Pain:

Ok, were to start? Physical pain is good because it is a warning when our body is in jeopardy or is being injured thus alerting us so that we can take immediate action to help preserve ourselves.

But what about the pain of sickness, what of that?

When I was a child I caught a fever,

My hands were like two balloons.

Now I got the feeling once again.

I can not explain, this is not who I am.

And I, I have become comfortably Numb.

Ok here is a start, the flu:

The flu has a 23 some odd generation mutation cycle so that there are only about 2 dozen flu types taking turns each season to make a 23 some odd year repeating cycle of flu.

But your body immunizes it’s self after the flu so, if one were to catch the flu every season buy the time your are in your mid 20’s you will have in you an immunity to all major strains of flu. And it is a natural lasting immunity that you can’t get from the vaccines.  Thus, sickness in youth can prolong life. For that which does not kill you, makes you stronger.

But what of death? How does that benefit anyone?

Well most simply it makes room for the next generations. However, more meaningful then that, I guess I would have to explain how my grandma’s last years with cancer was a benefit for 3 generations.

My Grandma was a very beautiful woman, a school teacher. Her cancer was of the face, so,  a few surgeries (in an attempt to remove the cancer) quickly spoiled that beauty. So much so that she frightened the children who saw her.

Not able to continue to teach while terrifying the children and not able to make regular hours with the irregular sickness:  She had to stop teaching. This was when chemo was done with mustard gas, not radiation.

This radical pain in her life turned it up side down, no longer the nurturing mother but the nurtured patient,  no longer the beauty but the beast, no longer being called mom by children but having children call for their mom.

So what does she do? She became a founding member of the Utah/Bolivia Project. Where she and her friends gathered money in Utah and took it down to Bolivia to build schools. This was part of the campaign to stop communism by building the schools and hospitals that the communist rebels were promising. But I am sure for my grandma it was all about bringing education to children. With this new purpose she lives several more years building dozens of schools in Bolivia and Peru, I went to one a few years ago, the school still runs. So for my grandma the cancer redirected her life into a direction that made a more lasting good for more people. I suspect she also learnt a few lessons about physical beauty as well. It is sort of a ‘flower for Algernon’ situation. Sadly none of these lessons became part of our family lore.

Then she died.

This tragedy sent my grandpa of into the wilderness for a while yet he was found and brought back to the light by his new wife over a decade later.

Thus, my mother at 16, was left to take care of the 3 men of the house, her father, older and younger brother.

Now I don’t know how much of this is directly a result from this sudden responsibility but I suspect a lot if not all of it is:

My mom is very motivated, she has this notion of finding her bliss and following it aggressively, she holds her mom with such high esteem that she diminishes her self-esteem, always the lesser teacher always in the shadow of her mom. So under this scepter she is always trying to improve herself, and all aspects of her life. But, this drive, my mom exudes, is an amazing attribute.  It allows her many opportunities for she can tenaciously hold on to the goal and see it through.

With the inspiration of her mother, my mother joined the foreign exchange program, and by them spent her senior year in Japan. (as a side note my grandpa my mom’s father was in Japan during WWII, as a merchant marine.) Then my older uncle gains employment as an international teacher. And then my mom finishes college a single mom with two kids and takes us overseas as well. (interestingly it was the divorce of mom’s older brother that gave us a foot in the door of the international community, for it was my uncles ex-wife who was still teaching in Damascus  and it was her who’s influence got my mom hired for the 1990-1991 school year: eventful year) My mom took me around the world 8 times before I graduated from High School. Sh

e lives now as a elementary principal in Guatemala, I am sure grandma is beaming down with happiness to see her daughter.

Now there is me, I never met my grandma, but she has always been a part of my life. There are several instances where she has calmed me, but there were several that frightened me as well. But it is the legacy she started as a way to overcome her cancer. I feel I have lived a full life and I am only 24, I have a hybrid culture and through my exposures to life I have become very ecumenical and I strive very hard to judge not. It made me passionate about politics, curious about religion, and open minded about things I do not understand. I have also in my life been able to make friends from just about every developed nation in the world.

I attribute this all to my liberal education in the school of the world.

It is in this way that even 3 generations later, the courage my grandma had to face her death and make the best of it, has produced a perpetuating tradition in our family to see the world.

My grandma’s sickness motivated her to go; so to say she had a full life. Grandma’s accomplishments provided inspiration and motivation to my mom. And by this has produced an amazing story of my childhood. And left me with much broader horizons then would have otherwise been available to a poor kid from Salt Lake

I deeply belief that all tragedy happens for a good reason. 

For all pain carries with it a gift, and if you face your pain to find the gift within you shall find happiness even in your pain, and likely once the gift is found the pain leaves.

Also you have no control over what happens to you or what people do, you only have control over how you react, so it really is a mater of choice.

If you want to be happy, chose to respond with happiness to all that happens and you will be happy.

With love,

kit