Merry Christmas

My Christmas gift from Jeddy was three songs he made for me. Here are two  of his songs set to pictures from November and December:    Jeddy's Music

Wanda Gardner RIP

Home Again Home Again.....

Home Again, Home Again.....Jiggity Jog..... my mom use to say that.

We are home from Utah. Home from the funeral. it was a very quick trip. Lots to say, but maybe a lot I shouldn't say...?

My favorite moment was during the funeral service when two of my sons sang their farewell song to my mom. Earlier that morning there was a few minutes when the Mormon Bishop who was conducting the service heard the song and declared that it was not reverent enough for a funeral. He then asked dad, who said he had discussed it with me and he felt it was perfect for my mom.

Follow the link below to hear Jeddy Grant and Spencer J:

This song is for you Grandma Wanda.

 My dad spoke--which I believe is unusual and must have taken a lot of strength to do.

 My sister spoke.

My great niece Lexi and niece Lenzy sang Silent Night. While my nephew Darrell (who is deaf mute) signed the song.... which is pretty cool to "sing" Silent Night" silently ;-)

Tony The Shelf Elf

The day before my mom passed away, I bought El Jay the Elf on a Shelf doll and the book. At bedtime, with the Elf and Tommy by our sides we read the story.  El Jay wasn't too excited by the doll or book. I asked him to name the Elf and he gave me this "You've got to be kidding" look. During the night the Elf did his thing and in the morning he was hiding elsewhere in the house.

During the night my mom had died. When I woke EL Jay I shared that with him. As El Jay ate his breakfast he looked up and he said, "Hey Tony," and made a few comments.

I had no idea who he was talking to and looked over to see that EL Jay was looking towards where the Elf had been sitting when I got up that morning ;-) and I asked, "Who are you talking to?"

"Tony," replied El Jay.

"Tony? Is that what you named the Elf?"

El Jay shook his head no. "Grandma told me that was his name. She said he was really her Christmas gift to me."

I smiled and wiped a tear from my eye. Mom loved Halloween and Christmas and doing special things with and for her family. I am happy she made sure EL Jay got this final gift.

Welcome, Tony, to our Home

.

Tony managed to sneak into our family portrait on Christmas Day.

(posted in January)

Mom, I love you.

On 12-12-12 my mom died. She had been receiving home hospice care and we knew the time was close. She died around 2am and when I got up around 5am I found out of her passing on Facebook--which is a blog post I'd like to confront in the future.

I debated whether to tell El Jay before school or to wait until after school. Each morning after I wake him, we cuddle for a few minutes and usually he tells me about his dreams. I decide to tell him that Grandma had died while we were cuddliing. He instantly said that Grandma had finished the things she come here to do and had new things to do where she was.  Such wisdom from a little boy. I asked if he understood what death is and he said, yes, that her "angel" had left her body, but she was still with us. After he came downstairs dressed he gave me a hug and asked if I had remembered OUR dream that night. He said Grandma had taken us to dance in the stars with Roxcy and Aidan. He tells me all the time that I am in his dreams and I believe him, because occasionally I remember having similar dreams. He has always been closer to the angels then most children and El Jay and I have a close spiritual bond.

Cuddling with El Jay I have thought about my favorite thing to do with my mom when I was little. I loved to be "Cuddled By" my mom. That is where she lay behind me with her arms wrapped around me and we talked. I don't remember when I got too old to cuddle with my mom, but lately I've wished I was little again and could cuddle with her. I remember once thinking that being cuddled by was so wonderful, and I wanted to know what it felt like to be my mom and do "Cuddling  To." In my mind that is how I thought of it. I may have been in kindergarten. I explained that and she laughed and we switched places. I knew instantly that Cuddling To was not nearly as nice as being Cuddle By. I wondered why my mom liked to Cuddle To. Later as a mom I found that answer out. I love holding my own children in my arms, but I do miss being held.

Picture of Wanda J. Gardner and TinaMarie Gardner circa 1963. Garden Grove, Ca.

What Next?

I want to take pictures. That is all I want to do. That is all I have ever wanted to do.  I want to make money taking pictures. I want to be able to support my family by taking pictures. I wish getting there was as easy as writing it down.

It has been exhilarating lately to have people actually calling me up and asking me to shoot them ;-) That despite this lack of personal focus and fog in my brain, I have been able to keep shooting. And not only take pictures, but produce some of my best work. As the calls came in, I doubted I could do it, because of the medication issue.... but I did. And I took great pictures.

Another photographer and I have been discussing our personal desire to "open" a studio. This guy is around 30 and got a doctorate in Poli-Sci in the Spring. He is now teaching at a university.... yet, what he really wants now is to focus on his photography. I can't image working so hard to get a doctorate and then NOT use it.... I also can't image NOT pursuing what you really want to do. I wish I had that type of drive.

There are moments, many of them, when I am so tired of school. After getting a W in my Algebra class--knowing I have to retake it and then take Math 121 and statistics--I have considered just quitting. I can't do it. My mind cannot do it. But I dropped out 29-years ago as a senior and I have worked so hard this time around. I'm going to stick with it. I have to.

Sometimes, it would be nice to feel I wasn't in this alone. That someone supported me in this journey. Believed in me. I get encouragement through my FB friends, which isn't the type of support I wish I had. For example, my dad has never said, "I am proud of you for going back to school." He has made a big deal out of my sister, Robyn, going back to school though. She lasted two semesters before she dropped out. I've stayed in for 9-semesters now. I don't feel any closer to graduating than I did in the Fall of 2007 when I came back to school. 

This is my plan. I am going to take pictures. I am going to support my family as a professional photography. I am going to open a studio. Miguel Gandert told me two years to stop making excuses. Either I was, or I wasn't and to believe in ME and my talents and abilities. That if I didn't believe in myself first, no else would.

I am a photographer. That is WHO I am.

 Although I love Jeddy's smile here, this image is really about the shadow. 

 He has such penetrating eyes. 

 Father & Daughter

Christmas in Albuquerque

A few quick pictures.

 ABQ Botanical Gardens, River of Lights.  

The PAPA choirs performed at the opening night for the River of Lights. Jeddy and a school-mate with the reflections from the duck pond behind them.

I've been doing a lot of foto shoots. My goal here was to create an image of the toddler with lights in front of her and a bokeh behind--it didn't work out that way. Two reasons, first: she didn't want to cooperate and second: I did this at her home and I didn't have enough space to set it up correctly. However, it worked out. I like the look. The toddler could have just crawled over to the tree and began pulling the lights off.

 ABQ Twinkle Light Parade. My foto shoot during the parade was not about perfectly lit, sharp pictures. Instead, my goal was to play with the light and motion.

The annual Tumbleweed Snowman. Jeddy was driving and I was the passenger. Jeddy was trying to get the car up to 65 miles p/hour to merge onto the I40, so I didn't get as sharp of an image as I would have liked. Yet, I was able to make this Seasonal card.

Grandma's Album

Two years ago while visiting my parents I scanned a photo album that had belonged to my grandmother, Mary Henderson Gardner. The album had already fallen apart and many of the images were missing. I scanned entire pages. I woke up this morning feeling motivated to work on restoring these images. In college 30-years ago I took a photo restoration class and then worked for a photographer restoring and hand color pictures. Now, with great photo editing programs out there, it is so much easier to do photo restoration. I hope that the process of doing restoration and colorization by hand does not become a lost art.

The pictures from the old album were taken in the mid-20's while my grandmother was a college student at Utah Agricultural College (now Utah State University--go Aggies!) into the 30's after she had gotten married. None are labled, but I am working with my dad and Aunt Mary to try and figure out who is who. I wish I had sat down with my grandmother and had her share the stories that accompany each photo. 

A childhood memory is of sitting with my maternal grandfather, Francis Severin Johnson and having him tell me about pictures he had in an album. It was after we had moved to Utah in 1970. I would have been 8 or 9. I already knew I wanted to  take pictures when I grew up, but as I listened to him, I decided I also wanted to visit people and listen to their stories and take their pictures (both with a camera and the pictures they showed me) and make a book. Oh, if only....huh? If only I had been able to orchestrate that mammoth of a goal as an eight year old. If only, someone had listened to me tell them my idea and had decided to help me. I can't image the treasures I would have both saved and created.

The following are a few of the pictures from the photo album of Mary Henderson Gardner:

 This is an example of what the average page looked like. As someone who loves Family History and photo restoration, please, my advise is to never remove photos from an old album. With today's technology it is so easy to scan the pages and crop out the picture you want. Then you can print that picture. By ripping pages from an old album you are destroying important historical documents. Even if it is a picture of an unidentified woman and child, like this one, or a  photo of your favorite aunt (who never did anything important in her life), ALL old pictures have historical significance and should be preserved for future generations.

The above two images are of my grandmother with her classmates at USU in the mid-20's. In the image above she is the young woman 2nd from the right.I wish I  knew who the other girls are and I especially wish I knew who the man was. I am guessing a professor at USU.The girls certainly seem to be friendly with him.

My great grandfather, Dr. W.W. Henderson was head of the Biology and Zoology dept at USU at the time of his death in 1945. I'm not sure what his title was in 1925.  This could be him. I think I need to place this image side to side with photographs of WW and see if the resemblance is close enough.

 There are three photographs of this young man. I picked this one because I love the car. I have tried to ID him and I am fairly certain he was not one of my grandmother's brothers (they would have both been too young at the time) and he is not one of my grandfather's brothers. The three images have a significnt feeling in the album, so he was important to my grandmother. Was he a beau? Grandma and I were watching the news one night in the mid-70's and the head of some airlines was shown. Grandma told me he had been her beau, "The one who got away." Could it be that guy?  Or is it one of her brother-in-laws?  She had five sisters. Sadly, I doubt I'll ever know.

 College Fun

 This is my favorite image from my grandmother's album.  It is obviously taken with a different camera and is of better quality than the other images. My grandmother is the girl on the left/middle. I love this image because it is so classic. It could be a group of young adults now. I love it because it shows my grandmother, who I only remember as being old and legally blind, as a young, vibrant young woman. The girls are wearing pants and boots and are out hiking in Logan Canyon. This is the roaring 20's. This is a time when women were finally being given the right to vote. What an exciting time to be a young college student.

Another hike in Logan Canyon with her college friends--or it could be the same day? My grandmother is on the far right--looking a little boyish. She seems so serious.

Grandma once shared with me that she had wanted to get a degree in medicine, maybe become a doctor. However, girls at that time got teaching certificates and/or got married. She got a teaching certificate and taught until her marriage in 1931 at the age of 25. After her children were raised, she did become a surgical nurse.

This is the last College picture I will share from her album.

As a comparison: This is Dr. WW Henderson. (My dad scanned this and it is from his files) Yeah.... this could very likely be the man in the images above. What do you think? This could be the same man 20-years later.

William Williams Henderson is a significant person in the history of Utah State University. He was also very active in the LDS church and is given credit for creating the LDS Seminary and Institute Programs. He wrote many articles about Mormon doctrine and history.

While teaching at Brigham Young College he was told to stop teaching the theory of evolution, or Darwinism. He refused, because he felt his students had the right to hear and compare the theories of creationism and evolution. He was immediately excommunicated from the church. He petitioned the president of the church (I believe it was Heber Jeddy Grant) and was quickly reinstated. 

One of my goals is to be granted access to his papers that are archived at USU. I have inquired about them and was told they are not open to the public. I understand that one document states that he no longer believed the doctrines of the LDS church. I'd like to read more about that statement.