timex

just now, in my class, my professor showed us a 1960's commercial for timex watches. this made me think of my grampa's timex watch and how he thought it was so neat that he got it from time magazine.

this simple thought of my grampa did not make me sad, did not make me tear up, or did not make me feel depressed; in fact, i actually smiled in class. when my professor asked why i was smiling, i simply replied that my grampa wore a timex watch.

i miss him, but i'm happy.

this relatively resembles my grampa's timex

a simple scent

last night, i was not feeling one hundred percent--headache, belly ache, etc. while laying in bed, i rolled over to try to comfort my stomach. this is when i got a whiff of my grampa's scent--a mix of old spice and spearmint gum. it was so comforting to know that he was with me when i was sick that i suddenly felt better--still not one hundred percent, but better.

i miss him... a lot.

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phoebe: our newest addition

when kevin and i came across the picture of a tiny, fluffy, grey kitten on http://www.petfinder.com/index.html, our hearts melted; we knew she was the one for us. it did not take long before we were in the car on our way to st. cloud to pick her up from the central minnesota animal care and control center in st. cloud, mn. she was said to have been either abandoned by her mama or something had happened to her. she was found with four brothers but was seperated from them upon their return to the shelter in order to keep males and females seperate. poor baby was all alone and scared. said to be eight weeks old by the shelter, this little bundle of fluff instantly loved us as much as we loved her as she purred away when i held and cuddled her; she was desperate to be loved.

named after the bubbly, fun-loving "friends" character, phoebe is a complete joy.

we took her to the vet a couple days ago in order to make sure she was healthy and to begin her routine vaccinations. when the vet examined her, she estimated that baby phoebe was only four weeks old! our tiny, precious kitten was much too little to begin any vaccinations that day, but the doctor did say she was perfectly healthy... and quite spunky! we will return in approximately four more weeks to begin her vaccinations.

phoebe is very curious and fearless for her age as she explores everything; the apartment is her personal playground. she thinks she is tough-stuff and continuously tries to jump onto our couch, chair, and bed but cannot quite make it. she ends up having to climb the rest of the way up! our curious kitten is obsessed with food, milk and ice cream in particular, and will jump into your finished ice cream bowl if you leave it unattended for a split second. she loves bouncing and prancing around as if she is stepping on hot coals--it is the cutest thing. phoebe also thinks she is a parrot as she loved to sit on your shoulder and snuggle up to you; she also loves to lay on your chest and listen to your heartbeat.

this morning when i was getting ready to leave for work, she sat at my feet crying because she knew i was leaving--so sad!


phoebe and me

phoebe and kevin

sweet, little phoebe all ready for bedtime

in times of great loss, sometimes, you are left with extra love that can no longer be physically applied to your lost loved one. yes, it is true you can still love the person you lost, but you cannot kiss, hug, or socially interact with them anymore. it may sound silly, but this is where a pet may help heal the wound. phoebe is someone for me to pour all of the physical love into that i once was able to give to my grampa. i am able to physically touch her, snuggle her, hug her, and kiss her; she also misses me when i'm gone.

it seems to make more sense in my head, but having phoebe around honestly calms me.

maybe she was meant to be.

a gift from my grampa, perhaps? he always did love animals... dogs, in particular, but we will not tell phoebe that!

my grampa's headstone "rocks"

humor: a comic, absurd, or incongruous quality causing amusement

when dealng with loss, one can choose to cope positively or negatively. as humans, we are all entitled to negative thoughts and actions which tend to surface during difficult times in our lives, but there comes a point when realizations must be made: i cannot change what has happened, but i can change my outlook.

death sucks, plain and simple. i do not have all the answers; i do not have the key to making a sucky situation less sucky. all i can say is when life gives you lemons, suck on them, make the classic lip-puckering face in front of the mirror, and have a good laugh at how goofy you look.

see the title of this blog. then, look at the photo. it may be my lack of sleep, or i may just be funny. who knows? who cares? it sure made me laugh!

my grampa's headstone

the letter

sometime before he died (as no date is listed), my grampa wrote me a letter. grama found it in one of his chests of drawers. here is how it began with the exceptions of his spelling and grammatical errors; i think he would have gotten a kick out of my perfection for grammar and punctuation, as nerdy as it is!

"elise,
i want you to be happy. you are a beautiful gal. you're intelligent, and you have a strong, religious base. i pray that you just enjoy your next step. remember to love your family. you are so special, my dear."

i think i will type up this part of the letter, frame it, and hang it by my bathroom window so i can read it every morning. i have read it over and over in the past couple hours since i received it, and each time i read it, i feel as if grampa is present in the room and hugging me. i can still detect a slight whiff of his scent on the letter and envelope. i am not entirely sure it really is there, yet i smell it.

though the letter was short, it was comforting; even solely seeing his penmanship without reading the letter made me smile. the majority of the letter was personal, but grampa did leave me one last piece of advice.

"anger is like a cancer, it can change a person's presence. it is better to accept what has happened. forgive and overlook; you will live a better life. remember to pray for strength." -grampa

i wish heaven had an address so i could write a response letter. i know he can hear my thoughts and read my letters--probably not this blog, though, because he had not quite figured out the computer!

better yet, i simply wish he was still here...

the letter in the envelope

the importance of a memory

"memory is a way of holding on to the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose" -kevin arnold

because our cable was acting funky this past week, i spent most of my "tv time" watching home videos of when i was younger rather than actual television. the films began moments after i was born. i heard my mother and father talking about how perfect i was, how i was going to be a girly-girl, and how much they already loved me. i watched my family hold me for the first time and welcome me into the family. then, my birth ended, and halloween began. at this time, i was four months old. i watched as my parents tried to involve me in pumpkin carving and as they dressed me up in this awful yet humerous pumpkin costume; i resembled the little boy from "a christmas story". 


this is what i resembled on halloween except i was a pumpkin. i'm not sure which is worse...

then, i watched my first christmas as my parents put a rather large santa hat on me. when the hat would fall down and cover my face, everybody would laugh. it was quite adorable, but i felt bad for my helpless, little self! that is also when this picture was taken. after helping my grampa open his presents (he was so patient with me!), i opened this walker. he helped me put it together, and held me up to it as i could not quite stand alone yet. precious.
 

i know i posted this picture already, but from watching my home videos, i actually saw when this picture was taken. it was incredibly weird to actually watch a picture being taken almost twenty years ago. crazy!! i love this picture.

after a while of watching myself as a baby, i watched as my two-year-old self opened countless christmas presents, threw temper tantrums, and smiled for the camera. i watched myself as my family traveled to the cabin, paul bunyan land, and to both of my grandparents' houses.

the saying goes something like, "you never appreciate what you have until it is gone." i did appreciate my family, and i still do. family is everything, the most important aspect of one's life. cherish every moment with family and friends because one never knows when it could be the last phone call, last hand shake, or last hug. but when that "last" does happen, taken time to mourn; it is okay to be sad, to cry, and to feel alone, but never forget the memories because those will live on forever.

my grampa lives on forever through my memories.

when dreams become reality

whether just a dream or real life, i saw my grampa about a week ago. i was not able to fall asleep one night so i simply closed my eyes and wished i could talk to him. suddenly i felt as if i came out of my body and entered into this room made solely out of clouds; the floors, the walls, the ceilings. everything. it was very bright and sunny inside this cloud room. at first, i looked around and saw nothing, but then, my grampa appeared as a hologram-like figure. his image continuously switched between him as a young baseball player (like the picture we having hanging in our dining room) and him as an older man (like how i would remember him). i remember getting frustrated with him because he could not make up his mind on how he wanted to look, and i was tired and just wanted to say hi and then go to sleep! i finally told him to make up his mind, and he chose the older image of himself because it was the one i recognized. he looked happy and healthy. when he spoke to me, he was not suffering through the sentence as he used to in the last couple years of his life; he was able to breathe.

he told me to tell grama that even though she enjoys having coffee with him at his grave site, he is there in the mornings in their kitchen when she has coffee, too, and she does not have to visit the grave site in order to be with him; he is always around. he also told me to tell my mother that the baby she miscarried between my brother and i, sophia, reminded him of me when i was younger. i did not have a chance to ask him anything or even speak to him because sophia ran into the room wanting him to play with her. in my "dream", sophia was about six-years-old, and she was wearing a bright red dress with lace around the trim. she had on black tights with black shoes, and her hair golden brown, soft curls were in pig tails with red ribbons. she looked like a little girl all dressed up for christmas. before they left, they both looked at each other and then at me and smiled. together, in unison, they said that they would see me soon, and then, hand-in-hand, walked away. as they walked away, they slowly disappeared into the clouds, and i woke up in my bed with butterflies in my belly; it was the feeling i got when i used to swing high as a kid.

i wish i would have been able to ask questions or speak, but i have not figured out how to yet or even if i can. the visit was so short so i do not know if there would be much time for talking. mostly, it is just a vision; it is like a short movie playing as clearly as it would on television.

the room interests me. was i in heaven? or was i in some sort of room where people on earth are able to see and speak with people in heaven during their dreams?

it was unlike anything i have ever experienced because when i used to see sophia when i was little, she would come to me in my room or backyard, and i would not have to be sleeping in order to see her. maybe that was because we were both children, though. maybe when a person is older, they must meet their loved ones instead of their loved ones simply coming to them.

during the whole experience, not once did i feel scared, confused, or alone; i was happy.

my grama posted this picture a couple days after my encounter which was surreal as this is exactly what he looked like when i saw him minus the clothing as i was unable to see what he was wearing, and i think his hair and glasses were slightly different. but the smile was the same.

will we ever meet again?

i hate change. and i hate the unknowns in life. hate may be a strong word... i fear change? and i fear the unknowns in life? it is so difficult to admit your fears because once admitted, they become a reality, and once a reality, they begin to encompass your life. though slightly terrifying, the fear of the unknown drives you to experience the new and exciting things life has to offer. so i am torn. is change good? or bad?

keeping with the theme, heaven is a huge unknown and a slightly scary thought for most. i grew up always knowing there is a heaven and a god though i did not know understand what exactly occurs after death. does anyone really? i remember my mother telling me how heaven could be anything and everything i wanted it to be. naturally, i wanted a room made of ice cream where i could eat ice cream all day long and never get a tummy ache. typical child. but is that really how it works? you can just wish for something in heaven and essentially get what you want? do you have to ask for it? or does god sense it and prepare it for when you arrive? will heaven be fun? how is it possible for there to be no pain or sorrow when our earthly lives are filled with them?

and do not even get me started on eternity. just the mere thought of it makes my brain hurt and my heart race. it is so surreal because nothing on this earth lasts forever. yet, in heaven, we will.

mind-boggling.

i kinda wish my grampa could just tell me what it is like. do they have rooms full of ice cream? what do you look like in heaven? old like when you died, or young like when you played baseball and jumped out of airplanes? have you met anyone significant in history? have you met god? what does he look like?

if my grampa somehow answers any of these questions, i will write about it, but in the mean time, check out the book heaven is for real. it is the story about a little boy's trip to heaven and back. it comforted some of my unknown fears about heaven and the afterlife. overall, it is a neat story! a link to the book on amazon can be found below.





http://www.amazon.com/Heaven-Real-Little-Astounding-Edition/dp/0849948363/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1336977530&sr=1-1

fix me?

it has been forever since i have written anything--which seems odd as i have been stressed out of my mind, and writing always helps me relieve stress. i thought staying extremely busy would keep me from fully experiencing the pain of losing someone who meant so much to me and can never be replaced. i think it did work for awhile. but i do not necessarily think it is working anymore. having the stresses of school, working two jobs, and trying to plan my studying abroad and a wedding on my shoulders, not to mention grieving, is a lot. sometimes, my heart beats so fast that it may just jump right out of my chest.


will it ever slow down so i can breathe?


sometimes, i just want to cry and be hugged.

london, baby!

so for those of you who do not already know, kayla and i are going to london this summer for about seven weeks! we leave the middle of may and return in early july (hopefully before the fourth). we will be taking one class and interning for approximately twenty hours per week. unfortunately, we will not be attending the olympics as neither athletes nor spectators, but we will hopefully get to see the set up!

i'm. so. excited.

yay!

finding serenity

i think (and hope) my roller coaster of mumble jumble emotions is finally over. not being able to physically or mentally handle a typical day in the life of elise was a terribly strange feeling. yes, i am in control of how i act on my emotions, but no, i am not in control of my emotions themselves. not being able to control something that has the power to control you is an icky feeling. what happens, though, when not only can you not control your emotions themselves but you no longer can control how you express them?

my wednesday morning was a perfect example.

being late for my bus caused a horrible, spiral effect of emotions to explode out of me. like a tea pot screeching in order to announce the water is ready, i kicked, screamed, and cried, quite possibly to let the world know i'm ready to accept it, get help dealing with it, and move on. it is surreal looking back on this thirty minute part of my morning. i literally do not believe i had any control over my body: my actions, my words, my thoughts. as cliche as it may sound, i feel as though i was outside of my body just watching myself fall apart. kinda scary...

after i calmed down and began to breathe, i went home. sometimes, the best medicine in life is a teaspoon of laughter, a tablespoon of love, and a whole jar of family.

to know how normal all of these emotions are is comforting; simply learning how to deal with them is difficult.

on a brighter note, i bought my wedding dress yesterday! it is so beautiful and makes me feel like a princess. i just want wear it everywhere, everyday. i wonder if i could start a new trend?

wedding dresses are the new "it" thing for spring? i wish...!

dang. it snowed.

it just does not feel like he is really gone. when will it finally sink in? not that i want it to... ever.

maybe it is because i have been busy constantly every since the beginning of this semester which was the day after the funeral. maybe i have not had enough time to actually process what happened. maybe i should see a grief counselor. ya, i think that's what i will do.

i am looking at wedding dresses this weekend with my mom, my grama, and kevin's mom. i know if my grampa was here to see my wedding dress, he would say, "oh, honey. you look lovely, just lovely." i can hear his voice saying exactly that.

this sucks.

bittersweet blessing

it has been four weeks already since my grampa passed away. almost four weeks down to the hour exactly. the whole evening seems like a blur.

kevin and i were enjoying a relaxing day of doing nothing but watching back-to-back episodes of 'friends'. we lead an exciting life. right when i was about to cook us dinner, i got a phone call from my brother, jack. he sounded upset and asked me if i was sitting down. thinking this was some teenage drama, i slightly sarcastically said i was. then he said...

grampa died. i didn't think i heard him correctly. i asked him to repeat himself. grampa died.

my head was spinning. i burst in to tears and threw my phone at kevin. i think he held me for what felt like a brief moment before i decided to get dressed, pack random objects in which were in my line of sight, and leave to go home.

i will never forget the rush of emotions or feelings felt that evening. thankfully, he passed away while taking a peaceful afternoon nap with no pain or discomfort. later i was told when the paramedics arrived at my grama's house, they could detect a slight heartbeat and were confident he could still hear my grama, mom, and jack speaking to him. they were able to tell him they loved him, it was okay to let go, and he was not alone. this was a blessing, as bittersweet as it was.

enjoy carving your wooden ducks for all of god's mantles. enjoy playing baseball with baseball legends. enjoy being able to breath without the constraints of your oxygen tank. enjoy running and playing fetch with maggie-dog.

sleep well, grampa. i love you.


grama and i when i was barely old enough to walk.

computers in heaven? yes or no?

i think the stresses of work and school are catching up to me. not mention grieving at the same time. i think the sleepless nights and headaches are egging each other on… like a never-ending cycle of misery. hopefully i finally get some much-needed rest tonight.

yesterday was a hard day. i did't feel well the entire day. and not just because i was getting over a migraine. along with not feeling one hundred percent, i spent extended periods of time throughout the day just crying for no reason. sure, i could say i was sad or lonely or missing my grampa, but it was not just that. i spilled water and cried. i could not find matching socks and cried. weird…

on a brighter note, i have almost completed my application to study and intern this summer in london. hopefully both kayla and i get into the program. i am not sure if either of us would be comfortable going alone.

hey grampa, if you have any say with the big guy, can you suggest that we be accepted? i know, if you were still here, you would love to hear about this experience. well, i will keep you updated on here. do you know how to use computers in heaven?

communication to heaven. interesting thing to ponder.

where's the sun?

it has been gloomy outside all week long.

and it was supposed to be sunny all week.

this isn't helping my "think positive" and "think happy thoughts" mood attempt.

when the weather is gloomy, how do you make yourself feel "sunny"?

d. all of the above

it has been exactly three weeks since i lost my grampa. this is the first time i have been able to write about it which seems odd because i have always turned to writing as a way to express myself- particularly my feelings. through the countless sleepless nights (which is awful being as i'm a college student), it never occurred to me to write.

simply. just. write.

other than putting a few pets to sleep, i've never really experienced death. i would assume crying is normal, yet i haven't cried for more than an hour total in the last three weeks. i feel as if i am not "grieving properly". i am surely not over his death by any means. maybe i haven't accepted it yet. or am i still mad? sad? confused?

d. all of the above

i don't want to sound selfish by saying the typical "what i wouldn't give for one more day" line, but it is true- not only in my case but for everyone grieving a loss. i know death is part of the "circle of life" as lion king says, but i simply wasn't ready to let him go yet. or ever.

hopefully tonight is sleepfull night rather than sleepless.

goodnight, world.

and goodnight, grampa. <3