Three Lessons I Learned From My Appliances

When Wes and I got married, my maternal grandmother gave us her old microwave oven. It was a small black cube from the early eighties, not quite large enough to put a dinner plate in it. It had no buttons. To use it, you pulled the door handle to open it, put your food inside, pushed the door closed, and turned a plastic dial to start it.

Then you could leave the room to do something else, because it wasn't a powerful piece of equipment, and you had some time to kill.

We used that little microwave for thirteen years, until we moved into our current home and decided to get a new one.

Our new microwave was dazzling in comparison.

Disclaimer: These pictures are for illustration purposes only,
 and they may not actually reflect reality. (I have never in my life cooked that many carrots.)

Among its many stunning features, this microwave had a “30 seconds” button. We wondered what use that could possibly be. It didn't take us long to find out. This microwave could indeed make things warm in just half a minute. With a whole minute we could really heat things up. I thought about my paternal grandmother, who never owned a microwave. She was a widow for the last 25 years of her long life, and when she cooked, she froze her leftovers in little tin pie pans. Later, she would take a serving out and warm it in the oven for about an hour. I wondered what she would think of an appliance that could do the same job in two or three minutes.¹

I was used to doing other work while warming leftovers or cooking a frozen burrito, but since this one was so fast, it didn't seem worth it start something.

I was wrong. Thirty to sixty seconds is more time than it might seem to be. There are many things you can do in one minute or less. Here are a few ideas:

     Wipe crumbs off the countertop
     Put a few things back in the refrigerator (or wherever they should be)
     Do a little stretching
     Clean a light switch or two
     Read the scripture you have stuck on the refrigerator
     Make a phone call you've been putting off
     Pet the dog
     Declutter a drawer

I'm not saying that every second of your life should stuffed full with productive work. I am just reminding you that you might have more time than you think you have. Life is made of a lot of little minutes, and if you you use those well, you might not miss out on the big minutes. You wouldn't want to miss a magical moment, and those moments usually cannot be predicted.

              ✯        ✯        ✯        ✯        ✯        ✯      ✯  

I have written before about my wonderful washer and dryer.² I really do love them. But the washing machine has a quirk I find bothersome.

It has a digital display that shows how much time is left before the load is done. A very nice feature, I thought.

But it's not very accurate. I have sometimes looked at the display to see that it has 12 minutes left until the load is done, then I come back seven minutes later to see that is says 10 minutes left.

Okay, I admit this isn't a huge problem. When I mentioned my annoyance to my husband, he said “Well, it doesn't know how much longer it will take.”

“Yes it does!” I said. “Or it should! But if it really doesn't know, it shouldn't say it does!”

I have learned to live with this issue. But the lesson is important: Don't lie to anyone ─ especially your kids ─ even about seemingly little things. Don't make up an answer or guess if you don't know. Your children (or friends or co-workers) won't lose their faith in you if admit to your non-omniscience, and they very well might enjoy finding the answer with you. But there are things we just don't know. That's what faith is about.

But I have commanded you to bring up your children in light and truth. (D&C 93:40)

I have long admired the parenting wisdom of Dr. William Sears:

"One of the best ways for teaching honesty to kids is to create a truthful home. Just as you sense when your child is lying, children will often read their parents’ untruths. If your child sees your life littered with little white lies, he learns that this is an acceptable way to avoid consequences. Don’t tell your child something is “gone” when it really isn’t just to make it easier for you to say he can’t have anymore. Sharp little eyes often see all and you haven’t fooled your child at all. You’ve just lied to him, and he’ll know that, since he knows you so well. Just say “no more now” and expect your child to accept that."

I like to trust everyone, but it doesn't take more than a couple of lies for me to stop believing in a person. Untruths are so often revealed. It's just not worth it. As Walter Scott said, "Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.”

              ✯        ✯        ✯        ✯        ✯        ✯      ✯  

I am very grateful to have a working dishwasher. Our dishwasher, like many, I suppose, has a “Clean Light”─ a light that comes on when the dishes are clean. I have felt some small satisfaction seeing that message after a long day of cleaning. But as soon you open the dishwasher door, the light goes off.

This seemed to me very much like many of my weekdays. I could spend hours working toward a clean house, but as soon as the front door opened and the kids ran in from school, the “clean light” went out. Backpacks hit the table, mud streaked the floor and after-school snack crumbs flew.

I've realized now that many of the things we do every day are things we'll do again tomorrow. Some of those things are as simple and as universal as brushing your teeth or putting clothes on. But when you have young children (or teenagers), there will always be things you do over and over. And that's okay. We aren't meant to live in a perfectly sanitary environment. A little clutter and a little dirt probably won't hurt much.

I embrace the attitude Phyllis Diller showed when she said, “Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the sidewalk before it stops snowing.”

And I love this insightful thought: “A household has to be tended if it is to flourish and grow. Housework is never 'done' in the same sense that gardening is never done or that God's providential involvement in the world is never done. Housework and gardening and God's providence itself are exercises not in futility but in faithfulness – faithfulness to the work itself, to the people whose needs that work serves, and to the God whose own faithfulness invites our faithful response.” 
   (Margaret Kim Peterson, Keeping House: The Litany of Everyday Life)

Another favorite of mine:

On Judgment Day, if God should say, 
"Did you clean your house today?" 
I will say, "I did not.
I played with my kids and I forgot."
And God might say "Good for you ─
That's just what I hoped you'd do."

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These are small lessons. But I see something big in them. I see a life filled with appreciation for all things, big and small.

Be glad you have modern time-saving conveniences like these. Be grateful that you have people you love tracking dirt into the house. Be thankful to have spaces of time, short and long, that you can fill with work or service or looking out the window at the sky and the trees. Be grateful that you have truth to share, and truth still to learn.


Happy Thanksgiving!

1 To read more about my two grandmothers click here:
² To read about my washer and dryer, click here:

Hurting and Healing

I don't like getting hurt.

And I get hurt quite often. I have very thin skin – the result, I suppose, of my years of cancer treatment. And I am clumsy and impulsive and impatient.

This is not a good combination for personal safety.

Because I have seven children (and five of them are boys), I have a good amount of experience with broken things: dishes, chairs, windows, beds, large appliances. Fortunately, some of these can be repaired. But I have not yet seen one that has the power to fix itself.

But my body can do that. It can fix itself. And while I don't enjoy being injured, I do like the healing process. It is always a wonder to me to watch a cut or a bruise get smaller, and smaller, and then, disappear.

When I wrote my two missionaries a few weeks ago, I included these thoughts:

I feel blessed. Being sick and in the hospital is of course no fun, but I am glad to be home and I am glad I was able to touch some people while I was in the hospital. So many people need a little boost, a little inspiration. We should always be ready to share our light.

I also realized this: Pain hurts.

Okay, I know, this is hardly news. Everyone – even a small child – knows that pain hurts. And a lot of us sometimes put enormous effort into avoiding any kind of pain: physical, emotional, or the spiritual pain that comes from unrepented sin. Alma spoke about this kind of pain:

But I was racked with eternal torment, for my soul was harrowed up to the greatest degree and racked with all my sins. Yea, I did remember all my sins and iniquities, for which I was tormented with the pains of hell . . .

         (Book of Mormon | Alma 36:12-13)

But the way I felt when I was sick is worse than pain. I can deal with pain, because I know what and where it is. The horrible feeling that something was wrong with me rang through my entire body. If pain is comparable to sin, I would compare this feeling to perhaps apostasy, or spiritual darkness. A sin can be repented of and made right eventually. The darkness of spirit can be lifted too, with light and faith and acceptance.

I am not saying this well, and I am not saying it because I want you to feel bad about me. I am very happy now. I am telling you this because you will meet people who are experiencing spiritual misery at both these levels, and although you cannot be the healer – you don't have that power – you can be the light that shows the way to the Only True Healer, our Savior Jesus Christ.

When I wrote that, I was writing to my son and daughter who have been called, and who have accepted the call, to serve as full-time servants of the Lord. So perhaps it doesn't apply to the rest of us.

Or perhaps it does.

I, too, have been called to be a servant, a disciple, a witness of God. And I, too, have openly accepted that calling; that mission. 

I can't do everything. Some days, I feel like I can't do anything. But on those days, I am wrong. Even on dark days, I can be a light -- for my family, my neighbors, my friends, even for strangers. It might be just what someone needs to help stop the hurting and start healing.

The way of the wicked is as darkness: they know not at what they stumble. But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. (Proverbs 4:19, 18)

So go forward. Treat everyone you meet as if they need your smile, your help, your light. Some of them really will need it. Others can take it and pass it on. Either way, you've done something really, really good.

PB and Love

Joseph was our smallest baby, and although he grew and was healthy, he never got the rolls of fat my other little ones did. But Joseph was the hungriest baby and child I have ever known. We don't know where he puts it.

When he started kindergarten, it only took me a day or two to learn that we needed to start making lunch early so he would have time to eat before he caught the afternoon kindergarten bus. The first day went something like this:

Joseph ate happily (and messily) and then said, “Mom, can I have another sandwich?”

“Really, Joseph? You've had two big sandwiches already.”

He shrugged and said he was still hungry, and I got the peanut butter and jam out again and made him another. He finished it off, drinking another glass of milk and leaving the peel from the banana he'd eaten too. Then I helped him wash his hands and face and he put his homework in his backpack and we walked to the bus stop, with three-year-old Elisabeth beside us and Adam in the stroller. We waved and said good-bye when he climbed on the kindergarten bus, and then we turned back for home.

● ● ● ● ●

Several years ago, some neighbors invited our family to their house for a backyard cookout. We were happy to be included, but we were a little concerned about our kids, who were picky about some foods and didn't eat meat. Our host assured us that he and his wife would find something they liked.

We arrived at our neighbors' home and sat at a table in their backyard. While her husband cooked burgers and hot dogs at the grill, our friend came from the house and asked what she could prepare for us. Would we like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?

Absolutely.

She went back to the house, but returned a few minutes later to ask a question: “White bread, or whole wheat?”

The responses were divided. She smiled and went back to the house. But she was back soon, with another question: “Crunchy peanut butter or creamy?”

“Oh, really,” I protested, “you don't need to worry about it. They'll eat whatever you give them.”

She listened to my kids as they stated their preference and went back to the house. But not for long. She came back to ask “Strawberry jam or grape?”

It was quite a walk from the house to the table were we sat, and I felt awkward about putting her out this way. But she – and her whole family – were so cheerful about it. And after we ate we played some fun games in the backyard and went home very happy.

● ● ● ● ●

My ten-year battle with cancer has had its ups and downs. On one particular day I was very sick – lying in bed, feeling miserable. My husband was busy with our kids and the day's work, but he checked on me regularly. At one point when I felt so bad I wasn't sure I could go on, Wes poked his head into the room and asked me if I needed anything.

“A resurrected body,” I answered. It seemed to me that nothing else would help me.

My sweet husband assured me that I would get one of those eventually, but for now would I settle for a peanut butter and jam sandwich? I nodded, and he brought me one, and I ate it. And you know, I felt a little better.

● ● ● ● ●

Peanut butter sandwiches are not glamorous or elegant. They aren't expensive, and they aren't very hard to make. They are one of the small, insignificant things in ours lives that we don't think about much.

But small things make a difference. The love and service of a mother for her hungry child, the kindness and cheerfulness of a kind and generous neighbor, and the compassion and care of a man for his ailing wife.

Those aren't such little things.

And there are smarter people than me who think so too:

"Life is made up, not of great sacrifices or duties, but of little things, in which smiles and kindness, and small obligations given habitually, are what preserve the heart and secure comfort." (Humphry Davy)

"And thus we see that by small means the Lord can bring about great things." (Book of Mormon;1 Nephi 16:29)

"Sometimes when I consider what tremendous consequences come from little things, I am tempted to think there are no little things." (Bruce Barton)

So go ahead, do something little. It might turn out to be bigger than you thought.

What I Learned Taking Two Boys to the Hospital

When Sam was in fifth grade, he went on a field trip to a ski resort. He was not a very experienced skier, but I knew he would be well-supervised.

When he came home that afternoon, I asked him how his ski trip had been.

“Good,” he said, “It was cool.” Then he held out his left arm, and I saw a small piece of white gauze draped loosely on his wrist.

“I fell,” he said, when I asked him what had happened.

“Does it hurt? Did someone look at it?”

“It doesn't hurt much,” Sam said.

I’m no medical expert, and it looked fine to me. I told him to let me know if the pain continued or increased.

The next day Sam said his arm still hurt. He said it the same way he had before, very casually. It was Friday, and our family doctor’s office was closed. I certainly didn't want to take him to the emergency room.

I had a thought. “Hey, Sam,” I said, “I have an appointment with the doctor on Tuesday for the baby. If your arm still hurts, I’ll take you in then.”

He said. “Okay,” and I thought that was the end of it.

So I was surprised when, on Tuesday morning, Sam asked what time we were going to the doctor.

“It still hurts?” I asked, and when he nodded, I said, “The appointment is at 10:30.”

So I went to the doctor’s office with my oldest child and my youngest child. After the doctor examined Adam, I asked him to take a look at Sam’s arm. I was a little embarrassed to ask him, since the appointment was for Adam, and I had a suspicion that Sam was just looking for an excuse to miss school.

The doctor told me that I should take Sam’s to the hospital for an X-ray, something  I hadn't unexpected to hear. I loaded Sam and Adam back into the van and drove to the hospital.

A technician X-rayed Sam’s arm and we waited in the emergency room lobby for the results. After a while, a man in hospital scrubs came and called Sam’s  name. I stood up and pointed at Sam, and the man came closer.

"This is Sam?"

“

Sam and I both nodded.

“When did you hurt your arm?” the man asked.

When we told him it had happened on Thursday, the man shook his head in disbelief. “This is one tough kid,” he said. “His arm is broken in three places. You need to get a cast on it right away.”

A terrible wave of maternal guilt swept over me. Five days! I had sent my child to school and to church; I had made him do his homework and his chores, and all the time he had a broken arm. I turned to him with tears in my eyes and an apology on my tongue, but before I could say a word, he spoke up. “Cool! I broke my arm!”

He choose a green cast, since he would have it on for St. Patrick’s  Day, and everyone at school signed it. It was the best six weeks he’d had in a long time.

*    *    *    *    *    *

Ten years later:

When Ben said he was feeling sick, Wes and I wondered if he had eaten something bad. He was a very strong and healthy 15-year-old and had almost never been ill.

But the next the day he felt worse, and was feeling some abdominal  pain. I called a neighbor and asked if she could give us a ride to Instacare. The doctor at Instacare examined Ben briefly, then told us to go straight to the hospital’s emergency room. There they confirmed that Ben had appendicitis.

The staff gave Ben IV medication for his pain and began to prepare him for surgery. Wes arrived and we waited while our son’s appendix was removed.

After the surgery Ben was sleepy and confused, but the surgeon said things had gone well. We stayed with him until he was more coherent, but it was getting late and our other children were home alone. Wes told Ben that we would be back in the morning.

“I’m not going,” I said. “I’m going to stay.”

Wes was surprised. “You want to stay here all night?” He knows I don’t like hospitals. And we both knew that I wouldn't get any sleep if I was there.

“I’m going to stay. I don’t want Ben to be alone.”

“He’ll be fine. They’ll take care of him. He’s fifteen.”

I shrugged. I just felt like I wanted to stay.

“Let’s ask Ben,” Wes said, and asked Ben if he wanted me to stayed there with him. He said he didn't care.

I felt I should stay, and I did. Ben slept most of the night, and when he stirred a couple of times he seemed groggy and hardly aware of my presence. In the morning, Ben was released and Wes came and took us both home. Ben recovered quickly, and I basically put the whole thing out of my mind.

Many months later, I became seriously ill and was hospitalized. When I became more stable, Wes brought the five children who were living at home to visit me. During the visit, Wes asked each child to say something nice about me.

I’m  sorry to admit that I don’t remember what any of them said – except for Ben, who said, “When I had my appendix out,  she stayed the whole night with me.”

*    *    *    *    *    *

Thinking about these two experiences has taught me a lesson about being a parent: we don’t always judge things perfectly. We don’t always know what to do. But when we do our best, and follow our hearts, things usually work out – sometimes better than we may have expected. We often don’t see the results of our decisions right away – it may take days, or weeks, or years. But we just have to keep going, hoping, and believing.

Now that I've written this, I realize that the lesson is not just about parenting. It’s about life. It's about Grace.

The scriptures tell us that “it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do,” and that "the Lord's grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness."

I learned a few songs in Spanish in college. For some reason, the only one I remember well is the Mexican folk song "La Bamba," perhaps best known as a 1958 Richie Valens hit. 

This is the part of the song I like most:

Para bailar La Bamba
Se necessita una poca de gracia
Una poca de gracia para mi, para ti.

Here's the rough translation:

To dance La Bamba
A little grace is needed,
A little grace for you and for me.


I don't think this song was meant to be a sermon or a lecture on faith. Most of the lyrics are a bit silly, actually (I'm not a sailor!  I'm the Captain!). But I have learned to believe that in order to figuratively "dance La Bamba" – to get through life reasonably well – a little Grace is needed. For you and for me.

Bamba, Bamba, Bamba, Bamba, Bamba, Bamba, Bamba!

Outage Outing

Yesterday afternoon Adam came to me and said, "I think the power's out." I hadn't noticed, but I flipped some switches and he was right: no electricity.

It's been a while since we've had a power outage that lasted more than a few minutes. In fact, if I'm remembering correctly, the last one was over three years ago. It was in the late fall, and when the lights went out in the early afternoon I assumed they'd be back on before dark. But as darkness started to move in quickly, I realized we needed to prepare for the possibility of a cold, dark night.

I gave my children a few assignments: "Gather blankets from downstairs; we'll all sleep upstairs tonight. Someone help me put together some food we can eat while we can still see. Ben, go get my basket of candles and bring them in here."

Ben was thirteen, and incredulous at my request. "Mom," he said. "The power is out. It's starting to get dark. This is no time to worry about how the house smells."

Okay, it's possible I have too many scented candles.


But I digress. Back to yesterday . . .

It was a very hot and humid day, and without our swamp cooler and fans the house quickly became suffocating. I stepped outside to find that it was even less bearable there. All the drivers in the family were gone. We had no television or computers to distract us, and our phone wasn't working. The sun was setting, and it was getting hard even to read. My plans to do some laundry, make dinner, and write a little were shot.

I finally found a cell phone and asked my daughter to text her dad at work. Power's out, she wrote. Call this phone. I realized that with my hearing loss, I probably wouldn't hear the phone if he called it, so I sat down on the couch, tucked the cell phone just under my leg, and tried to wait patiently.

And then the couch started shaking.

I was near panic. What's going on here? I thought. The power's off and now we're having an earthquake!"

I'm sure that some of you have guessed that the phone I was sitting on was set to vibrate. When I finally figured that out, I had the privilege of spending several fumbling seconds trying to figure out how to answer the phone. But eventually I hit some random button and the phone stopped shaking. Hurray! I could make human contact!

I told my dear Wes how miserable we were. "Okay," he said, "I'll come home and rescue you."

And he did. Fifteen minutes later we were sitting in an air-conditioned van on our way to a pizza restaurant. Peace and comfort had been restored.

At the pizzeria, we made the uncharacteristic choice to splurge a bit. (Since eating out with our family is an uncharacteristic splurge in itself, it didn't seem quite so weird to continue the madness.)

We ordered a something that this restaurant offers mostly as a novelty: the 36-inch pizza.

It's a lot of pizza. It completely covered the table, so we put our plates on our laps. And there's a contest connected to this monstrosity: if two people can finish it off in an hour, they win a prize. (And the prize is: lots more pizza! And maybe barf bags, I don't know . . .) We didn't eat it all, but we put quite a big dent in it. And we laughed and talked and shared.

It was still hot outside when we left the restaurant, and we didn't know if our power was back on, so we went to the library to check out some books and movies and to enjoy their air conditioning, When the library closed at nine, we decided to go home.

The road was dark. No street lights, no house lights, no porch lights. We saw our neighbors sitting outside, waving paper fans across their faces. Clearly, the electricity was still off.

We pulled into our dark garage and began to feel our way into the house. Adam got there first and opened the door. Then, just as he stepped inside, the kitchen lit up. It was like magic.

And now we can return to our distraction-filled, speedily-moving electronic lives, with perhaps a little more appreciation for the electricity that makes it possible.

As we got ready for bed, I mentioned to Wes that I was getting frustrated with my computer, which we bought used last year. I haven't wanted to complain about it, because, while we always have enough money to get along, we don't usually have of lot left over for luxuries. But, I told him, the computer is becoming increasingly unstable and unreliable, and I haven't felt like I can get anything done on it.

We realized as we talked that we had just spent twice as much money on pizza as we spent to buy the computer. (It was a twenty-five dollar computer.)

"That's okay," I said."We weren't really buying pizza."

He nodded and we smiled. Nothing more needed to be said. We both knew that we were buying memories.

And here I sit, typing up the whole story on my sad little computer, which has been on for two hours now and is still running happily.  So I can still find reasons to believe in little miracles.

And hey, if anyone out there wants leftover pizza, there's some in my refrigerator.

A Couple of Wednesdays in July

On Wednesday, July 17th, we drove to Provo, Utah, to drop our third-born child at the Missionary Training Center, where he will spend nine weeks preparing to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ in the Naga Philippines Mission.

It was not particularly easy for me to leave my dear Danny there, knowing I won't see him for two years. But I'm glad he's made the decision to serve, and I've been okay, so far.

One week later, on July 24th, we celebrated the Utah state holiday Pioneer Day by visiting my grandmother. And when we got home that evening, my daughter Hannah opened her mission call.

We were very surprised. We had each made a guess or two about where Hannah might be called to serve, but no one thought she might go to the Philippines like her brother. She'll be in the Cauayan mission (would you like to buy a consonant?), and Danny will be in the Naga mission. They will both be speaking Tagalog and, because Hannah leaves in December, will be coming home at about the same time.

My head is still spinning. But I feel very blessed, and greatly honored to be the mother of these amazing children.

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.

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.

Serving As He Did

This happened sixteen years ago. I'm glad I wrote it down after it happened, because it taught me an important lesson that I don't want to forget.

I was the Primary music leader for our ward, and I had been asked to lead the children in a song for a Stake Primary activity. I needed to be a little early for the activity, which started at nine a.m., and as usual, we were running late. I was ready, but I’d had a hard time getting my children up and dressed and I was getting frustrated. I finally got Hannah and Danny ready while five-year-old Sam put some clothes on, and I thought we were about ready to go. “Grab your shoes and come on, Sam,” I yelled as I headed out the door. I looked back to see him standing there with his sandals in his hand, looking hesitant. “Come on,” I repeated. “What’s the problem?”

Sam looked down, then back at me. “My feet are real dirty,” he said.

“What? Sam, I don’t have time for this. We’re supposed to be there.”  I came back to house where he stood in the doorway and looked at his feet. They were indeed very dirty. The night before, as a Family Home Evening activity, we had gone for a little hike in the canyon. Sam had been wearing sandals on the dusty path, and since he fell asleep in the car on the way home, we had put him right in bed without cleaning him up. “All right, fine,” I said, grabbing his hand and dragging him to the bathroom.  “Sit up here and put your feet in the sink.”

I was exasperated with Sam and annoyed with the whole situation. I just wanted to get his feet reasonably clean and get out of there. I turned on the water and grabbed his foot.

As soon as I touched his foot, something happened. My annoyance vanished, and I was filled with overwhelming love for this child. I felt honored to be performing this service for him. I remembered how the Savior had done this same thing, humbly and with gratitude.

I was no longer in a great hurry, but the task didn’t take long. I dried his feet gently, gave him a hug and walked with him to the car. We got to the activity to find that they were running a bit behind and hadn’t started yet. Everything went well, and I was especially filled with joy as I watched the children, including Sam, sing the song.

Sometimes, when I am frustrated with my children and the challenge of keeping up with their demands, I remember that day, and the lesson I learned. When we serve as the Savior served, with love, our service is no longer a burden, but a joy.

So after he had washed their feet, and had taken his garments, and was set down again, he said unto them, Know ye what I have done to you? Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them (John 13:12–17).

What Will You Be Like?

This is from 2005.
“What will you be like when you grow up, Elisabeth?” I asked my daughter, for no reason, except that she was sitting there, on a kitchen stool, waiting for her breakfast, with the sun coming through the window behind her making her hair gold around the edges, and I was amazed at her, and I wondered out loud what she would become.

“Like you,” she answered immediately.

I was startled by her quick answer, and not sure if I liked it. “Maybe not just like me. Maybe you will be smarter than me; nicer than me,” I suggested.

She shook her head. “No, I want to be just like you. Only with more hair.”

Elisabeth at five

The last part made me smile. I know that it is her five-year-old way of saying that although she wants to be like me, she doesn’t want to have cancer. Of all the changes my disease has left me with, the hair loss is the thing that has been the most visible, the most disturbing to my youngest children. My baldness has become a symbol for the sickness; the whole experience summed up by a tangle of hair left on a pillow and a pile of donated wigs on a shelf of my closet.

Learning that I had an aggressive breast cancer a year ago was surprising, and sad, and unsettling, and worrisome. But, strangely, it was not devastating. I shed some tears, and said many prayers, pleading with the Lord that I would conquer the disease, that I would be allowed to remain on earth and finish raising my young family. But I do not recall a feeling of hopelessness or despair. In fact, I remember the week of my diagnosis with something like fondness. Thinking back, it seems that it was a very sweet time. I felt that I was wrapped up in a blanket of peace, and I came to truly know that the Lord was with me, and that his plan for me was wiser than my own.

Now, I don’t mean to sound perfectly saintly. As a rule, I am not a person who accepts trials with faith and gratitude. I whine, and complain, and doubt. In this case, my prayers progressed gradually from, “Don’t let me die, Father. I can’t die,”  to “If you think it would be best for me to go, to leave my family, then I am willing. But I think I should tell you that’s not what’s best. They need me here,” to finally, “I want to live, Father. But thy will, not mine, be done.”  At that point, I finally felt the peace that comes with accepting His will.

A few weeks ago, I was asked to speak to the Beehive class during a lesson on eternal perspective.  I told them, honestly, that I had been able to see how, in God’s eyes, the cancer was something that could help me, and that in the eternal scheme of things, it was a small moment in my life.

All the next week I wondered – why is it that I can have that kind of perspective about a terrible disease, but not about piles of dishes and whiny children?  Why is it that the small ordinary trials are sometimes more difficult to deal with than the “big ones”?  We believe we could square our shoulders and be brave about crossing the plains, but no one thinks about bravery in the face of gum in the carpet.

Yet bravery – consistent, unyielding courage – is exactly what is required for those kind of everyday difficulties.

When I was a teenager, I read a story about a man who set a world’s record by walking across a large desert. When he reached the end, he was interviewed by a reporter, who asked him what was the most difficult trial he had experienced on the way. The man thought about it and then replied, “I guess it was that the sand kept getting in my shoes.”

I remember being struck that he couldn't come up with any more noteworthy problems than that. How about heat stroke? Dehydration? A thrilling battle with a wild animal? A tarantula bite?

Now that I’m older, I’m beginning to see that the scary problems in life – the tigers we have to fight – are difficult, no doubt. But we have adrenaline to help us with those. Clogged toilets and burned casseroles and dirty floors are the sand in our shoes. We keep dumping it out, but as long as we are on the journey, there will be more sand to get inside our shoes and irritate us. We may be tempted to give up, to sit down in the middle of the barren wasteland and cry. But to endure to the end – to cross the desert – that is what is required of us.

By the time I handed Elisabeth her oatmeal it seemed she had forgotten the conversation. But now I am wondering: Could Elisabeth grow up to be just like me, but with “more hair” – in other words, live a full, character-building life without facing major trials? Maybe, with our limited vision, that is what we  want. A life of sunshiny days looks good to her. And it would be heart-wrenching for me to watch her suffer. But it wouldn't be possible. I am what I am because of the experiences that have shaped my life, and cancer is one of those experiences.


So, what will you be like, Elisabeth? What events, happy or sad, will help make you what you will become?

None of us really knows the answers to those questions. I can't shelter her from life's sometimes unexpected roughness. But what I can give her is an example – a close-up view of a human being who has been kicked and pinched and poked and hurt, but who still gets up in the morning to make breakfast for a little girl with golden edges.

Note: You can find more information about my cancer diagnosis and treatment at the Mormon Women Project website, here: www.mormonwomen.com/2011/04/13/daughter-of-a-king

Cow Tales

Perhaps in every age, in every culture, in every nation, people have repeated the legend of the young farmer who leaves home to become an accountant.

Or maybe not.

But for me, the story is not legend, but family history. My father was the youngest child in a large farming family. As a young man, he made the decision to attend college. A few years later, he had a wife, a new baby, and a bachelors degree in accounting.

My father as a young boy, with his father.

Obviously, my father's choice to leave the small town where he was born would have an immeasurable effect on my life. Instead of growing up doing farm chores on the land my great-grandparents had worked, I was loading a dishwasher in a suburb 800 miles away. I'll never know for sure but I'm guessing this was a good thing -- I've never been the Sunnybrook Farm type.

Because of his farming background, my father's advice to us kids tended to come in the form of folksy one-liners : if you chase two pigs, they'll both get away; don't look a gift horse in the mouth; and my favorite, milk the meanest cow first, which I think about often when I'm tempted to put off an unpleasant task.

My father has a natural talent for fixing things. All my life I have taken broken things to him, from toys to tape players, curling irons to cars. Always resourceful and persistent, he has rarely failed me.

But perhaps his greatest gift is his ability to connect with the elderly. As long as I can remember, he has visited his senior friends in their homes or in hospitals. listening with interest to their stories, laughing at jokes he's hearing for the eighth time, strumming along on his guitar while he sings "You Are My Sunshine" or "Old Mill Stream." Crinkled eyes light up when he comes in the room.

I have often said that when my father dies, he will be met at the gate by all those people he loved and served here. With minds and eyes at last clear, they will line up to thank him for loving them when they weren't very lovable, for lifting them when they were weak, for sorrowing for their losses.

I think I'd better get in line.

Happy Father's Day.

Cooking With Kids

I wrote this a few years ago, when my children were very young. But I'd be lying if I said things were totally different around here now.

Cooking with kids is a tradition that goes back to the beginning of time, and it's a great way for families to spend time together. With that in mind, I'd like to share the following recipe, so that you, too, can experience the joy of making cookies the way it's done at our house.

Spencer Family Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies

1 cup butter

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup white sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup peanut butter

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

2 cups oatmeal

1 package milk chocolate chips

How to make cookies, Spencer family style:

           Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Ask Danny to get two cubes of butter out of the refrigerator.Tell Ben to find the mixing bowl. (Hint: look in dishwasher.)  Wash mixing bowl. Tell Joseph to find beater. Ask Hannah and Danny to help Joseph find beater. Tell Joseph to look for beater in his toy box and under his bed. Wash beater.

Put one cube of butter into the mixing bowl. Ask Danny where the other cube is. Take cube of butter away from baby, who has eaten most of it. Decide that cookies will be "reduced fat." Beat butter until smooth. Measure one cup brown sugar. Tell Ben and Joseph to get their fingers out of the brown sugar bag. Measure one cup white sugar. Tell Ben and Joseph to get their heads out of the white sugar bag. Add sugars to butter and beat until creamy.

Ask Hannah to get two eggs out of the refrigerator. Tell Danny to go get the cat to lick up the egg Hannah dropped on the floor. Tell Hannah  to get another egg. Discover that there are no more eggs. Decide that cookies will be "low cholesterol."  Add egg and vanilla to creamed mixture. Explain to Ben that although vanilla extract looks like root beer, it is not for drinking. Tell him to stop whining and get him a drink to take the taste out of his mouth. Tell Danny to stop eating the creamed ingredients.

Measure one cup peanut butter and add to creamed ingredients. Settle argument about who will lick the measuring cup clean. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Explain to Joseph that although baking soda looks like powdered sugar, it does not taste like it. Tell him to stop crying and get him a drink to take the taste out of his mouth. Tell Danny to stop eating the creamed ingredients.

Take peanut butter jar away from Elisabeth.  Attempt to clean peanut butter off of Elisabeth's chest and legs with a wet dishtowel. Give up and start running bath water. Undress Elisabeth and put her in the tub.

Go back to kitchen. Ask who spilled the flour mixture all over the floor. Listen to denials. Look for broom and dustpan. Search garage, basement, backyard and kids' rooms. Give up on broom and push flour into a pile with your feet.

Re-measure dry ingredients and combine. Go see what that splash was. Take fully-clothed baby out of tub. From the bathroom, yell at Danny to stop picking at the creamed ingredients. Take off the baby's wet clothes and wrap him in a towel.

With baby in one arm, add dry ingredients to mixing bowl. Settle argument about who gets to turn on mixer. Let Joseph turn on mixer. Explain to Joseph that when you turn it up too high, flour flies all over your face. Wipe flour off Joseph's face. Wipe flour off your face. Measure oatmeal and add to bowl.

Put down baby and run to turn off bath water.  Mop up bathroom floor. Go back to kitchen to find wet naked baby is playing in the pile of flour on the floor. Explain to kids that it is not nice to call your baby brother a powdered donut, even if he looks like one. Get Elisabeth out of tub. Put baby in tub. Yell at Danny to stop eating the cookie dough.

Get baby out of tub, dress him and put him to bed. Wipe everybody's face and hands. Find broom (it's in the van). Clean up kitchen floor. Put Elisabeth's clothes, Adam's clothes, and nearly all the towels and dishcloths in the house into the washing machine. Look into almost empty mixing bowl. Turn off oven. Put cookie sheet away. Pick up chocolate chips.

Set timer for 10 minutes. Go into your bedroom and shut the door. Lie down and open bag of chocolate chips. Enjoy.