Getting to two things about grief

I have been much more aware of grief recently, especially in media.

Two things combined this weekend that have influenced my thoughts, but also I appreciate the way they have come together.

Often with the books that I read and movies I watch, there is an order that feels right, and then they end up working together. A lot of the thinking about grief was because of movies that I had watched because of a reaction to some comments on the Oscars, though when I watched them was largely related to when they became available to me.

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/05/movies-woman-king-and-till.html

In the reaction to the murder (and I use "murder" deliberately) of Jordan Neely, some were bringing up the "bystander effect" for why no one intervened. This misunderstands both that situation and the murder of Kitty Genovese, which is the lens through which people tend to view the bystander effect.

One thread about that led to a documentary, The Witness, that I watched Friday night. 

https://twitter.com/chimeracoder/status/1654520961096351750

https://www.npr.org/2016/06/16/482313144/the-witness-exposes-the-myths-misconceptions-of-kitty-genoveses-murder 

I was already familiar with what the media got wrong about the case, but if there is more to learn, I would like to learn more.

In the documentary, Kitty's younger brother Bill talks to various witnesses, people who knew his sister, and even the son of his sister's murderer. 

That meeting was particularly interesting in terms of how trauma affects us. Bill Genovese saw "bystanders" trying to get out of the draft, signed up for Vietnam, and lost both of his legs. Steven Moseley was taunted as a murderer's son and really wanted to do good; he became a minister.

What struck me most was the interactions Bill had with his siblings, and their discomfort over his digging deeper. Their mother's grief led to an early pattern of protection, where you could never talk about the murder. Years after both of their parents are gone, that pattern is still there. You learn that Kitty's nieces and nephews know very little about her.

Bill - perhaps still incapable of standing by - keeps digging. You don't see every step, but at the end there is a family gathering, with the telling of stories and laughter, and it seems to be a relief.

The final piece was reading an article about the writer who worked with Prince Harry on Spare.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/05/15/j-r-moehringer-ghostwriter-prince-harry-memoir-spare?

It is really more about the process and the writer's history, but there was this part:

That imperious Windsor motto, “Never complain, never explain,” is really just a prettified omertà, which my wife suggests might have prolonged Harry’s grief. His family actively discourages talking, a stoicism for which they’re widely lauded, but if you don’t speak your emotions you serve them, and if you don’t tell your story you lose it—or, what might be worse, you get lost inside it. Telling is how we cement details, preserve continuity, stay sane. We say ourselves into being every day, or else...

I had a second thought about silence. Ghosts don’t speak—says who? Maybe they can. Maybe sometimes they should.

This is a lengthy process to get to understanding anything about grief, but I include it because there are things all around to help us. We should listen for them. Healing is possible.

So this is what came to me:

We have to be willing to bear the pain of loss to have the joy of loving.

With our knowledge of resurrection and eternal families, we should be able to do that. 

I don't even think those are particularly profound, but it's the feelings along the way.

That's why the process matters.

And in about three months there will be two more books read, and perhaps more there, or in a completely different direction.

Do they know (or care) that they are lying?

I had thought this post was going to be about spotting the fascists, but I think I will post that Tuesday on the main blog. Maybe this other post fits better here. 

This week I listened to a clip of one of the Hillsboro school board candidates, Bart Rask, speaking. 

I first noticed some similar talking points to someone else; that's no surprise. 

Then there was a section on the sex education curriculum. I was pretty sure that was a mix of lies and exaggeration, but again, that is old news. Every couple of years someone is up in arms over kids in elementary school being taught how to have sex (like positions), and it is never true.

Then, almost at the end of the clip (which was only seven minutes but felt longer), I realized he was talking about The Immortal Life of Henriette Lacks and not describing it accurately. 

However, he kept saying you could check the web site; I did.

It's not that I didn't know he was wrong. It's just, are you taking a piece of information and misinterpreting it? How willfully? Are you repeating something you heard from someone else?

I decided to transcribe it. It was a really annoying experience, but I did it and the link to the video clip and the transcription are at the bottom of this post.

So, you can check for yourself, but I think as many times as he repeated it, there may have been a defensiveness there. Sure, you can check it, but you don't need to. You can trust me.

First of all, here are some of the inaccuracies that can be easily determined. Yes, you can view the Hillsboro School District's Comprehensive Sex Education curriculum breakdown by grade level at https://sites.google.com/hsd.k12.or.us/hsdcshe/lessons-by-grade-level#h.p_KgsAA-PINJnz.

You may also notice a link to Erin's Law. I know I went over this last time, but there are laws about what children need to know because of things that happened to other children. To remove some of these things from the curriculum you would need to change the law, and I would be very interested in your justifications.

However, there is still nothing about teaching fifth graders how to have sex. 

Because it does mention sexually transmitted disease, there may indeed be something about condoms.

I cannot find anywhere recommendations for high schoolers to read about Samantha Bee's sexual fantasies as a Catholic school girl (I am not sure that such a book exists). For the gay transvestite book, I think he means Love That Story: Observations from a Gorgeously Queer Life by Jonathan Van Ness (transvestite is a stretch, but okay). I still don't see anything close on the reading list. They may very well be available in the school library. 

Now, My Princess Boy. by Cheryl Kilodavis, is in fact on the 1st grade curriculum. They seem to be more specific when they say something true, logically enough. You can tell that the audience finds that objectionable enough, but what is the point of the book? From the Goodreads description:

as a community, we can accept and support youth for whoever they are and however they wish to look.

Well, they hate stuff like that.

The big thing for me was when we got to Henrietta Lacks. Again, that name was not said, because that would be too specific when lying. However, when he said died of cervical cancer in 1951, I was like, wait a minute! So I did a search and found a syllabus for Health Sciences 1:

https://www.hsd.k12.or.us/cms/lib/OR02216643/Centricity/Domain/517/Copy%20of%20Health%20Sciences%201%20Troy%20Hall.pdf

As represented by Bart Rask, the students spent seven weeks just reading a biography written by a woman who experienced racism when she was being treated for cancer in the time of segregation (with no anatomy or physiology like you should have for a health class) thus part of the race-baiting of students. 

First of all, this class is Health Sciences 1, part of college prep series for a career in health services. It combines with Health Sciences 2 and Anatomy and Physiology.

Health Sciences 1 focuses on treating people and animals, and what it takes to become an informed, professional caregiver. The book is the primary course text, but there are also movies, job shadowing, and many other aspects. It sounds like a great class.  

He lied not just about the role the book plays in the class, but about the book itself.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is not an autobiography, and not really about her experiences. Her cancer cells became an important part of medical research, but also causing some problems in medical research (for their ability to take over other cells). There is a lot of information not only about the whats and hows of medical research, but also research ethics and access to health care.

Furthermore, author Rebecca Skloot first got the idea when she was a student at Portland Community College, taking the class because high school was boring her and she wasn't applying herself. Therefore, there is the local connection, and a kinship for these high school students taking college prep courses.

This is also an award-winning book that got a fair amount of press -- perhaps more in Oregon -- and my first thought was how could a medical professional not know?

Except, he probably does know. 

Because they do lie. They may not always know that they are lying, but sometimes they do, and they do not care. They are sure enough that they are right that they can justify some lying or unethical practices, but... if you are willing to do those things, how will you know if you stop being right?

Anyway, I know I will post more on sporkful.blogspot.com on Tuesday, and after that I may be done with this round of the school board elections, but I will probably not be done with fascism.

To view Bart Rask's clip:

https://www.facebook.com/Janet.Bailey.Hyatt/posts/pfbid035MJzKTXE5mQaELX3D4gC71zSY3bEN9coiAaVoiDELQPSs4eSSgzkfqtftj7R4Viil

(transcription below)

<start of segment> ... my grandmother's cousin was Victor Atiyeh. I'm a third generation Syrian Lebanese, like Victor Atiyeh. I'm an orthopedic surgeon. My office twenty-five years in the same location in downtown Hillsboro. I have six kids, three out of school, three still in school and that is my source of information. That's why I know how wacky the school system is I know it from my own research and my kids' homework, looking at the web site. 

The Hillsboro school district is a golden source to find out what is going on and there is also an app called Google Chrome I believe where you can look up schools' assignments in different classes and as a parent I have access to most of what they're taught. So over the years I've actually taken notes, believe it or not, of what's been being taught and have a whole library of the silliness of really it boils down to a re-education camp, especially recently with what's going on. I'll give you some examples. For the sex ed starting in kindergarten, and this is on the Hillsboro web site, this is not secret, you can look it up yourself, starting in kindergarten children are taught that gender is an identity, it is not based on biology and that you are what you think you are. 

First grade there is a recommended book called My Princess Boy. On the cover of that book is a little boy dressed as a girl. Fifth grade, kids are taught how to use a condom and ten year olds are taught different ways of having sex. Higher grades it gets even more disgusting. Reading assignments in high school they one book that's recommended called, by this woman called Samantha Bee, I think she's a comedian, and it's about her sexual fantasies while she was a high school Catholic girl, and there's another book by a scholar called Jonathan Ness who is a gay transvestite and it is about the civilian life of a gay transvestite and has on the cover this fella dressed as a girl in high heels and a long beard and prancing around in a girl's type way. So those are the types of things they are being taught and it's all there out in the open. If you don't believe me you can look it up yourself. 

The other thing is poor student quality, poor education quality. Last poll I saw was Oregon was number six from the bottom. Hillsboro is below average in a below in our below average state. Seven years ago Hillsboro was average for the state of Oregon. In the last seven years, almost correlating with the increase in per capita spending there's been a corresponding decrease in the school quality based upon their test scores for math and English. So the last data on a year ago year 21-22, where Hillsboro used to be average for math and English. It was math and English scores are 9 and 17% below state average. The state average. While in the same, this is over 7 years, 2014 - 2022, the same 7 year period , per capita spending went up 33%. More spending, poorer quality.

Why is it poorer? What is so bad about schools now, comparative? When we were in school, I was in school back in the 60s and 70s, and one thing I noticed, I think the one theme, if I can summarize in one sentence is poor expectations. And they stretch three weeks of work into three months. 

For example, and I know this for money, ask my kid what they do, We're reading a couple of short stories. What are you doing now? We're reading the same short stories. We're writing a paper from these two or three short stories. When's the paper due? It's at the end of the quarter. So after two or three months. After three months we're reading three stories and writing a two page paper. Yes Dad, that's what we're doing. How did you do on the paper? I got an A. Did the teacher make any marks on it? No, there's no marks on it. There's just an A there.

So they go through three months reading two short stories and they don't they get very little feedback on the papers they write. And the other low expectation they make is that they have multiple chances to do tests take the test over. I don't mean a different test; I mean the exact same test with the exact same questions. So if they get D on the test, or a C on the test they have an option to take the test over again. Same with many classroom assignments. If you get a C on a classroom paper or on a math test or a science test, you have the option of taking the exact same test over. So there's no incentive to study hard to do right the right way the first time.

There's also very little enforcement of tardiness. You have to be... It's very subjective on when a teacher declares a kid as tardy. I know this because I do lectures in some of the health sciences classes my kids.  Oftentimes kids will show up five or ten minutes late, they're not counted as tardy. And the teacher, this is when I was giving a lecture at Liberty High School just about a month ago, kids were just strolling in.late, "Oh we didn't count 'em, we're just happy that they're there." How do I know? Because I was there and I seen it and I heard it. It's how I know.

Other poor expectations. The race-baiting the Balkanization and tribalization of kids. This is kind of indoctrinating. These are classroom assignments that are integrated and inserted in multiple different subjects. For example, my daughter's health science class, you would think that there's a part about anatomy and physiology and medicine and dentistry and that sort of thing. Well they spent seven weeks talking on the topic of racism in science. How do I know? I know because I saw it in the curriculum. Racism in science. And what is there example? There example of it is one book written by a woman who was treated for cancer in 1951 in Baltimore.And it's essentially a biography of her, it's not really a science book it's a biography of a woman of how she had some experiences with racism in the early 1950s in the time of segregation. (disbelief in audience) Yeah, the 1950s. She died in 1951 of cervical cancer. So that's their racism in science.

 In my son's - this is last year - my son's <end of segment>

Maintaining hope and motivation in dark times

Hey, the fascists are running again. 

They never really stop.

I had sort of forgotten that new school board elections were coming up, then vaguely wondered if every district has a fascist slate again.

Why yes! And apparently now they are trying to take over water boards too. I need to look into soil boards.

In 2021 I did several posts on the elections, though they were primarily on the main blog. I contacted people I knew directly (it was pointless, but I still did it). Two things made a difference.

First of all, I was seeing references everywhere. There was surprisingly little news, but I would see posts from other people, and then talk to them. I ended up finding a wealth of material on the situation.

Also -- and it is hard to picture it now -- I wasn't so tired.

So now I feel this need to dig deep, but there are only two weeks left. Last time I started hearing things in February.

One thing on our side is that at least for Beaverton and Hillsboro, there are fewer seats open this time. That means fewer candidates to look into, and less ability for them to take a majority. They can cause a lot of disruption anyway. One of the Hillsboro candidates won last time, so the risk is greater, but I will be grateful for small favors.

Speaking of that candidate who won in Hillsboro... the two districts I follow did okay, but a lot of other districts didn't. Most notably the fascists took Newberg, which has had some notable racist incidents happening at school since then.

It's easy to forget that it happened. Life is busy, and there were so many districts with the same issue. I can barely keep up with two, and even in those two, people get used to it. Oh, of course there are some crazies... 

Except they aren't crazy, and what they do has a real impact.

Like I said, I am tired, and I don't have a big influence so it is questionable how much good anything I do has anyway.

Frankly, there is a lot scripturally that indicates that the bad guys are going to keep winning until Christ's return. The timing is unclear, and there may be some periods where things seem to get better, but they will keep trying to take over the government, disenfranchising people who won't support them, and shooting people.

And yet, I have to keep going. Any breaks my efforts give to someone else are worth it. Plus, it keeps me from joining the bad guys, which is surprisingly easy.

There may be times when I can say that I will go to bed early this time or ease off somewhat; after all, my influence is limited. However, I believe that I matter and that other people matter and that nature matters, and that my caring about everything matters. 

Also, combined efforts make more difference. I say my contacting people didn't make a difference, but one person who was sure I was exaggerating started to wonder after another mutual acquaintance backed me up. I don't know that either of us alone would have been enough.

If only we'd had a third.

Therefore I have started checking, and Tuesday on the main blog (sporkful.blogspot.com) I will at least point out the fascist candidates in Beaverton and Hillsboro.

I may find other things to do, and then do them.

Finally, I know that they don't call themselves fascist. There are striking similarities. 

As much as they aren't ashamed of now, it's probably only a matter of time until they start embracing the term. They have already vilified "antifa".

Not so different

I have kind of hinted at this before, so I don't want to belabor the point. Also, I think it should be fairly obvious.

I think one of our (maybe our church specifically but probably pretty common to other churches) flaws is that we tend to view different kinds of sins as inherently different from each other.

Maybe it's because they come up in temple recommend interview questions.

Meaning that we may think that a person who uses alcohol or smokes or has sex as uniquely sinful, compared to people who lose their temper and judge other people.

I know there is a grand tradition of this, because the Pharisees considered themselves better than other people based on some of the things that they did. For us that would probably equate to church attendance and not sleeping around. However, we know that they did not have charity, that they were not particularly generous, and while they might not have considered themselves dishonest there was a lack of integrity.

And the Savior said the harlots and publicans would get into Heaven before them.

I think that's worth reflecting on.

Maybe one reason we consider some sins different is that they are easy to monitor, though that falls apart upon closer examination.

I know right away if I am having sex with other people or drinking alcohol. I might have a harder time determining if I am really being kind or humble.

That sounds like it makes sense, but people are great at justifying different things, where they might be able to maintain a surprising amount of denial about fairly obvious things.

And, if you are not being kind enough, I suspect if you listen, you will find that you know.

That being said, some of those more obvious things might be repented of more clearly. That does not take into account issues of addiction, but that leads to a completely different issue.

It is worth thinking about how often addiction seems to correlate with difficult life circumstances, and unhealed trauma.

It also bears some thinking easy it is for various types of sins to fall along different financial sectors. To be a prominent Pharisee, you probably needed to be doing all right financially.  

I have appreciated at times going through those temple recommend questions, and the reminders that yes, I do believe in this, and I am living according to my beliefs.

There may also be a level on which those questions are too easy or seem too easy.

We may need to ask ourselves harder questions.

Becoming "mighty in prayer": Update

Now that we have completed the first quarter of the year, it seemed reasonable to track progress; that's something people do for resolutions, right?

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2023/01/mighty-in-prayer.html

I am not being that scientific about my goal. I have no specific benchmarks and tracking set up. Frankly, I think it could be hard to quantify. There has still been progress.

For the issue of being less tired and more organized... I am still working on that. It is a hard area for me, which made it both more likely as an immediate awareness and harder to overcome.

However, as I have been working on it, there were two other things that came to mind, and there has been more progress there.

One was that I need to bring my sisters along more. This is not exclusive to prayer, but when I am making plans and trying to improve things sometimes I keep those to myself. If it is something that would be good for them too, and something where working together makes it easier for me, then we should work together.

Having started in that direction made the second part easier.

Many years ago we started praying together for various people. 

It started with the hopes that various members of the singles ward would get married. I had the idea that maybe if we cleared out some other people we would have our own chance. 

It did not hurt to revisit that now, when it seems so naive. Granted, we did pray for people who did get married and are still married, but we have also seen a lot of bad marriages, even with meeting in church and being married in the temple. (Again, not any of the people we prayed for, but we know them.)

I am just saying that we have seen a lot and understand a lot more fifteen years later. We were still praying for various people for many issues not related to marriage, and it was starting to feel like too many people, and not well-thought out enough.

For example, there was one person that we had been praying for when he was job-hunting. We did submit him for different jobs, but there hasn't been anything for quite a while now. He is still in his old job. That is probably okay, and probably not something we can affect.

Other people may still always need blessings -- that's just life -- but the issues that first got them added in have subsided.

Clearly the issue was that things had gotten too habitual. That was hard to change; stopping praying for someone feels kind of mean. Plus, so many times we would just be in the prayer without talking about it that much, and then there is this long list that feels rote, even if the caring is sincere.

So we talked about it.

Some people are still in there. One remained for a long time while we were hearing nothing from her, but it felt important. When communication was re-established it was confirmed that friendship and sense of being cared for mattered. 

There are some we know we shouldn't let go, and we won't. 

Otherwise, now it feels lighter, and like there is more room for other people to come in. The amount of people we are praying for doesn't overwhelm the things that we are thankful for. 

I believe that will make it easier to feel influences.

That will be part of these prayers being more powerful because of what we "hear" and act on.

It will take work, but I expect that to continue to improve.

Happy Easter

Yesterday I was in the temple, and I kept thinking about my mother. That was something we used to do together, and can't do together now.

Referencing the travel blog, I also had a lot of thoughts of her in Disneyland. We only went there together twice in adulthood, but they were significant trips and not something we will do again in this life.

I suppose the next time I will have those thoughts will be the next time I go to Italy and see my cousins,

Grief is real, and it can come with any losses. I will spend some time with my mother. She will probably be cheerful and friendly, and she will quite likely talk about her young children. She may say she is waiting for her father. 

That won't devastate me, but there are times when I feel how much I miss her and the relationship we had when she knew me. It's not really that her personality has changed -- she is very much still her -- but she has lost her connections to those who are still here.

I am very grateful for my faith in the eternal nature of our lives, and resurrection and restoration. 

It does not remove the pangs that strike me now.

There is a dual nature to our lives here. There are things before that we don't remember, and faith in things to come, but there is also in very bold letters "NOW", with all of its accompanying pains and pleasures.

It can work this way.

Somehow, we need to feel the pain and the fear and doubts, and still remember the faith and the trust, and not let it lessen our love.

 

The versatility of soup

This comes from a recent cooking experience, but it probably hit me more because of a thread I'd read about some people finding eating stew in fantasy novels unrealistic, because it is so labor-intensive.

(It may have come from something that was written humorously being taken literally by people who don't cook.)

There are certainly circumstances where stew would not be practical, but once ingredients are assembled -- which can be very quick -- soups and stews don't require a lot of effort and do give you a lot of versatility.

(This versatility is also true of casseroles, but there are more things that can go wrong.)

The recent cooking experience reminded me of that, and if I'd thought of it sooner, I could have taken photos.

We are starting to have turkey less often, and there are fewer fans of the turkey soup, but when we do have it I can't bear to waste the bones, because I know they make such a good broth base.

After Thanksgiving I had put the bones and some skin in a freezer bag and put them in the freezer. They had stayed there until recently. Any separate leftover meat had been used up already, but there was still meat on the bones for the neck and wings.

I pulled out that bag on a Friday, put some salt and water over it, and set it on low heat.

I understand that it is common to also add some vinegar to help with the breaking down. I have only ever worked with poultry for that. If I were starting with thicker bones, I might add an acid.

I let that simmer all day. When I got off work, I strained the broth into another pot. With the bones in the strainer, I pulled off that meat and added it back to the broth, along with some carrots. Then I whipped up my home made noodles (one egg, a half egg shell's worth of milk, some salt, and then flour to make a dough).

That, and then stirring as I brought everything to a boil, was the most labor-intensive part of the experience, and it was not that bad.

It was a good soup, but there was a lot more broth than items in the broth. Ladling that into a bowl made those bowls fine, but then there was still all of this good broth that I still couldn't bear to waste.

I had recently made mushroom tetrazzini. Because we had been at Costco instead of Fred Meyer, I had quite a few leftover mushrooms. I sliced these up and added them as a noodle substitute. Mushrooms are low-carb, but texture-wise they fill a similar role. I also sliced up a couple of chicken tenders to fill out the meat. I heated up this new mix, which still had carrots, and stray bits of turkey and noodle. It was once again a good soup.

I still had a lot of leftover broth.

It occurred to me that when I was putting in my homemade noodles, that the texture was kind of similar to the dough for crescent rolls. We had a pack (because I had needed one for another recipe, and I bought multiple to take advantage of a sale). I pulled those out, sliced them up, and threw them in.

That was a failure; the dough disintegrated in the broth. All this did was make the broth thicker. Oddly, back when I was using some of that original turkey meat to make turkey and dumplings, I had put in too much dough, resulting in an unfortunate thickness that I had to try baking and frying. Edible, but not ideal.

It was still an okay soup, and there was still some broth left.

The final version had the rest of the mushrooms, some carrots from something else, and some ramen noodles.

There are a few points in here, but the reason I address it at all is that being able to prepare your own food has value. It doesn't have to be anything fancy, but being able to put something together that will nourish and satisfy has a great value.

When you can combine that with getting more out of what you do buy, and taking advantage of sales and discounts, it all works together to help.

There are recipes, but there is also an experience that builds up, where you can imagine different combinations that will work together, including odds and ends and leftovers. Soups and stews can be very forgiving, even when you make mistakes.

And mistakes are part of the process. Don't get discouraged when things don't come out as you hoped. 

You learn from that too.