I was born on August 30, 1991 through a c-section procedure at the Air Force Academy Hospital in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Years later, when we drove by that very hospital, my mom was heard to say something like, "Kris, when you were born, there were wild turkeys outside of that very window!" And my older sister and I whispered to each other behind our hands in the backseat, "Mom's a wild turkey!"
I guess like begets like because I'm not "a-fowl" with that definition myself!
The first four or five years of my life were spent in that blissful city, learning how to roll over and walk and eat and talk (though I didn't, my mother says, for several years) and grow teeth (again, a late development) and run and play and laugh and all those things that children do for the first four or five years of their lives. I have very vague memories of those years, if any at all, most of them revolving around strange dreams I had or small flashes of mountains or brick elementary schools.
My dad was in the Air Force and we moved to Alomogordo, New Mexico as part of that assignment. It was the only military move I (and my one younger sister) made, though my three older sisters made several more than we two "little girls", as we were so lovingly called until only a few years ago.
New Mexico left me with more defined memories--an expansive backyard with a swing set and shed and garden, then an even more expansive pistachio orchard stretching for miles down the street where we lived. A small hallway we ran up and down a thousand times a day, a yellow school bus full of a nice bus driver and other humans, a gigantic kindergarten classroom with a black-haired best friend and curly-headed, compassionate teacher and hours spent in said backyard and surrounding desert area with my four sisters. Easter is a particularly remembered holiday from 1 Comina Bonita Vista.
When we found out we were leaving Alomogordo to return to Colorado Springs, my younger sister Summer and I decided we would run away on our tricycles. By run away, we meant that we would ride ahead of the rest of our family and get to Colorado Springs first. I think we made it just past the first tree in the pistachio orchard before turning back.
The remainder of my growing up life happened in Colorado Springs. I attended Keller Elementary School and formed countless memories and a lasting friendship with Sarah Griggs, the neighbor girl up the street just one year older than me whose siblings' ages matched generally with mine. I had three teachers, who I may introduce and discuss later, throughout the course of my elementary school years, and two dear friends. I graduated the fifth grade with an honorary academic achievement recognition from the President of the USA himself, hundreds of flimsy ribbons from multiple track days and pretty much all the knowledge I would need to get me through the rest of my life (I thought then, anyway).
Russell Middle School gets the worst rep in all my stories, but it didn't treat me half so bad. Because of my pre-pubescent mindset of insecurity at the time, the memories that stick the most are those that are directly related to me embarrassing myself. I peed my pants while laughing so hard on the outdoor basketball courts, exploded a home-made flour stress ball in the middle of my English class, did not learn to shave my legs until I was in 8th grade, and shamefully hid the fact that I started puberty once it came in the same year. Sounds mildly rough, but when I remember a little harder (and a little more positively), I recall joyous times competing in basketball, hopping around the volleyball court in spandex that looked more like basketball shorts on my chicken legs, dominating all of my English and history classes, running on the track team and finding out a little bit more about real life. I encountered my first knowledge of suicide in middle school when one of my sports competitions was cancelled because a girl on the competing team took her own life the day before. Things were more real. I was finding out what it was to be Krista Roy. I was smart and felt a need to be included but not to be popular. I was committed to the gospel. I was interested in developing a testimony of my own. I was growing up.
So high school was a breeze, right?
Maybe not a breeze, but it was quite great. Doherty High School was probably the best high school I could've attended. I made a lot of friends in high school. I grew out my bangs. I took the testimony I was interested in developing and turned it into the very foundation and definition of my entire soul. I discovered that I was a long distance runner. I cherished the people I ran with, went to class with, walked through the halls with, made fun of administration with, walked to seminary with and ultimately grew with. There are not very many people I remember disliking. I excelled in my English classes. The teachers loved me. I dropped math as soon as I could. I cheered like a bohemian at all of the basketball games.I lived in a room with orange carpet and yellow walls called Sunshine Corner. I rode to school in the legendary carpool with my older sister Charina, my aforementioned friend Sarah Griggs and another dear friend and neighbor girl, Taryn Smith. These memories are precious and shiny and sometimes even reflect my other emotions at the time--driving behind the boy upon whom I had a crush for the greater part of three years of my high school time, placating a frustrated sister who did not do mornings very well, keeping a friend who found friendship is riskier crowds still close to the friends who prioritized the gospel. Each day was a new adventure and I did not often find things any bigger than a late homework assignment or uncomfortable outfit that made my days any less than perfect.
Those years were consumed with running on the cross country and track teams, attending seminary, hanging out and doing homework for/with my newly found best friend Karalee Slaugh, realizing I had more than one best friend with the last name of Roy and, again, growing the testimony I found so essential. Church was just as important (if not more so) as school and running.
High school ended with an uneventful graduation, an acceptance into Brigham Young University, a move from my childhood home, my first real employment and a lofty goal of running up America's mountain, Pikes Peak. As happens during all life transitions, I learned a lot about life that summer. Boyfriends really aren't for people younger than 18. I could work a full day and still be alive. There is not anything more frightening and soul-shaking in this earth than sitting on a 14,000 ft mountain in the middle of an intense lightening storm. Neglecting scripture reading and prayer, no matter how many other good things you are doing, will eventually catch you in a sorry state. Running up a 14,115 ft mountain was not only possible but possibly one of the the best things to do. Your sister is your best friend.
Moving to Provo for college was thrilling, exciting, bittersweet and, because of some providential roommates and years of learning to just be good, joyous. Learning to run in Provo was lame that first year. I didn't know the streets and didn't know there were countless trails just up said streets. But I ran and learned and did not sleep. I pranked and laughed and crushed and dated and mostly just laughed my ever living head off with Rachel and Chelsea Jackson and Elise McAllister, my first college roommates. I did not kiss any boys (or hold their hands, for that matter).
College brought all the finest adventures. Heavenly Father placed a life-changing job as the Grounds Office Secretary right in my little lap and I loved it and learned everything I ever need to know to be the best employee and a lot of things about being a good friend. I had 26 different roommates. I majored in Public Relations and minored in English. I knew every corner of campus. I held hands with some boys. I kissed one in his car (more like he kissed me. Ew.) I kissed another in a cemetery. I went on dates with many more. I studied the gospel. I cried on shoulders and offered my shoulder as a place to cry. I got sick. I got better. I discovered the real true goodness of trail running in Utah and totally dominated it. I ran my first marathon and qualified for Boston. I ran Boston! Then I kept running. I obsessed over my little sister being at school with me. I went to the temple every single week. I moved at least 8 times and made friends I know I will have for the rest of my life.
This is where the life summary starts to slow down a bit. This wasn't that long ago, so I have more details and emotions to share.
During the winter of my Junior year I decided I was going to serve a mission.
I met with my bishop. I started filling out papers.
I ran into a boy from Grounds.
After this run-into, said boy Billy Hiatt and I went for a ride in a rowboat I had obtained.
He was, I learned after only a few times being with him, the finest boy I'd ever met.
I received a mission call to Temple Square.
For months, I wrestled with the spirit and learned. I fell in love with that Billy Hiatt then eventually told the First Presidency I wouldn't be able to serve that mission because I was going to marry Billy instead.
Two weeks after we got engaged, I left for Colorado Springs to watch one of my roommates-turned-dear-friend, Kim Stevens, run the Pikes Peak Ascent. While I was gone, Billy called me. I did not know that there was a sound to the world crashing in until that call, but I heard that sound when Billy told me that that day, he had watched his dad die.
There is no space in a life summary for the words to describe this portion of our lives.
I watched Billy experience emotions I simply did not have the capacity to understand, though I very much had the desire, and my heart broke a thousand times. Some of the saddest images of my entire life came during that time period. I glimpsed grief and I did not like it. Billy experienced grief, and he still somehow had the ability to make me feel like I was the most important person in the world. Somehow, through all the pain and all the deep sorrow and all of the things I did not know that accompany grief, we got married less than two months later and it was the happiest day of our lives, up to that point.
But the next day was better. And the next one was better than that. After a cross country honeymoon, we settled into our yellow duplex and started dreaming dreams of countless little Hiatt children running around and a big, successful landscape business. Our dream life was unfolding before us.
I graduated college, Billy worked like a mad dog, I cried a lot about petty things, we camped and had adventures. Billy still grieved, but (again, I have no idea how) made me feel like I was the only thing on his mind. Marriage, we discovered, is bliss. Six months into that blissful marriage I got pregnant and we were even happier than before!
I could tell you about the first 6 months of my pregnancy, if you wanted. We were elated. I experienced every thrill of every other pregnant lady in this world. I inherited baby clothes and maternity clothes and tossed around names and felt the kicking and justified two servings of everything and surfed the internet for baby growth charts and even ran a full marathon with that little baby of mine. We experienced a roller coaster of shock then happiness that it was not a little boy that had been kicking with me, but our own little daughter!
On the 23rd week and 5th day of my pregnancy, that little daughter surprised us again by deciding to come to earth.
You know, me and Billy prayed a lot when that happened, and cried even more. Not only were we overwhelmed with shock and surprise and heartbreak and worry and disbelief and stress and ignorance and fatigue, but the intensity of all of those emotions combined still paled in comparison to the love we felt for our little Zoey Jae. When she died early in the morning on her third day of life, those feelings were magnified a hundredfold and we dropped again, this time together, into the deep lifestyle of grief.
It's been five months since that life-changing weekend. I still go to my desk job at 8, come home at 5, go for a little run, make dinner for Billy, then sleep, if I can. To everyone else, my life is going on as "normal." Maybe it is this truth, coupled with the fact that I have discovered things I did not even know to look for before, that has urged my writing soul to write once again, and here I am.
And so the summary brings us to today, a Friday in March when there aren't very many people in the office and I'm thinking about this stuff. I restarted this blog a few months ago to talk about Billy. I would die without Billy I love him so much, and so I will continue to tell the stories so dear to me about him that i lived with him and for him--our dating days, our early marriage, our decision-making and the way we have helped each other with most eternal of matters like no one else could. But this class-blog-about-running turned Billy-blog-about-love is now maturing into just my-blog-about-me and the stories that have helped me be me.
So, until tomorrow (hopefully literally, but probably just figuratively)!
