It’s a beautiful Life

Photos by Janet Davis

"There are souls in this world which have the gift of finding joy everywhere -- and of leaving it behind them when they go." ~ Frederick Wm. Faber

Someone mentioned how bad it was that Ed and I had to wait in Los Angeles for Ed to get a new lung--how we must miss our family, our friends, our neighbors, all the comforts of own home.

I laughed, thinking of the disaster we had had the week before when someone (in any of the two floors of apartments above us) had put something down the kitchen drain and plugged it up, and since the pipes of all three apartments on the three floors were connected and we were on the bottom floor, we had a flooded kitchen. Until we could get all the upstairs neighbors notified and the water turned off, everything coming down the drains was coming out in my kitchen. It was a mess to clean up the dirty mess, then I had to stay home the next day to wait for plumbers, the roto-rooter man and then carpet cleaners to fix things up.

It is true that I wished then for my own reliable kitchen that in 20 years had never flooded, and for not hearing whenever neighbors flush their toilets, and for not sharing hot water with who-knows-how-many apartments—just knowing that I wait until I know everyone’s gone before I try to shower or I get your typical “freezing/scalding” hot water episodes during your shower.

Yes, our wait that we expected to be less than a month that is now almost three months, with no relief in sight, seems forever, but it also is an adventure. We can’t go work in the garden, because for now we don’t have a garden, or as Ed keeps reminding me every day—we have no snow to shovel or ice to trip on. No windows to scrape the frost off, no cold cars to heat up before you can drive them. Ed has enjoyed every day of the warm weather here in Los Angeles, and reminded me of it every moment. Even the rain hasn’t bothered him because it isn’t cold and it can’t freeze.

We have had fun exploring the museums in the area; I love learning about Los Angeles’ history, and despite the history books that say that California history began with the 1849 gold rush (HA), a lot happened before then and it fun learning about it. I discovered where the city of Los Angeles began (and it isn’t near the ocean), and what the first Mission was.

There is a wealth of ethnic restaurants, so we have gone out to eat at a different type of restaurant every week, trying Bosnia, Indian, Thai, Brazilian, Mexican, Kosher, as well as good old American cuisine. We have a very valid excuse also. Ed is still under weight and needs to gain more weight, which he does better when we eat out. We’ve even gone to movies, which I used to have to drag Ed to, but here in movie town, he seems more willing, somehow, especially if we buy a bag of hot buttered popcorn. I am even taking a three-day intensive genealogy course this week that I am excited about; who knows if I would have found time back home to take it.


Maybe it is the impermanence that allows us to enjoy our stay so much; if we were going to live here forever, maybe we would get into a rut and quickly burn out, but for now, it is still an adventure. Once Ed has his lung transplant, I am sure that it will be a lot more tedious and difficult. But we’re enjoying it tremendously now.

Last Friday I was walking around my neighborhood photographing the beautiful spring flowers and I thought how wonderful it was that I was in such a beautiful place to take photographs of.

Then my sister Janet sent me some photos she had taken on her morning walk. The area she walks in is not nearly as attractive an area as where I walk; some would say there is nothing beautiful, or interesting at all there to photograph. But the photos she takes are breathtaking in their splendor. They truly illustrate that beauty is in the eye of the beholder; that an artist sees with an inner eye. For her photos are magnificent glimpses of life.Janet's photos and her life show it IS a beautiful life.

My Mother Painted Peace

My mother painted peace. With gentle hands she sketched pastoral valleys nesting amid tall majestic mountains. Cool, placid waters flowed from her fingers and the snows of her mountain landscapes were confined only to mountaintops.

Peace is not just the absence of conflict any more than white is the absence of color. Peace embodies a true harmony of human and personal relations, a calmness of mind and heart. Mother’s paintings reflect that harmony as a blend of color and balance that conveys tranquility. Several of her paintings were displayed in doctor’s offices in the same way that light green paint is used in hospital settings—to calm the troubled minds of the patients.

One of Mother’s earliest paintings, a night camp, shows her love of the outdoors. It also demonstrates in a delicate way, Mother’s faith that even in the absence of the sun, God sends light to reflect his love.

“There is too much conflict in the world,” Mother once told me when I complained that her paintings were all the same. “I want to do in my paintings what I can’t do in life. I want to smooth off all the sharp edges and paint over life’s distortions. I try to capture peace and serenity on my canvases, not violence and suffering. I try to concentrate on the good and ignore the rest.”

Mother’s paintings reflected her personality—she was a delicate, soft-spoken woman who radiated a serenity that is rare in today’s high-decibel world. Neither the hardships of the Great Depression, nor the atrocities of World War II seemed to have marred her sweet amity.

Mother’s last two paintings, however, were a dramatic departure from the rest of her paintings. Rather than using the shades of blue and green that are so prevalent in all her other paintings, she used vibrant orange, brown and grey hues. Rather than pristine mountains and placid meadows, these show the stark landscape of southern Utah, an area that she felt lacked beauty.

Rather than calm, carefree summer, these were the only winter scenes that Mother painted. Yet, despite the barren trees, frozen snow and sullen skies, her signature serenity shows through the paintings.

Do these paintings reflect Mother’s tremendous suffering from cancer in her final years? In embracing and painting the Utah Canyonlands that she had disliked so intensely, did she accept the pain and agony of the cancer that destroyed her physical body, but elevated her spirit? Were these paintings self-portraits of a bared and defenseless soul?

The Luck of the Irish

The Luck of the Irish

My husband, Ed, has the luck of the Irish. He can find a parking place right by the front door of stores (even here in Los Angeles where there are no parking places), where I feel lucky if I find a parking place in the last row. He win raffles, is chosen first for teams and has every other example of good luck known to man. Even if he has problems, like running out of gas, it is nullified because he runs out of gas in front of the gas station.

He attributes this good luck to his “Irish” heritage, per his last name of “Dayley,” yet he is equally parts German, English, Danish, Swedish—and mostly American! He attributes my lack of luck to my Danish heritage as “everyone” knows the only luck the Danish have is bad luck!

Do the Irish Have Better Luck Than Other Nationalities?

However, the phrase “luck of the Irish” is an ironic phrase. The Irish have been, and are a spectacularly unlucky race. Even in America, they were looked down on as low-class immigrants. But the notion that Irish are inherently luckier than others can be traced to the 1850s in the United States where, during the exploration for gold in the West, there were a high number of Irish people who got lucky, and found their "pot o' gold" in the gold fields of California, or were equally prosperous in silver mining.1

What Is Luck?

Luck is difficult to explain. The dictionary defines it as “a belief in good or bad fortune in life caused by accident or chance, and attributed by some to reasons of faith or superstition, which happens beyond a person's control.”2

The Romans embodied luck as a goddess, “Fortuna” while people in America believe in common symbols of luck such as rabbit’s feet, four-leaf clover, horse shoes, wishbones, and “lucky” seven. In other countries, good-luck symbols are pigs, fish, fish scales, acorns, tortoises. I can remember as a child looking through lilac flowers to find one that had three flowers (or was it four? Whatever it was, it was different from the ordinary number). If I found one, I’d put it in my shoe and make a wish. Perhaps good luck symbols became lucky because they were commonly uncommon items like four-leaf clovers instead of ordinary three-leaf ones.

Luck as a self-fulfilling prophecy

Can a feeling that you are lucky become a self-fulfilling prophecy? Although few believe in superstition, and many discourage dependence on a “lucky shirt” for a ball player, or blind faith in lucky objects, is there any benefit in believing in luck?

Some psychologists feel belief in good luck, although it is a false idea, may produce positive thinking, much like a placebo provides benefits although there are no inherently beneficial ingredients in them. Studies have also shown that “People who believe in good luck are more optimistic, more satisfied with their lives, and have better moods.”3

Can Anyone Be Lucky?

So, should you decide you are lucky, and then live like you are? Why not? If it makes you happier and brings you better luck, it seems a no brainer to not to. Another article said, “If ‘good’ and ‘bad’ events occur at random to everyone, believers in good luck will experience a net gain in their fortunes, and vice versa for believers in bad luck. This is clearly likely to be self-reinforcing.”4

So from this day forward, I, too, have the luck of the Irish because I am married to an Irishman. Or maybe I am lucky because if I could choose to be an Irishman, I would be. Maybe people born in March are lucky; or maybe the Danish are luckier than the Irish. Or maybe I was just born lucky, no matter what nationality I am. Maybe all Americans are just naturally lucky!

I just know that I am lucky. And so are you. Eat your heart out, Ed!

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1.

http://Wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_origin_of_the_term_%Luck_of_theIrish%27

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luck

3. Maltby, J., Day, L., Gill, P., Colley, A., Wood, A. M. (2008). Beliefs around luck: Confirming the empirical conceptualization of beliefs around luck and the development of the Darke and Freedman beliefs around luck scale Personality and Individual Differences, 45, 655-660.

4. Ibid.

I’ve Never Fit In

I've always done things "my way" from the time I was a baby and refused to crawl; instead I got up and walked. My father called me individualistic and unique. My mother called me stubborn.

I was too old to be a baby-boomer, too young to be part of the World War II patriotic generation. I was too young for the "Happy Days" 50s, but too old and settled for the swinging 60s. I disliked Elvis Presley, and was unawed by the Beatles. I liked to say I was eccentric, but my brothers and sisters called me odd!

I was married when it was swinging to be single and still on my first and only marriage when my friends were collecting divorces and multiple marriages. Somehow I never fit in with society.

I was a feminist before it was fashionable; a mother of pre-schoolers when children were passé' and zero population was big. I went to college when homemaking was the style and dropped out to be a homemaker when careers became the craze! My husband served in Vietnam when protesting the war was hip; we were conservative before Reagan made it popular. I don't think I voted for any presidential candidate that won.

I did aerobics (while my children shut the drapes and locked the doors so the neighbors wouldn't find out) until it caught on and then I rode my bike. We lived in the city while everyone else moved to the suburbs, then reversed the trend when "gentrifying city neighborhoods" became the "IN" thing to do. We never went near the Silicon Valley.

Our contemporaries were celebrating empty nests and grandchildren when I came up with the most outrageous idea since the invention of birth control. We decided to have another child (in our already hopelessly "large" family of six) in our forties. So what happens; the "new traditionalism," large families and having babies "late in life" comes into style and I'm declared a trend-setter.


I'll never live it down.

Perspectives

“A child on a farm sees a plane fly overhead and dreams of a faraway place. A traveler on the plane sees the farmhouse — and dreams of home.” Carl Burns

I have a new camera so I have been taking online classes on how to use it. One of the first lessons was on lighting. I had Ed sit on a chair by the window and I took close-up pictures of him from every angle with the light coming from the window. The photos showed how the natural light from the window reflected the shadows on his face as it struck his face from various angles. When his face was completely backlit from the window, I took photos of his face in shadow, then turned on the flash to make it fill-flash the shadows.




Each picture looked different from the other, both in technique, and in mood. (I have not retouched the lighting with Photoshop or other programs.)

But what this exercise made me think about was how we look at things –our perspective—colors our view of life. We all know this is true from asking two people to describe the same encounter or meeting; we receive two different descriptions of the same thing. They see the same experience through the prism of their own understandings, their past. Also, their attitude at the time, for good or bad, colors the incidence colors for good or bad. Even the basic personality of the person influences an incidence tremendously. Frederick Langbridge said: “Two men look out through the same bars: One sees the mud, and one the stars.”

Even the passage of time changes an incidence in our memory. What may have been a fairly mild experience may be colored by our memory to become a terrible incidence far worse than it originally was. The perspective of time, emotion, what has happened to us during the passage of time changes the memory until it warps the incident.

During much of my life I have written a journal and letters, keeping copies on my computer, of things that were important to me. This has been deliberate—to provide a record of the incidents and attitudes of that particular time. It has been a way for me to preserve a photograph of that moment in time, along with the feelings and information for the future.

I have tried to be as true as possible to record the truth, knowing of course that it is only “MY” truth I am recording. It has been interesting to look back and find “collaborating” evidence that validates my memory many times. It has also been interesting to find recently when reviewing my journal entry of my pregnancy with Bryan that I had built up Marc’s rebellion in my mind. When I talked to Marc, and then I checked with my journal I realized that Marc’s memory was correct, and the past had warped my memory. I was grateful I had my journal to correct my mistake.

It has been helpful to talk over some of our joint memories with Ed, as I find that I remember feelings connected to the memories much more strongly than the details of which day of the week, where we were, etc. Again, if I have recorded the experience in my journal, the details are recorded and it is valuable. Ed’s memory is more accurate as to days, places, even names. I laugh when he says, “Do you remember Lieutenant Blank’s wife in El Paso? She was really good-looking!” I don’t remember which women were attractive! And I never noticed which men were handsome; I only had eyes for Ed!!! But then when I say, “Do you remember that sister at Ft. Hood who was from Bountiful and who taught primary?” he looks at me like I’m crazy and rolls his eyes!

But perspective is perspective. No one can see things from your own perspective. No one can see things from the perspective of the past. Each experience in our life is painted with the emotions and memories of that time; when viewed from another time—the future—the perspective is different, so the memory may be different. When Ed left for Vietnam, I didn’t know whether he would return and his departure was drenched with those uncertainties. Looking back now, I can remember my feelings of that departure, but they are tempered by my certainty that he did return.

Another aspect of perspective that we often don’t think about is that of eternal perspective. Some people don’t even think that there is perspective other than that of today; they feel there was no life before this earth and will be no life after this one. But I know that this is but act II of a three-act play and to understand this life on earth, I must look at it with an appreciation of its eternal perspective.

The eternal perspective makes explains so many of life’s unanswerable questions and helps us bear our burdens, knowing that the third act will resolve many of the unsolvable problems we are dealing with today.

Years ago I was facing breast cancer, something that my mother and my aunts had died from. I was terrified and felt I could not deal with something that emotionally and physically threatened me. Instead, the lump the doctors thought was cancer was a false alarm, but soon afterwards, I was struck down by a severe case of post-streptococcal glomerular nephritis. For months I was so sick, and then as I recovered, I would suddenly have a relapse and I did not know when or if I would be well. I finally recovered from the nephritis, and then I was faced again with the possibility of breast cancer.

By then I realized that there are many things worse than losing a breast to cancer and many treatments that were not available in my mother’s day that could prevent me from dying like she had. My perspective of having cancer had changed dramatically because of the year I had had nephritis, and I accepted the diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer better than I would have earlier.

There are many things we do not understand now that we will know some day when we have an eternal perspective. Paul explained it in his words to the Corinthians: “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” 1 Cor. 13: 12

My Collections

Many people collect various items such as coins, stamps, dolls, shot glasses, plates, and spoons. Do what people collect reflect on their personalities? Or do what people collect have no indication of their interests at all and are just random? I tried collecting international stamps when I worked at the Liahona, the church’s international magazine and we got stamps from all over the world. It didn’t interest me and I have a box full of stamps from all over the world. Ed has collected coins since he was a boy, and shares his interest in coins with Athena and several of our grandchildren, but the coins leave me cold.

I have been interested in collecting Madame Alexander dolls since I received my first one at age seven. It was the "Beth" doll from Little Women (My mother had named me after Beth in Little Women). I received a doll from Denmark as a teen and that increased my interest in dolls to not just Madame Alexander dolls, but dolls of all nationals also.

I’ve increased my collection of dolls throughout the years, adding dolls from where we have lived and where others have lived in the world. I’ve added quite a few Madame Alexander dolls, especially the smaller dolls from the various nations. I’ve a few of the storybook dolls, including Cinderella and Snow White and even a few historic dolls, Romeo and Juliet, Napoleon and Josephine, Christopher Columbus and Queen Isabella. I have the Little Women dolls, Marmie, Amy, Jo, Beth, & Meg and some other characters. Ed has insisted I keep all the boxes that go with the dolls as they increase their value.

Since we’ve been in the military and traveled all over the world, I’ve collected many dolls from other countries, but the ones that I like the most are the ones with personal attachment; I love the southwestern Indian doll that I bought when we lived in El Paso that reminded me of El Paso’s rich Spanish/Indian heritage. Ed brought me an Alaskan Eskimo doll when he was in Alaska. The Greek dolls with their ethnic costumes Ed got in the Greek islands were special.

However, as my collection grew, the dolls that meant the most were the subgenre that became my “women at work” collection showing women all over the world doing work—the handmade Scottish doll that a British friend sent me of a woman mending fishing nets; the handmade Italian doll that an Italian sister made showing a woman knitting; a Korean doll dancing in an ethnic costume with a fan; the authentic French wooden Provence dolls of women selling bread, gathering flowers, and doing other domestic tasks. The Vietnamese doll balancing her barrels; the African doll with the jug on her head; the Israeli woman with her basket on her hip.

These were the dolls that meant the most to me and that I had the hardest time locating. They weren’t found in the tourist markets or on the internet; usually they were given me or I located them through friends. Sometimes I found one at The Deseret Industries or the Good Will store or a garage sale—they seldom were valuable in monetary terms.

Their value to me was in what they represented—the worth of a woman’s work, wherever she is, whatever she does.

Photogram

Photogram: shadowlike photographic image made on paper without the use of a negative or a camera. It is made by placing objects between light-sensitive paper or film and a light source. Opaque objects lying directly on the paper produce a solid silhouette; transparent images or images that do not come in direct contact with the paper produce amorphous, mysterious images.



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