My Fundraising Dillema

Today, as I sat at my desk counting down the final hour of the work day watching seconds tick by, I heard from my desk a little boy asking from the front counter, "Would you like to buy a Christmas wreath?"

I hid behind my computer monitor and let the front desk girl send him on his way. Why? Well, because I wanted to shout, "Yes! Yes, you poor little man with a lisp, I will buy an overpriced wreath to support whatever cause you are selling them for!" But I didn't. I didn't because I have watched my husband send away countless amounts of youth attempting to fund-raise, I have watched him turn down great sales offers, and in doing so he has helped me learn the value of saying, "No."

I am not good at it yet.  That young man walked away and my heart was wracked with guilt! I shed tears over telling that kid, "No." My work study even wished him luck as he moved forward selling and I am sure it was the most polite refusal he has seen today, but for my heart, it didn't soften the blow.  I still shed tears over the disappointment I just made that young man feel.

There is some value though. Life is going to give us all a lot of that answer: NO. It makes the times we get a "yes" a whole lot sweeter.  There are also things that my husband always says these kids need to learn: how to be a salesman and plead your case.  This young man didn't start with any sort of greeting, not even a, "Hello!" He didn't tell me WHY he was selling wreaths, where he was from, who he represented, how much the wreaths cost, or the benefits I might gain from buying his wreath. He didn't even tell me his name.

In the real world, that won't get you anywhere. Someday you will plead with a professor over a grade or an opinion, a future employer over an intent to work contract, a supervisor over an account you believe in, a manager over office policy, an HR representative over your pay grade - and in doing all of these real world scenarios, you MUST sell yourself.  You better know exactly who you are, you better say it with a smile, you better convince the person WHY you are worth it, your product is worth it, your idea is worth it, your employment is worth it. And let me tell you a secret: you better believe what you are saying or they never will.

So the next time you fork over 30 dollars to the Boy Scouts for caramel popcorn, or 4 dollars a box for your beloved Girl Scout cookies, please make sure they worked for it.  If they haven't worked for it, you are only giving them the impression that all things in life come easily - and that, I assure you, will never serve them well for their future.

If I Should Think Of Love

“If I should think of love,

I’d think of you." ~William Shakespeare

I scrawled those words on the bathroom mirror over my husband’s sink many days ago.  I looked up at them again today to find the dry erase ink has melted the letters into something fit for Halloween – a font fit for the Goosebump novels – as countless showers have been taken since the time I wrote them, the steam and condensation doing a number on the original message.  If you look hard though, and squint just one of your eyes, you will find the original message still there. I think that’s why he hasn’t wiped it off yet.

I have this curse in my passion for literature that I discover things as I study and read: poetry, prose, letters, devotions, stories – things written for lovers that have stood the test of time, lasted through centuries, escaped fires, natural disasters, plagues, and remain to this day, a testament of emotions that ran so deep that when the author wrote about them, they became permanent.  Their love became enduring, everlasting, endless – right there in black and white for centuries upon centuries to read.

So I wonder, as I write, if anything I ever say about my love will stand the test of time. Does my love diminish or mean less if I can’t create a sonnet suited for Shakespeare’s audiences?  Does pain have to be associated with love for it to evoke the emotions that run so deep that poets praise it? Was it a different life? A different time? What made it so poignant?

I find myself wondering, did they ever nurse their sick wife back to health?  Did they ever stand at their husband’s bed side counting the breaths because the medicine sedated him so deeply, you wondered if he had died? Did they lose a child? Or hold hands as they brought a child into this world? Did he lift his wife off the floor and wrap her in his arms trying to squeeze the grief of losing a loved one out of her body and into his own, because he would do anything to take the pain away?  And I think: of course they did. Don’t we all?

Maybe we don’t do it in the way that poetry writes, but we choose love.  We choose hope. Love is a verb. I recently read a quote by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland about love that said, “It does not come without effort and it does not come without patience…true love booms when we care more about another person than we care about ourselves.” I would add that when that same level of care is reciprocated back to us.

So I feel love the same way the poets did.  I just haven’t mastered how to write about it yet.  It’s there, though, I can assure you.  I feel it in the dark of night flowing from my husband’s steady arms that surround me, like osmosis occurs between our bodies, and the love transfused between he and I where our skin touches.  I feel it in the way he tucks my hair behind my ear when I am crying to look me in the eyes and offer comfort. I feel it in the way his soul silently sends mine a message that feels like, “I am here. I will not leave you. You will always be my first priority.”  I smell it through fall flowers he gifts to me for no reason at all.  I feel it deep in my chest when my lungs are struggling for air because my chest is heavy with laughter.

I feel it, I just don’t write about it as well as the greats. As well as Shakespeare, but I mean it and feel just as he did….

“But were you in my arms, dear love,

The happiness would take my breath away,

No thought could match that ecstasy,

No song encompass it, no other worlds.

If I should think of love,

I’d think of you."

And Just Like That, September Was Gone

It’s October people! I love the fall. In Laramie, it is a short lived season, and I dream of a day where I live in a climate that gives me three glorious months of sweater weather with bright, changing leaves and pumpkins all around. For now, I will make do with clinging to the last strands of the fading season before my eternal winter begins again. 

Fall, for some reason, always makes me feel nostalgia.  Fall means football, and I feel nostalgia for the days that the Riverton Wolverines were winning state championships as I watched older brothers and cousins play football.  I yearn for the days when I traveled across this state every single Friday to follow around the Laramie Plainsman and watch my little brother live out his senior year with a Mohawk and shoulder pads.  There is a longing that drives me to sing ‘Ragtime Cowboy Joe’ and feel the buzz of War Memorial stadium that only Cowboy’s fans can create.  Canons.  Bands.  Pigskin.  Deep in my soul I feel a drive for sitting on the couch wrapped in a blanket, steaming mug in my hand, fuzzy socks on my feet, football on the TV, the man I love at my side, books in my lap.  There is just something about this season that makes me feel all the feelings so deep down in my soul and running through all my blood. 

Fall has this holiday, though, that I have been avoiding thinking about for quite some time.  Thanksgiving.  A time that is full of the best holiday memories I have.  Memories.  Just memories.  For this year, I will embark upon Thanksgiving without the very Grandparents who made it so special.  The first Thanksgiving after suffering the loss of their presence in this life. I have feared fall this year, not sure if it would bring the same feelings of wistfulness and make my heart as content as it always has in the past. 

I took this silly quiz to determine the color of my aura a few days ago.  One of the questions was, “What drives you?” There was an array of options to choose from, but among them was the simple choice: a need for peace.  Not the kind of peace when war ends, but the kind of peace that applies to feelings in the depths of our souls. Peace. Tranquility. Calm. Restfulness. Quiet.

 That’s what fall is – even this year with it’s scary reminders – fall is peace.  A need that gets met once a year as rain falls, cold fronts move in, leaves crunch under boots, and sweaters make their first appearances.  It is peace. It is fall. And it soothes my restless soul.

A "Divergent" Book Club Meeting

This month it was my turn to host book club again, and I was so excited! We read Veronica Roth's "Divergent" as our novel, so I thought that throwing a themed party was the best idea in this case! I sent everyone an invitation in the mail ahead of time to the "Choosing Ceremony" (Book Club Meeting) at the "The Hub" (my house).  The invitation included the link to take a quiz to determine what faction you belonged in as well as a link to faction appropriate clothing ideas. I told everyone to come dressed for their faction.

Upon arrival to my house for the Choosing Ceremony, guests were greeted by this table.  I had 5 bowls with each of the 5 different substances for the factions as well as the manifestos printed out for the different options.  I got all the info off of fan sites, so I didn't do any original creating of the templates, I just printed them.  The guests dropped "blood" (red food coloring) into the bowl of their faction as the entrance of the book club meeting.  It was a lot of fun!

This is my friend Anna and I love her picture the most because it looks like real blood coming out of her hand! You can also see the Erudite water turned red in this picture from MY blood. Of course I was wearing blue...I'm a nerd!

What is a book club without food, though right? So I used Google as well as ideas from mine and my own friend's minds to come up with some food options for each faction.  Some of the food choices didn't make any sense unless you has read the entire trilogy, but luckily, I had.

Our food table started out with Amity.  I provided some orchard fruit as well as the peace bread mentioned in the second book that keeps all Amity members feeling happy.  We joked that it must meed it was laced with marijuana! BUT don't worry, mine was just laced with bananas. I served the amity food on the faction color of red.

Next was the Erudite food, which I served on the faction color of blue.  I served brain food a/k/a "Smart Food" white cheddar popcorn in blue cups.  I also set up a make your own fizzy drink option.  The Erudite drink soda, which to the other factions is overly sweet and weird tasting because of the carbonation, but I thought Italian sodas would be fun.  I just dropped blue food coloring into the soda water.

Next up? Candor! I served this on the faction color of white and because Candor always tell the truth and see things as black and white, I served Black and White chips and dip.  You also learn in the later novels that the Candor love ice cream, so I served white vanilla ice cream with black truth serum (chocolate syrup) because every initiate has to take the truth serum and be questioned while under the influence to be welcomed into the faction.

For my Abnegation section of the table, I served cheese and crackers and chicken on grey.  I got both of these ideas from things I read in the book about what Tris's family ate before she chose Dauntless. I also served little bottles of water that had a label on them that read "Abnegation's Selfless Sips."

When Tris sits to eat her first meal as a Dauntless initiate, she is surprised to see a hamburger as she has never eaten one before.  So I served Dauntless Hamburgers with cheese and bacon on the faction color of black.  Throughout all three novels, references are made to the Dauntless Chocolate Cake, so of course I HAD to serve that as well!

And of course, I couldn't forget the Factionless! I bagged dry fruit and threw it haphazardly at the table labeled "Factionles Grub" as well as provided a jar of peanut butter.  Funny enough, no one wanted to to spoon any out and pass it along to the next person in the circle like they do in the book.

Really, it was quite the spread!!!

I had a lot of fun putting the party together. I couldn't have done it without my husband, though, who is always such a good sport and willing to help me achieve these crazy ideas of mine. We had book club outside, around the fire pit, talking about a post-apocalyptic society. It was fitting. It was perfect.

I'll tell you what, though, I decided. I wouldn't last. I'd die in an instant.

How Much Time, Is Enough Time?

Photo Courtesy of Douglas Hammond

As we gathered in the Big Horn Mountains for the umpteenth time over the 4^th of July for our annual Shoopman Family Camp, I asked myself this question over and over and over again.  Why does it still hurt so much? Is it too soon? Would emotions still be running high? Will this even be enjoyable? With my firm belief in life after death, shouldn’t the pain have passed by now?

How much time is enough time?

My conclusion is one of hope. There is no such thing as enough time to “get over” the loss of a loved one to death because we aren’t meant to get over it. We are meant to look forward to a time we are reunited with them again, and that is far different than getting over it.

I would be lying if I said it wasn’t different, because it was.

I would be lying if I said people laughed just as hard, because they didn’t.

I would be lying if I said the pain wasn’t still really raw, because it really, really was.

But we went.  We felt cool mountain air cut through sleeping bags in the early dawn of the day.  We gathered for meals and games and competitions, and in the moments we immersed ourselves in one another, we laughed until we cried. We loved. We remembered. We honored.

We fished.

We hiked.

We saw moose. And birds. And bugs. And flowers. And endless evidence of the circle of life.

We all spent a little bit more time alone.  I can’t tell you how many family members I watched taking a walk on their own, turning their face towards the sky, letting the sun warm them, and I knew – I knew they were feeling them, they were letting their love surround them , they were reaching for their memories.

I clung to younger kids, remembering how much joy they found in children. I built forts. I rode 4-wheelers and Razors and hiked and played.  I listened to excited screams of “Auntie Ayz, come look!” and reveled in the sleepy, whispered words of, “You are my favorite.”

I lived a legacy. I remembered the love I have for them, and felt their love back tenfold more surrounded by those mountains than any other place I have been since they left.

And I looked to the night sky. And I saw two pairs of eyes in the stars. And I felt their approval. And I felt their love.

“Well done.”

Today My Hero Traded A Cowboy Hat For A Halo To Be With His Bride

1:11 a.m.  A call from home at 1:11 am could only mean one thing.  Grandpa had decided to join his sweetheart in the next life, leaving broken hearted loved ones in this life. 

As my Daddy broke the news to me about his own Daddy, it didn't feel real. It couldn't be this soon.  It wasn't supposed to happen like this.  The flowers on my table – sent as symbols of sympathy for losing Grandma – were still blooming on my kitchen table.  I sat there in the dark of the night, thinking that: the flowers haven’t even died yet, how has he gone already?  Through tears I told my Dad I loved him and hung up the phone.

The kind of grief I felt in that moment was suffocating and all encompassing.  It was different, this was it, and the last of my grandparents was now gone when just 4 days ago I sat holding his hand, laughing with him, learning from him.  It didn't feel real.  My heart, already battered and bruised, opened with fresh, gaping wounds. It wasn't just pain for my loss, but for my father’s, for my cousin’s, for my sibling’s…for all of us who are part of a posterity he created.

After an hour of being awake, I knelt in prayer by my bedside. In that moment, I felt peace in my heart knowing that he was with his bride.  He always called her that, “my bride.”  It was always the sweetest thing to hear out of his mouth. It was not joyous, I was not happy he was gone, but I felt some peace about it.  And I finally fell back asleep. 

I woke up again around 6 and retreated to the trusty old shower for more tears.  I have always allowed myself that much in moments of darkness in life.  I can fall apart for exactly as long as it takes the hot water to run dry, and then it is time to pick myself up and take on the day.  But today, that wasn’t coming easily. I wanted to stay in bed. I wanted to shut the world away.

My Mom took a page out of LeRoy Shoopman’s book and showed up at my house and forced me to take on the day.  That’s what he would have done.  He never let his days pass by idly.  There is always something to be done, always hope, always time to turn your day around.  So we went to breakfast and ran the dogs in the mountain.  It was perfect.  My Grandpa loved being outside, so an outdoor setting as I struggled to come to terms with what had happened was as close to him as I could have felt.

Six days ago I stood in my Dad’s driveway and told him and my sisters that I couldn't handle Grandpa going too soon.  I told them he better be tough.  I didn't want any tragic love stories here, damn it I am selfish and I wanted him to stay awhile!

But it wasn't in the cards. 

My sister told me today that when I said I couldn't handle this a few days ago, I might have been right if I were alone. “But you aren't alone sis,” she said, “I love you and my thoughts, my heart, and my prayers are with you.”  She is right. I am not alone.  I am surrounded by people who love me. Who lift me up.  Who lend up their strength when I can’t derive any of my own.

So, with a heavy heart, I have to accept that this Cowboy traded in his hat for a halo, to be with the woman he stood by and loved eternally in this world for over 67 years.  What a blessing he was to so many people.  Never a picture of perfection (none of us are), but always a perfect example of striving to be.

He was a soft spoken man.  A marine in World War II who stormed 7 beaches while fighting in the Pacific along with countless other battles for our freedom, yet the most humble of men who rarely spoke of the war and never bragged of his patriotism, keeping the fact that he won many medals and achieved many honors to himself, so much so that even his own family was in shock to learn about them in the last few years.  A China Marine with more dignity than anyone I’ve ever met. Who instilled that gratitude for freedom, that dedication to God and Country, that American pride he defended, into all of his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. A true hero in every aspect of the word.

He survived 7 heart attacks, and in doing so kept the promise he’d made to his bride that he would never leave her side.  He loved nothing more than a team of burros pulling a covered wagon.  When I walked into their home after school or for water breaks from hot, dusty, summer days, he always sang as I walked in, “Here she comes, Miss America!”  He showed me small pieces of his younger self in these last closing years of his life.  He told me about how he hot-rodded a Marine issued Jeep on the top of the Great Wall of China. He talked about his first vehicle and "sparking" for the ladies.

Above all though, he loved his wife.  That’s how he taught us all how to live: how to be a good parent, how to be a good grandparent, how to be a good friend – it all stemmed from the lessons we learned about how to love your spouse, to be committed to them above all else, and to thrive in life by following the words in the Good Book to the best of our capabilities. I heard him pray so many times I couldn’t count them, and I will hold in my heart the sound of him reciting the Lord’s name, the way the cadence of his voice always expressed his humility in his Savior, the awe and love to whom we were praying, the way his prayers always possessed more statements of gratitude than requests.

I wrote something once that I revisted today and remembered the commitment I made to him in the moment I was writing it. I will reiterate it today.

The thought of losing him in this life devastates me, and whenever the day does come that he slips to the next chapter, I will be the biggest ball of tears around. However, he has taught, he has loved, he has cherished, he has procured and cultivated and shaped his family into one of the strongest inheritances I have ever known.

So while I beg you to wait Grandpa, wait to see my first born, wait to see me publish a book, wait to see your first great-great grandchild, I know that those wishes are mine, not yours. Those wishes are selfish, not selfless. So because you taught me with all your might to be selfless, I will instead tell you that I STILL beg you stay, but in the same breath, I reassure you that if you must leave, do it knowing that you harvested a great many, wonderful people to carry on your heritage.

We’ve got this.

We will cry and our hearts will hurt and we will seek comfort in the knowledge and belief that families are forever. We will suffer immense loss. But because of you and what you have taught us…

We’ve got this.

“God be with you till we meet again;

Keep love’s banner floating o’er you;

Smite death’s threatening wave before you.

God be with you till we meet again.”