The death of a loved one, perhaps more especially a parent, occasions such an intense grief that your soul cries out for any moment of relief or respite. I am reminded of that scene in "Steel Magnolias" where Dolly Parton's character says, "laughter through tears is my favorite emotion". It's my favorite emotion as well. It always serves to remind me that, no matter how bleak or how horrible I feel at the moment, that there will be a time when I will smile and laugh again.
When a moment of levity bursts the dam that holds your grief and laughter floods forth with tears...as you laugh, little moments flash across your memory...moments of joy and laughter that you had shared with the person you now mourn. It is the most wonderful, bittersweet feeling in the world.
The funeral home and cemetary at the corner of Dairy Ashford and Westheimer in Houston, Texas is where we buried both of my parents. It was also the scene of two of these moments for me.
When my mother died, we held the viewing at the funeral home associated with the cemetary. Our family huddled in a corner, our heads bowed with grief as scores of people who loved my mother shuffled past her coffin and paid their last respects, then made their way over to where we were to offer a word of condolence or relate a favorite memory.
As we accepted these offerings of love, out of the corner of my eye I saw my son Daniel in line with the the rest of the mourners. Although the halmark of a person with autism is an inability to understand or respect social conventions that most of us take for granted, Daniel waited patiently and respectfully in line with the rest of the mourners.
When my son got to the side of my mother's coffin, he quiety whispered to her, "Goodbye Grandma, I'll miss you". Then he sweetly bent forward and kissed her brow. We were all about to breath a sigh of relief thinking that Daniel had somehow managed to hold back the autism long enough to act normally when my son's condition reasserted itself.
As Daniel raised himself from that kiss, a worried look clouded his face and he turned to us and said, "Oh, she's cold!" Then, as if that wasn't awkward enough, he said, "I better check her pulse". I was just about to rise up and try to salvage the situation when Daniel sadly raised his eyes to me, his hand still on my mother's wrist, and slowly shook his head, announcing his prognosis,
"I don't think she's gonna make it"
That did it, the dam of our grief burst and laughter with tears overcame the whole family. I looked at the faces of my wife and children, my brother and sisters and their families and we all had the same expression...pure joy. Joy at the realization that we had shared this life with such a grand lady...that, above all people, we were blessed to call her mother or grandma. In that moment of mourning our loss, we were reminded of how priviledged we really were.
My father's funeral was held at the same location and, years later, I found myself standing in the same place as I had years earlier, once again looking into the coffin of a beloved parent and wondering to myself if I would ever feel happy again.
Before I was born, my father had accidentally cut off the first two fingers of his right hand at the first knuckle. Although, he was technically handicapped, one would never know it. There were more than a few times when I would look at my father holding a pencil and drafting, his work so beautiful and masterful that it eclipsed the work of other drafters with all of their digits, and realize that the most amazing feats are sometimes the ones that seem effortless.
Later on in life, when I spent a year learning to manipulate my own hands again, my father's example served as a quiet and constant inspiration to me.
The funeral directors had supposed my father's right hand to be a deformity and so, when they prepared the body, they hid it under his left hand. Well, my father's grandchildren were not having any of that! Every single one of them had teethed upon those bony nubs of what remained of his first two digits. They convened a quiet council in the corner, agreed upon a proper course of action, and elected one of them to go and correct the funeral home's blunder and place my father's right hand on top for all to see.
As I looked at my father's fingers and these thoughts crossed my mind, my eyes wandered down to a banner placed on the coffin. One of my sisters had seen to it that the final words my father always said to anyone who ever came to visit him were inscribed thereupon, "I'm glad you had a chance to see me"
Because this was a private moment, the laughter was a bit quieter but the emotion and release no less sweet.
There is another instance I wanted to relate concerning this funeral home...something that happened years before any of the first two. I was commissioned to redesign the air conditioning systems and had to go and visit the place and access the existing conditions.
The building had multi-level mansard type roofs...flat rooftops with 4 foot steep sloping sides so when I had to get from the higher roof down to a lower roof, all I had to do is sit down on the steep slope and let gravity do the rest. After checking the unit in question, getting from the lower roof up to the higher roof was a different question altogether...now gravity was working against me...gravity and quite a few extra pounds of weight. I tried to grab onto the upper roof and scramble with my feet but they would not gain purchase. I seemed to be doomed to waiting on the lower roof until the fire department came and rescued me...then a sudden inspiration hit. I won't go into any great detail but, if you've ever seen Shamu come out of the water at Sea World, you have a fair idea of how I finally made it up to the upper part of the roof.
There was only one more obstacle now to getting back down to solid ground...the roof hatch. If you've never had to climb onto the roof of a commercial building, there's alwas a long ladder attached to a roof hatch which is mounted onto a 18" curb. The reason for the curb is to keep rain water from leaking from the roof down to the utility room below. The way to install these is to put the ladder on one side of the hole with the hinge to the cover on the opposite side so that, when you try to transfer from the ladder onto the roof, you don't have to negotiate your way around a trap door facing you. The people who installed this roof hatch installed the ladder and the hinge on the same side so that when I got to the top and opened the trap door, I was, in effect, facing a wall that I had to climb around and get onto the roof...no easy but doable.
Getting back down was a whole 'nother story though...now I had to try and figure out how to step off of the roof, into a hole that dropped twenty feet, around the trap door and somehow make sure my foot landed onto the rung of the ladder....it's actually about ten times as difficult as it sounds, especially for a fat man.
I finally decided that the safe way to do this would be to sit down, straddle the roof curb and swing my dangling left foot onto the ladder rung.
The edge of a roof curb...the part the trap door rests upon, is about two inches thick...so (how do I say this delicately?)when I straddled the curb, one of the (ahem) 'boys' went on one side of the curb and one of them went on the other side.
All fine and good until I swung my leg to reach the rung and that had the effect of sqeezing one of the lads rather painfully.
For those of you who have not experienced this type of pain, let me state right here and now that the movies don't do justice to it. First off, the movies show a kick to the groin and the reciever of the injury immediately doubling over in pain....that's not how it goes down...it usually takes a few moments because, although there's an immediate pain associated with the injury, the REAL pain comes anout three seconds later when a huge all-encompasing cramp siezes everything from the groin up to the lungs....it's like having a charley horse in your midsection.
What actually happens is that the person recieving the injury realizes that something bad has happened and he says to himself, "that's gonna hurt ----------------------------- oh yeah...there it is"
So I when I realized I had done myself an injury, there was actually a second or two when I realized that, if I didn't roll onto the roof immediately, the possibility was very real that I would be plummeting twenty feet onto some very nasty electrical transformers with some very sharp corners, so I rolled onto the roof"
When the cramps hit, I doubled up in pain, groaned and moaned and cursed and generally made enough noise to convince anyone happening by that I was being dismembered by a rusty, slow-moving chain saw. When the pain began to ebb, I began to realize where I was and how loudly and profanely, I had complained....I crawled to the edge of the roof and saw my worst fears confirmed.
Just below me, a group of mourners had, apparently, been in the process of loading their loved one into a hearse when my screams and moans and complaints that I was dying wafted down to their ears from the roof above.
They had stopped what they were doing and stared in wide-eyed, open-mouthed wonderment and what they were certain were the death throes of a dying man above them.
There was a second or two when we just stared at each other and then I meekly said, "I'm sorry"....it started with just a snicker from one of the mourners and then a giggle...then some half-suppressed snorts. Before long, every one of the mourners were laughing uproarisly
Laughter through tears...it's the best.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Couched in Different Terms
First off, let me state that I hate almost everything about this health care bill (I think I've made that abundantly clear) But, yesterday, my wife and I were talking and I was reminded of an incident in our marriage that is somewhat applicable to the health care bill.
We had inherited a couch from my parents...I loved that couch. It was the perfect Sunday Afternoon nap couch. It's the only couch I've been able to awaken from after a Sunday snooze and not have a sore back or a stiff neck. Like a seasoned baseball glove, that couch had been perfectly broken in and formed to my body.
The only problem was that, when I wasn't in the couch, it was still perfectly broken in and formed to my body. My wife hated the couch and I loved it. The couch's fate and its place in our home was the subject of many discussions, arguments, reasonings, pleadings, cajolings, briberies, and some sotto voce threatenings for a few years in our home.
Then I came home one day and saw that my couch...my beloved couch, was sitting on the curb with piles of trash bags heaped upon it. Well, I was having none of THAT! If she could take it upon herself to unilaterally remove the couch from our home, I could certainly take it upon myself to put it back in its proper place. I pulled into the driveway, got out of my car, slammed the door and stormed over to the couch pulling bags of trash from it and reached down to grab it by the legs and haul it back into the house.
The first thing I noticed was that my wife had sawn the legs off of the couch....the second thing I noticed when I looked up was my wife standing in the doorway with a smug expression on her face (things would have probably gone a LOT smoother after that is it wasn't for that smug expression)
When Cortez reached the New World, he burned his boats. As a result, his men had no other option but to succeed. All during the ensuing argument over my wife's unilateral decision, she kept protesting that she was NOT forcing me to buy a new couch, she was merely, 'helping me make the right decision'.
Now...let me state again...I HATE the way this bill has come about. It has shown the ugly side of both parties and of The American People. I really can't think of a single newsworthy instance during this clash of ideas where anyone has acted in an adult and reasonable manner.
The very simple truth (as far as I can see) is that health care reform is very much a needed thing in this country. The other undeniable truth was that the republicans did not address this issue when they were in power.
I have outlined, I believe, very reasonable and very attainable common sense ideas that would go a long way to bringing down the cost of health care and insurance and many of my friends have done the same.
What all of these ideas have in common is the realization that health care costs didn't begin to spiral out of control until the government stepped in and started to meddle with it in the first place. Almost all of the ideas cost very litte if any tax dollars to the public and, more importantly, they allow people the freedom to make their own choices.
But the republicans didn't seriously begin to address any ideas on health care reform until the democrats had a super-majority and said, that they were going to cut the legs off the couch...THEN the republicans got on board with the idea...given the years of frustration that the democrats have had over trying to bring this to the front burner, I understand it when they said to the Johnny-Come-Lately republicans, "you know what Chuckles? Sit your butt in that back seat there and let us drive for a while" I don't condone that type of attitude...but I understand it.
What happened next was embarrassing to say the least. Democrats tried to over-reach and republicans tried to grab back the wheel...it was about as ugly a scene as I ever wanted to witness from my elected officials. Frankly, I''m disgusted with the entire lot. Vitriol, invectives, lies, innuendos, all accusing the other side of the most heinous and foul motives possible.
The polls clearly stated that most Americans thought that something ought to be done about health care. They also clearly stated that they absolutely hated this bill. They hated the pork, the bribes, the cowtowing to special interests and unions...and the majority of Americans wanted our elected officials to scrap this bill and start over again, but like adults this time.
The democrats will not remain in power for long...this abomination of a bill all but guarantees that. When the republicans come into power again...I can only hope that they repeal this thing and give us something that offers real solutions and real choices to the public. I hope that they just don't grab the old couch off of the trash heap and drag it back into the house and prop it up with some cinder blocks.
But until then, as begrudgingly as I have to say it...I'm kind of grateful to the democrats for sawing the legs off the old thing.
We had inherited a couch from my parents...I loved that couch. It was the perfect Sunday Afternoon nap couch. It's the only couch I've been able to awaken from after a Sunday snooze and not have a sore back or a stiff neck. Like a seasoned baseball glove, that couch had been perfectly broken in and formed to my body.
The only problem was that, when I wasn't in the couch, it was still perfectly broken in and formed to my body. My wife hated the couch and I loved it. The couch's fate and its place in our home was the subject of many discussions, arguments, reasonings, pleadings, cajolings, briberies, and some sotto voce threatenings for a few years in our home.
Then I came home one day and saw that my couch...my beloved couch, was sitting on the curb with piles of trash bags heaped upon it. Well, I was having none of THAT! If she could take it upon herself to unilaterally remove the couch from our home, I could certainly take it upon myself to put it back in its proper place. I pulled into the driveway, got out of my car, slammed the door and stormed over to the couch pulling bags of trash from it and reached down to grab it by the legs and haul it back into the house.
The first thing I noticed was that my wife had sawn the legs off of the couch....the second thing I noticed when I looked up was my wife standing in the doorway with a smug expression on her face (things would have probably gone a LOT smoother after that is it wasn't for that smug expression)
When Cortez reached the New World, he burned his boats. As a result, his men had no other option but to succeed. All during the ensuing argument over my wife's unilateral decision, she kept protesting that she was NOT forcing me to buy a new couch, she was merely, 'helping me make the right decision'.
Now...let me state again...I HATE the way this bill has come about. It has shown the ugly side of both parties and of The American People. I really can't think of a single newsworthy instance during this clash of ideas where anyone has acted in an adult and reasonable manner.
The very simple truth (as far as I can see) is that health care reform is very much a needed thing in this country. The other undeniable truth was that the republicans did not address this issue when they were in power.
I have outlined, I believe, very reasonable and very attainable common sense ideas that would go a long way to bringing down the cost of health care and insurance and many of my friends have done the same.
What all of these ideas have in common is the realization that health care costs didn't begin to spiral out of control until the government stepped in and started to meddle with it in the first place. Almost all of the ideas cost very litte if any tax dollars to the public and, more importantly, they allow people the freedom to make their own choices.
But the republicans didn't seriously begin to address any ideas on health care reform until the democrats had a super-majority and said, that they were going to cut the legs off the couch...THEN the republicans got on board with the idea...given the years of frustration that the democrats have had over trying to bring this to the front burner, I understand it when they said to the Johnny-Come-Lately republicans, "you know what Chuckles? Sit your butt in that back seat there and let us drive for a while" I don't condone that type of attitude...but I understand it.
What happened next was embarrassing to say the least. Democrats tried to over-reach and republicans tried to grab back the wheel...it was about as ugly a scene as I ever wanted to witness from my elected officials. Frankly, I''m disgusted with the entire lot. Vitriol, invectives, lies, innuendos, all accusing the other side of the most heinous and foul motives possible.
The polls clearly stated that most Americans thought that something ought to be done about health care. They also clearly stated that they absolutely hated this bill. They hated the pork, the bribes, the cowtowing to special interests and unions...and the majority of Americans wanted our elected officials to scrap this bill and start over again, but like adults this time.
The democrats will not remain in power for long...this abomination of a bill all but guarantees that. When the republicans come into power again...I can only hope that they repeal this thing and give us something that offers real solutions and real choices to the public. I hope that they just don't grab the old couch off of the trash heap and drag it back into the house and prop it up with some cinder blocks.
But until then, as begrudgingly as I have to say it...I'm kind of grateful to the democrats for sawing the legs off the old thing.
Friday, March 26, 2010
No Substitutions Allowed
I love Texas. To be certain, there are much prettier places to live (unless the bluebonnets are in season) and there are more hospitable places to live (climate-wise, anyway)...but I've never lived in a place with such a can-do attitude my entire life. The Texan attitude can be summed up in a joke I once heard.
A good old boy from Texas died and went to Heaven. Being from Texas, he was immediately admitted and St. Peter took him all around the place, showing him the glory and majesty of his new celestial home.
They passed by the garden and St. Peter said, "have you ever seen flowers so beautiful or smelled such a fragrant perfume?"
"Well, yes", said the Texan, "As a matter of fact they are almost as beautiful as the hillsides in Texas when they are covered in bluebonnets and indian paintbrushes and they smell almost as wonderful as the gardenias and honeysuckle back home in Texas"
Somewhat vexed, St. Peter then showed the Texan his heavenly mansion. "I'll bet you've never stayed anyplace like this before"
The Texan looked around and said, "I guess it will do, it's almost as nice as my huntin' cabin back in Texas and I've always been real comfortable there"
Getting even more annoyed, St. Peter took the Texan over to the edge of Heaven and asked him to look down into the fiery pits of Hell. "I don't suppose that you have anything like THAT in Texas, do you?" asked St. Peter
The Texan looked into the pits of Hell for a while and then quietly spoke, "No...I don't believe that we do" then the Texan brightened up a bit, "but I know this ol' boy down in Houston that could put it out for you!"
But the Texas spirit notwithstanding, the thing I miss most about Texas is the cuisine. Things that are taken for granted in Texas are precious commodities outside the Lone Star State. When you find a fellow expat and proudly tell them that you have a stash of Blue Bell in your freezer, they start to lobby for an invitation to dinner.
But, even though there are some things Texan that you can get outside of Texas, you still have to make due.
For instance, you can get Fritoes, and you can get onions, and you can get cheese...so you're three-fourths of the way to making Frito Pie...sadly, however, the fourth ingrediant is scarcely found outside of Texas; I'm speaking of course, about Wolf Brand Chili.
You can get other chili. Hormel makes chili and its even made in a town called Austin...it's just made in Austin Minnesota....it just doesn't cut it.
At least that was my stand for many years...a lot of people said I was being too stodgy and rigid...that I could make a perfectly wonderful Frito Pie without Wolf Brand Chili.
Then the other night I was watching "King of The Hill" and I watched Hank exuberantly proclaim that "Tonight is Frito Pie night with Wolf Brand Chili!!"
And I wondered if the King of The Hill people had been peeking in my window.
A good old boy from Texas died and went to Heaven. Being from Texas, he was immediately admitted and St. Peter took him all around the place, showing him the glory and majesty of his new celestial home.
They passed by the garden and St. Peter said, "have you ever seen flowers so beautiful or smelled such a fragrant perfume?"
"Well, yes", said the Texan, "As a matter of fact they are almost as beautiful as the hillsides in Texas when they are covered in bluebonnets and indian paintbrushes and they smell almost as wonderful as the gardenias and honeysuckle back home in Texas"
Somewhat vexed, St. Peter then showed the Texan his heavenly mansion. "I'll bet you've never stayed anyplace like this before"
The Texan looked around and said, "I guess it will do, it's almost as nice as my huntin' cabin back in Texas and I've always been real comfortable there"
Getting even more annoyed, St. Peter took the Texan over to the edge of Heaven and asked him to look down into the fiery pits of Hell. "I don't suppose that you have anything like THAT in Texas, do you?" asked St. Peter
The Texan looked into the pits of Hell for a while and then quietly spoke, "No...I don't believe that we do" then the Texan brightened up a bit, "but I know this ol' boy down in Houston that could put it out for you!"
But the Texas spirit notwithstanding, the thing I miss most about Texas is the cuisine. Things that are taken for granted in Texas are precious commodities outside the Lone Star State. When you find a fellow expat and proudly tell them that you have a stash of Blue Bell in your freezer, they start to lobby for an invitation to dinner.
But, even though there are some things Texan that you can get outside of Texas, you still have to make due.
For instance, you can get Fritoes, and you can get onions, and you can get cheese...so you're three-fourths of the way to making Frito Pie...sadly, however, the fourth ingrediant is scarcely found outside of Texas; I'm speaking of course, about Wolf Brand Chili.
You can get other chili. Hormel makes chili and its even made in a town called Austin...it's just made in Austin Minnesota....it just doesn't cut it.
At least that was my stand for many years...a lot of people said I was being too stodgy and rigid...that I could make a perfectly wonderful Frito Pie without Wolf Brand Chili.
Then the other night I was watching "King of The Hill" and I watched Hank exuberantly proclaim that "Tonight is Frito Pie night with Wolf Brand Chili!!"
And I wondered if the King of The Hill people had been peeking in my window.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
3:16
I have the alarm set on my cell phone to go off at 3:00 in the morning. It's the time I need to get up to shave, shower, and dress and get out of the door by 4:00 so I can be at work in Salt Lake City by 5:15 (after dropping my mother-in-law off at Beehive Clothing).
I don't mind getting up early and I've been an early riser since I was a kid...but 3:00 am is pushing it a bit. Plus, the older I get the more I think of all those naps I refused to take when I was a kid and I kick myself (figuratively because, at my age, those kinds of shenanigans can cause you to break your hip...and I've already had one of those)
Anyway, today I happened to look at my cell phone to check the time and it was 3:16. It immediately reminded my of all those signs I see festooning football end zones. Zealot born-again Christians place them there to give us all a little shot of religion while we're watching 22 guys trying to pummel the life from each other....it really is, I believe, an inappropriate venue.
To tell you the truth, for the reason I cited above, John 3:16 has never been a scripture I much liked. To be certain, it is a beautiful piece of prose:
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life
It should be one of my favorite scriptures, but it isn't. Mainly because the people who spend so much energy trying to display that scripture at football games can usually be counted upon to display an equal or greater amount of energy declaring that I am not a Christian.
It's been happening since High School when a fellow member of the football team came over to my house to tell me why I was not going to be admitted to The Fellowship of Christian Athletes and why I was going to hell. I can't tell you how much I appreciated that visit. I took to calling them "Church of the Good Ol' Boy" (along with a few other names). Then a couple of them squared off with me after school. The conversation went something like this:
"Hey, Boyce, we don't appreciate what you've been saying about us...and you better knock it off"
"How about you just forgive me?"
(sadly, Church of the Good Ol' Boy's lack any sense of irony)
If I had a nickle for every time I've been told I'm not a Christian by one of the Good Ol' Boys, I'd put all the nickles in a sock and beat the next one that told me that senseless (There's that irony again)
About 15 years or ago, it got real bad in Katy. You could literally drive down the street and see every marquee in front of every Good Ol' Boy church advertising how they were going to tell you all about what was wrong with the Mormons. It was quite unpleasant for quite some time and a lot of people in our church lost friends for no good reason other than they were LDS.
None of us could figure out what the impetus was for all of this sudden vitriol and persecution directed at us. And then, one day, they announced that our church was going to build a temple in Houston.....if you listened closely enough, you could hear a collective "aHA!" erupt from all the LDS people in Katy.
It seemed that there was one church in Katy that was at the nexus of all of this. They showed weekly anti-mormon films and had regular ex-mormons visit and speak to their youth. I was, at the time, Elders Quorum President and, during one of our welfare meetings, our bishop said that he'd had enough of this foolishness. He assigned me to call the pastor of the church and volunteer to have the missionaries come over and speak to them if they were so interested in our church. (I still don't know what I did to make that bishop dislike me so much)...but I took the assignment.
I didn't get hold of the pastor. I got hold of their "Cult" minister (oh joys!). I introduced myself and told him why I was calling. We got into the standard "You're not a Christian-Yes we are-No you're not-We believe in Christ-Not the same Christ we believe in" discussion that anyone whose run into a Good Ol Boy has had.
Finally, the pastor said, "I don't want you to get the wrong impression Mister Boyce. We don't hate you. We love you....we love you because Christ says we have to love you"
For a moment I was stunned...I didn't even know why I was stunned and then it hit me, and I said.
"You're right, Pastor. I don't think we do believe in the same Jesus"
"Oh?"
"No. You see, the Christ we believe in fills us with love for our fellow man. As a matter of fact, love for our fellow man is an automatic result of the simple process of believing in Him and worshiping Him and knowing and truly understanding that we are, each every one of us, petitioners for His forgiveness and mercy...so if you love your fellow man because you feel compelled to, perhaps we don't worship the same Christ after all."
We weren't invited to speak that his church.
So that's it....that's why John 3:16 has never been one of my favorite scriptures. And then, today I happened to glance at my cell phone and it was 3:16 and the scripture came to mind. It came to me unpoluted by the noise and glare of a football game...it came to me in a still small voice. And it immediately became one of my favorites.
I think that I'll set my cell phone alarm for 3:16 from now on....at the very least, I could use the extra sleep
I don't mind getting up early and I've been an early riser since I was a kid...but 3:00 am is pushing it a bit. Plus, the older I get the more I think of all those naps I refused to take when I was a kid and I kick myself (figuratively because, at my age, those kinds of shenanigans can cause you to break your hip...and I've already had one of those)
Anyway, today I happened to look at my cell phone to check the time and it was 3:16. It immediately reminded my of all those signs I see festooning football end zones. Zealot born-again Christians place them there to give us all a little shot of religion while we're watching 22 guys trying to pummel the life from each other....it really is, I believe, an inappropriate venue.
To tell you the truth, for the reason I cited above, John 3:16 has never been a scripture I much liked. To be certain, it is a beautiful piece of prose:
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life
It should be one of my favorite scriptures, but it isn't. Mainly because the people who spend so much energy trying to display that scripture at football games can usually be counted upon to display an equal or greater amount of energy declaring that I am not a Christian.
It's been happening since High School when a fellow member of the football team came over to my house to tell me why I was not going to be admitted to The Fellowship of Christian Athletes and why I was going to hell. I can't tell you how much I appreciated that visit. I took to calling them "Church of the Good Ol' Boy" (along with a few other names). Then a couple of them squared off with me after school. The conversation went something like this:
"Hey, Boyce, we don't appreciate what you've been saying about us...and you better knock it off"
"How about you just forgive me?"
(sadly, Church of the Good Ol' Boy's lack any sense of irony)
If I had a nickle for every time I've been told I'm not a Christian by one of the Good Ol' Boys, I'd put all the nickles in a sock and beat the next one that told me that senseless (There's that irony again)
About 15 years or ago, it got real bad in Katy. You could literally drive down the street and see every marquee in front of every Good Ol' Boy church advertising how they were going to tell you all about what was wrong with the Mormons. It was quite unpleasant for quite some time and a lot of people in our church lost friends for no good reason other than they were LDS.
None of us could figure out what the impetus was for all of this sudden vitriol and persecution directed at us. And then, one day, they announced that our church was going to build a temple in Houston.....if you listened closely enough, you could hear a collective "aHA!" erupt from all the LDS people in Katy.
It seemed that there was one church in Katy that was at the nexus of all of this. They showed weekly anti-mormon films and had regular ex-mormons visit and speak to their youth. I was, at the time, Elders Quorum President and, during one of our welfare meetings, our bishop said that he'd had enough of this foolishness. He assigned me to call the pastor of the church and volunteer to have the missionaries come over and speak to them if they were so interested in our church. (I still don't know what I did to make that bishop dislike me so much)...but I took the assignment.
I didn't get hold of the pastor. I got hold of their "Cult" minister (oh joys!). I introduced myself and told him why I was calling. We got into the standard "You're not a Christian-Yes we are-No you're not-We believe in Christ-Not the same Christ we believe in" discussion that anyone whose run into a Good Ol Boy has had.
Finally, the pastor said, "I don't want you to get the wrong impression Mister Boyce. We don't hate you. We love you....we love you because Christ says we have to love you"
For a moment I was stunned...I didn't even know why I was stunned and then it hit me, and I said.
"You're right, Pastor. I don't think we do believe in the same Jesus"
"Oh?"
"No. You see, the Christ we believe in fills us with love for our fellow man. As a matter of fact, love for our fellow man is an automatic result of the simple process of believing in Him and worshiping Him and knowing and truly understanding that we are, each every one of us, petitioners for His forgiveness and mercy...so if you love your fellow man because you feel compelled to, perhaps we don't worship the same Christ after all."
We weren't invited to speak that his church.
So that's it....that's why John 3:16 has never been one of my favorite scriptures. And then, today I happened to glance at my cell phone and it was 3:16 and the scripture came to mind. It came to me unpoluted by the noise and glare of a football game...it came to me in a still small voice. And it immediately became one of my favorites.
I think that I'll set my cell phone alarm for 3:16 from now on....at the very least, I could use the extra sleep
Friday, March 12, 2010
Lead, Kindly Light - One Mormon's View on the Issue of Gay Marriage
People outside the LDS faith have little idea how pervasive our culture is in our lives. They know about Jews and Catholics because there have been umpteen million movies centered around a jewish person or catholic person trying to rectify their belief in their religion and the culture that comes with that religion with the difficulties of living in a secular world...and many mormons identify closely with these characters because our lives are similarly enmeshed and entangled with the culture that comes with our religion.
For the record, there is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as preached by my church and there is the culture of mormonism. Any intersection between the two is purely coincidental and as likely to happen as an asteroid the size of Texas hitting the earth...we know it's happened before because we can see the geological evidence and we know it can happen again at any time.
People are rarely indifferent to mormons. They either hate us or they love us. If they hate us, it is a safe bet that they've had a past interaction with someone of our faith who focuses less on The Gospel and more on the culture.
I guess that's why I wanted to write about this particular subject; because, although I am steeped in the culture of my religion, I am constantly holding it up to the filter of The Gospel and, like Tevye, I frequently find myself saying, "on the other hand"
All during the Proposition 8 campaign in California, I was saddened by the accusations of hatred hurled at my religion. When it passed, I watched in tears as people who demand tolerance spray painted grafitti all over our most sacred structures. I was moved to tears again by pictures of people who were not members of my religion trying to scrub the offending spray paint from our temple walls.
The issue of marriage rights for homosexuals is something I've struggled with for many years and, to be honest, I'm still struggling with it. The evidence shows that blacks and hispanics overwhelmingly voted for Proposition 8 and yet, it seems that only my religion was vilified for its passing. It would be too prosaic to claim that the members of my faith were singled out for displays of hatred because of religious intolerance. The simple fact is that we were singled out because we were easy targets. Like homosexuals, there are many false assumptions made by people outside our religion about us. Like homosexuals, the lack of understanding, coupled with a fear of the unknown, sometimes leads to violence.
If you let yourself dwell upon the parallels here, the dichotomy of a group long persecuted and hated visiting violence upon another group long persecuted and hated is mind-boggling.
And yet, I understand. The simple truth is, were I not LDS and were I gay, I would probably react the very same way. I would be incensed beyond reason at my not being able to participate. I understand the reasons behind he actions against my religion because I've taken the time to try and understand the issue from the other viewpoint.
Sadly, I don't think that the people standing outside our temple with cans of spray paint have spent the same effort I have. It is too easy to assign a motive of hatred to people who do not agree with us. It requires no intellectual effort on our part. It is also, the very epitome of hypocrisy. Because, when you think about it, we assign the motive of hatred to a group of people who do not think like us so that we can then more easily justify our own hatred and violence towards them. So I would like to lay it out, from my perspective, as to why two groups of people with similar experiences of being the victims of bigotry and persecution could find themselves at this crossroad.
For the longest time, I was a proponent for gay marriage. My reasoning was that I saw no special lines in my tax forms that said if you're gay, you don't need to pay as much tax as the rest of us. When I got my jury summons, I never saw a provision that excused me from serving if I was homosexual...and, although I've looked, I have yet to see any speed limit signs that allowed people who had same-sex attractions to drive faster than the rest of us. If gay people are expected to shoulder thier fair share of being a citizen, I saw no reason why they should not enjoy all of the rights and priviledges of citizenship that I have. I still don't
And yet, my religion has taken a stand on this issue. My religion that goes out of its way to not take a stand on anything political, that every election time sends us a letter to be read from the pulpit in essence stating that political discussions are not to take place from our pulpits and that we are to prayerfully consider and vote for the candidate that we believe will serve us best, they have come out and said that the position of the church is to not support gay marriage rights.
And so, I had to make a choice...do I trust my own wisdom or do I trust the wisdom of men I believe are prophets of God?
Let me take a moment and explain faith as I understand it. Faith is an experiment very much like a scientific experiment...only you can only prove it to yourself. You can never prove it to another. I think that's the way it's always supposed to have been.
I never much understood Paul's explanation of what constitutes faith and I think too many people bandy about the word when what they really mean is that they believe. But faith is different from a belief because faith is a belief that you put your trust into.
A trapeze artist climbs to the top of the tent and swings out on that trapeze because he believes that when he lets go, the other trapeze artist on the recieving end will be there at the precise moment and place to catch him...he does all of that because he believes...but he doesn't have faith until he actually lets go of his trapeze.
The thing about faith in God is that the more you put your trust into it, the more it proves you right. I never have been able to understand why paying a tenth of my income to God assures me that I will somehow manage better but it does. I don't know why reading my scriptures with my family every day seems to cause all of the pettiness and bickering to end and for us to have greater calm in our lives...but it does. I don't know by what means people are healed when hands are placed upon their heads and they are blessed...but I've seen miracles time and time again. It seems that every time I place my trust in my beliefs and act as the men I sustain as prophets say I should act, the scattered pieces of my life oddly seem to align themselves.
And yet, on this one issue of gay marriage, I held to my own wisdom for the longest time because, it just didn't seem right. And then one day, in church, we sang a hymn that we'd sung countless times before and, for some reason, its meaning slammed into me with such a force that I knew I had to abandon my own wisdom and trust in what has never failed me before.
Lead, kindly Light, amid th’encircling gloom;
Lead thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home;
Lead thou me on!
Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene—one step enough for me.
I was not ever thus, nor pray’d that thou
Shouldst lead me on.
I loved to choose and see my path; but now,
Lead thou me on!
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will. Remember not past years.
So long thy pow’r hath blest me, sure it still
Will lead me on
O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till
The night is gone.
And with the morn those angel faces smile,
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile!
To my friends who are gay and to their friends who have taken the opposite side of this issue, I can only say I hope that you understand that I had to make a decision and again, like Tevye, say to myself, "there is no other hand...if I bend that far, I'll break"
I do not come to my stand on this issue lightly, nor is my stand on this issue motivated by fear or hatred. I am simply choosing to place my trust in my beliefs. They have never failed me before and though I know that many will read these words with bitterness, I truly hope that the day will come when we can disagree without being disagreeable.
For the record, there is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as preached by my church and there is the culture of mormonism. Any intersection between the two is purely coincidental and as likely to happen as an asteroid the size of Texas hitting the earth...we know it's happened before because we can see the geological evidence and we know it can happen again at any time.
People are rarely indifferent to mormons. They either hate us or they love us. If they hate us, it is a safe bet that they've had a past interaction with someone of our faith who focuses less on The Gospel and more on the culture.
I guess that's why I wanted to write about this particular subject; because, although I am steeped in the culture of my religion, I am constantly holding it up to the filter of The Gospel and, like Tevye, I frequently find myself saying, "on the other hand"
All during the Proposition 8 campaign in California, I was saddened by the accusations of hatred hurled at my religion. When it passed, I watched in tears as people who demand tolerance spray painted grafitti all over our most sacred structures. I was moved to tears again by pictures of people who were not members of my religion trying to scrub the offending spray paint from our temple walls.
The issue of marriage rights for homosexuals is something I've struggled with for many years and, to be honest, I'm still struggling with it. The evidence shows that blacks and hispanics overwhelmingly voted for Proposition 8 and yet, it seems that only my religion was vilified for its passing. It would be too prosaic to claim that the members of my faith were singled out for displays of hatred because of religious intolerance. The simple fact is that we were singled out because we were easy targets. Like homosexuals, there are many false assumptions made by people outside our religion about us. Like homosexuals, the lack of understanding, coupled with a fear of the unknown, sometimes leads to violence.
If you let yourself dwell upon the parallels here, the dichotomy of a group long persecuted and hated visiting violence upon another group long persecuted and hated is mind-boggling.
And yet, I understand. The simple truth is, were I not LDS and were I gay, I would probably react the very same way. I would be incensed beyond reason at my not being able to participate. I understand the reasons behind he actions against my religion because I've taken the time to try and understand the issue from the other viewpoint.
Sadly, I don't think that the people standing outside our temple with cans of spray paint have spent the same effort I have. It is too easy to assign a motive of hatred to people who do not agree with us. It requires no intellectual effort on our part. It is also, the very epitome of hypocrisy. Because, when you think about it, we assign the motive of hatred to a group of people who do not think like us so that we can then more easily justify our own hatred and violence towards them. So I would like to lay it out, from my perspective, as to why two groups of people with similar experiences of being the victims of bigotry and persecution could find themselves at this crossroad.
For the longest time, I was a proponent for gay marriage. My reasoning was that I saw no special lines in my tax forms that said if you're gay, you don't need to pay as much tax as the rest of us. When I got my jury summons, I never saw a provision that excused me from serving if I was homosexual...and, although I've looked, I have yet to see any speed limit signs that allowed people who had same-sex attractions to drive faster than the rest of us. If gay people are expected to shoulder thier fair share of being a citizen, I saw no reason why they should not enjoy all of the rights and priviledges of citizenship that I have. I still don't
And yet, my religion has taken a stand on this issue. My religion that goes out of its way to not take a stand on anything political, that every election time sends us a letter to be read from the pulpit in essence stating that political discussions are not to take place from our pulpits and that we are to prayerfully consider and vote for the candidate that we believe will serve us best, they have come out and said that the position of the church is to not support gay marriage rights.
And so, I had to make a choice...do I trust my own wisdom or do I trust the wisdom of men I believe are prophets of God?
Let me take a moment and explain faith as I understand it. Faith is an experiment very much like a scientific experiment...only you can only prove it to yourself. You can never prove it to another. I think that's the way it's always supposed to have been.
I never much understood Paul's explanation of what constitutes faith and I think too many people bandy about the word when what they really mean is that they believe. But faith is different from a belief because faith is a belief that you put your trust into.
A trapeze artist climbs to the top of the tent and swings out on that trapeze because he believes that when he lets go, the other trapeze artist on the recieving end will be there at the precise moment and place to catch him...he does all of that because he believes...but he doesn't have faith until he actually lets go of his trapeze.
The thing about faith in God is that the more you put your trust into it, the more it proves you right. I never have been able to understand why paying a tenth of my income to God assures me that I will somehow manage better but it does. I don't know why reading my scriptures with my family every day seems to cause all of the pettiness and bickering to end and for us to have greater calm in our lives...but it does. I don't know by what means people are healed when hands are placed upon their heads and they are blessed...but I've seen miracles time and time again. It seems that every time I place my trust in my beliefs and act as the men I sustain as prophets say I should act, the scattered pieces of my life oddly seem to align themselves.
And yet, on this one issue of gay marriage, I held to my own wisdom for the longest time because, it just didn't seem right. And then one day, in church, we sang a hymn that we'd sung countless times before and, for some reason, its meaning slammed into me with such a force that I knew I had to abandon my own wisdom and trust in what has never failed me before.
Lead, kindly Light, amid th’encircling gloom;
Lead thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home;
Lead thou me on!
Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene—one step enough for me.
I was not ever thus, nor pray’d that thou
Shouldst lead me on.
I loved to choose and see my path; but now,
Lead thou me on!
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will. Remember not past years.
So long thy pow’r hath blest me, sure it still
Will lead me on
O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till
The night is gone.
And with the morn those angel faces smile,
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile!
To my friends who are gay and to their friends who have taken the opposite side of this issue, I can only say I hope that you understand that I had to make a decision and again, like Tevye, say to myself, "there is no other hand...if I bend that far, I'll break"
I do not come to my stand on this issue lightly, nor is my stand on this issue motivated by fear or hatred. I am simply choosing to place my trust in my beliefs. They have never failed me before and though I know that many will read these words with bitterness, I truly hope that the day will come when we can disagree without being disagreeable.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Peanut Butter and Jelly
When I was young and I would come home with a black eye or a bloody nose (a frequent occurance when I was young) my parents' reaction was to ask me what it was I did to cause someone to want to give me a black eye or a bloody nose.
It was a pretty good reaction. It taught me to be introspective and to try and see my part in the conflicts in my life. To be honest, it worked both ways. When some kid's parent called to complain of a black eye or a bloody nose, my parents asked what their kid did to cause me to want to give them a black eye or a bloody nose.
It worked most of the time....sometimes, however, it backfired. Like the day when I was five and I was out shopping with my mother and I finally convinced her that I was much too big to be taken to the ladies room, that I was big enough to use the bathroom all by myself, I never told anyone about the man in the restroom that hurt me. I was afraid that if I did, they would say, "See? I told you that you were too small to go by yourself, this wouldn't have happened if you hadn't insisted upon having your own way".
In my parents' defense, I now know that their reaction would not have been that...but that doesn't change the fact that, as a child, I was certain that their reaction would be what I feared.
Later on, when I was an adult, my mother and I were talking about humor. I observed to her that humor comes from pain. "But you're funny", my mom said, "where does your pain come from?" Even as an adult, I still couldn't tell her...I just didn't trust myself to word it in the right way.
I am the youngest of four children. My brother, John, is the oldest of us and, when I was growing up, he was my hero. He did everything I wanted to do and was everything I wanted to be. He drew well, he played the guitar, he taught me to hit a baseball, throw a football, ride a bike, build a fort.
He actually had the patience and steady hands to put an airplane model together without it having huge globs of glue oozing from the seams..he never seemed to not have time for me. He was always patient with me...even when I couldn't keep my grubby, clumsy hands off of his freshly-painted and decaled airplane model (which despite its aerodynamic design refused to fly very far and wasn't nearly as sturdy as it looked)....and when the incident in the bathroom changed me, caused me to begin lashing out and acting badly for all the rest of my childhood, it was my big brother who got me through everything....the one that never ever seemed to give up on me.
John was a soda-jerk at KG Drugstore about a mile from our house and our mom would often drop me off at the counter for John to watch me while she went shopping somewhere else. I marvelled at the dashing figure he cut in his starched white apron and bow tie and the paper hat set at a jaunty angle.
I watched the skill with which he made malts and turned burgers...waiting until the perfect moment to place the cheese on the patty so that it was melted at precisely the proper amount, then placing the top half of the bun down on the patty while it finished cooking so that it was all warm and greasy and filled with all of the artery-clogging goodness that makes a burger taste wonderful...and I especially loved the way he would slip me a cherry Dr. Pepper or a plate of chips from time to time. Sometimes he would pool his tips together and buy me a comic book or a bag of plastic green army men, half of whom I would position on the counter in a defensive line about the ketchup and mustard bottles while the other half assaulted from the salt and pepper shakers and napkin dispenser.
To this day, I prefer chips instead of fries, and a really good soda fountain soft drink is the epitome, the sine qua non of carbonated beverages...there's nothing in a bottle that can rival the taste.
One day my sisters came at the end of his shift and we all decided to race home...girls against the boys. My big brother swept me onto his strong shoulders and ran home with me laughing all the way. We beat our sisters by a wide margin and, not knowing what to do until they got home, my brother decided to teach me how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Almost five decades later, I still make them the same way he taught me.
When John left on his mission, I was devastated. I had no idea how I was going to cope with my pain without him there to destract me and make me feel like I wasn't dirty or damaged or like I didn't have a target on my back. I had no idea how to feel like a normal kid without my big brother there and I was terrified.
I don't know why I didn't make the connection with all of the preparation...maybe it was denial but I first realized that my brother was going to be gone for almost three years on the ride back home, after dropping John of at the train station. I looked about and noticed he wasn't in the car. I frantically told my parents that we'd forgotten John and we needed to turn around. When I was told he wouldn't be back for almost three years, I burst into tears.
I don't think that adults realize it but, time is a relative thing and three years to a five and a half year old is over half of his life span. At first they thought my tears were cute, then they got annoying and I was told in no uncertain terms to stop. Somehow I did but pain is non-compressable and, while I pushed it down there, it sprang up and manifested itself in other areas of my life.
John's return from his mission was to be three months after I turned eight years old and, though I loved and idolized my father as well, I could think of nobody other than my brother that I wanted to dip me into the waters of baptism so that I could finally feel clean again...so I postponed my baptism for three months until he came home.
As an adult, I asked my father if my decision hurt his feelings, like the wonderful father he was, he told me how proud he was that his eldest son baptised his youngest. I wasn't quite sure how he felt until my accident made it impossible for me to baptise my own youngest child and my own eldest son filled in for me. The glowing pride I felt at that moment made it possible for me to put the nagging fear that I had offended my father to rest.
My brother and I are so alike in so many ways and so different in so many others. There have been times when we've sworn we never wanted to see each other again and times when we couldn't wait to be together. Some of the happiest times of my life have been spent with him and I never laugh harder than when I am in his company.
Up until now, nobody but my wife has known what he meant to me growing up and how much a role he played in me being able to function as a normal person....not even John has known.
When people ask me why I love him so much, up to now, all I've been able to say was, "He taught me to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich"
Friday, December 25, 2009
Hidden Treasures
Last night my family did something that we've never done before as a family. We shared our Christmas Eve ritual with the eight residents of the group home that my eldest son manages. The last time I did something similar was over 35 years ago and I was overwhelmed with sadness at the thought of so many people in this world who were rejected and forgotten during this one time of the year that so many people proclaim to have joy and love in their hearts for their fellow men.
The thing that goes through your mind as you experience a night like that is that there are those who are not only rejected and forgotten during this most special time of the year...there are those who are forgotten and pushed aside by the very people who are supposed to love them more than anyone else in the world, thier own families.
The last time I did this, I was a teenager and I played Santa Claus. A grown young man in his mid twenties sat on my lap and told me that his dearest wish on Christmas would be for his family to come and see him.
It broke my heart and, in the foolishness of my youth, I went home that night and plead with Heavenly Father to never ever let me have a child such as that. When I discovered that Heavenly Father, in His wisdom, denied that prayer, I silently resolved that, no matter what, my son would never ever live apart from his family.
Last night we met and ate and 'danced' to Christmas music with eight men who ranged in age from their seventies to their twenties. Only two of them were ambulatory, two more could get around with attendands holding onto them, the remaining four were in wheelchairs. For most of these men, there was not a single function that they can perform on their own. Virtually, every single one of them must be helped with just about everything they have to do. Attendants need to assist them with bathing, toileting, eating, taking medication, and staying as connected to the world as they can be.
I spent the night watching my eldest son attend to these men and treat them with love and dignity and serve them in ways that their own families would not. I glowed with pride as I watched my son act with Christ-like love and serve others in ways that many I know would never consider doing.
We read the Christmas story in Luke and then we read of the same night from The Book of Mormon. As we opened up to Third Nephi and began to read, Carlos, a young man whose bent and tiny body was confined to a wheelchair, motored his way as close as possible to John-Ross so that he could drink in the experience. In his exhuberance, he accidentally ran his 350 lb wheelchair over Daniel's foot.
Daniel cried out in pain and Carlos, who could not speak, motioned for a plastic sheet of paper with letters arranged in qwerty fashion. When he got the sheet, he laid it out on his lap and turning hos wheelchair back towards my Daniel, struggled to force his unwilling hands to point to letters....S.....O.....R....R....."that's okay", Daniel said as he reached out and held Carlos' hand, "I know you didn't mean it" Carlos' smile beamed up at my youngest son.
It came time for the men to go to bed and for us to return home but when we left, I couldn't help but remember my mom who often embarrased me by making me dig through things that other people had abandoned or thrown away on the side of the road. She would often push me on and try to inspire me by regaling me with stories of other people she had known who had found priceless treasure from items that others had found worthless..
Last night eight priceless treasures, named Carl, Carlos, Elano, Mickey, Ben, Paul and two Dannies were discovered by my family and became a part of ours.
I think my mom would be proud.
The thing that goes through your mind as you experience a night like that is that there are those who are not only rejected and forgotten during this most special time of the year...there are those who are forgotten and pushed aside by the very people who are supposed to love them more than anyone else in the world, thier own families.
The last time I did this, I was a teenager and I played Santa Claus. A grown young man in his mid twenties sat on my lap and told me that his dearest wish on Christmas would be for his family to come and see him.
It broke my heart and, in the foolishness of my youth, I went home that night and plead with Heavenly Father to never ever let me have a child such as that. When I discovered that Heavenly Father, in His wisdom, denied that prayer, I silently resolved that, no matter what, my son would never ever live apart from his family.
Last night we met and ate and 'danced' to Christmas music with eight men who ranged in age from their seventies to their twenties. Only two of them were ambulatory, two more could get around with attendands holding onto them, the remaining four were in wheelchairs. For most of these men, there was not a single function that they can perform on their own. Virtually, every single one of them must be helped with just about everything they have to do. Attendants need to assist them with bathing, toileting, eating, taking medication, and staying as connected to the world as they can be.
I spent the night watching my eldest son attend to these men and treat them with love and dignity and serve them in ways that their own families would not. I glowed with pride as I watched my son act with Christ-like love and serve others in ways that many I know would never consider doing.
We read the Christmas story in Luke and then we read of the same night from The Book of Mormon. As we opened up to Third Nephi and began to read, Carlos, a young man whose bent and tiny body was confined to a wheelchair, motored his way as close as possible to John-Ross so that he could drink in the experience. In his exhuberance, he accidentally ran his 350 lb wheelchair over Daniel's foot.
Daniel cried out in pain and Carlos, who could not speak, motioned for a plastic sheet of paper with letters arranged in qwerty fashion. When he got the sheet, he laid it out on his lap and turning hos wheelchair back towards my Daniel, struggled to force his unwilling hands to point to letters....S.....O.....R....R....."that's okay", Daniel said as he reached out and held Carlos' hand, "I know you didn't mean it" Carlos' smile beamed up at my youngest son.
It came time for the men to go to bed and for us to return home but when we left, I couldn't help but remember my mom who often embarrased me by making me dig through things that other people had abandoned or thrown away on the side of the road. She would often push me on and try to inspire me by regaling me with stories of other people she had known who had found priceless treasure from items that others had found worthless..
Last night eight priceless treasures, named Carl, Carlos, Elano, Mickey, Ben, Paul and two Dannies were discovered by my family and became a part of ours.
I think my mom would be proud.
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