Memorial Day

It's Monday. Not really Memorial Day, but Memorial Day. I guess it doesn't matter, because it is a man-designated "holiday" in the first place. Holiday means holy day, you know, and so it seems to me an oxymoron to call a man-decided-upon day holy. I know there are flaws in my thinking here. 

By the way, I remember my mother speaking of the day as Decoration Day. That was its name formerly

So the actual day is not the thing to focus on. It's a day for remembering the soldiers (originally Civil War soldiers) who have given up their lives for this country. It's an easy-to-say phrase: "they gave their lives." And I think we too often say it with no thought of what it means or the great sadness that can come from the death of even one person.

Lucile took her roses and went up to the cemetery and placed the roses on the head stone of our mother and father. They are both long dead but not soldiers in this country's military. Perhaps I can call them soldiers in the forever battle of goodness over whatever its opposite is, or are. Are because there are many forms and faces of evil and many degrees of it.

Lucile sent a picture of the grave via cellphone text. What an age we live in. The age of immediacy, of everything right now, of people not knowing how to be patient or that they ought to be.

I did not go to Wayne's grave today, and I do not know if anyone in the family did. I have felt guilty about it, but it doesn't mean I don't love him.

Okay, so I'm preaching again

Surely I am not the only person who thinks we ought to write our experiences. Certainly the ones important enough to us that we tell them.

But when I suggest to someone, say my sister or someone like that--who am I kidding? it is my sister--"you should write that," the only response I get is negative. A moan or an excuse or a report of something else that must be done. Like folding laundry or wiping off the kitchen counter (I just made up those excuses, but they
are typical). Like time is too precious to sit for fifteen minutes and write it.

Write it.

It's not that hard.

IT'S NOT THAT HARD.

P.S. It's later now, 9 p.m. Obviously preaching and badgering pay off. My sister has written what I asked her to write, and I have put it in my journal. I do not feel smug about this, but I am satisfied.

Post post

The day has passed. We gathered and ate and talked and laughed. My roast, which I cooked according to about ten recipes (all pretty much the same), did not get done, so I cooked it some more. Then it got done and was really good. What a relief.

Here's who came: Lola, Shane, Patrick, Clayton, Andrew, Aaron, Nick, Paul, Tasha, Caroline. And Wayne in spirit.

Tasha brought lovely baked yellow Yukon potatoes and gluten free brownies. Lola brought a delicious broccoli salad, Shane mussels on the half-shell, Patrick mushroom hors d'oeuvres. Andrew a favorite of his--green bean casserole. And we had trimmings and sauces.

Oh yeah. I had about three dozen rolls--store bought and white, sorry--which I forgot to put out where people would know to grab one. That's kind of normal. But then I remembered, and they got eaten or carried home to someone's house.

And Lola brought ginger snaps and spice drops in honor of her dad.

I cannot remember all the jokes we told. I know there was some piano banging and still quite a bit of running around and up and down in the house, even though the children are growing up. Four legs dangled for a while between the balusters from the upstairs over the side--is that clear?--and there were basement adventures. Those boys entertain Caroline, and she loves them.

We also spoke to our Pennsylvania people, Alyce and Ann.

This reads like a report. And so it is. It seems impolite and unfinished to leave the event unreported upon.

Then there's this. I love my family. I know, I've said it before.

Re: May 18, Revised

Wayne's birthday coming up. Sunday. Usually I go out to the cemetery, but not this time. We'll have our family dinner here to celebrate and just be together.

I always liked the day. Always, because it is my brother Sterling's birthday, and I always loved him. But I liked the day better after meeting Wayne.

It's my brother-in-law Eric's birthday, too. (I probably mention Sterling and Eric here every year. Oh well.) It's a happy day. But now, of course, it's touched with that deep sadness and the sense that something is not quite right, someone is missing. And, of course, that's true. The important person is missing.

It's true, what Sarah Westergard told me not long after Wayne died. I didn't know her, though I know her now. Her husband had died a few years earlier, maybe six years. So when we were introduced it was not simply, "Meet my friend Carol Schiess." The big fact of my husband's recent death came along with my name, so that she may not have heard my name to remember it.

Anyway, that's when Sarah said, "You never get over it." Not happy to meet you; not sorry; not anything but "You never get over it."

So we may shed a tear or two Sunday because no one has gotten over it in these 11 years and four months. But we'll also have a happy time together. We'll eat. And we'll talk about him and laugh because, you may know, he was funny.

Things happen when I go out of town. No kidding.

While I was gone to Utah recently, a GFI (?) switch in the garage popped out. This caused everything electrical in the garage, and also the ground lanterns on the outside of the west garage wall, to stop working.

Such a thing is not good. Worse is that no one knew it happened.

All anyone knew--anyone being Lola--was that something was wrong with the freezer. Tuesday, April 29, she texted me that my old freezer had finally died. And it looked to her like almost everything in it would be lost, unsalvageable.

Distressing news. I could replace the food, and I knew that some of it should be thrown out anyway because of its age, but I began to wonder what a person does with a big upright freezer that is kaputz. When Andrew called a day or two later, he said he thought the garbage guys would pick it up. He would look into that.

Meanwhile, Lola said she would empty the freezer Wednesday night and get the stuff out for the trash pickup Thursday morning. Wow, I thought, that's a big job, and I told her so. She said not so big.

I thought, "Sure saves me from a nasty job when I get home."

I don't quite remember when she told me the fridge in the garage had also stopped working.

Hmmm. Maybe the freezer didn't die. Maybe the power went out.

But when she checked the circuit breakers and found none tripped, we had a real puzzle. How could this be?

I called the sprinkler guy and told him my mower guy had reset the sprinkler controls and I asked if that could cause a power failure. No way. It uses only about 1 amp, he said. He mentioned a GFI switch. Was there one on the outlet where the two appliances were plugged in?

No.

But then I remembered the one on the east wall of the garage. It had popped out once before, mysteriously, and caused a similar problem in the garage. That time I asked my neighbor for help. He headed me toward that switch and all was fixed.

So I told Lola to go across the garage, see if that switch was out and, if so, push it in. She did. It was. And pushing it in fixed everything. I texted Andrew not to worry. Happy ending.

Except that the food in the freezer and the fridge was spoiled. I told Lola to throw it all out or to use her judgment about it. She did and left the now-empty freezer unplugged so all the accumulated ice would thaw.

When I got home, May 3) all I had to do was wipe out the freezer. Now it's like new. And that means empty.

But here's something--and it may be why I write this in the first place. It's about the box of Mrs Cavanaugh's chocolates my mother gave me in 1979, not long before she died, the last thing she gave me in her life. I was never able to eat it or throw it out. I told Lola to throw it out. That would save me having to do the hard thing.

But when I got home I discovered that she had kept it, saved it from its own death.

I hardly knew what to think, but I must admit to feeling some relief when I discovered it. Purely sentimental, maybe silly. But there you go.

The Story, Part 3

Then there was the missionary (in Alabama) who, with his companion, was driving to a meeting. He saw a woman walking along the sidewalk and felt impressed to stop and speak to her.

But he didn't want to be late to the meeting, so he kept driving.

Another prompting to stop and speak to the woman. So he pulled in to a nearby gas station, got out of the car, and told his companion, "We're going to check the air pressure in our tires until she gets here."

When the woman got to where they were, the missionary said, "Hello, ma'am."

She said, "Don't talk to me. Get away from me." She was shouting, as you might have guessed.

He said, "Have a nice day."

She said, "I don't want to hear that from you. Get away from me."

Back in the car, the companion said something like, "That was useless. Why did you stop and talk to her?"

"I don't know why, except that I was prompted to."

"But it didn't do any good."

"I know, but when I came on my mission I promised the Lord that I would obey every prompting, no matter what, no matter how it turned out. I want the Lord to trust me."

Richard Holzapfel read this account to us from a letter the missionary sent to him, the mission president. Then Brother Holzapfel mentioned a statement by Brigham Young. I think these are the exact words. We need to be righteous, even in the dark.

The Story, Part 2

At this year's Women's Conference, each class had two presenters. Presenting with Richard Holzapfel was Melissa Heath, a recent widow and member of BYU faculty. If you judged her by today's fashion standards, she would fail. Her hair was plain and unstyled, her clothing also plain and well-worn. She was plump. Some might call her a bit dowdy.

But you can't tell by looking. She was a woman with knowledge, experience (she works with children, helping their emotional problems with bibliotherapy--books), and an important message for us. If I worried about her being paired with such a powerful, articulate man, I needn't have. As soon as she opened her mouth I knew she would tell me something worth hearing.

Her message centered on the idea that we must be sure of the information we gather for use in our lives, and we must be sure of the source of information or even what we think is inspiration. Satan is a counterfeiter, she reminded us, but the Holy Ghost is a sure guide.

One story concerned her husband and an eye problem he had. He complained of severe, sharp pains that seemed to come from inside the eye. They became unbearable, so, after a week or two, the Heaths went to an ophthalmologist. Before they went, Melissa decided to look online for information on eye ailments. After a lot of looking, she settled on an ailment that seemed to fit the symptoms her husband described. She was excited to have that knowledge.

Armed with her newly gained information--and obviously dying the share it with the doctor--she accompanied her husband to the eye exam. After the dr asked many questions, most of which she answered for her husband, because, as she said, "He doesn't always get the details right," Melissa spoke up and told the dr she had figured out what was troubling her husband's eye. "I'm sure it's (whatever name she said)." The dr whirled around to face her and asked, "Where did you get that information?" She answered, "From the internet."

"And how much did you pay for that information?" asked the dr.
"Nothing," she responded.
"That is exactly what it is worth."

Turns out, Melissa was wrong in her diagnosis. She did not have enough or the right kind of information. And she didn't know its source.

For what it's worth to you.

The Story, Part 1

Psalm 84:11 For the Lord is a sun and shield: the Lord will give grace and glory. No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.
                                                                                 This year's theme for BYU Women's Conference

So we heard a lot about grace, something we haven't heard a lot about until recently. Friday morning's class was on the Holy Ghost and Grace.

Richard Holzapfel spoke of the experience he and his wife had recently as he served as mission president of the Birmingham, Alabama mission. In the south, especially Alabama and Mississippi, Mormons are spoken of as "the devil," or, at best, a cult. And they are spoken of in this way often, regularly, from the pulpit and the radio and television.

In 2012, when it became clear that a Mormon--Mitt Romney--would be the Republican candidate for president, those people, who always vote Republican, were more than a little upset. The devil running for president. So Brother Holzapfel and the mission received many inquiries and many other kinds of mail and phone calls, not all good.

I remind you here that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is officially neutral politically. But certainly many Mormons voted for Romney, and the southerners didn't know of the Church's neutral position. And so on.

Richard Holzapfel is a very positive, energetic, and intelligent man. He seems unflappable, and he consistently instructed his missionaries to know the scriptures and to always be kind in their encounters with people. And, by the way, to always say Sir or Ma'am in speaking to the people. That is the custom in the south, and it is iron-clad.

At one point during the political campaign, Brother Holzapfel received an assignment from Salt Lake to appear for an interview on a radio talk show to answer questions about Romney and the Mormon Church and to clarify the Church's position on the matter. The talk show was widely heard, and its very popular host was openly anti-Mormon. They warned Holzapfel that he would no doubt ask "hard" questions.

To me that meant possibly nasty questions.

The interview was to last 30 minutes, but it ended up being two hours long.

The first hour went very well. The smiling host was friendly and polite, seemed genuinely interested in all that Brother Holzapfel was saying in response to his questions. Then they had a five-minute break before continuing. Brother Holzapfel said he could see a change in the face of the host, and he knew that during this next segment the man would not be so friendly. He didn't know exactly what was coming but knew it would be difficult.

The first question was something like this: "Now, President Holzapfel (mission president, remember), be honest. You're an intelligent man. You have a PhD from a well-known university in California; you're a university professor. How can a man like you believe that silly story about those "gold plates" and a young boy translating them?"

I thought: the perfect way to put him on the defense, not a happy place to be. And I wondered what on earth he could say.

But here is his answer. "Well, I have never seen the tablets of stone written upon by the finger of the Lord, but I still believe."

That was it. So simple, so perfect. The man was stunned. No more hard questions. Everything was very cordial and positive after that.

When the Church department that had asked Holzapfel to go on the show called him after the program, they were also stunned. "That was the perfect answer. How did you think of it?"

"It was the Holy Ghost," he said.

The Spirit of God giving grace, the very words to say.

He said it's the Holy Ghost

Don't let me forget that when I've had some rest, led the singing in Sacrament meeting, and taught my class tomorrow, I want to write about Melissa Heath and Richard Holzapfel and their class yesterday.

Like you care.

But I do. So I want to remember.