Eleven for 2011

1. Love deeper
2. Laugh harder
3. Speak more encouragingly
4. Listen well
5. Forgive quickly
6. Anger slowly
7. Dream bigger
8. Hope stronger
9. Believe fiercely
10. Trust faster
11. Risk everything

Eyes Wide Open

They say that love is blind, but I disagree, at least when it comes to real love I do. Christ didn't come with a message of blind love. He did not ignore the faults or mistakes of those He spent His time with, in fact those were often the things that He addressed first. 


This past year has had numerous challenges, and within each challenge has been an invaluable lesson. The lesson that I have come to appreciate most is loving someone with my eyes wide open. It's one thing to love someone without ever really knowing them, it's quite different to love someone knowing all of who they are. It's something that God can do in a matter of minutes, He can see all of who you are and love you anyway. We are not God, and He knows that, that's why He has designed it that we learn to love all of someone in small doses. The durations of the journeys are significantly different, but the desired end result is the same.


"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." -John 13:34-35


I would never wish that anyone love another blindly. There is nothing more rewarding or powerful then being able to say that your actions come from a pure, wide-eyed love and you didn't need another reason. Christ hung on the cross because His love for us was that immense and His eyes weren't closed to the depths to which we are capable of falling. If I want to emulate anything from Christ, I want that to be it.  

New Year's Resolution

I have never done a New Year's resolution, and I don't mean that I have never kept one, I mean I have never made one. I've never really believed in them, maybe at one point in time they were goals people set and actually met, but with every year that passes the New Year's resolution becomes just another thing to do, like kissing your loved one at midnight. I don't see any point in making a resolution if you have no intention of keeping it. But with 2011 around the corner and my desire for it to be different from any other year in my life, I'm thinking why not start it differently? 


I took my cousin to get her tattoo yesterday. We spent five hours in a cubicle while she got poked and bled all in the name of decorating her body talking about everything from boys to work to what's next. Somewhere during the course of the conversation my grandma and my role in her life over the last year came up, and though it is hard to talk about it's never a conversation I would shy away from. This time, however, it was different. I was telling a stranger about what happened, but I was doing it in front of someone who was there with me, someone who watched it all happen. My cousin saw the best and worst sides of me over the last year, she saw the tears, heard the frustrations. When I needed someone I found myself on her doorstep. Every other conversation about the past year that we (my cousin and I) had with an 'outsider' I let my cousin do the talking, this time she was busy trying not to scream. I had almost forgotten she was sitting there until she chimed in with, "She handled it better then most of the family did." 


I didn't know she had been watching. Well, I take that back, I knew she was watching, I just didn't realize she was watching me. She was down in the trenches with me, I didn't have time to watch anyone, I didn't think anyone else did either. I was wrong. 


All of that to bring me to my "resolution". Whether I like it or not and whether I wanted it or not I have an audience of at least one, four with absolute certainty, and plenty more I'm sure I'm unaware of. That's a good size circle of influence. Whatever I do will either motivate someone to follow my lead or someone else's depending on whether or not they like what they see. So my resolution is to pay attention to what I'm doing, because if people are going to be watching me I want them to see something worth seeing. 

What God Has Joined Together...

"What God has joined together, let no man separate." 

-Mark 10:9

If there was a biblical catch phrase for weddings this verse would be it, but I don't want to talk about weddings this time. 


Things are always clearer in hindsight, that fact is a blessing and a curse all in itself, but this time hindsight is a blessing through and through! Tragedy is capable of one of two things, making or breaking a person's spirit, and what it does to one's spirit will effect every aspect of their life. As my grandmother's passing became more and more of a reality many of us questioned the direction it would push us individually and consequently as a family. It would've broken my grandmother's heart if her death broke us apart, if we stopped being family simply because the strongest bond between us all was her and she was gone. That would've been unacceptable to her and I believe it would've been unacceptable to God. I have relationships with people in my family that I never thought I would, I have stronger relationships with others that I didn't think could get stronger. I reconnected with people that I lost touch with. It's sad that it took my grandmother's death to make it happen, but it's the best way that we, as a family, could honor her. 


I didn't get to pick my family, God gave it to me. I don't think I could have picked a better one to be apart of had He let me. And tragedy didn't break my family, that's one more thing that my grandmother can dance in Heaven about. 

To Dust You Shall Return

For every one thing that you consider difficult when losing a loved one there are two things you won't even have reason to think about until after they're gone. I considered all the obvious ones while she was still alive. I knew waking up in the morning was going to be hard. I knew driving her car without her next to me was going to be hard. I knew the holidays were going to be hard. I knew that sitting outside in the back enjoying the sun was going to be hard because those are all things we've done together my entire life (except for the driving part). I knew the memorial service was going to be hard, but that is sort of the point, giving the family an opportunity to openly grieve together. Like I said, I was prepared (as much as one could be) for the obvious ones. 

It never crossed my mind that spending time with her brothers and sisters would be hard. I never thought that having her dogs in my lap would be difficult, but it is, because that's not where they would be if she were here. I never thought I would wrestle with the decision to watch her take her final breath after I had already made it. It's been nine days, I can't take it back, but every morning I wish I hadn't and every night I'm glad I did. I never thought that not actually saying the word 'goodbye' would be harder than saying it, but it is. I never thought about how present the emptiness was going to be. I didn't think that at the slightest hint of disrespect for my grandmother, her body, or my family I would be outraged. Turns out it didn't take much at all. But most of all I didn't think about how I would feel when her remains were brought home.

It took a week for the doctor to sign the death certificate (the reason for my outrage) and then she was cremated. Initially I wanted my grandmother's remains at home, where they belonged. Last night I got the phone call saying that I could come and pick her up when I wanted. I went first thing this morning. 15 death certificates and a box full of ashes in a decorative paper bag with the Hollywood Forever logo on it. Now that description may sound disrespectful, but I assure you it isn't. For those who have never experienced something like this before I want you to get a clear picture. You walk into the lobby and tell the receptionist the reason for your visit, then minutes later someone comes from another part of the building carrying a bag and papers for you to sign. In those few moments I realized that the woman who was 4'6" at the time she died and stood just below my shoulder would (if I set her on the ground), in her urn, barely come mid-calf. Reality is a funny thing, and this morning it hit me like a ton of bricks.

From dust she came and to dust she did return, but the only thing the mortuary service managed to return to me is her body and the ashes of purple orchids and a willow tree. But that's not really what I want sitting just outside my bedroom door. I wish they could have given me her laugh or her smile. I wish they could have given me the way she would hit me when I was being a pongolo or her kisses. I wish they could have given me the way she said 'Mija' or how she would tell my baby cousins, "Kiss Grandma". Everything of who my grandma was is safely tucked away inside the minds and hearts of everyone that knew her. I don't want the thought of her ashes in my head, I don't get wanting it in my living room. 

Don't get me wrong, I am grateful that her body is safe, even if it looks more like sand then a body, but they didn't give me back my grandmother. They gave me the house her spirit dwelt in, the shelter that housed her mind, heart, and soul. 

Without those her ashes may just as well be ashes.

I Wanted This

In two hours and thirty-one minutes my grandmother will have passed away exactly a week ago. It feels like she has been gone for so much longer then that and at the same time, I keep waiting for her to walk through the front door. 


This past week wasn't hard until this morning. Until this morning I was busy designing prayer cards and programs and making the slideshow for the reception. I was too distracted with the laughter and the constant talking over one another that all families inherently do. I was busy eating good food and drinking good coffee to notice how different things were. Until this morning...


This morning the house was quiet. I got to sleep in and when I did finally wake up it was to the silence of the house. Over the last few weeks I had gotten used to waking to the fresh smell of coffee, and that was gone too. In a matter of hours my whole world had been turned upside down. The dust remained unsettled for what felt like forever, and then overnight it all settled into almost the exact place it had been prior to being disturbed. Life is back to normal, but normal has completely changed. 


I look back over the last ten months with amazement. I am amazed at the resilience of my family and of myself. I am amazed at the strength of my grandmother right up until her final breath, a moment she and God alone chose. But I think the thing that I stand in awe of most is that I kept expecting myself to regret this, to want to take back my decision and leave LA as if nothing happened, and I didn't. I thought I would be broken by the notion of living with someone with cancer, that I would have reached the point of it being unbearable early on and would've walked away. I never did. No matter how hard it got, or how often I said, "I just want to go home," I never saw myself anywhere other than here. I think more importantly then me feeling like I needed to be here, I WANTED to be here. I wanted to be here for every minute of this entire bittersweet journey. 


My grandmother spent my whole life letting me know that I was a priority. Christmas', birthdays, summer vacations, she never missed anything without a really, really good reason! If I needed something she did whatever it took and I never had to ask twice. No sacrifice was too great. When I decided to move she wasn't the priority, but when I got to LA my priorities changed. The sacrifice I made was not too great, and what made it easier was that she tried to talk me out of it. She didn't want to need me, and there were plenty of times where she hated that she did. Selfishly, I am grateful for every single one of those moments. I wanted her to need me and to know that she didn't have to ask twice. I wanted her to know that I loved her as much as she loved me my entire life. 


I don't know how I did what I did and I don't really know why I did it other than she would've done the same for me. AND I wanted to. 


Patricia Jean Ibrao would have given me the world if I had asked for it, but what she gave me over the last ten months is far better than the world. She gave me her, on her best day and her worst. At her moments of greatest strength and those of ultimate weakness. She gave me herself when she was angry and when she was afraid. When she was certain and unsure. She let me share in all those moments and each one she approached with grace, dignity, and strength.. I was never living with someone who was dying from cancer, I was living with someone who was living with it. 


Ten months ago I didn't know it, but the last ten months have been exactly what I wanted. 

She Wore It Well

She hasn't even been gone a week and somehow it feels like so much time has passed between the moment her spirit left her body and this one. Time is a strange thing, it's measurable, but counting the time and feeling it as it passes are very different. I'm only a year older, but I feel as though in one year I've aged ten. Yet, I still look at life as if I have all of it ahead of me, and that, I got from my Granny. Patty Jean was so many things; mother, wife, daughter, sister, aunt, cousin, grandmother, and friend. I have never met a person who knew her and didn't love her, nor have I met someone who once having met her could get enough of her. Everything about her was infectious!