So here's how all this craziness went down. Back in February I got a quick email from my beautiful friend Raquel, a producer for KBYU Television. She asked me, along with her other friends and family, if we had an ancestor we would like to know more about. I wrote back saying I'd like to know more about my great-grandma Romania (in the picture above, she's the woman in the middle), not really thinking too much about the question. All I knew was that she'd died at an early age of leukemia when her daughter (my grandma Elsa) was only 4 years old, so not even my grandma remembers Romania. Raquel wrote back to say thanks and that she was asking around for this information because KBYU was going to be starting a new TV series called
The Generations Project about searching out our ancestors. Raquel said that choosing future candidates for the 13 episodes would be a process of elimination. She and her research team would begin looking deeper into the lives of our family members and if they hit any brick walls or if they didn't find anything interesting enough for TV, we'd be out.
A few weeks later Raquel called me to say that she needed to build more of a story from my desire to know more about Romania. She asked what I would specifically want to know about Romania if I had the chance, so I told her I'd want to know how she handled knowing how she had cancer and how she lived the end of her life. What was her personality like? Was she upbeat and lived every day to its fullest? If she so sick that she couldn't do anything, how did she handle it? Raquel was direct and let me know that when it comes to finding out an ancestor's feelings, it's usually really tough to research. But she said they would give it a shot.
We brainstormed some more ideas over the phone, and then Raquel asked me about a surgery I had had while we were roommates in 2005. At that blessed time I was having my third colonoscopy to remove precancerous polyps. Back then when Raquel was my roommate, she hadn't known why I had to go to the hospital or what was happening, but once I explained my health situation she instantly saw the connection to Romania and the direction for the episode. If I hadn't had my first colonoscopy at the age of 22, the doctors said that I would've lived to be about 30 years old, around the age of Romania when she died. But because of a few miracles in detecting the polyps and even more miracles in living in the 21st century, I am alive, free of colon cancer, although I still have to get frequent colonoscopies. (But hopefully because of this show that will change.) If Romania had been born when I was, she most likely would've survived her leukemia. That connection between my great-grandma and me is the heart of the story. And from there Raquel dug deeper and hit everything but brick walls. She found Romania—the strong-willed, creative, determined woman who was loved by everyone she met.
When all is said and done about The Generations Project, I gained a friend. A hilarious woman who will forever be my age and who loves to laugh heartily, fill her sketch book with future creations, have fun in every moment, jump in the mud in her high heels and try to get the boys to join her. She was determined and knew who she was and what she wanted in life. She was close to God and loved her family. In finding Romania I've found more of myself.
The Generations Project will air nationally on KBYU in January (Sorry. Not October anymore. Plans changed for a better purpose) via cable, and you can also watch it on the Internet through the
BYU TV site if you don't have cable or live in Australia. I'll get more details to you guys when air time gets closer. Filming this TV show was a journey for me to not only come to know Romania, my great-grandma, but also for me to better understand myself and my own genes. My journey is really just beginning. I'm still learning so much about Romania through reading her journals and looking through her idea books. She cut out pictures from magazines to give her ideas for drawing and making things like hats and map shades and sketches. In regards to my genes, I have appointments yet to come with doctors and the genetic counselor Vickie I met in filming the show. I'm due for another colonoscopy within the next couple months, but this time the Huntsman Cancer Institute is going to do extra research on me to get to the bottom of my polyps (no punn intended). Can't wait! I'm almost excited for this next colonoscopy.
This last picture is one of my favorites of Romania (she's on the left). I'd never seen any of these pictures until a month ago when we started filming. I love how happy Romania looks, and I wouldn't be surprised if she pushed her good friend Willard Marriott in the lake as soon as this picture was taken, almost toppling the boat. Mr. Marriott is the guy in the picture. And after pushing him in, she probably jumped in too. That's my guess. I can't wait to meet her some day!
For approximately every hour we filmed The Generations Project, one minute is in the actual episode. Yes, I wish the episode could've been longer so that you could see more of what I experienced, but I guess I'm lucky enough to get one hour on national television. My dad laughed when he found out because he doesn't think all of his face time on the big screen adds up to a full hour, but maybe someone like Dana or Chelsey would like to take on that challenge of calculating it all out.
Filming was pretty much the funnest thing I've ever done besides rock climbing in the dark. I've never been an actress and avoid situations that may require any acting skills, so luckily none were needed. Hey, this is a reality show. I can handle being me and being real. But I admit I did have to act a little in the episode—you'll have to try and guess where I'm really being me and where I'm trying to be me.
As soon as Raquel and her team began researching my great-grandma Romania, I was under strict instruction not to talk to any family members about Romania and not to do any of my own investigations into her life. Deal. No deal for Grandma Elsa though. She was the one who ended up having the hardest time keeping her lips sealed. One morning I was at my parents' house, and there was a knock at the door. It was 8 a.m. When Grandma knocks she walks in and says, "Knock, knock knock." She had her arms full of books. "Oh, Lisa! Look what I've found—Romania's photo albums and her journal! Katie, come look at these with us on the couch." Raquel would've been proud because I avoided all eye contact with the photo albums and ran back downstairs, yelling up to Grandma that I wasn't allowed to look at that stuff. It was a long 5 months until filming finally began, but I don't blame Grandma in the least for literally bursting with excitement. So instead of telling me all the good news, she told her hair dresser, Nancy, the ladies she walks with in the morning, the women she volunteers with at the temple, and the man who comes to spray the outside of her house for bugs. I can't wait for you guys to meet my grandma.
Not being able to eat all the time was a definite downside to filming a TV show. Every chance I got I ate. We had to cram so many interviews and reactions and places into one day, and we were actually in such a remote location the second day of filming that the town didn't even have a grocery store or restaurant, so we suffered. The day we filmed in Honeyville we went 15 hours without food, except for the Reese's Klondike bars dear Grandma Elsa gave each of us when we left her house that morning. Beef jerky and a 100-degree bottle of Arrowhead water don't cut it when it's 5 p.m. and you know you still have about 4 more hours till you're done for the day. I'm telling you all this so you know just how much bodily sacrifice went into making this episode and give the producers and camera crew a little more respect. I could never do it like they do it, week after week, unless I had some sort of fanny pack IV. 
