turning hearts

I had a great experience last month when my grandma came to visit. This is Grandma Twining, my dad's mother. She's always been part of my life... when I was pretty little, she and Grandpa lived in a town close to where I grew up. They moved several times through the years (I think the plan was to live by each of the children and grandchildren for a couple years at a time), but we saw them often. 

I have several memories of my great grandmothers growing up; I knew two of my four. One, Great Grandma Eddy (dad's mom's mom) lived in a nursing home nearby, and I remember when she died in the early '90s. The other, Great Grandma Caudell (mom's dad's mom), lived in Virginia near my mom's family and we'd see her pretty much every year at a family reunion. 

I'm glad my kids got to have an experience with their Great Grandma Twining. It's interesting that my Grandma today looks like how I remember my Great Grandmas looking when I was younger. We're all growing up. 

Anyway, back to our story, Grandma was invited to visit some of her cousins(?) in California, and she decided to make good on the invite. She lives in Ohio right now, and if she was going to come all the way out here, she might as well come to Seattle! 

I picked up Grandma on Monday at the airport. She had the airline service folks provide wheelchair service. Grandma's traveling in style, haha.

She said she simply wanted to "experience our life" for the week. I didn't make any fancy plans. She came along with us to therapy sessions and Bingo night and the bus stop. 

Laurel had a great time with a new playmate. There was play-doh....

And books...

And doodle boards...

And of course, waiting for the bus in the rain.

I think Grandma had a swell time. We talked about her life bucket list (publishing a play!) and her meals and her dulcimer choir. She's just so sweet. She was interested in borrowing a cane, and a friend from Church had a hiking stick that she let me borrow. Grandma loved it! She said the walking stick was perfect since she could hold it at any point. With canes, she often has to bend down and that's uncomfortable.

Thursday night was Wesley's elementary school bingo fundraiser, and Grandma came along! Wesley won a pizza party at school and Laurel won a soccer ball!! We were so lucky that night!

Friday was my day to work in the classroom at the co-op preschool, and Grandma came along to that, too. Her career was in education, so I think she was interested to see Laurel's school.

The absolute best part about visiting with Grandma was seeing my dad in her. Sometimes she'd make these facial expressions, like her eyes would sorta bug out (if something was just unbelievable), or she'd purse her lips and shrug in surprise, and she would remind me of Dad. She looks so much like him. It was wonderful and totally painful at the same time. Here was my Dad's blood, walking around in front of me. I miss my dad so much, so much. I loved having her here. I didn't want her to leave.

On Friday night we went out to Arby's in memory of Dad. It was one of his favorite fast food places. The kids thought this was great fun. Grandma was excited to try the mozzarella sticks.

Saturday came too soon. We drove her to the airport and said our goodbyes.

A random stranger took this photo but didn't focus very well.

Grandma's wheelchair service was delayed, so I sorta freaked out and was worried she'd miss her flight. When the wheelchair finally showed up, she sat down and just took off. I didn't get my proper hug goodbye. Boo. Wesley thought the wheelchair was funny and asked what it was for; I told him it was "a stroller for grandmas." I thought it was a good analogy.

A few days ago I got a surprise gift in the mail... Grandma bought me a toaster oven! We had talked about how she loved hers, and I didn't have one. Isn't that the sweetest thing ever? I guess that was my thank-you gift. I can't wait to try it out.

Well, besides Grandma's beautiful face which was basically my Dad in the flesh, the best part about having her visit was doing family history together. I love family history. I'd loved it since I was in college; I remember I'd be home for the summer and I'd take my printed pedigree chart over to the Family History Center at Church and get on one of their computers. I'd load these CDs and search them for information, and every once in awhile I'd find something interesting. It was a bug, and it bit me. As soon as things like Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org came to be, things changed and Family History was so much more accessible. When Ancestry.com cost money, I'd take all my stuff to the public libraries where I could access records for free. One year Shane gave me a gift subscription to Ancestry and it was just so awesome. And now, the Church has a deal with Ancestry and all members have a free account. All the stuff I worked on back when I had an account (which was dormant after I didn't renew) I could immediately access when my Church-sponsored account became active. I've been having fun!

Over the summer, after Dad died, Grandma, my sister-in-law Melani, and I all sat around a computer one night and I was showing them some family history stuff. We chatted for a couple hours while the kids all played together happily. It was such a fun night, to be together working on our genealogy.

When Grandma came to visit, I was excited to do genealogy. She was here for five nights, and out of those five nights, we stayed up to 1 AM on FOUR of them doing family history. I was tired!! The only reason I was glad to see her go was that I needed to catch up on sleep!

There's this verse in scripture... I really have loved it lately. Doctrine & Covenants 110:14-15 references the Bible, and it says, "Behold, the time has fully come, which was spoken of by the mouth of Malachi—testifying that he [Elijah] should be sent, before the great and dreadful day of the Lord come, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the children to the fathers, lest the whole earth be smitten with a curse."

In the Church, we've always talked about this "hearts of the fathers to the children" and "hearts of the children to the fathers" concept in terms of family history. We are helping people to know where they came from. I love the very end there though, it says "lest the whole earth be smitten with a curse." I really like that -- just think for a second what kind of cursed world we would live in if we were all so selfish we didn't care about where we came from, who we were, what our fathers have given for us and done for us. I feel like genealogy helps me see so much outside of myself, this huge grand scheme of history and the world and life and eternity. I love it, I'm terrified by it. It's amazing, it's overwhelming. It's so fun and also so spiritual.

I'm starting to amass stories. There was this one woman, whose husband was named Samuel, and she had a son named Samuel who died in infancy. Then she had a second son named Samuel who died in infancy. Then she had FIVE DAUGHTERS, all in a row, before she had another son, whom she named Samuel (naturally). He lived. Imagine her heart. Imagine how she felt. Imagine how it felt to bury two baby boys, your pride and joy, your husband's name. And then to keep trying for that boy you knew was up there in heaven waiting to join your family. And having girl after girl after girl. I'm so glad she got her son. I feel like I work on genealogy and then sometimes I just sit there and stare at the screen and think, "What was her life like? What did her family do when she died at age 24 from typhoid fever? What were his experiences in the war?" Maybe one day I'll know the answers.

How it works is like this:  I have a pedigree on a software program that my dad and grandma have been working on for years. I've added to it with information I've gathered from my mom's side, too. It lives on my hard drive and it's mine, all mine. Then, I go online to a place like FamilySearch.org to see what they have. I start to fact check my pedigree. Are my dates right, are my locations right? If there is a conflict, I go to a site like Ancestry.com and look for birth certificates, death listings, Census records. I use those documents as "evidence" to make my pedigree on my software correct, and change anything on FamilySearch (accessible by anyone on the web) that is wrong so it's also correct.

I go down plenty of rabbit holes in the process. Sometimes things in FamilySearch are reeeeally really wrong and fix them. I find duplicate people all the time. Say for example I knew my ancestor Titus Eddy had a third wife named Irene. She'd not listed with Titus Eddy, so I add her. Using Ancestry.com, I figure out her birth year was 1803 and birth location was Longmeadow, Massachusetts; I add that to her record. Then, all of a sudden, three Irenes with that birth year and birth location show up. They are all the same! One has her actual maiden name, Irene Markham (which I didn't know before), one has her with her married name from her first husband (Irene Edson), and one has her as "Irene" married to "T. Eddy" or something like that. I can see the full picture and I know they're all the same. I go to Ancestry and use some of these names and dates as hints, and then boom, I'm finding marriage records, death certificates, and more. I fix FamilySearch so it's all right.

And of course, I'm a bit focused in my research, because our Church believes that all people should be baptized into the Church, but you can't be baptized if you're dead. By doing family history work, we identify ancestors and we take their names to our temples where we are baptized by proxy for them. We don't think we're "making everyone Mormon," but what we are doing is getting that baptism completed for them, so on the other side they can learn about the Church and decide for themselves if they want to accept that baptism. Another thing we do is complete temple marriages for our ancestors (we call it "sealing"), and we seal children to their parents, so the families are eternal. It's a really special thing.

A few months ago I had some names for temple work ready to go, and I printed them out and they sat on my counter for awhile. I finally gave some of them to Mom and Kurt and some other family members to get them done. My mom's side of the family had a lot of names that needed to be done, since none of them were Church members while they were living. Many of these names I've known my whole life, I've just never gone through the effort to get the names submitted.

Mom called me not too long ago, she told me she went to the temple the day before and had done some work on the names I had given her. I asked her who she did work for. I was sitting on my computer chair doing nothing in particular, and she told me, "Great Grandma Greene," which was Mom's great grandma. I knew her name as Lytheral Myrtle Winston. I don't know what happened to me, but something did. As soon as Mom said her name, I was overwhelmed with such a big feeling. It was spiritual. I felt absolutely like something special had happened, and I had been part of something great. My mother's great grandmother had been waiting decades for the temple work to be done, and it was finally done. Perhaps she was grateful. Perhaps I was just feeling productive. Perhaps I was overwhelmed by the enormity of eternity, and so glad I could be part of that for someone else. It was really a beautiful, spiritual thing for me.

So, to sum it all up, another aspect of all this is seeing which of my ancestors have had their temple work done, and getting it done if they don't.

That, my friends, is family history. That is what I did with Grandma until my eyeballs hurt from staring at the computer screen. I should have taken a picture of our papers all sprawled out across my computer desk, with the clock showing 1 AM. Ha!

I sat there one night, looking at my grandma and thinking about life. Here I am now, 34 years old. Years ago I was 7. Then I was 16. Then I was 21. Then I turned 30. I feel like I have all the time in the world, I feel like getting old is so far away and death will never come and eternity is unreachable. But guess what? When I was 7, my grandma was 59. Now I'm 34 and she's 86. Time passes. It passes whether we want it to or not. Life seems so long, but really it's so short. I know this for a fact. I thought I had all the time in the world with my dad, but then I didn't and he was gone. That hurts. I am glad I don't regret our relationship, because it was wonderful and I have such wonderful memories, but I regret that I didn't appreciate it more.

I can honestly say I had a wonderful time with my grandma and I appreciated every second she was here. I didn't take it for granted. I don't know if that'll be the last time I see my grandma -- gosh I hope not. But I do know that life does whatever life will do, and the last time I saw my dad I didn't know it was the last time. I just want to cherish these moments. I want to cherish this family. I want to cherish my heritage. I want to turn my heart to my fathers, to my ancestors, because it makes me feel part of something big and special and wonderful. It makes me part of the fabric of history.

If you're still reading this, I commend you. I am enthusiastic about this for sure. I'm so glad Grandma came to visit, and I'm so glad my heart stirs in my soul about this. I love the time I can dedicate to genealogy, even if it isn't a lot (what with two little people living in this house demanding granola bars, jumping loudly on the trampoline, needing band aids, turning over buckets of Legos, ad infinitum).

You know what else? Dad loved this. He loved family history. He'd go to the family reunions and bring his computer and printer and everyone would check in with him and make sure their info was up to date. Dad was the official recorder of the family dates. I wonder if that passes to me. As Grandma and I were working, we kept saying to ourselves, "oh Dad would get a kick out of this, I wish I could call him," and she said she wished she could tell her mother, who's been dead for decades.

Our hearts were turned. It's a good feeling.

Love you, Grandma.