Of Life and Times

I have a tale to tell. Those who know Elaine and me know that we had surgeries to help us get our weight off in 2009. One of the requirements for the rest of our lives, at least for me, is a ton of protein every day. Without the protein my hair will fall out.

Recently we have had problems with mice in our pantry. They nested and destroyed a huge percentage of our food storage. We have had to Clorox all the shelves to get rid of the mouse droppings and maggots, etc. It was totally disgusting. We hauled out at least 10 carcasses after they were poisoned.

Well the other day I was needing a protein drink, which we keep in the cupboard. Yes, I usually drink them room temperature.  Because of problems in the past I am always very careful to inspect each container before putting my mouth on it. This one had been nibbled on the flap you pull up to open it, but it looked safe otherwise. I washed it off, opened it up and started to drink.

One of the problems with these drinks is that when they have been sitting around for a while much of the very bottom of the drink clots. It is like putting a blood clot in your mouth. That is the texture. Elaine won't drink them any more because of that. I can mush it up in my mouth so I can swallow it without gagging. Oh the things we have to do.

This time when I got to the bottom I was mushing up the clots when I felt something that was small and firm. Hmm, I haven't felt that before. I rolled it around in my mouth and felt it with my tongue trying to identify it. No good. So I swallowed everything else and spit it onto my finger to see what it was. There, covered in chocolate protein drink was what looked for all the world like a dead maggot. I'm sure I don't need to describe in detail the spitting, the scraping of the tongue, and hard swallowing that followed. Shivers.

I have been asked to share a memory of each of my children. At the risk of embarrassing them all, I will try to keep each comment short, thus lessening the public pain of a parent doting on his children.

Eleanor was my first exposure to parenthood. Every tragedy was for the first time, and therefore more emotionally extreme for us as parents. When she had pneumonia and we had to tent her crib and buy a humidifier, and prop up her mattress so her head was elevated, we were terrified. If she got much worse we would have to take her to the hospital so the doctors and nurses could give her the care she needed. We stayed up almost all night for several nights in a row, wondering if she might die, and how we would handle it after having lost our first child prematurely. Watching her labored breathing and the amount she suffered bonded me to her in a way I can't explain. I have felt protective of her ever since.

Anna got lost in the middle of the family somehow. Eleanor had special needs in school, Paul had medical conditions that needed constant attention, and Elizabeth was the baby, so demanded her fair share of time and effort. Anna was quiet, and well behaved, so we didn't give her the time and attention she needed. I will always feel bad about that. My biggest wake up call was one day when she and I were doing dishes in our house in Orem (upstairs). We were just talking, and I was focusing my attention on the dishes in my hands. Suddenly she said in a weak voice, "Daddy." Something in her voice told me she was slipping away. I turned immediately to see her upturned face. Her eyes became vacant, and her pupils instantly became fully dilated as she started to fall to the floor. I thought I was watching my little baby die. My heart just broke on the spot. I caught her as she slumped to the floor, calling her name, but with no response. Then, without any precursor,  she rolled over on the floor and threw up a little bit. Any of my children will attest to how much I hate throw-up. But I was almost grateful to see it because it meant she was still alive. She confessed that occasionally she would simply pass out for no apparent reason. Ever since then I have been worried about her health. I just don't want to lose her again like I thought I did that day.

It is hard for me to look at Paul and remember him as a young child, until I see his son PJ with a stick in his hand. PJ will walk for hours with something in his hand to hold on to. It really doesn't matter what it is, as long as he has something to wave in the air, poke things with, and swing. That was Paul to a tee when he was little. Sometimes we almost had to resort to hiding the broom or mop because Paul was always swinging anything long he could get his hands on. Once, again in the Orem house, he put a croquet mallet through the Belnaps downstairs window. I wonder how many things Paul will have to repair or replace because his son has the same love of sticks.

Marie and I got off to a rocky start. She had Elaine all to herself her whole life, then I moved in with four other children and totally disrupted her life. Our invasion into her shrine, and yes, Elaine had turned the whole house into a monument to Marie's accomplishments turned her world upside down. We were a totally dysfunctional family. My first glimpse at the Marie Elaine knew before we got married was when we picked her up from a ranch she had been at for a few months. I had never seen her so happy and relaxed, so polite and careful of others around her. I was truly impressed. Now that she is getting married (in April), I am seeing her with her baby. She just dotes on Tayah. I have never seen her be this happy before, and it gives me great joy.

Elizabeth is, in many ways, too much like her father for her own good. She is afraid of life, and doesn't know how to approach it. I'm afraid that is my fault. What I think about when I think of Elizabeth as a person, is her way of making you feel good about yourself. She has a way of cuddling up to you either physically or verbally so that you are more than happy to do whatever she wants you to do. Maybe it is just me. I always was a pushover for someone who actually liked me. Whenever she wanted to stay up late, she (and the others as well) had but to start scratching my back or rubbing the back of my head and neck and I was out like a light. then when she was tired she went to bed and left me sleeping on the couch, contented and blissfully ignorant of what she had just gotten away with, until I woke up.

Just a quick thought - Today I was talking with Elaine, before I took her in to school, about life in general. On the way back from dropping her off I had a flash of insight about myself.

The parable of the talents popped into my head. I thought about the qualities of the three servants. Then it hit me, I am a third servant kind of person. I have always known that I was afraid of life. I have deliberately stayed away from it for fear of contamination. I have been afraid that if I got too close I would become defiled by all the evil out there, and was more afraid that I wouldn't be able to deal with the evil in myself. Don't get me wrong. I am not afraid of what the Lord will do to me in the day of Judgment. I know he is kind and loving and will give me every consideration He can. It is me I am afraid of.

Part of the flash that hit me showed me that in the day of Judgment it is I who will be worthy of condemnation because I refused to use the gifts God gave me to bless the lives of His other children. I will have, if you will, buried them out of fear of what might happen were I to openly use them. I have lost so many years crawling around in the dark, looking out with envy at the experiences and accomplishments of others. I have always wondered what they have that I don't. Now I know. They haven't held back for fear of not being stellar at whatever they wanted to participate in. I have.

I don't know what it will take, or how I will accomplish it, but I need to learn to put myself out there and take some risks so that in the end I won't be worthy of my current rebuke, "Thou wicked and slothful servant." Sounds harsh? Well it isn't, considering how I have lived my life. I need to change what He is going to say to me, because the current path is the last one I ever wanted to be on.

We have perhaps 70-80 years of this life to learn the lessons that mortality has for us before we are called home for the rest of our eternal lives. Our time here is truly short. As each generation enters this stage and begins their journey of discovery, it is our elders who have been here the longest who teach us the lessons they have learned.

It has occurred to me that the most valuable of lessons the older generation has to pass on to the rest of us is their perspective. As I walked across campus today, I thought of those who have come before. What have the kapunas, the elderly, experienced in their lifetimes that create what I know as my history? The study of these individual histories, and the collective histories of each generation before them are what paint the picture of the development of our human race. Without this picture, without these stories what am I left with?

By myself I lack the perspective I need to pass valuable knowledge on to my children. By myself I can only have a somewhat skewed view of reality, since it is only from one perspective, and is, therefore, suspect of being laden with emotional prejudice and all my personal issues. Interestingly enough, so are our societal views of life. Such views we sometimes refer to as "culture."

True wisdom comes from listening to my elders, learning from the mistakes of their lives, the success of their lives, then balancing the lessons against the prevailing times and emerging philosophies of the day. Some things will need to change for my children, but some things were never meant to change. Some principles, such as love, honor, acceptance, tolerance, loyalty and devotion to what is good and right, must never change or we as a race will be threatened with destruction.

My mother, my own kapuna, is my best connection to that collective wisdom of the ages. She sees through hardships better than I do and can guide me to find the lessons from them. She has experienced more generations of humanity than I have and can see more clearly the trends and the consistancies of our human conscienciousness. I know that she is not flawless, though sometimes I would like to think she is. But she has always been such a source of strength and support, such a comfort in times of trial that I wonder what will happen when she is gone.

When our parents die we no longer have that final link to the generations that came before us. As we go up that ladder and become the kapuna to our children and grandchildren, will we be able to gain a greater clarity of vision? Will we be able to see more clearly the nature of the human soul to help teach those younger than we are how to better navigate their human experience than we did? The hope is that we can all answer affirmatively to these questions. If we cannot, then we are contributing to the world's end of wisdom. What a responsibility age carries with it.