I’ve been looking through old photographs to find a picture of my friend’s son who passed away last Friday. I found him. There he was at a Primary activity in Austin back in 1997. The children were dressed in pajamas and I was telling the children “bedtime” stories. And there he was, a member of my Primary choir at the ward Christmas party, dressed as a shepherd. I will send these to his mother who is a dear friend.
I love photos. They help to reinforce the memories of dear friends and family. When I go to a party, you can find me in the corner looking through the family’s photo albums and scrapbooks. When people come to visit, I pull out the photos and hope to find a funny one from our past for them to take home. And when someone is having a hard time I try to find a photo that will cheer them.
I hope my small offering helps my friend. It’s a record that her son’s life lives in my memory, too.
I don’t think of myself as a goal-oriented person because I don’t make New Year’s resolutions and if I make a goal, I rarely write it down. However, I do try to establish patterns in my life. One of those patterns is to read a book a week. Oh, snap. Now it’s written down.
I made this goal after I learned that President Bush read a book a week. If he could do it, so could I. (You can read whatever you want into that comment.) I’ve never made it to 52 books a year (and I mean grown-up books!), but it doesn’t matter. Sometimes I pick up a 900 page novel and that’s just not going to be finished in a week… unless it’s Tolstoy. Sometimes life gets too busy, but I don’t scold myself.
With my schedule, I can only read little bits here and there when I am waiting in the car and this doesn’t amount to a lot of progress. I also don’t have a lot of evenings available. What this means is that I usually have to dedicate a day each week to reading. It’s a pajama day. It’s the day we have a meal from the freezer for dinner. It’s usually a Monday or a Tuesday. I still teach and oversee school, but I do minimal housework. It’s one of my favorite days of the week. It brings me into focus. It makes me feel spoiled. The kids like it, too, because they have a little more freedom.
Do you have a goal or pattern of living that feeds your soul?
Each of us lives to forge a path through a frontier, a place no one has traveled. I don’t count myself as unique in my feelings, but it feels a bit lonely in my frontier today. Motherhood has always felt like parting curtain after curtain over vistas I could barely imagine. Paige has been the little pioneer who has borne the task of living the results of my reactions to each new vista.
I realized this week that my vision for my children during the past few years hasn’t stretched much past the age of 15. We’ve passed that ridge and now I feel more than a little suspended. I don’t want Paige to feel as suspended as I do. To whom can I talk? I worked for years to build a community among home educators here, but as the years have passed, Paige and Daniel’s age group has dwindled. In our church congregation I am one of the oldest mothers. Paige has no one her age who attends church. She never complains. I just keep telling her that Heavenly Father knows where she lives and that it will all work out. My question, through my certain knowledge of God’s hand in our lives is, “What do we do now?”
I feel a little jump of excitement inside for whatever is next. We’ll figure it out like we always do, remembering that Heavenly Father knows where we are.
I teach Newton’s Laws of motion using a hovercraft. A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to teach a large group of elementary age children. One of the parents snapped these photos and I am so glad to have them. It was just a fun day. Daniel was my helper.
We had a father and a grandfather there and I was so glad that they were willing to help. Timothy, Mark, and Daniel all took rides, but I don’t have photos of all of them.
I think this picture is hilarious. My favorite part of the class was after the kids left and all of the adults took a turn on the hovercraft.
Claudius in Hamlet has some of the best lines. To hide my nerdy nature, I had to hold myself back from quoting him last night to my friend who had just told me about all her troubles.
When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions. (Hamlet, 4.5)
I think about this quote as I try to juggle all of my responsibilities (and do a poor job of it):
And, like a man to double business bound,
I stand in pause where I shall first begin,
And both neglect. (Hamlet, 3.3)
Claudius also knows what women like to hear. To Ophelia, who was too crazy at the time to appreciate it:
How do you, pretty lady?
Pretty Ophelia–
And a little reminder to me to be more purposeful in my prayers,
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below.
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
(Hamlet, 3.3)
Do you have any Shakespeare in your pocket that you can draw from now and then? If not, then you should. There is something comforting in being understood. And that guy understood people.
Here are some of us at the youth temple trip. It was a good day and 5 of these youth brought family names to the temple. They like family history work and they love the temple.
I smile at the permanent connections that are forged through this service with the youth. T. Nay was a scout leader in this ward, but the first time I met him was when I was 16 and he was a scout leader with my dad. One of the women in my presidency is Lucille S’s niece. Lucille served with my mom when my mom was Young Women president. I didn’t stay in Provo, but despite this, in this tiny town we meet and continue the tapestry of our relationships with these families.
I don’t think that it is a coincidence that there are certain people in our lives with whom we learn and serve. The individual nature of Christ’s rescue and concern is evidenced in the people which seem to be hand-picked for us to meet. We need them and they need us and my obscure location matters little because the Lord finds a way to continue the ties and raise up friends and associates to help us.
Some days it feels lonely in this desert, but I just need to think about the people I know here and it doesn’t seem as barren.
It’s Sunday, and that usually means extra church meetings for Richard and me. But today is special because it’s a rare, unscheduled 5th Sunday.
What to do?
I think I’ll take some time and reflect about the week. It was a big week.
The mornings brought seminary, school, visitors, and a trip to Tucson for some scriptures.
The afternoons involved more school, violin teaching, a bike ride with friends, grocery shopping, cleaning, playing with friends, a birthday party, and Piano Guild Auditions.
In the evenings, we had 4 baseball games, 2 practices, 3 ballet classes, one night working with the missionaries, Scout meetings, a Young Women activity, and one night out to dinner to celebrate the end of Piano Guild auditions. We had a youth temple trip all day on Saturday.
What do all of these activities have in common?
They produced a lot of laundry, my magnum opus.
I’ve learned that doing laundry provides a special key to knowledge about my family. As I empty pockets, I discover what is important to my little people. I see who played outside on the grass enough (I don’t hate grass stains. I encourage them.) and who needs to shower more often. I see evidence of baseball feats of skill, ballet workouts, weight training, bicycling (Love those mud stains up the back of the shirts…), and dirt play (which I also encourage). I can’t say that I love doing laundry, but I take pride in doing it and caring for our clothing.
We wear many clothes and play many roles, and it was a happy family reunion on Friday when our schedules eventually collided and we all met at the restaurant to celebrate a year of piano effort. The kids were dressed up in their Sunday best. Mark’s face was probably a bit sticky from birthday party food, I looked a bit bedraggled, and Richard was clad in his work outfit.
After a Saturday evening laundry marathon, the piles of laundry are neatly folded in their baskets and they smell fresh. It was a good week and now I get to enjoy this day of rest.
Last night I took a long walk around and around the baseball park during practice. I’m in training for a youth pioneer trek. Just call me “Ma Ross” and I’ll say, “Yes, dear? Do you need a band aid for that blister?”
On my long walk through the dust, I thought about my sister who is very ill. I wondered what I could say to help. My mind traveled back to those 3 summers in a row that I was in bed recovering from surgeries. I remembered the feelings of frustration, helplessness, and the temporary depression. I couldn’t mother; I couldn’t teach seminary anymore; I was miserable. I worried that I would never be happy again. I was lonely, but when someone would visit, we rarely talked on the deep level that I craved.
I remember each visitor and each bouquet of flowers and I was deeply touched these acts of kindness. I only felt angry about the “gratitude journal” I was given. I wasn’t ready to be grateful. I remember feeling heartbroken that I couldn’t take care of my kids. I remember the generosity of family and friends.
I learned to never tell someone, “I understand what you’re going through.” I learned to be forgiving when people said this because they meant well.
The biggest lesson I learned during these summers was that I could weather the bad stuff. Although the comfort from friends and family was cherished, the deep comfort came from within, through my choices to listen to the Spirit. I had to change the way I viewed my situation. No one else could do this for me. I had to be the one to make the choice to be thankful. No one could make me feel this. I had to accept physical limitations for a while. I admit that I did not do this very well.
During this time, I clung to Church magazines and had profound experiences reading the scriptures. The gospel was truly the only thing that could penetrate my troubled heart and mind. It was a revelatory time. I have journals to prove it. I wrote to pass the time. I wrote to record my testimony over and over. I wrote so I could remember.
For the next few weeks I’ll try to write something each day so my sister has something new to read or look at.
Last week I had sad news from extended family and weird challenges sprang up around me. I felt heavy and sorrowful. On the other hand, I had good news, too, and there were opportunities for me to serve and feel needed and this made me happy.
Someday when I look back at this time in my life it will be a smudged, incoherent image because of all of the activity, but I will work to see that the good memories will rise up and be more prominent than the bad.
I will remember how Mark’s little drawings cheer me. I will remember the love I feel for the people around me, of the fun times with the Young Women playing black light volleyball and hearing them sing.
I’ll remember how I much I enjoy Richard’s dinners from the grill and chats with him during a baseball game. I’ll think of the way Timothy twirls his hair when he reads to me and how Daniel looks when he’s acting grown up and unselfish. I will remember the way the little ballerinas watch Paige sweep into the dance studio and how she smiles when Richard teases her.
I’ll remember the good people who serve my family in the community, sports, and church.
I will be grateful for a husband who lets me sleep in and remembers to kiss me goodbye every morning.
The difficult things will just serve as a counterpoint, essential in emphasizing the good and forming character, but they won’t take a prominent place on the mantel.
I’ve been looking through old photographs to find a picture of my friend’s son who passed away last Friday. I found him. There he was at a Primary activity in Austin back in 1997. The children were dressed in pajamas and I was telling the children “bedtime” stories. And there he was, a member of my Primary choir at the ward Christmas party, dressed as a shepherd. I will send these to his mother who is a dear friend.
