped out on a lot of things recently. Family things, friend things, and church things pushed aside. My last post talked a lot about people and how important they have been, but in the same breath it's incredibly hard to sit and talk about trivial things with my mind screaming in the background, "SHUT UP, CHERYL. NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR PERFECT KALE SMOOTHIES.. NO ONE CARES ABOUT HOW EXPENSIVE DOCTOR'S BILLS ARE. MY BROTHER IS DEAD. HE SHOT HIMSELF AND YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT TRAFFIC?"

I get it. Life goes on and other people don't know or understand. My life feels stuck, like I've stumbled into a big wall and I can't get over it. So I look behind me and I see how ridiculous humanity can be. How ridiculous I can be. Our lives are not measured by the little things. They are measured in emotions and relationships. Can we build relationships with diets, bills, traffic, weather, or shopping trips? No way and to be honest, I'm tired of living that way. Life is too short to waste on the trivial and unimportant. 

My brother was 28 years old. 344 months old. That is so tiny. He spent so much of it worried about money, success, careers, marriage, and mistakes. We talked a lot about all of them. These worries are human. They are stressors. His life was more than that. My life is more than that. 

This week I miss him pretty bad. I haven't felt like cooking dinner. While making grocery store frozen pizza the other day, I felt like I should invite him for dinner. I reached for my phone before I remembered that the text would fall flat, lost in the circuits. I want desperately to hear his quirky sense of humor that put things into perspective and made the big things I fight seem small. He had this way with sarcasm. He vocalize things with this flat line montone voice and make it seem silly.

 

It hurts a lot this week because I always felt like Mark and I were similar. We got each other. We were imperfect people who knew both sides of the track. We may have picked different sides, but we got it. We struggled with our emotions, but coped in different ways. We shared blood and tears. It's so isolating and such a lonely feeling now without him. 

His hugs were weak sauce. They were half-hearted feeling one arm limp across my shoulder like a fish while the other barely touched my shoulder blade. I would give anything for a hug today. 

Grief comes and goes at weird times. Hopefully my soul finds a way to anchor back to life cause this is starting to feel really hard. 

Plus One

Baby Number Two has been a work in progress for 10 months now, although I'm only 20 weeks along. It took five months of planning before we were truly ready to think about a second child.
So let me introduce Baby Girl Hunt #2.

We truly found out about this baby on 8/8/14 and I wrote a little entry at work about her.
It was a Friday and while cancer patient after cancer patient called me at work, all I could think about was the significance of August 8.
Two years ago on that day, cancer claimed my father. It's a day I can't forget. The images still pop up at inopportune times in movie theaters and longer drives.
Today I'm late and I'm never late.
I'm so happy. This day is already  memorable through pain and loss, but today it's different. Today it's new life and love.

Family Definitions

I wrote this post shortly after my grandpa passed away. It's something that I feel very strongly about, but it needed time for me to finish grieving and complete the process.  Today is a day for thanks  and family. It's a day to share.

10/22/2014

Family is not defined by blood.

The older I get, the more I recognize that my pedigree is really just a bunch of lines and shapes that describe genetic links.

My Grandpa Bockholt passed away recently and his passing is huge to me and I did not have a drop of his blood in my body.

He married my dad's mom after she divorced my Grandpa Tate. My dad, like many kids, spent most of his childhood with his mother and summers/occasional visits with his dad. Because of that, my dad and my Grandpa Bockholt had a lot of similarities and they even looked alike.

I am lucky to have three sets of grandparents and I'm lucky my grandma married him. Even after my grandma passed away (when I was like two) I still saw him regularly.

Like my father, my grandpa was SO happy-always laughing and joking.  He was an active grandparent, reaching out to us in the ways that fit us best.

I remember one time when I was in high school, he played video games with my little brother. My grandfather had to be in his late 70's or early 80's, working that gray Playstation controller with some familiarity.

Without such a good, happy man in my life or in this world--things seem a little more sad, like my father's passing on a smaller scale. 

I'm so grateful for his presence and influence in my father's and my life. I know my father wouldn't have been the great dad he was without him and I know that I would not push so hard in my life to provide that same kind of happiness for my family.

Joy, love and laughter create a family, not bloodlines and cards sent out once a year. 

Like I said, always smiling. Heroic.

Passing of my childhood

Celebrities are over-grieved.
Robin Williams was less a celebrity and more of friend. He shaped so much of my life.
I first met Robin Williams in my pre-kindergarten days. He had this wonderful bit on Sesame Street that would make me laugh so hard I rolled on the floor. From that moment, Robin Williams was a part of me. As I got older, I heard his voice in Alladin and saw him as a cross-dresser in Mrs. Doubtfire and as a sad grown-up little boy in Jumanji.
I couldn't NOT write about him. He was there to help me grow up and I learned so much from him.
1. At an early age, I knew Robin Williams was silly and it was okay to be silly sometimes.
2. He was an original, he didn't pretend to be anything he wasn't or put on some perfect show. He was who he was and he was unapologetic for it.
3. In Aladdin, he taught me how important it was to be honest, especially with those we love.
4. In Jumanji, he taught me that there is always hope during dark times and that things will work out.
5. He showed me the meaning of family in Mrs. Doubtfire and that boobs are not very great for putting out fires.
6. I learned about love in Bicentennial Man. It's not a movie looked on very fondly, but when i saw it I cried. Everyone deserves happiness and everyone deserves love.
7.Many people quote Dead Poet's Society this week and I hate to be cliche' but I learned how to really study from this movie. That it's important to find passion and art in life.
8.  In Ferngully, I learned from his voice that the environment may  shape you one way, but you decide who you become.
9. Most recently, I caught up on Good Will Hunting and I learned the importance of really living and not just seeing the world go by.
10. Or in the new-age classic Hook, he taught me that anything is possible if you believe in yourself.

I could cry and sob over his passing like a little girl. His passing is huge and the world seems more sad without his smile and goofy voices.  I admit there are some big parts of Williams voice & behavior that remind me of my dad. This world has lost some of it's strongest and most joyful influences in my life.

Love and Friendship: Butterflies & Ponies are Forever

Carl, Dave, Paul  at Youth Conference 2000

The title is deceiving. This weekend has been a rough one for my family and those close to us. One of my husband's closest friends passed away on Friday; Paul.

McInzie, Meredith, Paul, Dave, Carl and Cheyenne
October 2004; Before Paul left for bootcamp

I think I met Paul about four times.  He lived in New Jersey and lived a pretty different lifestyle than I was living at those times.  Those moments he was there were important ones for our family and his.  He and his (now) wife flew out for our wedding, and a little after Cami was born to meet her.  In turn, Dave flew out to Jersey for his wedding and we both attended the reception and mini-ceremony in Salt Lake.
Each time we met up, Paul and Leah both greeted me with hugs upon arrival and hugs when they left our house/apartment. Paul exhibited a genuine love every time. I don't mean that in a cheap way that some people say after someone passes away. Paul was an amazing man and my heart hurts that it was cut so short.
Dave grew up in a South Jordan suburb and essentially grew up with the same small group of friends: Brad, Carl, Paul and Shaun. There were a few that rotated in and out of that group. They were the closest group of friend that I have ever met.  After more than 20 years they still meet up and pick up where they left off. I'm totally not used to that. Their friendship and love is so fantastic and it makes Paul's passing that much more difficult. Love is important, but love is hard.

Carl, Dave and Paul

It's well-known in Dave's small circle that Paul has had a hard time.  He was a Marine and served over in Afghanistan or Iraq. I don't know a lot of details. He was shot pretty critically in his service and one of his legs was messed up for life. While recovering with this crazy pain in his leg, survivor guilt and PTSD; he struggled with substance abuse in pain killers and other drugs. During this rough patch, he was living in New Jersey near a VA hospital that could help him with those things. He met Leah at a bar. She was a waitress and they hit it off. They have been together for a long time and like all relationships, it wasn't perfect.
They both made mistakes. They were married last year, but marriage can't always fix things.
I was talking to Dave about love, butterflies and ponies.  When you first meet and over the course of the first year; your relationship with each other is full of gooey butterflies and ponies. After that things change and people sometimes say they fall out of love. I don't think that those feelings fade after a year.
Love, butterflies and ponies are still there when you see those closest to you; those family, friends and/or spouse/girlfriend/boyfriend. I think it's like when you make those delicious "poke cakes".
Right after you make a cake, and it's still hot, you poke some holes and pour something like caramel or sweetened condensed milk on the cake.  At first the caramel sits on top and you can see and taste it whenever you want.  Pretty soon it soaks through the holes and fills the cake with that extra spike of sugary goodness. You can't see the flavor anymore, but it's there soaking your cake in something amazing.
You may think your love is fading, that the butterflies and ponies have all run off to someone or something else; but they are just deeper, somewhere intimate and close to you. It's still there. Love changes, but it's constant as long as you are.
My husband's relationship with Paul changed due to choices and distance, but they were close friends and that doesn't change; it's just deeper. Deep enough so that you think it doesn't matter, but then something drastic changes like death or loss and they return so quick you feel like you've been hit by a bus and things will be different forever. Love didn't fade. Butterflies & ponies are forever.