A Day in My Life

Sunday, 4 January 2009

We have been out of the school routine for three weeks, so it seems awfully early to be getting up in time to shower and dress for a 9 a.m. meeting. Luckily, we don't need to worry about breakfast, since it's fast Sunday. Frost is covering everything, so we're glad to pile sleepily into the Honda, which has been parked in the garage, so it doesn't need to be scraped down or warmed up. Dillon is driving, but we are leaving in plenty of time to make it over to Paul's ward on time for the blessing of Grace Amarise.

Dillon has been driving for many months and has become quite expert at turns and merges and stopping smoothly. As we exit I-5 South to head east, the ramp takes us out over the east edge of the river on a wide left turn back over the freeway. Bill reminds Dillon not to take the exit too fast, because it might be icy. Dillon takes his foot off the gas and moves it to the brake. As soon as his foot touches the brake we become a pinball, sliding on the ice and bouncing between the concrete walls of the off-ramp as we continue the turn and are funneled onto Belmont Street. During those eerily slow-motioned seconds, we have managed to crunch all four corners of the car, but when we reach the main road, it is ice-free.

"Is everyone okay?" Bill asks, and we nod in return. "The car is still drivable, you might as well continue on to church."

"No. I'm not drivable," Dillon asserts, "I want to switch."

At the light, Dillon puts the car in park and does a Chinese fire drill with Bill. Dillon winces as he finds the door resisting a little too much as he tries to get out. I see Bill shake his head at the car behind us and mouth "We're fine," before he gets into the driver's seat. After several blocks, Bill observes, "Dillon, I don't know that it would have been any different if I was driving. That road was just a sheet of ice."

"No one behind us hit the wall," Dillon laments.

"That's only because they saw us fish-tailing and slowed to a crawl."

"Glad I could be an example," Dillon allows, grudgingly.

"Don't worry. We're all okay, AAA will come and tow the car and the insurance will take care of the repairs. That's what we pay them for," Bill offers as reassurance.

We park against the curb at the church, so we don't leak radiator fluid all over the parking lot. As we go into the church, Bill asks Paul if he could take us back to our house after Sacrament meeting, since by then our radiator will be empty.

The chapel is filled with chatter as people say hello, and Happy New Year and compare stories of trouble from the snowy weather. Paul reminds me that I had met the Wattses at his house when Grace was newly born. We greet Aaron's parents and his sister, Mindy, and her family, who attend that ward too. Some people in this small congregation wonder about us, and are disappointed to learn we are only visiting for the day.

The bishop starts the meeting almost on time. He is very young, but obviously cares and is kind and genuine. The chorister is enthusiastic and fun to follow, although his arms fly more like a bat than a falcon. We sit in a mixed up family group on the bench, with Bill, Benjamin and Connor to my left and Emaline warming my lap. Katie and Dillon help Paul with the older girls, and Marcy holds Grace.

After the sacrament, ten or eleven men stand up and go to the front to squeeze into a tight circle around Grace. Paul's blessing is sweet and is centered around Grace's strong foundation in the gospel and sharing it with others. She is quiet for the whole prayer and is so cozy in her sweater/romper Marcy didn't have the heart to change her into a dress. After the blessing, Marcy takes her out to nurse, the older girls move back a row to play with the Watts, and Emaline squirms around on my lap during the testimonies.

At the end of the meeting, Dick invites us to come out to Oregon City, where he is headed, to attend the ordination of his grandson, Adam, to the Melchizedek priesthood and the office of an elder. We scrap our plans to return to our ward and accept. We each bring a car seat from Paul's van into the church lobby, and he drives us to our house. On the way there, he asks more questions about the accident and is startled to realize that Dillon had been driving. When he saw us drive up to the church, Bill was driving, so I guess he assumed that's how it went. I think that is actually cool for Dillon to hear, because it reinforces what Bill had told him, that it could have happened to anyone.

We hug Paul goodbye and go inside to get the VW keys. Bill hands them to Dillon, but he protests.

"Don't I even get a one day suspension?"

"Nope! Get back on that horse," Bill advises.

We pile in and head for Oregon City. I hand Bill my AAA card, so he can call a tow truck, but his phone rings. It's David. Since we missed going up to Grandpa Bill's grave on the 28th, they would like to meet us there today at 5 p.m. We'll each bring a poinsettia and we won't plan to stay long--it's a date. It takes about thirty minutes to get to the Young's meeting place, but the drive is uneventful and Dillon does a great job. We arrive just as Sunday school is letting out. There are about twenty people in a little classroom to witness the ordination.

A tall man says hello to me and shakes my hand as he says, "Hi Melissa, I'm Terry."

"Wow! It's great to see you!" I manage before Aaron starts the little meeting. Terry is the divorced father of three beautiful children, and his daughter, Aubrey, was a young woman in our eastside ward that I used to teach.

Aaron simply introduces the stake authority, and then he says a few words of welcome too. Adam takes his seat in the middle of the room, eight men join in, including Terry, and Aaron does the ordination. This simple and profound rite of passage brings tears to many eyes and there are hugs all around. Adam shakes everyone's hand and hugs more than a few. He is still the same young man, but something about just making the decision to go on a two-year mission seems to have focused him and given him real purpose. I ask Terry about Aubrey and he tells me she lives in Washington with her husband and they became proud parents in 2008. I never stop marveling at how everyone I know grows up, whether I'm there to witness it or not.

There is still an hour of meetings left, so we separate and go to class. I follow Michelle down the hall to the Relief Society room, where she is scheduled to teach the lesson. We get there just as she is being introduced. Michelle is a wonderful teacher and invites a lot of discussion. The lesson is on strengthening the marriage relationship, and her example alone is some powerful teaching, but she offers some ideas and we all share from our own experiences. At the end of the meetings we all gather in the lobby and group up again to go in separate cars. Bill drives right in front of Aaron to block his way out and rolls down the window.

“Hey, Aaron! Now that all our kids are in your cars—see you later! (Ha, Ha)”

We actually have to follow Aaron for a while as he takes on the back way to avoid the roads that are closed because of the snow. We eventually get back onto a familiar road and we all end up at Aaron and Michelle’s fantastic farmstead. We all pull out our helping hands and put together an impromptu feast. The teenagers make mounds of cornbread, I stir up some shrimp to supplement the beef that has been cooking in the crock pot. While Aaron washes some fresh eggs in the other sink, Michelle cooks up some green beans and I fiddle around making gravy from the crock pot juices. Eventually we get thirteen of us around the dining room table and eat ourselves silly with all the good food.

Unfortunately, we can’t stay long. We have plans to meet David up at Sunset Hills cemetery. With hugs all around, we take our leave and drive back to the big city. When we’re almost home, we call David to coordinate the meeting, but their family has already come and gone from the cemetery because of some quirks that came up in their schedule. We go home and grab our poinsettias anyway, and head up there for our own little family memorial.

It is dark and cold at the gravesite. We gather around the two headstones of grandpa and grandma and set our flowers down in a way that seems fitting. Bill is the only one in our family who ever knew his father, but we all have some memories of his mother. Each of the kids shares a memory, but they are mostly from the very end of her life, when she was so different because of the Alzheimer’s. Bill reminds us that although she might not have seemed so those last couple of years, for most of her life Phyllis was a smart, warm, extremely capable and caring woman. We pile somberly back into the car and return home.

Alex is there to greet us and wonders if while doing his laundry, he could spend some time taking a bath to try out a cool Christmas gift (for the bath) from one of his friends. Fine with me I tell him, but it seems that furthermore, he would like to use my big, jetted tub downstairs instead of the normal-sized jetted tub upstairs. I really hesitate, but finally consent since I can’t think of a good reason to say no. In hindsight I wonder why a parent needs a reason, really. It’s just that I know Alex always craves one so much, and I sometimes find it easier to change my mind than provide one.

In the flurry of getting kids ready for another week of school, talking about the insurance claims and car repair, one final snack, and moving kids toward getting ready for bed, I don’t pay much attention to Alex. It does seem like he is taking a long time getting around to taking his bath. I finally go down to check on the laundry status and find all my bathroom rugs soaking wet in the laundry-room sink! Alex seems to be in the tub now, so I can’t go in and check out my bathroom, but WHAT the…!!! Katie wanders into the laundry room and notices my distress. She assures me that she and Alex cleaned it all up and I don’t need to worry about it. Right.

After emerging from what must have been a disappointingly tepid bath, Alex sheepishly admits that the tub had overflowed in his absence. He was used to waiting a certain amount of time for the upstairs tub to fill (13 minutes). When he had checked on my tub after that long, it was only about halfway filled, so he thought he had lots of time. His best guess now is that he had forgotten to push the plug down at first, but when he checked, the weight of the water had finally pushed it down and it was actually filling up quite rapidly, though he didn’t realize it. I find nearly every towel I own soaking wet on the bathroom floor. I can tell they really tried to be thorough, but the carpet in front of my closet is completely soaked and is seeping under the wall into the closet. This will need a major drying out. (After soaking up as much water with beach towels as I could, it took two space heaters two more days to dry it out.)

I get the three younger kids to bed and as Bill is brushing his teeth, Alex comes in to say good-bye. “Hey Alex, did you flood my bathroom?” Bill asks, incredulously.

“Well, yeah. But I didn’t mean to.”

It is impossible to think of anything to say at the end of a very long day. We are exhausted both mentally and physically. Bill confesses to me after I return from taking Alex back to his dorm that he is not sure he wants to take the family up to visit the gravesites any more. It just makes him too sad that his children seem to only remember their grandma’s oddness at the end. Of course we agree that is not how we want to go, but how much of that can you control?

I’m pretty sure tomorrow will be boring after today.