I've Done the Work

Only once, in the fourteen years I have been dealing with cancer and its associated ills, have I wished and prayed to die. I had been very sick for months, and none of the doctors I had seen could tell me what was wrong with me.¹

One day, a friend stopped by to check on me and found me nearly debilitated and in great pain. She felt that I should see a neurologist immediately, and somehow managed to get me to her car.

The ride was excruciating. I curled up in a ball in the back seat of the car in agony. Every bump on the road, every beam of light through the windows brought on a fresh wave of pain and nausea.  I felt that anything would be better than what I was experiencing, and I cried out in my heart to God, “Please take me, Father, please let me leave this body, please, please, let me come home!”

Obviously, my prayer was not answered. That was not the Lord's plan for me. And now I'm very glad that I did not get the rather selfish desire of my heart.

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This week, we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It is a wondrous event to honor and a beautiful thing to ponder.

It is not unusual at this time of year to read or hear a statement like this: “Christ was half-mortal and half-immortal. He didn't have to die. He willingly gave His life for us.” And of course, that's true.

But I believe that when we think this way, we might miss an important point: Christ, because of the immortality He inherited from His Father, could have chosen to die at any point along the tortuous path from Gethsemane to Calgary – or any time before. It is the fact that He chose to live as long as He did that makes for a more meaningful celebration. I suspect that dying was the easiest thing he ever did – and the option dangled alluringly before Him through some very rough territory. His suffering in the Garden was profoundly and infinitely agonizing – so much so that it astounded Him, and made Him recoil. But he held on.

And he was withdrawn from them about a stone's cast, and kneeled down, and prayed,
Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done. And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground. (Luke 22:41 – 44)

But if they would not repent they must suffer even as I; Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit—and would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink— Nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook and finished my preparations unto the children of men. (D&C 19:17 - 19)

Weakened and fatigued after His suffering there, the soldiers added to His agony:

Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the common hall, and gathered unto him the whole band of soldiers.
And they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe.
And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head, and a reed in his right hand: and they bowed the knee before him, and mocked him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews! And they spit upon him, and took the reed, and smote him on the head.
(Matthew 27:27 - 30)

And the world, because of their iniquity, shall judge him to be a thing of naught; wherefore they scourge him, and he suffereth it; and they smite him, and he suffereth it.  Yea, they spit upon him, and he suffereth it, because of his loving kindness and his long-suffering towards the children of men. (1 Nephi 19:9)

And they that passed by railed on him, wagging their heads, and saying, Ah, thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, Save thyself, and come down from the cross. Likewise also the chief priests mocking said among themselves with the scribes, He saved others; himself he cannot save. (Mark 15:29 - 31)

Certainly He could have saved Himself. But He did not. He knew His mission on this earth was not yet complete.

After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst. Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar: and they filled a sponge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to his mouth. When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost. (John 19:28 – 30)

“It is Finished.”

“I did the work thou gavest me. Receive my Spirit unto Thee.” ²

As we appropriately celebrate his glorious resurrection, may we also remember the horrors of His final hours, and that it was His love for His Heavenly Father, and for all of us, that kept Him on the job until He knew He was finished.

Although my mortal pain and burdens cannot be compared to His, I only hope that I can have a small portion of His faith and courage – to hold on until I can humbly say, "I’ve done the work thou gavest me; Receive my spirit unto thee.”

This is my message of hope, for Easter and for every other day.

¹ Several months later I learned the cause of these symptoms: my cancer had metastasized and formed a tumor in my brain. 

² "Behold the Great Redeemer Die," Hymns of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 191. Text: Eliza R. Snow, Music: George Careless. See also the beautiful hymn "Reverently and Meekly Now," Hymns, 185

To read other posts about Easter, click here or here.

 This video, from the LDS.org website, presents a moving depiction of the Savior's suffering.

Beautiful Day in the Chemo-hood

If you have read my Halloween post from last year, you know that for the past five Octobers, I have been showing up for my weekly treatment at the Cache Valley Cancer Center in costume.

This year was no exception.

Mr. Fred Rogers has been mimicked, mocked, and parodied many times by many people for many years. I planned my costume not as a satire, but as a tribute.

I have always felt great affection for Mr. Rogers. He spoke kindly to me, told me I was special, and didn't seem to mind when I sang along with him. He said "I like you just the way you are" ─ a message I needed then ─ and which, come to think of it, perhaps this old world could really benefit from today.

He worked to make sure that there was a safe place in television for children. He wanted children to have a place where their feelings were okay. He showed us that people who don't look or talk or walk just like us can be our friends.

He showed us, in words and action, what it means to be a friend.

♥   ♥   ♥   ♥   ♥   ♥   ♥   ♥   ♥   ♥   ♥   ♥   ♥  

In the book of Luke, Jesus taught the importance of loving our neighbors.

And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?
He said unto him, What is written in the law?  how readest thou?
And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.
And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.
But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour?  (Luke 10:25 - 29)

And then He told the story of the Good Samaritan to redefine what a neighbor is: one who shows mercy and compassion to another ─ regardless of geography. 

Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves? 

And he said, He that shewed mercy on him.  

Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.

Mr. Rogers walked in the door every morning for 31 years and sang a happy song while he put on his sweater and changed his shoes. Than he looked the world in the eye and said, "Hello, neighbor."

That's why I put on my costume and performed his songs at the cancer center. I did it quite poorly, but I made some people laugh and smile, and perhaps eased a burden or two. Maybe, for a minute. I was almost as good a neighbor as he was.

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Some of my fellow Chemo-weeners:

Tina the Terrible

The Incredible Hulk. Don't make him mad!
(He's actually the Incredibly Nice Hulk)

A couple of very Good Witches

It's a beautiful day in this Chemo-hood,

A beautiful day to do Chemo,

Would you do mine?

Could you start my line?

It's a neighborly day in this Cancer place,

You probably think I should not show my face –

But, I'm feeling fine, most of the time –

That's why I'm here, for Chemo.

I have always wanted to have a tumor, just like you,

I've always wanted to get my treatment here, with you.

So let's make the most of this Cancerful thing,

Since we're in treatment, we might as well sing:

Would you do mine? Hey, run my line?

Won't you start my Chemo?

Won't you please, Won't you please, Please won't you start my chemo?

It's such a good feeling

To know you're alive -

It's such a happy feeling; we're gonna survive,

And when you wake up ready to say -

I'm gonna fight some cancer today!

It's such a good feeling,

A very good feeling,

A feeling you know you're alive.

There are many articles and essays about Mr. Roger online. Here's one I liked:
http://www.avclub.com/article/is-imister-rogers-neighborhoodi-the-greatest-telev-91882

Reprieve

I can’t say I wasn’t warned.

When my sister returned my dish, it still held about a third of the apple crisp I had taken to a family party. “But don’t eat it,” she said. “It’s been sitting in my car for days.”

After she left, I considered the leftover crisp thoughtfully. It looked good to me. There was no sign of mold or other spoilage. It smelled good, too. I put it in the microwave until it was smoking hot, thinking that should kill any bacteria that might be there. And when it had cooled down a bit, I dug in.

I was right about one thing – it still tasted good. But I was wrong about it being safe to eat. Within a few hours, I was experiencing debilitating abdominal pain. I spent most of the rest of the day curled up in agony in the bathroom, vomiting every 15 minutes or so.

I kept telling myself that this couldn’t continue much longer; that surely before long, I would have expelled (from one end or the other) the noxious stuff. But as the hours passed. I began to worry. It was the first Wednesday in December, and I was in charge of the Relief Society meeting that would be held that evening. None of the members of the Relief Society presidency were going to be there. I had planned the meeting alone, and I was the only person who knew what should happen. I felt (perhaps incorrectly) that if I didn’t show up, there would be no Relief Society Christmas Meeting. I began to pray more fervently for the Lord to heal me. But my agony of sickness continued.

Twenty minutes before the meeting was scheduled to start, I suddenly felt better. I changed my clothes, gathered my materials, and drove to the church. I knew I had been miraculously healed, and I was grateful.

The meeting was wonderful. I arranged the chairs in the Relief Society room into a half-circle, so the sisters could easily see and hear each other. We began the meeting with a prayer, and then I invited each of the women to share a favorite Christmas memory.

Each sister in turn shared a story, and the Spirit of God grew stronger every minute. I looked around and was struck by how beautiful everyone was. I believe that everyone there was very moved. 

When everyone had shared an experience, I passed out the words to a little-known Christmas song I had come across in my preparations for the meeting. Although none of the women had ever heard the song, I assured them that they could sing it, because it had the same tune as a familiar hymn, In Humility, Our Savior. I loved the idea that this song about the Savior’s birth would parallel a song we usually sang before the Sacrament was given. I struggled with sweet, deep emotions as we sang these words together:

Come, Thou long expected Jesus,

Born to set Thy people free;

From our fears and sins release us,

Let us find our rest in Thee.

Israel’s Strength and Consolation,

Hope of all the earth Thou art;

Dear Desire of every nation,

 Joy of every longing heart.

Born Thy people to deliver, 

Born a child and yet a King

Born to reign in us forever,

Now Thy gracious kingdom bring.

By Thine own eternal Spirit

Rule in all our hearts alone;

By Thine all sufficient merit,

Raise us to Thy glorious throne.

We enjoyed some light refreshments, and the meeting ended. I cleaned up a little before I headed for home. How wonderful that I had not felt at all sick during the meeting!

As soon as stepped into my house, I felt awful. I ran to the bathroom, and stayed much of the night, filling the toilet again and again.

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Next story – five + years later:

No one seemed to know what was wrong with me. I had been dragged to every doctor we could think of, and had received every test those doctors could think of. But nothing explained why I had suddenly lost forty pounds, become unable to walk straight, and was so tired and weak that I was essentially bedridden for three months.

During this time, my daughter Elisabeth turned eight, and her baptism was scheduled for a few weeks later. I hoped I would feel well by then.

I didn’t. The night before her baptism, I cried out to my Heavenly Father, telling Him how important it was to me to see Elisabeth baptized. I was determined to attend, even if I had to be carried in on a stretcher. But I hoped and prayed for better than that.

The next morning, I woke up and tentatively tried to get out of bed. I did it! I felt okay!

I showered, dressed, and went with my family to the Stake Center. I helped Elisabeth change into her baptismal clothing and joyfully watched my husband baptize her. I helped her get dried off and dressed in her cute new dress. I beamed as I saw her confirmed.  And then I went home and served lunch to the out-of-town relatives who had come for the event.

There was no question that my prayers had been answered. I felt great. I knew I had been the beneficiary of a Divine healing.

The next morning, I could not eat or get out of bed. A few weeks later, we finally learned why – I had a small cancerous brain tumor.

I’ve been thinking about these two events in my life. There are, I suppose, a number of lessons there. But this is the one that has been most prominent in my mind: God can heal me. He can heal me for an hour, or for a day. I believe He can heal me, can make me well, for a week, or for a month, or for the rest of my life. Why then, why doesn’t He?

I don’t have the full answer to that question. I do know this: He lives. I am His daughter. He knows my name; He knows my strengths; He knows my weaknesses. He wants the very best for me. He loves me with a perfect Father’s love.

I also know this: I have been richly blessed throughout my life, far beyond anything I could ever earn or deserve.

So, no, I don’t have all the answers. But I guess I’m starting to realize that I do have some of them. And maybe that’s enough for now.

Another Look at Motherhood

Eight years ago, a local grocery store held a Mother's Day essay contest. I wrote a short essay and entered it in the contest. I'm pretty sure I was the only one to enter. (I'm not being self-deprecating here. I really think I was the only one. They also did a Mother's Day coloring contest, and that got a lot of entries. But essays, not so much).

Anyway, I won the first prize, which was – get this –  a free haircut. Yep, that's the headline: "Bald Woman Wins Haircut!" Hooray!

Here's the essay. Happy Mother's Day to all. 

When I was a little girl, I looked to the future and saw all the things I might be.  I wanted to be a princess, or a movie star. At the very least, I thought I would grow up to be Barbie. Later, I wanted to be an artist or a writer. I also thought I would be a good advertising executive, even though all I knew about the job was what I’d learned by watching reruns of Bewitched.

What did happen was that I grew up, went to college, got married and started putting my husband through school.  Before long, I had a baby, then another, and another, and before I knew it, I was the mother of seven young children. I loved my children, but I wondered, Is this all there is for me?  I had wanted so much more. I dreamed of the day when my children would be older, when I could do and be some of the things I wanted.

Then one day I got some startling news – I had an aggressive cancer.  Suddenly, the question was not how long I would have children at home but how long they would have me. Facing the fact that I really might not live long made everything that had once been ordinary seem like magic – a drawing from my four-year-old, listening to my daughter practice the violin, a two-year-old’s sticky kisses, the sound of laughter from a over-crowded trampoline. All the things that I had wanted to do, things that had seemed so exciting and important, were now overshadowed by what I finally knew I wanted more than anything else – to be the mother of these children, and if I were fortunate enough, the grandmother of these children’s children.

Armed with a new long-term goal – “I want to live long enough to be the world’s best grandmother” – I began my battle against cancer. My fight is not over, and may not be finished for a long time. But right now, it looks like I might be winning.

Living with cancer has taught me something I should have already known – that life is a precious commodity. There is never enough of it for all we want. I have not completely given up my dreams of doing some of the exciting things I have always wanted to do. (I have given up on ever being Barbie.)  But if time runs out before I do any of those other things, I will know that I have been more, and done more, than I ever thought I would. I have been a mother. I would not ask for more.

Just off the Top of My Head . . .

I'll be starting this post with a trip though time! 

Get ready for:

"A Brief History of My Hair"

This is me: Baby with a fauxhawk.

This appears to be from my Cindy Brady period.

Well, you see, it was the 70s, and ... 

Ladies and Gentlemen, we're going to be entering the 1980s here, you're going to want to buckle up . . .

 (I don't know what I was thinking. Maybe I thought I could be Farrah. Or maybe one of the other Charlie's Angels.)

There's really no excuse for this mullet. Sorry.

Welcome to the 90s! You'll need a blow dryer, a round brush, and a lot of hairspray . . . 


This picture was taken the day before I started chemotherapy.

This picture was taken about a month after I started chemotherapy.

I'll let this picture speak for itself.        

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Because I have had little or no hair for much of the past decade, I have a lot of hats. I mean, really, a whole lot of hats. Most of them were given to me by really great people. A few of them I have bought for myself.

And because I am not an especially neat and organized person (yes, yes, gasps of surprise), I have had hats all over the house. I rarely could find the one I wanted, and when I did it was dusty. Or crinkled. Or had visible food stains.

So I decided to do something about it. I bought a cheap piece of "wood" (Medium Density Fiberboard) from the hardware store, but when I saw the price of knobs, I backed off. The project was officially on the back burner.

But just a few days later – thrift store to the rescue! I got a big bin of knobs – brand new, super cheap – and split it with my friend Arrin.

 The knobs were nice, but I decided to paint them to match my bathroom better. One 97-cent can of satin black spray paint later, and I was on the job.



My son Adam drilled the holes (under supervision) and the whole thing turned out great.

It holds 19 hats and they are easy to get to.

Now, what should I do with the other 67 hats?

And a Little Child Shall Lead Them

I was sitting in a chair in the children’s section of our small local library. It was very quiet there, even by library standards. There didn’t seem to be any other visitors, and I didn’t plan to stay there long – I was just waiting for the mechanic whose shop was next door to finish inspecting my daughter’s car. I had randomly chosen a book from a nearby shelf and was looking through it without much interest.

I looked up when I heard voices. A women had entered the library with a baby in her arms and two young children at her feet. They were heading toward the children’s section where I sat. The woman began looking through the shelves, with the baby still in her arms and a toddler sitting on the floor beside her.

But the oldest of the children, six years old, was more interested in me. While adults usually try to take to surreptitious peeks at my contorted face and bald head, children are more obvious about their curiosity. This little girl was no exception. She stared at me for a minute, then began to skip and dance in a circle around my chair. When she finished a round and came back to my face, she stopped and stared again for a while, then returned to her joyful dance. After the fourth loop, I decided to start a conversation.

“I’m funny-looking, aren’t I?”

She nodded solemnly.

“Are you wondering why I look different?”

Another nod.

I explained to her that a few years earlier I had learned that something was growing inside my head; something that wasn’t supposed to be there. When the doctor took it out, it made the right side of my face paralyzed, so I couldn’t make it move. I demonstrated my paralysis by making the funny faces that always result from my attempts to move both sides of my face, The little girl gave me an understanding nod and went back to dancing around my chair.

After a few rounds, she stopped in front of me and said, “It’s okay. Some people are different. My Mom is different than my Dad.”

A another round of dancing and she was back to talk to me. “Anyway,” she said, “What you look like on the outside doesn’t matter. It’s what you are on the inside that counts.”

Before she could return to her dancing, her mother called her and said it was time to leave. She moved toward her mother and the door, but soon turned around and ran back to me. “Will I see you again?” she asked. Her voice was hopeful.

“I think you will,” I said. “I hope you will.”

With my niece Mia

We come into the world with no ideas about judgment. If I walked in to the Sunbeams class and asked the 3- and 4-year-old children, “How many of you can draw? How many of you can sing? How many of you can dance?” I’d see hands waving eagerly, and hear sweet little voices saying “Oh, I can! I can!” I could ask “How many of you are smart? How many of you are beautiful? How many of you know that Heavenly Father loves you?” and I’d hear eager voices saying “Me, Me, Me!”

But suppose I asked the same questions to the adults in Relief Society, or in Priesthood meeting. I think I’d get a very different response.

With my son Adam

The world is too much with us, the poets say. And I believe it’s often true. The world tells us, as we begin to grow up, that we aren’t thin enough, not good-looking enough, aren’t talented enough – just not good enough.

The world tells us that money and power are all-important, that it’s foolish and naive to believe in a God we can’t see. The world tries to drag us down. But the Savior lived and died to lift us up.

That is why Christ told us to become as a little child. He wants us to shake off the lies of the world and believe the truth. He wants us to be generous-hearted, not puffed up with pride or depressive thoughts. He asks us to accept His great offering, and return to the purity we were born with.

We all know what we should do. But sometimes we forget. Maybe, every once in a while, we should stop and let a little child lead us.

 . . . and a little child shall lead them (Isaiah 11:6)

Asleep in the Car

We were getting ready to leave for a little family day-trip when the phone rang. I answered it and found it was our bishop, calling to give us some bad news – my neighbor Alice had been in a car accident. She was only slightly injured, but her husband had been killed.

I said, “No, no.” I said it quite politely, yet firmly. It wasn't, I think, so much a denial as a rejection of the news: “No, no, thank you, I don’t want that. I don’t want it, and I won’t take it –” as if by refusing the news, I could make it not true.

I dropped the phone and began to cry. Alice had been there for me during the worst of my cancer treatment, and we had become close friends. It was horrible for me to think about how devastating this was for her. 

And then I had to load up my kids and our things, get in the van, and head south, trying to provide my kids with a fun weekend, just as Alice and her husband had done 18 hours earlier.

How do we ever do it? I wondered. How do we drive our cars, and go on hikes, and eat the food, and drink the water, knowing that anything we do can kill us? How can stand to live and love and have children and husbands and friends when everything can change in an instant and it hurts so much to care?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

That afternoon we stopped in Salt Lake to go to the Joseph Smith exhibit at the Church History Museum. The two youngest children had fallen asleep in the van on the way, and did not want to be awakened to go to a museum. We eventually got one of them to come with us willingly, but the other was too tired to behave rationally. We had to drag her out of the van screaming and crying. We tried to talk to her, but she wasn't listening. She kept running back to the car. We knew we couldn't leave her there, but she wouldn't cooperate so I picked her up and carried her down the street. She fought and cried so I had to put her down, but I took her hand and pulled her along. She kept screaming, “Let me go!  I don’t want to go!” the whole way as we walked from where we had parked to the museum. I felt terribly mean, but I didn't know what else to do.

When we got there I took her into the restroom and tried to calm her down. She continued to yell. I finally managed to ask her why she didn't want to come to the museum and she screamed, “Because I've been here before, and I don’t want to go again!” I told her that we had never been there, but she insisted that she had.

I had heard there was a fun children’s area upstairs, so we all headed that way. I was holding her by the wrist and pulling her the whole way up the escalators. When we got there, the other kids got excited at all the things there were to do and see, and they scattered around playing. My reluctant daughter continued to cry and struggle for a minute, but at last she began to look around and see what her siblings were doing. Suddenly she wanted to play, too. She ran off, smiling happily. As it turned out, she loved the museum and was very happy there.

As I was putting her to bed that night, I asked her about the way she had acted. She said she was fighting me because she didn't know where we were going and what it would be like. She said she didn't know there would be so many good things there.

“You understand, don’t you, why I had to drag you there?” I asked. “You know I couldn't leave you at the car. It seemed like I was being mean, but to leave you standing by the car on the street in a big city would be really awful. So making you go was the nice thing to do.”

“Or the other nice thing would be if we just didn't go at all,” she suggested.

“But then you wouldn't have had all the fun you had there,” I said.

“But I wouldn't know about it,” she answered.

Eventually, she agreed that making her go to the museum was the best choice.  She recognized that her misery was relatively short-lived, and said she was glad we had dragged her there.

That night I wrote in my journal: 

All day, I've been asking myself how the Lord could require this thing of Alice. But thinking about the incident at the museum, I might have my answer. I didn't want cancer, either, and although I didn't kick and scream (much), I did a fair amount of whining. But I really didn't know about the good things that I would discover. Maybe I would have been content to “stay in the car asleep,” not knowing what I had missed. There are times when sleeping in the car is nice: is just what we need. But to get to the end of the trip and feel that we hadn't done anything at all would be very sad. It takes faith to realize that God is waking us up to go somewhere that is the kindest choice, even if we are tired, or it seems awful, or we are sure we've already been there.

Best wishes to you all as you step out of the car.

Seeing Anyone New Lately?

One of the souvenirs I picked up on my journey through Cancerland (motto: “Maybe Not Quite the Happiest Place on Earth”) was a significant loss of vision. I visited several eye specialists, but none could tell me why my eyesight was so poor and why it seemed to be getting steadily worse. They could not prescribe glasses strong enough to help me see.

Finally, I was referred to an eye doctor who had more specialized equipment and knowledge about my type of vision loss. He took pictures of the inside of my eye and saw that my eye tissue was very swollen. This had apparently been caused by the whole-head radiation I had received three years earlier.

So I started getting monthly steroid shots to my eye,* and this reduced the swelling a little. But my vision was still bad – I couldn’t read normal-sized text, even with the strongest reading glasses I could buy at my reading-glasses-store-of-choice,** and I was unable to drive, which often made things complicated for my kids and put a lot of pressure on my husband.

It was time to consider cataract surgery. I was a little apprehensive about it at first. But I'd heard that the technology for cataract surgery had made amazing advances and that the procedure was safe, effective, and relatively painless. I knew I had an experienced and competent doctor. Also, by at this point, I was somewhat accustomed to having sharp objects skewering my eye.

So last month, I had cataract surgery on my left eye. It went well. I was in the hospital for only a few hours, and felt no real pain. The most inconvenient part of the procedure was the recovery at home. My left eye was bandaged, and my right eye is badly scarred, so I was essentially blind. The doctor told me that for 24 hours after the surgery, I would need a responsible adult with me all the time, which raised a problem because frankly, I don’t know any responsible adults (with the possible exception of my husband, and he had to go to work.)***

Because my right inner ear was severely damaged by surgery five years ago, my sense of balance is dependent on my eyesight. So my activity was very limited – I couldn’t walk, or read, or do crosswords, or watch TV, or use the computer. I was mostly stuck in bed, and although I was comfortable, I was extremely bored. I am a very easily bored person, and this type of imposed boredom is particularly excruciating for me. I had thought it was terrible to be confined to my sickbed during my chemotherapy treatments, but at least I had constant nausea and occasional vomiting to distract me from the tedium.

At last I was able to remove the bandage. Everything was blurry at first, which was normal, I learned, but my eyesight improved dramatically over the next week. The first two things I discovered
with my new vision were:

    - Whoa, I really look bad. I mean really bad. Much worse than I thought.

    - My house is very dirty. It wasn’t the clutter that surprised me – I could see well enough before the surgery to recognize a problem if there were, say, a basketball in the bathroom sink or a full-grown hedgehog on my kitchen counter. But the dust and the grime and the cobwebs had been invisible to me. If it's true that cleanliness is next to Godliness, we've been living in sin.

But then I started to notice other things I had forgotten: How beautiful my children are – what a startling shade of blue my husband’s eyes are – the beauty of the trees and the grass and the sky. And now I can read, an activity that I deeply missed.

Before the cataract surgery, and during the recovery, I often found myself wishing that someone would just spit in the dirt and put the mud on my eyes to cure my poor vision, the way Christ did for the man born blind, as told in the ninth chapter of the Gospel of John:


And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. Jesus [said], I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, and said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam. He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.

Then again called they [the Pharisees] the man that was blind, and said unto him, Give God the praise: we know that this man is a sinner. He answered and said, Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not: one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.

It seemed to me, at first glance, that this man received his vision the easy way – no looking for a spot in the hospital parking lot, no health questionnaires, no insurance co-pay. Why don’t things like that happen anymore?

But I’ve begun to realize now the immaturity of that way of thinking. What am I asking for, anyway, when I say I want a divine healing? Just because I didn't literally see God's hand in this doesn't mean it wasn't there. Looking back, I can clearly see that I did receive divine help – I was led to the right doctor, my surgery was successful, and I have had a smooth recovery.

On this day, when we gather to honor the life and marvel at the death and resurrection of Him who made lame men walk and blind men see, I add my testimony that He lives, that He loves us, that He heals our bodies, and our souls, still today. It is through His miraculous resurrection that my full vision will be restored to me someday, as will my lost hearing, teeth, hair, facial movement: indeed, a new body; a new life.

"I say unto thee, my son, that the plan of restoration is requisite with the justice of God; for it is requisite that all things should be restored to their proper order. Behold, it is requisite and just, according to the power and resurrection of Christ, that the soul of man should be restored to its body, and that every part of the body should be restored to itself." (Book of Mormon, Alma 41:2) 

Happy Easter.


*That’s right, actual shots to my actual eye. You can probably remember saying, when you were a child, “Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.” But you never thought anyone would ever really do it.  
**Dollar Tree
***We settled on my 18-year-old son, Danny, who had the day off from school, and he proved to be passably responsible. 

Cheering Words

I was curled up in bed when my husband Wes came home from work. He brought me a hurriedly-made plate of dinner and then picked up his keys.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“To Joseph’s baseball game. It’s his last one.”

His last game of the season. I hadn’t gone to any of them. Surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from my head, along with subsequent brain radiation and chemotherapy, had left me very weak, partially paralyzed, and somewhat confused about things. I was almost totally bedridden.

So my husband was surprised when I blurted out, “I want to go.”

“Really? Are you sure you can do it?”

I nodded, although I was not at all sure. I only felt that I should go. It might be my last chance to see Joseph play. Ever.

Wes helped me change into clean clothes and get out of bed. He supported me as I slowly walked to the car and he helped me get in. The baseball field was not far away, but it seemed to me like we were traveling to another planet.

I walked from the car toward the field, leaning on Wes all the way. A neighbor had given Joseph a ride to the game, which was more than half over when we got there. The bleachers were filled with parents, grandparents and siblings. I didn’t recognize anyone there. I thought I heard a murmuring run through the spectators as I neared, and although the bleachers were full, the crowd seemed to part as I approached. I knew I looked terrible, and I felt self-conscious as I half-crawled into an empty spot.

I looked out at the field, where ten-year-old boys like my son were dressed in their colorful uniforms. I didn’t recognize any of them, not even Joseph.

I struggled to keep my head upright and my eyes open. Suddenly, Wes nudged me. “Joseph’s up next,” he said.

I straightened up and squinted in the direction of the field. I spotted Joseph, his red hair gleaming in the setting sun. As he moved toward the plate, the crowd of people around me began to stir. It seemed like everyone was making noise now, shouting, “Go, Joseph!” and “You can do it, Joseph!” and “All right, Joseph!”

I was confused. Why was everyone cheering so loudly for Joseph? He was smaller than many of the boys, and not particularly athletically gifted. I had wondered why he even wanted to play. And now he was getting cheered on as if he were the star of the team.

The bleachers were filled with sound as Joseph picked up the bat. “Go, Joseph, go! You can do it Joseph!” I heard one voice, just behind me, call out, “Hit that ball, Joseph!” Then the voice dropped to a near-whisper as it went on, “Your mother’s here.”

And that’s when I understood. In our small town, I suppose almost everyone had heard about my health problems. The people in the bleachers hadn’t known what to say to me, but they found a way to communicate their sympathy, encouragement, and support as they cheered for a scrawny 10-year-old, clumsily swinging his bat. They weren’t cheering for Joseph, not really. They were cheering for me. 

I don’t remember whether Joseph got a hit in that game, or what the final score was. But I can still hear the sounds of cheering and the quiet words of compassion: Joseph, your mother’s here.