Today is our 16^th Wedding Anniversary; seems like yesterday and forever all at once.  When I was a kid I heard what adults said about the statistics of young girls growing up without fathers.  I listened and I knew that I didn’t want that to be me.  I was determined not to marry into a loveless relationship or continuously look for love and attention in all the wrong places.  I wrote out my ideal husband.  I was 12.  Dark hair and eyes, not too tall, soft spoken, likes music and loves kids.  The list went on for a whole page.

Pasith and I met in drafting class in high school in January of 1993.  I was a year behind him but went into his class to finish up work before exams.  We had a mutual friend/acquaintance that I was talking to and Pasith came up and the childish banter started.  It was like grade 6 all over again.  Meet in the hall, give a little shove.  See the other one in the cafeteria; steal a few fries, etc.  We continued this highly recommended behavior for about 2 months before even knowing each other’s names.  I gave him my phone number, he jumped a snow bank and the rest is history.  We were inseparable much to my Mom’s dismay.

Neither of us had ever known anyone that could really understand how the other one felt.  We both knew trauma.   We both knew heartache.  We felt like we had known each other forever.  Like we had just been separated for a while and had found each other again.  We knew we would get married within a few months of dating.  I thought about that list that I had written and got it out and checked off every line.  I now believe that there is no way around it – that was divine intervention.   I had a detailed description of Pasith 4 years before I met him.  We had some tough times over the years just like other couples but through it all there has been no question that we will be together whatever we face.

One of my great pains was not having a Dad to share with Pasith, especially now that his Dad is gone as well.  I know how much it would mean to Pasith to have a Father-in-law like my Dad.  According to my Dad’s family they would have gotten along very well; both being quiet, deep thinkers.  What I wouldn’t give to have them together.  And that fact, that they are forever separated, I can’t have both my husband and my Dad is a fact that I don’t think I will ever get over completely.

But, I am also so thankful that I have Pasith in my life.  He is my rock and has gotten me through some very difficult times.  As I have done for him as well.  We are opposites in some ways.  The things that used to drive us nuts about each other are now what we rely on in each other.  His passive, laid back attitude used to drive me crazy.  My sometimes frenetic, anxious, get it done yesterday attitude used to drive him crazy and still does.  But we also rely on these qualities.  Me to light a fire under him every once in a while and for him to put out the fires and keep me calm, more often.

We are a team and we can’t wait to see what’s coming next.

I wrote this letter out on the grass of the old family farm in Minnesota the day after we found out my Mom had cancer.  This letter has so many memories attached to it. 

Dear Grandma,

We miss you.  I miss you.  I miss your stories, your strength, and your wisdom.  Oh how I could use your wisdom right now.  We all could.

There are so many questions that I want to ask you.  So many things that I want to tell you.  How’s Heaven?  Have you settled in to eternity?  Who was there to meet you?  I mean other than Grandpa.  What was it like to see Grandpa after almost 25 years?  Did it feel like 25 years or does time disappear instantly?   Have you met the baby that you mourned quietly for?  Were all your brothers there to meet you?  Oh, the conversations that you must have had!  Were your conversations in German or is there a whole new language in Heaven?  Have you met anyone famous that you never met but always wanted to?

What was the first thing you said to God?  Did you make him laugh?  I know how long you had been waiting for the moment that you would see God.  I am so happy for you.

You may not physically be at family gatherings but you are always in our memories, hearts – and conversations.  We’ve had some good laughs in remembrance of you.  Some of my recent favorites are my Uncles and Aunts telling stories of the trouble they used to get into as kids.  You had your hands full that’s for sure.  Your story telling ability has become a large part of your legacy and it has brought a lot of joy.  Thank you.

The old farmhouse and yard still brings a lot of peace to me and others in the family.  Auntie A has gardens and flower beds all over the yard.  She’s out here most evenings in the summer.  I don’t get out here as often as I would like but when I do it is the most incredible feeling.  My mind goes back to the joy and peace that I used to feel as a child.  I look at the back door that still has curtains in the window and I expect you to be standing there waving the way you did every time we left for home.  The wash line reminds me of the smell of your clean sheets in a warm bed – and how much trouble cousin M and I would get into if we went near the sheets when they were hanging.  The spot at the edge of the trees that used to have 2 tall trees with a swing in the middle.  I literally spent hours on that swing.  The slight slope of the sidewalk between the house and the garage door where Mike and I used to ride the wagon down with a good push from the other.  Our lack of steering ability shows in the dents in the garage door.

With no TV, no internet, no expensive toys it doesn’t sound like paradise to most kids but I don’t remember being bored.  There were always plenty of books to read for all ages on the shelves in the back bedroom, board games to play, naps to be taken, and a yard just waiting for the imagination to take over.

I think about you all the time.  You are so close and yet just out of reach.  I see you in myself and in my children.  I wish you had the chance to meet A.  I think you two would have understood each other.  His quiet mischievous nature reminds me of you.  I wish S could have more memories of you but my memories of the two of you are precious to me.  You, at 85, apologizing to a 3 year old for using the word stupid because S had been taught that it is a bad word will always bring a smile to my face.  You, pretending to be asleep in your rocking chair while S leaned on the arm looking up at you in awe.  Then your eyes would open slowly and a quiet “boo” would startle S and the two of you would laugh.

Thank you for the stories.  Thank you for your honesty.  Thank you for your faith.  Thank you for listening to the inner voice that seemed to be your constant companion and sharing your wisdom.

I love you.

I wrote the following letter to my Grandma Pearce, my Dad’s Mom, shortly after she passed away February 12th, 2009.

Dear Grandma,

You are missed.  You are truly missed.  It hasn’t been all that long since you left us for a better place.  We didn’t want you to go, but at just shy of 96 I guess its ok.  You’ve had your time here and you are more than ready to move on.

I can only imagine the joy you felt when you saw Grandpa, Uncle W and my Dad.  How it must have felt to be with Grandpa after 30 years, and my Dad after almost 33 years.  It had been a long wait for you and I’m sorry for that.  You went through so much loss in your life.  I’m so glad that you got it all back.  It must have been an incredible welcome.  Did they show you the sites?  Did they meet you at the gates?  What did you ask God first?

I miss you so much.  I don’t grieve for you so much as I grieve for time lost.  I don’t know what happened.  I was suddenly grown up, our time was almost up and there was no way for me to make up for the lost time.  How does that happen?  How do we get so wrapped up in our lives that we don’t realize the time passing and the relationships that get sacrificed along the way?  I know that I have said this to you before but I can’t help feeling like it is never enough.  There was a time when I didn’t have control over our relationship.  There was nothing that I could do to change the situation.  But, I did grow up and I did have choices.  And I didn’t make the right one.  It is painful for me to think that I had a part in extending or increasing your heartache.  I should have been there for you more.  I was your lost son’s daughter, one of your last connections and I wasn’t there.  I didn’t see it until it was too late.  I now remember how you used to look at me, searching for any sign of your son, looking for a gesture, a movement, a characteristic.  I wish I had given you more chances to catch a glimpse of him.  I know that you are with him now and that is a comfort but I wish I could have lessened that ache while you were here.

I know that you are at peace with your life now.  You are in the presence of God and your family.  I know that you forgave me in life and I know that you now understand all the reasons for everything that happened and I have to admit that I envy that.  I wish I knew all the answers right now.

There is a box of things that Auntie A dropped off today sitting in my living room.  I keep looking at it wanting to open it.  But I can’t.  It’s confirmation that you are gone.  I’m not used to seeing you all the time so it doesn’t always feel real.  Once I open that box it’s real.  We, the living, are so selfish.  Even though I know that you are so happy, and with your family, I want you here with me on this imperfect planet with pain and tragedy.  Why do we do that?  Why can’t we just be happy for those that are lucky enough to escape and move on with our lives?  I guess you know the answer to that now.

Grandma, I am so happy for you.  I love you.  Thank you for your legacy.

Love, Lisa Allyn

I have always wanted to be more understood.  All through childhood I felt misunderstood.  Who else can understand what it’s like to lose a father before you know you have one and then feel like something is missing but not know what it is or why.  Even for another child to understand what it’s like to lose a father; there weren’t many children in the small town I grew up in that had experiences even close to what I had.  So, I didn’t really fit in very well.  I wasn’t ostracized or bullied.  I just always felt different.  I stopped going to youth group within a year of starting because I couldn’t relate to the other kids.  I had serious issues that I was dealing with and questioning my basic existence and the other kids were worried about getting a zit or their curfew.  I went to work with the 2 – 5 year olds instead.  I fit in much better there and made a lot of little friends.

Even now as an adult I feel different from the people around me.  I see things so differently; I see the seriousness of situations a lot sooner, I have an underlying pain that most people don’t understand.  I feel things so differently and I don’t know how to explain my feelings because they are so complex at times that I don’t even understand them.  Experiences, like Pasith getting home later than expected, affect me that others would brush off or just give a nod to and move on.  I see possible doomsday coming.

I never thought that I could be too understood until my Father-in-law passed away May 29^th, 2008.  After he passed away Pasith told me that he felt like he understood me better.  I was heartbroken.  I fell apart.  It took me days to get through the fact that we were now in this together.  I never wanted him to feel anything close to what I had felt all my life.  That feeling of missing someone that takes over your heart and mind at times.  I know that feeling all too well and it just saddened me that he now knew that feeling.  And the fact that my Dad died 2 weeks before I was born and Pasith’s Dad died 2 days before Pasith’s birthday is just so strange and difficult for me to reconcile.  My birthday was a reminder every year of something negative that seemed to outweigh the positive of a child turning a year older.  And now Pasith is in the same position.  His birthday will always be a small reminder.

A few months after my Father-in-law passed my Uncle passed away and at the funeral my cousin, his son, told me as well that he felt like he finally had an inkling of what I have felt all my life.  And it hit me again.  It is very hard for me to accept that this just keeps happening.  I know that it is nature and it has going to happen sometime but it doesn’t seem to make it any easier when it is someone that you care about and love that is now in the same boat as you.

I have a strong desire to be understood but not like this.

As I have stated before, Pasith and I are from opposite ends of the world, literally.  The fact that we met and married is made up of many small miracles and a few divine interventions.  We also have a few unexpected parallels in our lives.  One is that we both have families that saw a need, took a leap of faith, and made an enormous difference for our families.

Today we had a BBQ at my brother-in-law’s house; a celebration.  31 years ago my husband’s family was sponsored by a group of people in a St Pierre, Manitoba church.  They were given a way out of poverty, starvation and an uncertain future.  My husband’s family had already escaped in the night in a leaky boat across the Mekong under the deadly search lights a few years before.  They were now in the refugee camps of Thailand.  Not under constant threat of conscription or death but now starving.  His Dad had applied to go to the United States but the paperwork fell through a few days before they were to leave.  They were stuck there for a few more months.  I can’t imagine his parent’s disappointment at the news of being stuck there for even a few more days let alone months.  But, then they were given hope when they were sponsored to Manitoba.  They arrived in a March blizzard.  The youngest boy, 3 years old, was very sick and in the hospital within a few days.  The sponsors were in for more than they had realized.  From explaining how to sleep in a bed, to just simply trying to communicate.  But, they stuck with it and helped this family get started in a new country, in safety.  The impact that this group had on all our lives is immeasurable.

On my side I also have a family, well more like a village.  But one family in particular that went above and beyond to help out a struggling Mom with 2 babies.  Uncle G and Auntie D had met my parents a few times.  Uncle G was over talking farm machinery the day before my Dad was killed.  My Mom and Auntie D had shared afternoon coffee a few times.  So when the night nurse at the hospital told Auntie D about my Mom in the hospital with a new baby and a toddler staying with family she knew she had to help.  She went to the hospital and walked the floor with me.  Auntie D sat with Mom, prayed with my Mom, tried to provide some comfort to a grieving widow.   A few months later when my Mom’s family had gone home to Minnesota and the farm had been sold Auntie D started a routine of taking care her own house, two boys and us.  Driving back and forth from farm to town and back helping with meals, dressing, baths whatever my Mom needed.   Finally after a few months she was exhausted.  So they put a crib in the spare room with a sofa bed for my Mom and sister.  My Mom would go out to the farm for supper and may not have gone home for a day or two.  My Mom always brought our pajamas along.  As I learned to talk I called Uncle G, “Dad”.  I followed him nearly everywhere.  I had a system, which my Mom never knew, of calling one Mom and the other Mommy.  This is not to say that we were never at home with my Mom, I have memories of the house in Moosomin where we lived till I was 3 and I know that my Mom tried to do her best but she needed help.  I just don’t know where we would be without this family.  We continued to go back several times a year after we moved to Manitoba.  Last year Auntie D reprised her role of 34 years ago and sat with Mom and prayed with Mom in the hospital, but this time it was cancer.  And she came out several times in November to help out with Mom’s final wish of dying at home.  We are eternally grateful.  I hope that I can make even a fraction of the impact that these people have made in our lives in someone else’s life.  They have taught me what generosity of spirit is all about.

I have some old and some new topics for my blog but this one just feels perfect for the time of year we are in.   As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog my Dad was murdered just before I was born in June of 1976. And believe me; I will elaborate on that subject in the blogs to come.

When I was growing up the months of May and June were not easy.  Around Mother’s Day I would notice the change in my Mom and I knew we were in the May/June zone.  May was kind of the wind up to June.  There was nothing definitively different in her behavior; it was more of a feeling; tense, quiet.  But then when June came she was jumpy and her Post Traumatic Stress symptom of forgetfulness, among others, would flare up.  As June 12^th approached she would withdraw and become quiet.  And then on the 12^th she may talk about it or not.  And shortly after the anniversary of my Dad’s death was, and is, always Father’s Day.  Now I understand how difficult that day must have been for her.  My Mom’s Dad passed away when I was 3 and to not have your Dad or your children’s Dad to celebrate must have been very hard.  As we got older she made a bit of a joke out of it and said she was lucky because she got to celebrate both Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.  She must have been in great pain while attempting to keep the normalcy.  After Father’s Day are my Dad’s birthday on June 24^th, and then my birthday on the 25^th.

As you can imagine these were not easy times.  When I was young she made the best of my birthday.  But then I started to slowly plan my birthday parties on my own, partly because I loved planning them, but as I look back she was slowly pulling away from my birthday.  There were some birthdays where I would have a sleep over with friends and I hardly saw her.  She would go out or go in her room.  I understand it now and thankfully I didn’t really notice it when I was younger.  Then as an adult I noticed that she didn’t always remember my birthday.  Some years I just let it go by without a word, others I would work it into the conversation.  She would always feel bad when she remembered a few days after and I didn’t want to make it worse for her so I would just brush it off.  I began to understand trauma and its effects at an early age.  And I know that she had problems remembering other dates as well, not just my birthday but it is still a reminder of what I was born into.

For me June was very difficult as a child.  I would have horrible nightmares all the time as a kid but they seemed to get a lot worse during that month.  Being chased, shot at, stabbed, stalked, house broken into.  Things a 3 or 4 year old just shouldn’t wake up to.  I would run to my Mom’s room and sleep the rest of the night with her.  Most of the nightmares went away as I got older; but not the June nightmares.  They came back every year until I was pregnant with my daughter.  I had been so worried that I would have the nightmares and somehow pass that terror and stress on to the baby.  But they went away that year.  They reoccur every once in a while but not even close to the frequency they once were.  And every year as I got older I would be very conscious of my Mom’s feelings during May and June; wondering how she would handle it that year.  Three years ago she finally admitted that she was having problems, and had problems in past years, with depression around the anniversary.  I was glad to hear her finally admit how hard it was.  The last few years seemed a little easier on her, which we were all thankful for.  I think she somehow knew that it wouldn’t be long.  My Mom passed away on December 17^th, 2010 after a lengthy illness.  And I have to wonder how this year’s May and June is going to go.  Have I been marking the anniversary of my Dad’s death differently than I would for myself because of my Mom?  Out of respect or not wanting to hurt her?  Will I sail through it without issue?  Will it be more difficult because my Mom is gone?  I guess we’re about to find out.  Now, the months of May and June have gotten even more interesting since I’ve known Pasith.  Our wedding anniversary is on May 27^th.  His Dad passed away on May 29^th, 2008.  Pasith’s birthday is on June 1^st.  I have a feeling we are in for one amazing roller coaster every year.  But I hope that we can find the joy in the memories.

I’ll start with the easy stuff.  Originally, I’m a farm girl from small town Saskatchewan.  Now I’m a 34 year old woman from Winnipeg.   I’ve been married to my high school sweet heart for 16 years this month.  We have an 11 year old daughter and a 4 year old son.  We are 4 peas in a pod.  Our favorite times are when we are all together.  When one of us is missing, we feel it.  My son gets very upset when his sister is gone for a sleep-over or doesn’t come off the bus at daycare as he expects her to.  My daughter, who was almost 7 at the time, got up with me in the night for the first few weeks after her brother was born.  And she is now his personal tutor in everything.  To have children that are best friends is more than parents can hope for.  Even our initials spell a word, SLAP, this also happens to be our daughter’s initials.  How cheesy is that?

But it’s not all rainbows and butterflies.  My husband and I each come from traumatic backgrounds on opposite sides of the world.  His was a war zone in Laos.  Mine was a supposedly peaceful prairie existence.  Nothing is as it seems.  And how did I get here?  While I was on maternity leave with my son I decided to take that year to really start to examine how I felt about different aspects of my life and the people around me.  I really dug in and started to write to try to make sense of it all.  And that start led me to where I am today and will hopefully continue to lead me in the direction that I am meant to go.

My father was murdered in a home invasion on June 12^th, 1976.  The prairie was no longer peaceful.  I was born on June 25^th, 1976.  I haven’t quite figured out whether time is on my side or not.  Time is very elusive and doesn’t like to be pinned down for lengthy interrogations.  Either you get it or you don’t.  And by the time you realize which one it is time is already long gone.  And here I am still, after almost 35 years, trying to figure it all out.  The offender and accomplice were caught and it was wrapped up in what appeared to be a neat package.  But I am here to say there isn’t anything neat about murder.  It is ugly, messy and life-long.  While this part of my life does not define me it certainly is a part of who I am, whether I like it or not.
I’m writing this blog as a way to express and examine the things that I have learned along the way in hopes that I can provide myself some closure and help out someone else in the process.  I have some serious work ahead of me and I want to get started.  But first some ground rules.  This is about learning how to be resilient, peaceful, and positive through adversity.  I am not an expert on these subjects.  I’m hoping we can learn them together.  This blog is not to be negative or disparaging but uplifting.  The people in this blog are loved, even if they are not perfect.  It is not up to us to judge but to tell the story.  And this is my story.

~ A fatherless girl thinks all is possible and nothing safe. – Mary Gordon