My son is taking a photography class in college and recently made some photograms. He was impressed with the special effects he could get by placing different objects on photosensitive paper. Even leaving similar objects on the paper for different amounts of time gave a different outcome.
It reminded me of the experiences we have in our lives, especially the tragedies or sadnesses and how they shade and influence our lives in various ways. Of course sometimes their impact or the shadows they leave on our life are just squiggles, but other times, their shadows take up a large portion of our life’s portrait and modify forever the design. But each experience in our life makes an impact, just as each object on the light-sensitive paper makes an impression of one kind or the other.
Twins: My oldest son and his wife lost their premature twins during the last two weeks. They had been so thrilled to expect these two little ones to complete their family and so happy when she passed the danger point when miscarriage seemed likely. Their two little children were happily awaiting siblings, although the two-year-old wasn’t really sure. When asked if he wanted a baby brother and sister, he said, “No, I’d rather have monkeys.”
Then suddenly she went into labor, and was rushed to the hospital. We yearned and prayed and were so hopeful, but first the little boy died, and then 10 days later, the little girl died. Two weeks of hope died as little Trevor James and Josephine Diana became only names on the family roll.
During this difficult time, my mind fled again and again to shadows on my life portrait.
Andrew: I remember another January when I was with another son in another hospital as he and his wife got the news that their full-term baby was dead. They were told that she would have to deliver the dead baby. I was with her while she struggled through the labor pains that would bring not joy, but sorrow. I cried as they held the tiny grey body and my son said, “Look, he has the cleft in the chin that is our family trait.”
They buried him right above my mother’s grave, knowing that she would love to have him there, his tiny body resting close to her maternal one. Each year on his birthday, I traipse through the snow and leave some balloons and an age appropriate toy on his grave, thinking of what he would be doing if he were alive instead of dead.
It is easy to imagine him growing strong and healthy as two of my neighbors had sons the same week as Andrew was born and died. My neighbor across the street brought her son home the day of Andrew’s funeral, and another neighbor blessed and named their son the day that we would have blessed and named Andrew. As I see those two young men enjoying each birthday and marking each of life’s milestones—going to school, being baptized, playing football, now at age 12 being ordained to the priesthood, I think of Andrew whose body lies cold in his grave.
But I rejoice in those young men’s progress, and imagine how Andrew would also be growing and progressing, if he were alive. I think how he would look like his father with his cleft chin, and like his mother with her bright eyes also. Would he be tall or short? Would he be athletic? Whatever he would be, he still is, just in the spirit world. I will see him again, and see him grow and progress in person someday!
Bryan: Another shadow on my life is when I was pregnant in my 40s in Italy. Not only my age, but medical problems were against me, and I had to stay down most of my pregnancy. I had three teenagers, and a ten-year-old so it wasn’t physical help that I needed, but my husband was fighting osteomyelitis, and during much of that time he was in Walter Reed Hospital in the States, and I was left alone with the children. My one son was being rebellious and causing problems, my oldest son spent a semester in the states in school, and I was sick most of the time.
At three months of pregnancy, my kidney function and blood pressure became so bad that I was put on bed-rest. My past nephritis was causing problems and I had severe asthma, but since my kidneys could not clear out the asthma medicine, I was always sick. For three months I was flat in bed, but at six months I finally was over the worst and doing well so I could get up again.
Then I hemorrhaged, was rushed to the hospital and they discovered that the placenta was over the cervix and had separated. I was in the hospital in Padua on I. V. for four days still bleeding, while they tried to decide what to do with me. Some doctors recommended sending me to Germany to Landstuhl with a better neo-natal unit, but there they couldn’t save a baby under 32 weeks; Some recommended sending me back to the states to a hospital that could help babies younger than 32 weeks. Some even suggested there was nothing that could be done because I was only 28 weeks pregnant. Many prayers and blessings followed. Finally the bleeding stopped and they decided to “wait and see.” So eventually I went home and stayed down completely afraid to move for fear I would lose the baby.
I worried about the baby the rest of the time, whether he would be born too early, whether he would have to be born Cesarean, whether I would hemorrhage—but we made it! I did hemorrhage and he was born emergency Cesarean, but we were so blessed to make it through a difficult time of worry and stress, with him born healthy and strong. This was a time when all our worries ended up with good news.
1966: Ed joined the army in February 1966; he finished basic training and began flight school in Texas in April 1966. In July I joined him at Ft. Wolters, Texas. I got a small apartment on base while he lived in the barracks. I could pick him up and bring him home at 1:00 pm Saturday and he didn’t have to be back to the barracks until Sunday at 5:00 pm. I could see him every night for a couple of hours, although he could not leave the parking lot. It was a regimented life, but a lot better than waiting for him in Utah. We knew that he would go to Vietnam right after flight school so we wanted to spend as much time together as we could.
We were excited when I became pregnant soon as I got to Texas. It meant that I would have a baby to take care of while Ed was in Vietnam. I went to my first OB appointment and the doctor said everything was going fine. Then in October when I was three months pregnant, I started bleeding heavily and went to the emergency room. They confirmed I was miscarrying and hospitalized me.
They said they would get the message to Ed’s commanders and through channels to Ed. It was a Wednesday night, which meant I normally would have been able to see him at 5:30 pm. I was sure that they would allow Ed to come to the hospital to see me during visiting hours. Meanwhile, Ed sat through his “visiting hours” in the barracks wondering why I wasn’t there to see him. He became angry thinking I was doing something else that was more important than coming to see him. After “visiting hours” were over, they called a formation. The CQ (Charge of Quarters) came out and walked over to Ed while he stood in the formation. He told Ed that I had miscarried and dismissed the formation. Ed went to his TAC Officer and requested permission to go to the hospital and see me. He growled at Ed, “Write me a letter and I’ll look at it.” Ed wrote him a formal request, but when Ed presented it to the TAC Officer, he denied it.
Meanwhile, at the hospital, I was upset that Ed had not come to see me, but I was more upset that I’d lost the baby. When the doctor came in the next morning, they did a D&C, kept me a while, then sent me home. I was at the barrack at “visiting hours” to see Ed.
I had miscarried once before in Utah before Ed joined the army, but I hadn’t been as far along. This second miscarriage in Texas really wiped me out. I was angry at my body for “rejecting” the baby. I didn’t eat right; I didn’t take care of myself. I felt sadness for that little soul that was in far greater proportion to what others thought I should feel. We had been married for over three years and I wondered if I would ever have children.
We moved to Alabama for the last six months of flight school, and there the doctors discovered I had Hashimoto’s disease, a malfunction of the thyroid that was probably the cause of my miscarriages. They stabilized me with medication. In April 1967, we finished flight school and went home to Utah before Ed left for Vietnam. I was pregnant with my first son, Marlowe, who would be born in December 1967, while Ed was in Vietnam.
Our life has patterns like the photogram. It has dark shadows, and light sections, designs that form configurations, and odd arrangements that clash and jar the eye. But without the various shades, it would be nothing. Nephi said it better than I can:
“For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my first-born in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility.” 2 Nephi 2:11
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