T.HanksGiving

I'm thankful for so many things this year on this holiday focused on giving thanks, but I'm also a little caught up in the sadness of memories and missing people that I've shared this holiday with over the years.

Let me start with what I'm thankful for...that seems like a good way to get this post going.

I'm thankful for...
...friends around the world that I can stay connected to no matter where we are or how many miles and years separate us.  With the little smart phone I hold in my hand, I can capture new memories and reconnect over old ones.  What a gift!
...my job and the opportunity to pour into students and staff each day.  It can be hectic, but what an amazing blessing it is to do what I do where I do it.
...my family spread to the corners of the world.  While I wish we could all be in one spot on days like today, I love that we are all doing what we are called to do in such unique places around the globe.  Our lives are never boring, that's for sure.

I'm also missing a lot of people and non-traditional traditions today. 
I'm missing the Friendsgivings of college days, especially that one year that we made the local news in Parkersburg, West Virginia.
I'm missing our thrown together makeshift Thanksgiving dinner on Cougar Mountain when the snow kept us from getting to where we had planned to go, but it turned out to be an extra special day with friends.
I'm missing staff members that used to be here in China that became family over the years...sitting with the littles while their parents got stuff done and knowing that snowflake cutting season was just around the corner.
I'm missing Thanksgivings from elementary school when the after meal nap meant I could take a spin on my uncle's wheelchair.

And if I ever spent a Thanksgiving with you, I'm probably missing you a little bit (or a lottle bit) right now too!  Thanks for being a part of my Thanksgiving memories.

And on that note...

Things Remembered – Day 5 – Looking Up

There is something magnificent about looking up into the night sky and feeling as though you can see every star that has ever been or that will ever be.  Laying on your back in the grass and just basking in the grandeur of the universe.  In that moment, you feel so small and yet the fact that YOU get to see it all and experience it all makes you feel so important and necessary.  What good is beauty if no one takes the time to enjoy it, right?

I’m no astronomer, and I have to use an app on my phone to know what anything is (except for Jupiter and Mars, apparently…), but I have always appreciated moments when I was able to pause and look up.  My dad and uncle both had/have fantastic telescopes, and I remember as a little girl being taught how to find the stars and focus in on them.  There’s something though about craning your neck and attempting to see all that you can possibly see in those moments, and those are the moments that I want to focus on tonight as I write.

When I was in 9^th or 10^th grade, I was able to go to Langano in Ethiopia with some friends for the week.  We helped out at a clinic by day and explored the area, hunting for chameleons to take home as pets, in the afternoon.  One night, the five of us middle/high schoolers went and camped down by the lake.  All of my irrational (and quite frankly rational in rural Ethiopia, but let’s call them irrational so no one freaks out about the what could have been’s) fears were set aside as we set up tents and got ready to enjoy the sounds of evening that surrounded us. At some point, while we were all laughing and telling stories, someone looked up.  Suddenly, the sleeping bags were repositioned and the five of us had our heads outside of our tents, gazing in wonder at what was above us.  The sky was a glorious connect the dot picture that was so complex and intricate that it was impossible to figure out where one dot ended and another began.  I fell asleep gazing at those stars…and convinced that a python or something worse was going to kill me in my sleep.  Those stars though…unforgettable.

In 10^th grade, the star gazing continued in Addis Ababa as well.  My best friend and I would walk around campus each night, processing the day, talking about big life challenges and issues, and star gazing.  The southern cross would come into view each night from the place where we sat at the end of our walks, laughing and crying and being. We couldn’t see as many stars as I had that night in the tent, but what we could see was almost a sign of hope.  A sign of more.

My senior year of high school, there was some sort of cosmic event that was a must see. It might have been an eclipse, but I can’t remember now.  What I do remember is the entire senior class meeting on the field at 2 a.m. to watch whatever it was.  We felt so rebellious that night, but not because we were rebelling…we just wanted to be together and experience that once-in-a-lifetime view.  Many nights we would lay on the field and watch for shooting stars, but that night was different.  We were all there, one last late-night hurrah…and goodness was it cold, but beautiful.

There are so many more moments involving stars that I could share. This summer in Switzerland with one of my favorite kiddos after a World Cup Game.  This fall in Thailand after my brother’s wedding. Seeing that one start that always seems to peak out even here in bustling Chengdu…

You never know what might pop up in the sky if you just take the time to look up.

Things Remembered - Day 4 - A Stitch in Time...

Over last week and weekend, I was at a conference in another part of the continent and managed to finish a baby blanket over the course of the week, stitching as I listened to different sessions and letting the crochet hook mindlessly do the work while my brain focused on other, far bigger in the moment, things.

While waiting for one of the sessions that I attended to start, I was chatting with a few folks at my table and one of them commented that it seemed as though I had been crocheting for a long time.  27 years, to be exact.

I still remember the first time I held something crafty.  I was sitting on my bed in Rwanda with my Grandma Hammond by my side. I don't remember exactly what we were doing, whether it was cross-stitch, petit-point, or crocheting, but I remember watching her strong, weathered hands carefully attend to the task at hand.  I was mesmerized by the fact that from something so simple, something beautiful could be me made. Later I learned that my Grandma could do just about anything when it came to crafts.  She taught me how to paint (a skill that never quite stuck), got me started on hardanger, showed me how to frame prints, and was always willing to try something new.  She has such beautiful hands that have made such beautiful things.

My Grandma Teusink was also incredibly crafty.  She always had a bag with her knitting somewhere close-by.  I was mesmerized with what her hands could make as well. She would take something as simple as a ball of yarn and turn it into a blanket that represented her love and prayers and hugs.  I loved watching movies with her on Sunday afternoon, both of us with a craft project of some sort in our hands and chatting the days away.

 I remember the first time that I watched Anne of Green Gables or something similar and there was a sewing circle.  That was the life!  Can you imagine sitting around doing crafts while talking with your friends all afternoon? What a treat!

There were, of course, other people who helped me along in my craft endeavors along the way.  I’m so thankful for Julie, who taught me how to make delicate snowflakes for Christmas gifts. So many trees have little Teusink creations because she took the time to inspire me in something new And then there was Carol, who was shocked that I didn’t know how to make a Granny Square when I was 12, so she taught me how.  Countless baby blankets have been made and shared with love and prayers because she took the time to help me figure out something new.

I’m thankful for hands that can hold a crochet hook as if it was a natural extension of those hands.  Every stitch is a reminder of people who have poured into me, and a prayer for the lives of the people I am able to pour into.

Now I must be off…it time to make myself a cup of tea, cuddle up under my blanket from Grandma, and stitch away.

Things Remembered - Day 3 - My History with Pets

I’ve always liked the idea of pets, but I think it’s time to admit that Bekah Teusink on her own should not be a pet mom. 

Growing up, my family always seemed to have a pet of some sorts. In Rwanda, we had dogs and chameleons and rabbits, oh my. So many memories from those first few years revolve around trading hot wheels cars for reptiles or naming yet another little of bunnies. (Is it litter of bunnies or is there some other fancy name I’m supposed to put here? Please advice, those that are wiser than I!)

In other exciting news, all of the bunny babies were always named Bekah. Little did I know they all eventually turned into dinner. Some day I’ll probably need to hash all that out with my therapist! (They renamed each bunny ‘Chester’ before they became dinner...Hoosiers, anyone?)

When we lived in the US between countries, our miniature schnauzer, Winston, was my dearest friend and confidant. Thank goodness he couldn’t talk...the secrets he could tell!  In Ethiopia, dogs were a part of our norm as well, but they were outside dogs, so it was different. I still loved time laying on the lawn with them and watching them grow. 

When I went to boarding school, my roommate and I decided that fish would be a good idea. Heath, Orlando, Zeus, and Cupcake became our scaled friends. We loved them well and even managed to transport them between countries in water bottles during our long vacations. I don’t know how they survived. One break, Cupcake committed suicide. The bowl was too full and he always was an adventurous little thing. The day after we gave the other 3 away to a 9th grader, a few weeks before graduation, they were eaten by a cat that came in an open window. Oops!

In college, I had two goldfish: Manuel and the Dread Pirate Roberts. Manuel ended up eating the Dread Pirate Roberts and then lived for 6 more years. He was an impressive little thing!

About a month ago, I decided to get fish again. They cost about $1 and, after much consideration, were named Joe and Kathleen. They were beautiful. 

Joe died a week ago while I was in another city for a soccer tournament. Kathleen died Sunday while I was at a conference. 

Anyone want to buy a fish tank?

I’m not going to be a pet owner again anytime soon...

Things Remembered - Day 2 - The End of an Era

I’ve spent a lot of time on planes. There have been smooth flights and ones that required extra measures of prayer, ones that had exciting adventures on the other end and reminders of sorrow throughout.  Growing up overseas, flying was never anything all that special, just a reprieve between places or a vessel to move me from one life to the next.  Sometimes the next was something exciting.  Sometimes it was something daunting.  But it was always something.

One flight in particular stands out more than the rest.

It was July (or maybe early August) 2005.  I had just graduated from high school and my family had spent 10 days after my graduation in Rwanda, the land that held my first memories, first friendships, first crushes.  But I couldn’t fully engage in that trip to Rwanda because I was fully in the between.

Up to that point, half of my life had been spent in Africa.  9 of my 18 years I had been at home on a continent where my skin colour meant that I would never fully fit.  7 of those 9 years in one of my passport countries, the United States, had been spent longing for the day that we would return ‘home’ to Africa. When we wouldn’t fit, but would feel so much more comfortable.  Where my friends wouldn’t necessarily look or talk like me, but would be so much more familiar in our thought processes and our understandings of the world.

And I was leaving.  We boarded the plane in Nairobi, heading to Europe and then to the US, where college was on the horizon and the unknowns were piling up.  Would I have friends? Would I be understood?  Would I ever return? What career would I choose? So many who’s and what’s and when’s and where’s…all overwhelmed by a why that was beyond my control.

And so, we got on that plane at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.

I know I had a window seat.  I don’t remember which family member was sitting next to me.  All I could see what was outside the window.  Africa…Kenya…one of my many homes.  But in that moment, it all blurred to be the continent that I was trying desperately not to let go of.

The plane pulled away from the gate, then taxied to the runway.  Usually that trip seems like it takes forever, but that time it didn’t take nearly long enough.  Suddenly, the engines sparked into action and the wheels pulled up from the runway.

And I looked through my window, back at the tarmac that we had just left.  I swear I could see my heart beating there are on the pavement, disconnected from the human that it had once inhabited.  My heart.  My African heart…it was ripped out of my chest and left beating in the marvelous dust of the continent that I called home.

I’ll never forget that moment.  That loss and sorrow and grief.

Life went on and eventually I started to feel whole again…but that moment is one that I can still close my eyes and see.

Oh the joys of Third Culture Kid living…