Robert Frost

Years ago, when I first started teaching high school English, I was also the school newspaper advisor. My journalism students tended to be bright, curious, and outspoken. But when I gave a random current events quiz on the first day of class, most of them had no idea who Utah’s current governor was, and some of them had never heard of Karl Malone! I was sort of appalled. Really? Kids who professed an interest in news, but didn’t bother to actually read it?

So I implemented a new policy. I started every journalism class with a simple five-question current events quiz. No trick questions. No obscure events. I got a lot of pushback, but once we spent 10 minutes every class period discussing what was going on in the world, students started to perk up.  After a few weeks, I’d regularly hear students talking about (and sometimes debating!) proposed school district policy changes or state legislation that affected kids, alongside critical high school info about who was dating whom and how the varsity football team was doing.

I was reminded of that yesterday when I attended a Jordan Education Foundation* Thank You Donors’ Luncheon. The room was packed—at least a couple hundred people—some of whom were BIG donors, but most of whom I’m guessing were like me and just donated a small amount monthly because they care about kids and education and Utah’s future.

It was a memorable program about how the Foundation uses donations to make life better for Jordan District students—from food and clothes to glasses or medical needs or beds–a surprising number of District families have been sleeping on their apartment floors–or mental health, and literally dozens of other individual needs that are outside the purview of a state-funded school system. But it wasn’t the generosity of the donors—which is always beyond impressive–that I will remember about that meeting: it was the Herriman High School Madrigals.

This elite musical group had just finished the holiday season with, if my memory is right, over 60 performances of music across a spectrum of venues—all volunteer hours on the part of high school students. Their conductor, Kelly DeHaan, is a well-respected Utah musician in his own right, and together, he and his outstanding students are the highlight of any program, but yesterday, it wasn’t only their performance that was moving: It was what they chose to sing: The Star-Spangled Banner, and My Country ‘Tis of Thee.

I’ve heard literally hundreds of madrigal groups perform in my many years of working in education, but as I listened to those two numbers, I was struck not only by the beauty of the performance but by the message of the music. Teenagers who chose to sing about patriotism. Teenagers.

Some days, when I scan the headlines on my computer or scroll through Instagram, I am so disheartened by the political, international, entertainment, lifestyle, and even many sports stories, that I close my computer and don’t bother reading. But yesterday, teenagers chose to sing about patriotism. It reminded me of those journalism students long ago, who looked up from their computers to discover that there was a whole world around them worth investigating.

When I was elected to the Jordan District Board of Education, one of my pleasures was to be invited to Veterans Day programs all over the district. I especially loved the elementary ones with kindergarteners singing Fifty, Nifty United States from 13 original colonies, and all those wiggly, cheerful little voices reminding me of the remarkable country where my family and I are privileged to live. If the headlines sometimes feel bleak, may I suggest spending a little time at a school concert? Way too many grownups in this country are making lousy choices, but kids? Kids still love this country. And they’re not afraid to sing about it. Everyday.

*If you are interested in donating to the Jordan Education Foundation, here’s the email address: jordaneducationfoundation.org. Every penny goes to making kids’ lives better. I know. I’ve worked with them for years.

Home is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in.

Robert Frost

My husband is currently in the throes of a new project; he’s planning on writing a novel which will be set in some future apocalyptic time. At least that’s his current vision. So far, he has read two thick books for background—one about the details of the kind of damage a nuclear war would inflict on Earth, and one about survival tactics if society had to start over. He’s also made copious notes, and he’s got a stack literally an inch high of handwritten details (he is nothing if not thorough!) which he plans to add to the novel—as soon as he starts writing—whenever that may be.

When we went to lunch at Kneader’s last week with my sister and her husband, who were here visiting from Helena, Montana, he spent considerable time picking our brains about what kind of physical skills and mental toughness his lead female character would have to have if she were going to survive such a cataclysmic world disaster. (Never mind that it had been some time since I’d seen my sister, and we were hoping to catch up on what was happening with children and grandchildren!) You are probably impressed that he is insisting on such accurate detail. Don’t be. We’ve been through this before—not the world disaster part, the I-have-to-know-every-detail-of-my-current-obsession part.

Over the years, he’s been the happiest when he’s been hyper-focused on some project or other: quality sound systems for movie theater speakers (don’t ask how he got involved in that!), maximizing woodstove heat production for home use, esoteric auto repair, jewelry design and fabrication (he even taught classes at SLCC for this one), medieval cooking, medieval armor (an extension of the former category), grow-box gardening, and several years of gold prospecting,—including building his own complex system of sluices to extract the ore from ordinary dirt. At the moment, he’s also got a fancy structure on the table in his garage, which he claims is the perfect system to sharpen knives, including the swords he built years ago! Truth is, I’m relieved he’s currently so focused on nuclear war. He’s easier to live with if he has an engrossing obsession.

The other day, he was speculating on how humanity would react to an actual nuclear bomb detonating nearby. “Well,” I said, “ you might interview me?” But apparently, the fact that when I was a kid, I saw the mushroom clouds from not one, but TWO nuclear detonations float over my elementary school in the Nevada desert seemed to hold no interest for him–although now that I think about it, in later years my younger brother often expressed strong feelings about my ability to supervise when my parents were not home. I recall him spending a good deal of time complaining about his safety in the care of my radiation-damaged thinking.

To be fair, I guess we all have obsessions about something. Mine tend to involve chocolate. Daughter #1 loves Saturdays because she has designated it “FIZZ” day. For those of you not from Utah, FIZZ makes yummy soft drinks with additives like real cream and dozens of flavor options. Currently, Daughter #1 is enamored of something that has a Root Beer base and lots of cherry flavor. She’s right—it’s good. And she claims the $3 or $4 it costs is a good deal less expensive than some fancy anti-depression medication she might need should her workload reach the “overwhelming” tipping point. (She ought to know. She has a PhD in psychology.)

Well, you might ask, how have you and your husband managed to stay together so long when he spends so much time burrowed out in the garage on some esoteric project or other? An excellent question to which I answer—I have no idea? I used to think there was some magic formula that–when appropriately applied–made human relations just roll smoothly along the track of life. The trouble is, a few years into adulthood, we all discover there is no track, or even a road. There’s just constant  “undiscovered country” (thank you, Star Trek), and when we think we’ve finally got it figured out, we stumble across another sinkhole. (Oddly enough, as I was writing this, a literal three-foot deep sinkhole opened up in our backyard after the last heavy rain! Perhaps a message from Heaven?)

Years of marriage have taught me that I’m better off if I forgive the intensity of my husband’s obsessions when they obscure his attention to household problems—like fixing a dishwasher I went without for 18 months because he was unable to find time away from his current fascination (whatever that was at the moment) to take a look at the problem and discover that the dishwasher only needed a small part which turned out to cost less than $1.00!  Besides, in the back of my head, full disclosure whispers to me that I’m hardly blameless in the I-don’t-want-to-deal-with-that?-right-now category.

So we keep giving our shared road the best we can on most days, and the other days? We agree to keep our mouths shut, share a Coke, and start over again tomorrow.

Home is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in.

Robert Frost

There’s a famous clip on Instagram of Navy Admiral McRaven delivering a commencement speech to the class of 2014 at the University of Texas at Austin, in which he encourages graduates to start their day by making their beds. He suggests it’s a powerful precursor for tackling the challenges of everyday life. The first time I heard that speech, I tried unsuccessfully to remember who had taught me to make my bed? (Probably almost ¾ of a century ago, so no wonder!) Then I tried to remember if my parents made their bed every morning. Yep. And I also remember my mother teaching me to make military “square” corners on the sheets and blankets. It’s possible that my dad taught her that—he spent a couple of years bombing Japan and islands in the Pacific during WWII, so I’m sure his superior officers insisted on a neat deck. But in my experience, my mom turned out to be the enforcer of order at my house—hence, the requirement of a neatly made bed.

So, it was something of a shock when I got married and my new husband brought all his earthly possessions with him–including a set of single bed sheets which he’d used for a couple of years at his BYU rental housing. They were a grungy yellowed color, so I threw them in the wash with hot water and bleach. When the cycle finished, and I tried to pull them out of the machine, I was SHOCKED to discover that they had shredded into literally dozens of little hunks of cotton fabric.

I was horrified. Married only a couple of weeks, and I’d already ruined his laundry! “I’m so sorry,” I apologized to him. “I don’t know how I could have made such a mistake. I’ve done laundry for years.”

He was annoyed. Even then, he didn’t have much patience with incompetence. “What’d ya wash ‘em for? They were fine. They haven’t needed washing in the two years I’ve used ‘em.”

Holy moly! That was a rude awakening about the complications marriage might bring. And I ended up making the bed by myself for most of the first 40 or so years of our lives together. My husband always thought making the bed was a waste of time–we were just going to get back in it in 10 or 12 hours. (In his defense, my husband is an only child. His mother made his bed every morning. He just assumed every family was like his. Although I did notice that he seemed to appreciate the smell of clean sheets every week or so.)

When I had my first 3 or 4 babies, my mom came and stayed a week or two to help. She always saw to it that there were clean sheets on the bed when I came home from the hospital. By baby #5, Daughter #1 was old enough to see to it that the sheets were washed and the bed freshly made when I brought yet another little boy home. (She wasn’t thrilled about the “another brother part” though.)

Then I had a pretty serious illness that put me in the hospital for a week or two. My husband was so happy to have his ally against all those kids back in the house that he put clean sheets on the bed. All by himself. And he was dang proud. Since then, we make the bed together almost every morning. And he’s discovered he likes it. He likes sharing the load, he likes knowing he has done something to ease my burden, and because he’s a man of habit, he likes the pattern of this morning ritual.

Wow, you might be saying. What took him so long to figure that out? Truth is, I have no idea. But it’s a question that I think has some serious repercussions. Is there an expiration date on how long we wait for someone we live or work or associate with to change? Naval Admiral McRaven was the boss. His sailors did what they were told. Family members or associates are less likely to appreciate such arbitrary commands.

A couple of years ago, I asked a friend who is a professor at a major university what he thought was the difference between the generation he was teaching now and their parents and grandparents. He said something I thought was very revealing: “Today’s kids are standing on the shoulders of at least two generations of people who have sacrificed a great deal for the quality of their lives. Most of these kids today haven’t had to sacrifice very much. It makes a difference.” My husband’s mother made his bed. Maybe easy isn’t always the best option.

And don’t forget the “square” corners, please.

Home is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in.

Robert Frost

My Uncle Tom was a Down Syndrome child. He was born a year before I was, when my grandmother was in her late forties, and it was at least two full generations before ultrasounds became a routine part of pregnancy. My grandfather told me that during the delivery, after the doctor had seen the baby, the doc came out into the hall and told my grandpa it would be best if they found some sort of residency setting for such a child—that is, if the baby survived the night.

Years later, when I was well into adulthood, my mother said that my grandpa’s only response to the doctor back then had been, “Well. At least the Lord knew where to send him.” And that was the end of that. They brought Uncle Tom home, and he died in his own bed more than 60 years later—downright elderly for a Downs child.

I could not have guessed that having a special child like Tom in the family would be one of the great blessings of my life. When I was a kid, Uncle Tom liked to hold over my head that I was a year younger than he–as I tied his shoes or helped him put on his suspenders. Because we were a military family, I saw Uncle Tom on summer vacations or at Christmas time. Then the only difference I ever noticed between him and me was that he constantly tried to talk me into watching the old black and white scary movies he loved, and which terrified me.

If we visited my grandparents’ house, Tom and I always played together, or at least alongside each other—he WAS a BOY, after all. But by the time I was a teenager, the differences between us were considerably more obvious. I loved to read and sometimes buzzed through 5 or 6 books a week. On the other hand, every night, Tom would sit at my grandparents’ dining room table, and, with his finger under every word, he’d sound out one syllable at a time, line by line, for a couple of years until he finally finished the entire Book of Mormon. It was a tribute to my grandfather, an elementary school principal, that Tom could read at all. He sat patiently next to Uncle Tom every one of those evenings, helping him learn. His doctors were astonished. While Tom could never read a newspaper or a letter, he learned to read the scriptures. Our family wasn’t in the least surprised; we have always believed in miracles.

It took Tom almost three times as long to eat his dinner as it did anyone else. Sometimes his mom or my mom would have to help him. His speech was slurred and not always easy to understand. And brushing his teeth before we went to bed was a marathon—every night. But it was a step he never missed. Ever. As he grew older, his parents assigned him chores just like everyone else. It was Tom’s job to vacuum the house. That took him an average of three hours to vacuum three bedrooms, a living room, and a dining/family room. But nobody did it better.

And, to the surprise of all of us, Tom had a phenomenal memory. He knew every team in the American and National baseball leagues, knew most of the players, remembered most of their stats, and became the family expert. If he were at our house visiting (back in the days before computers), we could ask Tom who was the next batter up, how many hits, runs, and outs the player had had for the whole season, etc.! Baseball hats with team logos were his preferred gift. Tom was also the only member of our extended family who knew every single member’s birthday and provided it on request.

Plus, Tom never got lost. When he was little, my grandmother worried constantly about keeping him safe. Once on a picnic in a nearby national forest, Tom wandered away. He was less than five years old–I can’t remember exactly–(unlike Tom, who, once he learned something, never forgot it!). As soon as we realized he was gone, we formed a search party. After an hour, we alerted the park rangers. Nearby picnickers joined the hunt. Three hours later, Tom walked back into our campsite. He couldn’t tell us where he’d been. He just said he went walking. When he got tired, he came back. Over a lifetime, it never seemed to matter—whether shopping mall, school, church, even visiting places he’d never been—Tom always found his way home.

By the time I was an adult and had children of my own, my love for Tom was deep, but his love for me was even deeper. No matter how long it had been since he’d seen me (sometimes as much as a couple of years), his face would light up, he’d throw his arms around me, and he’d remind me of how long it was before my birthday. He’d tell me how his favorite ball team was doing (in detail). Then he’d ask about my parents, my siblings, and all of our children. He never forgot a single one.

Sometimes now, when I get irritated at my husband or my colleagues or even the folks in my neighborhood, I think about my grandparents who, in the years of their lives when most people had empty nests, chose to dedicate the rest of their days to Tom’s care and happiness. My grandmother lived to be 98. She was still helping him cut his meat until only a few months before she died. Though I never heard either my grandpa or my grandma say it out loud, surely the sacrifice Tom’s maintenance required must have been overwhelming. How did they always choose love?

Then one day, sadly not very long ago, I realized that instead of spending all their emotional energy lamenting reality as I too often do, my grandparents preferred a lifetime of just loving exactly who was there right in front of them—a profound message for all of us.

Home is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in.

Robert Frost

A week or two ago, I went to the end-of-the-school-year program for a granddaughter, who is in third grade. It wasn’t an ordinary program. In fact, I didn’t understand a single word. Not one. That’s because it was all in French. My granddaughter is part of a Dual Language Immersion program, and she’s the third of my grandchildren to tackle it. One of her older cousins has now had almost a dozen years of French and will be a senior in high school next fall. She’s hoping to work and go to school in France once she graduates. (Her little brother, who also has completed the elementary program, is now in the middle school French, but so far, it looks like football may have a more magnetic pull than a foreign language.)

The elementary program showcased all six grades, with a brief presentation from each. Story-telling, songs, and dialogues highlighted the show. The multipurpose room at the elementary school was packed. (I estimated somewhere around 300 proud family members showed up to cheer their students on.) There’s no question the students were impressive, even if what they said was totally unintelligible to me.

I chose to sit on a lunchroom table at the back of the multi-purpose room so I could be high enough above the crowd to actually see what was going on. (This particular granddaughter is super bright and downright beautiful, but she is TINY and easily lost in the crowd!) I casually introduced myself to the woman sitting next to me, a grandmother also. Even though her accent, skin color, and hairstyle suggested another culture, we immediately bonded over our clearly exceptional grandkids and agreed to meet again, same time, same place, next year.

On the other hand, French is difficult and sometimes seems highly illogical (in my limited experience). Son #3 learned French when he spent two years on a mission in Switzerland (half the country speaks German, the other half French). He loved French, and since my sister’s family was stationed in Germany when he finished his mission, we went to visit for three weeks, picking up my son during our stay. When we had traveled with him in France, most Parisians were startled to discover he wasn’t native.

After he got home, he dual-majored in Biology and French for his bachelor’s degree. During graduate school, he discovered an upside to all the years he spent learning French. Each student in their medical program was required to spend part of a semester providing instruction in modern healing techniques to a “third world” country as the humanitarian section of their degree. Africa was a typical destination. Not for Son #3; he was sent to the Caribbean. His assignment was to demonstrate and teach the latest in advanced healthcare on the island of Martinique. (Did I mention he was in the Caribbean?) Why? His fluent French.  I don’t know how much cutting-edge medical treatment he shared, but I have lots of pictures of him swimming with dolphins and manta rays in spectacular blue ocean waters, or cliff jumping, or sailing, or snorkeling, etc.

On the other hand, speaking a foreign language had its downside for Son #4. He went to the southern tip of Argentina on a two-year mission, so his fluent Spanish was beyond useful when he got a job in the IT industry, where technology-based companies tend to be internationally based. But until the 911 attack on the Twin Towers, this mother could never have imagined that being multilingual might pose a threat. Son #4 has dark eyes, very dark hair, and a dark complexion–thanks to my father, whom he resembles, in both appearance and body style.

Son #4 did a good bit of traveling for one of the early IT companies he worked for, and it was something of a shock to him the first time the TSA folks at the airport pulled him out of the boarding queue and searched him, asking dozens of questions about his background, his job, his political loyalties, and why he spoke a foreign language fluently, etc. Seems they mistook him for a terrorist—probably Lebanese. He finally talked his way onto that first plane, but on multiple trips thereafter, his buddies at work laid bets about whether he’d be detained at security again. It happened disturbingly often. (A brand-new problem that his mother had heretofore never once considered adding to her I-can’t-sleep-till-my-kids-are-safe list.)

There is a good deal of research that details the brain benefits of learning another language. Son #6 and his wife, the parents of my young granddaughter in the French performance, studied much of that information in detail before they enrolled her. (One of the all-time smartest people I know, a colleague at Bingham High, spoke 11 languages!) But the benefits go far beyond the changes in the brain. Young people are fortunate to have the opportunity to be exposed to the way another culture processes decisions through language. That clarity of understanding could be a key to opening a door to mutual respect, empathy, and even unity. Perhaps my grandchildren will be able to do a better job than we have of figuring out how to live with the rest of the world in peace. I would be willing to watch a lifetime of incomprehensible elementary school programs for that kind of outcome.

Home is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in.

Robert Frost

Son #2 died 17 years ago from the complications of a lifetime of drug addiction. Last Friday, I watched his son graduate from college. I’m pretty sure my son was looking down from Heaven. And smiling.

My grandson’s a big guy—6’ 4” (or taller? I haven’t checked for a while), and he was a member of the Southern Utah University football team, so he can “leap tall buildings in a single bound!” (For you folks younger than six or seven decades, that was the slogan for the old black and white Superman TV show.) Graduation was one of those sunny, but windy days typical of Southern Utah. We took a picture of my grandson in his cap and gown standing next to a statue of Thomas Jefferson. I had to turn away to hide the tears in my eyes.

I clearly remembered when he was about 12 years old, and I had driven across town to watch him play ball with a rec sports team program. He was racing down the field with the ball, knocking aside would-be tacklers as he went. Unbidden, tears had washed down my face at the realization that his dad would never see him play. I’d had to leave the game to weep alone in my car.

My grandson came to live with us years ago when my daughter-in-law called one afternoon for help. Her son had had a pretty serious confrontation with her current boyfriend, and since my grandson—then a sophomore in high school–was at least 6 inches taller and out-weighed the boyfriend by 50 pounds, she was worried that if the disagreement escalated, her son might literally beat the crap out of her boyfriend. Could I pick her son up after school and let him stay at my house overnight to “cool down”?

“Sure,” I said. “No problem.” When he climbed into my car, I told him he was welcome to stay until he and the boyfriend could resolve some of their issues. At the time, we had no long-range plans. One day just slipped into the next, and though he has an apartment and a job in Cedar City, his football jerseys hang on the walls of his room downstairs. He chose to never leave. As we celebrated his graduation at a fancy Italian restaurant not far from the SUU campus, he was talking about graduate school.

In case you think this currently happy ending was a whole series of pieces that just fell nicely into place at every turn, it was not. My husband and I are old. And tired. Son #6 will tell you that by the time he was in high school, we were worn out having raised seven kids already. He likes to say he “raised himself and did a damn good job of it”. He may not have been particularly humble, but he was right. His older siblings saw to it that he met curfew. If he happened to be late, one of them would wake us up and let us know. Mostly, he just followed the pattern his brothers and sisters had set–show up at school, do your homework, take responsibility for your mistakes, plan a future, and work at loving your family.

So when my grandson came to live at my house, something I couldn’t have imagined happened. My adult children stepped up. Sons #s 1 and 5 checked on him every week or so from Boise and Phoenix. They quietly Venmo’d him money when his Pell grant didn’t cover all his school expenses. They spent hours on the phone with him over the years, helping him figure out what career he was really interested in, how to navigate relationships, and where the best fishing in Utah might be found.

Daughter #1 handled all his organizational problems, from guiding his class registration so that it would lead to graduation, to occasionally helping him write thoughtful papers for his favorite psychology courses, and seeing to it that his physical and emotional needs were met. Son #3 was always available on the phone to give emergency medical advice or provide a Sunday dinner (he lives in a nearby city) on days when my grandson needed company.

Daughter #2 (whose two sons, together with this grandson, could eat enough food to feed the rest of the entire extended family!) walked him through difficult concepts in his health and science classes, ignored the noise in her basement when the boys (and her husband) were watching BYU football or basketball games, and had my grandson laughing when everyday problems made his life seem bleak.

Sons #4 and 6 taught him computer skills (lots and lots of them) and made sure he knew how to do car maintenance and household repair. Plus, their examples showed him how good fathers love, care for, and appreciate children–a gift he will value his whole life.

But, of course, raising a person is not easy because growing up is hard, no matter how much support you are fortunate enough to have. Being human leaves us open to the foibles of a fragile body–illness (both mental and physical, like my grandson’s father), accident, disaster, heartbreak, betrayal, loneliness, and sometimes genuine lifelong miseries over which we have little control–to name just a few.  But seeing my grandson holding a diploma and standing in front of the statue of Thomas Jefferson gives me hope for his future. And it reminds me how blessed I am to be able to see it unfold.

Home is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in.

Robert Frost

I cooked fried eggs on our new stove in our newly remodeled kitchen yesterday. Not as easy as it sounds. Technology thumbed its nose at me and leaped ahead with something called a radiant cooktop. A shiny, oblong black glass surface sits on my counter with several round holes painted on the top. The cook (me) is supposed to center a pan on one of the prescribed holes and push a spot marked on/off. Mind you, there’s no actual button–pushing the spot becomes a matter of faith. I figured out how to make it work, and the eggs were certainly edible, but I’m not sure I was happy about it. I have had a long and uneasy relationship with Advancing Technology.  

Years ago, our family was one of the first in the neighborhood to have an Atari gaming system. My husband, a software designer, brought one home for the kids. From my point of view, it was just one more thing for my six sons to fight over (which they did regularly with great enthusiasm). I was somewhat taken aback when a couple of years later, Son #6, my FIVE-YEAR-OLD, came in as one of the top winners in his age category at a national traveling Nintendo competition. (Now, he makes his living designing software at 4 or 5 times the salary with which I retired after almost 25 years of teaching.)

And I clearly remember the day Son #5 bought me my first cell phone—it was a Mother’s Day gift. “What the heck am I going to do with this?” I recall thinking. He assured me it would make my life much easier. Since I’ve always had a soft spot for Son #5 because he’s the only one of my children I can never remember having screamed “No” at me, I smiled and said, “Thank you.” But truthfully, it didn’t take long to convert me. Once my husband discovered he could contact me anywhere from our home landline, he no longer felt the need to have me paged over the loudspeaker at the bank, library or grocery store (yes, this happened SEVERAL TIMES), so he could pass on whatever random bit of information that had popped to the top of his head. It was then that I began to see the advantage of what I had heretofore dismissed as just another appliance designed to increase the S&P 500’s price of AT&T stock. It took a year or two, but now, if I can’t find my phone, I am prone to a full-on panic attack!

However, the place that pushed my “new technology” anxiety over the edge was my employment. I took a full-time teaching job when I was well into my 40s. (The 20 or so years before that I had spent running an  asylum for eight bright but very unruly short people.) Virtually all the 20-year-old teachers around me had had extensive training in how to use computer technology to their advantage in the classroom. I started college when Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were TEN years old (odd they were born in the same year, don’t you think?). When I had finished college, using a film projector was considered “high tech”. (And yes, I can splice a broken piece of film very nicely with scotch tape, thank you.)

Naturally, one of the classes I was assigned was journalism—the school newspaper–Which Used Computers! A lot of computers. So I told my students the truth—I knew a great deal about writing a good news story; I’d even been on BYU’s newspaper staff writing feature stuff for the music department. But laying out a newspaper with technology? Totally beyond me. (The principal never mentioned how desperate she must have been to hire me, or I might have thought twice about taking the job.)

My students rose to the occasion. They taught me the differences between Apple and PC, showed me how to format columns, choose pleasing fonts for headlines, insert photos, layout ads, etc. And in return, I taught them how to write. A couple of those kids are now professional journalists. It’s my pleasure to regularly read what they write. (And when I do, I never fail to have a rush of gratitude for their astonishing generosity. Most kids are far better people than the media would like us to believe.)

So you are probably thinking to yourself, well, you must have learned something since you are writing this on a computer. Good point. But since I’m a Baby Boomer and had to learn the technology by the “hunt and peck” method, I never have any line of reference for a problem I haven’t seen before–like a couple of months ago when I hit a wrong key and my text began to write on top of itself—which I didn’t even know was possible. The next time Son #4 came by the house, I showed him the problem. “Hmmm,” he said and began to type into his phone. Five minutes later, he waved a magic wand over my keyboard, and it worked again!

“Wow!” I said to his wife, who was sitting nearby. “Thanks for letting him take the time to figure out my problem.”

She laughed out loud. “You hardly ever ask him for help. My parents call him from Southern Utah a couple of times a week with technology questions!” Boom! There’s a reason they call us Baby Boomers!

This month, I had occasion to take Robert Frost at his word. I was about to be homeless, and I spent a few weeks feeling out the possibilities of housing for my husband and me with several of my children. All of them were gracious enough to be willing to shelter us—exceptionally generous offers considering we are both old and cranky. Son #4 lost the draw. His house is close, has a spare bedroom, and 25 years ago he and his wife had cheerfully taken us in for a few months when our home was originally built.

We’re not the only ones who have taken advantage of Son #4. He and his wife had also housed her sister and two children for upwards of 10 years, his youngest brother and family (including newborn twins) for at least a year, one of her brothers for close to 2 years, and various other family members on both sides whenever any of them were too poor to afford a VRBO and were visiting Utah. (Plus, the truth is Son #4 and his wife are just good people. I don’t think it would have occurred to them to turn anyone away.)

Why was I threatened with being homeless? Several years ago, I sold my house to Daughter #1 who is single, makes much money than I ever did, and needed a tax deduction. The sale meant that we lived with her instead of her living with us. (My husband and I won that little transaction because we are old, and we were relieved that our daughter with the problem-solving superpower was willing to take over.) Besides, she has taste, and she has been setting aside money to pay for the remodeling which is now in progress on the main floor of her home. Daughter #1 is a savvy organizer and was well aware that no work would ever be completed while her father was living in the house and able to a) daily interrogate every workman about his/her qualifications, and b) insist on redesigning every plan for the job ahead. Hence, we are sheltering nearby with Son #4 while the remodel goes on.

Oddly enough, this whole process of “what is home” was the subject of discussion at a bi-annual luncheon date with my college freshman roommates. (Yep, we are still friends after almost 60 years!)  One of our group had been very recently widowed and has been invited to live with her two daughters–one divorced and the other separated—who share a home in Sacramento, California. While we were together to bid her farewell, we circled around the idea of what “home” actually means. The other two members of our group are also widowed—one has an adult son living in her basement and the other has two adult daughters with serious health disabilities living with her. My temporary move to my son’s house meant that not a single one of us is currently living in what we had imagined home would be like for us when we were young.

Then, this weekend I attended the funeral of a friend in my neighborhood who passed away. At the pulpit, three of her children talked about their mother’s last moments when she told them she was ready to go “home” and be reunited with her parents and the son she had lost when he was very young. I wondered: is that what home really means?

Yesterday I happened to drop by my house to pick up another Sunday outfit. I’ve been alternating the two church outfits I brought to my son’s house for the last 6 or 7 weeks, and the truth is, I just got bored. I went in through the garage door, and in the kitchen I found Son #4 and Daughter #1 hanging long strips of clear plastic with blue painter’s tape to protect the newly installed cabinetry while they scrubbed and the painted the ceiling. Daughter #1 could have afforded to hire a painting company, but she talked Son #4 into doing the job because long ago he worked as a professional painter to help put himself through school, and he’s meticulous about the details. (I have faith he’ll never let her forget that she owes him!)

When the builder tore the kitchen out, Daughter #1 moved the refrigerator/freezer combo into the living room, set up two long tables to hold a microwave, an air fryer, and all the paper products she has needed to use the room as a “camp” kitchen for the last six weeks now. Son #5 was standing next to the microwave scolding two of his kids (ages 6 and 8) for spilling popcorn all over the carpet which meant he had to stop the painting prep to help them clean up.

Down the hall in the main bathroom, Daughter #2 and her husband were standing in Daughter #1’s brand-new bathtub spreading plastic and painter’s tape on the ceiling so they could put a basecoat on the walls in there. Next door, my bedroom was filled with boxes of bathroom stuff, and I could see signs that a base coat had already been started where my toilet used to be.

There didn’t appear to be a single space on the main floor that wasn’t in some stage of transformation. Chaos was the reigning décor philosophy, but I wasn’t in the least put off by the mess. I loved the people there. Everyone. Now that I think about it, we are blessed indeed if love is our definition of home.

Home is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in.

Robert Frost

It was 3 o’clock in the morning when the phone rang. Nora groaned and rolled over, grabbing the phone off the charger and trying to focus her eyes on caller ID. But she needn’t have bothered. There was only one reason for a call at this hour. A shiver of anxiety over which she had no control washed through her.

“Hello,” she said. “This is Nora.”

“Are you the mother of,” the voice paused a moment. “Let’s see, driver’s license says, Justin Evercourt? Twenty-four years old? About 6” 2”, blond hair, hazel eyes?”

“Yes.” She said. “Yes, that’s my son. ”

“This is the Third Precinct, Ma’am. I’m Lt. Harrison. One of our patrol officers found your son about an hour ago. He was unconscious and sprawled up against the stairwell door on the third level of the airport parking lot. Justin was not breathing and had no discernible heartbeat. Officer Lippman says he would never have noticed him, but the blinking exit light was reflecting off a strange, irregular surface so he went over to investigate. Lippman immediately called 911 and began administering CPR.” He stopped, uncertain if he should mention the needle the Lippman pulled from her son’s arm.

“Is he . . .?” Nora’s mouth refused to form the word she had feared for so long. She tried again. “Is he gone?” was all that she could force out.

“No, Ma’am,” the caller’s voice was gentle. “Your son must have had some kind of Guardian Angel watching over him. Our officer was able to revive him. He’s still unconscious but breathing on his own now. He’s being transported to LDS Hospital as we speak.”

“Thank you, Officer,” Nora managed to whisper as her stomach rolled itself in the all-too-familiar clench of anxiety. “I’m on my way.”

Without bothering to turn on the light, Nora pulled off the top shelf of her bedroom closet the small cosmetic bag that she kept filled with the essentials for an unexpected overnight visit. Then she grabbed whatever outfit she could reach in the dark which felt warm. Hospitals were always so cold. She took only a moment to whip a brush through her hair and another one across her teeth before she headed out the door.

The Christmas lights across the front of the house blinked in bright silver and blue over the light snow on the surface of the driveway. It didn’t appear to be icy yet, and she was relieved she didn’t have to stop to scrap the car windows.  A muted string of Christmas carols from the radio switched on with the engine. She didn’t notice. It was a long drive from the south end of town to the hospital. And she was grateful for the time to think. But thinking brought back the tears. She didn’t know how much longer she could handle these calls midnight calls.

Justin had been such a golden child, friendly and funny even before he could put sentences together. When he turned 12 or 13, everything changed. She’d been working then as a substitute teacher in the local school district. Whenever Justin found out she was assigned to his junior high school, he’d mysteriously disappear from class. By the end of his three years there, she’d met with his counselor so often that they joked they ought to schedule a regular meeting at a nearby restaurant—maybe they could encourage Justin to stay in school by inviting him to join them.

Then came high school. The problems increased exponentially. Now an expert at skipping class, every morning when Justin climbed out of Nora’s car at the front door of his school–as soon as she was out of sight–, he’d jog over to the Trax station across the street and ride the train downtown where he’d hang out with buddies who were happy to share a marijuana joint with him. The drugs escalated until one December night, in a rage of heroin-fueled fury, he sprinted out the front door in a bitterly cold snowstorm and disappeared for more than a week. The police had been unable to locate him, but one afternoon when she came home from work, there he was, sitting in the living room reading the fantasy novel she’d bought him the Christmas before.

Over the years she spent a fortune she didn’t have on therapy for him–several of those attempts required her participation. She learned a great deal about kids coping with all kinds of mental health issues by drug use. Justin was willing–in fact–sometimes actually quite cheerful about going, but nothing changed. Once in a moment of unusual candor, he had proudly revealed that he could earn a couple of hundred dollars-a-day panhandling outside a large downtown mall. That bought a lot of drugs. And it was twice what she made a day as a substitute teacher.

He was asleep when she opened the door of his hospital room. There was a low hum of machines measuring his heartbeat and oxygen levels. An IV on a pole attached to his bed was pumping a bag of Narcan into his arm, and his face was covered with scratches, some still oozing blood from his clawing at his own skin. Meth. No wonder he looked as though hadn’t eaten for a while. Oh, Justin, my sweet son, she thought, and her heart turned over. Quietly, she slid a chair alongside his bed, reaching for his hand.

He stirred in his sleep. “Mom,” he said. Then he drifted back into wherever his uneasy dreams had taken him.

It was just past dawn when a phlebotomist pushed open the door, smiled in Nora’s direction, and asked if “now was a good time for a blood draw?”

Justin made no response, so the woman pulled her rolling tray up close to his bed. Nora moved out of the way and watched as the phlebotomist expertly drew several vials of blood. Justin never stirred.

Late afternoon sun was pouring into the room when he finally opened his eyes and focused on his mother dozing in the chair opposite him.

“Hey,” he said. “how long have you been here?”

“A while.”

“You didn’t need to come,” he said, his speech low and slightly slurred. “I’ll be fine. I’m always fine. Eventually.” A grim smile crossed his face at the irony of his words. “Well, maybe not always.”

She said nothing.

His eyelids drooped, and once again he drifted off to sleep.

It was full dark outside when he whispered, “Mom. You awake?”

Nora nodded, though she didn’t bother to open her eyes. “I’m here,” she said. “I’m here.” When she looked up, she was startled to see tears washing down her son’s face.

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “So sorry. I’ve screwed everything up. Again.”

The harshness of his breathing escalated, and she realized he was struggling to stop the ragged sobs which were audible even above the machines measuring his heart and lungs. “Justin,” she quieted him exactly as she had when he was young and had crashed his bike or had a petty argument with a friend. “It will be OK.” Over the years the words had become a kind of mantra for her, a self-soothing phrase that eased the spike of tension which permeated virtually every conversation she’d had with her son these last years. She wanted to believe it. She wanted that desperately.

“What happened?”

“A cop found you. Said you must have some kind of Guardian Angel watching over you. You’re lucky to be alive.” She bit hard on her lower lip to keep from weeping. “What happened?” There was always some kind of trigger, so she waited.

After a long silence. When he finally answered, his voice was flat. “Genille called.”

Startled, Nora turned to stare at him. “When?”

“This morning. Or maybe yesterday. I don’t know,” he admitted, staring at the walls around him. “l don’t know. How long have I been here?”

“A while,” she answered as she pulled her chair close enough to him to look directly into his face. “Justin. It’s been so long. What did she say? Where is she? How’s the baby?”

When he finally managed to speak, his voice was low and broken. “She’s OK. At least that’s what she says. Been in Kansas with her stepdad.” He stopped, taking several deep breaths to force back the rising sorrow. “Noah’s walking now. Even talking in short sentences.” He clenched his teeth and forced himself to finish. “Says he’s tall for an almost two-year-old.” Tears glistened on his cheeks. “Gonna be like me, I guess.”

 Nora nodded and smiled despite the flash of pain his words generated. She hadn’t seen or heard a word about the baby since he’d awakened her with his unrelenting screams when a battle erupted down the hall between his parents in her guest room almost 18 months ago. “Adults take care of children!” she had exploded at them–fury in her voice, as she gathered up the terrified baby and bundled him as far away from the violent argument as her small home would allow.

Justin pulled her away from the memory when he reached out and groped for her hand. “Oh, Mom,” he wailed. “What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do?”

His attempt to stifle his sobs coupled with his exhaustion tore at her with even more pain than before–if that were possible. One memory after another flooded through the walls she’d built up in her head to keep her own sorrow at bay. Justin’s call from a shady motel room the day Genille went into labor. The newborn little boy with an astonishing mop of thick, almost white hair exactly as Justin’s had been. The chubby little fingers and toes. The blue, blue eyes inherited from his mother which crinkled when he smiled. The nightmare when she’d come home from a long day trying to convince students that algebra was an essential life skill to find the crib empty, and all of Genille and the baby’s pitifully small collection of possessions gone. Then nothing. No word at all.

Justin’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “She claims she’s been clean for almost a year now. Has a job as assistant manager at a 7-11.” He stopped. His voice fell to a whisper. “She’d engaged. Some farmer she’s known since 4^th grade. Gonna get married in the spring. That’s why she called. Wants me to sign over my parental rights to her fiancé. She says he loves my boy. And my boy loves him.” His face reflected a panic she had never seen in him. “Says it would mean ‘stability’. A safe place for him to grow up.” Anguish overtook him. “I can’t lose him, Mom. I can’t.” The monitor on his heart began to beep insistently.

Rushing into the room, a nurse switched off the beeper with one hand and reached for Justin’s wrist with the other. After 10 or 15 seconds, she checked her notes, then fingered in a code to unlock a nearby cupboard, taking out a small bag. She ripped it open and hung it on a hook next to the Narcan, connecting it to the drip already seeping into his arms.

“No drugs,” he begged her. “I have to think. It’s important.”

Business-like precision was written on her face, but she took a moment to produce a genuine smile and pat his arm. “It will be OK,” she said unknowingly echoing the words of his mother. “It’s just a very light medication to make it easier for you to breathe.” She exchanged a glance across the room with Nora. “I promise,” she added.

Still, it was a long time before his ragged panting quieted, and his eyes closed.

The moon was high outside the window when Justin woke again. His mother must be engrossed in a novel on her phone, he thought. Her face reflected the light from the small screen in a room that was otherwise totally dark. A  romance, he guessed, because when she was reading, her facial expression often reflected her feelings about what the characters were doing. At that moment, she was relaxed, and she was smiling.

Then he remembered. Genille and his little boy. The anxiety roared back. “I’ve got to get out of here,” he said as he pushed back the sheet and reached the call button. “I have to go.

“Justin. Stop.” Nora ordered, dropping the phone into her lap, and grasping his arm across the railing of his bed to keep him from rising. “You can hardly walk at the moment. It will only make things worse if you fall and break a couple of bones.”

“But . . .” his voice trailed off. “What am I gonna do?” First anger and then humiliation washed across his face as he realized he couldn’t stop the tears from coming again.

Nora waited in silence as he struggled for control.

“Mom?” He finally whispered. “Do you believe there really is such a thing as a Guardian Angel like the cop said?”

All those years she’d dragged him to church every Sunday, but faith had somehow eluded him. The only faith Justin had ever seemed to have developed was that another fix could ease his pain. “Why now?” she said. “Why does it suddenly matter now?”

“I can’t be a dad,” he admitted. “Not yet.” He lowered his gaze, his words so quiet, that she could barely hear him. “I’m not safe. My boy would not be safe with me.” He looked up at her in agony.  “What if I forgot to feed him? Or I hurt him?” His eyes closed, fear the undertone in his voice. “What if he ends up–like me?” The pain written across his face was so devastating, that it was almost tangible.

Oh Lord, she prayed as she struggled to answer, please help me say what matters. “I do believe in angels, Justin. You know that,” she said quietly. “You’ve always known that.”

“Would you…?” his voice trailed off. “Do you think you could ask Heaven to send a Guardian Angel to watch out for my boy? Until I’m better. Until he’ll be safe with me?” He swiped at the tears staining his cheeks.

Nora’s voice was quiet. “Are you thinking of signing the papers for Genille? Giving up your rights?”

At last Justin’s voice was steady. Certain. “A farm,” he said. “With cows. Maybe a horse to ride. And a dog. I always wanted a dog.”

Nora was unaware of her own tears of loss now covering her own cheeks and washing down onto the faded  BYU sweatshirt she wore. “Justin,” she said. “You must love that little boy so much.” Unconsciously, she used the back of her hand to wipe away the tears dripping off her cheeks. “ So much, ” she repeated. She reached out and clasped his hand, pulling it close, next to her heart. “Someday. . . . Someday, perhaps he’ll understand.”

May the Light of the World Be Your Guide

Merry Christmas

Home is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in.

Robert Frost

I went to a funeral this week. It was not for an old friend or a treasured family member. In fact, the funeral was for a person whom I had met formally only once and since then have had fewer than a ½ dozen very short in-person conversations over the last several years. Instead, almost all of our interactions have been through long strings of text on Facebook!

He was a music teacher at a local middle school which several of my grandchildren have attended (though I don’t think any of them were his students). But it’s evident that he was an outstanding educator because even at my age, I learned a lot from him. I clearly remember the day he posted that he had finished his cancer treatments. What he did not say is that they had not helped.

Less than a month ago, we had an online conversation about a funeral he, himself, had recently attended. It was for an elderly woman—so old that almost all of her friends had already passed away. But he told me that when the friends and family filed into the chapel after the family prayer, the room was filled to capacity. We agreed that a chapel bursting with people who loved her testified that the old woman must have had a very fulfilling life, indeed.

Fewer than 30 days later, I sat in a chapel packed to overflowing with his friends and family. It was an eccentric group because as his brother said, their family consisted of parents, grandparents, siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles, in-laws, out-laws, adopted members, and random folks they had learned to love and welcomed into their home—bonus family is what Son #1 likes to call that. There were some terrible dad jokes, some hilarious stories with audience members occasionally calling out additional details, and lots of music! It was, in fact, what a funeral is supposed to be—the celebration of a good life well-lived. And I expect he’s been welcomed with open arms on the Other Side–especially since angels are apparently really fond of music!

In contrast to that, a couple of weeks before, I had visited twice with a former daughter-in-law to help with a small problem related to a grandchild. During both visits she expressed her rising anxiety about the current political unrest in this country. It was oddly disturbing since I have known her almost 25 years, and she is normally so disinterested in politics that she didn’t even register to vote when I ran for office in her precinct. If she is worried, then our national government’s inability to manage itself effectively must have ripples far deeper than even our elected officials realize. She asked me how she could reconcile her escalating fear for the future with what she feels is her duty to her children—to teach them that life is an investment worth making?

My brother–a former history teacher–and I have such a discussion fairly regularly. He spends a good deal of time researching one crisis after another in countries around the world, and he is more and more convinced that the future we are facing does not end well. So does that mean we should all just quit trying? Certainly, sometimes it feels as though, like Katniss Everdeen in Hunger Games, the odds are not in our favor.

Perhaps my friend, the music teacher, had some answers. He loved marching bands. (In fact, I saw on Facebook yesterday morning that his wife stepped on the field for Alumni Band without him for the first time in 37 years!) At his funeral his brother said my friend had designed his first marching band routine for the high school band he belonged to when he was only 18 years old. (Trust me, that’s incredible.) But the most remarkable part is that he just kept marching. The bands changed; the skills increased, the talents broadened, new members were trained and inducted, but he never stopped marching.

I guess, in the end, I don’t have much power over the big problems facing world governments, but that doesn’t mean I’m off the hook. The dishes still need to be done, the garden weeded, dinner taken to the sick neighbor, books lent to local students taking the ACT exam, grandchildren supported on missions and in college, bad jokes shared with friends, and gratitude for a rich life expressed to Heaven every  day–so that when my times comes, like my friend, I, too, will still be marching.