My brother is my ......

I started to call him my hero, but that is not exactly it.  I admire what he is doing; I want to be able to do it. 

My mother died on Nov. 6th.  My siblings and I gathered with a number of other family and friends to honor her and take her home to Victor, Idaho to be buried next to my father and the other members of their family who have already died.  Jeff and I flew into SLC and picked up my brother as he arrived an hour later.   We spent four days together before we all went our separate ways.

This brother, Dave, has misused the lion's share of his life.  But, when I saw him that weekend, I thought he looked great.  He looked healthy, strong and good.  Good you say?  Yes, good.  It felt good being with him.  I wanted to spend time with him,  be close to him.  It became evident why this was happening as I watched him with the rest of the family.

He spent time with each member of the family.  Even those I knew he did not care for.  (at least I thought I knew)  I heard him say kind things, put his arm around themas he spoke with them.  I saw his head close to someone's ear as he spoke softly to them.  I watched their reactions to his comments.  Faces lit up, shoulders relaxed,  there was laughter.  I heard him say several times, "I want to make amends."  And he did.

He wasn't comfortable doing this.  But he went ahead and did it anyway.  As the weekend progressed, I felt something change.  There was a sweet peace in the air that has never been in one of our family gatherings.  Dave's children and my children and my sisters' children began to "bond".  (I hate that word, but it is the only one I can come up with right now.)  They melted into a family.  They cried, hugged each other, laughed, told Grandma Weekes stories.  They shared child rearing ideas and stories. They talked about fashion, Pinterest, jobs, family.  They sat close to each other and put their heads together, and just enjoyed the spirit that Dave had helped to create. 

I want to be like him.  I want to make amends.  I want to see the fruits of that effort flow out and over those around me.  I want to engage in that process.  Dave has been my teacher.  He has taught me how to repent, change my life, change lives around me and lift myself and others to a better place.  He is teaching me what the Atonement is and what it can do when we engage in the process of using it to change ourselves.  I saw it that weekend in November. 

A LIFE CRACKED OPEN

My husband and I went to Viet Nam in September.  Why there?  is the most often asked question  to such a statement.  Before our trip we told people that Drew, our son and Diane, his wife were going there as an "end of law school reward."  Our daughter in law is Vietnamese and they wanted to go to the land of her family.  Did we want to go? they wanted to know.  Of course, was my immediate response.  My husband stood slightly behind me at that moment and he cringed and agreed.  Not his first choice for a two week "vacation."

As Drew and I made plans, Jeff looked up everything he could find about the country.  He checked food, weather, government (Communist), and economic circumstances.  He was dismayed. It is a poor country with a depressed economy. He saw us staying in rat infested hotels battling malaria carrying mosquitoes at every turn. We were going during the monsoon season.  Last year in September Vietnam had 9 inches of rain.  (a bit of a dry monsoon month)  That is what the internet told him.  He read about mud slides, daily rain, typhoons... and on and on.  I felt his anxiety, but could not back out.  Airlines tickets were bought, hotel arrangements made and we were on schedule to go. 

We reassured ourselves that we could make most anything fun and that we go and have a great time.  We planned for rain, mosquitoes (and malaria), heat and humidity, bad water, allergies.  We were ready.  We were grateful to know that Diane would be with us.  We knew she could speak the language as we had heard her talk to her parents and they to her.  We would be ok as long as she was with us. We would make it, and after all it was only two weeks.

 We flew for 24 hours that became 36 because of the time change.  We got off the plane,went  through the lines at customs manned by stoic looking uniformed men and women, and out the door of the terminal....   into the heat and humidity we had been reading about, and it was 10 pm.  And so began a life changing experience. 

I cannot begin to explain the experience of being in that country.  I can say that I loved it, that I think of it almost every day, and I look forward to the day we will return.  I will love getting off the airplane.  I will love listening to people talk to each other. I will love the roadside food stands.  I will love the heat and humidity. 

I was so glad to have Diane with us, but by the 5th day I was ok when she and Drew went off to do their own thing.  By the beginning of the second week I was off exploring by myself.  Walking through Saigon in the early evening is.....   makes me smile to think of it.

We spent about 1/2 of our trip with members of Diane's extended family.  We lived, slept and ate local.  We made friends, laughed, chatted, ate SO MUCH food.  And explored a country that is trying to catch up with the outside world.  I hope they don't try so hard that they lose what makes them Viet Nam.  They are humble, kind, funny, smart, quick witted and happy.  They are family.  I don't want to paint a completely idyllic picture of this place.  There were sad elements, a lack of concern in some places of the state of the environment, too much poverty, unsavory characters.  Just like every other place on this earth.  But that was not our experience.  Ours was one of joy in simple things,  taking our time to choose lunch from a woman who sells everything from boiled fertilized duck eggs to roasted corn and chives, sitting with our new friends at their roadside cafe eating and laughing and talking as the night fell around us. 

This trip cracked my world wide open (and Jeff's too).  We see things differently now.  We know that we can go anywhere in the world and find a marvelous experience.  We went to the other side of the world and came home seeing everything differently.

Traditional Chinese Proverb

To suffer and learn a lesson, one pays a high price, but a fool can't learn any other way.

my husband has changed our life

my husband has changed our life... and I am amazed. One day I knew that something had changed in our life. This difference seemed to have been coming on for a number of days, and I could not put my finger on why it had happened. There was something kinder, sweeter, better in our home. Recognizing this change sort of dawned on me one afternoon. I could not explain it, or even really articulate it. I just knew things were different. AND, I found myself responding differently to my husband because of it. It all felt GOOD. There was a day around the first of January when my husband decided that he would take five minutes each day and think about me. He thought about what he liked about me, he thought about my strengths, he thought about what his life would be like if he did not have me any more..... (I did not know he was doing this.) I only know that I occasionally saw him looking At me with a tender look on his face. Sometimes he would just reach over and hold my hand for a moment. Sometimes it was just a feeling that passed through. Then, one day I heard him explain to someone what he had chosen for a goal this year, and the light came on for me. The changes in our life are a direct result of his choice to do that one little thing. that one little thing brought with it a flood of positives that we both enjoy. His tenderness brings out kindness in me that had not been evident for some time. It is that principle that says what you put out to the world come back to you abundantly. I am amazed.