Dad's Birthday

I am a birthday boob. I celebrate birthdays; I make a big deal of them, so, of course, this week I took full advantage to celebrate Dad's birthday on the 13th, beginning on the 12th and extending to the 14th. You might ask if I am a party girl, and I would have to say, "Yes, indeed." I got tickets for a theater-in-the-round version of Christmas Carol set in 1941 in wartime Washington D.C. just three weeks after the bombing at Pearl Harbor. This time the ghosts who came were statues of Freedom and Winged Liberty from Washington DC and Scrooge was a profiteer, trying to make money off of coming war shortages. Then in the evening we went to a free press screening of The Kite Runner. I loved the book for a number of reasons, but mainly, I think because I love stories about redemption, things broken (like hearts) that are healed. Then on Dad's actual birthday we went to the National Portrait Gallery and wandered through the galleries of American history, especially inventors and abolitionists. Life is eternally rich. That afternoon we saw Mariah's A Cappella group perform at the Burke Racquet Club and heard Michaela's orchestra. All well done.

Shoeless

Tonight we started a new tradition. Dad and Michaela put icicle lights up on the second level of the house and do to that had to balance themselves on the roof. But they were so flushed with excitement when they came in that Michaela suggested that we all go out on the roof and sit along the edge under the lights and have hot chocolate. We sang "The First Noel" and laughed and Dad tried to capture the moment with a photo. Thus a tradition is born with our first annual roof and hot chocolate sing along.

Today, however, has been really special for other reasons. A few of the sisters in our Relief Society made baked ziti and took it down to the Lamb Center, a place where the homeless and destitute come for their meals. Before we started, I went out among the people and we talked and laughed. One man, however, said, "I have no shoes. Can you get some shoes for me?" The only pair of shoes that he owned had worn out so that water seeped in, and he finally had to throw them away. All he had were some slip on sandals which were way too skimpy for a cold day. I asked the people at the center if they had access to shoes, and they directed me to tell him that there were probably shoes that might fit him over in a closet in the Presbyterian Church (which was miles away.) How does a shoeless man make it that distance without a car? But I was struck by what a joyous opportunity this was. Being among the homeless made me feel right at home as we have worked with them many times before, but how often do you get such an opportunity for personal ministration as this? Getting someone shoes who has none. Could I really have that wonderful privilege of helping in something as necessary and personal as this? So I drove to the nearest shoe store, bought him new shoes, and brought them back to him, all boxed and bagged. He was so pleased as he tried them on and they fit so well. He hugged me and kissed me, saying, "God bless you." I already felt so blessed I wish every day gave me opportunities to clothe the naked and feed the hungry. It satisfies as almost nothing else. Then I remembered that on the way to the shelter I had prayed that I would be able to be a blessing to someone, that I could fill a need. Here was another answered prayer, and though it was such a tiny thing I did, it made me feel truly happy.

Today was our annual Wolf Trap Sing-along. It is an outdoor Christmas caroling fest at the national park for the arts, just north of us. Thousands of people gather in the amphitheatre, bundled up against the cold to first hear the President’s Own Marine Band, and then sing together Christmas carols for about an hour. I love it for so many reasons. The band is great, with giant green wreathes hanging from the ceiling of the stage. But mostly I love the way people from all over Virginia, people of many denominations, come together year after year and sing at the top of their lungs their praises to the King. With this big band and people singing all around, I always sing with all my heart, not letting any little part of me hold back. I sing soprano, though I am usually an alto. We all sway back and forth when we sing Winter Wonderland, and then there is the most magical moment of all when we begin to sing “Silent Night” and everyone lights a candle. You can look across this vast audience of people, and each one has a candle glowing, rolling back the darkness. We leave with our burning candles as we sing the last verse, and it seems as if all these Christians are bearing their lights on their own individual journeys into the darkness of the world. Though it is the same year after year, we wouldn’t miss it because the feeling is so powerful. It has come to be the essence of the season for me. It is our eighth Christmas doing this and has become an important part of our Christmas tradition in Virginia. We first went our first year here when I was scanning the Internet to find some new Christmas traditions to add to our usual ones since so many of our children were not here—and they left a real hole in the holiday. That year we didn’t know that Wolf Trap was an outdoor arena and went in our Sunday clothes with a thin Sunday coat and no gloves, mufflers or hats. When we saw everyone approaching the stadium with their jugs of hot chocolate, we caught on pretty fast that we were not going to get what we expected. But we went anyway, and people all around us, noticing that we were shivering, passed us blankets and extra gloves and scarves. Such amazing generosity, but what has stood out after all these years is that as were leaving, and I was carrying Michaela, and her bare little legs in a Sunday dress, stuck out. Along came a woman and covered her with a blanket. I told her thank you so much and that we would follow her to the car so that we could give her back her blanket. She said, “Oh no. I’m a grandmother.”

Michaela took that blanket to bed with her for a long time after that and always called it her kindness blanket.

Things You Work at Slowly

Some days are so jam-packed with events and thoughts you can't write them down fast enough, but many days are like today when you are working at something slowly hour after hour and you end the day and wonder just what you've done. Truman and I have been editing the DVD on President Hinckley every day except Sunday since a week ago Monday for at least ten hours a day. We sit in the basement room, tucked away from the action of the house and work both intensely and as slow as a glacier. That's the nature of film editing. Since this is making decisions on pictures and moves, most of which are on the screen for only two to three seconds, we work hours before we have a couple of minutes of actual screen time. People who think film making is glamourous have never done it. But how much like life it is. Mostly we work away at things slowly and imperceptibly, and then one day we turn around and we have results for all of our efforts. The trick is to hold the big picture in your mind during the little, sometimes tedious days and be happy in the moment and what's nice is I am!

Why Don't You Write?

President Eyring’s talk from Conference has been much on my mind because I do have things that happen every day that are evidences of God’s hand in my life and I want to remember and record them. Scot asked me on Friday what I would say that day about how I’d been blessed and it was like an overflowing basket—so many things in one relatively quiet day came rushing to my mind. But here are just a few—from one day of my life.

Catherine Arveseth is truly homebound these days with Eliza as a fairly new two and twins who are only a few months old. Doug works the impossible hours that seem to be demanded by today’s corporations so she is quite on her own. To lift her week, she invites us over for lunch on Fridays and for a spot of adult conversation. She is a dear friend of ours, a little sister, and someone who always understands my heart. She is the book reviewer for Meridian, and so we got to talking about the books that pour into our homes from the LDS publishers and she confessed that she was quite tired of them. She then turned to me, imploringly, and said, “I am waiting for your book. You must write because you have so much to say. I want to read your thoughts and ideas. You must do it.” Scot was nodding his head because it is the constant mantra from him. In every blessing I receive I am admonished to write. Scot feels it to be part of his stewardship to deliver that message to me, to help me loosen every chain that binds.

I want to write for I think there is nothing that so opens the chambers of your soul and throws light into the corners like expression, spinning out the gold inside. But I am terribly, frantically busy with duties and visions I think are important. Still, I knew today, that Catherine’s words were another witness to me—and I felt loved, not nagged.

Waiting for Pictures

I stumble often over little things, small pebbles in the path, tiny divets in the road. I haven't written in my blog much lately, not just because I've been busy--though I have. In the last ten days, we've been to the temple twice (once to support a couple in our ward who we've helped bring back into inactivity who were sealed); we've been to Michaela's end of the year violin concert, her choral concert, Mariah's final drama banquet. Michaela was chosen for the all-star soccer team--and it is the first year that she can participate. She has been chosen a couple of times before, but couldn't do it because it involved Sabbath play. But this year the coach said he'd just work around that so she could play.

In the last few days we've raised over $100,000 for the Family Leader Foundation, and at long last I can say I've hit my stride with fund raising and I no longer get a sick lump in my throat and quiver when I look someone in the face and say, "Can you give this organization $50,000?" I've been lower than a pit in Nova Scotia over something someone said about the Church who should have known better and two days later I was soaring because the Family Leader board has really begun to take hold and have faith in what we are doing. I've felt poignancy at the school year's end, watched Mariah weep over losing her senior friends and Michaela say goodbye to Girl Scouts which she has been in seven years. So many emotions. So many thoughts. So much of life lived.

But I didn't write about it because I was waiting for pictures from Mariah's play and from Michaela's concert to add to the blog. I craned my neck and peeked through a hole between heads to keep my eye on her as she performed. She looked self-assured and grown up, becoming very competent on the violin. The beginning strings group, which was huge, played that night too. They looked young and played the simplest tunes, one long note up and down, and then another. Then it hit me that it was only two years ago that Michaela was doing that, "Mississippi up down" to get the right rhythm. Now, she is all over the strings and will be leaving Suzuki Book 4. Was that only two years ago?

So I haven't written. Does anyone know how to add pictures to content after it is posted? I'd go back and do that if I could, but I can't see how to do it. Meanwhile, I will have to catch up on some of the thoughts of the last few days, because it has been a pregnant time.

Hey, Mariah. Why Can't You Ever Let Your Hair Down?

Happy Wedding Day!

Don't worry that Daddy's been shootin' the birds outta the trees. I stole his gun."

Eye Rolling Runs in the Family

M'Lynn is None too Happy

Really, Shelby

I told you and I told you, no baby breath in your hair.

Steel Magnolia Pix of Mariah

My'lyn enters the beauty shop, curlers already in hair on the day of her daughter's wedding.

Checking my Family's Blogs

I love to check my family's blogs, and I do it several times a day, just to see if someone has updated something. It is like getting a little glimpse into each soul, a window into their internal world and it is very familiar territory to me. I feel that I am walking in paths I know and memories and outlooks I understand in ways that are deeper than I can say. It helps to assuage my missing them--which never goes away. It is like tripping through the flowers of the meadow that leads to your home after you have been away a long time. What is there about family that is so very precious?

This feeling of coming home even flows to extended family. I remember last summer at the Steven's reunion, which was the 100th anniversary of my great grandfather's death, that when I saw cousins that I hadn't seen for ten years or longer, my heart just flowed into theirs with a sense of knowing and kinship. I hugged each one and felt that somehow all was right with the world. "I know you. You know me. Our roots run together and entwine in some deep earth place that can never be torn up." Thank you all for keeping your blogs. It is my relief when I am working, cool water on the desert. It is about love.

Two Plays, Two Days

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night Mariah has been in two different plays. The first, Nina Variations, is the play that her drama group is taking to Scotland this summer--and she played Nina!--but so did 10 other girls. The play is based on Chekov's short story, The Seagull, and offers 42 variations on how the story could end. Mariah did a great job. Then the next night (Friday) the drama department did their spring short plays. This time Mariah was in about a 40 minute scene from Steel Magnolias. This is about the friendship and tension between a group of Southern women, and is hilarious and engaging. The scene takes place in Truvy's beauty shop on the day that Shelby (played by Julia Roberts in the movie) is getting married. Mariah played her mother (the part played by Sally Field) and the two have a bit of love-hate relationship. Shelby says the colors for her wedding are "blush and bashful," and Mariah cuts in and says disgustedly, "Her colors are pink and pink." When Shelby describes in rapturous tones the pink bunting and pink carpet, Mariah says, "It looks like the whole place has been sprayed with Pepto Bismol." What was fun was Mariah's complete diversity. All the characters she has played lately are completely different, but she pulls off each one very well.

Eating and Enchantment

Yesterday was a book end day, with eating on the outside and enchantment in the middle. Dad and I got up early and went and fixed breakfast for the seminary students to celebrate the last day of seminary. Then at night we supplied the refreshments for the stake scripture chase. Both were fun as we love to feed people, but the middle of the day was the enchantment. I drove Mariah's car pool to the Arena Theatre in Washington DC to see a presentation called Peter and Wendy. It was the story of Peter Pan told in a most unique way. One narrator told the whole story (two hours worth) with different voices for all the characters, including fast-paced dialogue. Mr. Darling had a low gravelly voice, while young Wendy was soft-spoken and surprised. Many of the characters were acted by puppets, designed in the classical Japanese fashion that demanded three and sometimes four puppeteers on stage (dressed in white, Victorian dresses or pants with their faces veiled.) The puppets were remarkable and believable, with distinctive mannerisms that made us laugh and made Mariah cry at the end. Celtic music accompanied it all--because of course, Barrie, the author was a Scot and you can hear the Scottish rhythms in his language. Items on stage were used for many purposes. The bell rope in the Darling household became a kite in Neverland. Nana, the dog, became the crocodile with a taste for Hook.

I think what immediately captured me, however, was the wonderful narrative which begins:

All children grow up. They all know they will grow up. They always know after they are two. Two is the beginning of the end.

The way Wendy knew was this. One day, she plucked a flower and ran with it to her mother. Mrs Darling signed, "Oh, why can't you remain like this forever!" Then Wendy knew.

Mrs. Darling was a lovely lady. She had a sweet, mocking mouth, with one kiss on it Wendy could never get.

Wendy came first, then Joh, then Michael. And there never was a simpler, happier family. Until the coming of Peter Pan.

Mrs. Darling first met Peter when she was tidying up her children's minds.

On these magic shores

Children play forever

Still the surf we hear

Though we shall land there

Never, never more

Occasionally in her travels through her children's minds, Mrs. Darling found things she could not understand. She knew of no Peter Pan. Yet he was here, and there in John and Michael's minds, while Wendy's began to be scrawled all over with him.

Fireworks!

We have a new Memorial Day tradition, now four years old. Each year we go with many friends from the ward to the Summer Blastoff concert and fireworks at Wolf Trap park. I don't think anything is as meaningful as visiting family graves on Memorial Day, but we have had to find other things to do. Thus, year after year, we have headed to Wolf Trap to hear the President's Own Marine Band and watch a first class fireworks show. This year the band played wonderful favorites like the theme from "Superman" and part of the score of "West Side Story." A gifted, energetic pianist soloed on "Rhapsody in Blue" and I was just overcome by the excellence and perfection of it all. What genius there is in composing such complex and interesting music and how fun to see it performed so well. I truly love excellence and am always awed by great performances.

The fireworks were up close and personal, blasting only a few hundred feet from where we sat to lively music. I have always loved fireworks since I was a little girl and used to go to Liberty Park, stretch out a blanket and lay on my back and look straight up at them as they exploded over my head. If someone says, "Let's go see fireworks," I'm there.

Profile in Diligence

On Saturday night, Mariah went to a friend's party, but something she ate was like a knife to her stomach, and she spent the night throwing up. The next morning the nausea continued. Problem was, she was scheduled to give the youth talk in Church on scripture study. She had been asked with only about three days to spare, so she hadn't even had time to write her talk until Sunday morning. When I went in, to wake her, she still felt terrible, and I asked if I shouldn't call the bishopric and excuse her from that day's duty. She said, no, she could do it, and wrote her talk on the computer while lying in bed, still squalmy, bad internal weather. We went to Church, she gave a really terrific talk, and sat back down. She still looked wan and pale, even a little slumpy. I mouthed the words to her, "Do you want to go home?" and held up the car keys. She shook her head yes, and when the talk ended she came down from the stand and left, where she came home and back to bed.

What impresses me here is that she could have easily and legitimately begged off speaking. I've seen many people do that with only a little time left before the sacrament meeting since Dad has been in the bishopric. But, she felt it was more important to do her duty. It reminded me of her on another occasion. She decided when she was 12 years old to read her scriptures every day the rest of her life--never miss. Now, she is 17 and has held true to that decision--which was made by herself without any coaching from us. One Friday night she went over to a friend's house for a party, and they decided to turn it into a sleep over. She pulled herself away from the party and called me so that I could read a chapter of the Book of Mormon to her.

I know she will be embarrassed that I write these things about her where all can read, but true committment and diligence is always stunning to me--and she has demonstrated this on several, important occasions. Hurrah for Mariah!

Stuff

Our garage has been full of boxes since we moved to Virginia, though we have tried many times to clean it out. Our cleaning ends up a shifting from one line to another, from one box to another. Some things, admittedly, are too precious to throw away. We have boxes of memorabilia. Much of it belongs to the kids, and we consider it precious. I think we will begin mailing their boxes of memories to them so they can sort it and decide what they want to keep. Rachel, do you want all your letters from Cameron from your junior high days? I could ask similar questions with many others. I happen upon them and think--hmm--not mine to throw away. But we are quite determined to be able to put our new car in the garage when we leave for England.

To that end, we made two loads to the dump on Saturday, carrying some worn out treasures--including the wreathe we had on the wall in the entrance at Plum Creek Lane and the kitchen table that we all sat around for dinner all the years of that the children were growing up. If that wooden table could talk, the conversations it could share. Dinner time was always so much fun, with much laughter and long talks. We watched babies attack their birthday cakes, laughed about divvying out the perfect number of rolls on Sunday so that all could have what they needed. We reported our day's activities. We loved each other. I am a firm believer in the importance of sitting down together as a family for dinner. The other day we were at a Girl Scout party for Michaela. It signaled the end of Girl Scouts for her and was a bit poignant as she has been a Girl Scout or Brownie for seven years. Anyway, one of the mothers said she never cooked. Another said that their family went out for dinner every night. I am glad we always had dinner together for it holds the sweetest of memories for me, and I always hear your voices around the table still whenever we sit down to eat.

Now the table is gone, swept away someplace in the Fairfax County dump. Mariah said, "You are giving away our memories." But no, our memories live on laced through every cell. Stuff is only stuff. I own too much of it and am not interested in much more. But people and memories, fair times together--these never die.

Grandma Proctor's birthday

Yesterday was Grandma Proctor's 88th birthday. We had a memorable night in Salt Lake last week when we surprised her with a birthday party. I had arranged to arrive Thursday night and visit, so that she would set the night aside. Unbeknownst to her we had invited all of her children and their spouses to come. Paul and Peggy drove up from St. George just for the night. They arrived after I did, saying that they were just passing through. Then about 5 minutes later Lyn arrived with flowers and the beans were spilled. At last Scot came in, and since she thought he was still in Virginia, it was clear that a great surprise was afoot. When we talked to her yesterday she said she keeps bumping her head when she goes through doors--because she is feeling 10 feet tall. How fun it is to let someone know, who has done so much for you, how special they are. Scot had primed us each to tell three stories about Grandma, so we just wsent around the circle. What a remarkable person she is. Two things particularly stood out for me. Pam, speaking from all of her experience as an emergency room nurse said how calm and cool Mom was in a crisis of major proportions. When Lane was about 5, he was hit by a car and thrown thirty feet, landing on his head. The ambulance didn't come and didn't come, a grueling wait I'm sure. So, with her child bleeding and critically injured, she found a board, strapped him on it so he wouldn't be further injured by moving him, put him in the car, and drove to the hospital. What a woman. Royce also mentioneed that when they were remodeling their kitchen (can you imagine remodeling your kitchen at 88 and adding a double oven for entertaining to boot) tnhey noticed that where there had once been a set of 18 plates, now there were 11. Where there had once been 12 goblets, there were now 8. Mom said that all of the losses and challenges of life were just a state or normalcy, and we shouldn't take them as somehow unfortunate or unfair or frustrating. Life is about problem-solving. It's just a state of normalcy.

Cleaning Out My Mother's House

Among my many poignant moments last week in Salt Lake was cleaning out my mother's house. During the winter, the basement was flooded--just enough to leave a heavy mildew smell and turn many books and papers to moldly, wet messes. Thus, my siblings have decided to paint the house, recarpet and retile the bathrooms in preparation for selling the house sometime in the future. In some ways it is tender to look at boxes that contain a lifetime of experience, but in other ways it reminds me of the great hope in the future that we all have beyond this life. Things seem to take their proper place as you look back on them. In my mother's boxes are greeting cards from birthdays and anniversaries, notes of loves from grandchildren and brothers and sisters. She has hundreds of newspaper clippings, information she found valuable and wanted to keep and file, and scraps of paper with scribblings of her thoughts. Mom has always been an excellent writer and, in fact, yearned to write more than she did. Of all the stuff in her boxes, her writing is, to me, by far the most valuable because it captures the essence of her, which is what we want to hold on to and remember. I brought a suitcase of her writing home, including letters, and I am going to begin a project of typescripting them, so that we can create a book for her children and grandchildren, a remembrance of her vibrant life. It makes me happy to be able to do something for my mother because, living in Virginia I am not able to take care of her now. Sorting through her things, I was reminded that the most valuable thing we can leave our posterity is our journal. I value every word she wrote.

Buddies

Since last Sunday, I have been in Salt Lake tending JJ, and we had many precious moments together. We are truly buddies! He has probably never had such a wild week, as I dragged him to a birthday lunch with my siblings, to the retirement center to visit his great grandmother, to Grandma Proctor's surprise 88th birthday party and to Nana's home as we we working on cleaning it out. Through it all JJ was an amazing good sport. I just kept thinking that from his perspective, he didn't know for certain that his parents were returning and that every day he was greeted by people he didn't recognize (even though they were related.) He just made no fuss whatsoever, but surveyed the world from a calm and trusting perspective, grinning at us all. At Grandma Proctor's birthday party, we went on and on and didn't leave until about 10:30. JJ didn't make a whimper and everyone raved about him. "Have you ever seen such a patient, sweet baby?" they said.

JJ did have a small way of signaling insecurity, however. When anybody focused on him too closely, he silently reached for my arm. Ah, safety. I loved it, of course. It was a sign that he knew me, and he flattered me terribly by not treating me as a stranger even when he first woke up and saw me Monday morning. Aunt Julie growled at JJ, and he growled back, in a growling conversation that went back and forth and made us laugh so hard. JJ was delighted. It was conversation that he could fully participate in and he felt very powerful.

My Precious Coleen Eyre died

Our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ was often thronged by people wanting his attention. On one particular day in Capernaum, it was no different, as people reached out to him, jostled against him in the crowd, touched him. But then he did the most curious thing. Surrounded as he was, he turned and asked, “Who touched me?” Among that crowd, those hundreds of touches that day, one had connected, connected in a way that made it memorable, powerful, so much so, that the Lord had to ask. “Who touched me?” He had felt her in a way that was perceptibly different than all the rest... It was a woman who had been stricken by disease for a number of years and had followed the Savior with the faith that if she could just touch the hem of his garment she could be healed. . He felt her touch and turned to heal her.

Today we are here remembering and celebrating our precious Coleen Eyre, a friend we would have never chosen to leave us so early. If we could hold on to her, we would, because we are like Christ in this story. We are jostled, met, and thronged by people every day, but Coleen Eyre had a touch that connected. When she reached out for us, we felt it. We felt her goodness, her charity, her beauty, her amazing love, and our lives were transformed forever.

Today I’m going to tell you a story of when Coleen touched me in a way so profound I can still feel it reverberating through my soul. It is a story specific to me, but each of you who have come into Coleen’s sphere of sunshine, could tell a hundred more just like it.

Coleen and her family lived directly across the street from us on Abbedale Lane in Sandy, Utah. The house was empty when we first moved in and I remember wondering who would move there, and I always felt like God directed an angel there to watch out for me, to help me in a tough time.

I was a young mother with three children under five, a hectic life for sure, but what made it hard, was that our family was really impoverished. We didn’t look like it to an outsider, but inside was stress and strain beyond expression. My husband’s professional office was not always breaking even, and our family largely lived on money from free-lance writing jobs I pulled in in fits and starts. Then we came to a time, when truly there was no more money. I was frantically looking for another free-lance job, but the prospects were dry, and day after day I came up empty-handed. Now, unless you have really known what it is to be poor, you can’t imagine how frightening it is. We ate our way through the cans in our pantry. The fridge became so empty that only salad dressing and ketchup was left. We came to our last bar of soap and couldn’t squeeze anything more out of the toothpaste tube.

This makes you feel insecure, your sense of safety eroded. I don’t know if we were too proud to ask for help or if we hoped any day that things would change, but they didn’t change.

Then one day, I was returning home, so disheartened, after yet another unsuccessful day of looking for work, and I opened the door to my home and smelled a roast baking in my oven. It smelled like home, like being enfolded in a blanket of well-being. I walked into my kitchen, opened my pantry cupboards, and every shelf was full of food. I turned to my fridge. It was brimming with milk and food of every variety. I walked into my bathroom and a new bar of soap was unwrapped on the sink, a new tube of toothpaste sat in the drawer.

It was as if God himself, the only one who could truly know how I felt, had visited to supply every need, supply the touch that says, you’re not alone when you cry.

I wondered,”Who could have done this?” And then pride took over, and I said to myself, “Whoever did this saw my messy house.” Then, in the way you talk to yourself, came another calm. “I know the only one who could have done this. Coleen. And it is OK that she saw my house like this, because she loves me.

Through the years I have often thought back on this experience, because I have marveled that Coleen could have been so perfectly charitable. She didn’t just leave a bag of groceries on my front porch or on my counter. That would have been so nice, but to go around and fill every need added that extra blessing of feeling perfectly cared for in life. Just last week, I learned from her daughters that they had remembered the occasion well, because Coleen had opened my garage, pulled her car in backward, and closed the door, so that no one would see.

Such love continued to be poured my way during the years we lived by Coleen and her family. How often I’d get a call just before dinner time and Coleen would say, “I don’t know how it happened, but I made twice as much soup as I meant to. Can we bring over dinner?” Since we had no piano, our children practiced every day at her house. When my birthday came, I went to her house and was greeted by a surprise party, where everyone brought gifts according to a meaningful theme—food storage.

She had this gift about her. Everything she touched was warmer, better, more loving and full of home. The whole neighborhood flocked to be where she was. When she canned, so did I. When she devised a wonderful Easter treat for her children, we made it together.
When one of our children, and I don’t remember who, rode a sleigh down a slick driveway into our next door neighbor’s garage door, leaving a hole in it, she found a way to get it fixed.

Everything was better and happier because Coleen was there, because she is that rare person who is an embodiment of perfect charity, the love of Christ. I have met only a handful of people in my entire life who have that gift so naturally. Most of us want to be charitable. We take careful mental notes about how to do it. We sign up to bring meals to the sick. We talk about service and we mean really well. But Coleen was love. It flowed from her as naturally as the dew on the morning grass. It is her eternal inheritance, her personality. She is love and we have everyone been warmed and filled by it.

She is the good Samaritan who came along in our lives, and finding us stripped, beaten and wounded by the side of the road, takes us to a place where we can be healed. She is the embodiment of “as I have loved you, love one another.” In all of our lives of being jostled by the indifferent crowd, she is one whose touch connected.

When I think back on a whole, long life, and ask, “Who touched me?”, the answer resounds, “Coleen did.”

I suppose technically with her lung disease, she died of heart failure, but in reality, Coleen never experienced heart failure. Hers was a heart that was constant.

When our family moved from Sandy, and Coleen was no longer my neighbor, who I saw every day, I pined for her. She left a hole that has never been filled. I never knew such a neighbor again. And now, she has moved away to another sphere, and we will all feel that hole. But this gives me comfort, she is no longer struggling for breath. She can dance with arms upstretched, jubiliant, celebrating the Lord, and never lag for want of air. She can sing with full heart at the top of her lungs, and I plan and look forward to embrace her one day again in a place where all love is perfect. Meanwhile, until then, I, like all of us here, will always carry Coleen with me. When I try to understand how to become more loving and full of charity, it is Coleen’s touch that I will remember. When I see these loving daughters, it is Coleen’s kindness that is reflected.

She will always be with us, until we are with her. In this I have perfect faith and I saw this in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

I'll Huff and I'll Puff and I'll Blow Your House In

It has been a long six months for me of not breathing well, thanks to what I first thought was bronchitis from a virus and have discovered that it is an allergic asthma instead. Last week I went to the allergist and she said my asthma was "out of control." I knew it, because I really couldn't breathe all day long. What was interesting was she had me take a breathing test where I had to blow with all my power and see if I could blow down a house made of straw, a house made of wood, and a house made of brick. It was hard and left me instead in a coughing fit. Today after a week on a steroid, I could blow down all three houses. Rrrrr. Such power. Dr. Curry did a scratch test on me and I am not allergic to cats, mold, or dust. But I am allergic to the whole outdoors--maple, birch, oak, every kind of weeds and grasses. I lit up like the Fourth of July.

Thank You, Pastor Proctor

Church callings stretch you beyond old abilities. Eugenia Adele Sullivan, a woman living in a nursing home in our ward, died this week and her funeral was today. Because the bishop was out of town, Dad conducted. He was also called upon to give a talk. It was an interesting situation since although she was LDS, she had married a Catholic man, who exacted a promise from her that all the children would be raised Catholic. She complied. Consequently, now at 88, she has an entire posterity who is Catholic. (Could she have foreseen what far-reaching consequences that promise would have. Decisions you make influence all of your posterity.) Anyway, she wanted an LDS funeral, so there Dad was having to really carry the load today for a woman he hadn't known and a family who wasn't of our faith (except a few cousins.) He did a great job and his talk moved them all. They told him, "Thank you, Pastor Proctor." It was his job to comfort all, to follow right behind the funeral director in the car, leading the funeral procession down the 495, and to represent the Church. He told the story in his talk about our cousin Laraine Facer who was stricken with Ahlzeimer's disease at age 52. She quickly degenerated, not recognizing her husband or anyone, and finally died about three years ago. How it broke all of our hearts. Dad flew out for the funeral and saw his Uncle Keith pull himself away from the group and sit down alone on a couch. Dad went over and asked how he was doing. He gave a most memorable answer. He said, "Scot, I have trusted in the Lord all of my life, and I feel to trust him now."

In that is real security.

We spent the rest of the day putting on the funeral luncheon for people we didn't know and I thought how beautiful it is that we all give service to the unknowns in our lives. How often I have been fed at funeral luncheons by loving hands I may not have noticed. It is the Mormon way. The pioneers planted gardens they'd never harvest from, and built bridges they would never cross, all for the people behind them.

Car Shopping

Yes. Today we went shopping for a new car to replace the Volvo. We are looking at a Camry Hybrid, aware that gas prices are skyrocketing. But I notice the funniest thing. I don't really care what car we get. I barely care about the color. Everybody in the family was asking, "Which one do you like? Which one should we get?" I just didn't have an opinion. I think that's strange. Getting a car should be a big deal and even a lot of fun. I did think the GPS was alot of fun, I'll confess, and I loved having this woman's voice direct us all over Fairfax, but in the end, I'd really be just as content with an older car--as long as it was reliable. So does that mean I've got a mature perspective or that I'm just dull? People excite me and experiences move me, but I have lost much interest in "things," even when they shine.

Piano Dread

I first took piano in first grade from my mother and then went on to take from Mrs. Keeler, a thin, astringent woman with a whiny voice, who scolded me every week because I had such long fingers and therefore such potential, and I was throwing it all away by not practicing. Tired of the scolding and the obligation, I wheedled my mother long enough that she finally let me quit. I think I convinced her that I wanted to be a student instead. (not that it had to be an either or). Anyway, it was fourth grade and John Thompson's Book Four that I ended with, so of course, my piano abilities have always been very limited.
Still, periodically over the years I have had to step in to pinch hit on the piano. When we arrived at the Aspen Ward in Colorado one Sunday, they nabbed me, figuring I knew how to play, and I was stuck because they had nobody else. Then once I had the calling to be the Primary pianist, this when we had no piano at home to practice the tunes on before the meeting. Now, we live in a ward where nobody seems to play the piano. It is a Mormon phenomenon, because I thought that every ward had a fair share of decent pianists. Suddenly I found myself as the Relief Society pianist, stumbling a bit every week, but amazingly getting stronger as I went. Now I can sight read most hymns and manage them after a couple of times through. (Thank heavens for the prelude where I get to practice and all the sisters are chatting in Relief Society.)
But now my goose is cooked because I have to accompany a quartet on Sunday for Mother's Day as they sing "Home Can Be a Heaven on Earth" in a new and more difficult arrangement. My heart stops when I have to play the piano in front of anybody and on Sunday, I will have to play in front of the entire congretation. What have I gotten myself into?

Doing Anything for Love

I am helping Michaela get her blog started, so I while I wait I wanted to say a word about her and the violin. She loves to go up to her room and pick up the violin and play a few songs. I generally do not tell her to practice. Those strains from the violin, which get more beautiful as the days pass, come from her heart. She delights in each new, difficult technique she learns. There is nothing I could say to her that would motivate her to practice in any way comparable to the power of love of the instrument, which goes through her soul like a song. She is in Suzuki Book 4, whose songs I remember well from Melissa's years of practice. Often the notes take me back to Melissa on the violin, a strain of melody through time, and I miss her.

Happy Tears

May 5, 2007

Michaela sang with the All-County Fairfax Chorus yesterday at Robinson, 932 voices from 115 schools. It is a long-standing tradition in Fairfax, and the choir was great, with the kids singing parts that moved and sometimes counter-pointed each other. I was so far away, her head was just barely clear to me and she didn't see me at all, though I wore coral and stood up and waved and yahooed. But I kept my eyes on her every minute so I wouldn't blink and lose where she was in the crowd of singers in the bleachers. I loved the songs, each one so different and celebrational. But mostly I loved the girl singing and I thought how cherished and fleeting these times are.

Then last night was Mariah's last performance as Muzzy in Thoroughly Modern Millie. She has loved this part, where she gets to sing these bluesy songs like "Only in New York", while she is wearing sequined dresses, a boa and a feather in her hair. She has loved performing with the kids and last night during the curtain call, she had on a big, theatrical smile, but tears in her eyes, and I could even see her chest heaving a bit because this is the last time she will be performing with these friends she has come to know well.

I always feel teary at the end of productions--particularly school plays. I don't know why, exactly, but I think it has something to do with all the hopes and dreams and work that culminates in that moment of taking a bow. And I feel with and for the actors, director, stage techs etc. who have worked so hard and have felt so much.