Born of Goodly Parents, part 1: Pullman

 “…Seek learning, even by study and also by faith” 

I was “born of goodly parents,”

 third of three children born within two and a half years.  

My older sister was just over 28 months old, and my older brother was nearly 18 months when I was born. 

Eventually, when my two younger brothers were born--five years later, then eight and a half years later, I became the middle of five children.    

My mom remembers shortly following my birth, that she suffered severe emotional challenges.  

She remembers that my father, Glendon, also was discouraged about the project he was working on, his doctoral thesis.  Gathering it and writing it seemed to be unending and insurmountable.

 Dad got pneumonia.  Mom remembers that he wanted to die. But somehow, they both overcame their challenges.  I love the story Mom tells freely--that as the two came together at the end of the day, Mom remembers that Dad would ask, “Would you like me to wash the dishes or bathe the children and help get them ready for bed?  Mom would choose the dishes and Dad would bathe us and rub our hair and send us running naked all over the house before bed.  

The women in her church congregation watched us while they combined efforts to teach Mom to drive.  She traveled regularly from Pullman some distance to visit a counselor who helped her to change some of her expectations and affirmations: 

“I don’t have to be perfect today.”

“I am beautiful."

"I belong."

"I have limits.”

A friend shared a therapeutic exercise of drawing out and coloring in poster board challenges from life.  I did this.  The first picture was a stick figure of being youngest of three under age three.  My siblings were creative, imaginative, talented, and directive.  Being youngest was no easy chore. 

 However, the second part to my exercise was to look for the joy that was set before me, for the challenge I bore.  The joy for me--ended up being the same as the chore--to be a younger sibling to creative, imaginative, talented fellow earthlings.  I became part of a "Three Musketeer" group.  

(I have two complimentary posts that celebrate the growing up and lives of my older brother and sister--the first has a collection of funny stories.) 

I learned to love and be loved.  I watched and gathered insight from simply being present. Discovering “the glory of God is intelligence,”  I was surrounded by intelligence--which made early life for me, no short of glorious!  

My first memory, I think I was about three years old.  It was dark. I was sitting outside the bathroom door, not feeling well. Why do I remember this?  Perhaps it is so that I may nurture and develop compassion for others that are not physically, emotionally or spiritually well. 

 

Another memory, I am not sure I really remember.  However, the story is retold.  I had a friend named Kelly who would come to play.  I must have been about three or four years old.  My mom remembers that I would invite Kelly into our home at the married student apartments on North Fairway, Pullman, Washington, Washington State University.  I would ask her: “Would you like to watch me do my puzzle?”  

I am learning how appropriate and necessary it is, for each of us to learn to work through our individual puzzles. Decades later, serving as organist to play prelude in the chapel of the Bountiful temple, I met Sister Carol Jean Coombs, wife of the counselor in our Pullman bishopric,

 who had encouraged our mom to go to a counselor and learn to drive.  (Sister Coombs was the organist scheduled directly after me.)  Sister Coombs remembered me!  Her words, “You were CUTE!”

I may have been precocious.  It is a fact that I love to learn.  Learning quickens me!  My experience is, however, only accompanied with meekness, humility, and deference, will it enhance relationships.  I am patiently working to master respect, compassion for others, those that learn at different paces than my own. 

A memory I have at barely age four, December of 1965, somehow, we visited a Santa Claus, who was being broadcast over radio.  Santa asked me what I would like for Christmas.  I told him that I would like sticks and stones for Christmas (we had been told if we were not good that Santa would bring sticks and stones.)  I decided that if I received sticks and stones that my brother could build me a doll house.

 

I am learning some lessons from this story.  Number one:  the creative thinking of a child.  Things that were supposed to be awful and unpleasant might be reconstructed to become happy, wanted things.  I still believe this is possible.  With the sticks and stones of who I was, I trust and know that He can and will build the best version of me. 

Another thing I learned from this story, is that some things that we expect and hope for can materialize as different than desired.  Santa did bring sticks and stones that Christmas.  However, the sticks were very small, and they were mixed with soil in a paper sack, apparently extracted from the back yard—not like I was hoping for—sterile and clean, like Legos or Lincoln Logs, prepared and ready for me to make into a doll house!

 

Santa also brought a doll that cried.  And cried nicely--at least until it became immersed in the bath tub.  Then the crying ceased. 

 

A memory that my brother David shared with me about Christmas, is that one year he had a friend who lost his parents.  I think there was a fire in his house.  The boy was sent to live with extended family.  We learned that the gifts of Christmas are much less about material things, instead they center in cherished relationships. (For more Christmas memories with pictures, look here.)

 

More memories:

I loved to race.  Everything was a race.  Life was a race.  And my older brother, David, liked to race, too.  He gave me a run for my money.  I remember racing home every day after kindergarten.

One afternoon, as my brother was getting ready to cross the street, a car raced around the corner and screeched to miss him, which frightened us all. In a few short seconds, we learned that the race was not worth losing a life.  We value one another more than we care about who is the winner!

The autumn before, there is a lengthy description of on one of the Woolensac reel to reel audio tapes when I am about three years old describing the big decision that my parents made to cross a continent, to leave their families and familiar culture to try a new adventure on the East Coast.  Dad finished the beleaguered thesis, passed his exams and accepted a position to teach soil science with the University of New Hampshire.  This was very far from home.  But with faith and a prayer, anything is possible!