Emily and the Lady Bug

For May 29th, 2009

Once upon a time there was a little girl named Emily who loved to go exploring in the great wide world. Emily was fond of all the seasons, but she especially loved springtime. She crawled through the tall weeds on her hands and knees in the vacant field behind her house. On Monday she found a yellow spider. On Tuesday she found two brown baby snakes. On Wednesday she found a fat black beetle. On Thursday she saw a green lizard and on Friday she found a red lady bug with black spots resting on a yellow dandelion.
“Lady Bug, lady bug, fly away home. Your house is on fire, your children alone,” Emily said repeating a phrase she learned at school.
But the lady bug didn’t fly away. She flew right into the Emily’s opened hand and the bug’s tiny legs tickled her palm. Then the lady bug crawled up her arm and stopped near her shoulder. Emily tried to pry the lady bug off but it was stuck.
Maybe she wants to be my friend, Emily thought. I’ll bring her home and take good care of her.
So Emily brought the lady buy home, found a glass jar and filled it with grass and leaves. She pocked holes in the lid with a screw driver so her new friend could breathe. Then she put the lady bug inside and placed the jar next to her bed. Each day she checked on her new friend and gave her fresh leaves. But she noticed the lady bug never spread her wings to fly any more.
One day Emily was running through the weed grass with the wind pushing her blond hair behind her. Then she thought about her friend in a jar in her bedroom.
“I feel sorry for my lady bug,” she told her mother after she went back home. “She is trapped. But I don’t want to set her free because I love her and I’ll miss her.
“Sometimes,” her mother answered, “when we really love someone, we choose to set them free.”
Emily thought about what her mother said. The next day she took the glass jar far out into the field and opened the lid very slowly. Then she watched as the lady bug crawled to the top of the jar, stopped for a moment and flew away. That night Emily looked at the empty jar next to her bed and cried.
The next morning when she was slipping on her sweater for school she saw something that took her breath away. A golden lady bug with diamond spots and two sparkly emerald eyes was pinned to her sweater near the shoulder right where her old friend used to rest.
“I love your lady bug,” her friend at school said that day.
“Me too,” Emily answered.

Happy Birthday Emily. This is a story I wrote just for you because I love you so very much.

love,
Grandma Baadsgaard
P.S. Check your mailbox every day. You might find something sparkly in there.

Graduation Speeches

I’ve been to a lot of graduation ceremonies in my lifetime and I’m sure I’ll be attending many more before I die. I’ve heard dozens of graduation speakers offer their advice and vision for the bright futures of the graduates. I’ve tried to listen attentively to each talk but mostly I’m secretly hoping the speaker will be brief because there are hundreds of candidates waiting to walk across the stage to receive their degree.
There has been a few times when I’ve wondered what I would say if I was the guest orator. I mull around in my mind the few concise words that capture what I believe creates a meaningful life. For a few moments I look more intimately at my personal journey and the journey of countess others I’ve observed over a life time. Then I try to make sense of it all and formulate a few sentences that capture what really matters after the pomp and circumstance are over and we all go home.

Bill Cosby, a famous comedian, once addressed a graduation with these few words. He walked to the podium, took a deep breath and said, “Get a job.” That comment brought the house down. When the audience quieted he said a second time, “Get a job.” The audience was really listening when he leaned into the microphone the third and final time and said, “Your parents have done enough. Now get a job.”

No one hands parents a diploma when they send a child off into the world after twenty something years of labor and love. No one hands a devoted husband or wife a diploma after they’ve nursed their spouse through cancer. No one hands an ordinary breadwinner a diploma after they’ve gone to work every day for thirty years to support their family. We never get a diploma for the most important things we do with our life.

So, this is what I’d say if I were the graduation speaker.

“Congratulations graduates. You have accomplished a wonderful goal. But remember this opportunity was made possible because millions of common ordinary people are willing to pay for your teachers and your educational institution with their hard earned tax dollars. You have been a taker. Now it is your turn to be a giver.
You might desire to do great and noble things for society or to become rich or well-known but your conduct at home with the people closest to you will be the final summation of your life. Look into the faces of the people who sit around your dinner table. Your love and sacrifice for those people is the most important contribution you will ever make.
If your career, leisure or prestige becomes more important than your spouse or your son or your daughter, you lose your greatest power to influence the world for good. Don’t give away your power for a mess of pottage. Create a loving home. Everything good follows.”

SUPER LIBBY

For May 18th, 2009

Once upon a time there was a super hero trapped in a little girl’s body. Her mother and father thought she was a typical two-year-old but she was really Super Libby in disguise.
Whenever her parents turned their backs, Super Libby climbed up on top of dangerous tall objects in her house.
“How did she get up there?!” her mother often gasped.
“I don’t know,” her father answered. “I never do that sort of thing myself.”
Super Libby knew she had secret powers but she didn’t know how to tell her parents because she didn’t know how to talk yet. So, her wonderfulness remained a mystery. Libby knew she had sticky feet that allowed her to hang upside down on the ceiling. She knew she had retractable wings that allowed her fly from high furniture to the floor. Only sometimes her super power apparatus didn’t work – so she fell a lot and got lots of bumps and bruises.
Sometimes her parents worried that she might not live to be three. Sometimes they scratched their heads and rolled their eyes. Yet somewhere deep inside, both parents knew she was really an extra-ordinary child.
Late at night Libby’s parents stepped softy into her bedroom and looked at her sleeping peacefully in her crib.
“We kept her alive for one more day,” her mother sighed.
“How can such a little rascal look just like an angel when she is asleep?” her father added.
One day Super Libby’s family went to Grandma’s house. As soon as her father turned his back for just a second, Libby climbed up on the dining room table.
“She is just like her father,” Grandma said with delight. “So full of curiosity and courage.”
That’s when Libby turned and smiled.
Grandma took Libby into her arms and said, “I know your secret. You’re really Super Libby in disguise.”
“How do you know?” her father asked.
“Because I raised her daddy,” Grandma answered. “And look how super you turned out.”

Happy Birthday Libby! You’re super. I love you very, very much.

Love,
Grandma Baadsgaard

When We Are Each Other's Angel

I lived next to my best friend Edna for eleven years. This is how I found her. My husband and I had been driving around town for weeks looking for a place to build a new home. We felt drawn to a vacant lot next to a small white frame house on sixth east in Spanish Fork. We stopped the car and knocked on the door of that house to see if the person who lived there knew who owned the lot.

A petite white haired woman opened the door. We introduced ourselves and she told us she owned the lot. Then she looked at us, really looked at us as if she were seeing through our skin into our hearts. After a long quiet moment she told us she would be happy to sell the lot to us and offered us a fair price.

Later we found out from the other neighbors that many people had been trying to buy that lot for years but she wouldn’t sell. We never did figure out why she decided to sell it to us, two total strangers.

In the next few months we built our new house and moved in. Before long my children or I were at Edna’s house on a daily basis, my husband was tilling her garden and we became best friends. She helped me through my miscarriage and I helped her through her son’s unexpected death. When my children went to visit her, she would play games with them, read them stories and always send them home with a piece of candy. She became their second grandma.

When my growing family got too big for our house, we put a for sale sign up in the front yard. Edna told me she cried for days. We bought a larger house up on the bench but we still invited her to all our birthday parties and holiday celebrations as usual. Some people define family as those who share the same genes. I define family as those who love each other. Edna was family.

Later Edna’s children decided to put her into a residential facility for senior citizens. Now she had only a small bedroom to call her own. She had help with meals and cleaning but she wasn’t very happy there.

“Janene, I can’t carry on an intelligent conversation with any one who lives here,” she told me. “I miss you.”

I offered to have her come and live with me but she declined. Before long Edna was in a nursing home. My family and I went to visit her and bring gifts. After I located her room, I found her resting in bed. Soft evening light streamed into the room from a window above her head and made her face and white hair glow. She looked like an angel.

I walked quietly to her bed, knelt on the floor next to her and kissed her on the cheek. She turned and kissed me back.

“Oh, Edna you look like an angel,” I whispered in her ear.

“Janene, you see me like that because you love me,” she answered.

She spoke the truth. Those we love become shining and beautiful to us. It doesn’t matter what they look like on the outside because we see the exquisiteness of their soul.

“Remember that day when you knocked on my door for the first time?” Edna asked me before we left that day. “God told me you were my angel. That’s why I let you build next to me.”

I spoke at Edna’s funeral. I still miss her.