...and I'm thinking Jordan is just bad luck.

Alternate titles for this post:

• LOCAL FAMILY SINGLE-HANDEDLY KEEPS HOSPITAL FUNDED
• How the Lord warns prepares me for trials (and also moves in Mysterious Ways)
• Left-handed is the new Black
• the swelling, it was awesome

Have I got a story for you folks!

One day almost two years ago, my brother Matt broke his leg badly enough that it had to be operated on.  My other brother Jordan, a med student, was just pulling into town from St. Louis and was allowed to watch the doctors cut open his little brother.
Matt had to delay his mission 6 weeks, which caused all sorts of havoc, but it worked out all right in the end.

Fast forward to two weeks ago.

Jordan is in town again, this time for a month-long radiology rotation.  Shortly after he arrived in Roosevelt we got word from missionary Matt that he needed emergency surgery and would be coming home for a few weeks.  Once again Jordan scrubbed in, and not only watched but participated in the surgery.  (Matt will be heading back to Paraguay on the 27th, by which time he should be fairly well-recovered.)

Today I stepped out my front door and carefully made my way down the icy concrete steps.  See, I don't know about where you live, but here in Roosevelt we've had more rain than snow this month.  And just this morning the rain turned to sheets of ice, the likes of which many of us have never seen.
You see where I'm going with this.

My feet disappeared and I landed, mostly on my right wrist, which has given me trouble periodically since high school.  Slice came outside to make sure I made it to the car and found me hollering, swinging my arm, hopping up and down, and blabbering on about how we have no handrail (which we've never even talked about) so there was nothing I could do to prevent such a fall.  His confusion was quite understandable.
(Me? I was just in pain.)

A couple hours and six X-rays later, I am the unfortunate bearer of a fractured wrist.  Oh yes.
Meaning: I won't make it to his Holiday Open House, but I'll be seeing the orthopedic surgeon next Monday morning for a cast.  My 6-month old now thinks his mother is neglecting him.  I can't take a real shower for  ____ # of weeks.

Did I mention that my mother had shoulder surgery about a month ago, and my dad had a little surgery the same day as Matt?  And that my sister is expecting a baby in April?

Right now I'm counting my blessings: we re-instated our health insurance coverage this month; Slice is currently unemployed.  I have a dishwasher.  I scrubbed my bathroom first thing this morning.  Fig and Truffs brought me Christmas treats.

This post has taken me two hours to write.  The left one just doesn't work well alone.

updates

We are still sick.  
I'm coughing just a bit, Slice is coughing a lot, and Liam can hardly breathe while he eats and sleeps.  (I hate it.)  At least we have health insurance now, wahoo!

He also started teething.

We closed on our house yesterday...
...but can't move in until Friday/Saturday.  I've been packing for weeks now, just a box here and there.  This method of packing is feeding my OCD tendencies to have everything packed in just the right size of box, just the right weight, in just the right order.  Yes, Slice has been mocking me for this, and no, I can't blame him too much.  It just makes me so happy.

That's it.

Love y'all.

Okay.

These Droid commercials creep. me. out. Anyone else?

Creeeeeepy.

Cautionary Tales

There's an article in the June 28 edition of TIME that has been the topic of much discussion between Slice and me, and other members of my family. (Published not long after I read this excellent blog post from an adoptive mother.) The terrible Russian orphan situation has impacted each of us; it is something we live with every single day.

Hint: it's not all the "sunshine and roses" that adoptive families hope for.

Foreign adoption seems to be garnering more media attention these days, thanks to Torry Hansen and the earthquake in Haiti, among other things. Fifteen years ago, most people had never even heard of Reactive Attachment Disorder. I'm hoping that's not the case anymore.

This article was timely for a number of reasons. The more time I spend with my darling Liam, the more it breaks my heart to think that my brothers did not have parents to care for them as babies. They didn't have mothers who rocked them to sleep, who watched and sang to and played with them. How many children spend the first years of their lives stuck in cribs, unable to bond with another human being? I can't even imagine.

I was too young when we got my brothers to understand what they were coming from. But they were old enough to be damaged by it.

The damage is not easily undone, we are continually learning. I have wondered whether families with mixed-race children due to adoption have an easier time coping than those with children who cannot form real relationships. (A moot point, I suppose; neither is "easy" by any stretch of the imagination!) The TIME article mentions that Russia is a major source of foreign adoption because the children are white - but if you can't adopt until the child is over a year old, the most crucial time is up. And you should probably think about future, possibly younger children, if you are thinking of adopting at all.

Choices choices.

Anyway, the whole thing has had me thinking about the story of Lehi and his family from the Book of Mormon. Lehi had two sons who were wicked no matter what they saw, who tried to help them, or how obvious things should have been. Laman and Lemuel would have killed Nephi eventually (and the rest of their family, I assume) had the Lord not warned him and told him to leave.

Nephi forgave his brothers over and over for the terrible things they did to him, but in the end he had to separate himself from them to preserve his own life and those of his family members. He could not make them choose right; they had their agency and it would not be taken from them. But the posterity of Laman and Lemuel were not held to the same accountability as the Nephites, because of the "wicked traditions of their fathers."

So it's possible that my brothers won't be as accountable as I will be. No one knows what they went through in 5+ years, or how it has affected them since. But I do think that, as this article points out, sometimes separation is necessary for the preservation of the whole. Of course different families have different ways of dealing with their issues ... and fortunately the options seem to be multiplying.

But good heavens, if prophets aren't spared the heartache of having wayward children ... maybe no one is.

Your thoughts?

The ignorance of high schoolers can be depressing

Part of a conversation overheard in the library this morning:

"He's a freakin' towelhead, dude! I don't even think Obama should be running, he's a towelhead..."

"And Sarah Palin is McCain's freakin' attack dog."

On Sunshine

I am soaking up every drop of summer that is still left in this old September.
Yes, soaking it up.
Every afternoon I take my blanket, sunglasses and a book - unfortunately also my phone for keeping time - and lie on my front lawn whilst reading of faraway places and things.
This is a favorite activity of mine...something I do as soon as springtime is warm enough to stand, and as late as autumn will allow. I need to store all that sunshine somehow before the long, bitter-cold, often-sunless winter begins.

Speaking of storing sunshine.
I watched the General Relief Society broadcast Saturday evening (if you couldn't tell by my last post) with my mother, sister and sister-in-law. I felt like every word that was spoken was spoken for me, and it was like sunshine was being poured into my soul.
I also felt like I would need that warmth in some unknown cold, dark days ahead.

"We live in perilous times," we keep hearing from our leaders. "The family has never been in more grave danger." I've just begun to wonder, has this warning become too familiar? Have we heard it so many times that we don't really hear it anymore? Are the calls to step up and do more felt as keenly by the rest of the world as they are by my parents, my siblings and me?

Newspapers and magazines are reporting financial crisis -imminent doom, really- for not only our nation, but others around the world. A part of me is inclined to think that a Depression would do our country some good. We are too wasteful, too spend-thrift, too dependent on Daddy's money, too lazy to learn how to work hard and to appreciate what we have. I was never more grateful for less help than I was in college, where I paid my own way and I learned that I could do without a lot of things. That we all could.
If we could all have a little humility.
Isn't that what causes financial problems? Wanting bigger and better things that we can't really afford? um, PRIDE?

I've been following the Presidential campaign painfully closely....thanks to my job in the library....and frankly, I'm getting sick of it. If one more person tries to tell me what to think, one more lie that so-and-so is telling, I might just throw up my hands. Just how far does my duty as a conscientious citizen extend? And how has it come to this?

Amidst the trouble and gloom, a glimmer - no, a ray - of hope warmed my soul Saturday night. And my soul answered back. Yes, it said, I am divine. I CAN create. I AM compassionate. And I WILL do more, be better. Whatever is required of me for good.

Please, let me know what that is.

Oh Maya

You might think that a high school library is a quiet, unassuming place, and that working there is a tedious job. And if you did, you might be wrong. Like I was.

Exhibit A: UHS library at lunchtime.

When I was a student here many many years ago, I avoided this place like I avoid painkillers: Only if absolutely necessary, please. If I had no class (college classes, Fridays) I was either at Seminary, The College or someone else's house. Not these kids. Who knew the school library was the new hip hangout place?

Exhibit B:
A student's mother quietly protests the curriculum covering The Crucible for said student's English class. She has prepared a list of objectionable content in both the book and the movie (huge differences between the two). The librarian happens to be head of the English Department, so I get to eavesdrop on this ongoing conversation.

Questionable content in books and movies is a sensitive topic 'round these parts these days. Thank you Tabiona teachers. How do we decide who, when, and how much to expose our students to? Is 'sheltering' students beneficial to them or harmful?  Sarah Palin is accused of being a book-burner while I read a biography about a young girl who was raped.


As a historian (yes, fresh out of college), my outlook on this issue is probably different than most, although I'm conflicted as well. Why have other human beings been subjected to so much suffering if not for the rest of us to learn from their experiences? How can we grow into compassionate, charitable people if we turn a blind eye to all the evil in this world? At the same time, how do we maintain our own security, preserve our own souls from the harrowing that could occur by immersing ourselves in that evil?
After all, Jesus Christ did not turn away from even the vilest of sinners; He descended below them all. Somehow He loved them while condemning the horrible things they did.

I understand and sympathize with parents who want to protect their children. Honestly, I think parents should be the one to make this call. But maybe they should make it consciously, with a decision to discuss historical issues - consequences of choices and how we got to where we are - with their children. (Note: historical. I think the only junk considered for schools should be junk that actually happened; otherwise it becomes a glorification of evil. One thing I've learned is that real, honest history never glorifies evil .... if anything, it deters us from the glaring ugliness. Visit a concentration camp if you don't believe me.)

I guess in the end we each make our own decisions.
Isn't that the way it is with everything in life? Yay for agency!

Now I'm going to go read Elie Wiesel's Night. Can't wait.

Blog du jour

Dear Blog:

I've thought about you for a long time. I've read quite a few of you written by others, and even loved some, but I didn't know if I was ready to commit. Commit to the exposure, the possible criticism, and most importantly, the time.
I guess you could say I was afraid.

But today, after reading and seeing the outreach of thousands of bloggers culminating in NieNie day (and, I'll admit, after attempting to read Nie's entire blog in one sitting), I couldn't help but feel inspired.
There is humanity on the internet after all.

And I made a decision; a pledge. I pledge to write. Not for myself, the thoughts and feelings I've sometimes put to paper and stashed away in some private place, to be visited only by me or my posterity (after I'm dead). Not for my professors, scholarly articles and historiographic essays that only a historian specializing in early modern European Christianity and Families would understand. I want to write for others--"others" that I love and laugh with and see often; "others" that I don't see as often as I would like, "others" whom I may not have met but want to someday--to read, think about, perhaps even be inspired by.

This way maybe I can give back. Contribute somehow to the outpouring of love that I have witnessed. Take part in what I feel is a monumental undertaking.
(Oh, and write.)

It's time to give back.

Here goes.