One of us will die inside these arms; eyes wide open

Yesterday was my father's 60^th birthday. I wanted very much to do something special to honor him, but he's not the sort of person who would appreciate a party or presents very much. I decided it would mean a lot to him to be given a chance to express himself, as very often he feels he is ignored and his ideas undervalued. I wanted him to have the gift of being listened to and feeling important. I planned a question-and-answer family home evening with him and it was a really lovely, wrenching, poignant experience. We began by singing his favorite hymn "Lord I would Follow Thee" and then I had him sit in a chair in the middle of the room and asked him the questions. He was excited about it and it was terribly cute. I stayed away from questions that had potential to nudge at wounds of regret and sorrow...or thought I had. :) My father has a very powerful way with words and he weaves what he feels into everything he relates. He actually has a very beautiful way of speaking; although he would never believe that. There was a heaviness and a raw humility that made the experience so poignant and sharp.

It would seem exploitive to post his answers, because they have so much to do with our family and the way things are and have been with us (not that I could even remember them in the detail needed to make them alive,) but these are the questions I asked him (they are not many but they took over an hour and a half to answer:):
Describe a happy childhood memory. One memory that's not too personal is my Dad being "uninvited" from Primary...which back in the 50's was on Wednesday nights. He also shared a story about bursting out singing "Davy Crockett" at the top of his lungs during sacrament meeting. His parents tried to silence him but he was undeterred.
Talk about the changes you have seen in the world during your lifetime. One thing he said that I liked was "You can say there was a revolution, or you can say that what was there all along became known and accepted."
What is something difficult you've overcome in your life?
Share a Christmas memory, whichever one you recall.
Where would you go, if you could live anywhere for a year?
Share a positive memory of one of your children.
What makes you feel hope?

After the questions I opened up the time for my brothers and sisters to make comments or share memories of our father. I talked about hiking in the Grand Canyon with him when I was 9 years old and how I felt like we were partners; that him taking me along on such a hard hike made me feel tough and courageous. He said, "You were!" I also described how he wrote me a poem in the book my family put together for me when I left for college when I was 18. It had a reference to the stories I used to demand when I was tiny. ( stories had to be about My Little Ponies, the Ponies had to encounter mortal peril at some point, and the story had to have a happy ending.) I have a clear memory of my father telling us that the Ponies were in the woods and saw a lot of garbage heaped up, which made them very afraid. He asked why the garbage made them afraid, and when we didn't know, he explained, "Because it meant there were bears around..the bears always came to eat the garbage." That's amusing to me now when I think of it in the context of my father the wilderness man, but at the time it chilled me to my bones. Anyway, the line in the poem said, "As the ponies well learned, may you too be awares/that where there is garbage, there'll likely be bears." He ended the poem with a song I had made up as a 3 year old about Rainbow Brite. It meant a lot to me that he would even remember that. It's sweet to think, despite everything that has happened, of my father enjoying his 3 year old daughter being silly and making up songs, enjoying it enough to commit it to memory.

After everyone shared about my father, I said that we had a special celebrity guest performance for the closing hymn, and then played Paul Simon's "The Obvious Child" off an ipod. My father was filled with glee and afterwards told us how much that activity had meant to him. He even gave me an awkward side-hug (our specialty) and thanked me profusely later. I was so glad because I felt I succeeded in my goal of making my father feel special, and I wanted that so much for him--it comes so rarely. It was one of those times I felt absolutely that the right thing had been done, and I was so happy. I love my father. I don't have a typical father-daughter relationship with him (yet another thing I get defensive about when people make assumptions--I really need to work on that!) but I appreciate how different my Dad is from other people and the affect that has had on me. I admire how deeply he thinks about things, how he wants to help The People, how he learned Spanish just to work with his Medicaid patients, how much he relates to music, how he prefers hard work to ease and luxury. My father really is a very kind person. He is constantly inquisitive about the world and is always teaching himself things, like woodworking and gardening. He made me and Jonathan a beautiful hope-chest for our wedding and nearly finished it for Christmas. It broke my heart how much time he must have spent on it. I couldn't enthuse enough for what it was worth. I love how my Dad bikes on rollers during the winter while watching the Tour de France and how he reads at the table like I do and how obsessed he is with WWII. I love how he quoted Simon and Garfunkel when he taught Sunday School and how he scratches his head when he laughs really hard.

When my father was answering the question on hope, I was bursting with wanting to tell him that my baby is hope for him, that it is so vitally important to me to have my children love and esteem him. I'm going to do all I can to help them have a good relationship with him. But that's not really the kind of thing you say, it's the kind of thing you do your best with and hope that healing takes place. I have such great hopes for that healing, I really do. A baby should mean joy every time one is born, I hope it can be that way with my father's grandchildren.

I love my little stranger so dearly for being so full of promise. One of my aunts told me this week, "You will never think of yourself first again." Tears sprang to my eyes because I want that so badly. I know so many of the wounds I've acquired in my life were caused by selfishness and not seeing things clearly, and the closest I've felt to glory is when I was giving with a pure heart. Whatever else I may feel, I know that is what is right for me. Little baby, who are you going to be? This is such a sweet time to dream of possibilities. In one of my HBSE classes we talked about how at birth parents must mourn the death of their dream child because now they have a real child who is a distinct personality and may not bring to reality all that they envisioned. I know I'm like everyone else and that my experiences won't be exactly like I imagine, but I have dearly loved so many children in my life, and I know I will love the Stranger despite the challenges I can't foresee today. That's an expectation I feel confident WILL be fulfilled.

I've been filling up my free time this break by reading birth stories and watching home-births on you tube, so that's filled up my dreams with birth as well (more on that later). Jonathan loves to sit by me with his hand on the bump and talk to the baby...he even does it in his sleep, which I love. I want to share this with him always, as much as I can.

In other pregnancy related news, I got maternity jeans for Christmas and I fLOVE them! They're the most comfortable things! I can still button all my normal pants, but they have begun to pinch. I've gained 9 pounds, which I am not carrying gracefully, but neither was I super slender before. (I blame Derek for encouraging me to cheat on the Master Cleanse last summer). Alas, it can't be helped now. :) I have to pee thousands of times a day despite Jonathan's maybe accurate belief that I don't drink enough water. We have Brown family jokes in regular circulation now about how every time I eat I'm "feeding" or "watering" the baby, and I love to say things like, "I don't even LIKE this cake, but the baby insisted," or "Can I have some of your cinnamon bears? Not for myself, but the baby has been asking for them." The baby also has a slightly deified position as a mystic presence; as in, "The baby told me you were going to react this way" or "I knew I shouldn't have done that. The baby warned me." I'm dying to find out if it's a boy or a girl. I wish winter semester were over already because that means I would have my masters AND be weeks away from birthing our adorable progeny. This is the time of times. Here's to 15 more weeks of winter, according to the BYU Academic calender. Yay!