Dear man from the gym,

I'm flattered... really. You have to understand that in the past thirteen and a half years since I've been married, I've only really been picked up on maybe a total of four times. And three of those times came from men who were delirious from pain killers when I worked at the hospital.

I was in the weight room at the gym this morning when you looked over with a smile and said something flirty. I wasn't wearing my wedding ring so there's no way you could have known that I'm married. You probably thought I was Heartless Hagatha when I popped me earbuds in and walked away. I apologize for what was blatant rudeness on my part, by any standard.

As a mother of five, it's hard to feel attractive sometimes, and I would be lying if I didn't say I was flattered by the fact that I was even noticed. To your credit, you aren't bad looking. Had I been single, I might have even smiled back and said something in return. But there's something about me you don't know. A lot actually.

There's a man in my life. Not just in it, but at the heart of it. He's a small-town farm boy with calloused hands and an old pick-up truck. He loved me when I was seventeen, with braces, dyed red hair, and a unibrow. He prayed and patiently waited for over a year for me to return his love. We've gone through college together, lived in and remodeled run-down homes together, and had five children. He's listened to me when I've been a babbling idiot and loved me when I've been a hormonal lunatic. He stroked my hair and rubbed my feet when I was writhing in labor pains. He's rocked my babies to sleep and cooked dinner for me more times than I can count. He writes me love notes on my bathroom mirror. When I say he can build anything, I mean anything. In every room and corner of the house, there are things he has built that remind me of how much he loves our family. We've built a life together in the past thirteen and a half years that has more love and memories than I ever thought I'd have in a lifetime. He says he's never thought of himself as a handsome man, but to me, he is the most attractive man on Earth, and my very best friend.

Now do you see why I wouldn't- couldn't- give you the time of day? I would be the world's most delirious woman to even think that there could be greener pastures than the one I already have. I know a lot of married people who enjoy the thrill of what they see as harmless flirting. But to me, there's no such thing.

I hope your pride wasn't too wounded by my rudeness this morning. As Paul Newman once said when referring to his wife, "I have steak at home. Why should I go out for hamburger?" I'm sure being compared to hamburger when you obviously take great pride in your physique is a blow, but don't take it personally. If you knew my steak, you'd understand.

Again, my apologies.

Sincerely,

Heartless Hagatha from the gym

As weak things become strong

The last few days have been an emotional roller coaster ride. We've realized that perhaps the Lord has things in store for us that we had never before imagined. This realization has brought with it several awakenings, mostly of doubt and feelings of inadequacy within myself. How can the Lord expect more of me when I feel like my grasp on what I have already at times feels so weak?

No one is more painfully aware of my short-comings than I am. I could write a book on all the ways in which I should be better... need to be better. I can be impulsive, short-tempered, short-sighted, overly emotional, and a laundry list of other less than stellar qualities.

But I insist on self-honesty with myself, as painful as it can be. As much as I try to improve on them, my weaknesses don't define or lessen me, they are just a part of me, just the way my nose and my eyes are a part of my face.

Since becoming a mother, my favorite scripture has become, "And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them." (Ether 12:27)

And yet I think how ungrateful we are whenever we dwell on our weaknesses, while failing to recognize the countless ways in which He has made us stronger.

The other day Lauren was helping me clean around the house with a duster. That little girl is a cleaning machine, I tell you. But her ambition got the best of her and before I knew it, my beautiful new vase was lying shattered in a million pieces on the floor- a victim of her enthusiastic dusting- with a chip out of our brand-new hardwood floor to prove it. Instinctively I felt my blood pressure rising along with my frustration. Almost in slow-motion, I watched her apprehensive little face as she watched for my reaction, with tears welling up in her eyes.  Everything inside of me wanted to scold her for her carelessness, but I knew from past experience how much I would regret it if I did. Through gritted teeth I forced myself to kneel beside her and hug her. It took a few seconds before I was able to tell her how much I appreciated her good cleaning and that the vase was just a vase that could easily be replaced. I certainly didn't want to say it, but I did anyway. Slowly, her face melted into a smile and she hugged me before skipping away.

"I passed the test," I thought, "...barely." One of my weaknesses is becoming stronger- surely, albeit slowly.

It's those types of things that make me think that maybe I can do this. Surely those whom the Lord calls to do hard things, He qualifies. Unfortunately He'll have a whole lot of qualifying to do with me, but He has in the past, I know He will in things to come.

People of Walmart

Dear Walmart Man,

Your timing was impeccable, it really was.  It was a hot July afternoon and I had just exited our neighborhood Walmart with my newborn baby and 4 small children in tow.  It was well over 100 degrees and the heat radiating from the parking lot, and the stiff wind that had just picked up made it feel like the world's largest convection oven. The children were hot, tired, and whiny- and I was on the verge of losing the little sanity I had left.

With a screaming baby in the carseat, I loaded my groceries in the trunk of my car as quickly as I could and looked around for the nearest cart corral.

I wanted to cuss. Parked in front of the nearest cart corral, blocking all access to it, was a pimped out Dodge Neon.  You know, the low-rider with the chrome wheels and the ridiculous, over-sized spoiler on the back.  That *$%&@... He was using the cart corral like a parking spot, with his back end sticking several feet out into the parking lot.

I couldn't leave my cart in the parking lot because the wind would have blown it into another car. The next cart corral was further than I could go, leaving a hot car full of kids and groceries unattended. The thought crossed my mind to take a picture of the *$%&@'s car and send it into "The People of Walmart", the website that showcases the trashiest people who shop there.  And I won't lie... with it came the urge to key the punk's pimped out paint job.

This is where your impeccable timing comes in. I heard your blaring country music first, and then saw you bumping and thumping down the parking lot in your rusty, old pick-up truck.  I saw you park and get out of your car: tight Wranglers, mullet hair, missing teeth, funny walk...

Bitterly, I thought, "There's another person whose picture I could take and send in with Mr. Dodge Neon."

And then you did something that stopped me dead in my pissy, judgmental tracks.  You walked with your awkward, limping gait across the parking lot and cheerfully asked if it would be helpful if you took my cart back to the store for me.

Caught completely off-guard and flustered by this turn of events, I said it would be wonderful and thanked you for your kindness. Speechless, I got in my car and watched you for several minutes as you made your way towards the front of the store. Along the way, you stopped at each person who was loading their car and asked if you could take their cart. By the time you reached the front of the store, you were pushing a half dozen carts.

I was so ashamed of myself, I wanted to cry. As I pulled out of the parking lot, I couldn't bring myself to take a picture of the Dodge Neon blocking the cart corral. It seemed so trivial now.

I've thought of you several times since that day.

Yesterday, I was in the parking lot of a grocery store, trying to load a 50 pound bag of flour into the back of my car. I struggled for several minutes, trying to find a way to do it without hurting my already injured back. I finally got it in and looked up to see a man, whose picture could have also been on the "People of Walmart" website, hurrying toward me.

"I'm sorry I didn't get here in time to help you ma'am. I saw you struggling and wanted to help you.  Next time I hope I'll be around to help." I thought of you again and remembered your kindness just a few months before.

I'm not sure why people like me scoff at those we cruelly label as the "people of Walmart," as if they were a species of their own.  Maybe it's to make ourselves feel better about our own pathetic short-comings.  Maybe by seeing someone who looks like their life is falling apart, we feel like we have it more together than we thought. Maybe we think it washes away all the classless, trashy things we do and say.

But judging by the thoughts that went through my head that day in that Walmart parking lot, who was really the one without any class?

Thank you for reminding me that we can't ever judge people by a snap-shot moment- not even several of them.  Because there are countless snap-shot moments in my own life that I hope and pray people don't judge me by.

Thank you for reminding me that although we are members of the human race, that we are not actually in a race.  Maybe the word "race" makes us think that this is all a competition and that we're all in it against each other.  But even if it were a race, I would have to say that on that hot July day you were, in fact, the winner.

God bless you, Mr. Walmart.


Sincerely,

A very thankful mother of 5

When heaven and hell are next-door neighbors

Early this morning I awoke from a terrible dream.  In it, masses of people were being hunted down and slaughtered right before my eyes. A massive, unseen enemy was spreading over the city like a plague, destroying everything in its path, using humans whose hearts had failed them, to carry out its evil work.  I wept as I watched children being cornered and viciously destroyed in their innocence. I was being protected by a small team of people who sacrificed their own lives in an effort to save mine.  But as time went on, those of my team who weren’t killed, were discovered to be traitors, and I was left alone to flee.  I was eventually joined by the queen, who seeing the destruction of her kingdom, disguised herself and fled.  Hell was being unleashed in all its fury, right before my eyes.

I awoke to Mila crying at about 5:45 this morning.  Even with the realization that it had all been a dream, it still took me almost an hour to rid myself of the adrenaline and terror that I could feel, literally pulsing through my veins.  I decided the surest way to gain control over the terror I felt would be to write, so here I sit in a darkened house writing, waiting for the sun to peak over the horizon and burn away my terrible dream.

I know where the dream came from, especially in such graphic clarity.  Last night I was watching the news, feeling nauseated from some of the stories- especially those that involved unthinkable crimes against children.  As I knelt down to pray before going to bed, I pled for those children, asking Heavenly Father to strengthen and protect them.

I recently read a family member’s patriarchal blessing that said that before the Second Coming, they would witness things that would be of a nature of to curdle their blood.  My dream was reflection of the horror I feel so often now days as I read the news and hear of so much of the tragedy and evil that is around me.

As I lay in bed this morning, trying to force the graphic images from my dream out of my head, I thought of my own family. We went out to dinner last night and I remember looking at my children, thinking how blessed I am to have these beautiful little humans to raise.  They have such amazing little souls housed in those tiny little bodies.  I thought of the fun we had during Family Home Evening as we laughed and played a silly game together.  It felt like heaven on earth.  It seemed so far away from the horrors of my dream, and yet it had only been a few hours before. 

It’s interesting how heaven and hell can exist so close to each other- almost as if they are next-door neighbors who share a wall.  In one moment we can witness the beauty and majesty of God, and in the very next moment we behold the vileness and cruelties of Satan.  But even with the powers of hell raging, I have the power to choose.  I don't want to wait for heaven to come after I die. I choose heaven here and now.

I feel better now.   I just watched the sun rise outside from my kitchen table as I write.  I watch it every morning.  There’s something about watching the sunrise that starts the day off right- the way the light illuminates the land and dispels the darkness. Living out in the country is amazing.  I have loved every second of it.  The children are awakening and I can hear their muffled voices and footsteps coming from their rooms.  And so the day begins, with all it holds- busyness, excitement, and even frustrations.  Yes, heaven is here and it is now.

The sunrise I watched this morning as I typed.

10 years old

Dear Camden,

Lagoon

A couple of weeks ago we took you kids to Lagoon to try to make up for a stressful summer. As you walked next to me holding my hand, I wondered how much longer I have of this- the unembarrassed grip you had on my hand as you looked up and talked to me with animated, bright eyes.   You are ten years old, that sweet little gap between childhood and your teen years.  How I treasure these days.  I don’t know what the coming years will bring for us.  So many teenagers become angry and resentful towards their parents during their teens as they try to discover for themselves who they really are.  I certainly didn’t know who I was when I was a teenager.  I think I had a better sense of myself as a child than I did when I was 15.  Then it seemed like I rediscovered myself again in my mid twenties.

Having known you for the past ten and a half years, I want you to know a few things about yourself that you may forget in the upcoming years, the way I did when I was a teenager.


You are kind.  One of the kindest people I know.  Always willing to give of what you have, and thinking of those less fortunate than you.

You are a peacemaker.  Contention makes you uneasy and you always try to dissipate it as quickly as you can.

You love your family. I love to watch you playing with your baby sister, tying your brother’s shoes, and helping a younger sibling to pour milk.  You tell me every day that you love me and aren’t afraid to hold my hand in public.

You give the best hugs.  I’m not the only one who thinks this.  I’ve had a couple of people comment to me on the sincerity and tenderness of your hugs.

You have the best smile.  And it melts my heart.

You love to create.  Legos, writing, drawing, origami- anything that involves a creative process, you love it.

You are ingenious.  Your creations show it, from the escape hatches in your Lego spaceships, to the funny twists in the stories you write.

You are detail-oriented.  From the time you were a baby, you’ve paid attention to minute details that most people over look.

You are a good student.  You’ve always done well in school and good grades come effortlessly.

You are athletic.  You’ve discovered soccer this year and I’ve been amazed at the ease with which you’ve picked it up.  You are one of the fastest in your class, and even won third place in a multi-school track meet this spring.  It’s hard to believe you were ever that little baby that was born with a club foot.

You are a hard worker and have wonderful resilience and strength when you put your mind to it.

You have a strong sense of right and wrong.  The world is black and white to you, but you are able to love people even if they don’t believe the same way you do.  How I adore this about you.

Obedience comes easily to you.  You rarely protest when I ask you to help out or fulfill one of your daily tasks.  This makes my job so much easier as a mother and I love the example you set for your siblings in this.

I count each day with you as a blessing.  As I created your birthday picture this year, I wanted it to reflect a young boy looking back.  Art work is meant to be interpreted by the viewer, but for me, you were looking back on your childhood as you navigate towards manhood.
Sometimes when I look at you, I still see that baby that first taught me what it meant to be a mother, and who continually teaches me to do so.  I love you my little man.

Love, Mom

Throwing marriage advice out the window

I’m the luckiest girl in the world.  No really, I am.  It sounds cliché but its true- I’m married to my best friend.  When other women sit around and husband-bash, I’m at a loss.  I might be able to think of something that irritates me about him, but I’d have to think long and hard.  And even if I did come up with something, it would probably be, “I don’t like the way he likes his egg yolks runny.”

Marriage to this man has brought me the greatest joy I ever thought possible in this life.  But the past 13 and a half years of marriage haven’t been a non-stop carousel ride.  We’ve had our hard spots. One was about a year and a half ago on a cold and foggy February day when we had the worst fight we had ever had.  I acted like a tantrum-throwing two year-old and then left to spend the night in a hotel.

What was going on?  How did we get to this point?  I was terrified.

Even in my anger I knew I was married to the most amazing man I had ever met.  If I couldn’t make a marriage work with him, there was no way I’d ever be able to make a marriage work with anyone.  It was a long, miserable night as I tossed and turned in that hotel bed with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.  That night I had a long time to think about what had brought us to that point, and where we needed to go from there.

It was easy to see how a few angry words could turn into an angry day, which could then turn into a week, and then a year.  I saw how easy it is for love- and an amazing one at that- to be so easily lost, and I was petrified.  I still loved him of course, but I knew that when I got home, we needed to re-commit ourselves to what I already thought was a pretty solid marriage.  As wonderful as our marriage had been up to that point, it was still as fragile as a robin’s egg.

I sat in that hotel room thinking of some of the marriage advice I had been given as a 19 year-old bride, and thought what a huge load of crap so much of it was… at least for us.  There is no one-size-fits-all handbook of marriage advice that fits all marriages.  Some of the worst marriage advice for us came from wonderfully committed couples who had been married for years.  Some of it just didn’t work for us.  He and I came from two opposite worlds.  It’s like the bird who married the fish, and many of the challenges we’ve had to overcome have stemmed from that. We’ve had to come up with our own rule book- one that works just for us. I realize many of these things seem antiquated, sexist, and everything in between, but these are some of the things that pulled (and kept) us out of our marriage funk.

-We go to bed angry with each other sometimes.  “Never go to bed angry” was probably the most frequent advice we received as newlyweds.  But what they probably didn’t take into consideration was the fact that this little Latin firecracker sometimes needs 8 hours of sleep to cool off and think logically.  Anything I say after 9pm should be discounted as coming from a hormonal, sleep-deprived lunatic.  If it waits until morning, what would have been a 3 hour disagreement is resolved in 5 minutes.

-We know each others passwords. “In a marriage, you have to give each other some privacy,” I’ve heard it said.  But there’s an unspoken trust that stands when he knows I have nothing to hide from him and that we are an open book to one another.  He has full access to my email, Facebook account, cell phone, text messages, bank account… everything.  And with the exception of his work email (because of security purposes with the company), I have access to his as well.

-We take vacations often without each other.  “You need to become one in marriage,” but we are so very different people and we have different circles of friends and hobbies.  His idea of recreation is my idea of torture, and vice versa.  We would both be miserable if we melded into each other.  We’ve each made compromises, but recently I was listening to NPR and they ran a story that caught my attention and solidified my resolve to allow ourselves our differences.  “Harmony in an orchestra is a melting pot of various sounds, pitches, and rhythms.  If all sounds are exactly the same, it is no longer a harmony.”  Heaven knows that if there were two of me in this marriage, it would be a disaster.  We desperately need each other’s differences to balance each other out.

-We disagree often with each other, even in front of our children, but quarrel seldom.   “You need to be a unified front to your children, and take disagreements out of the room where your children don’t have to hear,” they say.  Dennis is a staunch conservative, I’m much more liberal.  I don’t like guns, he loves them.  I love big cities, he loves the quiet country.  He listens to country music, I cringe.   But rarely do we quarrel about our differences.  He keeps guns in the house and takes regular hunting trips.  I travel as often as I can, and he supports me.  He even listens to his honky-tonk whenever we drive together.  We aren’t threatened by our differences.  But in the things that do matter, such as our love for the Lord, we are a unified front and our children know it.  I want our children to see how people can disagree on issues, even on big issues, but still co-exist peacefully, without a spirit of contention.

-…But we have hobbies that we enjoy together.  When we were first married, one of our only common interests was playing racquetball.  The USU racquetball courts were home to many of our date nights the first few years we were married.   But now we love to draw up blue-prints for future projects together.  I bounce ideas off him all the time for photography projects and he loves to show off latest his MacGyver creations to me.

-Our marriage comes first, even before the children.  This one feels a little selfish sometimes, and it’s hard to exclude the children from some of our conversations and activities.  But this was one of the first things we knew needed to change after my night in the hotel room, and immediately.  We date each other weekly now and rarely miss a week.  Sometimes our dates are only a walk around the block after the kids have gone to bed, or a run to Costco for groceries and a hot dog.  Either way, we make time for each other as often as we can.  One of my greatest moments of triumph came when my son’s Sunday school teacher told me that he told her that his parents loved each other “… a little too much.” (Insert eye-roll).

-When we’re upset, we talk straight and honestly with each other without any fancy therapist language.  We let each other know, usually right then and there, when something doesn’t fly, and don’t waste time trying to find the text book ways to approach an issue.  But we do insist on honest and open dialogue.  And rarely do the disagreements last longer than 10 minutes.  Early on in our marriage, however, we established “rules of combat.”  Certain things, like name-calling, are strictly off limits, no matter how angry we are with each other.

-We ask each other for permission.  As old-fashioned as it might seem, we check with each other whenever we can- when planning trips, spending money, committing to do something, anything.  “When you give your time away, you also give away mine and the children’s as well,” he once told me when I had committed myself to a time-consuming endeavor without checking with him first.  How true that is, especially in a large family.

-We don’t hold back compliments from each other.  My husband is incredible.  He really is.  I secretly pity all other women because they aren’t married to him.  But if he doesn’t know I feel like I hit the 500 million dollar lottery when I married him, then it wouldn’t matter if I did.

-We don’t fart in front of each other.  I know… laugh if you will, but it’s true.  If my tummy is rumbling, I leave the room, as does he.  Thank you, Dennis.  And I’m sure he silently thanks me even more.  He has seen me push a baby (five of them, actually) out of the nether regions of my body and held back my hair when I vomited after surgery, but there is a certain level of lazy comfort we never want to reach.

-We still try to impress each other.  His praise is still the one that means the most to me.  When it comes down to it, his and my children’s opinion of me, should be the only ones that matter.  Just before he comes home from work every day, I try to straighten up the house and run a brush through my hair.  I ask myself, “If he and I were single today, would he still choose me?”

-We don’t give 50/50.  This was the best piece of advice we received from a stake president.  He encouraged us instead to each give 80/20.  “When you’re each giving 80% and only expecting 20% from the other, then instead of a 100% marriage, it’ll be 160%.  If both of you do everything you can to lessen the other person’s load and you’ll have a happy marriage.”

-We leave each other cheesy love notes.  On the bathroom mirror, in text messages, on scraps of paper in the kitchen- any where we can and as often as we can.

-We keep all of our friendships with members of the opposite sex at an arm’s length distance.  “Healthy flirtation”- that’s the biggest load of crap I’ve ever heard.  There is no such thing.  We have several spoken and unspoken guidelines that we follow when interacting with other men and women, and I’m sure this especially seems antiquated to people.  But I’ve known one too many people who didn’t see the harm in a quick lunch date or a flirty email message- whose marriage (and ultimately children) ended up paying the price.

We haven’t “arrived” nor are we “safe” from the possibility of our marriage ever failing.  I don’t think we ever will be. We still have a lot that we need to work on, both individually and together, to make our marriage stronger. Our marriage, as wonderful as it is, is still as fragile as it was that foggy day in February.  It takes daily, even constant, coddling and attention- but how grateful I am for my marriage to this man.  People often talk about dreams they have for their children.  I really only have one.  And it’s that they marry someone who is of the caliber of their father.

Links

It’s been almost a month since I last sat down to write.  It feels like coming back to an old friend, and I’ve missed it.  Sitting down to write has long been the cheapest therapy for me.  We’ve gotten mostly settled into our new house and life is beginning to slow down.  Gloriously slow.  The past year has felt like I’ve been underwater, with that anxiety you feel when you’ve been under for too long and your lungs feeling like they’re ready to burst.  The dust has begun to settle and I finally found the time to revisit that old friend behind the keyboard.

__________________________________

Last night I dreamt about my grandpa and grandma Hawkes.  As I was talking to my grandmother, I watched her thinking how much I missed her- the lines of her face, the curling of her hair… everything.  We each went our ways, agreeing that we would meet again later that afternoon. Next thing, I was driving through St. Anthony to meet her- that sleepy little town in eastern Idaho where my father grew up, and the home of some of my fondest childhood memories.  But somehow the houses all looked different and I couldn’t find my grandparent’s house that I loved so much.  Not sure, I stopped at the house that should have been theirs and walked into the house through the garage door, the way I had so many times when I was a child.  But I was met by unfamiliar faces as they watched me with puzzled expressions, and I realized that another family now lived there.  As I turned to leave, I saw my grandfather sitting on a chair by the back door, weeping.  He told me that my grandmother had passed away.  I was overcome with sadness- that deep, heart-wrenching sadness that I’ve felt so often in my saddest of dreams.  I realized then that I was dreaming and that in fact, both of them are now gone and that another family lives in that big lovely house on the corner.  And that realization, even within my dream, only intensified my grief to the point of tears.

This is the second time I’ve dreamt about them in the last few months.  The first dream was equally as painful as I watched them from afar, longing to be with them.

I wonder what it is about these people that stir such strong feelings.  Truth be told, I didn’t know my grandparents very well.  I loved them dearly, but saw them seldom- not because they weren’t willing, but because of our life overseas.  And yet I yearn for them so deeply.

People can live long, beautiful lives, bear 10 children, and then return to dust the way my grandparents have.  Houses full of memories can be sold to people who have no idea what special people lived within those walls for so many years.  Life changes- sometimes beyond recognition- but family still remains, even beyond the grave.

Shortly after my grandmother passed away, I had an experience that taught me that my grandmother and I share a link, stronger than I had ever known.  It was one of fear that then became faith.  How I cherish that sacred link.  The link to our ancestors is more than common genes flowing through our veins.  It seems to reach both backwards and forward into a large, sweeping embrace that weaves into the fiber of our existence.

They are a part of my life today.  I feel it.  I know it.

And there will be day when we not only see each other again, but when we run to each other.  I think that will be the day that our eyes will see clearly how our existences are intertwined, and we will thank God, with tears streaming down our faces, for His greatest gift of family.