Winter Lessons

Marlowe taking care of Athena Christmas 1970

The winter winds blew so coldly and I felt so vulnerable as I left the pediatrician’s office with my 18-month old daughter, Athena. The doctor had said her cough wasn’t anything serious and hadn’t given me anything for it, but I was still worried. She kept coughing and coughing. It was only a few days before Christmas in 1970, and I was living in a small upstairs apartment in Bountiful, Utah while my husband was serving his second tour as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam. My oldest son, Marlowe, had just celebrated his third birthday, and he held onto Athena’s hand as we walked to the car, telling her she would be better soon.

 Ed had left for Vietnam in mid-November and I’d felt very brave and self-confident then. But the cold, snow, and Athena’s cough, had weakened my resolve. But since the doctor had said Athena was “okay” I decided to do some more shopping. I just didn’t want to go home to my empty apartment. It was dark before I got home, and the phone was ringing. I grabbed it, and tried to get the children’s coats off as I talked on the phone. I was surprised that it was my dad. He was very worried and explained that he had been trying to locate me for hours. 

Beth Christmas 1970 Bountiful, Utah

“The doctor’s office called me when they couldn’t reach you,” he said.  “You had put me down as an emergency contact. The radiologist looked at Athena’s x-ray and said she definitely had pneumonia and you needed to get her back to the emergency room at Hill Field as soon as possible. They have medicine and treatment waiting for her.”

I looked at my toddler, whose coat I had just taken off, and who was coughing again. What a lousy mother I had been. I had kept her out all afternoon when she was sick with pneumonia! How grateful I was that my father had been able to get the message from the doctors and notify me. 

Later that same winter I was feeling lonely and isolated. I had no one I could relate to. I missed my two sisters who were closest in age to me. Both were married and living far away. One had one daughter Athena’s age, and the other was expecting a baby the same time I was, in February. How I wished we could do things together; but we were so far away and long distance phone calls were so expensive. Our mother had died not long after I had married so none of us had had someone we could call on for motherly advice.  Dad lived in the same town, but he worked swing shift. My younger brother at home was 16 years old; my youngest sister had just turned 14 years old. My mother-in-law lived several hundred miles away; she had remarried recently and her husband did not care for my husband, so I did not feel I could call on her for help or advice.

Marlowe & Athena 1970

One of the other “Waiting Wives” in Bountiful had three small children about the same age as mine, and I often thought to call her and do things with her. However, I knew she had many siblings who lived in the area, and I kept thinking that I was being a bother to want to do things with her when she was probably doing things with her family. When I went back to the pediatrician to have him check to make sure Athena was completely clear of her pneumonia, I met my friend there in the waiting room in tears. Her youngest son was very sick, and she had no one to take care of the other two while they hospitalized him. I immediately offered to take them home with me, and was surprised that her family had not offered to help her. 

“They are too busy with their lives. They don’t understand how it is to not have a husband to help,” she sobbed. 

I realized all the times I had hesitated to call her because I thought I would bother her when she was busy with her extended family, and she was just as isolated as I was because her husband was in Vietnam. I decided then to reach out to each woman whose husband was in Vietnam—whether they had a lot of extended family or not. We were in a unique situation; no one understood what it was like and how we could help each other like we could. 

Athena & Marlowe playing in the snow 1971

It was late in January of 1971 when I got my last lesson. I awoke to my three-year-old son crying. I went to him and tried to comfort him, but nothing would help. He was doubled over with pain. He was in so much pain that he couldn’t talk. Finally I realized that I needed to take him to the emergency room. It was about 3:00 in the morning, and I was frantic. I couldn’t take both children out in the cold to the emergency room, so what was I to do?  I prayed; I knew Marlowe had to go to the emergency room. Something was desperately wrong with him. 

I decided to call my father. He worked swing shift. He would come over no matter what the hour to babysit Athena while I took Marlowe to the emergency room. I called and he came right over. I’ll never forget what he said when he saw Marlowe. 

“He’s wheezing, Beth. He has asthma.” I was shocked. I had had asthma as a baby, and for a year as a teenager, but then I had mainly coughed continually. I couldn’t remember wheezing, or even what wheezing was. 

“Can’t you hear him wheezing?” Now that I listened of course I could hear the wheezing sound. “That’s why he can’t talk—he can’t breathe.” My father knelt down and carefully touched Marlowe’s doubled up diaphragm. Marlowe jumped and cried. “He’s wheezed and struggled to breathe so much that he’s pulled the muscles in his diaphragm, pour little guy. Get him up to the emergency room.”

All the way up to the emergency room with Marlowe crying and wheezing in his car seat, I kept thinking what I crummy mother I was—I didn’t even know when my own child had asthma and I endangered his life. It took my own father to tell me what to do. At the emergency room, they quickly treated him and told me what to do. 

I had felt alone that winter, and that year—and often very inadequate—as young parents often do. But I wasn’t alone; of course we are never alone. The Lord is always aware of us, and our needs; he uses those around us, then as now—family and friends—to help us meet the challenges of life.

"Love the Danes"

         Denmark is the land of my heritage. My mother was first generation American and she spoke the Danish language as a child, served us many Danish foods, and shared with us many of the Danish customs she had grown up with. My mother’s father, Peter P. Hendrickson, left America to join the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at 20 years of age; yet he loved his native land, his family and friends there very much. His wife, Kristen A. Mortensen, also a native Dane, also missed her beloved native land and both taught their children about the land of their birth. 

         My mother’s sister, Ruth Hadley, served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Denmark in the 1950s, and my brother Gary  served a mission there from 1961 to 1963. 

Denmark

       Denmark is a land associated with the sea; nowhere in the country are you more than 47 miles from the sea. Surrounding Jylland, the part of Denmark that is connected to Germany, is an archipelago of 483 islands that make up the Kingdom of Denmark. Denmark, like much of Northern Europe, is wealthy, erudite, and liberal. Fewer than 3 percent of its people attend church, and Richard Andersen, a LDS Church Stake President in 1993 stated, “The Church’s biggest challenge in Denmark today is that we are an ungodly country.” Andersen blames the permissive laws passed in the 1960s. “Suddenly our country was affluent and wanted to show the world that our wealth gave us sophistication and understanding. So we passed laws allowing pornography, nudity on beaches, abortion on demand, marriage of homosexuals. Moral barriers fell all around us.”[i]

Gary as a missionary

      Gary’s mission in Denmark during those turbulent years was very difficult. During his two years there he baptized only one individual. One experience in Esberg, a fishing village about the size of Provo, Utah on the West Coast of Denmark, changed Gary’s attitude about his mission, Denmark, and life. 

     Gary had been in Esberg three months and was very discouraged; the missionaries had not taught a lesson or had not been received into a home for months. Gary and his companion wondered if they prayed and fasted more earnestly that maybe someone would listen to their message. They called the mission president for permission to fast; he gave them permission, but only for three days. 

       The first day of fasting was like any other; they tracted without success. The second day of fasting they continued to go door to door futilely. At the beginning of the third day of fasting, they knew their fast would end that night, yet that day was no different. That night they prayed long and hard and received no remarkable inspiration.

My Grandfather Hendrickson

        During the night Gary’s grandfather Peter P. Hendrickson (his mother’s father) appeared to him. Peter, who had grown up in Denmark and given it up only to join the other members of the church in Utah, stood at the end of Gary’s bed. He looked at Gary very solemnly; Gary could hear the silent words his grandfather was saying--that the only way Gary would ever be successful as a missionary was to love the Danish people with all he had and to look beyond their harshness. 

      “Love the people,” Gary's grandfather repeated. “Love the Danes.”

      When Gary’s companion awakened the next day, the companion told of how he had seen the nameplate and bell of a certain home in a dream and felt that it meant something special.

      The two companions prayed, then broke their fast. As they went out, they looked at the different streets carefully. Gary’s companion recognized the street he’d seen in his dream and they walked along it. Then he recognized the bell and nameplate. They had tracted out that area three times previously, but never stopped at the house. They rang the doorbell and a young woman came to the door. She allowed them to come in and talk to them.

      Gary was transferred soon afterwards and he never knew what happened to the woman and her family, or whether they accepted the gospel or not. 

       But the experience with his grandfather changed Gary’s life forever. He grew to love  the Danish people whether or not they invited him in, or accepted his message. He learned to love them unconditionally and appreciate their unique spirit.

       Even after he left his mission, his love for the Danes grew; he promoted everything Danish and Scandinavian he could. He began to celebrate an annual “Lief Ericksen” party on Columbus Day--to celebrate that the Vikings reached America before Columbus. He served as president of the “Sons of Norway” (a fraternal organization representing people of Norwegian heritage–there isn’t a “Sons of Denmark” organization).  He had a Danish foreign exchange student live with his family for a year.

    His daughter went on a mission to Norway and married a man whose family are as staunch in their celebration of their Norwegian heritage as Gary is of his Danish heritage, and Gary and his family have gone to Denmark several times. This fall Gary and his wife will return to Denmark as couple missionaries, and Gary's wife will be the mission nurse.

       Unconditional love is the key in all relationships; true charity that is concerned with the individual and develops a closer association is important. It accepts a person as they are, and loves them anyway. It doesn’t complain that they are not Italians, or Mexicans (or whoever would be easier to convert). Unconditional love doesn't give up if people don't accept the gospel right away, but loves them and accepts them despite it.

        Elder Russell M. Ballard said in October 1988 General Conference address (and probably more recently as well), “I encourage you to build personal, meaningful relationships with your nonmember friends and acquaintances. If they are not interested in the gospel, we should show unconditional love through acts of service and kindness, and never imply that we see an acquaintance only as a potential convert."[ii] Or as my grandfather, Peter P. Hendrickson said, “Love the People.”

---

[i] Florence, Giles: “Sea, Soil, and Souls in Denmark,” Liahona, June 1993, page 36

[ii] Ballard, Russell M.:“The Hand of Fellowship,” Ensign, November 1988,

"Trailing Clouds of Glory . . . and Eternal Friendships"

Have you ever met someone and felt like you knew them already? Started talking to someone and felt like you were best friends?

Recently my daughter Diana and her husband Jason adopted a son Aedyn. As they get to know and enjoy his special personality, I wonder at the miracle of children and if we knew our children in the pre-existent world.

As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we believe in the Plan of Salvation—that our eternal experience can be divided into three main parts: premortal life, mortal life, and life after death.i In our premortal life or the pre-existence, we were spiritual beings with talents and abilities who chose to come to earth to be tested. Like today on earth, we had friends who we were closer to than others. Did we want to come to earth in families with those who we were close to in the pre-existence? I don’t know, but some things make me wonder.

When I had my second child 18 months after my first, she was as different as night from day as my first born child. Athena was a fussy eater, and would nurse for a minute, wiggle and look around, eventually get back to nursing and wiggle again. She wouldn’t cry; she just wasn’t interested in eating. She was hyperactive and didn’t sleep much and she was never still. Holding her was like holding a pack of monkeys.

She was the cutest, adorable little baby, but she drove me crazy. I had imagined a sweet, doll-like daughter to dress up who would coo at me, and I had a fidgety, squirming bundle of nerves who was never still. Getting her dressed was a 20-minute gymnastic trick and laying still and cooing was something she may have done in her sleep—if she ever slept. She didn’t nurse well, and when she did, she threw up everything—projectile vomiting. For the first year, I smelled like sour milk and I didn’t dare try to feed her any solid food.

One day in Mineral Wells, Texas where we were living, my older toddler son was playing happily and my daughter was going 100 miles per hour. Exhausted, I put Athena in the playpen, and sat down on the couch and broke down in tears. Suddenly I could see my deceased mother standing across the room by my daughter.

“Oh, Beth, I knew Athena’s special spirit before she came to earth! I knew how difficult it would be for you to understand her,” I felt my mother say.

I jerked my head up and stared at the playpen. There was no one, especially my long-deceased mother, standing by the playpen where my daughter was trying to climb out, as I had thought I had seen. I was sure I was going crazy. Not only was I a bad mother, now I was crazy, besides. I put my head in my hands and began to cry harder.

With my eyes closed, I saw my mother’s smile—she was almost laughing as she gazed at the baby. “Your daughter is such a special spirit, Beth. She and I were good friends in the pre-existence. When I knew you were going to be her mother, I knew it would be like it was between us—you two would struggle to understand each other, because you are both so different in personality. Just as we often struggled to understand each other—I often wondered if you were from Mars because we were so different. But just as we loved each other, you and Athena will love each other and learn from each other!”

I jerked my eyes open and although I couldn’t see my mother with my human eyes, I could feel her love and her laughter. I knew she was there in the room with me, comforting me and playing with my tiny daughter. I cried more, but it wasn’t tears of discouragement, but of happiness and love, as I picked up my squirming daughter. I looked around the room and wondered just where my mother was as Athena kept trying to crawl over my shoulder and reach something behind me, then would turn around and almost leap out of my arms grasping for something in front of me.

I thought of that incident over the years when I became discouraged or worried. I didn’t consciously think of my mother being there watching over me; but I knew she understood how I loved and tried to understand a daughter who was so different from me.

Years later we were living in Vicenza, Italy, and Athena and her younger brother, Marc, were receiving their patriarchal blessings from a Patriarch from Frankfurt Germany Serviceman’s Stake. As Brother Peter Mourik, the patriarch, was giving Athena the blessing (which was recorded, typed and given to her), he paused and added, “You are greatly loved by several wonderful friends who have gone to a glorious world. Forefathers and relatives are mindful of you; you have given them joy by the way you live. You do not live for yourself alone.” As he said these words, I felt so strongly that he spoke of my mother who was there in the room with us, who had been a friend to Athena in the pre-existence. I felt my mother’s love for Athena and for me so strongly that I could almost see her.ii

While Ed and I were in our forties and living in Italy, we had thought our child-bearing days were over—I had had nephritis, breast cancer, bilateral modified mastectomies, and many other medical problems. Then one night I “saw” a tall young man’s spirit standing by the side of our bed; he told me he was our son and he would be coming to our family. In January 1987 Bryan Mikele was born in Vicenza, Italy; he is over six feet tall, and very musical.

My daughter Diana loved music from the time she was born. She would calm and “listen” whenever music played. It was so noticeable that I wrote about it in her and in my journal, and then totally forgot about it. When she was a teen-ager, she “discovered” her musical abilities, became a vocalist and became my most musically talented child. She had beautiful blue eyes (my only blue-eyed child out of five children).

Diana and her husband Jason were disappointed twice when they almost adopted a baby, and then it fell through. Once the birth mother changed her mind and decided to keep the baby the day before they were to get the baby. So when they heard there was the possibility of a baby to adopt, they were afraid to hope it could be theirs. But they flew to Utah to check on the possible baby to adopt. The five-month-old boy’s name was “Aedyn,” and the birth mother did not want it to be changed; the only name Diana and Jason had ever planned on for a boy was “Aiden.”

The blue-eyed boy looked so much like Diana and Jason that he could have been their own genetic child. The birth mother said Aedyn's most prominent characteristic was that he loved music and would calm down and “listen” to it whenever he heard it. When the birth mother met with Diana and Jason and let them hold Aedyn, the baby laughed and smiled and was so excited the whole time they had him. The mother took that to mean they were to be his parents and immediately wanted to sign the papers giving him to them. Later she located the birth father and brought him in sign over his rights, fill out his medical history and write a letter to be given to Aedyn explaining why he gave him up to Diana and Jason—so Aedyn could have a better life.

I think Aedyn is Diana and Jason’s baby as much as if he were their own flesh and blood, and not just because he looks like them. If he were black or Hispanic, he would still be theirs—I am sure they were supposed to be a family, and when they are sealed in the temple, they will be an eternal family.

I am sure that if the veils were taken from our eyes and we could see all the pre-existent connections we had on earth today, we would be amazed. Did we give Marc his father’s name as a middle name because of a premortal connection? Are Diana’s musical talents (and her rheumatoid arthritis) a connection to Ed’s grandmother Viola Dayley who also had rheumatoid arthritis and was known for her musical talents all over Southern Idaho?

The next time you meet someone with whom you an instant rapport, is it just coincidence? Or could it be because you were close friends in the premortal life? Wouldn’t you like to know? Someday you will know!

William Wordsworth said it in a beautiful poem,

“Ode:iii
Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood”

“Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:”

_______________________________________________

i http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?index=16&locale=0&sourceId=45af9daac5d98010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=bbd508f54922d010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD
ii “Patriarchal blessings are given to worthy members of the Church by ordained patriarchs. Patriarchal blessings include a declaration of a person's lineage in the house of Israel and contain personal counsel from the Lord. As a person studies his or her patriarchal blessing and follows the counsel it contains, it will provide guidance, comfort, and protection.”
http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?index=16&locale=0&sourceId=17517c2fc20b8010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=bbd508f54922d010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD

iii http://www.bartleby.com/101/536.html , Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250-1900. William Wordsworth. 1770-1850.

The Patience of a Saint?

The dictionary defines patience as:

1. the quality of being patient, as the bearing of provocation, annoyance, misfortune, or pain, without complaint, loss of temper, irritation, or the like.
2. an ability or willingness to suppress restlessness or annoyance when confronted with delay: to have patience with a slow learner.
3. quiet, steady perseverance; even-tempered care; diligence: to work with patience.

Everyone praises patience as a great and admirable quality, but few possess it. In fact it has been said to be the quality of a saint. One of the most difficult aspects of our time here in Los Angeles awaiting Ed’s lung transplant has been our lack of patience. We expected the wait for a new lung to be two weeks to a month and we have been here over three months.

Therefore after the priesthood session of general conference a few weeks ago, I laughed when Ed called me and said, “President Uchdorf spoke directly to me in his address on patience!(see talk at http://www.lds.org/conference/talk/display/0,5232,23-1-1207-20,00.html ) Everything he said I needed to hear.” However, when I read President Uchdorf’s talk about patience, it really hit home and I began to think about our stay here in Los Angeles and what we have gained from our wait.

When we arrived here the 4th of January, Ed had gained some of the weight he’d lost last fall but he was still 20 pounds underweight; the doctors told him he must gain weight. They said that people who undergo lung transplant surgery who are underweight have far more complications than anyone, even those who are overweight. He was given dietary guidelines and diaries to chart his food intake.

Ed started on a respiratory therapy program at the hospital gym three times a week and a yoga therapy two days a week. He had been doing respiratory therapy at the University of Utah in Utah, but this was a better program with other respiratory patients that he grew to know and to relate to. Some patients had had lung transplants, some had had lung reduction surgery, some like Ed were waiting for surgery, and some were not planning on surgery. So Ed had the chance to find out what to look forward to when he had surgery, and the other alternatives. They also discussed places to eat in Los Angeles and things to do, which Ed shared with me.

At the conclusion of the program, Ed and I were invited to join a respiratory patient support group of those with respiratory problems, including past transplant patients, and other respiratory surgical patients.

His improvement during this three-month waiting period was also evaluated: Ed has gained 17 pounds since we arrived here and his respiratory improvement has been 30%. He can now walk 45 minutes on the treadmill at 1.4 miles per hour. Physically, Ed is far more ready for surgery NOW, than he was when we arrived in January (when he wanted surgery IMMEDIATELY). He will recovery from surgery better now, than he would have in January. Meanwhile, he is enjoying life more now. He still needs the surgery, but he is compensating better without it at least temporarily.

We have made many friends here in the ward and the area—even the friends he has made at therapy are unique and have enriched his life. We have learned a lot about Los Angeles, its history and culture, and its wonderful food by eating at a different ethnic restaurant each week (strictly to help him gain weight, you know—for no other reason!).

Helen Keller said it better than I could, “Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.”

Bring on the surgery—we are ready NOW!