Today is probably the third or fourth most popular Day of the year for people to post on their blog. Especially people who are patriotic, proud americans, and staunch supporters of the military. I, myself have read quite a few touching stories of heroic service, tragic death, and memorial devotions to those who dies serving our country. Veterans Day is a great time to honor and memorialize all those who have given their lives for the defense of regular people like you and me.What about the regular people, though?
I read somewhere once that Americans prefer their heroes dead. We want to talk, cry, and honor those who fought the good fight and sacrificed all to defend and protect. What about the heroes who came home?
What about the men and women who slogged through the heat and sand to fix some platoons jeep, missed their kids, were homesick, and came back to find that without wounds or scars nobody knows their name.
What about the family where both the Mom and the Dad served: him in counter intelligence and her in a support division. Their two sons were taken care of for over two years by uncles, aunts and grandparents so their parents could make the little things happen for the Military Machine.
Veterans day is meant for the support of our troops, but not just to call attention to the fighter pilots, medal of honor recipients and soldiers who came home covered in American Flags.
My 17 year old niece has yet to serve over seas, but she spent four months of her life, her teenage girl life, sweating and crying through boot camp. Another niece of mine is married to a Marine. He misses family vacations, cruises, celebrations and special occasions so he can be ready when the Military calls. My brother-in-law, who served in Iraq and came home with a family and a life that missed him terribly, came home without any flashy scars.
There are a million soldiers who stand at our defense and never get noticed, because they're just doing their job. One of my favorite lines from The Star Spangled Banner is from the third verse where it says:
O thus be it ever when free men shall stand between their loved homes and the war's desolation.
That is what we honor, cheer and memorialize today and every other day we can. Not the fallen, though we shed our tears for them. The greatest power our military possess though, isn't in the weapons, the tanks, the planes, or the Hum-v's. Our great power is that line of men and women who stand. In their homes, In their jobs, in their service and in their hearts. They stand for us, for those who can't, and for our children as the last line between our loved homes and war's desolation.
Don't spend today, crying, remembering old battles and cemeteries full of those who sacrificed. Today is about the brave men and women who stand, even when no one is paying attention.
So give the nearest service man or woman your love, your admiration and your determination to make this country worth protecting.
You'll never know what the living breathing wall of service men and women mean to regular people like me. Know, however, that the living, breathing heroes hold a deep, tender place in my heart. Happy Veterans Day!
Tuesday, November 11, 2014
Tuesday, November 4, 2014
Blessed Art The Eyebrows!
If you've seen me in the last few days, you'd have noticed I've got purple eyeshadow on my right eyelid. Okay...so not really. What I've got is a black eye. I'd like to tell you I got it fighting off bad guys with my cane, or throwing myself in front of an attack to protect my kids, or even blocking flying debris from hurting someone else. Unfortunately, it was not so heroic or exciting. It was simply the failure of my eyebrows.
I spent the last four days in Salt Lake City, Utah seeing my transplant team,hanging out with my guys, touring temple square and avoiding Halloween. A number of times, the unfamiliar territory and strange surroundings messed with my sense of direction and mobility. We were walking through City Creek Mall and I got disoriented by a rather overpoweringly pungent perfume shop. I almost ran into the lady in front of me, I was so distracted by the strange scent.
I was saved by my eyebrows brushing her coat. I exited the Traxx train to attend a soccer game with my kids and kept from smacking into the slowly opening doors, thanks to my eyebrows. There have been a few times when I have impacted something or someone, scarring my eyebrows but not hitting my face. Eyebrows are actually awesome protectors. You've probably never even noticed because its a subtle sensation and your eyes will "see" what you're about to hit before your eyebrows even have the chance. However, when you're in the dark, when you aren't using your sight, or when something gets in your way too quickly for your eyes to warn you...You've still got your eyebrows.
Then Why, you ask, did I come home this weekend with a black eye?
Simple...Somethings you go through. There's not supposed to be a warning.
This particular morning, I was getting in the shower. The glass door was open beside the bench where I was undressing. I lost my balance for a second when my feet got tangled in my pajama pants and I tipped to the side. The sharp pain to the side of my head was the only warning I got. If I could see stars I'm sure I would have. We iced the injury and it was swollen for a couple of days but other than the black eye, its hardly noticeable.
You must be wondering at this point, why the long diatribe about eyebrows when mine failed me on this occasion?
Most things in life have warnings if we pay attention. That greasy feeling in the pit of your stomach when you know you're in the wrong place. The feeling you pass of as nerves.
The twitter in your pulse when a certain person's face or voice comes to mind and you suddenly want to talk to them, but dismiss it as nothing.
The chill going down your spine when you're with the wrong people doing the wrong thing, but you don't want to look stupid.
Those are your spiritual eyebrows. The sensitive parts of your soul warning you you're about to smack your face against all kinds of ugly badness, or you need to be there for someone who already smacked into something and they need to know their not alone.
What, if anything, does this have to do with the black eye? My eyebrows couldn't help me when the threat came from off-sides.
Life happens. Our 'eyebrows' can only do so much good. Being protected from harm and danger can cripple a person who works to be stronger. A wise man once said: "Comfort retards growth. A seed would never become a tree if it lay comfortable beneath the soil and didn't reach for the sun."
Your spiritual eyebrows are there for a reason. To let you know God is watching over you and warning you whenever he can. God is also watching over you when your eyebrows can't help you and knowing he loves you through life's black eyes is the best kind of love.
I thank God my eyebrows have saved me from disaster and bloody injuries, but the truth is...
I still wind up hurt, scarred, and a whole lot stronger when the eyebrows didn't work.
I spent the last four days in Salt Lake City, Utah seeing my transplant team,hanging out with my guys, touring temple square and avoiding Halloween. A number of times, the unfamiliar territory and strange surroundings messed with my sense of direction and mobility. We were walking through City Creek Mall and I got disoriented by a rather overpoweringly pungent perfume shop. I almost ran into the lady in front of me, I was so distracted by the strange scent.
I was saved by my eyebrows brushing her coat. I exited the Traxx train to attend a soccer game with my kids and kept from smacking into the slowly opening doors, thanks to my eyebrows. There have been a few times when I have impacted something or someone, scarring my eyebrows but not hitting my face. Eyebrows are actually awesome protectors. You've probably never even noticed because its a subtle sensation and your eyes will "see" what you're about to hit before your eyebrows even have the chance. However, when you're in the dark, when you aren't using your sight, or when something gets in your way too quickly for your eyes to warn you...You've still got your eyebrows.
Then Why, you ask, did I come home this weekend with a black eye?
Simple...Somethings you go through. There's not supposed to be a warning.
This particular morning, I was getting in the shower. The glass door was open beside the bench where I was undressing. I lost my balance for a second when my feet got tangled in my pajama pants and I tipped to the side. The sharp pain to the side of my head was the only warning I got. If I could see stars I'm sure I would have. We iced the injury and it was swollen for a couple of days but other than the black eye, its hardly noticeable.
You must be wondering at this point, why the long diatribe about eyebrows when mine failed me on this occasion?
Most things in life have warnings if we pay attention. That greasy feeling in the pit of your stomach when you know you're in the wrong place. The feeling you pass of as nerves.
The twitter in your pulse when a certain person's face or voice comes to mind and you suddenly want to talk to them, but dismiss it as nothing.
The chill going down your spine when you're with the wrong people doing the wrong thing, but you don't want to look stupid.
Those are your spiritual eyebrows. The sensitive parts of your soul warning you you're about to smack your face against all kinds of ugly badness, or you need to be there for someone who already smacked into something and they need to know their not alone.
What, if anything, does this have to do with the black eye? My eyebrows couldn't help me when the threat came from off-sides.
Life happens. Our 'eyebrows' can only do so much good. Being protected from harm and danger can cripple a person who works to be stronger. A wise man once said: "Comfort retards growth. A seed would never become a tree if it lay comfortable beneath the soil and didn't reach for the sun."
Your spiritual eyebrows are there for a reason. To let you know God is watching over you and warning you whenever he can. God is also watching over you when your eyebrows can't help you and knowing he loves you through life's black eyes is the best kind of love.
I thank God my eyebrows have saved me from disaster and bloody injuries, but the truth is...
I still wind up hurt, scarred, and a whole lot stronger when the eyebrows didn't work.
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
What's In A Soul?
I've been taught all of my life that the body and spirit are two separate parts of what makes up our soul. This is a common philosophy, that in certain moments, is difficult to grasp. Yet, in others it becomes very clear.
When my heart was broken, it was most certainly a physical sensation, although my physical heart was doing its job. When I shattered my kneecap it was most definitely my body screaming at me to find relief, although my spirit cried out for it to just be a bruise or something because I hate costing my family money. These are clear, defined instances, but never more so than when I had stints put into my heart.
In March of 2013, I went in for a routine angiogram to clear me for transplant surgery. I'd had the procedure done before, its not too bad. they slip a wire through your wrist or thigh to send a camera to your heart to check for blockage and valve issues. My wrists are never used because I only have my right arm for blood draws and I.V. lines. This is due to what's called a fistula. In my left arm an artery is surgically joined with a vein, making a thick, rope-like vein that can't be used for anything except access during dialysis.
So, there I was, lying on a table, a long thin wire running from the inside of my thigh, up into my heart, when the doctor says,
"she's got 90 percent blockage here," the computer makes a whirring noise. "And almost 90 percent here, as well."
Not information you look forward to. For one thing, I was supposed to be headed home after the angiogram to pick up my youngest from school. Do homework with my teenagers and make dinner before scouts.
"You're going to have to have stints put in."
"What?"
They aren't going to ask me?
As I was being prepped for the procedure, the nurses called my husband and told him what was going on and that I'd have to be in the hospital overnight. I'm still reeling from the news and worried about my kids. The anesthesiologist tells me he's going to put some "happy juice" in my I.V. so I'll relax and then some blood thinner to keep clots from forming on the stints.
I listen and nod, but something is wrong. My heart begins pounding against my ribcage so hard I feel like my chest will burst open. I can't catch my breath, and suck in enough oxygen. The doctor, who has been talking to his team turns to me. "Traci, are you feeling all right?'
"I don't think so," I pant.
I'm not scared though. I feel like my body is struggling but my mind and spirit are very calm.
"Her heart rate is 166 beats per minute," someone says. Another order is given and a cold flood of something races into my arm.
"How do you feel, Traci"
my heart rate slows down and I can breathe again, but now my chest hurts and someone has pushed my body down into the mattress I'm lying on. As if they are weighing me down so I won't float away. When I mention this to the doctor, reassuring them they can let me go, he tells me no one is holding me down. No one touched me the entire time except to administer the drug.
After a lot of rushing around and finishing with the stints, they send me up to the cardiac floor to be monitored for the night. I didn't think a whole lot about it, until I was talking to the doctor later and he asked me to describe to him what happened.
I told him, physically I didn't feel much. the pounding of my heart, the inability to get enough air and the sensation of being pressed down into the bed.
"You are one tough lady," he told me. "Your heart rate got so high and your blood pressure so low, we thought you were going to leave us."
His words struck me then. My body was staying on that bed, but my spirit was trying to break free. When they reversed the effects of the medication and I felt pressed down against the bed, I hadn't been touched or moved because...
My soul re-joined its separate parts and I felt the weight of it.
I still remember the light, pain-free sensation that occurred before I became whole again. There are times I wish for the same sense of liberty, but I also know that being free from my body like that is like my blindness.
There are some things I am thrilled not to experience: littered streets, starving children, angry terrorists killing innocents.
I also miss the parts that are beautiful: my kids faces, sunsets in the desert, the green of trees against the red rock.
God gave us souls to give us both the beauty of a spiritual experience and the opposition of a human body. Without a heart that can love we'd never have a heart to be broken. Without the pain of not being able to walk while we heal, we'd never feel the wind in our hair when we run. Without the burden of sickness, we'd never know the joy of a body working to fill life with happiness and excitement. I will always feel the burden of my broken body, but I will also bask in the moments when my spirit fills with peace, love and the beauty of my spirit being a creation of God. I will take the burden and the beauty because it completes my soul.
When my heart was broken, it was most certainly a physical sensation, although my physical heart was doing its job. When I shattered my kneecap it was most definitely my body screaming at me to find relief, although my spirit cried out for it to just be a bruise or something because I hate costing my family money. These are clear, defined instances, but never more so than when I had stints put into my heart.
In March of 2013, I went in for a routine angiogram to clear me for transplant surgery. I'd had the procedure done before, its not too bad. they slip a wire through your wrist or thigh to send a camera to your heart to check for blockage and valve issues. My wrists are never used because I only have my right arm for blood draws and I.V. lines. This is due to what's called a fistula. In my left arm an artery is surgically joined with a vein, making a thick, rope-like vein that can't be used for anything except access during dialysis.
So, there I was, lying on a table, a long thin wire running from the inside of my thigh, up into my heart, when the doctor says,
"she's got 90 percent blockage here," the computer makes a whirring noise. "And almost 90 percent here, as well."
Not information you look forward to. For one thing, I was supposed to be headed home after the angiogram to pick up my youngest from school. Do homework with my teenagers and make dinner before scouts.
"You're going to have to have stints put in."
"What?"
They aren't going to ask me?
As I was being prepped for the procedure, the nurses called my husband and told him what was going on and that I'd have to be in the hospital overnight. I'm still reeling from the news and worried about my kids. The anesthesiologist tells me he's going to put some "happy juice" in my I.V. so I'll relax and then some blood thinner to keep clots from forming on the stints.
I listen and nod, but something is wrong. My heart begins pounding against my ribcage so hard I feel like my chest will burst open. I can't catch my breath, and suck in enough oxygen. The doctor, who has been talking to his team turns to me. "Traci, are you feeling all right?'
"I don't think so," I pant.
I'm not scared though. I feel like my body is struggling but my mind and spirit are very calm.
"Her heart rate is 166 beats per minute," someone says. Another order is given and a cold flood of something races into my arm.
"How do you feel, Traci"
my heart rate slows down and I can breathe again, but now my chest hurts and someone has pushed my body down into the mattress I'm lying on. As if they are weighing me down so I won't float away. When I mention this to the doctor, reassuring them they can let me go, he tells me no one is holding me down. No one touched me the entire time except to administer the drug.
After a lot of rushing around and finishing with the stints, they send me up to the cardiac floor to be monitored for the night. I didn't think a whole lot about it, until I was talking to the doctor later and he asked me to describe to him what happened.
I told him, physically I didn't feel much. the pounding of my heart, the inability to get enough air and the sensation of being pressed down into the bed.
"You are one tough lady," he told me. "Your heart rate got so high and your blood pressure so low, we thought you were going to leave us."
His words struck me then. My body was staying on that bed, but my spirit was trying to break free. When they reversed the effects of the medication and I felt pressed down against the bed, I hadn't been touched or moved because...
My soul re-joined its separate parts and I felt the weight of it.
I still remember the light, pain-free sensation that occurred before I became whole again. There are times I wish for the same sense of liberty, but I also know that being free from my body like that is like my blindness.
There are some things I am thrilled not to experience: littered streets, starving children, angry terrorists killing innocents.
I also miss the parts that are beautiful: my kids faces, sunsets in the desert, the green of trees against the red rock.
God gave us souls to give us both the beauty of a spiritual experience and the opposition of a human body. Without a heart that can love we'd never have a heart to be broken. Without the pain of not being able to walk while we heal, we'd never feel the wind in our hair when we run. Without the burden of sickness, we'd never know the joy of a body working to fill life with happiness and excitement. I will always feel the burden of my broken body, but I will also bask in the moments when my spirit fills with peace, love and the beauty of my spirit being a creation of God. I will take the burden and the beauty because it completes my soul.
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
Taken Down!
One of the most terrifying things about being blind, is the sizes and number of obstacles lurking out there just waiting for the chance to take you out. Pillars in hallways, street signs, holes in the road and let's not forget the kid who parked his bike right in front of your door. These are all things I've tripped over or banged into while trying to maneuver in my world.
The best one though, was just a few weeks ago...
My youngest son is in the 4 th grade. His class was going on a field trip to Snow Canyon State Park. This park is just a few miles from our home and is a beautiful conglomeration of lava cliffs, sand drifts, caves, and wildlife, all connected by narrow trails through the canyon. When my baby wanted me to go on the field trip with him, I of course, told him I'd be there. His teacher, was a little worried. She sent me an e-maial, letting me know about the rough terrain, the length of the hike we would be taking, and a narrow section with a sheer drop off. My husband, became worried as well.
"There are places in the park that if you take one wrong step, you'll go over a drop-off of about 50 feet."
By this time my 9 year old is worried.
"I'll hold your hand, Mom. I won't leave you."
I, of course, was even more determined to go. Don't tell me I can't do something, because I'll go do it just to prove you wrong.
So, on a lovely Thursday Morning, I walked to School with my son, boarded the bus with a couple of my friends, and made it to the park. After a learning portion, where the park rangers taught the kids about how to use the local plant life the way the Anazazi Indians did, we set out on our hike.
My son is just a kid and he soon forgot his promises to stay with me. Using my cane I made it a good way up the trail enjoying the smells, the descriptions, and chatting with my girlfriends. As the trail got rockier, my friend Laura, took my arm and began helping me over the worst parts. Another friend of mine, Kourtnee, carrying her two year old in a backpack, made sure I had enough water and food. We did pretty good until we reached a section of the hike that was down hill, had a steep drop-off on one side, and was slick under foot. At this point, one of the dads who'd come on the hike, took one arm while Laura took the other and we made it, very slowly down the slope.
It was a lot of fun. We walked through a cave, smelled sage, Old Man Lace, and lemonade bushes; without a single obstacle taking any of us down.
We were all hot and tired as we returned to the school but it was a fun experience. As we all stood around, the kids going back to class, the parents heading for their cars, I began to cross the play ground to the fence where i would return home. My cane caught on a metal bench, tripping me, and I fell.
Both my shins were banged on the bench, one of them bloodied. I scraped the back of my knuckles on the concrete, and I had two gigantic lumps which turned to bruises on my legs.
I've told this story a few times, because I think its so funny that I managed to traverse a dangerous hike through Snow Canyon, but I couldn't walk across the playground.
Its the cold hard truth, though. When our lives become treacherous, full of rocks, dark caves, and sheer drop-offs, its then we slow down, get help and support and we use all our friends, family and even strangers to get us through.
When we are cruising along, not a worry in the world, and our focus is on a million different, unimportant things; we fall.
Our lives are so busy. Chasing more money, more power, a better body, more attention, or just more. We don't focus on our simple steps. We don't find Christ in the beauty we have all around us. We don't hear the laughter of children who only need a puddle of water to make them happy. We don't savor a fresh peach, or a juicy apple because there isn't enough time for things like that.
My Dad told me when I was a teenager something I've never forgotten. I haven't always done it, because I'm one of those people who is always chasing my next dream. My Dad said-"If you focus on what's important, and right in front of your face, you won't be taken down by the herd of elephants on the horizon."
I laughed at the picture that painted but the simple truth of those words have never left me. Some of our dreams and responsabilities are important. Some of them are just band-aids to cover our wounds from falling down. Focusing on the things that really matter takes discipline, and it means taking your eyes off other prizes. However, when one of your 'little things' grows up, leaves home, or is gone from your busy life. It just might take you down.
The best one though, was just a few weeks ago...
My youngest son is in the 4 th grade. His class was going on a field trip to Snow Canyon State Park. This park is just a few miles from our home and is a beautiful conglomeration of lava cliffs, sand drifts, caves, and wildlife, all connected by narrow trails through the canyon. When my baby wanted me to go on the field trip with him, I of course, told him I'd be there. His teacher, was a little worried. She sent me an e-maial, letting me know about the rough terrain, the length of the hike we would be taking, and a narrow section with a sheer drop off. My husband, became worried as well.
"There are places in the park that if you take one wrong step, you'll go over a drop-off of about 50 feet."
By this time my 9 year old is worried.
"I'll hold your hand, Mom. I won't leave you."
I, of course, was even more determined to go. Don't tell me I can't do something, because I'll go do it just to prove you wrong.
So, on a lovely Thursday Morning, I walked to School with my son, boarded the bus with a couple of my friends, and made it to the park. After a learning portion, where the park rangers taught the kids about how to use the local plant life the way the Anazazi Indians did, we set out on our hike.
My son is just a kid and he soon forgot his promises to stay with me. Using my cane I made it a good way up the trail enjoying the smells, the descriptions, and chatting with my girlfriends. As the trail got rockier, my friend Laura, took my arm and began helping me over the worst parts. Another friend of mine, Kourtnee, carrying her two year old in a backpack, made sure I had enough water and food. We did pretty good until we reached a section of the hike that was down hill, had a steep drop-off on one side, and was slick under foot. At this point, one of the dads who'd come on the hike, took one arm while Laura took the other and we made it, very slowly down the slope.
It was a lot of fun. We walked through a cave, smelled sage, Old Man Lace, and lemonade bushes; without a single obstacle taking any of us down.
We were all hot and tired as we returned to the school but it was a fun experience. As we all stood around, the kids going back to class, the parents heading for their cars, I began to cross the play ground to the fence where i would return home. My cane caught on a metal bench, tripping me, and I fell.
Both my shins were banged on the bench, one of them bloodied. I scraped the back of my knuckles on the concrete, and I had two gigantic lumps which turned to bruises on my legs.
I've told this story a few times, because I think its so funny that I managed to traverse a dangerous hike through Snow Canyon, but I couldn't walk across the playground.
Its the cold hard truth, though. When our lives become treacherous, full of rocks, dark caves, and sheer drop-offs, its then we slow down, get help and support and we use all our friends, family and even strangers to get us through.
When we are cruising along, not a worry in the world, and our focus is on a million different, unimportant things; we fall.
Our lives are so busy. Chasing more money, more power, a better body, more attention, or just more. We don't focus on our simple steps. We don't find Christ in the beauty we have all around us. We don't hear the laughter of children who only need a puddle of water to make them happy. We don't savor a fresh peach, or a juicy apple because there isn't enough time for things like that.
My Dad told me when I was a teenager something I've never forgotten. I haven't always done it, because I'm one of those people who is always chasing my next dream. My Dad said-"If you focus on what's important, and right in front of your face, you won't be taken down by the herd of elephants on the horizon."
I laughed at the picture that painted but the simple truth of those words have never left me. Some of our dreams and responsabilities are important. Some of them are just band-aids to cover our wounds from falling down. Focusing on the things that really matter takes discipline, and it means taking your eyes off other prizes. However, when one of your 'little things' grows up, leaves home, or is gone from your busy life. It just might take you down.
Tuesday, October 14, 2014
Go For A Ride In My Big Green Wagon
All the major movers and shakers in life must have some specialty form of transportation. The Beatles had "The Yellow Submarine". Scooby-Doo and friends had "The Mystery Machine". Cartoon kids have "The Magic School Bus".
Well, I have 'special' transportation, too. I wish it were a car with GPS that I could program in my destination and it would drive me there, but sadly, no. I have been known to be a fixture on the Suntran bus when I have four hours to travel across town, but my favorite form of transportation was a giant green garden wagon.
When one of my boys was two or three, he wanted a wagon. In my head I'm picturing one of those Radio Flyers, red, with a black metal handle and little red and white wheels. Perfect for a toddler.
Instead, my husband and I went to the hardware store and found the coolest wagon ever. Seriously, this was the John Deere of wagons. It had giant inflatable tires, green metal mesh for the bed and sides, a handle that was about three feet long and the sides could be lowered to make it a flat bed. It was awesome!
My boys and I rode this wagon everywhere. We filled it with sand toys, picnic lunches, and blankets and went to the park. We pushed it around the block for hours picking up other kids and giving them rides, going super fast on the down hill like we were riding in a race car. When my oldest started riding the bus to pre-school in the morning, my husband built a wooden frame which stood in the corners of the wagon. It was painted like a bus an even had a door and red head and tail lights. My son would ride in his 'bus' up the street to Joy school twice a week.
My favorite activity in the wagon though, was grocery shopping. We lived about 8 blocks from Harmon's Grocer and every week or so we loaded up the wagon and walked up 700 South in St. George to the store. Now if you know anything about this road, you know its super busy, four lanes and a left hand turn lane because it is a major connection between the east and west sides of town. It also has sidewalks all the way, a major benefit for a blind person with a wagon. With my three little kids in the big green wagon I'd pull all of us to Harmons, fill the wagon with groceries and then we'd all push the thing home. It took all three of us at this point because it weighed about 100 pounds by now. Our favorite part of this trip was crossing beneath the I-15 overpass. On 700 South, the side walk slants up to a point where it flattens out and then drops back to ground level once you're under the pass. Getting all the weight up the first side of that stretch of sidewalk feels like pushing a boulder up a cliff, but down the other side...? You can see where I'm going here right?
With just the kids in the wagon going up wasn't two bad, going down I'd climb in with them on the down side, use the handle like a steering wheel and we'd fly down the opposite slope; laughing and screaming the whole time
I think it scared my husband a little when people would tell him they saw his wife and kids riding the big green wagon down 700 south, but we loved it. The heat or the cold didn't matter. The long journey and fierce up-hill effort disappeared. Fights, crying kids, dirty floors and bad eyesight vanished in those moments when we'd hang on to each other, feel the wind and the speed and for a time ride in the big green wagon.
My kids are too big now for the wagon, besides they've got bikes, scooters, and skateboards that are a lot more fun. The wagon sits in our garage, full of all of their helmets, balls, toys and rollerblades. Its tires won't hold air anymore and its a little rusty around the hinges, but I love that wagon.
I think of my life like the wagon. There were lots of practical uses for it. It had a job to do and purpose though it wasn't fancy, glamorous, or popular. It trudged through the loads, the heat, the abuse of little bodies and it wasn't ever easy.
But...When we'd fly, it was spectacular.
I will never be a Ferrari, a duely pick-up, a limousine, or a bullet bike. I will always just be a big green wagon.
Oh man...do I love the ride!!!.
Well, I have 'special' transportation, too. I wish it were a car with GPS that I could program in my destination and it would drive me there, but sadly, no. I have been known to be a fixture on the Suntran bus when I have four hours to travel across town, but my favorite form of transportation was a giant green garden wagon.
When one of my boys was two or three, he wanted a wagon. In my head I'm picturing one of those Radio Flyers, red, with a black metal handle and little red and white wheels. Perfect for a toddler.
Instead, my husband and I went to the hardware store and found the coolest wagon ever. Seriously, this was the John Deere of wagons. It had giant inflatable tires, green metal mesh for the bed and sides, a handle that was about three feet long and the sides could be lowered to make it a flat bed. It was awesome!
My boys and I rode this wagon everywhere. We filled it with sand toys, picnic lunches, and blankets and went to the park. We pushed it around the block for hours picking up other kids and giving them rides, going super fast on the down hill like we were riding in a race car. When my oldest started riding the bus to pre-school in the morning, my husband built a wooden frame which stood in the corners of the wagon. It was painted like a bus an even had a door and red head and tail lights. My son would ride in his 'bus' up the street to Joy school twice a week.
My favorite activity in the wagon though, was grocery shopping. We lived about 8 blocks from Harmon's Grocer and every week or so we loaded up the wagon and walked up 700 South in St. George to the store. Now if you know anything about this road, you know its super busy, four lanes and a left hand turn lane because it is a major connection between the east and west sides of town. It also has sidewalks all the way, a major benefit for a blind person with a wagon. With my three little kids in the big green wagon I'd pull all of us to Harmons, fill the wagon with groceries and then we'd all push the thing home. It took all three of us at this point because it weighed about 100 pounds by now. Our favorite part of this trip was crossing beneath the I-15 overpass. On 700 South, the side walk slants up to a point where it flattens out and then drops back to ground level once you're under the pass. Getting all the weight up the first side of that stretch of sidewalk feels like pushing a boulder up a cliff, but down the other side...? You can see where I'm going here right?
With just the kids in the wagon going up wasn't two bad, going down I'd climb in with them on the down side, use the handle like a steering wheel and we'd fly down the opposite slope; laughing and screaming the whole time
I think it scared my husband a little when people would tell him they saw his wife and kids riding the big green wagon down 700 south, but we loved it. The heat or the cold didn't matter. The long journey and fierce up-hill effort disappeared. Fights, crying kids, dirty floors and bad eyesight vanished in those moments when we'd hang on to each other, feel the wind and the speed and for a time ride in the big green wagon.
My kids are too big now for the wagon, besides they've got bikes, scooters, and skateboards that are a lot more fun. The wagon sits in our garage, full of all of their helmets, balls, toys and rollerblades. Its tires won't hold air anymore and its a little rusty around the hinges, but I love that wagon.
I think of my life like the wagon. There were lots of practical uses for it. It had a job to do and purpose though it wasn't fancy, glamorous, or popular. It trudged through the loads, the heat, the abuse of little bodies and it wasn't ever easy.
But...When we'd fly, it was spectacular.
I will never be a Ferrari, a duely pick-up, a limousine, or a bullet bike. I will always just be a big green wagon.
Oh man...do I love the ride!!!.
Tuesday, September 30, 2014
What Kind Of Crap Are You Carrying?
"You've got poop in your hair," my five year old son said, pointing at me.
"What? Where?"
"All over in the front Mommy."
I of course, ran to the bathroom and tried to see what he was talking about. I'm usually the first person who forgets...I can't see anything when I look in the mirror. So, as I'm squinting at the little bit of color and hazy form that is my hair, my mind is trying to figure out how in the name of all that's sane, did I get crap in my hair.
After about forty five minutes in a hot shower, with twelve different bottles of shampoo. I still hadn't figured it out. That evening I took my two oldest boys to Newborn I.C.U. to visit their newborn baby brother and the truth came out.
Kaison, my youngest, was born 8 weeks premature and popped his lung less than 24 hours after his birth. He spent 5 weeks in post natal intensive care; getting fat and healing his lungs.
Every morning I'd go to the hospital, about five blocks from my house, to feed him, dress him, hold him, and pretty much get my baby fix for the day. I'd been on bed rest with him for 6 weeks prior to his birth, in a room down the hall from where he now lay in an incubator. Tearing myself away from him to care for my other kids and heal from the c-section i had was bad enough. This daily care routine kept me going when I felt like a failure in every other way. When we returned to N.I.C.U. that night, the nurses told me what happened when I'd changed his diaper that afternoon.
Kaison had what was known as a 'code brown". He'd exploded brownish-greenish poop all over his bed, his clothes, and his body. The nurses offered to clean him up for me, but I wanted to do it. Caring for him in these simple ways were the rare opportunities I had to be his mother while he was in N.I.C.U. While the nurses changed his bedding, I proceeded to strip his soiled clothes, diaper, and booties off of him. As I concentrated on keeping him safe, cleaning him up and bathing him, I used my hands to find where he needed washing and what needed to be cleaned. My long hair often drifted into my face as I worked and I tucked it behind my ears while diapering, dressing and putting him back in his bed. When he was finally back asleep, I went to the bathroom and washed my hands. For another hour or so I held him in the recliner next to his bed. I left the N.I.C.U. waving to the nurses and visiting some of the other Mom's and babies I knew there. I proceeded to walk home, stopping to visit with my neighbors and friends and giving updates on Kaison's progress. All with baby poop in my hair.
It's not a strange thing for me to do embarrassing things. Luckily I can laugh at myself or hide in my room if its too bad. Being literally blind to people's reaction's to my having poop in my hair saves me from making too big of a deal over it. Maybe, I do myself a disservice though. If you think about it, we all, spiritually, have poop in our hair.
We pretend its fashionable or trendy sometimes. We tell ourselves its okay because other people with the same poop in their hair say its not there. We even decide we like it there just to be different.
The truth, though, is it doesn't matter what perfume we use to disguise the smell, or what hair clips or floppy hats we cover it with. We all still have crap in our lives. The Savior's atonement is the hot shower and shampoo we all really want to rid ourselves of it. Instead, we talk about how he loves, accepts, and understands the load of crap we embrace and carry around. Don't get me wrong...he does. Just like my friends, neighbors, the nurses, and even my kids still loved me. However, just because He loves and accepts you, dirty and poopy, doesn't mean He doesn't want to wash away the things that are toxic to your happiness. Sin is like that though, easy to smear throughout your life while working hard and trying to be happy, and a stinking mess no matter how much you're loved while in the middle of it. so, don't carry around the crap you've inadvertently combed through your hair because you're too embarrassed to admit its there. Eventually some one will come to you and point out "You've got Poop in your hair." Hopefully, its someone who loves you. Hopefully you don't look back and wonder why you wasted time carrying crap.
"What? Where?"
"All over in the front Mommy."
I of course, ran to the bathroom and tried to see what he was talking about. I'm usually the first person who forgets...I can't see anything when I look in the mirror. So, as I'm squinting at the little bit of color and hazy form that is my hair, my mind is trying to figure out how in the name of all that's sane, did I get crap in my hair.
After about forty five minutes in a hot shower, with twelve different bottles of shampoo. I still hadn't figured it out. That evening I took my two oldest boys to Newborn I.C.U. to visit their newborn baby brother and the truth came out.
Kaison, my youngest, was born 8 weeks premature and popped his lung less than 24 hours after his birth. He spent 5 weeks in post natal intensive care; getting fat and healing his lungs.
Every morning I'd go to the hospital, about five blocks from my house, to feed him, dress him, hold him, and pretty much get my baby fix for the day. I'd been on bed rest with him for 6 weeks prior to his birth, in a room down the hall from where he now lay in an incubator. Tearing myself away from him to care for my other kids and heal from the c-section i had was bad enough. This daily care routine kept me going when I felt like a failure in every other way. When we returned to N.I.C.U. that night, the nurses told me what happened when I'd changed his diaper that afternoon.
Kaison had what was known as a 'code brown". He'd exploded brownish-greenish poop all over his bed, his clothes, and his body. The nurses offered to clean him up for me, but I wanted to do it. Caring for him in these simple ways were the rare opportunities I had to be his mother while he was in N.I.C.U. While the nurses changed his bedding, I proceeded to strip his soiled clothes, diaper, and booties off of him. As I concentrated on keeping him safe, cleaning him up and bathing him, I used my hands to find where he needed washing and what needed to be cleaned. My long hair often drifted into my face as I worked and I tucked it behind my ears while diapering, dressing and putting him back in his bed. When he was finally back asleep, I went to the bathroom and washed my hands. For another hour or so I held him in the recliner next to his bed. I left the N.I.C.U. waving to the nurses and visiting some of the other Mom's and babies I knew there. I proceeded to walk home, stopping to visit with my neighbors and friends and giving updates on Kaison's progress. All with baby poop in my hair.
It's not a strange thing for me to do embarrassing things. Luckily I can laugh at myself or hide in my room if its too bad. Being literally blind to people's reaction's to my having poop in my hair saves me from making too big of a deal over it. Maybe, I do myself a disservice though. If you think about it, we all, spiritually, have poop in our hair.
We pretend its fashionable or trendy sometimes. We tell ourselves its okay because other people with the same poop in their hair say its not there. We even decide we like it there just to be different.
The truth, though, is it doesn't matter what perfume we use to disguise the smell, or what hair clips or floppy hats we cover it with. We all still have crap in our lives. The Savior's atonement is the hot shower and shampoo we all really want to rid ourselves of it. Instead, we talk about how he loves, accepts, and understands the load of crap we embrace and carry around. Don't get me wrong...he does. Just like my friends, neighbors, the nurses, and even my kids still loved me. However, just because He loves and accepts you, dirty and poopy, doesn't mean He doesn't want to wash away the things that are toxic to your happiness. Sin is like that though, easy to smear throughout your life while working hard and trying to be happy, and a stinking mess no matter how much you're loved while in the middle of it. so, don't carry around the crap you've inadvertently combed through your hair because you're too embarrassed to admit its there. Eventually some one will come to you and point out "You've got Poop in your hair." Hopefully, its someone who loves you. Hopefully you don't look back and wonder why you wasted time carrying crap.
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Weaving The Tapestry
"love", when spoken of by poets, romantics, or even twitterpated teenagers is never described in the same way. Perhaps because no two 'love' s are alike. The greatest love brings the highest kinds of emotion, as well as the deepest of despairs. Its the way we learn what love really is.
The first man I "fell-in-love- with was my father. I adored him, wanted to always be with him, hated disappointing him and believed in him. I suppose I share that with a lot of women who were close to their dads. The difference...
I didn't learn to love, trust, and give my heart to a man I could spend my life with while learning to let go of my Dad. I had my first and most devastating heartbreak of my entire life when I was 17 years old and I found my father dead.
My Dad was diagnosed with Diabetes when he was 14 years old. Back in the early 1950's treating and fighting the disease consisted of guessing at how much insulin you needed and trying not to eat sugar. My Dad didn't know that all food contains carbohydrates that convert to sugar in your blood stream. He couldn't take his blood to see how much insulin he needed, there was no technology for that. When he was in his early 30's his heart began to give out. over the next 15 years he had a series of heart attacks, coupled with stomach problems, bronchitis, liver problems, and eventually kidney problems too. On the morning of May 2, 1989, he awoke throwing up, weak and very sick. Three days earlier I'd been so worried about him, I'd gone to the principal of the High School where I attended and he worked, to beg his boss to make him go home.
By Tuesday, no one had to tell him to go home. My mom went to work and the rest of us went to school while Dad wrote up some lesson plans and made a doctor's appointment. I'd been going to and from School with my Dad for most of my High School Career. I walked back and forth to lunch with him every day, did my homework in his classroom after school, and I traveled with the wrestling team for which he was the assistant coach. He was my world. On this day, I didn't go home at lunch to check on him. Instead, I went to lunch with my friends and went to work after school to pick up my paycheck. When I arrived home that afternoon, I walked through the back door of my house and asked my 9 year old brother where Dad was.
"He's cleaning out the van," my brother said. "He wanted me to help him, but I'm sick."
A comment which has haunted my brother his entire life.
I held my pay check in one hand and headed for the door. "I need to borrow the car to cash my check. I'll be right back," i told him.
Rushing out the door and down the steps I headed for our 16 passenger van, parked in the driveway and my Dad who was lying on the grass looking up at the clouds.
"hey Dad? Can I borrow the car for a second?"
He didn't answer. I could see that he wasn't asleep, his eyes were open. His fingers were laced behind his head, in the way they always were when he laid down to bask in his favorite activity...nature.
"Dad?" He didn't even turn his head to look at me.
Instincts kicked in. When my Dad's blood sugar was too low he'd become nearly paralyzed, only able to move his eyes. It must have gotten too low while he worked on the car and now he needed sugar. I started down the dirt path that connected my house to my paternal grandparents. Grandma would have a bottle of honey I could squirt into his mouth and bring him out of it. I explained it to my grandma, she gave me the bottle and I hurtled back up the path to his side.
Kneeling on the grass beside him, I took the bottle in one hand and grasped his chin in my other hand.
Before I could squeeze his cheeks and open his mouth, everything in the universe stopped. His skin was cold, waxen, an empty mass of flesh beneath my fingers. He wasn't there. His body lay before me, his hazel eyes an eerie shade of grey/brown, but he was gone.
I don't remember the details after that. My older brother came out of the basement and began CPR. My younger brother who was 14 ended up outside as well, but I don't recall how he got there. I do remember he started crying and screaming and my grandmother who was there now, took him to the clinic for tranquilizers. My two younger sisters were in the yard but I was oblivious to who was taking care of them or how they were doing. An empty blankness had opened up inside of me. It started as a quiet numbness that sucked in time, movement, colors and light. It didn't hurt, I didn't cry. I just stopped existing in this plane.
I went inside the house after my cousin Chris stopped and helped my brother do CPR and an ambulance showed up. I don't know who called them. My older brother disappeared at that point. I found out later he'd run 4 miles to the next town to sit on his friends grave.
When I went inside the house I called the school where my Mom worked and asked for her. In my memory I was very calm, but something in my voice must have told the secretary to be alarmed because my mom was frantic when she got on the phone.
"Traci, What's wrong?"
"Dad's dead. They just took him to the hospital in an ambulance."
By now our yard and house were filled with neighbors, kids from the high school, the wrestling team, and three quarters of town. That's the kind of wonderful place I grew up. They were all telling me to breathe and pray. That they'd taken him to the hospital and he'd be okay.
I remember looking at all of their tear stained features and being confused. He wasn't going to be Okay. He was dead. I touched him, I held his body in my hands. No one could bring him back. Why did they keep saying that?
When I called my best friend, her mom told me she was asleep, she had a migraine.
"Okay," i said in a flat tone. "Could you ask her to come over here when she wakes up. My Dad just died." I hung up without waiting for a response. Five minutes later she was beside me, holding me together, the way she always did and always has.
The next few days were a blur of pain, numbness, robotic movements and complete confusion. I'd wake up and for a moment everything felt normal. Then the crushing darkness, emptiness and black hole of despair would take over. I was angry with God for needing him more than I did. I hurt so much I couldn't remember what anything else felt like. The first time I had to go back into his classroom, I fell apart. It wasn't his room anymore. Another teacher had taken over, new bulletin voards were up, a new seating arrangement, and my Dad's old worn desk was gone. A brutal reminder that he was gone too.
When I thought of broken hearts before this I imagined them being made of glass, and shattering into tiny irreparable shards. This wasn't like that though. My heart was a tapestry. a thousand loose threads that with the slice of the largest one, the unraveling began.
I didn't think about what was best for him or anyone else, All I knew was I was falling apart. He'd found out at the doctor on his last day that his liver and kidneys would both be gone in six months. If the heart attack hadn't killed him, being bedridden and helpless would have taken him, anyway. After 25 years this information is comforting, but at the time no one cared. All of us, my mom, my brothers, my sisters, my grandparents, friends, neighbors, students, fellow teachers, and every person whose life he touched was left with a piece of themselves tattered and torn
I felt like a tangled skein of yarn. Twisted, ugly, unmanageable and a lost cause. Unwinding that mess to find the beautiful picture again has been like learning to weave with wet tissue paper. More mess than artistery. .
Most of us, though a bit ragged, have rewoven our lives and made beautiful works of art. I thank my father for that.He is the true love who gave me the silken threads of faith and hope. The heavy strings of determination, stubbornness and passion for life. And the golden flax of beauty, gratitude and love. I couldn't have relied on my Savior, My Heavenly Father and my loved ones if he hadn't spent the first seventeen years of my life carding the wool, spinning the fibers and creating the tapestry of my heart.
Thank you Daddy! I miss you!
The first man I "fell-in-love- with was my father. I adored him, wanted to always be with him, hated disappointing him and believed in him. I suppose I share that with a lot of women who were close to their dads. The difference...
I didn't learn to love, trust, and give my heart to a man I could spend my life with while learning to let go of my Dad. I had my first and most devastating heartbreak of my entire life when I was 17 years old and I found my father dead.
My Dad was diagnosed with Diabetes when he was 14 years old. Back in the early 1950's treating and fighting the disease consisted of guessing at how much insulin you needed and trying not to eat sugar. My Dad didn't know that all food contains carbohydrates that convert to sugar in your blood stream. He couldn't take his blood to see how much insulin he needed, there was no technology for that. When he was in his early 30's his heart began to give out. over the next 15 years he had a series of heart attacks, coupled with stomach problems, bronchitis, liver problems, and eventually kidney problems too. On the morning of May 2, 1989, he awoke throwing up, weak and very sick. Three days earlier I'd been so worried about him, I'd gone to the principal of the High School where I attended and he worked, to beg his boss to make him go home.
By Tuesday, no one had to tell him to go home. My mom went to work and the rest of us went to school while Dad wrote up some lesson plans and made a doctor's appointment. I'd been going to and from School with my Dad for most of my High School Career. I walked back and forth to lunch with him every day, did my homework in his classroom after school, and I traveled with the wrestling team for which he was the assistant coach. He was my world. On this day, I didn't go home at lunch to check on him. Instead, I went to lunch with my friends and went to work after school to pick up my paycheck. When I arrived home that afternoon, I walked through the back door of my house and asked my 9 year old brother where Dad was.
"He's cleaning out the van," my brother said. "He wanted me to help him, but I'm sick."
A comment which has haunted my brother his entire life.
I held my pay check in one hand and headed for the door. "I need to borrow the car to cash my check. I'll be right back," i told him.
Rushing out the door and down the steps I headed for our 16 passenger van, parked in the driveway and my Dad who was lying on the grass looking up at the clouds.
"hey Dad? Can I borrow the car for a second?"
He didn't answer. I could see that he wasn't asleep, his eyes were open. His fingers were laced behind his head, in the way they always were when he laid down to bask in his favorite activity...nature.
"Dad?" He didn't even turn his head to look at me.
Instincts kicked in. When my Dad's blood sugar was too low he'd become nearly paralyzed, only able to move his eyes. It must have gotten too low while he worked on the car and now he needed sugar. I started down the dirt path that connected my house to my paternal grandparents. Grandma would have a bottle of honey I could squirt into his mouth and bring him out of it. I explained it to my grandma, she gave me the bottle and I hurtled back up the path to his side.
Kneeling on the grass beside him, I took the bottle in one hand and grasped his chin in my other hand.
Before I could squeeze his cheeks and open his mouth, everything in the universe stopped. His skin was cold, waxen, an empty mass of flesh beneath my fingers. He wasn't there. His body lay before me, his hazel eyes an eerie shade of grey/brown, but he was gone.
I don't remember the details after that. My older brother came out of the basement and began CPR. My younger brother who was 14 ended up outside as well, but I don't recall how he got there. I do remember he started crying and screaming and my grandmother who was there now, took him to the clinic for tranquilizers. My two younger sisters were in the yard but I was oblivious to who was taking care of them or how they were doing. An empty blankness had opened up inside of me. It started as a quiet numbness that sucked in time, movement, colors and light. It didn't hurt, I didn't cry. I just stopped existing in this plane.
I went inside the house after my cousin Chris stopped and helped my brother do CPR and an ambulance showed up. I don't know who called them. My older brother disappeared at that point. I found out later he'd run 4 miles to the next town to sit on his friends grave.
When I went inside the house I called the school where my Mom worked and asked for her. In my memory I was very calm, but something in my voice must have told the secretary to be alarmed because my mom was frantic when she got on the phone.
"Traci, What's wrong?"
"Dad's dead. They just took him to the hospital in an ambulance."
By now our yard and house were filled with neighbors, kids from the high school, the wrestling team, and three quarters of town. That's the kind of wonderful place I grew up. They were all telling me to breathe and pray. That they'd taken him to the hospital and he'd be okay.
I remember looking at all of their tear stained features and being confused. He wasn't going to be Okay. He was dead. I touched him, I held his body in my hands. No one could bring him back. Why did they keep saying that?
When I called my best friend, her mom told me she was asleep, she had a migraine.
"Okay," i said in a flat tone. "Could you ask her to come over here when she wakes up. My Dad just died." I hung up without waiting for a response. Five minutes later she was beside me, holding me together, the way she always did and always has.
The next few days were a blur of pain, numbness, robotic movements and complete confusion. I'd wake up and for a moment everything felt normal. Then the crushing darkness, emptiness and black hole of despair would take over. I was angry with God for needing him more than I did. I hurt so much I couldn't remember what anything else felt like. The first time I had to go back into his classroom, I fell apart. It wasn't his room anymore. Another teacher had taken over, new bulletin voards were up, a new seating arrangement, and my Dad's old worn desk was gone. A brutal reminder that he was gone too.
When I thought of broken hearts before this I imagined them being made of glass, and shattering into tiny irreparable shards. This wasn't like that though. My heart was a tapestry. a thousand loose threads that with the slice of the largest one, the unraveling began.
I didn't think about what was best for him or anyone else, All I knew was I was falling apart. He'd found out at the doctor on his last day that his liver and kidneys would both be gone in six months. If the heart attack hadn't killed him, being bedridden and helpless would have taken him, anyway. After 25 years this information is comforting, but at the time no one cared. All of us, my mom, my brothers, my sisters, my grandparents, friends, neighbors, students, fellow teachers, and every person whose life he touched was left with a piece of themselves tattered and torn
I felt like a tangled skein of yarn. Twisted, ugly, unmanageable and a lost cause. Unwinding that mess to find the beautiful picture again has been like learning to weave with wet tissue paper. More mess than artistery. .
Most of us, though a bit ragged, have rewoven our lives and made beautiful works of art. I thank my father for that.He is the true love who gave me the silken threads of faith and hope. The heavy strings of determination, stubbornness and passion for life. And the golden flax of beauty, gratitude and love. I couldn't have relied on my Savior, My Heavenly Father and my loved ones if he hadn't spent the first seventeen years of my life carding the wool, spinning the fibers and creating the tapestry of my heart.
Thank you Daddy! I miss you!
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
My Best Idea Yet!
"Sounds crazy, but I think we can do it." I told my 7 year old.
"I don't know Mon?" he sounded a bit hesitant. "Maybe we should ask Dad?"
That's the wrong thing to tell me. ASK DAD? I need HIS permission? "No way," I assured my son. we can do this."
So while he went outside to play, I sat down on my talking computer and started researching what size of a motor I'd need to power a two wheeled scooter across town and back.
Transportation is one of my primary concerns when it comes to my kids activities. Luckily, I'm not a person who believes my kids need to be signed up for, enrolled in, or running to and from every trendy, educational, artistic, or time consuming activity available to them. I, however, do want them to have the opportunity to play the sports they like, be a part of educational programs, and stretch their artistic, musical and/or physical talents. Living where we do, we're a few miles from a lot of these activities and I needed a way to transport my son to and from his gymnastics practice. Each of my boys have a two wheeled Razor scooter and while an eight mile round trip every day on a scooter might be doable for me and my older boys, I also had a 2 year old I needed to bring with me. I thought the motorized scooter idea was a great one. We'd wire a weed eater, or leaf blower motor to the rear wheel, my kids would steer, and I would make sure all of us were together, safe, and getting where we needed to go. I even imagined putting a flashing light on the handlebars so cars would see us coming and a really loud horn on each one so the boys could blow it whenever they got too far away and I couldn't hear their wheels. Brilliant, Right?
Well, as you can probably imagine, my son did talk to his Dad. My husband, at once, put a kibosh on the idea.
"What if you crash, or run someone down, or hit cars, or children, or get lost, or one of the kids falls off? What if someone runs y'all over or doesn't know the line of scooters coming down the road has 3 kids, a blind woman, and gas powered engines in the brew?
Its sort of funny now, trying to picture me and my boys tootling down the road with flashing lights, blaring horns, helmets on our heads and nothing but pure faith to protect us. Yes, its true, my husband should be sainted for the crap he has to put up with.
Here's the thing though...How many times do we look over "our plans" and they make perfect sense to us? How often do we do the research, plan for contingencies, put the proper safeties in place, and still end up with pure crazy coming out of the box. Like me, in my dark and narrow world, I couldn't imagine all of the dangers, obstacles, and problems lurking behind every corner. I just pictured me and my kids rolling down a clear, clean, unoccupied asphalt road to our destination. Any normal person would know there would be potholes, traffic, rude drivers, hazards to the people around us, and any other number of issues. I couldn't see them, though. My determination to do what ever is necessary sometimes clouds my logical senses. It will all work out because I want it to. One of my favorite sayings is: "It will all work out in the end. If it hasn't worked out yet, then its not the end."
In this case it did all work out. I had great friends, neighbors, and family members who stepped up and provided safe, normal, sensible transportation. Not being able to do what I wanted wasn't the most important part. Getting it done with everyone in tact was the bigger picture.
Even though this darkness I live in makes my world a very small space, God always knows the bigger picture. When he wants something in our lives done a certain way, its because he sees so much more than we do. Maybe you don't understand why your way won't work. Maybe you can't see down the road, or around the next bend, but He can. It's never about fighting for control of whose way is better. It's always about the bigger picture The Being who loves you, and His best idea yet.
"I don't know Mon?" he sounded a bit hesitant. "Maybe we should ask Dad?"
That's the wrong thing to tell me. ASK DAD? I need HIS permission? "No way," I assured my son. we can do this."
So while he went outside to play, I sat down on my talking computer and started researching what size of a motor I'd need to power a two wheeled scooter across town and back.
Transportation is one of my primary concerns when it comes to my kids activities. Luckily, I'm not a person who believes my kids need to be signed up for, enrolled in, or running to and from every trendy, educational, artistic, or time consuming activity available to them. I, however, do want them to have the opportunity to play the sports they like, be a part of educational programs, and stretch their artistic, musical and/or physical talents. Living where we do, we're a few miles from a lot of these activities and I needed a way to transport my son to and from his gymnastics practice. Each of my boys have a two wheeled Razor scooter and while an eight mile round trip every day on a scooter might be doable for me and my older boys, I also had a 2 year old I needed to bring with me. I thought the motorized scooter idea was a great one. We'd wire a weed eater, or leaf blower motor to the rear wheel, my kids would steer, and I would make sure all of us were together, safe, and getting where we needed to go. I even imagined putting a flashing light on the handlebars so cars would see us coming and a really loud horn on each one so the boys could blow it whenever they got too far away and I couldn't hear their wheels. Brilliant, Right?
Well, as you can probably imagine, my son did talk to his Dad. My husband, at once, put a kibosh on the idea.
"What if you crash, or run someone down, or hit cars, or children, or get lost, or one of the kids falls off? What if someone runs y'all over or doesn't know the line of scooters coming down the road has 3 kids, a blind woman, and gas powered engines in the brew?
Its sort of funny now, trying to picture me and my boys tootling down the road with flashing lights, blaring horns, helmets on our heads and nothing but pure faith to protect us. Yes, its true, my husband should be sainted for the crap he has to put up with.
Here's the thing though...How many times do we look over "our plans" and they make perfect sense to us? How often do we do the research, plan for contingencies, put the proper safeties in place, and still end up with pure crazy coming out of the box. Like me, in my dark and narrow world, I couldn't imagine all of the dangers, obstacles, and problems lurking behind every corner. I just pictured me and my kids rolling down a clear, clean, unoccupied asphalt road to our destination. Any normal person would know there would be potholes, traffic, rude drivers, hazards to the people around us, and any other number of issues. I couldn't see them, though. My determination to do what ever is necessary sometimes clouds my logical senses. It will all work out because I want it to. One of my favorite sayings is: "It will all work out in the end. If it hasn't worked out yet, then its not the end."
In this case it did all work out. I had great friends, neighbors, and family members who stepped up and provided safe, normal, sensible transportation. Not being able to do what I wanted wasn't the most important part. Getting it done with everyone in tact was the bigger picture.
Even though this darkness I live in makes my world a very small space, God always knows the bigger picture. When he wants something in our lives done a certain way, its because he sees so much more than we do. Maybe you don't understand why your way won't work. Maybe you can't see down the road, or around the next bend, but He can. It's never about fighting for control of whose way is better. It's always about the bigger picture The Being who loves you, and His best idea yet.
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
In The Heart Of The Flame
Too often I find myself taking past experiences and using hindsight to learn great lessons. Hindsight is great for just that. Looking backward, wiping away the dust and the soot, and seeing what remarkable things rise from the ashes. What if you don't have any hindsight yet? What if right now, you are submerged in the most difficult trials of your life? My aunt was diagnosed with a rare form of Leukemia about 5 years ago. It may not have been that long ago. At the time her diagnosis was devastating to those of us in her family and friends who couldn't imagine the pain and trial she'd go through. A few weeks ago, her doctors told her there was nothing left to do but go home and ready herself to die. She wants to hold on until some other family members return from an LDS mission overseas, but the disease causes great pain, horrific bruising, and total weakness. Holding on will be a trial for her and those around her.
However, After she's gone, the trial of fire will only begin for her husband, children, and grandchildren. When does the hindsight come. At what point during this process will they look back and see the end of the refiner's fire? I wish I knew the answer to that.
Each day in our life, to some extent is a refiner's fire. Some days a glowing tinder that warms a lonely heart. Some days the sting of a too hot coal scorching bare flesh in chastisement. And Some days a consuming conflagration from which there doesn't seem to be an escape. When we find ourselves thrust into the furnace of purification try to imagine:
In Malachi 3:3 the prophet speaks of Christ as "The silver refiner." Now, let me share with you what a silver refiner's job is...
The silver smith takes a lump of mixed metals, rock, and impurities and sends it on the end of a long handled spoon type instrument, into the hottest part of the fire. As the flax, impurities, and other metals burn away, the silver congeals, draws itself into a large puddle and begins to turn to pure liquid. The silver smith must hold the instrument in the center of the furnace, his own face burning with the heat, his arms holding the silver out of the flames. No matter how tired, uncomfortable, or impatient he gets, the silver will be ruined if he doesn't hold it, out of the fire for exactly the right amount of time.
How much time? You ask. Its actually very specific. When The Silver Refiner sees his reflection in the silver, It is pure!
If he withdraws it from the furnace one moment too early or one moment too late...Its ruined.
Sometimes it seems the fire will always burn. That the furnace is your permanent home. Just remember, he is only holding you above the flame, not thrusting you deep into it's eternal depths. It will only last as long as it takes for your impurities too burn away and then you will reflect His countenance. If you're deep in the flames, hold on. He is propping you up, absorbing some of the heat and keeping his eyes on you at all times. He doesn't mind your tears, your doubt, or your fear that He has forgotten you in the flame. He can take it. He is only an arm's length away.
However, After she's gone, the trial of fire will only begin for her husband, children, and grandchildren. When does the hindsight come. At what point during this process will they look back and see the end of the refiner's fire? I wish I knew the answer to that.
Each day in our life, to some extent is a refiner's fire. Some days a glowing tinder that warms a lonely heart. Some days the sting of a too hot coal scorching bare flesh in chastisement. And Some days a consuming conflagration from which there doesn't seem to be an escape. When we find ourselves thrust into the furnace of purification try to imagine:
In Malachi 3:3 the prophet speaks of Christ as "The silver refiner." Now, let me share with you what a silver refiner's job is...
The silver smith takes a lump of mixed metals, rock, and impurities and sends it on the end of a long handled spoon type instrument, into the hottest part of the fire. As the flax, impurities, and other metals burn away, the silver congeals, draws itself into a large puddle and begins to turn to pure liquid. The silver smith must hold the instrument in the center of the furnace, his own face burning with the heat, his arms holding the silver out of the flames. No matter how tired, uncomfortable, or impatient he gets, the silver will be ruined if he doesn't hold it, out of the fire for exactly the right amount of time.
How much time? You ask. Its actually very specific. When The Silver Refiner sees his reflection in the silver, It is pure!
If he withdraws it from the furnace one moment too early or one moment too late...Its ruined.
Sometimes it seems the fire will always burn. That the furnace is your permanent home. Just remember, he is only holding you above the flame, not thrusting you deep into it's eternal depths. It will only last as long as it takes for your impurities too burn away and then you will reflect His countenance. If you're deep in the flames, hold on. He is propping you up, absorbing some of the heat and keeping his eyes on you at all times. He doesn't mind your tears, your doubt, or your fear that He has forgotten you in the flame. He can take it. He is only an arm's length away.
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
What's It Gonna' Take?
"I'm fine," I mumbled through swollen lips. "I just hit my chin on the wall."
"Uhm...honey, you're not. Your bottom lip is no longer attached to your jaw."
I reached up and touched my tender lip, but it didn't seem like a big deal. "What happened?" I asked.
Well, it turns out I hadn't just bumped my face against the wall. A mistake I commonly make. Sometimes I go around corners too sharply, or I bend over to pick something up and smack my face into a counter top or piece of furniture. Unfortunately, this time was much worse.
After my son Zackery was born, I had a number of issues. I'd been on bed rest for 12 weeks in Utah Valley Regional Medical Center with blood pressure of 220/113. My labor with Zack took three days because he was face up, my hips didn't spread, and I had to be induced at 34 weeks to save whatever kidney function I had left. Zack was in the Newborn I.C.U. for two weeks because he wasn't breathing when he was born, he only weighed five pounds, and he didn't have a suck reflex so he couldn't eat.
About a month after he was born, he'd developed a suck reflex like no other and he was breast feeding every hour and a half...'round the clock.
Like all brand new moms, I was exhausted. I never slept with his meal times, my body had gone from 150 pounds after his birth to 100 pounds three weeks later. Because of my kidney problems all of the fluid they pumped into me during labor couldn't process out. I'm an inch or so over five feet and my normal weight is around 110 pounds, so this drastic loss of 50 pounds of fluid sent my blood pressure crashing.
The other problem was, I'm a diabetic. All of the sugar I had in my blood stream went directly to my milk to feed the baby.
On this particular day, I finished feeding Zack and handed him over to Erik so I could lay down and try to sleep before he wanted to eat again. I made it about half way down the hallway before my blood pressure along with my blood sugar bottomed out and I lost consciousness. As my balance faltered, I turned to tell Erik something was wrong. Before I got a word out I hit face first into the wall, sliding down to the floor and tearing my lower lip away from my jaw.
If you've been keeping up with this blog, then you know, I have lots of weird things happen to me. If I panic and run to the hospital every time I fall down...Well let's just say I'd never leave.This day, I let Erik take me to the E.R., though. I recieved three layers of stitches to reattach my jaw to my bottom lip. I needed to stay on a liquid diet until the stitches dissolved a few weeks later and I had to gargle with mouth wash after anything, including my toothbrush or my baby's fingers went into my mouth.
I tried to convince myself this was a minor incident in comparison to what I'd been through with the pregnancy and birth. The more follow up I had to get, the more I understood...It was actually a major turning point for us. My nephrologist (kidney specialist) discovered I only had another year before my kidney's would fail. My blood pressure was fluctuating between highs and lows and taxing my heart, and I could no longer breast feed my baby. It was detrimental for both of us. Zack wasn't getting enough to eat and I was being drained of all my resources.
I'm not sure why this experience is what it took for me to understand, but I do remember the diagnosis sinking in. I had a brand new baby. If I could figure out how to take care of him being blind, and I didn't starve him to death with my breast milk, and I didn't drown him while trying to give him a bath, or lose him in the mall because I couldn't see him, or a million other things, I was dying. I'd had a thousand doctors warn me a million times that I wasn't long for this world, but it was the torn lip that made it all too terrifying.
In the middle of the night a few days later, i was up feeding zack his formula and crying over my failure as a mother when I felt someone sit beside me on the couch. I thought Erik had come to help with the baby, but this presence whispered to me in a different voice. "Don't worry so much," the man said. "I'm watching, I've been watching all of Erik's life."
As I wiped my tears away and felt the quiet message sink into my mind, I recognized the voice. It was Erik's father. Only it wasn't. I knew even as I thought it, it was his Grandfather. His Grandfather he'd never met. The Grandfather who died when Erik's dad was 12 years old.It was a powerful lesson for me to learn. Perhaps my lack of eyesight meant I didn't look for the man seated beside me. Without my sight I couldn't have seen him anyway. Perhaps that's why I didn't need any thing to confirm to me that he was with us. In that moment and ever since, I've known that those who watch over us, protect us, and look out for our well being are not just here on earth.It took my broken heart and an overwhelming fear for my son for me to understand. I wasn't alone. My children weren't alone. My life was not drifting through the darkness.
The most important thing I learned is: When life is too big for we mere mortals to shoulder it, its Okay. We don't have to. "...for they that are with us are greater than they that are with them." 2 kings6:16
"Uhm...honey, you're not. Your bottom lip is no longer attached to your jaw."
I reached up and touched my tender lip, but it didn't seem like a big deal. "What happened?" I asked.
Well, it turns out I hadn't just bumped my face against the wall. A mistake I commonly make. Sometimes I go around corners too sharply, or I bend over to pick something up and smack my face into a counter top or piece of furniture. Unfortunately, this time was much worse.
After my son Zackery was born, I had a number of issues. I'd been on bed rest for 12 weeks in Utah Valley Regional Medical Center with blood pressure of 220/113. My labor with Zack took three days because he was face up, my hips didn't spread, and I had to be induced at 34 weeks to save whatever kidney function I had left. Zack was in the Newborn I.C.U. for two weeks because he wasn't breathing when he was born, he only weighed five pounds, and he didn't have a suck reflex so he couldn't eat.
About a month after he was born, he'd developed a suck reflex like no other and he was breast feeding every hour and a half...'round the clock.
Like all brand new moms, I was exhausted. I never slept with his meal times, my body had gone from 150 pounds after his birth to 100 pounds three weeks later. Because of my kidney problems all of the fluid they pumped into me during labor couldn't process out. I'm an inch or so over five feet and my normal weight is around 110 pounds, so this drastic loss of 50 pounds of fluid sent my blood pressure crashing.
The other problem was, I'm a diabetic. All of the sugar I had in my blood stream went directly to my milk to feed the baby.
On this particular day, I finished feeding Zack and handed him over to Erik so I could lay down and try to sleep before he wanted to eat again. I made it about half way down the hallway before my blood pressure along with my blood sugar bottomed out and I lost consciousness. As my balance faltered, I turned to tell Erik something was wrong. Before I got a word out I hit face first into the wall, sliding down to the floor and tearing my lower lip away from my jaw.
If you've been keeping up with this blog, then you know, I have lots of weird things happen to me. If I panic and run to the hospital every time I fall down...Well let's just say I'd never leave.This day, I let Erik take me to the E.R., though. I recieved three layers of stitches to reattach my jaw to my bottom lip. I needed to stay on a liquid diet until the stitches dissolved a few weeks later and I had to gargle with mouth wash after anything, including my toothbrush or my baby's fingers went into my mouth.
I tried to convince myself this was a minor incident in comparison to what I'd been through with the pregnancy and birth. The more follow up I had to get, the more I understood...It was actually a major turning point for us. My nephrologist (kidney specialist) discovered I only had another year before my kidney's would fail. My blood pressure was fluctuating between highs and lows and taxing my heart, and I could no longer breast feed my baby. It was detrimental for both of us. Zack wasn't getting enough to eat and I was being drained of all my resources.
I'm not sure why this experience is what it took for me to understand, but I do remember the diagnosis sinking in. I had a brand new baby. If I could figure out how to take care of him being blind, and I didn't starve him to death with my breast milk, and I didn't drown him while trying to give him a bath, or lose him in the mall because I couldn't see him, or a million other things, I was dying. I'd had a thousand doctors warn me a million times that I wasn't long for this world, but it was the torn lip that made it all too terrifying.
In the middle of the night a few days later, i was up feeding zack his formula and crying over my failure as a mother when I felt someone sit beside me on the couch. I thought Erik had come to help with the baby, but this presence whispered to me in a different voice. "Don't worry so much," the man said. "I'm watching, I've been watching all of Erik's life."
As I wiped my tears away and felt the quiet message sink into my mind, I recognized the voice. It was Erik's father. Only it wasn't. I knew even as I thought it, it was his Grandfather. His Grandfather he'd never met. The Grandfather who died when Erik's dad was 12 years old.It was a powerful lesson for me to learn. Perhaps my lack of eyesight meant I didn't look for the man seated beside me. Without my sight I couldn't have seen him anyway. Perhaps that's why I didn't need any thing to confirm to me that he was with us. In that moment and ever since, I've known that those who watch over us, protect us, and look out for our well being are not just here on earth.It took my broken heart and an overwhelming fear for my son for me to understand. I wasn't alone. My children weren't alone. My life was not drifting through the darkness.
The most important thing I learned is: When life is too big for we mere mortals to shoulder it, its Okay. We don't have to. "...for they that are with us are greater than they that are with them." 2 kings6:16
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