My story part four: Losing someone

Before going on I have something to say (as opposed to having to say something).  I never want it to appear that the purpose of this is cast April in a bad light.  I was thinking about this on my way home from work today and wanted everyone reading this to realize that April has endured a lot of things that most people will never have to worry about - even in their worst nightmares.  How many teenagers do you know who have been awakened in the middle of the night by their father who is in agony because, of all things, he has an itch between his shoulder blades and can't move his own body to scratch it?  I know three - April and her two brothers. Well, April's bedroom was the closest to her dads so this would happen to her on occasion.  That's in addition to changing his colostomy bag, filling his feeding tube, etc.  That selfless devotion was one of the things that drew me to her.  I had hoped to give her a good life so she could have it better than she did when she was a kid.  It just didn't work out that way and I wish I had an explanation for it.  What I'm about to share with you is tied for the worst thing that has ever happened to me.
In a previous post I said that this story could resemble a comedy of errors.  If that isn't clear yet then I think it will be after this.
When April started to feel marginally better her brother really did us all a favor and offered her a job working for his real estate company (you've probably heard of Equity Real Estate which is now the largest brokerage in the Utah.  Well, my brother-in-law started that little venture in his basement).  It was great because she could work from home and it helped her to get back on her feet again.
Around this time she started to investigate adoption.  We had been unsuccessful to this point at providing Haley, who was now 10 years old, with a sibling she desperately wanted.  People would ask her, "don't you want to be an only child?  Don't you get everything you want?".  She would always say that she would rather have a little brother or sister.  I don't recall exactly when April broached the subject of adoption with me but I was apprehensive.  Adoption is expensive.  She worked on me for a long time before I would agree to it.  The only problem I had with it was the financial part of it.  I love kids and, if I'm going to put in a shameless plug for myself somewhere it might as well be here - I am a kid magnet.  Kids, especially the shy ones, always find there way into my lap. Mostly because I was a shy kid and I reach out to them.  I don't know what it is but kids are drawn to me (maybe because I haven't grown up yet).  I knew I would never have a problem treating 'someone else's' kids as my own.  My only reservations concerned money.  The cheapest way for Mormon's to adopt is through LDS social services because they base it on 10-percent of your previous years income and cap it at 10k.  Well, after researching it a little more we discovered that we would probably have a difficult time getting picked by a birth mother due to the sheer number (literally hundreds) of couples who had identical profiles to ours:  young couple in their mid thirties with one natural child.  The deck was stacked against us so she started to look for alternatives.  Let me tell you that the adoption business (and it is a business) is a racket!  Not only is it expensive but everyone wants their cut.  The adoption agency, the government, and even the birth mother all see dollar signs and they see you coming from a mile away. We looked at Africa, China, Russia, Central and South America.  It was just as insane everywhere we looked.
Now it wasn't that we couldn't have children.  The problem was that she would need surgery again to treat her endometriosis (which is a build up of scar tissue on the uterus wall) in order to get pregnant and avoid another miscarriage (and even that was no guarantee).  Yeah, there was no way in hell I was going to ask her to undergo another surgery just so we could get pregnant - not after the last year's worth of misery.  So it was adoption or bust.  I was still very reluctant because we would have to go into debt to pay for the adoption and we still had a couple of doctor bills and had just bought a new car (I really miss that Murano
To her credit she poured her heart and soul into finding the most inexpensive adoption agency possible - Unique Adoptions out of Murietta California.  They seemed great at the time but please get the word out to your friends and family to NEVER let anyone you know use this agency.  They will take your money and leave you high and dry.  In April's defense, she did a lot of research and they seemed to check out OK but here's the deal:  for $12k you get into their pool of adoptive parents and for 2 years they will try and match you with a birth mom - after 2 years you are SOL.  I repeatedly told them what we had to spend on birth mother expenses but they just never seemed to get it.  On top of the 12 grand you can be looking at an additional twenty thousand bucks in birth mother expenses.
Over the next year and a half I would check in regularly with David (I had other names for him by the time this was all over) to see if he had any news for us:  Yes we were still open to any gender, race, religion, skin color, etc. and no we were not in a position to pay 25 thousand dollars to a birth mother.  It was really frustrating to keep repeating myself EVERY time to this guy.  We had one shot at this and I repeatedly told this to the agency.  They had to match us with a viable birth mother and it had to work the first time because it would be the only time.
Well, long story short we got 'the call'.  A 25 year old single mother in Shreveport, Louisiana was interested in our profile and wanted to talk to us that night.  It was exciting and scary at the same time.  What if she didn't like us?  Did she know what Mormons were?  Was she for real or was she looking for a handout?
I expected a weird conversation but it was actually very pleasant and promising.  Her name was Marquita (she goes by Qweet) and she seemed really nice. We flew to Shreveport in December of 2008 to meet her.

We hit it off and everything seemed to be going well.  She was due in early February so we planned to return home and then come back to Shreveport to be there for the birth.  She was having a boy.  We picked the name William Marcus and Qweet loved it.  William (for me) and Marcus (because it was close to Marquita) - it was perfect.
By this time word had gotten out in our ward.  Qweet wanted out of Louisiana so we had been contemplating how to get her to Utah so she could have the baby here.  A friend in our ward was finishing his basement and offered to let her live there for as long as she wanted - he also donated frequent flier miles for plane tickets for Qweet and her 6-year-old son J (more on J later) to fly here (I still have those two tickets in their names which can only be used by them - which means they are useless now). Another friend had petitioned his entire family for money (instead of buying each other gifts that year for Christmas they pooled their money and gave it to us - $400).  Another friend from down the street, whose 4 year old son was battling Leukemia just showed up on our porch with $200 cash and said 'we don't care what you do with it, we just wanted to help'.  We were over whelmed with all of the kindness (I will really miss this ward).  Things were coming together better than I had ever believed possible.
For the first time I really believed it would happen - I would have a son!  Qweet's health deteriorated to the point where she was being admitted to the hospital frequently to treat her blood pressure which made it impossible for her to fly to Utah so we now new we were going to have to go to Louisiana for the birth.  We kept in very close contact with Qweet in the weeks leading up to her due date which, due to her preeclampsia, continued to move up.  The first week of February was our target time to be there.
We made plans to go a few days before the due date just in case.  We had also decided, for good or ill, to take Haley with us.  Still don't know if that was the right choice or not but we did it.
 

J

Qweet had a 6 year old son named Jay.  His real name is Ja'Keldric but Qweet shortened it to 'J' because she thought his full name sounded stupid (her words not mine).  He was very polite, sweet and hungry.  He was also very nervous - which I think any kid would be who had seen his dad shot in the face while sitting next to him on the front lawn.  His dad survived but was struck by 4 or 5 bullets and lost an eye - and  apparently always wore an eye patch.  The drive-by was gang related and prompted J's dad to seek change in life style.  They are all lucky none of the several kids or other adults there that night were injured.
As a side note:  would someone please just teach these morons to shoot?  If they would just shoot each other instead of the innocent bystanders then we would at least make some progress.   
When Qweet was in the hospital we took J with us to our hotel. He was a rowdy sleeper.

This was how he started out but before long he was completely sideways and had all but pushed Haley out of bed.

J was a really cute and polite kid.  I sometimes wonder what he is up to and how he is doing.

I have never heard anything like the way that kid would grind his teeth in his sleep.  He was one poor little stressed out boy.  One morning I took him down to the pool because he said he had never been in one before and didn't know how to swim.  I had a goal to teach him to swim before we left but it didn't happen.  I got him into the water and let him just climb on my back while I took him around the pool.  Man that kid had a death grip.  I had to remind him not to choke me!  When we were done he asked me something I will never forget:  He looked up at me and said: "Kevin, are you normal?"  First of all that's a loaded question to ask an engineer.  When I didn't know how to answer he said:  "You're really nice, I just wondered if that's normal". Second, what kind of world does a 6 year old boy live in where he would even feel compelled to ask that question?  I can't even remember what, if anything, I said to him but that broke my heart.  We were going to rescue his little brother from that hell and leave him behind.  Unbelievable.

When we finally got to Louisiana we spent most of our time taking Qweet to her Dr. appointments, out to eat or to the store.  We used part of the money given to us by our friends to buy her and Jay a new wardrobe. I was appalled at the behaviour of some of the men.  Pretty much every time we went to Walmart she would get cat calls.  It was unbelievable.  They would walk by, stop and say "damn, girl.  How do I get me some of that?".  It was shameless.  I learned (from Qweet) that the bigger girls are desirable because if you were skinny it almost invariably meant you were on drugs.  It was easy to see that Qweet was not a crack addict.
It is worth noting that Qweet never really got a fair shake in life.  Her dad has been in prison for armed robbery since she was a toddler and her mother died of cancer only a couple of years before we met her.  The circle of life in such places as Shreveport is difficult to break out of and becomes generational.  It is heart rending. 
We waited patiently for her due date and kept busy on the weekdays swimming, walking down the river walk (which was pretty cool), and just hanging out.  We even went to the horse races at the track behind our hotel.  I had never been and Haley loves horses so we went to watch.  It was neat because we could get down right next to the track where we could hear, and feel, the pounding of their hoofs.  Never seen anything like that before up close.

Shadows from left to right:  April, Qweet, Me, and Haley.

Well, it was getting past the time when we originally expected the birth to take place and I was worried about getting back to work as my vacation time was limited.  We were coming up on a week and a half already.  We began to pray that she would either go into labor or that the doctor would just induce her.  I can't recall now but there was some reason they were unwilling to induce her and I just can't remember why.
The short version is that for some reason we had to take her to the hospital and while we were there they admitted her and planned to induce her.  That hospital, which was an extension of LSU medical center, is one of the most frightening places I have ever been.  It looked like it was in a war zone the way it was surrounded with barbed wire and had 24 hour guards.  After dark you had to be buzzed in by security.  A funny note:  When we were waiting for the elevator one time I looked out the window down to one of the freight entrances where a hearse was delivering a corpse.  The orderlies dropped the gurney and the body rolled off!  I don't know why that was funny but I'm glad Haley didn't see it.
One depressing thing about that night in the hospital was that there were 8 or 9 women having babies and Qweet was only one of two that had any support - not one of them had a husband.

Qweet was very sick that night and we tried to cheer her up by making faces at her and she made one back:

April, bless her heart, slept in the armchair in that tiny room that night.  We had hoped to all be there for the birth but Haley was tired and hungry so we left.  By the time we got back to the hotel William Marcus was born.  He was beautiful.  He was tiny but had huge hands, feet and lips!

It is still hard for me to look at this picture.  April was so happy. I hadn't seen her like that for a long, long time.

April was so happy - the happiest I had seen her in a long, long time.  She looked so pretty holding him.  We all fell instantly in love with him - how could you not?
Another side note:  Marcus's dad had 7 kids, all with different women.  Apparently he was two-timing Qweet and she and the other girl found out about the same time.  Well one night they waited for him outside his house and beat the shit (sorry) out of him.  They sent him to the hospital in pretty bad shape - and he was not a small guy.  Hell hath no fury....
OK, back to the story.  Qweet's health was still poor so when it was time to check out of the hospital she asked us to take Marcus with us and keep him at night so she could rest.  This we did gladly!  He was such a great baby.  He never really cried, he would just squawk when he was hungry or poopy and then go back to sleep. He reminded me in a lot of ways of Haley when she was a newborn. 
It was fun to watch Haley feed and change him.  She was giddy - we all were.  The girls would just hold him and kiss him all over his face.
But April was the the first to notice (she usually was) that something was wrong.  When we would take Marcus to see Qweet, April would notice little nuances - like how she looked at him, how she held him and talked to him.  She was bonding with him (I don't know how that could have been avoided) and April could tell Qweet was going to have a hard time going through with it.  One thing that really hurt us was that in the great state of Louisiana a birth mother cannot relinquish her parental rights until one week after the baby is born.  In Utah, if I'm not mistaken, she could to it before the birth - Utah has some of the best adoption laws in the country - at least as far as adoptive parent rights are concerned.  Had that been the case for us, we might still have Marcus.  As it was, a week was just too long.  When Qweet got feeling well enough we took her to the attorney's office for her to sign.  We sat in the waiting room and as the time dragged on, we looked at each other and realize that something was wrong.  The attorney came out and invited us into an adjacent office to tell us that Qweet was having second thoughts.  I'm suspicious of this guy because when we talked to Qweet later she told us that religion had come up and he asked her if she knew we were Mormons.  We had talked openly with Qweet about religion to the point where we had identified all of our common beliefs and dispelled many of the myths about the LDS faith.  We thought we were good to go with regard to that.  I just have a feeling he may have told her some stuff that wasn't true.
Well, the ride back to the hotel was awkward to say the least.  She still wanted us to take Marcus at night so she could rest but we were reluctant to do it.  She said she needed to think about her decision.  This was a Friday.  She had to decide because I had to get home to get back to work.  We gave her until Monday and in the mean time drove 100 miles north of Shreveport for the weekend and took Marcus with us.  That weekend we prayed and fasted that she could make the right choice.  I talked with Qweet several times that weekend about how she needed to make the right choice for her son.  I promised to send him to college, to teach him how to be a man, and to allow her to be a part of his life.  There were no downsides!  She knew what the right choice was, but like all of us, sometimes it's just hard to do the right thing.  That weekend was a long one.  Haley didn't want to hold him anymore because she could sense he wasn't coming home with us. 
On Monday we drove back to Shreveport and I picked Qweet up to take her to the attorney's office again.  The girls stayed behind this time and I went with her alone.  I knew it was an exercise in futility but I had to give her the chance anyway.  Sure enough, she went but it didn't take as long this time.  She came back out in tears just shaking her head.  It was over.  I wanted to just leave her there and let her find her own damned ride back to her hotel but I couldn't.  I took her back and on the way I lost my religion on her.  I literally screamed at her which is very out of character for me.  Our dream of having another baby had just gone up in smoke and my family had been dealt  what would prove to be a fatal wound.
I have left some details out, no doubt  ones that April would feel crucial but the crux of the story has been provided and looking back it really does seem like a comedy of errors.  We had no business even trying to adopt but we gave it our best shot and we almost had him!

We got home and things seemed OK at first.  A bunch of the ladies from the ward came over and listened to April tell the sad tale.  They just sat and cried with her.  I was very touched by that - that is what it means to 'bear one another's burdens'.  Great people in this ward.
Pretty soon reality started to sink in.  We had no new baby but we had paid for one.  There was no way we could attempt another adoption - we were done.  April had gotten into the nesting stage and had completely furnished the baby's room - I had painted it and it really looked cute.  Now we just closed the door so we wouldn't have to look at it.  I think April came to church a couple of times after we got back but, other than a handful of times, has not been back to church since - and it has almost been three years.  The elephant in the room was that I had been so reluctant to do it at first and was really worried about this very thing happening.  I did not ever have a conscious 'I told you so' moment but I didn't have to - nor did I ever seek to bring it up.  I ended up wanting it as badly as she did.  I think she felt guilty which was compounded by the heavy sadness but I can't say for sure.
I have been told and have read (and now believe it) that having an adoption fall through, after you have bonded with the baby, is actually worse than having an infant die at birth and here is why:  the anticipation is the same for both but if they die there is closure.  They are gone, you know what happened - and I don't mean to diminish the pain that would come from losing an infant - it would be unbearable.  However, when you bond with a baby and lose it, and have no idea where they are - it's more like they have been abducted.  Like you turned around at the grocery store and when you turn back they are gone - no idea what has become of them.  That was how we felt about Marcus.  We new what kind of life he would have and it was very hard to deal with.
Marcus will be three years old in 5 months - if he has survived.  I don't think about him anymore (except for the last couple of days) but for a long time I did.  April couldn't sleep for months - and I'm not exaggerating.  That hurt us all so badly - and I think April is still hurting from it.  That was such a huge set back, not just financially but some of the problems April had after her neck surgery came back in full force and she never really recovered.  She was mad at God, mad at me and pretty much mad at the world.  I don't really blame her.  The difference for me was I had to go to work the next day.  April and Haley were just home together all day.  Pretty soon April was staying up until 3 a.m. and sleeping until 3 p.m. because she just couldn't sleep at night.  It's hard to have a relationship with your spouse when you don't even sleep in the same room.  Not long after that, Haley started falling into the same sleep pattern which would be a contention point.  This really was where things started to go very badly.  She didn't feel well enough get a job to help pay for the adoption expenses and they began to weigh very heavily on us.  She was hurting very badly and I didn't know how to help her.  I just bottled it up and moved on as best I could.
Some have said to me, "well, with you getting divorce maybe it just wasn't meant to be".  I don't really believe that.  I still think he would have been better off here, with divorced parents who both loved him, than in that hell hole we left him in.
This destroyed us.  It would take another 2 years before it would officially end, but to me, it was over - I just couldn't bring myself to admit it.
April would withdraw completely from friends and family and she never would be the same again.   She got bitter and stayed angry and I became the object of her wrath.  I tolerated it but didn't believe I deserved it.  She lashed out at me frequently.  She even went after my personality and asked me to change it (which I was actually stupid enough to try).   She blamed me for everything.  I don't judge her for it.  I think that some people just have their breaking point and she had reached hers.  It was sad to watch.  She had been such a vibrant, funny, beautiful woman.  That all went away and for a long time I felt responsible for it. 
So for almost three years (including the year after her surgery) I was chief cook and bottle washer, house cleaner, yard caretaker, bread winner, mom and dad.  It wore me down and I began to resent April for it.  She checked out and left me with all of the responsibilities.  Right or wrong that was how I saw it.  It was a miserable period of time.  However, about this time last year there was a ray of hope that things could work out for us...

My story part three - On Poop Heads and Surgery

This section deserves its own preface.  I was at my 20th high school reunion in July and was talking with an old friend (to whom I have already apologized for spontaneously telling much of this story - sorry again LH if by some remote chance you are reading this) and an old acquaintance (who is also divorced and appears to be happily remarried).  The old acquaintance, upon finding out that I was in the middle of a divorce, said two things that I won't soon forget.  First, she said, "don't be so disappointed that you're getting divorced.  It didn't work out, so what?  Think of all the new skills you have learned in the process.  Whoever gets you next will be lucky".  That was a turning point of sorts for me because I hadn't yet considered the positives of divorce and what could be in store 'next'.  I have learned new skills that have made me a better person and prospective husband.  The other thing she said was:  "You're a guy, which makes you a 'poop head'''.  Nice, I know.  But it's true.  Guys can be poop heads when it comes to women (Okay, and lots of other things too).  One of the problems in our society is that it is not 'cool' or 'normal' for men to be sensitive or to talk about their feelings.  We are supposed to bottle it up and act tough even when we are hurting very badly.  I am (or at least was) as guilty of that as any other poop head on earth and that played a definite roll in the demise of my marriage.  While I am far better at it now than I have ever been, I was pretty bad at it.  I owe my progress to April who made me confront things I was uncomfortable doing, like talking about stuff I didn't want to talk about.  Unfortunately it was too little too late and my inability/unwillingness to talk about my inner most feelings on certain matters - as you are about to see -was not our only problem.
There are two things that need to be mentioned before I continue:
First, I really screwed up once.  Not just once but this once was bad.  I can't even remember what year it was but it was in the latter half of my schooling.  After trying to get pregnant for awhile we succeeded.  We were elated.  But that elation turned to sadness when April miscarried.  I was in the middle of a project at school and was working late and did not give her the attention and empathy that she deserved.  I have no good excuse.  I just piled it on top of the other problems I was dealing with and internalized it like I did everything else.  She never forgave me for that and I'm not saying I deserved to be forgiven.  Poop head. 
Second, April's relationship with her mom had gotten worse while we lived with her.  Unresolved issues from her childhood would surface occasionally and there would be heated discussions that remained unresolved.  I would come home from work at 11 p.m. unaware that these discussions had taken place and would get both barrels from April.  I was exhausted and had no interest in playing referee to a 30 year old woman and her mother but I should have been a better listener.  The problem was that I had to get up at 6:00 every morning to make it to class so I was perpetually tired and even fell asleep during some of our conversations.
Then matters got more complicated.  April's mom was ready to start dating and April was very helpful in this.  I think she sincerely wanted her mom to be happy and saw this as her chance help her move on.  Her mom signed up with one of those LDS online dating services and to make a rather long story short she found her guy.  He was a former attack helicopter and scout pilot in Vietnam and was serving in the stake presidency in upstate New York.  Bruce is a great guy and has been very good for April's mom.  The bad part was that she decided, rather abruptly, to move to New York and to sell her house - with us still in it.  I had one semester of school left and no amount of reasoning could persuade her to wait 6 months to sell.  We offered to pay rent and keep the house looking nice and stay in it until it did sell but she was determined to move on - all the way to New York and then on a mission to Paraguay.  The neighbors across the street felt so badly that they bought the house and rented it to us until we moved (the Luikarts are some of the best people on planet earth!).  OK, so they didn't just buy the house for us to rent it, but they did let us stay in it until we were ready to leave and then her elderly parents moved in.  They are still some of the best people I have ever met.  Anyway, I remember standing in the driveway with April, Haley, and April's brothers and their families watching as they drove off. Her older brother just kind of looked around and said, "well, have a nice life it was nice knowing you, mom".  It was weird.  Looking back I can't say I blame Pam for wanting to move on.  She had a lot of painful memories in that house.  Bob, April's dad, had passed away in the master bedroom.  The part that pissed me off the most was I literally got stuck, by myself, packing up 30 years worth of her crap when we moved out (and I am in the same situation now!).  Her family has still not gotten over the abrupt exit of their mother from their lives.  The only reason I mention this is because April's relationship with her mom would come back to haunt me just a couple of years later.
I also need to mention that April had 2 surgeries while i was in school.  One to correct a deviated septum in her nose and the other to treat endometriosis.  What's the point?  April and surgery do not mix.  Some people's bodies do not react well to anesthesia or pain meds and she just happens to be one of the unlucky ones to whom both of those apply.

Also, shortly after we moved to South Weber Haley was diagnosed with Tourrette Syndrome.  We had observed things in her behavior before this but we were, as many parents are, reluctant to come to terms with the possibility that something might be wrong.  She had very noticeable facial and other motor tics and would also make sounds that had progressively gotten worse.  She was also an intensely anxious little girl and as a result had a VERY hard time going to school.  I'm talking screaming-and-clinging-to-the-front-door knob hard time and yes she got that from me.  I have memories of hanging on to the steering wheel of the old Granada as my mom tried to pry my fingers off one by one to get me into preschool.  We did, however, get her to go by bribing her with a new puppy (the one I now sleep with every night).  It worked for about two years and then the anxiety got so bad that we pulled her out of school and attempted to home school her (Haley, by the way, now goes to a small private school in Murray where she has been thriving and her tics are all but unnoticeable).  I mention the home schooling because it would become a problem later on too.

TRANS ORAL NECK SURGERY

Yes, it is as bad as it sounds.  Some background is required here but I will try to be concise.  April has always been acutely aware of signals her body sends her.  She has, justifiably, after watching her father suffer the way he did with MS, always been afraid of getting a terminal disease and has been convinced from time to time that she had MS, cancer, or some other dreaded malady (I am not calling her a hypochondriac but she did worry frequently about such things).  For many years she complained of numbness in her extremities and pain in her neck and when we would get her checked out the doctors would shrug and tell her that they had no idea why she would have such symptoms.  Well, the symptoms got worse so she got more assertive with the doctors.  Why no one thought of it sooner I don't know, but fortunately for us a doctor at St. Mark's hospital decided to get a CT scan of her neck.  Viola!  there the problem was.  A normal top vertebrae (sorry I don't know what the technical name is) is shaped kind of like a golf tee.  Well April's looked like a golf tee you might sometimes find in a tee box that has half of the top broken off - it was malformed and lop-sided and it appeared to be rubbing on her spinal cord.  At last the problem had been discovered - that was the good news.  The bad news was that we couldn't find a surgeon who would touch such 'expensive real estate', as one of them put it.  I don't remember exactly how it happened but we were referred to U of U neurosurgery for a consult with a Dr. Apfelbaum.  This dude looked ancient and was kind of arrogant but I'm profoundly grateful that there are people out there who have the confidence to do what surgeons do - especially this guy.  It turned out that he was a nationally renowned neurosurgeon and really new his stuff.  He was very confident that he could help April so we scheduled the surgery for June of 2005.  Because of the location and delicacy of the area in which they would be operating they ended up taking multiple series of images so that the engineers could make a 3D scale model of April's anatomy.  This would be used to practice on so that once they got inside they would know how to proceed.  A LOT of consideration went into how to perform this surgery.
The first part of the procedure would involve going through the back of her throat through her mouth to remove the malformed bone, which was the most tricky part because it was touching her spinal cord.  One wrong move and she could end up paralyzed.  With the bone fragment removed they would have to support her head with some titanium plates and screws.  I always teased her about the Cousin Eddie (National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation) plate in her head and finally having her head screwed on straight - and we could laugh pretty good about it - or at least I could :).  So, the fun part was flipping her over on the operating table so that they could open up her neck and permanently secure it with said hardware.  This was a very complicated part of the procedure.  The operating table was specially made for this purpose and though I never actually saw it, the description made me think of those fancy waffle makers like they have in hotels where you put the batter on, clamp it shut and then flip the whole thing over at once - kind of an April waffle.  The photo below is the aftermath of the second part of the procedure.  It looked pretty bad at first but became barely noticeable after about 2 years.

Having had serious surgery myself I was apprehensive for her, especially with how she had reacted to less severe procedures.  This one, I knew, was going to be a doozy.  I, along with her two brother's and step-dad, gave her a blessing and I felt strongly to say to her that the surgery would go well and that she would be better off for having had the surgery.  Both came true but it was a rocky road.
The day of the surgery we got there early, I want to say 6 a.m. or so.  It was supposed to take about 6 hours and ended up taking more like 9 to 10.  At the beginning of the day there were probably 75 people in that waiting room. We (Brady and his fam and I) were literally the last people to leave the waiting room as it was getting dark outside - and this was in June.  She was in horrible shape when they brought her out.  She had had a very hard time coming out of the anesthesia as she had with other procedures because it makes her nauseous - which is a bad thing if you have a large, fresh incision in the back of your throat.  They kept telling her not to be nauseous (as if she could help it) and I kept wanting to punch them in the face.
The doc came out and assured us that he had done his best work ever and that she would be up and around in no time.  Boy could he not have been less right about that but it wasn't his fault.  He really did some great work.  April was not supposed to regain as much range of motion as she did.  She was initially told she would have to look at things like Batman, where he has to move his whole upper torso to look around but she doesn't.  So in that regard, she was very fortunate.  In other areas, though, she had some challenges that took almost a year to get over and for me, looking back, it would prove the beginning of the end.

When we first got the diagnosis April's mom and step-dad were in Paraguay on a mission.  April's sister-in-law, bless her heart for recognizing the severity of the situation, took it upon herself to convince them to return home early to support us in this - which to their credit, they did. 
They came home and bought a house in South Ogden 5 miles from us so that they could be close by to help if need be.  Little did her mom know she would be coming over almost every day for months.
April spent a few days more in the hospital than expected due to a couple of minor set backs but was finally released to go home.

This is where I need to be very careful and, actually when I first got to this point I debated not going any further.  I'm not sure how to proceed so I will just say this.  That year after her surgery was the second worst year of my life (second only to the current one).  She had severe reactions to her pain meds and also became anemic.  Some nights I would come home from work and just hold her quivering body on the couch until I fell asleep.  At one point she didn't sleep for days and was hallucinating.  I felt very badly for her and the worst part for me (and I think most husbands would agree) was that I couldn't do anything to make it better -powerless sucks.  The worst was watching Haley's anxiety grow over the situation as she wondered if her mom was going to be alright - and I honestly wasn't sure if she was.  I am grateful for family and neighbors who would just come and sit with her while I was at work, take her to her dr. appointments, help with meals and clean the house.  I would have been lost without all of those wonderful people.  There is more to it than this but I am not comfortable saying more because I'm afraid to put it in the incorrect light.  Needless to say it was a very rough time.  Anyone who wants to know more will have to ask me directly and even then I will be reluctant to add to this. My purpose in writing this is not to pile on April or make her look bad.  She suffered a great deal and frankly, still does.  I only wanted her to get better so she could be happy again - indeed that is all I have ever wanted - for her to be happy...

(I know that's unfair to build up to something and not finish it but it is my blog, so too bad!)

My story part two - School

The first years of our marriage were pretty normal - two young people trying to get used to living with someone of the opposite sex and learning to mutually tolerate each others' quirks and personality flaws - come on we all have them.  We were both working, I for my dad in his foundry and April for Beehive Clothing as a seamstress.  We were pretty happy (I thought).  One thing I have learned is that what I witnessed isn't always what she did and I didn't find out about it until much later.
Our first big decision as a married couple came when my dad and his partner took advantage of a state initiative that gave incentives to small businesses to relocate to rural areas to stimulate job growth.  They chose to relocate to Nephi and we had to decide whether or not we would go with them.  I still wanted to get back into school but didn't want to lose my income so we decided to move thinking that I could still go to school in Provo and work at the same time - it didn't quite work out that way and I started to worry I would never make it back to school to finish  my degree in an as yet determined field of study.  We bought a small house and settled in to the reality of living in a small Utah town where you are a stranger for 15 minutes but an outsider for 20 years.  Our only friends were other 'outsiders' or first generation 'Nephites' as we were sometimes referred to.
Shortly before we moved we found out we were going to be parents.  We were excited and scared to death at the same time.  April was working at the time for Merry Maids but had to quit because being pregnant was very hard on her and she was constantly sick.  I can still remember frequently going into the bathroom with her so I could hold her hair and keep it out of harms way as she deposited every last bit of dinner into the toilet.  Needless to say she would have to quit her job and stay home and rest.
On April 21, 1998 the most incredible thing happened to me - I became a father.  Haley was born about 3 weeks early and weighed just over 5 lbs.  She was tiny and she was also the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.  I will have to dedicate an entire post to her and how much it has meant to me to be her father - she is an amazing kid.

This is the only photo I have from the hospital.  Foundry work is very hot (that 's why I buzzed my hair so short) and  hard work.  I probably only weighed a buck sixty soaking wet.

She was tiny but she could sure scream.  She had Colic and for a couple of months she would scream bloody murder from about 5 p.m. to 11 p.m every night  - no joke.  It was rough but we made it.

Well things started to go poorly in Nephi.  My dad's partner, who was like a second father to me, forced him out and royally screwed him.  With my dad gone I wanted no part of the business or living in Nephi so we put our house up for sale and sold it in less than a week (a tender mercy of the Lord, for sure).
I had been agonizing over what to study in school - the great question of 'what do I want to be when I grow up?'
When April's mom (who had been widowed a couple of years before) found out we wanted to move back to Salt Lake she immediately offered to let us live with her so I could go back to school.  It was a great blessing because it allowed me to go to school while letting April stay home and be a full time mom.  It was also one of the most stressful things I have ever done and I don't recommend it if you can avoid it.
I needed to find work that would be compatible with school and provide benefits.  A childhood friend of mine, Brandon Walsh, who was a Mechanical Engineer found out I was moving back to Salt Lake and mentioned that his firm sometimes designed castings (which I had been making in the foundry for the last 4 years) and that they were looking for someone to fill an entry level 3D CAD design position.  All I needed to do was learn the CAD software which he could provide for me to learn.  I was excited about this prospect.  I have always been fascinated by how things work and would think about the parts I made in the foundry and why the engineers designed things the way they did.  Sometimes it was obvious and sometimes it wasn't.  We made all sorts of things:  gear boxes for yogurt machines, antenna masts for M1 tanks, 2500 lb. fly wheels for hay baling machines and stainless steel impellers for pumps.  It was hot dusty work and sometimes it was dangerous (I have the burn scars to prove it) but I really did get satisfaction out of making things with my hands.

Well to make a long story short, I learned the software and got an interview at Walsh's firm.  It did not go well at all.  They guy I was supposed to interview with was not there so I had to talk to someone else, I still remember his name (it was Reid), and he was really condescending and kind of a jerk!  He asked me all sorts of technical questions to which I had no answers and was not aware that I needed to know them.  He looked at me like I was a complete idiot and said he didn't think I had the qualifications to work in that field.  I left there feeling about 3 inches tall and was pretty dejected.  The good part was that I knew what I wanted to study.  I was going to be an engineer if it killed me.  Math was the only class I ever failed in high school (mostly because it was 1 month before I had open-heart surgery) so I was a little apprehensive about that part of it but I was going to do it.   

I was 27 when I went back to school and didn't finish until I was 31.  It was a very stressful period of our married life.  I went to school early in the morning - so early that in my morning stupor I once put a pair of April's pants on and wore them the whole day without noticing.  Dont' ask me how.  I was pretty skinny at the time (see the above photo) but I wasn't any shorter than I am now.  What a dork!  We had a good laugh about that and would laugh about it for years after.  I'll bet I could get her to laugh at that even now... 

I would get home at about 2:30 from school and would have to leave for work at about 5:30 so family time during the week was very limited.  I worked at UPS - first as a trailer loader, then as a sorter, then as a part time supervisor.  I hated that job with a passion, mostly because of how they treated their employees and for having to deal with a labor union but it was a good job and served its purpose.  One of the happiest days of my life was when I walked out of that warehouse for the last time.  I have had two recurring nightmares since I finished school:  1 - that for some reason I had to go back to work at UPS and 2- that I had to go back to school to take a class I somehow missed.  Both would wake me up with a sense of panic and dread.  Those are two things I never want to have to do again!

One of my all time favorite photos of Haley.  She waited so patiently for me to assemble that tricycle but it was beginning to test her.  She insisted on the tassels which did not want to cooperate.

Another favorite photo from that time period.  No matter what kind of day I had, that little girl could make it all better by just smiling at me.  I am so sad for her that she has had to go through all of this.  I hope that one day she can forgive her parents for it.

After I finished school I got a job and we moved to South Weber where we have lived for seven years.  We had had some tough times up to this point (April had thrown the 'D' word out once in one of our more intense conversations) but things had never looked better for us.  It seemed to me like we had finally made it, that life could finally be enjoyable.  Still no signs that things could end up the way they have.  The funny thing about life is that it can really surprise you....

Sticking it to the Devil

Before I write this I need to say this: this is all for me. I don't care who reads it (if anyone does) but I need the outlet. I need to tell my story. I'm not much of a talker when it comes to personal stuff but I have always been able to write. Mostly because I can write, read, and rewrite it until it's right. When I talk sometimes my mouth gets a little ahead of my brain. Writing gives me a buffer. I read a funny quote about engineers the other day by Cory Doctorow (who I believe is a science fiction author): "All engineers are basically high-functioning autistics who have no idea how normal people do stuff". I don't know if I'm that bad but I do resemble the remark. Here is one question that has occupied a lot of my time:  How do I really see myself in the context of my divorce? I honestly see myself as a devoted husband who did everything possible to save his marriage to the woman he loved but ultimately failed. That hurts more than anything. More than the years of patiently waiting for a change, and more than the broken promises and broken trust. I failed. I know it's not one sided but I hate to fail at things - especially one as fundamental and important as this. So, if you are reading this, thank you for your time.  I hope that in some way it is worth it to you…

STICKING IT TO THE DEVIL

Some friends and family have asked me, "dude, what's with all the running?” I have given various answers about needing to be more healthy, wanting to impress future romantic prospects (I need all the help I can get), or just having too much time on my hands. There is truth in all of them but the most accurate one is that I'm doing my best to stick it to the devil. Let me explain.

I have been running off and on for about 3 years now. Initially it was because I went in for a check up with the doctor in which I was told to basically get my big butt (all 205 lbs of it) off the couch and get more fit or I would very likely end up like 3 of my grand parents and my dad - all of whom have (had) diabetes. He warned me that the biggest risk factor for males is to be overweight, i.e., have a big butt and a big gut – and I was guilty on both counts.

So I decided to take up running. I started on the tread mill in the front room because I didn't want my neighbors to see me torturing myself (“why is Webber trying to kill himself?”). I got comfortable on the treadmill and could run continuously, although slowly, for 30-40 minutes. At that point I decided to take it to the pavement because I thought I was ready. Boy was I in for a surprise! Paved surfaces are much harder than treadmills and are not flat! I didn't even know I had iliotibial bands until I started running outside but we became acquainted rather quickly. They would get so sore that I couldn’t walk the day after a run. I felt defeated. When I was in high school and playing soccer I could eat half of the menu at McDonald's and then turn right around and run 3 miles. Well, almost 20 years of relative inactivity can take their toll. Fortunately I didn't quit. I learned how to treat sore I.T. bands and shin splints and figured out how to avoid irritating them: don't go too fast or too far too soon - which brings me to a great lesson I have learned from running (which has an analogy in real life): run at your own pace and don't worry about the people (even the older women!) passing you. It took them time to get where they are. If you stick with it you will get there too.

So I kept at it. I lost about 10 lbs. and felt pretty good about my progress. I could run 3-4 miles at about 5.5 mph and was getting closer to my recommended weight. I kept at it intermittently for a couple of years and maintained a pretty casual (and love/hate) relationship with running.

Then in January of this year all hell broke loose and my life was shattered into a million pieces - my marriage ended after almost 15 years. I found myself alone for the first time in a long, long time.

I have to admit that living alone was fun for those first few weeks! I could come home from work and do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted to do it. I watched sports and "24", enjoyed a steady diet of Hagen-Dazs ice cream, and ate a lot of takeout and did it all with my increasingly bigger butt on the couch. I was living the dream!

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) I was also miserable. I didn’t feel well, I wasn’t sleeping at night, and my clothes started to feel a little tighter. I slogged on for a couple of months just keeping my head above water. Then I had one of those rare moments of clarity where, for one brief instant, you take a good look in the mirror and see “things as they really are”. You see the bags under your eyes, your man boobs, and your pot belly and the trajectory of your life becomes visible and you realize a course correction is necessary – and it (thankfully) becomes alarming. I saw that I was being ‘acted upon’ like Jacob taught (2 Nephi 2:14). In such moments as these you realize you have a choice “to act for (yourself) and not to be acted upon” (2 Nephi 2:26) or you can let the devil drag you down to hell. I love the imagery Nephi used to describe one way this can happen to us:

And others will he pacify, and lull them away into carnal security, that they will say: All is well in Zion; yea, Zion prospereth, all is well—and thus the devil cheateth their souls, and leadeth them away carefully down to hell. (2 Nephi 28:21)

...and he leadeth them by the neck with a flaxen cord, until he bindeth them with his strong cords forever. (2 Nephi 26:22)

The devil is no dummy. He knows he can never shout in your face and get you to jump off a cliff. No, he will first get your attention with the view from the safety of the path. Once he notices he has your attention he will whisper that the view is better if you get closer – it’s OK to climb over the hand rail, you can always come right back. Can’t see the whole view? If you get right up to the edge you can see all the way down to the bottom of the canyon, it really is beautiful. The safety of the sidewalk is still in sight, one little look won’t hurt. Once he has you on the cusp all it takes is a gentle nudge and you’re done for.

He uses a flaxen cord - flax is a fibrous plant which can be used to weave linens. You would notice if someone walked up to you and slammed a big chain around your neck. But a linen scarf? It would be almost imperceptible yet it would be strong enough to pull on gently. That’s how he works. Subtlety and cunning.

Lehi, shortly before his death, after watching his oldest sons being acted upon for so long, begged them to take action:

21....arise from the dust, my sons, and be men, … that ye may not come down into captivity;
22 That ye may not be cursed with a sore cursing; and also, that ye may not incur the displeasure of a just God upon you, unto the destruction, yea, the eternal destruction of both soul and body.
23 Awake, my sons; put on the armor of righteousness. Shake off the chains with which ye are bound, and come forth out of obscurity, and arise from the dust.  (2 Nephi 1:21 - 23)

Life had knocked my big butt into the dusty street. I was the most vulnerable I have ever been in my life. I was sad, depressed, tired, confused, and mad all at the same time. The devil loves to see us in this condition because we are easy targets. He can walk right up to you and put his cord around your neck and get you to neglect important things and start to focus on seemingly innocent distractions and he does it almost without us noticing. I had quit doing some of the things that had sustained me through the last couple of difficult years. Before this all happened I had some very good habits. I read the Book of Mormon twice last year, and when I did run, I listened to general conference, I was glad to go to church (even though I went alone), I was (and still am) in the elders quorum presidency, etc.

Well, things can change rather quickly. When you get slugged in the gut it can really take your breath away and it can take time to get it back. I slacked off on reading my scriptures, my prayers became obligatory and insincere, and going to church became a monumental task (though I am proud to say I have not missed once since the girls moved out). Life can spiral out of control.

So how am I sticking it to the devil? Let me clarify that I am not dumb enough to get into a street fight with Old Scratch. He will kick your ass if you let him. You don’t have to look any farther than the increasing number of broken families all around us. I watched him methodically and painfully destroy the woman I once loved. Adding insult to injury is the fact that he thinks it’s funny. Consider the following which is one of only 2 (I think) triple wo’s in the B of M:

Wo, wo, wo unto this people; wo unto the inhabitants of the whole earth except they shall repent; for the devil laugheth, and his angels rejoice, because of the slain of the fair sons and daughters of my people; and it is because of their iniquity and abominations that they are fallen! (3 Nephi 9:2)

He laughs when we screw up and is delighted when he can get a leash on us. He had me right where he wanted me. I think that the preparation of the previous couple of years prepared me for the last several months and gave me strength to get up and get going. I am thankful for that – and also the prayers of others. If you don’t know what to say to someone who is suffering through something tough – you can pray for them and they will feel it. I know I have.

I have also, sometimes out of the blue, remembered things I have read, seen and heard.  For some reason I have always recalled the caption on a painting I saw at the MTC almost 20 years ago. The painting was of a ship at sea during a violent storm. The caption read - 'All the water in the world can't sink a ship unless it gets inside'. Duh, who doesn't know that? Well, having now been the ship without a safe harbor at sea during a raging storm - I can attest that those simple words are true. The storms of life can howl and rage all around us but if we can stay faithful, we can stay safe.

12 And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall. (Helaman 5:12)

So I rededicated myself to putting on my armor EVERY day. I got rid of Netflix and DirecTV and gave the Wii to the girls (and you know what? I don’t miss any of them). I got into a routine and started again doing the little things that invite the spirit and keep the devil at bay. He cannot touch me so long as I have my armor on - not even with his 'fiery darts'.

So why running? Running is a very effective way to subdue the natural man. It is one way that I act in order to avoid being acted upon. At least five times per week, whether I feel like it or not I lace up the shoes and take out my frustrations on South Weber Drive. Aside from being the only legal source of endorphins for a single guy living alone it helps me channel the pain of divorce. And yes divorce is painful. Along with the emotional and spiritual pain there is real, physical pain – the physical pain has been has been the most surprising to me. It has diminished lately but for a long time there was an ever present heaviness and dull ache - and it hurt. I channel the pain and anguish of what I have been through the last several months into the pain in: my 38 year old legs, my chest, the cramp in my neck that sometimes shows up around mile one (weird, I know), the side aches, and the sweat that stings my eyes. It hurts to run! The only thing I really enjoy about it is that it feels so good to stop! But it is paying off - physically, emotionally and spiritually. I can now run 7 miles without stopping, puking or dying. I am below 180 lbs for the first time in a long, long time. I feel strong again and I even got my sense of humor back (boy did I miss it!).

I actually like the hills. I run up them as fast as I can. It makes me feel powerful and in control of my life (even when I'm not). I imagine a host of the devils 'angels' trying to catch up but they can't. For as long as I am healthy enough to do it I will continue to run. All the devil and his so called angels will see of me are the soles of my running shoes and the back of my head bobbing up and down. I will give them no reason to laugh at me.

The biggest and most important reason for all of this is my beautiful daughter. She needs me to be on my ‘A game’ every single moment of every living day. I cannot let her down by not being ready to give her a blessing, not being able to teach her the gospel with conviction, or just not being there - I would certainly do her no favors if I died prematurely because I didn't take care of myself.

So to the devil and his miserable band I say this: catch me if you can because I am not looking back!

My story - part one

I have gotten some positive feedback from my first post and writing it proved therapeutic so I am venturing onto heavier subject matter in the hopes that I can continue to process the train wreck that is my life and perhaps help someone else suffering under (or near) the same circumstance.
I am a 38 year old Mechanical Engineer, father to a beautiful 13 year-old daughter, and am in the last stages of finalizing the divorce from my wife of 15 years.  This is my story, warts and all, and in telling it I do not wish to cast blame or villainize anyone.  I also don't want any sympathy.  I only want to tell the story.  If it resembles a comedy of errors then so be it.

I cannot recall the precise moment when I first met April because I was only 5 or 6 years old.  I have been friends with her brother Brady since 1st grade (we are still close) and as a result have known her (although only casually until after my mission) for a very long time.  The Long household was not a typical one.  April's dad, Robert Nathan Long, (a man I admire very much and always will) suffered from Multiple Sclerosis for over 30 years before it overtook him in 1995 and claimed his life.  His story could be the subject of an entire book but for my purposes here I will only say that he was an extremely devoted husband and father, a very positive person, and the greatest model for dignified suffering I have ever personally witnessed.  My earliest memories of him are seeing him in a wheel chair that he could roll himself around in.  As time and the disease progressed he went from the relative independence of being able to wheel himself around while he had the use of his arms, to a chair he controlled with his chin, to being completely dependent on his caregivers for absolutely EVERYTHING.  The children, including April, were part of his care team.  I admired the Long family for the devotion to their father and especially, Pam, his wife, for being his primary caregiver all of those long difficult years.  It is worth noting that he first began to feel the symptoms of the disease while they were on their honeymoon - which always seemed unfair to me.  When you first marry the person you love, you never envision anything but 'happily ever after' - so it is tragic to me that they never really cleared the starting gate and got around the first turn before they were blind sided by this cruel disease.

During our growing up years I saw April on a regular basis but never really talked with her.  I think that to her I was just one of her brother's annoying friends that contributed to the awful smell coming from his bedroom.  However, later on she would confess that she thought I was the 'nice' one (a label I am accustomed to for good or ill) and really the only one that, according to her, would acknowledge her existence.  But to me she was always my friend's sister with the really thick glasses and I never saw her as anything but that until after I got home from my mission.

I returned home from my mission to Puerto Rico in the summer of 1994 and really didn't know what I wanted to do with myself but there were two things I did know that I wanted and needed to do:  go to school and get married.  I come from a fairly large family (5 brothers and 1 sister of which I am the second oldest) so to me, family has always been a huge part of my life.  Plus, being a Latter-Day Saint, I have always lived and breathed 'family'.  Family, family, family.  When my mission ended I had a final interview with my mission president in which he told me in so many words: "this is your final transfer, report home and find your new companion".  I was excited at the prospect and really wanted to find 'the person' I could love and be loved by.  The problem for me was that I have always been kind of quiet and introverted which is not very conducive to talking a woman into spending the rest of her life and eternity with you.  As a side note: I apologize to anyone out there whom I may have offended or hurt because I was too afraid to talk to them or give them the attention they deserved.  So, if you were any girl at Hillcrest High School, then I was afraid to talk to you.

So how does a shy introvert get married?  Here is how it happened to me:

It was in the spring of '95 that April's father passed away and it was at his funeral that I really reconnected with Brady and we began to hang out and do things together.  One of our favorite things to do was go to Utah Grizzlies hockey games.  With our student ID's we could get half price tickets and we loved to sit down close where you can hear the cursing and see the blood on the ice. Why hockey?  I really have no explanation for that.  We didn't understand all of the rules (I still don't) and I can't ice skate worth crap but we went to almost every home game that season.
I don't recall at exactly what point it happened but April started coming with us to the games.  When I saw her the first time after I got home from my mission I jokingly asked Brady who the new hot girl was.  Gone were the coke bottle glasses and the shy young girl and it their place was a vibrant, funny, taller, version of the the little girl I remembered from before - and she was pretty.
Brady orchestrated our first date by telling each of us that the other wanted to go out on a date - just the two of us.  I think he had started to feel like the third wheel on the unofficial dates that our hockey outings had become.
I was so nervous to ask her out but I somehow mustered the courage to do it.  Our first date was a smashing success and I was completely head-over-heels smitten with this pretty young thing.  Apparently it was mutual as she later told me that she went out and bought brides maids dresses for our wedding after our third date (I had no idea).  I knew I was going to marry her - there was no doubt about it - and apparently she did too.

So what does it mean when you just know - after prayerfully considering a big choice that feels so right - that you are supposed to do something only to have it not work out?  I wish I knew the answer to that.  I believe that when you get an answer to that type of prayer it is only the Lord telling you that He approves of your choice because it will allow him to teach you what you need to learn and to operate in your life how he wants to.  It seems counter productive and counter intuitive but I know that I have learned things I could not have learned any other way.  Why else would he allow such a thing?  The most glaring reason is 13 years old and goes by the name of Haley.  My daughter is such an interesting combination of her parents.  She has her mother's assertiveness and my even temper - her mom's dry sense of humor (which I have always loved even though she never thought I 'got it') and my patience and 'niceness'.  I really feel like she inherited the best traits of both of her parents. 
At any rate, we were in love, and were off to a pretty good start.  We were married July 19, 1996 in the Bountiful temple.  It was a beautiful bright day - a happy day.  If you had told me on that day that in 15 years it would all come crashing down I would have either laughed you to scorn or hit you in the mouth. Here are some photos from our wedding.  She really was beautiful.  She was so little I could lift her over my head.

Photo taken at the Garden Park Ward in SLC

July 19, 1996.  Bountiful, Utah Temple

We went on our honeymoon to Cancun Mexico and had a great time even though I lost my wedding ring at the beach and April got food poisoning from the guacamole at the Hard Rock Cafe.  It was a memorable time in a tropical paradise.  There was no indication for me that things could ever go wrong...

Something to say

It has been said that to be a writer one must possess three basic characteristics: a love of words, industry, and something to say. It has also been said that a wise man speaks because he has something to say – while a fool speaks because he has to say something. To which category I belong is up to the reader to decide - but I do love words, I have industry (I need an outlet for it), and I do have something to say.

I recently had the privilege of travelling to our nation’s capital - a trip I have anticipated making for a long, long time. It was for me a pilgrimage of sorts and has had a deep and lasting affect on me and I feel a desire (if not a need) to share some of my thoughts – so here goes nothing…

I love America. The story of her beginning is fascinating to me and has always impressed me as one of hope and optimism. I believe that the men (and let’s not forget the women – my favorite is Abigail Adams) who sacrificed and endured so much to establish this nation were inspired of Almighty God – and so did they. They pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to what they saw was a glorious and divine cause and they did it with great risk. Benjamin Franklin perhaps said it best when he said to his fellow ‘traitors’, “we must all hang together or assuredly we will all hang separately”. He was not joking. Treason against the Crown of the British Empire, which they were all openly committing, was punishable by death. I have often wondered at what would make educated, successful men (and their wives) want to undertake such a dangerous and seemingly impossible task. I believe that they sensed that they were on the cusp of something big. How big? Around the time of the writing of the Declaration of Independence, John Adams wrote this in a letter to a friend:

“Objects of the most stupendous magnitude, measures in which the lives and liberties of millions, born and unborn are most essentially interested, are now before us. We are in the very midst of revolution, the most complete, unexpected, and remarkable of any in the history of the world.”

John Adams was not ignorant. He was a Harvard graduate and a voracious reader - and he knew history. He, along with the other major participants, knew that they had arrived at a momentous point in world history and that it was their duty to themselves and to future generations to fulfill their several roles. The outcome of the decision to declare independence is, obviously, well documented - and we are the beneficiaries of that momentous undertaking.

While this new nation was not perfectly conceived in its infancy (the elephant in the room being slavery) it was a daring departure from the political ideals of the time and laid a sturdy foundation for ‘a more perfect union’ in the times to come. To me, therein lies the genius of what the Founders came up with. They knew it wasn’t perfect but they left the door open for improvement. They worked a great work and sacrificed so much to give us what we have today. The risks and sacrifices, to me, are staggering. As I learn more about the individuals who pulled of this audacious feat and all that they suffered and endured, I am disheartened, as are many Americans, by what has become of our once great country.
Is America not great anymore? I think we still have the bedrock foundation for greatness but we have wandered far from the original course plotted by our forefathers. What would they think of the massive debt that has enslaved us, the dishonesty in government and corporations, the proliferation of pornography and violence, apathy for others, the absence of common decency, the decline of the education system, all of our foreign entanglements, the number of people completely dependent on the government, and especially the disdain for God and religion in our public discourse? The list will get quite lengthy if I go on but you get the idea. I am quite confident that they would be very disappointed in us and would have every right to be after what they went through. In fact they warned us that some of the very things espoused by our society today could bring about the end of the republic and extinguish the torch of liberty they struggled to ignite and keep burning. It seems to me that they have passed that torch across many generations only to land in ungrateful hands.

With that said, here are my impressions, and a few things I learned from my visits to: monuments to great leaders, institutions of government, sacred battlefields, and hallowed burial grounds. They are in, for lack of a better sequence, the order in which we visited them.  If you feel inclined to do so, leave a comment - I welcome the feedback whether you are like-minded or not.  Much of what follows is my opinion so please take into consideration that I, like this great nation, am a rough stone rolling....



THE VIETNAM MEMORIAL



As I approached ‘the wall’ (as it is known), knowing that the names of the dead and missing are engraved on it, my first thought was: “I hope they used big letters” because if they didn’t – well, that’s a lot of wall to cover. There are 58,272 names inscribed on it.
One of the design criteria for the memorial was for it to be reflective in nature. The designers took that literally and chose a rare black granite (which came from India), the reflective properties of which allow you to see yourself in the names of the dead.

Note: while the stone was imported, all of the engraving and finish work was completed by American craftsmen - in America (unlike the new Marting Luther King Jr. memorial which was made in, you guessed it, China). It is sobering to walk the length of the wall and think that each name belonged to a family, had friends, and dreams of their own – 58,272 people. A large chunk of an entire generation lost. It is very sad. It has become far too easy for men and women in power to send young people off to fight in distant lands. Perhaps we would fight fewer wars if our leaders were required to believe enough in a cause that they actually lead the army into war – like George Washington did. Just a thought.  I mean no disrespect to the fallen.  I believe that the majority of our men and women in uniform join up and serve so that they can help others who can't help the themselves.  I just think that war has become too much a tool of foreign policy.  This memorial is evidence of how costly these decisions can be.





THE LINCOLN MEMORIAL



For me the Lincoln Memorial had the feel of a sanctuary. I felt as if I were on hallowed ground. The larger than life statue of a seated Lincoln gives the sense that he was larger than life - that indeed: “Here and there, and now and then, God makes a giant among men”. The importance of his accomplishments as President of the United States – ending slavery and preserving the union – cannot be overstated. To him, slavery was a stain on the nation – a blight that would forever hold her back from reaching her true potential. On the south wall of the memorial, engraved in stone, is the Gettysburg address.



To me it shows Lincoln’s humility, faith, and wisdom. I have more thoughts on our visit to Gettysburg and his speech that I will share later.
On the north wall his second inaugural address is displayed in like manner.  If you have the time, it is worth reading - you can even read it here in Lincoln's own hand:

http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=38

I had never read it before but recognized parts that have often been quoted. I was pleased to see that he did not make wild promises or extol his own virtue or accomplishments, that he quoted the bible and referred to God on more than one occasion. How refreshing it would be if our current ‘leaders’ would speak as plainly and honestly about the reality of our current situation and what it will take to overcome it.


THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT

I’m glad we got go inside the Washington Monument. It is closed now indefinitely due to damage sustained in the earthquake just two days after we returned home. We are lucky to have been able to go in at all. Apparently you have to line up pretty early in the morning to get same day tickets to tour the monument - something we just didn’t have time to do since our hotel was not very close - and hey, we were on vacation! Fortunately, my brother Brian, in his persuasive manner, asked the security guard if  “he couldn’t squeeze us in” since no one was in line. It worked – and I’m grateful.
I used to think that George Washington got shafted – that he deserved more than just an Egyptian knock off for a monument. However, after seeing it in person, I am impressed. The obelisk is over 555 feet tall and is massive. It is the most noticeable and visible landmark in the city named after the good general who was appropriately  described by Henry Lee as ‘first in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen’. He was deservedly beloved and truly earned the virtual universal admiration of all.
When you take the elevator to the top, there are 4 observation stations – one on each side of the structure. The windows were a little dirty so the pictures didn’t turn out but the view of the city and the landmarks was breathtaking. To catch the elevator back down you have to take the stairs to the next floor down on which there are several tributes to Mr. Washington – including these two quotes:

He truly did not 'lust after power' and I believe he had an honest and peaceful heart.  But at the same time he was not afraid to take up arms to defend what he believed were God-given rights.

To me both quotes show his gentle nature and humility (why is humility so absent from our current ‘leaders’?). President Washington was offered the Presidency for the rest of his life due largely to his accomplishments on the battlefield and simply for who he was. I don’t know if it was even a temptation to him, but after eight years in office, he declined and chose to retire to his beloved Mt. Vernon.  His work was done and he deserves every single accolade and compliment that has ever been directed toward him.


THE WHITE HOUSE

 This is the north lawn and main entrance to the White House.

This is the south lawn where the President's helicopter lands. 

My first impression of the White House was that it looks smaller in real life than on TV - but it is still very impressive.  It is easy to see why it is also probably the world's greatest diplomatic home court advantage - very stately inside and out. 
If you look closely at the picture below, you can see Mrs. Obama chatting with (I think) a friend on the second floor veranda.

On the morning that we toured the White House we saw Mrs. Obama and her children leave the White House in their motorcade but we never saw them or 'the boss' in person as he was out trying to keep his job.  No photos are allowed inside the White House but that didn't stop me from sneaking one with my phone looking south from the Green Room toward the Washington Monument.

It is not a great photo but it's the only one I will probably ever get inside the White House and I was afraid to take any more because as I was taking this photo the secret service agent in the room was yelling at someone else to put his phone away.
The tour of the White House is disappointing in that you really only get to see one floor.  You enter through the lower east entrance where the office of the First Lady is located.  You then walk down the hall to the China, Vermeil and Diplomatic rooms.  Entrance to the rooms is prohibited - you are only allowed to look inside through the narrow doorways so we didn't spend much time there.  The tour then takes you upstairs to the 'State Floor' - the first stop is the East Room which is the largest in the White House.  Because I don't have any photos, I will be brief in my description.  The most impressive things in the East Room were the chandeliers (which were being hand cleaned by 5 or 6 people) and the portrait of George Washington - this is the original painting that Dolly Madison saved when the British burned the White House down during the War of 1812.  I should have been sneaky and snapped a photo but there were more secret service personnel in the room than tourists.  Next was the Green Room (where I took my illicit photo).  I don't remember much about this room other than the fact that Thomas Jefferson used it as his dining room.  The Blue Room, our next stop, I recognized immediately.  The President will often receive foreign dignitaries in this room and we have probably all seen it at least once on CNN.  The next room was the Red Room and I honestly don't remember a single thing about it other than the secret service agent telling the story of when President Taft (who weighed over 300 lbs.) got stuck in the upstaris bath tub.  The State Dining Room was the last room on the tour.  My only thought was that it looked smaller than it seems in movies like "The American President" but that it would be a great place to have Thanksgiving dinner (weird, I know).
While it was neat to visit the White House, it was not as interesting as most of the other stuff we saw and I was disappointed we weren't able to at least look into the Oval Office.  I am very grateful, though, that I could give my daughter the experience because she really liked it.

THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES

The National Archives building is a massive, monolithic building that appears to have been designed to withstand just about anything (and I hope it does).  It is most famous for housing original copies of the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, and The Bill of Rights - all of which are on display but no one is allowed to photograph them.  The Magna Carta is also normally on display - but the display was being renovated while we were there so we didn't get to see it.

It was a reverent experience to view these documents.  The Declaration of Independence, sadly, was so faded that it was almost illegible - although it was still easy to make out John Hancock's famously large signature.  The Constitution and Bill of Rights, however, were very legible.  It was really cool to see the signatures of George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and so many others who devoted everything to formulating a new government.  A new government, as John Adams would often say 'of laws and not people' - meaning that no one was above the law.

The National Archives is home to many other documents as well. For example, my friend's in-laws are serving a mission for the LDS church at the archives photographing civil war pension records for family history work.

The inscription on the south east side of the building says: This building holds in sacred trust the records of our national life and symbolizes our faith in the permanency of our national institutions.  I hope that that is true - that we can keep them permanent.

The architecture of these old buildings is fascinating to look at.  One weird thing about this building is that, if I'm not mistaken, that is Zeus front and center. 

As we left the Archives building I noticed this small statue - it was the inscription, though, that made me want to photograph it.  It's kind of hard to see but it says:  ETERNAL VIGILANCE IS THE PRICE OF LIBERTY.  I believe that to be as true now as ever.

THE CAPITOL

To tour the Capitol it is necessary to get tickets through your congressman or senator.  I thought we were going to be able to see the gallery where joint sessions of Congress meet and where the President gives the State of the Union address.  I did not know that you have to get yet another ticket to be able to do that - so we only got the '2 dollar tour' - but it was still pretty neat.
Each state was asked to provide two statues for display in the Capitol.  This one, of King Kamehameha, was the most colorful and is in the lobby of the visitor center.

This one is of Brigham Young.  We did not see the other one from Utah so I don't know who it is.

The Capitol rotunda was the highlight of the tour.  It was very impressive.  This is a painting that went all the way around the rotunda and depicts scenes from American History.  It looks like a 3D stone carving but it is indeed a painting.

There were also several original works of art on display including the one below of the surrender of the British to General Washington after the battle of Yorktown.

Photos really do the paintings no justice - they were very large and vivid.  The most impressive part of the Capitol Rotunda is the dome.  Our tour guide told us it weighed several million pounds (I want to say 9 but I can't recall for certain) and that it is so tall, the Statue of Liberty could fit inside with almost 30 feet of clearance.  This fresco depicts the ascension of George Washington to heaven.

It really is stunning to see and even more so when you realize that it's painted on a curved surface.  I don't get all of the extraneous stuff in it like the guy who looks like King Triton - but I just don't know enough about it to comment on it.  I was just impressed with it. I had hoped to see more of the Capitol but that was really pretty much it.

THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

The Library of Congress is one of the most exquisite buildings I have ever seen.  From the amount of detail in the stone carvings on the exterior to the finish work inside; it is truly breathtaking.

The most conspicuous part of the building is the reading room - shown below.  Haley said, "dad, it's the room from the movie 'National Treasure'", and it is.  I have included several photos (that, according to the signs all around, I shouldn't have taken but with modern digital cameras it's possible to take good photos without using the flash).

The interior of the building is incredibly ornate - influenced by, I believe, the importance that Thomas Jefferson placed on books.  In fact, it was interesting to me that Jefferson's personal library was on display.  Again, 'no photos' signs were placed everywhere but I used the Flip video camera to get a quick 360 view of the display (which I haven't been able to get to work but you can view it here http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/jefferson/jefflib.html) .  Anyone who wants to know why Jefferson was so smart need look no further than his personal library and consider the amount of time he spent reading.  "I cannot live without books", he said.  And apparentely it was true as he owned more than 6,000.  Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence (with input from others) and was heavily influenced by all of the time he spent reading the great literary works of the time.  I think our nation would be much better off if our young people (and our old people too) spent more time reading the words of those who have gone before us.

GETTYSBURG

After having seen so many incredible sites, if I were asked which I would most like to revisit, I would choose Gettysburg (though the nerdy engineer in me would place the air and space museum a close second). 

I was truly moved by what I experienced at Gettysburg.  I have always known that Gettysburg was an important victory for the Union during the Civil War but I never understood how importatnt or how close it was to being a crushing defeat - and possibly changing the outcome of the war.

Before I go any further I would like to say this:  if you ever have the opportunity to visit Gettysburg I strongly encourage you to do so - and plan on spending some time there.  You won't regret it.

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania is about an hour-and-a-half from Washington, D.C. and is worth the drive.  It is a sprawling farming community that is said to appear today much as it would have in July of 1863.

In June 1863 General Robert E. Lee had put together a string of victories against the North which had allowed him to penertrate pretty far northward.  The Union commanders had been keeping and eye on Lee as he approached Gettysburg when the decision was made to attempt to stop him from going any further.  Though the numbers vary by source it is generally accepted that over 150,000 total troops would be engaged in this historic battle (more than 80k for the union and around 75k for the confederacy).  While the North would eventually have a numerical advantage; on day one, July 1, the South had an almost 2 to 1 advantage until reinforcements arrived that night.  The fighting was heavy inflicting many casualties (casualties = anyone taken out of the fight by desertion, being wounded, captured or dying).  Here is a summary of the casualties for both sides:

http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/gettysburg/getty4.aspx

Lee's army would eventually push the Union soldiers back to Cemetery Ridge where they would make their last stand.  One of the greatest spectacles of the battle must have been "Pickett's Charge".  General Lee ordered a full frontal assault on Cemetery ridge that included 12,000 men in a line almost a mile long.  It was a disaster for Lee as he lost 5,000 men in one hour.  The loss was so great that Lee decided to abandon the fight at Gettysburg and return to Virgina.

In all there were around 50,000 casualties over the 3 day battle - more than the population of Bountiful, Utah.

The visitors center at Gettysburg does a marvelous job of bringing the battle to life and paying homage to those who fought it.  The museum is pretty comprehensive and succeeds at displaying and explaining the artifacts.  There is a short film produced by the History Channel and narrated by Morgan Freeman that explains the significance of the battle of Gettysburg and brings it to life.  I was surprised at Mr. Freeman's sympathy for the South.  While in no way condoning the reprehensible practice of slavery, he conceded that it must have been a difficult thing for Southerners to give up their way of life.  The film, which I beleive can only be seen at Gettysburg, was both inspiring and heart-wrenching.  More than once during the day, though no one noticed, I had to choke back tears and one of those times was during that short movie.  I wish it was available to the public.

After the film you walk upstairs to the Cyclorama.  I had no idea what a cyclorama was until I went to Gettysburg.  A cyclorama is a 360 degree mural painted on a single canvas.  The one at Gettysburg is 27 feet tall and 359 feet in circumference.  Photos (which were allowed without flash) do it no justice but here are some that I took:

It was painted by a french artist named Paul Philippoteaux to depict Pickett's charge as seen from the top of Cemetery Ridge where the Union soldiers made their last stand.  Mr. Philippoteaux came to Gettysburg not long after the war to study the terrain and interview veterans of the battle.  For that, his painting is considered to be a pretty accurate representation of what actually happened.  It was very impressive.
Next up was the museum.  We saw a lot of neat stuff at the museum and I took some photos but the thing that I remember the most is this quote:

This set the stage for our tour of the battlefield itself.  As one of the 'men...from afar' who was 'drawn to see where great things were suffered and done for (me and all Americans)',  I couldn't help but feel reverenced by the thoughts of the great deeds done during those 4 days in 1863 and the possibility that some of the spirits did still linger.
The battlefiled tour route is 24 miles long and includes 16 chronological stops.  The first was McPherson Ridge where the first shot of the battle was fired.  There are approximately 1,328 monuments, markers and memorials at Gettysburg.  The largest and most conspicuous are dedicated to the individual units of both armies that fought in the battle like this one - the largest at McPherson Ridge which is dedicated to Abner Doubleday, commander of the Army of the Potomac.  I have no idea who he was but his statue was impressive.

The next stop was at the Eternal Light Peace Memorial.  This memorial was dedicated 75 years after the battle at Gettysburg with over 1,800 Civil War veterans present.  The memorial, with the flame atop, is dedicated to "Peace Eternal in a Nation United".

At one point on the tour you can climb a 40 (or 50) foot tower and have a 360 degree view of much of the battlefield.  These are the photos I took from the top of the tower.

Little and Big Round Top, the hills in the background - where some intense fighting took place

I will not take the time to tell (nor ask you to read) about every stop on the tour but I will say this:  There is a sacred feel to walking this old battlefield.  If you listen, you can almost hear the roar of the cannons, the sharp report of the Spencer carbines, the shouts of orders and the cries of the wounded and dying.  51, 000 casualties in 4 days is a stunning total. 

This was the largest and most impressive memorial in the park.  It is dedicated to the lone artillery battery who, on the first day of the battle, bravely held the line at this point on Cemetery Ridge until, quite literally, the cavalry could arrive.  It is called the Pennsylvania Memorial.

The last stop on the tour was Cemetery Hill and the Soldiers' National Cemetery.  This is the cemetery where President Abraham Lincoln gave what would later be known as the Gettysburg Address.

I did not take this photo.  I stupidly forgot to take one so I 'borrowed this one'.

Lincoln came to Gettysburg in November of 1863 for the dedication of the cemetery.  Oddly, he was not the key note speaker at the service.  A man by the name of Edward Everett went first and gave a 2 hour speech 'rich in historical detail and classical allusion'.  The President was then asked to make a "few appropriate remarks".  His "appropriate remarks" took about 2 minutes.  After the speech, Everett told Mr. Lincoln, " I should be glad if I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes".  The Gettysburg address is deservedly considered to be a masterpiece and for me personifies the struggle at Gettysburg as well as shows the character of the great and humble man who wrote it (back when President's wrote their own speeches).
I came away from Gettysburg with a better understanding of and appreciation for the 'great deeds' that were done here.  Gettysburg was a turning point in the war to keep our country together and without the brave acts performed there, the map of our country could very well look a lot different today.  I wish that every American could experience Gettysburg.  I may be a little too idealistic but I believe it could help us to see what we have in common and better ignore our petty differences.

ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY

The last significant site we visited on our trip was Arlington.  We went to Arlington National Cemetery on Sunday and it felt like Sunday - relaxed and reverent. Though Arlington is the resting place for over 320,000 soldiers, astronauts, explorers, nurses, presidents, and supreme court justices it has not always been a cemetery.  The land was originally owned by George Washington Parke Custis, step-son of George Washington.  In 1831 Mary Custis, his last surviving child, married Robert E. Lee (yes, that Robert E. Lee) at Arlington house where they resided until 1861 when Lee resigned his commission from the U.S. army.

Arlington House.

I don't know if it is true or not but it is reported that during the civil war, the Union buried northern soldiers right next to Arlington House just to spite Lee.
Anyway, over time, dead soldiers were buried here and it eventually became the largest national military cemetery in the country.  Soldiers from every major U.S. war from the Revolutionary War to the present are buried at Arlington.  Everywhere you look - a sea of white headstones.  The following photos were taken at 3 different locations in the cemetery.

I have always wanted to watch the famous changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  I have included a couple of short videos (I can't remember why I just didn't take one video but we got there just as it was starting) for your viewing pleasure but first a little background.

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was established in 1921 and still contains the remains of an unknown soldier from WWI.  A contingent of guards from the Third U.S. Infantry have guarded the tomb every minute of every day since July 1, 1937.  The honor guard 'sentinels' are volunteers who have to apply for the mission to guard the tomb.  They are required to be between 5'-10" and 6'-4" tall, must memorize verbatim several pages of facts about the cemetery and be able to recite them as well retain vast amounts of information about Arlington, the Army and their individual army unit.  80% of those who try out don't make it.  The average sentinel spends 8 hours preparing his or her (there have been 3 female sentinels) uniform for duty.  It is considered a great honor for them to guard the tomb and they take it very seriously.

As you watch the sentinel perform his duty you will notice that it is very precise and seems to be a purpose to every pronounced movement.  The sentinel walks 21 paces down the mat and stops, faces the tomb for 21 seconds, faces back down the mat for 21 seconds and takes another 21 pace walk to the other end.  The 21 steps and 21 second pauses refer to the 21 gun salute, the highest honor that can be paid in the military.  You will also notice that the sentinels rifle is always switched to the shoulder between any possible threat and the tomb.  More information about the tomb and the honor guard may be found here:  http://www.tombguard.org/

You can 't really see it in the photo below but the inscription on the tomb reads:  "Here Rests in Honored Glory an American Soldier Known but to GOD."  The President (except for Clinton who had Gore do it) lays a wreath at the tomb every memorial day and veteran's day to honor the fallen.

I have included two short videos of the ceremony of the changing of the guard.  There are many more on sites like YouTube - some are better than these but, I'm using them because they're mine.  Please forgive the lady in the second video for not turning her cell phone off...
 

It could be that my emotions have been near the surface for the last few months because of what has been going on in my personal life but I was touched by the ceremony and the dedication of the soldiers who guard the tomb.  In essence they are saying - you are not forgotten because I won't let you be and nothing will disturb your rest on my watch.

Overall, I gained a greater understanding of and appreciation for some of the great events in the history of America.  I also realized how far we have deviated from some of our time-tested and honored ideals.  It is my sincere hope and prayer that we, as Americans, can come together and return to those ideals before we are compelled to do so.

-KW