Grey.

My eyes are tired. Sunken.

I'm cold.

My over-sized scarf is wrapped around my face. It covers my mouth. I wish it covered my eyes.... the over-sized scarf is now catching the warm tears rolling down my cold face.

I watch. That has been my role lately... a silent observer, and sometimes comforter.. but... mostly, I watch.

The casket is beautiful. She would have thought it beautiful. Maybe she is watching from somewhere unseen, and she notices its fine wood and carved detail.

The flowers. They are bright against the grey, rainy winter day. Isn't that such a metaphor for her? She was always the bright against the grey, no matter what life threw her way.



Why? I think. I stop myself immediately. I had already asked that question too many times. That question is starting to hurt.

........


The gravestone is finally up. It is simple, stunning.

The ground it wet. It just rained. The sun is peeking out just the right amount. It warms my skin as I take it all in.

I watch my husband of five months kneel down next to it. He gently touches the engraved name. I want to ask why again, but that hurts. Instead, I watch. I take pictures. I observe.

He just kneels on the wet ground and he reads the words... or thinks about something.. I am not sure which.

"Are you okay?" I ask quietly.

He doesn't reply for a moment. I wonder if he's heard me.

"Yeah," he finally replies, very matter-of-factly. "I'm fine."

He doesn't move. He doesn't glance back at me. He stays alone in his thoughts, and I let him stay there.

.......

A few months ago, I had a mother-in-law. The only mother-in-law I have ever had. She was beautiful, kind and hilarious. She intimidated me, not because she was intimidating, but because she was amazing.. and because I loved her son. I knew how much she loved her son, and I wanted her to love me, too, and trust me to take care of him in a way only a wife can.

........

The week she died, my husband and I received a call to come immediately. We dropped everything and drove to Boise in the middle of the night.

We came to see her that morning. She was different. She was weak. This wasn't her, though, and I know she would not like to be remembered as she looked that last week in November, so I will not waste a moment describing her outward appearance.

Her body was weak, but her soul had not changed. She was so focused on loving others, even when it took every ounce of her last bits of energy to do so.

When I greeted her, she spoke my name happily and hugged me and kissed me. She insisted I pick out a hat she had knitted in the previous months when her movement had been restricted.

I only rummaged a moment before I found a stunning pink piece.

I pulled that bright pink hat on over my messy, I-drove-all-night hair to show her how it looked.

"It's beautiful. I love it," I told her.

"Oh, you're just saying that!" she teased.

"No, it really is beautiful," I smiled. (For the record, I meant it. It is the most beautiful hat I've ever owned.) Others in the room chorused their agreements.

"Well, okay," she settled with and closed her eyes to rest. The room revolved around her, and each of us stayed quiet. Her sister softly rubbed her back. My husband sat next to her bed and held her hand.

I left the small room and I sat in the front room. Each piece of furniture and photo or clock on the wall was arranged perfectly. In any other circumstance, it would have felt inviting and warm. At one point, it was invited and warm. Today it felt cold. It felt empty.

A single tear snuck out of one of my tired eyes, and with that one tear, fell my entire "it's going to be okay" facade.

I cried alone in my mother-in-law's family room, wearing a dark grey dress and a bright, pink hat.


........


It's been months now.

The muted, monotone of Winter is changing to a bright, happy and colorful Spring.


....but it's a different Spring. It is a Spring with a gaping whole in my heart for a person I only met last Spring. It's the first Spring my husband blows out his birthday candles without his mother. It's a Spring that beautiful babies she would have melted to meet and hold come into a world without their grandmother. It's a Spring in which Mother's Day will feel a lot different.

It's a Spring that the woman who always brought brightness to grey is gone.

a beautiful day in the Nauvoo temple

I love all of these people very much, and I am so happy they could come with me to the temple yesterday!

#templeselfie

may 3rd wedding bliss

On May 3rd my beautiful mom married James. 

They moved up the date so that I could come, and I'm so grateful I had the chance to see her get married. It was a beautiful, sweet and close-knit ceremony.

 

Thanks to a two-minute certification online, I was able to officiate the civil ceremony. 
(photo cred to our personal paparazzi, Emily)

the bride & groom

the entire fam.

my siblings, Mom, step-dad and new step-brothers

I'm really happy for her, and excited to welcome more amazing people into my family.

mission prep: new leaf

The paperwork for my mission took a long time to finish.

Finally getting my call felt good, and I think it gave me a little boost of confidence to at last be able to tell everyone exactly where I was going and when.

That was fair and fine,

except that everything was still the same. I was still the same Sydni with the same personality and the same flaws and the same strengths and the same habits. The only difference was that I had now been assigned a mission.

My perspective began to change not when I received my mission call, but rather when I focused on preparing for my mission.

I feel happy, but not just happy. I think happiness is an emotion that waves and flexes. I feel joy, which to me means a feeling of contentment and peace with my life, no matter the emotion I am feeling in the moment. 

I feel like the blessing of joy and emotional maturity has been strengthened as I read my scriptures and pray and stay focused on my mission.

People keep asking me if I am ready to go. I know I'm not ready, but I feel as ready as I can be.

They sometimes ask me if I'm stressed. Nope. I honestly feel fine. Things are happening quickly: I go to the temple June 7th. I quit my jobs June 12th. I go to Russia from June 15th thru the 25th. I leave for my mission July 9th. Maybe I should feel more nervous than I do, but I only feel peace right now.

42 days.

Middle-to-Upper Class Guilt

I am not wealthy.

I am far from being wealthy.

Yet I am actually pretty wealthy.

Sometimes I wait a few seconds for the tap water to get cold before filling my glass, and I don't think much about the clean water going down the drain.

I drive a car. I own a car. I can pay for gas to fuel my car.

I have a job. 

I had the chance to graduate high school.

I go to college.

I have free time.

I am not wealthy.

I am far from being wealthy.

Yet I am actually pretty wealthy.

Should I feel guilty?

I lived in Ecuador for a year. I lived with a host family, worked in a local clinic and tried my hardest to immerse myself into the Ecuadorian way of life.

I felt many emotions when I was leaving Ecuador to come back to the United States. I wondered how I could possibly mix my new simplified way of life with my old, energy-inefficient American lifestyle.

I had a dream a few weeks before I left:

I dreamt that I was walking through my town in Puerto Quito. It was a normal day, except for some reason I was in a hurry. That was odd, as I was hardly ever in a hurry; rushing just doesn't mesh with the relaxed Puerto Quito lifestyle.

Some boy was whistling at me.

I kept walking.

Men whistle at women all the time in Ecuador and it annoys me more than anything.

I assumed this boy wanted my attention and I was in a hurry. I never gave him a second glance.

..but this boy was very persistent. He was abnormally persistent; he was annoyingly persistent.

As I sped-walk to the bus station, he kept trying to get my attention. I continued to ignore him. Can't he take a hint?

Finally, I turned toward him to yell at him to stop.

I was shocked by what I saw.

This boy was not begging for my attention to tell me I was guapa or su reina. No. There was something wrong with this boy.

His entire face was gone. Just gone. It was morphed into a black hole of nothing. It appalled me. It scared me. He didn't want to annoy me; he wanted my help.

The guilt I felt in that moment was real and pure guilt, stronger than I had ever felt in my life. I could not believe that I ignored this hurting young boy for such silly reasons -- being in such a rush and immediately stereotyping this person I didn't know before I even took a moment to look at him.

I woke up to the intense guilty feeling. My heart was beating a million miles a  minute and I was sweating. Even though it was a dream, I could not forgive myself for being foolish and ignorant.

From that moment forward, I decided I would try my hardest to never ignore someone in need. Even though my life would become busier and less energy-efficient and totally different, I would always remember the lesson that dream taught me.

In America, I can waste water to my pleasing. I can drive a car. I can go to college.

The fact is that I can enjoy these things while many of my sisters and brothers throughout my country and my world cannot. Should I feel guilty because of this blatant inequality? Is there anything I can do to ease the guilt I sometimes feel due to it?

I am still figuring out the answer to those questions for myself. I honestly don't know if feeling guilty is an appropriate response to the obvious injustice I see everywhere. I honestly don't know if feeling guilty leads to any improvement of anyone's situation. I honestly don't know what I can do to better this inequality yet.

But, for now, I do know that I can open my eyes and stop ignoring the people around me in need. While I may not have a big picture solution to the unfairness yet, I can make a difference to one person for one moment and it does make a difference. I can buy a meal for the homeless person I see on my drive to work. I can offer a kind word to a stranger who seems to be having a bad day. I can offer a helping hand and a willing heart to a friend in need. I can offer my time and talents to a local charity. There are a lot of things I can do to make the world a better place today, and the first step is opening my eyes to the boy with no face who is asking for my help.

edit: "Not All Passports are Created Equal"

a story by sydni, hardcopy edition (journaling)

Today I finished my tenth journal.

Writing is my favorite.

I started journaling in 2009 and fell in love with it.

My favorite thing about it is being able to look back and remember little pieces of my life, 

like when I first decided to get my CNA ,

souvenirs from sweet kids,

and events that happened on this date years ago.

Onto the Next Adventure: Journal Number Eleven.

SoCal.

Mission calls really do come!

California Los Angeles Mission

Spanish speaking.

Mexico MTC.

Leaving July 23, 2014.

I wouldn't have chosen this mission for myself, but the more I learn about the California Los Angeles Mission, the more convinced I am that it's the perfect mission for me. I AM SO EXCITED I CANNOT EVEN TELL YOU.


Here are some things I cannot wait for:


I adore Spanish..

LOS ANGELES.

I will teach and learn from people all over the world.

And not just investigators - my mission teaches in eight languages and has missionaries serving from over 25 countries.

I will get to simplify my life and just focus on the people I meet, my spirituality and missionary work for 18 months. 

SoCal 100% fits my personality.

Apparently, sixty degrees is considered cold. No more Iowa winters. Goodbye wearing seven layers of clothing and still being freezing!

Maybe I'll just move there post-mission?

I cannot stress enough how happy I am to be serving in a warm climate.

...and way more things


I am GOING ON A MISSION. Can you believe it?

ER Stories 3: DNR (Do Not Resuscitate)

Note: These posts are intentionally vague (with no names, ages, or dates) so as to protect patient confidentiality. These stories are random and their publication dates have no correlation to the dates they occurred.

This is a sad story and it is difficult to tell, as I want to approach the subject with respect.

The first time I saw someone die was in the Emergency Room.

She was an older patient with a preexisting condition. Her family expected her to pass away soon, but her husband did not want to sign the paperwork to make his wife a "Do Not Resuscitate" (DNR for short.).

If a DNR patient's heart stops, we don't attempt CPR.

...............

Before this day, I had never understood why anyone would want to make themselves or their loved ones a DNR. In my uninformed mind it seemed like giving up; and giving up seemed weak.

.........................

The patient came into the Emergency Room as a CPR in progress; the ambulance had already started chest compressions.

ER Stories 2: It's a Boy!

Before I worked as an ER Tech in the States, I worked as a CNA in a little clinic in Puerto Quito, Ecuador.

We have a small Emergency Room and I got a lot of hands-on experience with the burning, the broken and the bleeding (and I loved it).

...........................

In this little clinic, we have a small room dedicated to giving birth. I knew about it, but in the six months I had been working at Patronato, we had never used it.

On February 7, 2013 I came into work to find that little room occupied by a doctor, nurse and mother in labor.

Um, what?

I stood outside the door for five minutes wondering if it was appropriate to knock on the door and ask to help. I tend to over think things. I finally decided it was an opportunity I could not pass up, and knocked.

"¿Quién es?" I recognized Dr. Rios' voice. "Sydni," I replied and he immediately opened the door, welcoming me inside; but not before he instructed me to scrub in.

Sydni Heron PCT

I. have. a. job!

Within the next two weeks, I will be a maroon scrub wearing Patient Care Technician on the Medical Surgery floor of a hospital in a big city in the USA.

Coolest part about my new job? I'll be trained in Phlebotomy. This girl will be drawing blood for a living. (You know you work in the health field when you're excited about that.)

After I got the job, the first thing I did was buy the proper colored scrubs and take a crappy quality cell phone picture... 

...and I'm too excited to be embarrassed about it.

Ecuador Archives: Porch Sitting & My Best Friend Betty

Hobbies.

Betty, the only other American living in my Ecuadorian town of Puerto Quito, and I developed a few new ones while in Ecuador.

Knitting:

[Oh darn! I lack a proper photo of us knitting, Betty. I assure you, though, this became a large part of our lives. We spent many days/evening knitting in my house or hers, making scarves. And only scarves because we had not learned to make anything else yet. And by "we" made scarves, I mean usually I worked on the same scarf I'd been working on for months while Betty knit a few lines and then redid it because it wasn't good enough.. over and over again. That's my perfectionist Betty.]

Walking / Rain Forest Exploring:

We found a cute little oasis a few miles out of Puerto Quito during one of our walking adventues.

Cooking

Okay... Betty did most of the cooking... all of the cooking...

Double Dating

Oh, the memories...

Archutilla Hunting:

  Bags of them. Good work us.

All of these hobbies were great, but our favorite newly acquired hobby?

Porch Sitting.

Yes, you heard that correctly.

Let me explain for those of you novices in the art of Porch Sitting:

This is Betty's house.

Otherwise known as the perfect Porch Sitting location.

Let me zoom in a little bit:

It's pretty simple. Betty and I sit on the corner of the sidewalk, facing the street.

Really, that's it. 

We fill our time talking about nothing or our jobs or boys or life goals. Feel free to talk about whatever you'd like. Topic of conversation does not affect the quality of your Porch Sitting Session. We say hi to passers-by. We people watch. 

This Porch Sitting Time is yours. As long as you stay on your porch, the rules are not very strict.

Leading expert in the field, Aidan Holloway-Bidwell, teaches us more on the subject:

 "Porch sitting, not to be confused with porch standing, or its similar counterpart, reclined porch sitting, has been a common practice for longer than you might imagine. All one really needs to join the ranks of porch sitters around the world is a chair (rocking chair is usually preferred) and the willpower to just sit. Oh, and a porch."

This location is particularly ideal because the road you see leads out of town, so many motorcycles (sometimes being driven by cute Ecuaboys whom I have been known to whistle at a time or two *cough*) and cars and people use it to go inside and outside of Puerto Quito.

"I would say the most rewarding part of Porch Sitting is feeling completely calm and welcoming of whatever your day brings. Some porch sitting sessions end in fascinating conversations with total strangers. Others simply end because it's 8:30 and dark and you figure you should go home and eat dinner. Either way, you leave that porch with a newfound feeling of fulfillment."

-Quote from an avid Porch Sitter (me)

Some of us are not as fortunate, though..

 "A lot of people have no porches to sit on..." Galen Tsongas, San Francisco Resident, writes. He continues: "A sad story... But no matter how much I wish for a porch to sit on, one won't appear, and the bureaucratic city government hears not my pleas for such an addition to the apartment complex..."

Please be aware of our porchless sisters and brothers and, if possible, offer them a rocking chair next to yours.

Next on my Ecuadorian adventure: I leave Ecuador...

I'm Home!

On April 14th, I left my second home of Puerto Quito to come back to my first home in The States.

I made a video to tell ya'all about my experience, and remember it myself:

I also happened to be featured in USA Today and The Des Moines Register in an article about gap years. (http://m.usatoday.com/article/news/2140259 ;  http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20130507/NEWS/305070052/Advocates-gap-year-say-time-away-from-school-builds-confidence-expands-worldview)

And now that I am home (with reliable internet access), I will keep my blog better updated. Hopefully. :)




Next on my Ecuadorian adventure: I go back!

something new.

I am learning how to knit!

I’m working on my first piece, una bufanda. Though it is far from perfect (notice how it gets really big in the middle there), I am indeed very proud of it. 

Looking at something that you made with your own hands is a really happy feeling (no matter how ugly it is).

WHICH IS [PARTIALLY] WHY I’m starting a new apprenticeship! The lack of patients in the clinic means a lot more time and I have decided to learn something new with this newfound free time.  In the mornings I will be continuing my work as a Nursing Assistant in Patronato Municipal (http://astorybysydni.blogspot.com/2012/11/a-short-preview-of-my-apprenticeship.html) and in the afternoons I will be …..

learning how to sew from a very talented costurera named Neli in a small sewing shop in Puerto Quito, Ecuador.

 

& I am unbelievably excited for this opportunity!