Last night was a sad night again just for a bit before sleep over took me. I still miss my Dad and find myself consumed in a measure with might have beens, should have dones. My Grandmother told me something that a friend had told her in those first days when you feel like grief might consume you. Her friend said that it takes a year. A full round of all of the days and nights, and seasons and holidays and gatherings. Then the sadness starts to ebb or at least it visits less frequently.
So I guess I can plan on sadness coming for a visit on occasion in the days and months to come.
Partial list of might of beens should have dones.
-I wish that I had pulled myself together and visited my dad at Christmas in 2007.
-I wish I had gone up to see him more often in Salt Lake. Before he moved down to Provo.
-I wish I had taken him some fresh peaches in the summer of 2008.
-I wish I had taken him some radishes from my garden in 2009.
-I wish that my heart hadn't on occasion felt so bound up and complicated up in it's own kind of heart sickness. All the while he was battling real heart sickness.
-I wish I had gone to visit him on Saturday instead of deciding that Sunday Father's Day would be better.
Partial list of things that I am glad that happened.
-I'm glad I got to visit him a lot once he moved down to Provo.
-I'm glad he got so much better. That he essentially got "well" from the major thing that put him in the hospital in the first place.
-I'm glad I was able to facilitate him buying two guitars to play right before he died. His last days were filled with music of his making electric and acoustic.
-I'm glad that I and one of my brothers and his kids were able to help him move out of the hospital. He was so happy that day.
-I'm glad I got to take him apples. Lots of apples. Just not Red Delicious "because they are not delicious". Gala, Granny Smith, Pink Lady, Braeburn, Golden Delicious, Fuji.
-I'm glad that one of his grandchildren was able to play for him on the guitar. That he could see that gift, one of his many gifts, had been passed on.
-I'm glad that he was filled with hope for the future when he slipped away. Just didn't know that it was going feel so far away.
-I'm glad that he was my Dad.
My next post will be a collection of pictures that my sister-in-law compiled. They are amazing to me. Then perhaps I can move on a little bit to other things.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Happy Birthday Dear Old Dad!
Layton Wendle Eagar, July 29, 1951-June 20, 2009
Today is my Dad's birthday. Even though he is not here for me to say it to him it still needed to be said.
Happy Birthday Dad, I love you.
My brother Max spoke beautifully at his funeral. His thoughts and his sentiment have become mine today.
"When we left the eternal reams of our heavenly parents to come to earth, we brought with us a longing to return to live in their presence. God placed that same yearning between parent and child with us in our earthly families. I have always had a yearning to be with my dad. That yearning was intensified during periods of my life when circumstances made it difficult to be with him. Now that he has passed to the other side that yearning has again been intensified as it has been extended beyond the bounds of this mortal existence."
I know that this is the way that it is, the nature of mortality, the way it has to be. Still the little girl inside wishes differently. She has a hard time reconciling what is, with what she wants, or what might have been.
When my dad was twenty one he was involved in a terrible motorcycle accident that should have taken his life. The lasting affects of that accident limited his capacities compromised his health though out his life in many ways. Ultimately the repercussions of that accident took his life. Part of me wants to curse what was, for the sake of what might have been. The other part of me knows that were it not for that accident I may not be.
My mom was a nursing student working in the hospital where he was taken after the accident. In a way that accident was the beginning of me. My mom said that she had seen him around the small college town that they lived in but she didn't really know him. Would she would have met him would they have fallen into love then marriage were it not for the accident?
Though they were only married for seven years I am inseparably connected to him and to her and the two wonderful families they each come from.
I love and miss him today. I have hope that I will see him again that he is somewhere still, his same big hearted self. Without the constraints of this sometimes cursed but ultimately blessed mortal frame. He is the musician, the inventor, the athlete, the thinker and more. All equal now again to his heart.
Perhaps I will someday fully see and understand all the threads of providence and destiny that run through mortal life and I will no longer lament and ask why and just say of course with a grateful heart.
For now I will just say Happy Birthday Dear Old Dad, with love and longing in my heart.
~your daughter Dovie.
Today is my Dad's birthday. Even though he is not here for me to say it to him it still needed to be said.
Happy Birthday Dad, I love you.
My brother Max spoke beautifully at his funeral. His thoughts and his sentiment have become mine today.
"When we left the eternal reams of our heavenly parents to come to earth, we brought with us a longing to return to live in their presence. God placed that same yearning between parent and child with us in our earthly families. I have always had a yearning to be with my dad. That yearning was intensified during periods of my life when circumstances made it difficult to be with him. Now that he has passed to the other side that yearning has again been intensified as it has been extended beyond the bounds of this mortal existence."
I know that this is the way that it is, the nature of mortality, the way it has to be. Still the little girl inside wishes differently. She has a hard time reconciling what is, with what she wants, or what might have been.
When my dad was twenty one he was involved in a terrible motorcycle accident that should have taken his life. The lasting affects of that accident limited his capacities compromised his health though out his life in many ways. Ultimately the repercussions of that accident took his life. Part of me wants to curse what was, for the sake of what might have been. The other part of me knows that were it not for that accident I may not be.
My mom was a nursing student working in the hospital where he was taken after the accident. In a way that accident was the beginning of me. My mom said that she had seen him around the small college town that they lived in but she didn't really know him. Would she would have met him would they have fallen into love then marriage were it not for the accident?
Though they were only married for seven years I am inseparably connected to him and to her and the two wonderful families they each come from.
I love and miss him today. I have hope that I will see him again that he is somewhere still, his same big hearted self. Without the constraints of this sometimes cursed but ultimately blessed mortal frame. He is the musician, the inventor, the athlete, the thinker and more. All equal now again to his heart.
Perhaps I will someday fully see and understand all the threads of providence and destiny that run through mortal life and I will no longer lament and ask why and just say of course with a grateful heart.
For now I will just say Happy Birthday Dear Old Dad, with love and longing in my heart.
~your daughter Dovie.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
For the Love of Chocolate...
My life has been full of delicious cakes the last week and a half. Good homemade cake is a special kind of love so with that in mind let me share some of my favorite love with you.
In recent days the last to come to the cake love party was the Chocolate Mug Cake, it will be the first to arrive here.
You know the one that floats around the internet. Emptily promising to be "the most dangerous cake in the world" it's not. It is not very good at all. It is very flat tasting and way too eggy. Yesterday I decided that this situation must be remedied. Not just for myself (lest ye thing this was a selfish act) but for chocolate cake lovers everywhere.
Chocolate Mug Cake (revamped so it is actually good)
First of all I made it for 2 mugs. You can't really split an egg very well. Well you can but what do you do with the other half egg?
1/2 c butter melted
1/4 cup milk
1 egg
1/2 c sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 c cocoa
1/2 c flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup chocolate chips
Soften the butter in small bowl get it goopy but not blazing hot. Stir in the milk, egg and vanilla and sugar. Dump the dry ingredients on top stir just till moistened add chocolate chips stir just a little more. Spray 2 mugs with Pam. Split the mix between the two mugs. Cook 4 minutes on high in a 1000 watt microwave if you cook both at the same time. If you cook them separately cook them for 3 minutes each.
For me only dirtying one cereal size bowl one spoon and two mugs and 1/4 measuring cup and 1/4 tsp measuring spoon, is part of the magic.
I have a special love for chocolate. For my birthday in first grade all I ask for was chocolate. This is really truly true. To additionally illustrate, in the early grades in school we would occasionally get those mini chocolate bars for Valentine's Day and such. I would trade anything for a Hersey's Special Dark.
This has not always been so. When I was three I remember eating too much of it on Halloween. I got sick and threw up all my candy. Chocolate held no appeal for me for a long while after that.
This changed two years later, give or take a little, on a day that involved fireworks in the summer time. There outside in front of someone's house with my mom and dad someone gave me a Hershey's bar. It was dark I could not see, because of this my brain could not connect this with my previous experience. This wondrous delight I held in my hand kindled anew my love affair. There were even fireworks, real fireworks.
I have come to love all kinds of chocolate since then smooth, rich, dark and bitter or milky sweet. I so love chocolate and good cake is a wonderful vehicle for it.
Enjoy!
In recent days the last to come to the cake love party was the Chocolate Mug Cake, it will be the first to arrive here.
You know the one that floats around the internet. Emptily promising to be "the most dangerous cake in the world" it's not. It is not very good at all. It is very flat tasting and way too eggy. Yesterday I decided that this situation must be remedied. Not just for myself (lest ye thing this was a selfish act) but for chocolate cake lovers everywhere.
Chocolate Mug Cake (revamped so it is actually good)
First of all I made it for 2 mugs. You can't really split an egg very well. Well you can but what do you do with the other half egg?
1/2 c butter melted
1/4 cup milk
1 egg
1/2 c sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 c cocoa
1/2 c flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup chocolate chips
Soften the butter in small bowl get it goopy but not blazing hot. Stir in the milk, egg and vanilla and sugar. Dump the dry ingredients on top stir just till moistened add chocolate chips stir just a little more. Spray 2 mugs with Pam. Split the mix between the two mugs. Cook 4 minutes on high in a 1000 watt microwave if you cook both at the same time. If you cook them separately cook them for 3 minutes each.
For me only dirtying one cereal size bowl one spoon and two mugs and 1/4 measuring cup and 1/4 tsp measuring spoon, is part of the magic.
I have a special love for chocolate. For my birthday in first grade all I ask for was chocolate. This is really truly true. To additionally illustrate, in the early grades in school we would occasionally get those mini chocolate bars for Valentine's Day and such. I would trade anything for a Hersey's Special Dark.
This has not always been so. When I was three I remember eating too much of it on Halloween. I got sick and threw up all my candy. Chocolate held no appeal for me for a long while after that.
This changed two years later, give or take a little, on a day that involved fireworks in the summer time. There outside in front of someone's house with my mom and dad someone gave me a Hershey's bar. It was dark I could not see, because of this my brain could not connect this with my previous experience. This wondrous delight I held in my hand kindled anew my love affair. There were even fireworks, real fireworks.
I have come to love all kinds of chocolate since then smooth, rich, dark and bitter or milky sweet. I so love chocolate and good cake is a wonderful vehicle for it.
Enjoy!
Monday, May 25, 2009
Rye Crackers
Sometimes I am just crackers. Sometimes wry crackers. I particularly like rye crackers. I discovered the wonderfulness of rye once as a child on a trip to North Carolina. There were these cellophane wrapped crackers that I had never encountered before. They had some sort of cheese concoction sandwiched between some lovely, delicious, buttery crackers flecked with bits of rye. I lived in the west and nothing so wonderful had I found there. In the east there were many other wonders like hot pink wieners for sale at a place called the "Piggley Wiggly." Imagine westerners naming something that way or selling florescent pink wieners.
There were other things that I discovered that were wonderful. The smell of the air which was just like a garden, even the humidity could be a strange delight. The sound of the ocean, the sound of a Carolina accent. At first every summer I remember being afraid to hear it. For me it was like when you are a kid swimming, you're afraid to dunk yourself all the way under the water. Waist high is fine but any more than that might overwhelm your system. Could I bear the initial shock in order to be fully swimming? I could hear the accent on the phone or on the television but the real thing, that might just be too overwhelming. When I finally got to grandma's it was just like being in the water. It seemed too much for a moment but then it was a wonderful thing. I discovered screened porches, endless crickets chirping and spectacular summer lighting storms that would go on forever with no rain.
Then there was the barbecued pulled pork. Vinegary sour-sweet and a little spicy. On a bun with a little coleslaw. Thinking about it now make my mouth water. This also was a taste that I had never before encountered and a rare delight. I hadn't before imagined such a thing existing... but somehow "East Carolina Barbecued Pulled Pork Sandwiches" did not have as nice a ring to it as "Rye Crackers" or "Wry Crackers" the name I finally settled upon.
So here I am for many reasons. The first and foremost I needed a place to put all the things spinning around in my head. I needed a tether, an anchor, a place be grounded to find bearings. Secondly I enjoy the process of writing. I think I ferret out and learn my own mind when I put it down in written words. Thirdly I'm sure there is some element of exhibitionist in me. Exhibitionist journaling maybe... So if for none else but my own sanity I begin today.
I'll think out loud I guess. I look forward to musing upon other rye cracker discoveries that I make or have made as I pass through them, or as they happen to be brought back to my mind. Those were just the North Carolina variety. This will be my place to record what I have discovered about the way (I think) the world works, other people, my faith, being a wife, and a mother and somewhere in all that craziness there is me. A little crackers at times but still in there, with the occasional fleck of wry. This will be my little wry cracker hide out. Exhibitionist style.
There were other things that I discovered that were wonderful. The smell of the air which was just like a garden, even the humidity could be a strange delight. The sound of the ocean, the sound of a Carolina accent. At first every summer I remember being afraid to hear it. For me it was like when you are a kid swimming, you're afraid to dunk yourself all the way under the water. Waist high is fine but any more than that might overwhelm your system. Could I bear the initial shock in order to be fully swimming? I could hear the accent on the phone or on the television but the real thing, that might just be too overwhelming. When I finally got to grandma's it was just like being in the water. It seemed too much for a moment but then it was a wonderful thing. I discovered screened porches, endless crickets chirping and spectacular summer lighting storms that would go on forever with no rain.
Then there was the barbecued pulled pork. Vinegary sour-sweet and a little spicy. On a bun with a little coleslaw. Thinking about it now make my mouth water. This also was a taste that I had never before encountered and a rare delight. I hadn't before imagined such a thing existing... but somehow "East Carolina Barbecued Pulled Pork Sandwiches" did not have as nice a ring to it as "Rye Crackers" or "Wry Crackers" the name I finally settled upon.
So here I am for many reasons. The first and foremost I needed a place to put all the things spinning around in my head. I needed a tether, an anchor, a place be grounded to find bearings. Secondly I enjoy the process of writing. I think I ferret out and learn my own mind when I put it down in written words. Thirdly I'm sure there is some element of exhibitionist in me. Exhibitionist journaling maybe... So if for none else but my own sanity I begin today.
I'll think out loud I guess. I look forward to musing upon other rye cracker discoveries that I make or have made as I pass through them, or as they happen to be brought back to my mind. Those were just the North Carolina variety. This will be my place to record what I have discovered about the way (I think) the world works, other people, my faith, being a wife, and a mother and somewhere in all that craziness there is me. A little crackers at times but still in there, with the occasional fleck of wry. This will be my little wry cracker hide out. Exhibitionist style.
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