How to Eat An Elephant ~ Chapter Fourteen: Not Every Prayer Bounces Off the Ceiling

This post is deeply personal and I found it difficult to articulate the thoughts that are in my head and heart about this subject. I hope my readers will feel what I am trying to convey in this chapter and that you will come away with a deeper understanding of how prayers get answered and better recognition of answers to your prayers.

Many examples throughout my dad’s life have taught me to believe in the power of prayer. I have also learned that prayers are answered according to God’s timing, not mine and according to God’s will.

Sometimes prayers aren’t answered immediately. I prayed every day all through high school that my dad would re-join the church so we could be an eternal family. That prayer was eventually answered, but it was according to my dad’s timetable, not according to my demand to God that He change my dad’s heart.  I believe the prayers of many people helped to soften my dad and prepare him for a mighty change to happen, but it was one of those instances where it was a process and all those prayers I offered not only helped to soften my dad’s heart, but I believe they helped to soften mine as well. Perhaps it was more of an issue of what other people may have needed to learn from the experience that dictated the timing of it being answered. Perhaps there were other hearts that needed to be changed before that struggle could be over. Perhaps other people’s faith needed to be strengthened through their opportunity to continuously pray for my dad.  I believe that God sees the big picture and he knows what things the people around us need to learn through our experiences and struggles. When you pray for something for a really long time, it is such a beautiful witness of the power of prayer when that prayer is finally answered. Sometimes the answer is not “no”, but rather “not yet”.

Another great example of this was a prayer that we offered for over 20 years before it was answered. What an amazing experience it was when Wayne’s daughter Tina came back into our lives after being absent for over 20 years. I don’t know why it had to take 20 years for that prayer to be answered, but it helps me to know that you should never give up on a righteous desire.

 I try to remember this when I get frustrated with a challenge that I am going through and I can’t understand why God won’t help me solve the problem and move on. Perhaps people around me need to learn something from my experience or struggle and until they learn that, the timing of my answer may need to be postponed.  It helps sometimes to try to step back from my struggles and see if from a larger perspective.

Sometimes prayers are answered in a different way than we expect. I have learned that you have to be very careful what you pray for. When I had a small child at home and was expecting number two, it was hard and I found that I wasn’t emotionally prepared for the demands of motherhood. I prayed for patience.  Never, ever, EVER pray for patience.  It is almost guaranteed that you will be given a trial to really test your patience! In this case, I was called to be a nursery worker…  are you kidding me? I was struggling to even be able to deal with my one child, how on earth was I going to deal with everyone else’s wild child… all at the same time? After that, I certainly had more patience in being able to deal with my own child and other struggles that would come my way. I also learned to be more creative and very specific in what I ask for now.

Sometimes a seemingly unanswered prayer, may be just the answer you are looking for. A dear friend of mine taught me that “doubt means don’t”. This has proven many times to be the answer I needed when I have paused before rushing into a decision, only later to find out that there was a better option coming if I only had the patience to wait for it. (Here we go with that patience thing again, which by the way, is still a struggle for me)

 Many times the thing I have prayed for has had a different outcome than what I had hoped or intended, but when I look back with the benefit of hindsight, I can see that it was answered in the way that ultimately worked out for the best.

Sometimes prayers can postpone an inevitable outcome.  Throughout his cancer journey, I really struggled to come to terms with the idea that he wasn’t being cured. He had such a positive attitude and he had a tremendous amount of faith, as did those who loved him. He had numerous priesthood blessings. He deserved to be cured!!!  It really shook my faith that none of the things we were doing were working to heal him.  I often blamed myself, thinking that I was the weak link because my faith wasn’t stronger. Toward the end of my dad’s battle with cancer I was visiting with him and he told me that the prayers we were offering on his behalf were keeping him here on earth and that he wanted me to stop praying for him to be healed because he felt that we were keeping him from his next assignment.  He wanted me instead to pray that whatever God’s will was that it would be done quickly. This was such a hard concept to wrap my head around.  I sort of knew in my heart what the outcome would be if I did that and I felt like I was giving up and having a lack of faith by doing this, but I loved him enough to honor his request.  Immediately it seemed like he took a turn for the worse and started to slip away. I was out of town and it was going to take several days before I could get to Bear Lake to be with him. In the meantime, he asked every day, what day it was. I think he knew when I could be there to say good-bye and he was holding on waiting for me. I got there in the evening and told him I was there and it was ok for him to go now, and he was gone a few hours later. I am so grateful for the way this experience built my testimony on the power of prayer.  Our prayers did not change God’s will, but they allowed us the extra time we needed to be ready to let him go and to have the chance to strengthen our faith through the experience. I believe that for him, the veil had been very thin for quite some time and it must have been hard for him to make the choice to stay here until we were ready to let him go home. I had a personal experience with the veil one time when I was having a miscarriage and was hemorrhaging badly. I was in the Dr’s office and due to the critical nature of what was going on, they had do an emergency D&C  right there in the Dr office… without the benefits of anesthesia…. Not something I would recommend you try!!!!  From the loss of blood and the pain, I was very near death and I remember feeling very warm and peaceful in the midst of the pain and drama. I sensed my dad’s presence and longed so much to just be enveloped with his spirit, but I sensed he wanted me to go back because my work here wasn’t done. At the same time I remember being aware that the nurse was slapping my face very hard trying to get my attention.  At that point I had a choice to make. I was close enough to the veil to be torn between which way I wanted to go.  This experience has helped me, in hindsight, to better understand the struggle my dad must have faced with deciding how long to hang on here on earth and when it was time to make the decision that he needed to go.

Throughout these and many other experiences, I have learned that the purpose of prayer is not to try to change God’s mind about something or anyone else’s mind for that matter. God already knows what we want and He already knows what we need and He knows what His will is. He gives us the opportunity to pray so that we can humble ourselves enough to ask. I believe the higher purpose of prayer is to change our own hearts.  The true power in praying comes from the faith that is developed through the process…. when you are humble enough to turn it over to God, when you realize the prayer has been answered… or you recognize the reason it wasn’t.

How to Eat An Elephant ~ Chapter Thirteen: Sometimes Silence Is Discipline Enough

My dad spent several years in the Army serving his country in Germany. He also had a love of hunting. As a result of his experiences, I grew up in a home where guns were not an unusual thing to see in the closet or hanging in the back window of dad’s pickup truck. I did not grow up living in fear because there were guns in our home.  He taught us to be patriotic and to stand up for our freedom and appreciate those people, who like himself, defend those freedoms that we enjoy and even take for granted some times.

My dad made it a point to educate us kids on the dangers of guns and what they should be used for… putting food on the table, bonding with his kids while shooting pop cans, hunting squirrels, etc. He made it a point to let us handle the guns in a safe and controlled way and therefore took away the mystery of them so that we had no desire to play with them when it wasn’t an appropriate time or place.

We had a lot of fun doing these activities with him. My brothers spent most of the time with him doing these activities, but occasionally I got to tag along. Jordon recalls one time when he was about 13 or 14 years old. It was in the fall and he asked dad if he could go shoot pop cans with the 22. Dad agreed so Jordon gathered up the pop cans, his gun and shells and they headed up by the junk yard.

They were shooting, having fun and enjoying the day when all of a sudden Jordon pulled the trigger and heard a big echo. He quickly realized that he had shot the side of the bed of the truck. He jumped inside the cab of the truck and locked the doors. He feared a butt kicking that he thought for sure he would get.

To his amazement, dad was outside laughing so hard at the way Jordon reacted that he didn’t even care that he had just shot the side of the pick up! That is how he was all of the time. He would always say, “We are just here to have fun and if we didn’t have fun, we should have fun trying.”

Dad had a way of letting you stew about a situation for a while before he talked to you about something you had done wrong. More often than not, by the time he actually talked to you about the situation, you had beat yourself up pretty badly all on your own and he didn’t really need to say a word about the incident because you had already given yourself a lecture on how stupid you had been and how you would never do it again.

A great example of this was another story that involved Jordon when he was about 11. We had all gotten new bikes for Christmas and Jordon was always trying to ride wheelies on his. Dad was always telling him to quit doing that because it wasn’t good for the bike. He even threatened him by telling him if he caught Jordon riding wheelies, Jordon was going to lose his bike.

One day Jordon and Mike Willie were out on the town and of course they were riding wheelies from 8^th Street down to Lloyds and he passed dad coming towards him.  He knew instantly that he was busted and didn’t want to go home to face the fact that he was going to lose his bike. He hid out at Mike’s for the remainder of the day and even skipped going home for dinner. Then to make everything worse, dad called over there and asked if he could come home for a while because he had to talk to him about something. Jordon was sure he knew what it was about and boy was he scared! He took his time getting over to the house and when he got there dad asked him if he would come into his bedroom and shut the door. By this time Jordon was shaking with fear. Dad asked him to come sit on the bed with him (that was his M.O… he played that card with me several times as well. When he did this, you knew it was serious!!)

As Jordon sat on the bed with his face hung towards the ground, he felt something under the covers of his bed. He sat up and dad pulled back the covers and there sat a new deer rifle. Jordon wasn’t sure if dad intended to shoot him with it or what!! LOL!! Dad said he came across a good deal and couldn’t pass it up and asked if it was all right that he took the money of Jordon’s savings account to pay for it. Jordon never heard a word about riding wheelies on his bike until the day the handle bars broke because of riding wheelies. So the old man knew what he was talking about after all.

Many times growing up, I did similar things, got busted, beat myself up and then went back and did it again. Most times, I had punished myself much worse than he probably would have. I am so grateful for my dad’s patience with me during these times in my life when he told me not to do something and I did it anyway…and for his “silent” discipline. His quiet, gentle way allowed me time to think about my mistakes and of the consequences of my actions and many times I made a choice NOT to do something  I knew was wrong simply because I didn’t want to have him sit on the end of my bed and be disappointed in me. Even now, as an adult, I find myself making decisions based on not wanting to disappoint my dad. Those thoughts often take my mind to the bigger picture and think of what Heavenly Father thinks of my choices and decisions and how much I want to live my life in a way that doesn't disappoint Him. I don't want to find myself in Heaven sitting on the edge of a cloud with a loving Heavenly Father looking at me with disappointment in his eyes.

How to Eat An Elephant ~Chapter Twelve: From The Beginning

I thought it might be good to share a little back story of my parents so that those of you who don't know their history, have a better idea of who my dad was and his some of his background and how the cancer was discovered. This post is actually written by my sweet momma from her perspective:

I first saw Guy Peterson when I started high school. Coming from a little country school to the “big” town high school was frightening. He was not much taller than me, but I thought he was the best looking boy in the school…beautiful blue eyes and a terrific smile. When he asked me to a dance, I knew I was in “love”.  We dated through high school, had great times and he broke my heart a few times, but we always went back together.

The summer before my senior year, he asked me to marry him, so on September 1^st, 1965 we were married. We felt all “grown up” but were both far too young to know better. I still had my senior year to finish, so he found a job and we began our adventurous, bumpy, happy life together in a basement apartment.  As I was in school and he had time, he was supposed to do the dishes – but as they kept disappearing, I found out he was putting them in an empty dresser drawer instead of washing them!

On New Year’s Eve, 1965, he received his draft notice. The Vietnam War was in full swing and because he wasn’t in school, he was drafted. The recruiter told him to enlist and he could choose where he wanted to go – so, believing him, he did. He and another man from Bear Lake, Herb Cleary, enlisted for three years and were sent to Fort Ord, Calif for basic training. I stayed with his parents, Everett & Maxine and continued working and going to school. He was sent from Calif to Fort Gordon, Georgia March 1966 for military police training. At that time I left school and went with him. Herb’s wife, Sheila, also went. We had an apartment off base and the guys came home on the weekends. I took correspondence to finish school. This was hard but I wanted my diploma.

After graduation from MP school in May 1966, Herb was sent to Vietnam and Guy went to Germany. Sheila and I drove back to Montpelier from Georgia on Memorial Day weekend. I continued to work at the Arctic Circle and saved money to go to Germany to be with him. In September 1966 I was able to go, 18 years old, never been out of Bear Lake much, and alone, I flew to Heidelberg, Germany.

We had an apartment off base in Stuttgart. What an adventure we had. We had friends and went on many trips sight seeing, we had card parties and enjoyed our time there. We were both missing home and family though. Guy enjoyed being an MP and looked so handsome in his uniform. It was a great experience.

Our first apartment was a semi-basement apartment and cold and damp and I had to clean mold from the corners every week. We finally moved to an upstairs apartment…much warmer and nicer. In January of 1968, I got pregnant and we were excited. I continued to work and the baby was due in October. I came home to Montpelier in September and Guy was to come in December. Wendi  was born in October and Guy got home two days before Christmas. Thus began a new and different life together. It was so good to be together again.

He enrolled and was accepted into BYU and we moved to Provo, Utah with our little blond haired, blue eyed baby. Guy was so cute with her.

Wade & Pat were also in Provo and we spent a lot of time together there. We were sealed in the Logan temple in July 1969. Wendi was so beautiful in her white dress.

In Jan, 1970, our first son Landis was born. We were thrilled again. It was fun being parents.

In Nov, 1971, our third child, Jordon was born on Thanksgiving night.

We were really struggling financially to get through school and take care of our growing family. Guy graduated in criminology and sociology and wanted to go on to law school but because of lack of money and a family to support, he didn’t. He got a job back in Montpelier and we packed up and moved home to a little rental house on Jefferson St.

We purchased the Amoco oil plant and began a business. This was during the “gas crunch” years and rationing of fuel began and was hard to make ends meet.

Our fourth child, a son Dustin, was born in Feb, 1976. I was so grateful he was born healthy.

On June 30, 1980 we had our fifth child, a girl, Brittney Jo. As I held her, I cried and had the thought that I wouldn’t be able to raise her. She proved to be a blessing as she became an instrument in bringing her dad back into the church.

During these years, Guy had been excommunicated from the church. It was a very difficult time. All during his life he had taken the hard road to things. It was as if Satan always won the battle until Guy overcame each trial. He was very strong when he set his mind. I think he must have been a valiant spirit before coming to earth and needed to be tested more than others.

Without my knowledge, he went to the bishop and began the process of getting his life back in order. It was difficult for him but he prevailed. He presented me with a card announcing his forthcoming baptism back into the church. What a glorious day. Both our families were there to support and join us. The next few years were good. It was all I had dreamed of having and we were able to have his priesthood and temple blessings restored. Life seemed good after so many hard years. Our kids were a part of this happening.

August 1992 brought the annual Peterson reunion. Guy was always healthy, active and in good shape so, when he complained of a headache that wouldn’t go away, we went to the doctor who treated him for sinus infection. After a couple of days and it got worse we went to the ER. They gave him a shot for pain which did nothing. We were sent to Logan. They did a scan and MRI and found a tumor at the base of his brain. We were sent to Salt Lake City for surgery. The result – it was cancer. We cried and held each other and vowed we would beat this. Two surgeries, chemotherapy, radiation became our lives while trying to support two missionaries, two children at home and a married daughter. Our lives were suddenly spiraling out of control.

I was working at the hospital and needed to keep the job, so Wade took Guy into his home in SLC, took him to treatments during the week and home on the weekends. This continued for many weeks.

Landis returned home from his mission and helped. In December, Jordy also came home early to spend the time left with his dad.

During this time, I never heard Guy complain or murmur. He kept looking for the “strawberry” and kept a good attitude. He died June 28, 1993. Two years later on October 4, 1995, he came to take Brittney with him. His mission was done.

After he was re-baptized, he became so strong in the church. He was in the bishopric and a home teacher.

All through his life he was involved with the youth in the church and community. He coached little league baseball and basketball and related to the youth. He taught alternate school and had a good influence on troubled kids. He had a big heart and gave to others freely.

We spent a lot of summers camping and fishing. He taught his kids to enjoy the outdoors and love life. His motto was “work hard, then play hard”.

In being honest, some of the years were so hard and I’m not sure how I made it through, but in the whole picture, I’m so glad I stuck with it as we have an eternal family. Guy had so many good Christ like qualities and Satan knew he had to work hard to win him but in the long haul – Guy conquered and returned to his Father in Heaven a winner.

How to Eat An Elephant ~ Chapter Eleven: Laughter Is The Best Medicine

There is nothing dignifying about fighting cancer. If you have never had the privilege of being a caregiver to someone who is in the end stages of cancer, this post may be hard to read. If you HAVE had that privilege, you know what a sacred time it is to spend time with your loved one, while they slowly watch their dignity slip away and people look on with pity. It is a bonding experience and a time when you get to love unconditionally. I remember watching my mom gently wipe my dad’s forehead and bend over to kiss his swollen eyes and that image is what I think of when I hear the words “unconditional love”. Knowing their history and everything they had gone through, made that moment even tenderer to witness.

But let me back up to the beginning of the end….

My dad’s fight started with surgery, followed almost immediately with radiation. He lost two patches of hair on the back of his head, so he looked kind of funny because of where the hair fell out. Then he started chemo and he looked like he had died, but that’s because chemo is poison. In order to have any chance of saving him, they had to poison him until he almost died and then they stopped… for a while… then they did it all over again… and again and again.  He was ready for the zombie apocalypse… and then the rest of his hair fell out.

He took steroids to reduce the inflammation of the tumor which causes the fat in your body to move around and become displaced. This is sometimes called Moon Face, when the fat from the lower part of the body moves to the upper part of the body, causing it to be swollen. It is ironic that a side effect of a medication that reduces inflammation is … inflammation! 

My dad was no exception and when this happened, it created pressure in his eyes. He was one of the lucky ones because at first, only one eye was affected and so he got to wear a patch over that eye. Eventually, both eyes became so swollen that he couldn't see anything. Another fun side effect from Moon Face, was that the lower part of his body became so weak that it could no longer support the added weight from the fat that had shifted to the upper part of the body. When that happened, his new constant companion was a walker. And he got to enjoy having a potty chair next to his bed because he couldn’t move himself much farther than that. Finally his strength deteriorated enough that he had to have home health come in and bath him, because he no longer had the strength to get out of bed.

 Nope… nothing dignifying about it!

He had to choose between excruciating pain from the tumor growing in his head and drugs that made him hallucinate… ok, so maybe the drugs that make you hallucinate might not be so bad to endure… LOL…. Like when dad imagined a herd of squirrels running through the living room early one morning. Mom had my brothers hide the shotguns after that imaginary event, but it was certainly something to laugh at, otherwise you might just breakdown because it’s so hard to watch a loved one live this way. Most days he didn’t know what was real and what was imaginary. I mentioned in a previous post about our time together playing cards. I remember many times playing cards with him and he would say things that didn’t make any sense. One time he told someone to leave him alone because he was busy playing cards. When we asked who he was talking to, he replied “grandma”. We laughed it off and told him that “grandma” wasn’t there, assuming that he was talking about his own mother who frequently participated in our card games. Looking back, I believe that it was not MY grandma who was nearby, it was probably HIS. I believe that the morphine made his mind more open to experiences that maybe we were not privy to and that his time on earth was drawing to a close and the veil between this life and the next was a little thinner for him. This is the type of sacred experience that I was talking about when I mentioned that is was  ‘privilege’ to be a care giver and to be able to witness these special moments.  This has taught me to be more open minded about what is going on around me. There are things that I may not be able to see with my mortal eyes, but that I can feel with my heart if I allow those moments to penetrate my busy life. It’s important to enjoy the solitude and listen with our hearts or we will miss those moments when the veil is thin.

One thing that was important to dad was to laugh about things and not let some of these challenges get the best of him. He tried to maintain a “positive mental attitude” about his situation.  Many times my mom, who was more in touch with the reality of the situation, told him where he could put his PMA…LOL! When he was first diagnosed, he was given 6 weeks to live, but he defied the doctors by living for another 10 months! He believed that he could mentally heal himself by remaining positive about his situation. I believe that he probably could have too… if it had been God’s will that he remain on earth. But that was not to be. He may not have healed himself, but I firmly believe that his attitude allowed his body to decay more slowly, which gave him more time here with his family.

 Dad liked to joke around about his ‘radiation head’ by telling people that my mom tried to iron the back of his head and burned off all his hair, since the bald spots somewhat resembled the shape of an iron.

He also had a favorite shirt that he wore ALL the time. It was very tattered and had a white paint splatter on the front. He liked to tell people that a bird pooped on him. I guess when you have no dignity left, things like that help to give one a little humor in a very somber situation.

He told my kids many wild stories about the “pirate patch” he wore over one eye. Derrek was his first grandchild and his little buddy, so when he started having trouble talking, he developed a system of communication with Derrek that he referred to as the ‘buddy sign’. It was giving the thumbs up signal. At first Derrek was not very coordinated and it was more often the thumbs sideways signal! Every couple of weeks when we would go to Bear Lake to spend time with my dad, the first thing he did when he saw Derrek was ask him to give him the buddy sign and 3 year old Derrek would quickly respond with an enthusiastic thumbs up! When communication became difficult, we all adopted the ‘buddy sign’. This was our way of letting each other know that we were doing ok. We even used this when it was just too difficult emotionally to speak. A simple buddy sign would let each other know, without the need for words that all would be ok. 

Since he wasn’t able to work, he was home all day, while my mom went to work. He tried to do things to help out around the house, like wash the dishes… keep in mind that this was a chore, since they didn’t own a dishwasher. One day, he got frustrated because he always had to wash so many cups each day, so he set aside one cup for each member of the household, and then put the rest of the glasses in the house, in a laundry basket, and hid them! He didn’t think this was funny, but everyone else sure did. Come to find out, dishes were never his strong suit. When he and mom were first married, she was still finishing school so it was his job to do the dishes. His idea of cleaning up the kitchen was to just HIDE all the dirty dishes from her!

When it became difficult for him to move about the house, my mom gave him a bell, so he could ring it if he needed help with something. Sometimes he would ring it just to see how quickly she would come running to his side. It became a way for her to bribe him into good behavior (ok maybe threaten is a better word)… if he didn’t do what he was supposed to do, she could simply hide the bell!

Through all of this, dad taught us by example, that laughter is the best medicine… laughter is the way that you maintain your dignity through all of life’s experiences. That lesson has spilled over to many facets of my life and I have tried to remember when I find myself in a really stressful situation, to find some humor. I guess that is how I developed my love for retelling events in a very humorous way. His positive attitude and example have helped me to develop a unique way of looking at things. Sometimes I need to be reminded, especially when I am in the heat of the moment, but mostly I try to emulate his attitude and look for the humor in every situation and most importantly take time to laugh!

I really believe that laughter helps our memory. As I reflect back on memories of my sister’s life, the most vivid memories I have of her were times when we were laughing (either with her or at her, but definitely laughing!)

Laughing is a positive, healthy way to get rid of some of the stress and emotion that builds up in your body. There were many times when we reached the point that we were forced to find a release to that emotion and we could laugh or we could cry. Looking back on the cancer journey, most of my memories were times when we were laughing. I can only remember two times when I really cried... When we were walking through the hospital after they took him in for the initial surgery and I watched my mom collapse on the floor in the hallway under the gravity of the situation and the second was when I held his hand while he took his last breath. The first were tears of fear… fear of the unknown and what the future would hold. The latter were tears of relief, that his pain was over and his spirit was no longer trapped in a diseased, bed ridden body. I know that there were many, many other times I cried, but those are not the memories that stick with me. The moments I remember most are the ones where we found the humor in the situation.  Laughter truly is good medicine!

How to Eat An Elephant ~Chapter Ten: Competition Is Good For The Soul

To say my dad was fiercely competitive by nature would be an understatement. As I have already mentioned he was very involved in sports, both himself as an athlete and also as a youth coach. He loved coaching the boys in little league baseball and basketball. And he loved playing softball, baseball and basketball on city and church leagues.

 I remember many times watching him get into a squabble with an ump or ref over a bad call. He was loud and proud and many times this resulted in him being ejected from a game and more than once he was ejected from the gym! Emma and Derrek have a lot of their grandfather in them when it comes to playing basketball. If they get fouled and the ref doesn’t do his job, you can bet the next trip down the court will result in another foul…. one of retaliation… one that when the person gets fouled, they will remember for several days that they were fouled! They get that from their grandpa and I am sure he smiles a little about that! He always stood up for his teammates and his kids (both HIS kids and the kids he was coaching) and spoke up when he thought himself or a teammate had been wronged by a bad call. He especially enjoyed rooting for the underdog… whether from the sidelines, the bench, the dugout or the recliner! He instilled in me a special place in my heart for underdogs. Even if his team wasn’t the strongest or fastest and the 1^st place team, he still encouraged them and loved them and win or lose, we always got root beer at the A&W after a baseball game! He understood the benefits of healthy competition (and sometimes unhealthy competition), but he also understood that it was important to build the boys’ self-esteem and help them feel like their best was all he expected of them. He was always saddened by the other coaches that would belittle and scream and yell at the boys because winning was all that mattered. Winning was important, but it wasn’t everything. One time during a little league game, his team was behind and he needed to say something to motivate his team in a really tight game. Instead of yelling and throwing water bottles to motivate his team, he told them “the game’s not over until the fat lady farts”….LOL! They ended up winning that game!

His competitive nature wasn’t limited to sporting events. It was a part of everything he did. It would show up in random places… like wrestling with my brothers and cousins at a family reunion or at the card table or telling tall tales of his fishing adventures. I’m still not sure if the story about Cleo is real or if he just needed to tell a story about a bigger fish than whomever his fishing companion was at the time. He was always looking for an advantage in everything he did. He was really good at developing trick plays or special moves or a unique curve ball that would give himself or his team an advantage. I can recall him spending hours in the back yard with my brothers teaching them exactly where to place their fingers on the thread of the baseball and exactly how to flick their wrist to get just the right spin on the ball. We had a ping pong table in the basement for a while and he took great joy in adding “English” to the ball so that his opponent wouldn’t know where it was going to land on their side of the table. He even got good at adding a little English to the blip when playing Pong on the TV! He was good at reading people and he always seemed to know when you had a good hand of cards or when you were bluffing. He was skilled at spotting weakness and knowing when to use that to his advantage. He knew when to put in a home run hitter and when to bunt.

I think that by witnessing his special talent for reading the circumstances in competitive situations, it prepared me to be able to read people and situations. He taught me to trust my gut and that has been something that has helped me… and caused me to stumble… many times in my life. There have been times when I didn’t go with my gut on something and it turned out badly.  My gut always tells me to stick up for the underdog. Whether it’s a person who needs a friend or someone who is being bullied or someone who just needs a little encouragement, I have been taught, by his great example, to be there for them. Just like when I imagine he is smiling when my kids exhibit their competitive nature in a sporting event, I like to hope that he is smiling at me when I find the opportunity to help a person in need by giving them a hand up or a pat on the back or just letting them know that someone is on their side. I feel a special closeness to my dad when I act on an opportunity to help a person, who maybe at the time, couldn’t help themselves.

Through his example, I have learned when it’s appropriate to be competitive and when it’s appropriate to be compassionate, when it’s appropriate to stand up for a principle, and when it’s ok to turn the other cheek. It’s important to have the discernment to know which battles to pick and when to walk away. This has helped me as a parent, a wife, a daughter and a sister, as well as with other relationships in my life. I have also learned about loyalty and teamwork and how important it is to stick together during the bumpy times, because it makes the victories that much sweeter.

It was a huge burden being the oldest child of someone so competitive. I tried to play basketball and run track and cross country. I loved running because it made me feel free (and because there were boys on the team..hehe)… but to be honest, I wasn’t really good at either thing. I always felt like I was a disappointment to my dad because I lacked his athletic prowess.

I have a son that is an awesome runner. In high school, his job was to leave all he had on the track, and my job was to catch him at the finish line. One time, I couldn’t get through the crowd quickly enough to meet him at the finish line and I saw him wandering around somewhat delirious asking people if they had seen his mom. (What a payday for my mommy heart, that he would want his mom to lean on after a really tough race!)

 I can’t remember if my dad was there at my games or my track meets, but I do feel him near me now, cheering me on, as I run the race of this mortal life. I can hardly wait until the day when he is there at the finish line to catch me. I hope he will be proud of the race I have run and know that I tried my best, that I put my face to the wind,  had the endurance to finish… and left it all on the track!

How to Eat an Elephant~ Chapter Nine: Fly By the Seat of Your Pants

Dad always worked jobs that allowed him flexibility so he could do the things he loved on a moment’s notice. My mom always liked to have a plan – all her “ducks” in a row, but dads were always “scattered” all over the pond. My dad was a very spontaneous, fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants kind of person. He could always drop what he was doing to have fun. One time on two hours’ notice, he and mom got a group of couples together and went to Jackson to the hill climbs overnight.

I remember when I was young, every spring in May when the ice melted from the lake, we were there fishing and camping. We would camp on the weekends, come home for school and work, do laundry and re-stock the food and go again.

I remember coming home from school on Fridays and finding my poor mom, running around like crazy putting stuff in the camper because he had decided on his way home from work that we would be going camping “right now”!

Sometimes he would come home from work in the middle of the week and grab the boys and the fishing gear (which was also always ready to go) and be gone in a matter of minutes.

Our day trips to the lake were the same way….hardly ever planned ahead, just very spontaneous and last minute. It was exciting growing up with a dad like that because you never really knew when or where the next adventure would take you. 

Mom got wise to his ways rather quickly and the camper was ALWAYS stocked and ready to go… our clothes were in there at all times… there was always canned food, chips, cookies, licorice, etc. in the camper… all summer long. All she had to do was throw the perishable food in a cooler and we were off. Because of her wise ways, the camper became our play house (when it wasn’t parked at the lake or up the canyon).  We would have sleepovers with friends or sometimes just myself and the bros would spend the night in the camper, raiding the snacks, playing cards and board games by lantern light until we fell asleep. In that sense, I guess we followed dad’s example of not needing a plan to have fun. Just round up some peeps and see what happens. I grew up in a ‘hood where there were about 30 kids the same age as my brothers and me within about 5 houses in any direction. During the summer, we spent our days, catching water snakes in the irrigation ditches, playing under the bleachers at the high school football field that was in our back yard, skateboarding down the sloped sidewalks at the church, having bottle rocket wars and every night after dinner, all the neighborhood kids would gather to play “night games”. We played Kick the Can, Eenie Einie Over, and many different versions of Hide and Seek, just to name a few. It was unplanned, spontaneous, come as you are, whoever you are, fun. It was childhood in a small town!

I have tried to instill in my own children this spontaneous kind of attitude, but they just think I am off-the-meds-crazy when I suggest they do things like this. (See my blog post, Encounter with the Popo to see what happened the ONE time they did decide to play night games!!) It seems that kids today have to plan out their fun and they frequently end up not doing anything, because no one can make a decision on what they should do and then it’s too late to do anything.

As I have gotten older, I realize how awesome my mom was for tolerating the spontaneous nature of my dad and for being flexible enough to just roll with all his last minute adventures. The older I get the more like my mom I am, in that I like to have a plan and have all the ducks in a row before I execute the plan. There is nothing wrong with having a plan. In contemplating this chapter, I have realized that maybe I was not enough like my dad in my parenting style. I need to relax a bit and have more spontaneous, fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants adventures. 

 Being spontaneous can be uplifting and liberating to a soul that is depressed and anxious.. or any soul for that matter. It doesn’t have to mean getting together with 30 of your neighbors to play Kick the Can or going on unplanned camping trips every weekend. It can be found in unplanned fun like going to DQ for a Blizzard at 10 pm, grabbing a friend without notice and hitting Sonic Happy Hour, making an unplanned trip up to Claim Jumper for Mother Lode cake, getting in the truck and going for a drive to see someplace you’ve never been, or a spur of the moment board game with friends or family. There is a certain amount of freedom that can be gained by letting your hair down, and having a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants attitude once in a while. As I have been doing things this year to purge the negatives from my life, I am determined to emulate my dad and fill some of that void with spontaneous adventures… Be advised…this may land me on your door step with an invitation to do something random with only a moment’s notice!