Contra Mundum

“If we take the widest and wisest view of a Cause, there is no such thing as a Lost Cause, because there is no such thing as a Gained Cause.  We fight for lost causes because we know our defeat and dismay may be the preface to our successors’ victory, though that victory itself will be temporary; we fight rather to keep something alive than in the expectation that it will triumph.”

I think the larger cultural battle is mostly lost to us, for a season. It’s been several years now since I looked at most political battles and felt like I had a dog in the fight. I believe that politics are downstream of culture, though certainly (particularly in our media-drenched age) it’s an iterative process; consequently, I believe that while we can and should stem the tide of decay and destruction through political means wherever possible, the battles ultimately have to be fought at the individual level to have any real impact in the long run.

The only approach I feel I can take, then, is to be an unapologetic champion of truth and virtue, offering no equivocation or justification for sin or wickedness in the service of a larger good. One thing the War in Heaven teaches us is that there is no route to virtuous ends via wicked means; the wicked means will be destructive of the very end we claim to seek. We are living in a fallen and imperfect world, and we cannot and should not expect perfection from anyone. But neither should we justify malice, dishonesty, or intentional provocation of contention in order to manipulate outcomes, simply because the individual(s) indulging such wickedness are pushing for policies that are more desirable than their opponents’. Making a sound argument for a principle or policy in which you believe may have the unintended but unavoidable consequence of making those who disagree with you angry.  But their anger should not be your goal, and, if your heart is in the right place, it should give you no pleasure.

The Lord makes explicitly clear that contention is not a tool he endorses: “he that hath the spirit of contention is not of me, but is of the devil, who is the father of contention, and he stirreth up the hearts of men to contend with anger, one with another. . .this is not my doctrine, to stir up the hearts of men with anger, one against another; but this is my doctrine: that such things should be done away”.  It is one thing to occasionally give in to the temptation for anger or to act out contentiously in battles where the other side is gleeful in their abuse of you or the things you hold dear; such a reaction is understandable, but it is not right.  I can never throw my support behind those who use contention frequently and intentionally, gleefully stirring up the hearts of men to anger and conflict, as one of their primary political tools.   

The Lord has at times ordered his people into battle, to protect their “homes and their liberties, their wives and their children, and their all, yea, for their rites of worship and their church”; but he also quickly rebuked any who delighted in bloodshed. Holding firm to principles we love will inevitably invite challenge and conflict, and there are very real and insidious actors against liberty and goodness busy about their work, but how we fight those battles matters. Delighting in contention–and its inherently destructive, corrupting nature–is much like delighting in spiritual and emotional bloodshed.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Their moment of truth before King Nebuchadnezzar came as their people were gaining some power and influence in his court. Daniel had recently interpreted a dream for the King, a dream in which he saw a stone cut from the mountain without hands, which grew and filled the whole earth. The interpretation is one we should remember in these times of trouble, which are likely to grow increasingly troublesome in the coming years: the stone was the Kingdom of God, rolling forward and filling the whole earth. No unhallowed hand can stop that work.  Yet shortly after that revelation, three young men refused the King’s order to worship his golden idols.  They believed in God.  They believed they had a responsibility to stand up for what they knew to be good and true, and to refuse to give quarter to that which was not, no matter the temporal consequences. Their choice was binary: worship the idol, or be thrown in a furnace to burn alive. The temporal consequence of refusing to compromise their principles was steep; the flames were real. 

The choice appeared binary, and disastrous.  But they made it clear that they would do what they knew to be right, and trust the consequences to the Lord–that if they did burn, they believed that they would be in the Lord’s hands. And somehow, the consequencesweren’t binary: they did not worship the idol, and they did not burn.  

We have, I think, fallen prey to the temptation to make winning–temporal, political winning–our idol.  We have rationalized away, justified, overlooked things that we should not, because it seemed the most reasonable, pragmatic thing to do–no one is perfect, we have to be realistic, we have to live to fight another day, to give good things a chance of survival.  And the temporal consequences that may await us are no less real–and are likely to be no less severe, at some point–than the flames faced by those three young men many thousands of years ago.  The choice is binary, we tell ourselves.  And it is. The choice is always binary, but sometimes we’re not accurately identifying what the two options are.  Will we be humble servants of truth or will we not?  Do we believe that the Kingdom of God will roll forth and fill the earth or don’t we?  Do we trust that, no matter what happens to us, we are in the Lord’s hands?  Or don’t we?

I not only think that the costs of temporal, secular losses are likely to be painful and steep, based on revelation of how things go from here, I expect it. I don’t think that means we give up and abandon the political or secular realms (there is no wilderness left to flee to).  But I think it makes it that much more essential that we keep ourselves as unspotted from the world as possible.  Those who have ears to hear will be more likely to trust that we are someone worth listening to; and that is our greatest hope for turning the tide.

If by taking this approach all I manage to accomplish is to be a speed bump for dishonesty or a stumbling block for contention, I will wear those bruises with contentment. It may be that the best thing one can do at this point is to be an unyielding stone of virtue in a river of wickedness.  The work has ever been moved forward by faithful people who refused to abandon that which was plain and precious, doing the small and simple things that bring about great things.  If the world is against truth, against honor, against virtue, then I am against the world. 

Taking Care of Each Other

Recently, I had the opportunity to listen to three doctors from Las Vegas discuss their up-close-and-personal front-line response to the Route 91 Harvest Festival last fall. Something that all three of them mentioned several times was that, given a different crowd, the outcome could actually have been much worse. An unusually high percentage of the concert goers, they noted, seemed to be EMTs, firemen, police, military or former military, and had some degree of first responder training. They pointed out that none of the male concert goers they saw were wearing shirts, all the shirts having been removed to apply pressure to wounds or create tourniquets; far more victims arrived by private vehicle than by ambulance; some individuals were even able to assist nurses in triage and initial interventions. In a horrendous situation, hundreds of people rose to the occasion, not just with tremendous selflessness, but also with remarkable competence.

This goes to the heart of something that has bothered me since I was a teenager: the narrative often pushed by media and others that traditional conservatives, who place emphasis on self-reliance and eschew government involvement in most aspects of life, approach the world that way because they are selfish and don't care about community. In my experience, most people who feel that way do so because they care deeply about their neighbors and communities. They believe (with a fair amount of evidence to back them up), that as we delegate more responsibilities to government agencies and bureaucrats, we tend to lose, as individuals and communities, whatever skills or knowledge or capabilities went with them, and often fare worse in some meaningful ways as a result.  The reason they place such emphasis on self-reliance and self-sufficiency is that they believe the more personally involved with each other and prepared we are as individuals and families, the more capable we are of caring for one another when things don't go smoothly--that we are, in fact, more capable of taking care of each other well than any government agency ever could. The individuals with a heavy investment in self-reliance are exactly the people I generally want to be surrounded by, because those are the souls who run toward the fire, both figuratively and literally.  They always believe that caring for and protecting their families, neighbors, and communities is their responsibility, and they take responsibility seriously.  That is not something to scoff at.

We can have good faith debates about the efficacy or necessity of this program or that agency.  Doing so becomes difficult very quickly, however, when you impugn the motives of the very neighbors who are not only willing, but, because of the life they've chosen, very capable of coming to your aid when you need it most.  

Differently Abled

One of the modern takes on various learning disabilities, mental health challenges, and atypical wiring is to reframe the issue as an individual having an unusual set of skills or perspectives that are outside of the norm--a gift, rather than a handicap. The intentions behind this approach are noble, and I even believe it to be true in many ways.  When I see Temple Grandin's description of herself as "different, not less", it makes me feel like cheering.  I get it.  

But the fact remains that the world isn't built for people with these challenges.  Much of what needs to be done on a day-to-day basis to keep life functioning at a minimally healthy level is much harder and takes a lot more work--and not just for the individual, but for their parents and spouses and caregivers as well.   If someone is having to live their life with one hand, we may express admiration for their ability to perform many of the same tasks as those of us with two hands (maybe even almost as effectively), with proportionally increased strength in the other arm and various learned adaptations.  We don't generally demand, however, that they be grateful for their one-handedness and how it makes them special; we recognize that they are not just working differently than us, but also much, much harder, to perform tasks that the rest of us view as so routine that we rarely give any thought at all to how we accomplish them.  When the labor (and inefficiency and adaption) is primarily mental, we sometimes unintentionally sound as though we are making that demand, as we drive clumsily toward seeking greater understanding and acceptance.

If you have a child or spouse (or, if the genetic lottery has really smiled on you, both) who has a learning disability or mental illness and some well meaning individual tells you its a gift, you aren't a bad person if you want to shout, "Can I return it?!"  You can love your spouse or child and all the unique pieces that compose their personality and soul, and still sometimes just think to yourself (or say out loud), "I hate [ADD, ASD, LD, etc].  I effing hate it.  I hate that it requires so much of my time and money to effectively manage and treat while simultaneously making it more difficult to manage time effectively or bring in more income.  I hate what filling those gaps takes away from what I have to give to other loved ones who also need me.  I hate having to be the emotional ballast because, well, I can, when I'm emotionally drained and struggling, too. I hate that so many pieces of my life are put on hold or pushed to the back burner because the resources just aren't there to deal with them, and looking around at the unfinished projects and problems discourages me.  I hate that all the demands that this puts on my time and energy means that I'm always tired, which makes the painfully long to-do list and the emotional labor that much more overwhelming."  Moms and dads, husbands and wives, its perfectly OK to feel like this isn't a gift, but a burden, that you and your whole family pay a price for carrying.  If you sometimes feel hurt, frustrated, depressed, or even angry, it doesn't mean you don't love your spouse or your kid, and it doesn't mean you're not a wonderful caregiver or companion.  It just means you're human, doing your best to serve those you love in a sometimes difficult calling.  And, as a family member of a wonderful soul with a disability should know better than most, there is absolutely nothing wrong with being human.  So go ahead and breakdown and let out all the things that are burdening your heart; cry or shout if you need to.  Just don't unpack and live there.

You can pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and keep filling the gaps and picking up the slack and putting in that second shift (and third. . .), and do it joyfully.  Because the truth is, you really do see, better than anyone else could begin to imagine, just how mesmerizingly gifted and unique is that soul, whose care has been entrusted to you.  You are blessed to know, with intense clarity and intimacy, the incredible things that they are and could be.  Yes, be grateful: be grateful to God that he brought this effulgent soul into your life, and honor the sacred trust he has placed in you by loving them without reservation. Help them shine; chances are they are having many moments of frustration, sadness, and anger, too, and they need you to use your two whole, healthy hands to lift and sustain them.  Trust that He will use His divine hands to do the same for you, and you will find much joy in the journey, no matter what challenges you face.

34

My favorite hooligan and I turned 34 a couple of weeks ago.  He sometimes looks like a stylish hobo

but I love him anyway.  Seriously, he was my human security blanket for many years, and he's still one of my favorite people.  This hobo has a special place in my heart that isn't quite like anyone else's.  I *sorta* went on an ambulance call with him last month, and seeing him interact with one of his "regulars" was a good reminder why I love him so much, and why most other people do, too.

For 14 years now, my brothers and a few of their friends have been spending the last week of June camping at Twin Lakes.  The event just sort of keeps growing with more family, more friends, and as the kids get bigger, they do a lot more on their own and some of the toys get bigger. We were only able to be there for about 24 hours this year, but there was lots of kayaking and canoeing

 (Keilana and Kylie in Yaya's kayak)

 (Dylan the lake patrol in Yaya's kayak, with Aodhan--on the little yellow board--yelled "I'm texting! I'm texting and speeding!")

(Keilana trying to catch Gwen and her girls)

and plenty of frogs and fish (fish not pictured)

There was badminton and lots of chess, and campfire food, and lots of hanging out around the games or the fire visiting and laughing

It was a quick trip, but our plans for the rest of the week had changed quite a bit a couple weeks earlier, so we had to shorten it up a bit.  Hopefully next year we can stay longer.

Sunday night the kids and I stayed at Mom's house, had dinner and visited with her. I love having my whole big family all right here, and I wouldn't trade that for anything. But once in a while I remember that the silver lining to living so far away when when we were in California is that when Yaya came, we got her all to ourselves. Its still fun to have that once in a while.

Camping is good for the soul. There are few things I love more than hanging out around a campfire with people I care about.  The smell of wood smoke and pine trees and lake water puts me at ease pretty much instantly. I'd probably be a nicer person if I made more time for that.

And I decided that 34 is pretty good. Because of the quick nature of our trip, I didn't load up much gear: the little girls slept in the tent, and Dylan and I just crashed in the Expedition for our one night up there. So I slept on the hard, flat surface of the back end of the vehicle, and I woke up easily the next morning, and nothing hurt or was sore. I need to start taking better care of myself so that that lasts as long as possible. Other than my electrical-neurological abnormalities, I'm pretty healthy, and as long as I take my relatively side-effect-free med, I don't really have to think about that problem much.  I've been absurdly healthy and blessed.

Even more than the physical health, though, I'm grateful for the rest of my life. I have four amazing kids, who are healthy and happy and smart and funny. I have a home that--crazy terrorist airedale and long, long, major to-do list notwithstanding--I love. I have a job that I love, and am getting the opportunity to expand my knowledge and skills, and coworkers who are dear friends that make going to work a genuine pleasure. My husband is finding his stride in his new business, and some sort of long term vision is starting to take shape. There is so very much to be grateful for.

The last few years have not been easy.  We have a lot of challenges, both self-inflicted and externally imposed, and to say that we've been rising to the occasion would probably not be true.  I've spent more time feeling drained, overwhelmed, self-pitying, or defeated (or all of the above) than is comfortable for me to acknowledge. But the last couple of weeks have been some of the best I've had in literally years.  There have been multiple times where I thought to myself that something was perfect.  I've had a lot of joy and love in my life the last few years, but in the past few weeks, I've began to find a more durable and thorough peace than I've had in quite some time.

In getting older, I feel like I'm becoming myself again.  And hopefully I'm learning a few things and improving on myself, too. 

Grief

My uncle (my dad's brother) recently shared a photo of his brother, who died as a teenager in a logging accident.  When I was a child, I noticed that around this time of year, my grandma was always trying to make a lunch date with my dad.  My mom had to put the pieces together for me, explaining that Grandma tended to "check in" with all of her kids every June.  That always made sense to me, but I understand it differently as a mom.  My grandma buried 3 of her 8 children before she left this world.

I work in a place where death isn't necessarily a daily occurrence, but it certainly isn't rare.  Most of the death we deal with (in a rural, relatively low-acuity facility) is expected.  That doesn't mean it isn't hard, and no one is ever really prepared to lose a parent, but most of us expect that we will lose our parents.  No one expects to lose their child.  

The older individuals usually slip away slowly, often after years of health problems. When death comes to a child, or a young parent, etc., its usually sudden, and under traumatic circumstances: the car wreck everyone dreads, the suicide that shatters your heart, the freak asthma attack when meds are out of reach, the overdose that isn't necessarily a surprise but that you hoped would never come.  In those circumstances, a strange combination of empathy and distance is required. 

When those situations manifest themselves, I think about the deaths that have had the biggest impact on me. When I was almost 8, I was at a campout for all the first graders at the school with my mom (I was a second grader, but I had missed it the year before due to illness, so Mom let me tag along).  One of the second grade teachers showed up early that morning and told my mom that the Fayler kids were missing. Our next door neighbors had gone on an evening plane ride with their uncle, and didn't come back.  My brothers and I were good friends with the younger two, Angie and Jesse. Along with their uncle, who had piloted the plane, and their older sister, Sierra, they were missing for 10 days. I remember getting ready for school the last few mornings of the year, looking at Jesse's coat hanging in our closet and hoping he'd be back to get it. I sat on the swing in the yard with Michael, discussing how there was plenty of good water in those mountains, and even a few things that would be edible in the high mountain spring--we were sure they were going to be OK, probably just too injured to hike out.  After their bodies were found, I don't think Michael and I talked about them again.  

My brother--who tended to wear his heart on his sleeve as a child--had something of a meltdown when my mom tried to get him ready for the funeral. I remember sitting in the back of our van with one of our teachers--for the life of me I can't remember why she was with us--catching occasional glimpses of my brother throwing himself about and pulling away from my mom, as he protested through tears, and thinking how utterly unfixable it all was. The teacher, who I now realize was probably horribly uncomfortable and was just trying to pass the time, made painful small talk: "I didn't go to my first funeral til I was 26, so you're doing this a lot younger than I did." Does my friend dying make me more grown up somehow? Is that supposed to make me feel better? I was much harder on her as a hurt, angry second grader than I am as an adult.  What do you say to the silent 8 year old that you barely know who has lost her neighbors and friends, and is trying to be polite to you and pretend her twin brother doesn't appear to be a total train wreck about the situation? I can't tell you if he ended up going to the funeral; I honestly don't remember. I just remember sitting on the grass at the large memorial listening to my dad give a eulogy for my friend, and nothing made sense. 

When I was a freshmen in high school, one of my brothers' very good friends took his own life. It was the first and last time that a death made me feel physically ill. I was sick to my stomach, my head hurt, and everything felt a little wobbly at first.  Luke and I weren't really friends, but he was probably my favorite of my brothers' friends at the time: he was always ready to have a conversation, had a delightfully offbeat sense of humor, and always had an interesting way of looking at things. Our meandering, funny, and sometimes fascinating band room conversations were often a highlight of the school day. It was the first time a death made me angry in that way.  Part of me--a part of me I loathed in the moment--was so angry at him. I was mad at him for giving up, I was mad at him for making my brothers grieve, I was mad at him for altering reality.  I hated that I was mad, and I never told anyone, because I assumed it meant I was a terrible human being.  I received a strange and sweet assurance that he was OK (not the only time I would receive such an assurance related to a death), and the anger melted away, and I realized that most of my anger was anxiety over the fate of his broken heart. Once I knew he was OK, I was OK, too.

Losing my Grandma Lettie just as I became a "real adult" was expected and came with no anger or denial. Of anyone I have lost in my short life, her absence is the one that I have felt most often, that has loomed largest. I regularly get bouts of powerful homesickness for which there is no cure, because its her I miss. When things get hard, I want to curl up on her couch and listen to stories. Once in a while when I'm grocery shopping I'll buy something I almost never eat just for the sensory experience of feeling like I'm at Grandma's house for a minute.  My Grandma Elda was more than a decade younger than Grandma Lettie, so I was fortunate to have her in my life until I was 30, and she guided me with humor and love through most of my young mom years. When she died, I felt more prepared than I had when we lost Grandma Lettie, but just as full of grief. My grandmas raised their large families in the same small town, and there were many inter-family friendships in addition to my parents' marriage and family.  When Grandma Elda died, I somehow felt like I had not only lost her, but had lost Grandma Lettie all over again. I miss both of them terribly.  In all of my self-doubting moments of insecurity and self-deprecation, I never for a single moment in my life doubted my grandmothers' love.  Ever. Their love is powerful, and continues to bless me and make my heart ache for the separation, temporary though it may be.

When Conner died, it felt like the earth split under my feet. I was personally devastated, and on top of that felt helpless and even counterproductive.  When Katy called and told us he was gone, I got his brother and my two small children and placed them in bed between Doug and I, and snuggled up in a tangled mess with the four of them. I need to feel their warm bodies, see the peaceful rise and fall of their breath.  I got very little sleep that night, and for months afterward.  For all the San Joaquin Valley summer heat, the world felt very cold for a while. There was so much love and support in our world, and I could see it, and I could feel it, and for moments I'd feel good and the denial and hurt would melt away.  And then the three little kids would be playing together, as they did several days a week, and my heart would scream, "There are four!!!" and it would be all I could do to not go to pieces.

I carry these deaths, and others, with me.  They aren't something I dwell on, and some of them I may go years without thinking about at all, but they have all shaped the way I deal with loss, tragedy, and trauma. After a difficult loss at work recently, a coworker said that he thought he was doing pretty well, handling it fine, until the family showed up.  That's the hard part. Most people in healthcare will tell you that, when dealing with hands on care in a traumatic situation, there's a mode you go into--you are always acutely aware of the reality of the human soul on the stretcher, but you go through the algorithms and you apply the skills and you get through it. But when you turn to the family, to explain the actions you're taking or to tell them you can't do anything more, that's where the pain hits. And that's when that strange balance becomes so important. You remember your own griefs, you feel the vastness of their loss, and you empathize. That person needs to know, in that deep devastation, that you understand their pain and feel with them; but they also need you to remember that it isn't your tragedy.  They feel like the world has ended, and in a very real way, the world as they knew it has ended. Their entire reality has to shift, to one that is worse for them, with a new and deep grief that will never completely go away.  They need someone who understands all that, who can let that immense pain wash over them and not lose their own feet: to be a solid place in a moment of profound brokenness; someone who can, by their steadiness, remind them that life can go on, and that, eventually, they can be OK, while simultaneously making it OK for them to not be OK right now.

That's part of what it means to mourn with those that mourn.  We allow them to grieve, to break, to cry, scream, get angry (at you, at God, at the deceased, at themselves--it can take all kinds of turns), or feel like quitting, and we don't turn away or let go because it hurts or its heavy.  Most people will, at some point, suffer a loss that seems unfair or overwhelms them, and our responsibility as disciples of Christ is to grasp tightly to the iron rod with one hand and cling with all our might to those stumbling souls and not let go.  There are moments when hope seems impossible, and we need someone who can still see light on the horizon to promise us that its still there, without condemning us for not seeing it. 

A new New Year

This is a screen shot from a conversation I recently had with one of the physicians at our hospital. I can't share any more of it, though I wish I could.

The year started out rough. I work in a profession where dealing with pain, grief, and loss is a daily reality, but at the hospital we rang in the new year with some particularly miserable, devastating pains and losses, some of which hit very close to home.  In addition, we were dealing with some significant frustrations at home, trying to figure out a way forward with businesses and health and projects and all that.  My mom got quite sick and ended up in the hospital for a few days (she's doing much better).  So when I went to start a whole day of chores that was supposed to include about a dozen loads of laundry and my washer instantly flooded the floor, I didn't even try to deal with it. I was exhausted and worn out, so I just went and sat on my bed for about 15 minutes and cried.  Not about the washer, really (that's more likely to make me annoyed or angry), but more over feeling like everything was broken.

It passed. This last week, I was enjoying a shared moment of pure joy at 3am with some of my favorite coworkers, and I looked around the room and thought about how very fortunate I am.  There is never a night I look at the staffing and think, "Ugh."  Every single night, I'm happy to be working with whoever is there.  Our staff is small--we have about 11 nurses total who work night shift--so even one tense relationship could make work a lot more work, but we all enjoy working together.  It isn't uncommon to have weeks where we end up spending more waking hours with each other than with our families. And its hard to imagine any other group of people that would make that OK, but these people are some of my favorite humans. They care about their patients. They care about each other. They are incredibly fun to be around.

And it isn't just our nurses and aides.  When one of the losses hit us early in the year, our HR manager showed up with treats and breakfast stuffs early one Saturday morning.  She didn't have to do that; the hospital didn't buy those, she did, because she knew we were hurting, and she wanted to something. Cards and donations flowed from the staff to those most deeply affected.  It reminded me of a night when I was at the bedside of a critical patient, trying to mix an IV med and get blood infusing as well, and a doctor was right beside me, taking a set of vitals and helping me re-position a miserable patient. I wonder how many hospitalists know the CNAs by name?  How many hospitals do you think have an ER nurse who will occasionally grill for the whole staff at 3am out of the back of his truck (or have an ER doc who buys all the meat so that that BBQ can happen)?

I have lived in towns of various sizes, but I came from a small place--Doug tells me it isn't really a town, but a hamlet--and settled in small places, and always prefer them, because community is at the heart of everything I love. Its possible, of course, to form tight-knit communities in more populous places, but doing so in such places does present more challenges.  When I was visiting my mom, one of her colleagues showed up with dinner for that night--as various coworkers and friends had every night since she got sick.  There were--completely sincere--offers of help in others ways, as well.  Everyone knows her.  She is the sort of person who would rather not tell anyone she was feeling ill, much less advertise it, but her absence is impossible to miss, so help was never asked for, it simply arrived.  The teacher who had showed up during her own lunch break mentioned that she felt like thefts and vandalism and such happened less frequently in small towns, because its very difficult to depersonalize crime: even if you don't know this person directly, she's the aunt of a friend of yours, or the friend of aunt. You are connected in some way to nearly everyone around you. I agreed heartily, and pointed out that it also makes good much easier to do, because we feel that much more responsible to each other.

Be connected to the people around you.  Do what you can to create communities of support, respect, love, and service. January began with difficulty and tragedy, and in that I watched a community of people circling the wagons to buoy up members of that community who were hurting; it peaked with watching that same community comfort and attend to an individual who had no community of his own, giving him comfort and peace; and, as it sneaks away like a thief in the night, I have watched a community celebrate together, magnifying joy for current and expected blessings.  I needed to see all of that to be reminded that, whatever 2018 may bring, we will weather it just fine and find joy in the journey, because we are surrounded and supported by angels on both sides of the veil.

Bring it on.

On that President Monson obit. . .

There's been a petition going around to attempt to pressure the NYT to present a different obituary for President Monson than the one they published last week.  I didn't sign it.

The NYT knows that many (if not most) LDS individuals don't see the world the way they do, and they made it pretty clear that they find that irritating.  Is it surprising to any one that the staff at the NYT finds LDS doctrinal positions on marriage and Priesthood problematic?  Protesting that they tried to reduce a man of tremendous charity and personal integrity to someone of no more significance or virtue than Fidel Castro will not change the way anyone at the NYT sees President Monson, or our doctrine.  Let that rest with them.

Is anything they said untrue?  In the face of public criticism, loud protest, and clear disdain from people of the mindset prevalent at places like the NYT, President Monson continued to declare and defend the Lord's doctrine, with kindness and respect, but without apology.

He is the one who told us
Dare to be a Mormon
Dare to stand alone
Dare to have a purpose firm
Dare to make it known.

Whatever their intentions, the NYT has paid our dear prophet the profound compliment of declaring to the world that he lived up to those words.  President Monson exemplified the standard of moral leadership revealed to another prophet, who was weathering persecution far more intense than a petulant literary swipe: "No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned."  That's the spirit we ought to respond in--that's the only spirit that can really change anything and move forward the work of Him who President Monson so boldly and humbly served.  Be bold, defend the Lord's doctrine in spite of those who would see it swept away.

Really This Time

Less than a dozen blog posts last year. Less than 3 dozen the two year previous to that. And probably a third of those have something to do with how I don't write enough or resolving that I'm going to write more.

A lot of that has to do with the pace I was maintaining much of that time.  I was in school for four years, and while nursing school isn't exactly med school, for an undergraduate degree it is intensive and time-consuming.  Add illnesses, injuries, adjustments to medications, juggling all the kids, and the hubs trying to get a business going, and there just aren't a lot of hours left anywhere in the week.

But the reality is, we make time for the things that we really want to do, don't we?  All the things listed above do in fact take a lot of time.  But I found time for other things. I haven't found time for writing, at least publicly.

If I'm being honest, a lot of that has to do with a severely reduced desire to share, which itself has myriad causes.  Being both shy and introverted by nature, it is not a natural thing for me to be an "open book", and while I worked really hard at coming across as open for other people's sake, I often failed at actually being open anywhere other than in my blog and at the pulpit.  But I did try very hard to be genuinely open with the most important people in my life.

Part of the reticence is just born out of shifting in how my hours are spent. I spend 36-48 hours a week at a job where I am "on" nearly the whole time, and then I still have to be "on" for my kids when I'm home and they're awake.  After all that time giving energy to other people, I don't feel like I have anything left over.  I very seldom socialize anymore, which I need to be better at making time and energy for, because I have a lot of really wonderful people in my life that I would like to get to know better or simply spend more time with.

I've also been disappointed, frustrated, and increasingly cynical, which has reinforced my natural inclination to withhold.  I've seen trusts broken, I've been surprised by people (which I almost never am) in negative ways;  there are relationships where I've given up making much effort, after feeling like massive amounts of effort I put in over years was not only unappreciated and unhelpful, but has felt counterproductive or dismissed.  I've had moments where I felt like, after years of putting myself out there--far more than I am naturally or easily inclined to do--the other person never actually saw me.  I figured out by the time I was a teenager that it is incredibly difficult to see someone as they see themselves, so much more to see them as they really are.  Most of the time we see a version of them filtered through a shadow our own presence and prejudices cast over them; but I have had enough experiences where I have had the blessing of seeing someone through the Lord's eyes, at least to some degree, or, with His help, could see them as they saw themselves, and I came to expect that the people I invested the most trust and time and effort in could see me that way.  In some cases, I felt like they had very little desire to even try.

I don't have any anger, or really even feel hurt by anyone.  I just want to retreat, I feel uninterested in giving more of myself, of exposing my thoughts or feelings, any more than is absolutely necessary.  I've seen the reduced rate of growth in myself, of which the retreat is a partial cause.  Generally, the Lord has had to nudge me out of my comfort zone a little bit in life in order to help me stretch and rise to the occasion.  I don't think he has in many areas the last few years, and I think its because He knows I haven't been up for the challenge (which is no one's fault but my own, and the fact that I haven't been pushed in a way that would make me feel like just quitting altogether is, as far as I'm concerned, simply further evidence of the Lord's tremendous mercy and love, however undeserving of it I may be).

But the fact is that 2017 was quite good to us.  Finishing school, changing the business plan again, getting to see Brad sealed to his sweet bride and become a father and a husband all at once, buying a house, and hundreds of little blessings in between.  There is more learning to obtain, more blessings to enjoy, and more blessings to give if I am willing to be more open and make time for the things the Lord expects me to do.  So I hope to see you here more often in 2018.

Know Thyself

The school year is off to a pretty good start for the kids. Keilana has been pretty busy with National Junior Honor Society, and came home today talking about needing to see ad space in the programs they sell at high school games; Dylan is on student council (yay!); and Kylie announced when she got home today that she has been chosen as one of the editors of their little newspaper.  Then this conversation happened at the table while the girls had an after school snack:

Keilana: "Did you pick editor as the job you wanted?" Kylie nodded. "I'm surprised, I would've thought you'd want to do photographer or interviewer or the puzzle page."

Kylie (with more than a little satisfaction): "I want to be in charge."

I'll give the girl this: she knows herself. But I wouldn't mind having her for a boss.

Choose Daily

I had a moment tonight that reminded me of a brief conversation I had about my work last year with another member of my faith.  She asked if I wanted to do OB, and I gave my standard answer: "Maybe at some point. Not right now." (I have my reasons, but they aren't relevant to this particular topic).  She smiled, and her mother-of-7 eyes lit up and she said, "I would love to be an OB nurse."  I responded, "OB can definitely be interesting," and proceeded to share what I thought was one of the more amusing experiences of my OB professor, dealing with a decidedly nontraditional family.  My acquaintance responded, with a rather stunned look on her face, "I guess what I'd actually love is to be an OB nurse during the millennium".

One of the difficult realities of healthcare that is that, in most contexts, you don't choose your patients.  You don't get to decide who needs your help and care, and often the same kinds of decisions that cause physical distress in individuals also cause chaos in their lives. Physical illness is often the least destructive kind of brokenness in people.  But you treat the combative schizophrenic, the ill-tempered (and noncompliant) alcoholic, and the prisoner who gives you the heebie-jeebies with the same respect and patience that you do the sweet old man whose heart is worn out from a long life of working hard and loving well.  For me, as a Christian and a Latter-day Saint, I see it as a sacred obligation to see in each of these people the same thing: a child of God, who is loved by Him and so should be loved by me, though the degree to which they've recognized and nurtured the Divine spark within may vary widely.

I think that applies to the rest of life.  Choose you this day whom ye will serve, and once you have chosen the Lord, you don't then get to start being picky.  Often, you don't get to choose which mortals you serve: you have covenanted with the Lord to lighten the loads of those he may put in your path, whoever may be bearing them.  You have promised to lift the hands that hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees.  And guess what?  Hands that are hanging down are often unclean, and feeble knees are almost never pretty.

He reached out to prostitute and taught tax collectors--in a regime where they made our IRS agents look beloved. I guarantee you aren't too good for anyone he may put in your path.  Are you good enough? He has given you His love and asked you to share it.  The Atonement may be deeply personal, but it is not yours, and in brokenness there is hope.

Back on the Wagon

I have done no consistent writing for years now. I have journaled here and there, and had an occasional sporadic blog post.  I finally sat down and did some significant journaling a few months ago, and felt sane and level for the first time in a very long time. Because I live with a verbal processor, and I have so seldom had time to write, I convinced myself that talking through some of my thoughts was enough. It wasn't.  As I always have, I need to write. I need to write to empty my head, to process and organize my thoughts, to deal with my emotions.  And I really, really need to do a better job of recording my kids, and the Lord's hand in our lives.

To get my brain in the right mode, and my habits back on track, I decided to do a 30 day journaling challenge. We'll see how many days is actually takes me, if I finish it at all. But here goes.

The first task is to reintroduce myself. This seems simple enough, but its actually quite difficult for me, because I feel like in the busyness of school and work and callings and injuries and illnesses, the frenetic pace has caused me to let go of who I've always been trying to be.

A few months ago, I asked on Facebook what was unique about me, for a school assignment. An old friend from high school responded thus: "A fiercely analytical flower child. Emotions are valuable, vital even, but they don't circumvent knowledge or logic. You have an innate ability not just to separate the two, but to weigh them appropriately to the situation. . .Lots of people can bring a smile to the room, and lots of people know the right answers to the question, but few can manage it at the same time."  He coins this as having "an air of grounded whimsy".  That response saddened and delighted me at the same time.  I'm grateful to know that I have made that impression, but I haven't felt like that is who I've been lately.

So who am I?  I'm the girl with long hair and bare feet who loved sunshine on her face and wind in her hair and fields full of daisies, and did everything she could think of to radiate smiles and compliments to the people around her, desperate to make them feel loved.  I'm the young woman who knelt at an altar in a room full of strangers and trusted: trusted the Lord, trusted her new and forever companion, trusted her family.  I'm the mom who can't think of anything more delightful than a 2-year-old and somehow never quite feels like she has enough time with her kids, even on the days when she's had entirely too much of them.

I'm someone who wants to know and understand: principles, practical knowledge, people. And then I want to use that understanding to uplift and encourage and educate. When I'm tired I get very sarcastic and critical, and tremendously self-righteous when I'm angry or hurt.  I can be too sensitive, and I withdraw too easily.  I'm an outgoing introvert, who tries to people too much and then crashes.

Hopefully this month we'll work more on the details.

Pure religion

Sacrament Meeting talk 04/16/2017

Our little girl is getting baptized next week, and I’ve been pondering the promises we make in our covenants, particularly in taking the Savior’s name upon us, and what that should look like. We promise to mourn with those that mourn and comfort those who stand need of comfort; we promise to take care of each other. For years, I had a sign on my wall that displayed a scripture from Galatians: “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”  I still largely believe that it’s as simple and as difficult as that.  As I was thinking about that, I was scrolling through Facebook and saw a post my dad had put up about turtles.

My parents live near a sizeable wildlife refuge that consists of several shallow lakes and ponds, and there are many turtles that live in the refuge.  Several roads, including the highway, run next to or across the it, and consequently there are sometimes turtles in the road.  It isn’t uncommon for these little creatures to be run over.  Yesterday my dad was out doing some wildlife photography, and caught on camera a couple who had stopped to pick up some turtles and get them safely back to the water. That isn’t an uncommon occurrence either.  People who ignore the turtles moving slowly across the road, and even the people who run them over, aren’t bad people, and certainly don’t intend any harm; usually, they are just in a hurry and don’t have time to worry about turtles, or, more often, they simply don’t even notice.  I have said many times that I believe a great portion of human misery is caused not by malice, but by myopia.  How much good have we failed to do, or even harm have we failed to prevent, because we simply didn’t take the time to slow down and look around us, beyond our immediate destination or concern, and see what we could do--however small--to build the kingdom of the Lord by some small act of service that was easily within our reach?

James describes pure religion as visiting the fatherless and the widows in their afflictions, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.  Service is a bit like immunizations, healthy eating, and exercise all in one: it helps us build a strong relationship with the Savior, increasing our spiritual health and personal strength, as well as keeping us focused on and occupied by good things, protecting us from distractions and temptations.

Too often we treat service like a check-list of things we have to get done, and when we are approach it that way, it often feels overwhelming or draining. Elder Marion G. Romney once said, “Service is not something we endure on this earth so we can earn the right to live in the celestial kingdom.  Service is the very fiber of which an exalted life in the celestial kingdom is made.”  The covenant we make at baptism, to learn better to be our brother’s keeper, to look on the needs of our neighbor with compassion and patience, prepares us for the ultimate covenant of service we make to consecrate our time, talent, and means to the building of the Lord’s kingdom.

In the same letter, James counsels to be not just hearers of the word, but doers of the word.  He tells us to “lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word”.  In other words, he tells us to let go of any greed, selfishness, laziness, and be teachable so that we can have the word--the Savior--written on our hearts.  To assess how well we’re doing with that instruction, we can ask ourselves a question posed by another ancient prophet, “Have [we] received His image in [our] countenances?”  The service we give and how we give it is not about tasks we check off--it’s about who we are becoming.

The Lord asks us to consecrate our means, and while this serves a very practical need--people need to be fed and clothed and housed and cared for--this is also about helping us become the people he needs us to be. When the wealthy young man comes the Savior and asks how he might obtain eternal life, the Savior reiterates the commandments, which the man says he has kept from his youth. And so the Savior tells the man to sell all that he has and follow him.  The Lord doesn’t always ask us to part with all our earthly possessions to serve him, but he does ask that our hearts are prepared and willing if that is what is required of us.

And that, in part, is why the Lord asks us to consecrate our time and our talents.  I’m annoyed if I feel like someone has cheated me out of my money, but I struggle not to be angry when someone wastes my time--I can’t get it back, and I feel like they’ve stolen a little piece of my life.  The Lord isn’t just asking us to donate some of our stuff, he’s asking us to dedicate our lives and who we are; he isn’t concerned with the substance of what we have so much as he is the substance of who we are.

A few months ago, during the massive flooding in Louisiana, an old friend, who lives in Oregon and is not a member of the Church but knows that I am, contacted me and asked if I had any way that I could get ahold of someone in Louisiana who might be able to find a few people to get a dad who was in one part of the city to his wife and infant who were at a hospital in another part of the city, because their car was inaccessible and there was no working public transportation due to the severe weather.  Without personally knowing a soul in the area, I told him that I could.  It reminded me of our own experience a decade ago when our infant son ended up in the hospital hours from home, where we knew no one.  We called our bishop and informed him of the situation, and an hour later, a couple of high priests were in the hospital room helping my husband administer a blessing to our son, with messages from their wives about meeting other needs we might have.  No matter where my children are, or anyone else I love for that matter, even if I can’t get to them I know that there will be someone I can call on to serve them and love them, because of who those Christ-centered souls have chosen to be.  That is pure religion, and in an often unkind, ugly, fallen world, it’s hard to imagine a more celestial blessing.  That is the natural fruit of choosing to be a Zion people.

One of my favorite lines, by W.H. Auden, is “You owe it to all of us to get on with what you’re good at it.”  What talents has the Lord blessed you with? What skills has he given you the chance to learn, what educational opportunities has he extended to you?  All those things can be used to build the kingdom, though sometimes it isn’t immediately obvious to us how, and we may need the help of the Spirit to know in what way the Lord would have us use those gifts.  One of the adversary’s most effective tools for dissuading us from serving is trying to discourage us and convince us that we have nothing to offer.  President Packer had a response to this that I love: “When you say ‘I can’t’. . .I want to thunder out ‘Don’t you realize who you are? Haven’t you learned yet that you are a son or daughter of the Almighty God?’”  You most certainly do have things of value to offer, and in the areas where we fall short, the Lord has promised that he can make weak things strong.

But most importantly, we each need to remember one very important thing as we reach out to serve: its not about me.  If you’re thinking about your insufficiencies, your focus is on you.  If you’re worried about whether or not someone appreciates the service, you’re thinking about you.  If you are angry or impatient or annoyed, chances are very good you’re thinking about you.  We are, each of us, a work in progress; everyone you serve, and everyone you serve with, is going to have some rough edges, some glaring blindspots, some idiosyncrasies that you find more annoying than charming, and they are going to make mistakes and they are going to fail.  That’s, if not irrelevant, at least of minor importance.

The Lord loves you: flaws, sins, annoying personality traits, and all.  And he loves each of those you live and serve and work with just as much.  He is not asking you to put up with that weird ward member that you got stuck putting on the ward Christmas party with or to try to be polite to that clueless blowhard you got assigned to home teach, he is asking you to love his child. He is asking you--imperfect, morally accident-prone, spiritually clumsy you--to be his hands in the life of one of his children.  That is not a logistical obligation, it is a divine privilege and sacred trust. The Lord declared that his work and his glory is the immortality and eternal life of man.  He doesn’t say men, and he doesn’t say Man; the salvation of the Lord’s children is reliant upon the salvation of each individual child.  The Lord has given everything for us, and in return he asks us to pray for guidance, and then stop thinking about ourselves and look around us to see what needs to be done.

Over and over, the resurrected Lord emphasized to his apostles that the way to manifest their love for him was to feed his sheep.  In speaking of this teaching, Elder Holland reminded us recently that “we have neighbors to bless, children to protect, the poor to lift up, and the truth to defend. We have wrongs to make right, truths to share, and good to do.  In short, we have a lifetime of devoted discipleship to give in demonstrating our love of the Lord.”

Kylie's Baptism

Kylie was baptized at Mom and Dad's house on April 29th, by her dad. He also confirmed her, with her Papa Umpy, uncle Paul Tanner, and cousin Kenny Krantz standing in. She asked her big sister to give a talk on baptism,

and she asked me to speak about the Holy Ghost

She was so excited to be baptized, and she got to be surrounded by a lot of really wonderful people to welcome her into that covenant and support her.  Most of her Umphrey cousins managed to make it in between softball games (auntie Christa drove back from Frenchtown--and took these photos--and then drove back to Frenchtown afterward, attending tournament games).  Auntie Jen and Uncle Paul drove all the way up from Pleasant Grove with all five of their kids, and then Facetimed in Mimi and Papa, who couldn't make it due to Papa's very, very recent open heart surgery.  My parents were, as ever, our gracious hosts.

Part of the reason we waited so long past her birthday (which was in December) was that she had requested to have her baptism in the creek.  I'm not sure she was mentally prepared for it.  Her face when she popped out of the water was priceless (I have no photos, because I was standing at water's edge with a warm towel to wrap her up).  When asked if it was cold, she nodded solemnly and said, "Feet are one thing, but faces are different".  All too true, kiddo.

During her confirmation, she was blessed that she would build on what she had already learned about seeking the Lord's direction and listening to the Spirit. Kylie is already a prayer.  During my talk, I told every one about a recent incident where one of our cats, Shawn, disappeared for about a day and a half. Kylie is also a worrier, and she was terribly worried that he wouldn't come home and was very upset. After bedtime, she came downstairs and tearily told us that she and Keilana had prayed that Shawn would be safe and he'd come home.  He showed up a couple of hours later.

At Christmas time, she helped me make salsa, and accidentally touched her eyes after handling habaneros and jalapeños. She said through painful tears, "Mommy, I prayed. I prayed three times."

She's confident and silly, but also very sweet and tender. She's thoughtful and notices the people around her.  She's clever, and tremendously funny. She has a terrible temper, but she knows it and its only because she's so sensitive.  She nearly always takes responsibility for it without being prompted, and feels terrible when she realizes she's made someone feel badly.  She's always trying to make the world around her a little more beautiful, a little more colorful, and a little more fair.

Welcome to the fold, Kylie Bear. We're pretty fortunate to have you.

Outside the lines

Dylan's pediatrician gave us a referral for a neuropsychologist in Missoula to do further evaluations, and thanks to a fortuitous cancellation, we got in almost immediately.  So we did an initial interview with the three of us (me, Doug, and Dylan) a few weeks ago, and then we took Dylan back for a full day of evaluation a week later.

Today Doug and I went back to meet with the doctor about the results.  The short version is "Your kid doesn't fit neatly into the classic box.  He also doesn't fit neatly into any of the alternative boxes we've developed for the kids who don't fit into the traditional box".    When Dylan was six weeks old, Doug gave him a name and a blessing, and one of the things our little guy was blessed with was that he would have the fortitude to face his challenges, because he would have some that were very unique to him.  As this doctor checked off the challenges that they saw in their evaluations, I felt better because they were all exactly the things I thought I was seeing as his mom.  And I felt a little apprehensive about finding the right combination of tools to help him, because there are little pieces of a lot of different things going on in his unique little brain.  But the doctor was unflinchingly optimistic about the future, stating succinctly, "Its complex, but not difficult".

Something that was reassuring was that, despite having many of the other challenges that usually go along with it, Dylan's emotional reciprocity and attentiveness is not my imagination, or a mom's overly rosy view: he really is in tune with the emotions of others;  all that sweetness is really there.  Despite the fact that he hyper focuses on his interests to sometimes the exclusion of everything else, when he is tuned in, he sees what people need, he sees when they hurt or struggle, and it matters to him. It make him happy when they're happy.  I've always loved that about him.  The doctor also said that, with his combination of challenges, Dylan could be doing very differently without a lot of conscious, intentional engagement at home, and told us that we were doing great for him so far.  I'm not someone who seeks or needs a lot of external validation, but with all the frustrations and disappointments we've had the last couple of years, I admit that it was comforting to hear that from someone who has helped a lot of kids with a wide variety of challenges.

So now we get everyone at school on our team, and start making some more specific accommodations for our little guy, who, as I've always believed, is going to be just fine.

Shine

Have you ever had someone ask you if they're too damaged? Too flawed? Too riddled with weaknesses and imperfections to obtain the good things they desire?

Too damaged?  You, dear soul, are a bright, shining bit of divine light.  You  are far more beautiful than you suppose.  Life has beat you up quite a lot lately.  Some of the people you loved, who you thought loved you, have said and done things that hurt.  Intensely.  They are in the Lord's hands, leave them to him.  Those painful stumbles have caused you to question your value, your abilities, your worth. You are in the Lord's hands, and he sees the glorious being you were designed to be.  He sees all the amazing things that you are, the incredibly good that you are not only capable of doing, but that you have already done.

Many of the vicissitudes of life sting so deeply precisely because they do have eternal consequences. Having to redefine what we thought our eternity would look like may make it hard to believe we can have the best blessings of eternity--or lead us to doubt those things are even there.

The light is still there, and I see much of it in you, even if your glow has been dimmed a bit by a broken heart and a bruised soul.  The Lord knows well the stones that have been strewn about your path, and understands why they've slowed you, weighed you down, or tripped you up.  And he has glorious things in store for you, his loved and cherished child, and he will help you overcome the world, so that all things might work together for your good.

Its a new year. Don't fail to learn the lessons of the past, but move forward with faith--in the Lord and in yourself.

Asking for help

*deep breath*  I'm about to share more than I am usually inclined to do in so public a forum. Bear with me.

Dylan was in tears when I met him after school today.  That isn't all that unusual these days, unfortunately.  Some kid in his class had told him, just before the bell rang at the end of the day, that he didn't matter. I don't know what the context was, and he told me he knew it wasn't true, but it still hurt his feelings.  Then he said, "I hope Ammon is back tomorrow. He's my only friend."  We've heard that refrain a lot the last couple of years. He's mostly kind, and quite sensitive, but unusual (and obsessive) in his interests, and somewhat awkward, meaning he is isolated a bit, socially. Despite high standardized test scores, he struggles in school, and was in tears multiple times the week before parent-teacher conferences, frustrated and embarrassed about the poor grades he assumed were inevitable.

Dylan has always been unique, perhaps a little quirky, and those closest to our family have always known that and it was just Dylan, no big deal. It certainly wasn't a problem, or really even that far out of the ordinary.

As a baby, he was a dream: if I wanted to hold him, he was happy to be held and snuggled. But if I had other things to do, well, he didn't so much mind being ignored for long stretches of time.  Even though every one of our other babies rolled, scooted or slipped off our big king size bed at some point (yep, I'm that stellar of a mom), Dylan never did. He was weirdly aware of edges, so he would scoot to the side and just look over the edge and whimper until someone picked him up or moved him back to the middle of the bed.

By the time he was approaching his first birthday, he was obsessed with matchbook cars. He had one in each hand everywhere he went, all of the time. He loved to drive the cars around, but the cars needed tracks--something relatively narrow with boundaries, such as the window sill, or the trim on the coffee table. If he couldn't find a track, he'd make one.  The example that always stands out in my head, because he was so little, was one time, he was sitting on the floor of our bedroom, about three weeks after he turned one, and he picked up Doug's tie that was sitting near him, fashioned it into a rough circle, and then drove his cars on it. His favorite game was his car track through the living room: we had long windows with low sills he could easily reach. He would find about a half a dozen of his cars, line them up (usually according to size) on the piano bench, and then pick up the first one. He would drive it down first sill, then the next on the north side of the living room; then he would drive it on the narrow edge of the TV stand in front of the TV; next, he'd move it to the center of the room and drive it around the border on the coffee table; then he'd take it and drive it down the back of the couch on the south side of the living room, and then along the window sill on the southeast side of the room, and finally park in on the bookshelf next to the window.  Then he'd go to his line of cars, pick the next one, and do it all over again.  He would do that, uninterrupted for sometimes hours at a time if he was allowed to.  He loved it.

Whenever he was done with his cars, he would line them up neatly somewhere, hoods aligned and usually organized from smallest to largest.  He loved to play with blocks or megablocks, but would generally sort them by size or color before he started to build anything.  During all of this, he had no language.  He had scarcely any words before his third birthday, but by 2 1/2, he knew the entire alphabet.  He could recognize every letter and tell you what sound it made, simply from watching his sister play alphabet games on the computer.

He didn't pay attention to people very much. He was very interactive with me and Doug, and his sister (who sort of made it impossible to not be interacted with.  There was a reason we considered adding an exclamation point to the spelling of her name: Keilana!)  If Doug and I were both gone, he seemed to somehow determine who was the primary caretaker adult in his vicinity, and find that person if he needed something, but otherwise occupy himself with his toys and mostly ignore everyone. He played with toys in their intended way in a very focused manner, and gave most of his energy and attention to that. He interacted with Amanda, and in a tender mercy that I still can't explain, he played with Conner. They were so little, at an age where most kids engage in parallel play, and with all Dylan's quirks, they truly played together, babbling at each other and moving in tandem when they were in the same house.  After Conner was gone, he was often a part of Keilana and Clayton's games and activities, but just as often they were playing with each other while he did his own quietly contented thing.

When he was a toddler, I had to take a niece to a doctor's appointment for a very contagious illness and asked a friend to watch my kids so that they didn't have to be around her.  When I went to pick him up and asked how it went, she said he had just mostly stayed in that spot, driving the cars over and over, and didn't really respond to her much when she tried to engage him in other things.  She asked, "Have you ever thought about having him evaluated for autism?"  What you need to know about this woman is that she is a dear friend, one of the most grounded women I know, and mother to five children of her own, including a daughter Keilana's age who has profound autism (at 12, she is still nonverbal and performs almost no self-care).  I'd had the thought.  He functioned mostly normally, and whatever his uniquenesses were, they didn't seem to be getting in the way of his development.

As he got older and hit preschooler ages, the language came, and with the language he became somewhat more social. He started to notice and interact more with his cousins and with friends.  He still spent a lot of his time solitarily, but when we went out or had people at home, he spent more time with other little boys, and he began to be a more active participant in Keilana and Clayton's games.  It was becoming increasingly obvious that he was sensitive, both physically and emotionally.  At times when he did decide to interact, he was easily hurt in a way that his sister never had been, and sarcasm  seemed almost impossible for him. He was so young that I didn't think much of that.  He was fairly particular about the clothes he liked, but he had trouble communicating that verbally, which resulted in frequent stripping down to his skivvies.

Eating has been a disaster pretty much since he started solid foods.  For the first few years he was eating real food, it was all but impossible to get him to eat anything other than refined carbohydrates: crackers (but nothing too flavorful), chips, cereal, bread (he'd eat jelly, but not peanut butter, until he hit the point where he'd eat peanut butter, but not jelly, and then either one, so long as not both on the same sandwich), and pasta sans sauce.  So I bought no cereal, bread, or crackers that weren't whole-wheat, bran-loaded cardboard in an attempt to get some sort of substantive food in him, and that worked for a while. I thought he was just being picky and stubborn, so one night when he was three, we had chicken and some sort of blah vegetable (I can't remember specifically what), and I told him he couldn't have anything else to eat until he ate his dinner. No spices, sauces, or real flavor of any kind.  For 36 hours, my 3 year old ate nothing.  And didn't whine, complain, or throw fits or anything like that.  Just quietly starved himself. If we tried to force him to eat, he would take 10 minutes to get down a bit or two, and then he'd vomit.  I realized at that point that we were dealing with more than stubbornness, and I quit fighting.  As he got older, his palate expanded--a little.  He'd still have pizza, chicken nuggets, or crackers for every meal if we let him.

As he's grown up, he's been able to channel his energies more consciously, he has seemed more "normal" in some ways, and that much odder in others. He can spot, name, and describe dozens of species of birds, and love wildlife biology in general.  He can classify hundreds of Pokemon without breaking a sweat, and generally loves any activity where he can sort and classify, and loves to expound on those things.  But getting 10 minutes worth of math homework done every day is nearly impossible.  He built a Spiderman web across the ceiling of his room using Legos and connects (it was rather impressive) but after five years of doing it every day, he can't do a decent job washing a dish to save his life.   He finally lets us give him a haircut without having a meltdown, but if the cat accidentally gets a claw across his foot when they're playing, it sounds like his foot has been lopped off with a machete.  A few months ago, he had to have a simply venipuncture blood draw for some lab tests, and I had to hold him down with help from a lab tech while the phlebotomist drew blood because he was in so much pain and so panicked.

He has a lot of behaviors that look like ADHD: very inattentive in class, needing frequent redirection from his teacher, you give him one task to complete, and by the time he's walked 10 feet away from you, he's forgotten what it was, etc.  We took him to the doctor for an initial evaluation, and his doctor almost had a meltdown at the whole idea, and walked into the room and started the conversation with a lecture about the problems with putting kids on amphetamines. I interrupted him and told him I was looking to get an IEP, not a controlled substance, and this was just an initial evaluation to see where were at and what seems likely/not so likely.  I was so annoyed at him that we never bothered to do the follow up at the end of last school year, and that doctor has moved now, anyway.

I talked to my mom (a special ed teacher in another district) about possibly finding names of therapists who specialize in kids with ADD and/or ASD.  Its hard to know what his parameters are--whether we're pushing too hard on things he probably can't do right now, or letting things go that maybe he is capable of.  It can be tricky to know the best ways to help him, because he mostly fits under the umbrella of "normal".  But school is a struggle, and he is old enough now to recognize that he's different, and there are kids that don't let him forget it, anyway.  I want my kids to be able to reach his potential, I want him to be happy.

From the time I was 14, I was inexplicably convinced that I would have a special needs child someday.  When Dylan received his baby blessing at 7 weeks old, I was caught off guard by some of what was said, and I wondered if maybe that prompting came to prepare me to be his mom.  That being said, these weren't the needs I was expecting, and I hope that, with some help, his dad and I can figure out the best way to help him harness the power of that marvelous mind of his, and his sensitive, gentle spirit.