The Words We Hear

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

Robert Frost

When Son #6 turned twelve years old, he began giving me grief about having to go to church every Sunday. “It’s boring and a waste of time,” he complained. “We hear the same stuff over and over again. I’m twelve now. I should get to choose. And I don’t want to go.”

I had, of course, heard those very words before from several of my children when they entered their ‘difficult years’, as my friend dubbed teenagerhood. Without evening thinking, my default answer clicked in. “You have to go to church. I’m in charge, and I say you have to go.” You can imagine that stellar response got absolutely no cooperation–and over the next few years, a whole lot of backlash.

At the time, we were standing in the foyer outside the chapel, people streaming into the service around us.  Son #6 was the reigning family champion of stubborn. He set his jaw, stared at me, and defied me to make him go. He was taller than I was and well beyond the age when I could just pick him up and set him down on a pew. I looked around for help from his dad, but he was nowhere in sight.

Now what? Then without any volition on my part, my mouth opened and out of nowhere came these words: “Someday some speaker or teacher is going to say something which will change your life. You need to be in church, so you don’t miss it.”

It would be nice if I could say that Son #6 nodded his head in understanding, but that would stretch credulity. We still battled most Sundays about his getting out of bed and showing up at the meeting house. In fact, the week he turned 13, he reminded me of what I had said the year before. Then he concluded, “Well, Mom. So far, nothing.”

Things didn’t improve. That summer he and a buddy saved their money and bought a youth summer pass from UTA, our local public transit system. They climbed on a bus and roamed the local area. It wasn’t until later I learned how far afield they had traveled, all without notifying of asking permission of either set of parents. I remember looking at Heaven and echoing Tevye’s words, “Why me, Lord?”

A couple of years after that, Daughter #1’s friend from Sweden came for a visit. Daniel had always wanted to go to Sea World in San Diego; we were happy to oblige. While we were there, we took a side trip to Tijuana, Mexico. Son #6 was confronted with a kind of poverty and a living standard he’d never imagined existed. “Well,” he announced, “if I get called to a mission here, I’m not going.” Sound familiar? I assured him that I’d begin praying immediately for him to go to Mexico.

I was in Australia visiting Son #1 and his family, when Son #6’s mission call came. It was pricey to contact me in Sydney, but Son #6 wasted no time calling to read the letter over the phone. His very first words? “Thanks, Mom.” He didn’t even have to mention the place. I knew. Mexico. Chihuahua.

Of course, I worried while he was gone. Drug lords, lawlessness, revenge murders. It was a rough territory. He told me later that he had interacted with several well-known drug leaders. Their policy was to leave LDS missionaries alone because those young people seemed to have no personal agenda, just a genuine desire to improve the lives of people they taught. He learned to love the country and its residents in spite of his earlier misgivings. Bonus–Spanish is an integral part of his job nowadays.

In her book GRIT, Dr. Angela Duckworth talks about kids learning to be productive adults from parents who don’t let their children quit when the task or job gets tough. Showing up makes a difference, whether it’s easy or not.

In Son #6’s case, the battle appears to have been worth it. When he talks about his adolescence, he often says that his parents were so old when he was born, they were too tired to enforce any rules, leaving him to raise himself. (He always adds, “And I did a damn good job, too!”) I will never know who said the words at church that changed his life. But it’s clear, he heard them. That’s why, in quiet moments, when I look with gratitude across the room at the family photo of Son #6, his wife, and four children sitting on the mantle, I often whisper, “Thank you.”