Christmas is a time for miracles. A time for love and
sacrifice—of sharing and giving. It is a time when we remember the Savior and
the wonderful gifts we receive at this special season.
I remember a cold Christmas morning in Alabama we shared in
a tiny trailer. Ed was going through
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| Our 1966 homemade Christmas tree |
The army gave us gifts: 1. two weeks off –but we had nowhere to go so we sat in our trailer playing monopoly and other games with other poor flight students and 2. Orders for Ed to go to Vietnam as soon as he finished flight school. The water pipes in the trailer froze so we had no water, but we scrounged everywhere under seat cushions and in the car until we found 100 cents and called home for three minutes. We had each other and love and that was enough.
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| Our Christmas gift--Marlowe 1967 |
I remember the next Christmas day when I came home from the
hospital with Marlowe. I had been able to talk to Ed on the phone through the
Red Cross and tell him about his new son, and even though a war separated us,
we had each other, Marlowe, and love; we were a family now, and that was
enough.
So many Christmases throughout the year were special, but another
one I remember as blessed –even a Christmas miracle—was one in Italy when Ed
was in the hospital in Vicenza. His left arm was extremely sore and getting
progressively worse, but the doctors couldn’t find out what was wrong with it. The
doctors tried with all their medical skills to identify the problem with his
arm, and failed; Ed’s arm became worse until it reached a crisis on a December
night when Ed paced the hospital floor. Despite the maximum amount of pain medications
given him, he was in far too much pain to rest. I talked to him by phone and
realized how serious the situation was, and I was waiting only until dawn to
call our home teachers to ask them to give him a priesthood blessing.
Suddenly,
about 4:30 a.m. when my daughter went out to deliver the newspapers, she came
rushing back to report that our home teacher Bob DeWitt was outside our house. Bob explained
he had come to pick up our neighbor to fly to Turkey, but they had just been
notified that their flight was postponed. Bob contacted another priesthood
holder and they went over to the hospital at 5:00 a.m. and gave Ed a priesthood
blessing before Bob flew to Turkey. Bob called and told me that in his blessing
he’d blessed Ed with comfort and that he’d been inspired to bless Ed that he’d recover
his health, and the use of his arm completely.
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| Ed in Landstuhl for Christmas 1985 |
Those words shocked me. Nothing was seriously wrong with Ed,
was there? Soon after that blessing the surgeon examined Ed and noticed that Ed’s
hand was becoming atrophied and his fingers were curled like claws. When more
x-rays did not show anything, but there was obviously something damaging the
nerves in Ed’s hand, the surgeon, radiologist and flight surgeon tried something
they’d never tried before--they used they prenatal ultrasound machine to examine
Ed’s arm. It detected an infectious abscess
deep in the muscle of Ed’s arm, near the bone—invisible to X-rays.
They did an
emergency operation to drain the abscess and Ed was transferred immediately to
the regional medical hospital in Germany. Before Ed left, the surgeon explained
told me that a lot of nerve damage had already occurred in Ed’s arm and hand, and
that another couple of hours without surgery could have meant that Ed would
have lost the complete use of his arm. I flew with Ed to Landstuhl in the medical evacuation plane. Ed spent Christmas in Germany in the hospital, but I made it home on Christmas Eve to be with my daughters. My sons had gone elsewhere for Christmas because we didn't know whether I'd make it back to Italy.
Nine months in army hospitals in
eighteen months and multiple surgeries would occur before Ed would recover, but
the priesthood blessing was fulfilled. Ed recovered his health—and the use of
his hand—completely. A postponed flight
and a priesthood blessing were wonderful Christmas blessings.
In 2007 we had another Christmas miracle that we didn’t
even recognize as such at first. Ed was in a
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| Ed in 2007 before Christmas |
Apparently,
it turned the car around and hit the rear of his car again before he ended up
on the side of the road facing 90 degrees from where he had been going. It
totaled the car and he had a headache so he was advised by the paramedics and
the policeman to be checked out at the emergency room.
Even then I doubt if he
would have gone if I hadn’t come to pick him up and I insisted that since I was
driving that’s where we were going--to the ER.
Since he had been knocked unconscious the emergency room personnel
insisted on a CT scan even if Ed didn't think it was necessary and we walked
over and got the CT scan and walked back. We were getting ready to leave,
thinking everything was normal when the doctor returned and reported that there
appeared to be no damage from the accident, but that the CT scan had shown a
medium to large-sized aneurysm.
From that point on, Ed got royal treatment—rushed to the University
of Utah hospital in an ambulance with a paramedical and EMT, sent directly to a
trauma room where he was treated like he was in danger of dying, with neck
brace, backboard, IVs in both arms. He kept saying, “I’m okay. I just have a
headache and an aneurysm.” After further CT scans and tests by more
neurosurgeons, they reported that the aneurysm hadn’t ruptured due to the
trauma of the accident, but they wanted to keep him in an observation room
until 12 hours after the accident to make sure. Finally, about 3:00 a.m. they
took the backboard off, but he had the neck brace on all night. The
neurosurgeons made sure he was okay and had an appointment to be seen in the
neurosurgery clinic in January for follow up on what to do about the aneurysm
before they released him.
But the real miracle was that the aneurysm was found
and located before it burst and that it could be
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| Ed after aneurysm surgery |
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| Ed's last Christmas |
In 2014 we had another miracle with Ed's health. In 2010, Ed's emphysema became so bad that he received a lung transplant which gave him four and a half good years. During that time, Ed and I traveled to Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, England, Ireland, Scotland, and did many other memorable things. We had gained three grandchildren and life was good. Then Ed had some problems with his bad lung collapsing, and he grew worse and worse. After many operations, illnesses, treatments, December 2014 found Ed very weak and ill. Then on Christmas day, we realized he had the flu. He'd had the flu shot, but apparently it wasn't a good match and didn't work well.
All Christmas day, Ed was so sick and struggling so hard to breathe that I wanted him to go to the hospital. But his grandson, James, was on a mission in Costa Rica and was supposed to call home. Athena's family was at our house and we were awaiting the call from Costa Rica. It came as a Skype call which was broadcast on our large-screen TV. Ed was able to hear from James, although Ed couldn't talk by that time. The day after Christmas, Ed was so weak he couldn't walk, so he was carried to the car to be transported to the hospital where he died two weeks later. But he had been able to spend his last Christmas with his family and to Skype with his grandson as he had wanted to.
Sometimes Miracles are large and obvious; other times they are small and sweet. Ed's last Christmas was the last.
