Perhaps Forever...

I have been preparing for this talk very probably my entire life. My hometown is a tiny town in Canada called Raymond, population of about 3,000 people. It was settled in 1901-2 by a group of pioneers who'd come from a group of pioneers in Utah, who had come from a group of pioneers all over the world to settle the west.  Willa Cather  in O, Pioneers  said this: "There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as if they had never happened before; like the larks in this country, that have been singing the same five notes over for thousands of years."


I had learned from staying with my grandmother over the summers about my family history. She took me all around town and showed me the little houses where my relatives lived, where Grandma Lizzie's tent had been the first winter after coming from Heber on a train that only traveled 15 miles an hour--so slow she could get off the train to pick flowers and then catch up! Her husband's parents, Ri and Briggs arrived the next year. They had been married in the Endowment House by Joseph F. Smith.


These people are still real to my grandmother. She grew up with them, and she was invited on her mission by David O. McKay. She met many of the living General Authorities of the church prior to her mission in 1944 while preparing to go on her mission and staying in Salt Lake City. She can describe the mannerisms of the Presidents of the Church back to Heber J. Grant, which is fascinating to me, because she met them, knew them personally.


My grandmother was a pioneer, accepting a call to serve a mission to the Southern California Mission from David O. McKay who was visiting Southern Alberta. In California, she met a young missionary. He'd been told he'd never have children because of the tremendous childhood illnesses he'd encountered. His grandfather was Elder McKay's best friend. Obviously, I believe Elder McKay's invitation to my grandmother was inspired. In 1994, my brother was called to serve in the same mission as my grandparents, exactly 50 years later in another piece of inspiration. To those returned California missionaries, my father was born in 1950, and 11 months later my grandfather died, leaving his little family to pioneer on. Her whole town took care of her on a tiny street in a tiny town in Canada.


My parents met and married in that town and then pioneered on, moving to the United States in 1979, where my dad opened his own family practice and they raised 5 children. It was hard being so far away from loved ones, but it was wonderful to be in the heart of Utah. We learned to find our family here, and we discovered people we weren't as familiar with who became dear to us. That's what pioneering and sacrifice is all about.


"As pioneers in latter-days" our pioneering looks different. The path isn't next to a slow train picking wild flowers along the way. However, my husband will attest that having a sick spouse in 2011 isn't much different than having one in 1949. It's just as hard. The medicine is different, but the sacrifices are about the same. It still takes a village and a ward to raise children. He'll also attest that children were every bit as miraculous in 2000, as my father was in 1950.  We feared that we'd never have children. It took 9 tries to get our 4 children. They are miraculous to us. Perhaps it's the perspective on pioneering that makes it appear so amazing... or the cost in health or sleep.


Henry David Thoreau said that the cost of something was measured by "how much life you have to give to it." The core of the Relief Society teaches us in Corinthians to be long-suffering, giving up "all that we have,"  so that we can be more Christ-like. Taking upon ourselves the manner of Christ because "Charity Never Faileth" and neither does God.


Sometimes, when we're pioneers, we want to throw in the towel. We want to wave an entirely *different* banner. We want to wave the white flag of defeat. Instead, we must rush headlong into battle remembering the sacrifices that we have already made. Why do we get up every morning? What makes it worth it? Why are we here? What is the ultimate goal? What are the promises we make ourselves when we look in the mirror? What makes it possible for you to "Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things"?


Francis Scott Key asks it in the Star Spangled Banner. "Oh, Say does that Star Spangled Banner still wave?"  Dylan Thomas urges people to "Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night,"  Rage, rage against the dying of the light. People speak out against the designated hitters. Will you be a pioneer in this age? In this day? Will you be as David O. McKay asked and be a pioneer? For behold, the field is white and ready to harvest and lo, the time is upon us. Choose your great work and embrace it:


Pioneers! O pioneers!
O you youths, Western youths,
So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship,
Plain I see you Western youths, see you tramping with the foremost,
Pioneers! O pioneers!


Have the elder races halted?
Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond the seas?
We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson,

Pioneers! O pioneers!
All the past we leave behind,
We debouch upon a newer mightier world, varied world,
Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march,
Pioneers! O pioneers!


We detachments steady throwing,
Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep,
Conquering, holding, daring, venturing as we go the unknown ways,
Pioneers! O pioneers!


We primeval forests felling,
We the rivers stemming, vexing we and piercing deep the mines within,
We the surface broad surveying, we the virgin soil upheaving,
Pioneers! O pioneers!


O resistless restless race!
O beloved race in all! O my breast aches with tender love for all!
O I mourn and yet exult, I am rapt with love for all,
Pioneers! O pioneers!


See my children, resolute children,
By those swarms upon our rear we must never yield or falter,
Ages back in ghostly millions frowning there behind us urging,
Pioneers! O pioneers!


All the pulses of the world,
Falling in they beat for us, with the Western movement beat,
Holding single or together, steady moving to the front, all for us,
Pioneers! O pioneers!



Has the night descended?
Was the road of late so toilsome? did we stop discouraged nodding on our way?
Yet a passing hour I yield you in your tracks to pause oblivious,
Pioneers! O pioneers!


Till with sound of trumpet,
Far, far off the daybreak call-hark! how loud and clear I hear it wind,
Swift! to the head of the army!-swift! spring to your places,
Pioneers! O pioneers!* (poem by Walt Whitman, extremely edited)


Be a pioneer today. 

I have been changed for good...

Today was graduation at Timpanogos High School, and it was my 18th graduation as a teacher. 18. Time flies by so quickly, effortlessly at times. We had a student this year, named as our most influential student of 2011: Brayan Melgar. He didn't live to be recognized at graduation, and we held a special graduation for him earlier this spring knowing this would probably be the case.

Catching me out of the blue was the tribute for him, a lovely video montage using the song "For Good" from Wicked. It was the same song used when my brother David died. We used it in the video montage, and my sisters Jen and Kristen sang it right before we closed Dave's casket.

"It well may be that we may never meet again in this lifetime.

So let me say before we part.

So much of me is made from what I learned from you.

You'll be with me, like a hand print on my heart."

This is what we had inscribed on David's headstone. We had the complete lyrics printed on the back of David's program, and the lyrics "Who can say if I've been changed for the better?" really bothered me for a long time. I wondered if I had been changed for the better. Certainly I knew there was blame to share on my part.

I visited Dave's grave often. Perhaps as often as twice a week for at least a year, maybe as long as 18 months. I mourned him intensely, mourned my inability to bend, to forgive, to grieve completely, to heal. So much of what I became as a person in the ensuing years was from what I learned in that process: that loving people, reaching out to them, being open to who people are, forgiving people the trespasses they have, and I have, comes from clearing the air and asking forgiveness for the shared blame.

I learned that mourning never stops. I'll never stop missing David. I see him in the small boy at my dinner table who is so like him. David would adore the boy who calls himself Maximus. They are very possibly the same child, the boy I remember David being and the boy I tell stories to as I snuggle in bed at night. But, because I have learned, because of the hand prints David left on my heart, I know to enjoy those moments in snuggles. Because I knew David, I have changed the way I look at those moments.

I do believe I have been changed for the better: changed for good.

Piano Recital

Jack, Xan and Asa have piano recital tomorrow at 6:30 pm at the Tahitian Noni Bldg in Provo. The address is 333 W River Park Drive. You are all invited if you want to come!

Jackson turns 11

We've got a new BBQ, we've got a boy turning 11, and we're ready to PAR-TAY!

Please join us to celebrate about 6:30 on May 9th for the event. 

Jack and Xandri have track until 6pm, and we'll commence grilling.

Please join us...

Jackson told me that he wasn't going to write on the blog anymore, so I guess it's not Jack and Jill. It's just me.

Please join us

Wednesday

March 30th

6:30pm

at our church 

1250 East 200 South, Pleasant Grove (program it into your GPS)

for the awarding of Jackson's arrow of light.

We're planning something phun and unusual, in our regular Phippen-esque way.