Remembering Ann

My neighbor Ann Rawlings died. She was buried after her funeral yesterday. She is my neighbor . . . and my friend. She and her husband Bill moved in next to me seventeen years ago as a retired couple. I have grown to love them as if they are my own family.
When I walked into the viewing room and saw Bill seated in a chair next to Ann's casket with his head bowed I couldn't hold back the tears.
"I don't know what to do," Bill said while I put my arms around his neck.

Bill and Ann Rawlings truly love each other. On my dozens of visits to their home they always expressed their gratitude for life and retold the story of how they met.

While I sat at their kitchen table with Ann's daughters as they planned her funeral, I looked into their beautiful dark eyes and saw pieces of their mother looking back at me . . . the way she laughed . . . the way she held her hands. And I realized Ann lives on in those she left behind.

I've heard it said that we die when we've learned what we came to learn or when we've taught what we came to teach. I think Ann did both.

At her funeral her children remembered her soft hands on their cheeks and her spagetti dinners. It seems as though it is the little things we do that turn out to be the big things.

As her grandchildren and great-grandchildren walked to the stand at the church to sing "I Am A Child of God" at her funeral I waited at the piano to accompany them. In each face I saw a look, a smile, a gesture of my friend and neighbor.

Snow fell yesterday - a soft benediction to Ann's life . . . so filled with gentleness and grace.

BYU Football Game Musings

I went to a BYU football game tonight. There's nothing like a crisp fall night, green grass, eager young men, the roar of the crowd . . . and then . . . the inevitable winning or losing.

Because I am a mother whose son played football I see the winning and losing part differently now. The know about all the time and effort that goes into being on a football team. I know about the long practices, the painful injuries, the competition for positions and the personal disappointment that follows losing an important game.

I remember telling my son after a heartbreaking loss, "Jacob, maybe it's not so much about winning or losing, but putting everything you have on the field so you can walk away knowing you gave it all you had."

"Yeah I know all that Mom, but it still hurts," Jacob answered.

Now when I go home from a game where my team didn't win, I think about all those young men who gave their best to an effort that didn't work out the way they planned.

Life has taught me that we all have good game days and bad game days, winning seasons and losing seasons - yet one thing I also know about life . . . it goes on. There is always a new day coming and many more seasons left to play.

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Each day I love to take a walk in my own back yard and contemplate what it means to be alive. Today I found our pitch fork standing alone in a garden that is now harvested and gone and a previously green tree suddenly filled with gold. I was reminded how quickly the seasons change - how brief each day, each life . . .


and in my mind came the words of Robert Frost . . .
Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Fall Break Adventures

This week-end we explored Goblin Valley - nature's wonderland. We spent hours hiking and exploring.



I think many of us are nature-starved. Our spirit longs for all things real - sand, sky, mountains and trees.

























Our children created their own fun at our camp site by building rock forts and whole cities in the coral pink sand. That night we slept next to magnificent red rock cliffs and studied the stars in the night sky.





On Friday we hiked the narrow slot canyon eight mile loop trail from Little Wild Horse Canyon to Bell's Canyon. Countless past years of wind and water have created unique sandstone beauty that has to be experienced first hand.

Autumn Days

My husband and I went on a four-wheeler ride up the left fork of Hobble Creek Canyon for our date on Friday night. This is a rough road with lots of large boulders in the path, streams to cross, steep grades and numerous rock slides. Yet there were moments when we would come around a bend in the road and there in full autumn splender was my private glimpse into heaven . . . deep green pines nestled in yellow quaking aspen with splashes of brilliant red maples. The golden glow of a late autumn day in the Rocky Mountains can literally take your breath away. When we arrived at the top of the ridge and looked back we could see the rugged mountains peaks frosted with white snow against the blue sky.

Our lives are also filled with large boulders in the path, streams to cross, steep grades and rock slides. But there are moments when we come around a bend in the road and there in full splender is God's love just waiting to give us our own private glimpse into heaven.

Longing for Home

My daughter Aubrey was doing some scholarly work at the British Museum. She asked me to meet her in London and accompany her for some site-seeing trips when she completed her research. My ancestors are from the British Isles and I had sometimes wondered if England was my true home. I’d often dreamed of visiting all the places I’d only read about – perhaps even living in a thatched roof cottage and writing novels like Dickens, Austen or Hardy. So this invitation was like a dream come true.
After a trans-Atlantic flight I found myself using quaint red telephone booths, riding the tube and visiting Westminster Abbey, Piccadilly Circus, London Bridge, Hyde Park, Trafalgar Square, the Tower of London, Greenwich, Kensington Palace, Stonehenge, Oxford and Cambridge. I’d studied British history and literature all my life and now I was really there where it all happened, breathing in the damp air and walking the misty mores. I was beginning to wonder why my ancestors left.
On the way back to the airport at the end of my vacation, I sat in a train next to a middle aged woman. She’d been to London to see an exhibit. She watched me as I stared wide-eyed out the window noticing every quaint row house or manicured rose garden.
“Oh, it’s so beautiful here,” I said. “There’s so much history every where you look, and it’s so green. Don’t you just love living here?”
The woman lowered her eyebrows and answered, “Oh my dear, everything is so old here - musty, rusted-out or broken. You can’t find a good man to repair anything - so you’re always in a pinch.”
Then she asked me where I lived. I told her my home was out west in the United States on two acres in Utah. She became animated and asked me several questions.
“Oh, I’ve always wanted to live in the States, especially in the West. Everything is so new there - wide open spaces and endless possibilities - sunshine almost every day.”
I realized she longed for what I had but couldn’t see what she had. I wondered if I was the same way. As I listened to her, I pictured my great-grandmothers and fathers standing on the docks waiting to board a huge ship bound for the colonies in America. Then I imagined other ancestors as they left behind their lush green gardens and farms in Nauvoo Illinois. My people gave up the easy life to find a place where they could live according to the dictates of their own conscience. Their lives would have been so much easier and safer if they had stayed, but they left . . . for me. I would not have the rich life I enjoy today without their courage. Now, at long last, I could finally appreciate their gift.
Later that day as I looked out the window of the airplane, I watched the great Rocky Mountain corridor come into view much like the castles or palaces I had just left behind. I was going home. I was not looking beyond the next hill or bend in the road any more. What I had was enough. Life was no longer greener on the other side of the world, only different.
If we never see what we already have, we never find our way home.

Studio 5 Interview

Finding Time for Your Kids: Daily Rituals That Really Matter

Most parents are searching for ways to spend more time with their children. The secret isn’t always finding more time but making the time parents and children already have together really count. Here are several daily rituals parents might consider adding to their normal routine.

* Create Memorable Mealtimes
Families who commit to eating at least one meal together soon discover the benefits that come from creating a golden family hour each day. This hour is time set aside exclusively for the family. It helps to set aside a specific time every day and eliminate as many distractions as possible by turning off the television, computer and telephones. Community, school, career and church activities are numerous and will encroach on family time if not carefully selected.

A golden hour might include:
Preparing a meal together
Saying a prayer
Eating together
Reading a chapter from a good book/talking about the day’s activities/singing a song
Doing the dishes together
Helping with homework/going for a walk/throwing a baseball/playing a board game.

* Make Homecomings and Departures a “Touching” Event
Everyone likes to be noticed, appreciated and loved. It only takes a few seconds for parents to make every homecoming and departure a little more warm and fuzzy for their children. Don’t hold back. Be warm and affectionate when your child leaves or come back home.
Parents can:
Kiss
Hug
Make a positive comment – “I believe in you!” “Make it a good day.” “I’m so glad you’re home!” “I missed you today.”
Wave from the window
Blow kisses
Smile
Say “I love you.”

* Utilize Transport Time
Most parents and children spend part of their day in their car going and coming from a multitude of activities like school, lessons and activities. Parents can put this time to better use by recognizing car time as a great time for positive personal parent/child interaction.
Parents can:
Turn off cell phones/radio/stereo
Be truly present
Talk
Listen - Sometimes children open up best when they aren’t looking straight at you
Create fun car games and a family goodbye honk
Invite one child at a time to accompany you on routine errands

* Establish Pleasurable Bed Time Routines
Bedtime routines can be painful and stressful if rushed or forced. It only takes a few extra minutes to have positive personal time with each child each night.
Parents can:
Stager bedtimes for each child so they have individual time and avoid interruptions
Read books
Tell original adventure tales starring the child
Take a few minutes to carefully tuck the child in bed
Ask: “What was one good thing that happened today?”
“What was one thing that was not so good?”
Sing a lullaby
Pray
Stroke the child’s forehead
Say I love you
Rub noses/kiss/hug

Children who have been loved know how to love. Daily loving rituals don’t take more time or money; they only require that parents re-order their lives so that they have unhurried time for the people who matter most.

Harvest Rewards

Like many of you, I've been harvesting an abundance of fruit and vegetables from my garden the past few months. While I dig my fingers in the rich brown earth to find deep orange carrots or firm red potatoes I think about the growing season and pause.

I used to think a "harvest" was the reward or what I would receive after all my hard work. Yet, life has taught me that the harvest is hard work too. Even an abundance has to be gathered in, washed, prepared or preserved. The work never ends. And that is the way I like it.

Maybe we're not suppose to anticipate or wait for an easy time. Maybe the reward is the ability to perform meaningful work. Perhaps planning, planting, nurturing and harvesting is an eternal circle not a vertical list. We're never done. Meaningful work creates the reward and is the the reward.

Acres of Roses

Once upon a time a bright and beautiful princess named Sandra was born to King Jordan and Queen Karen. She was an exceptionally imaginative child. Though her parents were unaware, Princess Sandra was born with the gift of music. She also had discerning eyes. When adults saw pestering insects and bugs, Sandra saw elves and fairies.
Every evening the king and queen would take little Sandy for a ride in a carriage in their manicured garden. When dragonflies flew past the carriage, the tiny princess watched with delight as a delicate creature with purple wings and a shimmering green body landed gently on her palm. Sandy smiled as the fairy preened in the sun and she laughed when the lovely winged creature flew away. The king and queen did not know the dragonfly was actually a fairy and shooed the horrible bug away.
Each day Princess Sandra grew and grew until one day she was old enough to go out into the garden alone. She spent many pleasant hours singing in the garden - playing with her fairy friends. She listened to the doves cooing in the trees and heard the buzz of insects in the grass. She dipped her toes in the pool of water and felt the sun warm her shoulders.
One day a black mole came to the garden and started chewing the roots to all the roses. One by one the rose bushes died for their roots had been eaten away. Princess Sandra was sad and frightened because her garden was slowly dying. She didn’t feel like singing any more.
She summoned her friends the fairies and asked for their help.
“I don’t know what to do,” Princess Sandra said. “The moles are eating the roots to all my roses. My garden is dying and I don’t know how to stop them.”
“Moles hate happy children,” the fairies said. “They try to destroy everything you have to sing about . . . but keep singing any way. Moles only have power when children stop singing. Singing sounds like horrible screeching to moles. Keep singing Princess Sandra. Your music will force the moles to leave.”
So each day after that Princess Sandra walked through her garden and sang a new and happy song. The moles had to pack their bags and leave because the princess would not stop singing.

Then Princess Sandra planted new roses – acres and acres of roses.


Happy Birthday Sandy. Your Grandma B. loves you very much!

Green Tomato Secrets

One year the tomatoes in our garden weren’t turning red. Someone told me to stomp on the vines because stressing the plant would cause the tomatoes to ripen. I tried it. To my surprise – this odd remedy worked. I’ve learned it works the same way with people; we need problems to help us mature. We can learn a lot from green tomatoes.
I live in a place where a killing frost often comes early in the growing season. If I don’t read the weather report, I may go to sleep with a thriving healthy garden one night and wake up to a frozen wasteland the next morning. So, I’ve learned to be watchful so I can gather in my harvest sooner rather than later if necessary. Most fruits and vegetables must ripen on the vine or tree but some can be harvested green and still mature if given enough time. That is why I prize tomatoes. When an early frost forecast forces me to pick my tomatoes while they are still green, I know they will ripen later on their own. Tomatoes are resilient and adaptable; they turn red and delicious on the garden vine or in a box in the garage. I want to be like that - able to nourish others even when things aren’t going as expected for me. I know a couple of people who understand this “green tomato” secret to happiness. Let me tell you about them.
One of my friends has faced more serious health problems than any one I know - yet she seldom complains. One day I asked her why.
“Everyone has something hard they’re dealing with,” she said. “Having problems is not unique. Why should I dwell on mine? And besides I want friends. I won’t have any friends if I’m always complaining.”
Another man I know has also learned this remedy to self pity. He realizes there is no easy time of life for any one.
“I take my troubles to God and my love to everyone else,” he said.
All of us have good days and bad days. Each of us has our share of challenges. Though we can’t control the daily weather, we can control whether we choose to uplift others or feel sorry for our self.
“Oh, to be your age again,” my elderly neighbor said when I was in my thirties.
At first her comment confused me. I’d recently been thinking about how easy her life was. I knew from personal experience that being my age was often difficult. I figured my neighbor had forgotten about all the problems I faced each day raising a large family. Old age seemed like a breeze from where I stood. Then I realized I had no idea what heartbreak or difficulties she was dealing with. I decided it was time for me to pause from self interest and truly love and care about my neighbor, to find ways to ease her loneliness, health issues or the ache of unfulfilled dreams.
Each season of life has difficulties and delights. Though there are times when a killing frost comes before we’re ready, green tomatoes remind us that we always have a choice. We can choose to ripen and mature whether we’re in a box in the garage or sunning ourselves under blue skies on the vine. We can choose to nourish others or feel sorry for our self. That is the choice that determines our ultimate destiny.

The Best Memories are Home-made

Sometimes we get the idea that family vacations have to include lots of money, travel or exotic places. I don’t think so. Let me tell you about my very favorite vacation this year. We had a family camp-out in our back yard.
Our family camp-out included tin-foil dinners made with vegetables from our own garden. The grandchildren picked apples and plums off our fruit trees. We had a camp –fire in the pines from trees we planted years ago when they were just two-inch starts. Our back acre was the perfect place for wagon rides. A trip to the Pioneer Cemetery gave us a chance to tell stories about our ancestors. We roasted marshmallows over the fire and had skits to keep up laughing. There was good conversation, good food and good fun. A club house, tent and a pop-up trailer bedded us down for the night. Under the stars you could hear grandparents, children and grandchildren whispering in the dark along with a chorus of crickets.
We don’t have to look far and wide for joy and fulfillment. The best memories are home-made . . . and a family who loves each other is heaven on earth.

Nursery Heroes

The other Sunday I watched a young father in our church group walk to the front of the chapel to bear his testimony. He was a bright smiling kind of a guy. During one part of his testimony he told the congregation he had accepted an assignment recently to be a nursery leader with his wife.
“I feel bad, like I don’t really do much to help my wife and the other lady in there,” he said. “They teach the kids lessons and sing songs and stuff like that. Mostly I just watch them doing everything.”
Boy did this guy have it wrong! You see I substituted in the nursery just two weeks before and I absolutely knew this young man was my personal nursery hero. Why?
Well to start with, everyone who has ever worked in the nursery with a large group of two-year-olds every Sunday knows there is always one particular child who is the designated . . . how do you put this nicely . . . bully. Sometimes the bully is a girl but usually it is a boy.
This is the child who waits to see what toy another child chooses to play with then dashes over and yanks it away or hits them over the head. This is also the child who finds the most frightened fellow nursery-mate then storms up to them and shoves them into the wall or metal chair. This is the child who eats everything he is not suppose to eat like play dough and boogers, drinks what he is not suppose to drink like bubble soap and glue and throws what he is not suppose to throw like red punch all over the carpet. He also likes to yell and scream a lot.
Well, I watched this young man with the apologetic testimony single-handedly save us all from the bully. In magnificent single bounds, he was able to intercept the bully before he struck again and again. I watched this young man swoop over large objects and scoop this child up in his arms many times over right before the little rascal did another unkindly deed. Not only that but I watched this male nursery worker magically distract the curly haired little bully into thinking he was playing a game with him or tossing balls. Nobody cried. Nobody got murdered. I witnessed no blood, melt-downs or screaming fits.
Why? This young man knew this child wasn’t a bully at all – he was just an average normal active bright little two-year-old boy who was still learning the social rules of his clan. He needed another male to see his awesomeness and keep him busy with boy stuff.

Nursery workers don’t think they are important. They are. These patient people give very young children their first impressions of what is feels like to be at church outside their parent’s arms. When these little tots open that door and wave good-bye to their parents for the first time, who will they find? Hopefully they find someone who responds to them just like this young man. For every nursery needs a hero . . . someone who relates to and appreciates the individual personality of each child and also super-humanly keeps them from killing each other for one more blessed Sabbath day.

Boy Scout Adventures

I've been imagining lately . . . what would happen to the scouting program if mothers were in charge? Why am I wondering about that? Well take the other night for example.
About 10:30 I was brushing my teeth in my pajamas.
Someone came into the bathroom behind me and said, "I just got the worst wound award at Scouts tonight."
Not exactly what you want to hear right before you crawl in bed. I took one look at my son's deep leg wound along with cuts and scratches all over his legs and arms and knew I had to get him medical help. My husband was still gone doing church stuff and my teenage daughter had all her friends over playing night games - running all over the yard and in and out of our bathroom. Just as John and I were getting in the van, Ross pulled up and came along for the ride.

John had to get fifteen stitches but that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was getting twenty-seven little shots to deaden the area all around the wound so they could do the stitches. We finally left the emergency room rubbing our eyes way after midnight.

It took a while to get the whole story out of my son but it went something like this . . . John went end over end on his bike on a mountain trail and crashed into a tree. His scout leaders didn't think it was anything to worry about and told him to get back on the bike and go faster. So he did and biffed it again. Then after fifteen miles of more of the same they all sat around the camp fire and roasted hot-dogs and marsh-mellows for another hour.

Finally they dropped John off at my house covered in dirt and blood then sped off.

Now . . . if mothers were in charge . . .

Follow the Leader

Most of us pay attention to what we see, hear, taste, smell and touch. There is another sense most adults have forgotten . . . our sense of wonder. We notice the form of an object we’re looking at but neglect to observe the shapes, colors and shadows around the form that create the space the form makes. We hear the notes of music being played but neglect to listen for the spaces between the notes – the lingering resonance or the silences that makes the melody unique.

Children, on the other hand, live in the spaces between the notes. They do not experience the world the way we do. They see the world upside down and inside out. They feel things with their soul not just their fingers. Every sight, sound, touch and smell awakens a new dance with their senses. They display a sense of amazement and delight at common experiences like taking a bath, licking a peppermint sucker, stroking a kitten, or skipping to school. They haven’t yet learned what deserves careful attention and what to ignore through repetition – so they pay careful heed to everything. They display a sense of curiosity at fingers and toes, doorbells and frost lace. They see the ant on the sidewalk, hear the rushing wind in the pines, smell the lilacs before they bloom and feel the tickle in their tummies.

Life for children is a musical dance. The world they crawl or run through is only anchored with a nebulous staff. The air they fly through arches past the lines and spaces. They listen closely to the intricacies of sound – the cadences and inflections of expression or the intonation, tone and pitch before they learn to express intelligible language. They mimic the phrasing of voice before they experiment with the specific sounds of words.
Even adults intrinsically sense a child’s internal music as we feel drawn to rock or sway our babies. Singing a lullaby is a universal response to calm a fussy child. Children return us to the music of living – the rhythm of time’s movement. When we hold our children with love we soon match each other’s breathing and heart rates forming a soothing duet of one.

Children have not yet learned the theory of major and minor chords or mastered the placement of sharps or flats. Yet they know the pure melody of love. They wrap their entire beings around our hearts and bring us back to wonder and awe. As they delight in rocks, sticks and mud in our back yard, they teach us to see again. As they notice details like earlobes and icicles, we re-experience the wonder of our own lives. As they rush to rescue wounded birds we learn to feel again with gentler hearts. As they are overcome with fear, we re-experience the majesty and awe of thunderstorms and lightening.

There is a pattern to living, a tempo, time and beat. Children hear their own cadence. If we want to keep pace we need to look ahead to where they are going and follow. Like the first, second and third movements of a symphony, we can return to where we began if we allow a child to lead us. In the stillness of the night we will hear the melody we once knew. If we listen with our hearts, a child’s song of innocence will take us back to where we began.