Laura's final blog post

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Rowena. Rowena was told from the time she was very little that she was destined to become a queen, which meant that she was a princess. She was also told that somewhere out there was a prince who she would fall in love with and marry. Now when most people think of a princess, they think of a beautiful maiden from magical stories [LS1] who lives in a castle and wears fancy clothes and has lots of servants. But Rowena was not that kind of a princess. She lived in a cottage, wore clean but simple clothes, and she helped her family on the farm. And Rowena always thought that her prince was a tall, handsome man who would ride a tall steed and carry her away to live with him in his castle.

Of course, Rowena always wondered why she was not one of the princesses in those fairy tales. One day, she asked her father why, if they were royalty, they did not live in a castle like the kings and queens in the fairy tales she read?

“Every young girl is a princess, my daughter,” her father smiled.

“Every girl?” Rowena asked.

“Yes, every girl. Every girl has the potential to become a queen.”

Rowena was confused. How was it possible for every girl to be a princess? If every girl was a princess, then every woman was a queen. How could that be? Surely there was not room enough for everyone to be kings and queens.

Her father could notice her confusion, “My daughter, someday you will understand how you become a queen.”

Rowena remembered this, but was always curious about what her father told her. When would she understand? How would she find out? Would someone tell her? Was it written in a book somewhere? And what about her prince?

There was a sorcerer named Leroy who knew exactly what it meant to be a prince or a princess, or potentially a king or queen. He was once a prince, but he only desired the glory and title [LS2] of king. He wanted to rule over other people, and tell them what to do. But this was not good. Those who believed that kings and queens should have unlimited power cast him away. In his sorrow, he decided to take up sorcery. His goal was to convince every man, woman, and child that they had no potential at being a king or queen, and he did not want anyone to take any joy in their current existence. Leroy wanted these monarchs [LS3] to find misery in their existence, and to desire to be better than others. He did not want anyone to have the happiness that he had been denied because of his own selfishness.

Rowena grew up to be a beautiful and comely [LS4] young woman. She read many books and had learned a great many things in her life and she was considered very intelligent. She was still trying to understand how she could be a princess as well as everyone else. One day, Rowena met a young man named John, who was quiet but kind. When John saw her, he was amazed by her beauty, and when he spoke to her, her intelligence astounded him. He had never known any other young woman like her. And like Rowena, he had been taught about his potential to be a king. Like Rowena, he had not been able to find out how that was possible.

John wanted to know Rowena better, but Rowena did not know if she wanted to know John better. He did not look like the prince from the fairy tales she had read as a child. Those were the only princes she knew about. After she thought about it, she decided that John could be her friend. John was not against this, since he was shy.

Leroy saw this, and was not happy. You see, the key to becoming a king or queen was true love. And for every man and woman who found true love and become kings and queens in their own right, Leroy lost more of his power. The only way he could stay powerful was if true love was never found and people could just be miserable. And he knew that John and Rowena could potentially be each other’s true love, and consequently become king and queen of their own kingdom. Leroy had to devise a plan for this to not happen.

As Rowena become better acquainted with John, the more she enjoyed being with him. He was always kind to her, and listened to her talk. He let her speak as much as she wished, after all, he enjoyed the things she said and the way she said them. Rowena also noticed that the more time she spent with John, the less shy he was. This was the beginning of a true friendship, and perhaps even love. John was becoming more and more in love with Rowena as they spent more time together. Rowena was not sure because she did not know what love was supposed to feel like. In her books, it always seemed as though the characters experienced love at first sight. She had not loved John at first sight; did this mean that she did not love him?

One day, she decided to go read in her favorite field by her house. She was done with her chores for the time being, so her mother would not be upset with her if she had some leisure time[LS5] . After Rowena found her favorite spot in the field and began reading her book, she heard the hooves of the horse steadily beating upon the ground, not far from where she was. She looked up and she saw a fine, noble [LS6] steed in the field. It was not a wild horse, for it had a young man sitting upon it. A very handsome young man dressed in very fine clothing. Clothing finer than any of the other young men in her village—in fact, his clothing looked similar to that of the princes in her favorite books.

“He must not be from around here,” she thought, intrigued with the mysterious stranger, who had just stopped his horse not too far from her. This only added to the appeal of this fine young man. She imagined he was a prince, coming to take her away so they could live happily ever after. But she knew that this could not be so, for she knew that princes like that were only in fiction. However, she thought of him as a prince from this point on, for she did not think he would stay long nor would she ever see him again.

Rowena thought this “prince” was only surveying the field, admiring its beauty, and would soon be leaving, which would most likely mean that Rowena would never see him again. She went back to her book, pretending that his presence was a routine occurrence in her small world, but she looked up again when she heard footsteps coming towards her. The “prince” wanted to speak to her!

Rowena automatically stood up to greet him. “He is probably asking for directions somewhere,” she kept telling herself.

The “prince” smiled charmingly at her and introduced himself.

“I am Prince Iago, I have come here to seek out my princess. And I believe you are the princess I have been seeking,” said he.

His princess was in shock. Her father had told her that princes were something of make-believe, merely a figment of some author’s imagination, and now she was standing in front of a prince, who at first sight wanted her to be his princess!

Iago looked at her questioningly, “Is something wrong?”

Rowena looked up, “It is only that I have always been told that you were only found in fairy tales, that you were not real.”

Prince Iago laughed, “Authors do not make things like that up. Who do you think they based their stories on?”

This made sense to Rowena. How could authors make such things up? They had to have received inspiration from somewhere. Was this the prince all these fairy tales spoke of?

“If you are that prince, then why are you not with any of the princesses these stories had?”

Now Iago was not truly a prince. In fact, his name was not Iago. He was truly the sorcerer Leroy, who wanted to destroy true love and happiness. Since he knew that Rowena was in danger of truly loving John, he had to find a way to keep it from happening. And since Rowena’s weakness was her love for fiction, especially of the fairy tale sort, he knew that he could bring her down with that weakness.

Leroy, or as Rowena knew him, Iago, answered her question:

“Those authors had their own ideas about who I should marry, so they wrote about how I could fall in love with these women. But I could never fall in love with them, not the way I am falling in love with you.”

There was no way Rowena could describe the way she was feeling right now. Not being able to believe that there was a prince, even the prince that fairy tales talked about, who wanted to whisk her away to his own royal abode and become his princess, and one day his queen. She accepted his proposal, not quite thinking about John. This was Leroy’s intent—to have her forget about John. Soon, Leroy, in the guise of Iago, would cause her to be miserable for all time.

It was soon proclaimed throughout the village that Rowena would marry Prince Iago. The villagers were elated that their own Rowena would become a princess. And oh, what a magnificent princess indeed!

John wanted to be happy for Rowena, but he was deeply heartbroken. He truly loved her, and he had begun to think that she also loved him.

“Obviously I am not good enough for her like that elegant prince!” he thought. He was miserable indeed, for now he did not think he could ever find someone else. Half of Leroy’s plan had been accomplished. Leroy had removed all happiness from one man, now he needed to inflict misery upon the woman. Or had he?

Rowena and Iago’s wedding was to happen quickly, so Iago could get back to his kingdom as quickly as possible. But truly, Leroy did not want to give Rowena enough time to rethink her decision to marry him.

Iago would always tell Rowena about the life they would live. She would have servants to wait on her night and day, at her leisure; she would have the most beautiful clothing; eat the best food; and would rule over a large kingdom at some point in time. Her subjects, which would be many, would obey her every command, and if any did not, she could punish them in any way she pleased.

Rowena had always been pure in heart, and she always believed that everyone should be treated with kindness and mercy. She had also been taught that those who exercised dominion over others were often cruel and selfish[LS7] . But her Iago was so handsome and so good to her that she could not believe he could be so unkind to other people. She put her fears to rest and continued to progress with the plans for her nuptials.

Sadly, that was not the last time she would doubt Iago. When they met, he would tell her how beautiful and kind she was and it seemed that the sweet words would never stop flowing from his lips. But every now and then, he would say something that was not so kind. First he would tell her that she was being too kind, and then would censure her timidity, saying, “You are going to have servants soon, you should not be afraid to tell people what to do!”

It appeared that Leroy was beginning to forget his plans. It seemed that he picked someone who was just too good and too kind; and he could not bear it. No human being could be so kind to him and to others! He had to work harder to bring her down, but while criticizing her, he would also flatter her to an extreme.

The more he criticized Rowena, the more she started wondering if marrying a prince would be what it was made out to be. But not long after the words of disparagement[LS8] , he would utter words of the highest praise, commenting on her angelic beauty and her ethereal behavior[LS9] . Rowena took very well to this kind of praise, and would stop doubting, at least until he censured her again. He also lavished her with the most wonderful attentions—beautiful jewelry, clothes, anything she wanted. Even the most costly copies of books, even though he wanted her to pay more attention to him than to books.

It did not take much longer until Rowena began to be unhappy. She appreciated all that the prince did for her, but she was not very happy, though she could not understand why. Iago loved her, why else would he give her such things of luxury? And why would he want to take her back to his own kingdom if he did not love her? Perhaps he did love her, but she was beginning to become more and more unsure of her love for him.

She also began to realize that she missed John. While John was not a prince in the sense of royalty, he was always kind to her and seemed incapable of uttering words of insult to anyone. She remembered how happy she was whenever she spent time with him.

Rowena decided to go see her dear friend, for she had not seen him since she had agreed to marry Prince Iago.

When John saw Rowena coming to see him, he was happy and saddened. It seemed that Leroy’s plan had not worked entirely, for there was still some happiness left in him. He permitted her entrance into his house, not a palace by any means, but a neat, well-kept house nonetheless.

When Rowena saw John, she realized she was happier than she had been since she became engaged. As they visited, she heard nothing but kind words from his lips, and they were sincere; insincerity was something John was not capable of. And what was more, he let Rowena talk as much as she needed, and listened to her.

Rowena did not want to leave. Actually, she never wanted to leave John. Now she was beginning to know what love truly was, for she was experiencing it with John.

As she was about to leave, she knew that she had to tell him.

“John,” she said. “it is wrong for me to marry Prince Iago.” She could not believe she was saying this.

John blinked in confusion. How could this be?

“John, I…I do not care to become a princess. I think I would be much happier living humbly than living unhappily in a palace. You are ever so much kinder to me than Iago is.”

She went on to tell him how Iago criticized her, while still giving her many fine gifts and praising her beauty to seemingly no end.

After dealing with the initial shock of her words, John smiled. Rowena loved him! No longer did they care about finding an elusive prince or princess, whatever that meant. They could be happy together, not caring about servants or lavish clothing. If they could only have each other, then they would be happy. Rowena made plans to break off her betrothal to the prince, though it would be difficult because her engagement was so public. She did not want to hurt him.

Leroy already knew that Rowena had just decided to not marry him, and that his plan to cause eternal heartache upon John had failed. What had he done wrong?

Rowena timidly approached who she thought was her prince. She was scared because she knew that he would be hurt by what she had to say. What she did not know, was what her “prince” had in store for her now.

As she began to speak, she could feel her tongue swelling in her mouth, thus preventing her voice from coming forth.

“What is it my love?” Iago said almost mockingly. Rowena could not speak, no matter how hard she tried.

“I know what you are trying to do, Rowena,” said Iago, Leroy now becoming more and more apparent. “But I cannot let you do it. You made a promise to me, and you are not going to break it.”

Rowena still could not get a word out of her mouth.

“You are NOT going to thwart my plans!” said Leroy. “John already thwarted my plan for him, I am not going let you thwart my plan for you!”

“How does he know about John?” thought Rowena. “They have never met.”

“Oh, how do I know John?” said Leroy. “I’ll tell you how.” He said this all while maintaining hold of Rowena’s way of speech. “I am not Prince Iago. I am Leroy, the sorcerer. A sorcerer who loathes happiness and joys in others’ misery. I am not happy and do not wish others to be happy!”

Rowena felt pity for him.

“Oh do not have pity on me you pathetic child! I am happy in my misery, if that is difficult for you to believe. In fact, I enjoy making others miserable!”

Rowena was in so much pain that she could not move a bone in her body.

“Where is your precious John now?” Leroy mocked.

Oh how Rowena really wanted John to come save her from this wicked man! But how could he save her when he was just a man? There was no way. Oh, if only they could die together so they would never be apart again!

“Oh, John will never come now. He does not love you near enough to come save you,” laughed Leroy.

Leroy was very wrong indeed. While Rowena was suffering great pains, John was beginning to fear that Rowena was in danger, and had begun to regret not going with her when she was breaking off her engagement to the prince. He knew that princes were powerful and could order even death, but little did he know who he would be dealing with.

Miraculously, John found Rowena on the brink of death. He saw Leroy, laughing at her pain, but as soon as he saw John, he was horrified.

“No! You cannot thwart my plans again!”

Although John was normally a shy man, he was now a bold man.

“I love her. Let her go!”

“What?”

“Let her go! She is my true love! If she dies, I die too.”

Leroy’s hold upon Rowena was already loosening, and now she could speak, though weakly.

“He is my true love. Please do not separate me from him. If I should die, he dies too.”

Leroy’s powers were getting weaker and weaker, as soon as his hold upon Rowena had weakened completely; John caught Rowena in his arms, for she was so weak. As they embraced, Leroy was losing more and more power.

Leroy’s powers got weaker as more people found true love, and by the time John and Rowena had fallen in love, he had lost his sorcerer powers and could no longer inflict misery upon others.

John and Rowena married and lived happily in their quiet home. They had come to realize that royalty was not about the honors and the fancy clothes, it was how they felt about each other and how they treated each other. Rowena felt like she was a queen with John, and John felt like a king whenever he was with Rowena. Their “kingdom” would be their own children, who were actually their princes and princesses.

---

[LS1]Merism for fairy tale

[LS2]Kenning for glory

[LS3]Kings and queens

[LS4]Kenning: very beautiful

[LS5]Kenning for free time

[LS6]Kenning for glorious

[LS7]Kenning: bad

[LS8]Merism: disparaging words

[LS9]Kenning: things of an angel

Evelyn's Final Project for Ling & Lit

Evelyn Stanley
Dr. Hallen
Final Project
Summer 2009

Bathroom Bear—the Sonnet
A fear lies hulking, skulking in the night
And travels with me on appointed rounds
The bear was lying wait beyond my sight
And yet his very thought my fear propounds

A haven off’ring, proff’ring safety’s light,
The campground restroom gives an eerie glow,
But now I cannot stay nor cans’t take flight,
The bear’s without—my black, unchallenged foe.

I listen to my wond’ring, thund’ring heart,
It tells me that I must confront the fear,
Imbued with courage as ‘twere heaven’s part,
I burst my prison door and left the bear.

Unbeknownst to me, the bear had left,
And so it was with fear that faith had cleft.




Alma 26:8

Blessed be the name of our God;
Let us sing to his praise, yea,
Let us give thanks to his holy name,
For he doth work righteousness forever.

I praise the name of my Almighty King,
I sing of all works under Heaven,
His is the name by which I am saved,
The name of Salvation given.




I Stand All Amazed

My second great grandmother, Mary Magdalena Mauchley Wilson, was a teen when her family heard the gospel preached in Switzerland in the 1860s. There was persecution of outside religions in Switzerland at that time. The family sneaked away on New Year’s Eve of 1862 to be baptized. Perhaps when worshipping in their new faith, the broken bread would also serve as a reminder of the broken ice of their baptismal water, necessary shattering of old lives so that new life could begin. Later, those same steps of faith led her across Europe, the Atlantic Ocean, past settled America, across the Great Plains and over the Rocky Mountains. Her life did not get any easier, but her faith did. A part of me desires to find the part of the family that stayed behind—a message and work left to me by mothers and grandmothers now guiding the gathering from the other side of the veil. Another part wants to know the place she left when she set her heart towards Zion. I want to go there and feel the foundation of my heritage between my fingers. I want to stand where she stood—a sacred pilgrimage of faith returned. Then the whispers flow into my thoughts: No. Do not stand where she stood. She left there to stand here. Make your stand of faith here where her faith brought her.

I love to sing the hymn which so reverently states, “I stand all amazed at the love Jesus offers me, confused at the grace that so fully he proffers me. I tremble to know that for me He was crucified, that for me a sinner he suffered, he bled, and died. Oh it is wonderful that he should care for me enough to die for me. Oh it is wonderful, wonderful to me.” The first line repeats in my mind: “I stand all amazed at the love Jesus offers me.” Then, I realize, “I stand all amazed at the love.” I continue to the simple truth: “I stand all amazed. I stand all. I stand.” Because of His sacrifice, I stand. I stand up; I stand out; I understand; I take a stand. I stand where Mary stood, and I stand for what she stood.




Commute

I leave those temples of learning spoken of in vision,
To make a weary way home after a day of seeking.
The still of twilight fills my soul with peaceful thoughts,
As I follow the chain of mountains that ring my travel home.
My breath still catches as I enter Salt Lake Valley from the point,
My eyes caressing the majestic view of the valley home I love.
My commute feels guarded by mountain sentinels,
And as evening falls I see more: one, two, three, four, five
Mountains of the Lord.
A string of light between school and home.





Eddie

I spotted the tall, young man as I was walking back to my grocery cart. I put the cottage cheese down next to the milk and gave him another discrete sideways glace. He was standing with a couple of friends in front of the beer case. Something was very familiar about him. Could this be Eddie? I half-talked myself out of the possibility. After all, it had been years, and he didn’t live in my neighborhood. Then I was sure of it. This was Eddie.
My mind opened up to a view of the second grade classroom that Eddie shared with my youngest daughter so many years ago. I remembered the many hours I spent with him in the hall as a classroom volunteer tutoring him. Eddie was always behind and needed extra one-on-one coaching with his math and reading. I would hold up the math flashcards one at a time and wait for him to formulate an answer.
Eddie was a sweet boy. Perhaps he couldn’t read well, but the teacher seemed to be getting him the help he needed. Surely he would be all right. In the meantime, I held up the little red construction paper racecars with the math facts for him to ponder. I didn’t know anything else about his life, but I could tell he had struggles. I wondered where he would end up. Eddie and my daughter continued to share classrooms for the next several years, and so I saw him quite regularly during grade school. He was always polite but kind of lost. I worried about Eddie. We spent too many hours together in the school hallways learning times-tables for me not to be invested.
During junior high and high school I would ask my daughter about Eddie once in a while. For a short stint, I substituted as the receptionist for the high school counseling office. There I crossed his path again, as he was in and out of his counselor’s office. I knew him from way back, so when he came in I would always greet him and ask about his welfare more pointedly than I would other students. I saw him at graduation—I was glad he had made it that far.
Now here he was standing in front of the beer aisle at the grocery store. Something gave me the boldness to overcome any reticence I may have been feeling, and I found myself walking right up to this young man in the black leather jacket, with a motherly confidence.
“Are you Eddie?” I asked. He turned to look at me. “I’m Esther’s mom,” I continued.
“I recognize you,” he said. I took his hand and gave him a long handshake, and we talked for just a few minutes—just crossing paths again. I looked deeply at him and held up the flashcards of life for him to answer. We talked easily, and he was very open. Some of his story unfolded—still so much about him I do not know. His hair was long and stringy. He was missing some teeth. He said he’d been in trouble, some real trouble along the way. He had two children by two different women. But he was doing better, he said. He was getting ready to start school in a few weeks—a small, private trade school—the kind you see advertised on late night television.
I wished him well, and meant it. He asked about my daughter, his long ago school chum. His friends were waiting. We said good bye and parted. I watched him turn and walk down the grocery store aisle—a little blond second grader with a funny grin, trouble reading, and a kind heart. I hoped he would find himself—soon. I wished that I had told him to never forget that there are people who care about him, but I didn’t think of it until he had walked away—just about the same time I remembered his last name.






Die like a Movie
By Evelyn Stanley
Perhaps Mom’s love of movies came from growing up with Shirley Temple during the Great Depression. Talking movies, the Depression, and Shirley Temple were sensational in the 1930s, when my mother was a child. It could be that Mom spent Saturday afternoons at the matinee watching Shirley lift the country’s morale to the tempo of her tap shoes. Perhaps Mom’s love of the movies matured when she did—during the War years. Mom was a teenager, young woman, then bride when the world was at war. This was the era of big name studio stars who, when not plugging war bonds on-screen, distracted movie patrons from the lists of war dead posted to the notice board outside the local post office. Maybe Mom simply loved the big-screen drama. From the plush, gilded theaters to the adrenaline-filled newsreels to the character-rich plots with the “I love you—don’t ever leave me—I beg you” dialogs, everything about the movie experience was dramatic, and so was my mother. She could get lost in the movie moment and become completely absorbed in the intense emotion on the screen. We children would laugh and tease whenever we caught her pursing her lips as she watched the on-screen lovers kiss.
Going to the movies was expensive, and my family didn’t watch movies at theaters very often. However, once each summer, Mom and Dad packed us kids into the station wagon with blankets and pillows, and we went to the drive-in movie. Dad maneuvered the car along the rows of parked vehicles filled with the Saturday night movie-goers already watching the movie on the giant outdoor screen. We crept along in the dark—the car headlights were turned off so as not to interfere with the on-screen lighting. We kids cranked our necks to watch the playing movie through the car windows, hoping that we would not be relegated to the back of the drive-in as Dad drove slowly up one row and down the next. Though we couldn’t hear the sound yet, the movie was exciting, and we could hardly wait for Dad to park the car. It always took Dad several tries to get the car situated. He spotted an empty space and we, his anxious passengers, chanted “Yeah, yeah, this one! This is perfect—no wait, that one over there is better! Come on!” The only other family enterprise that required such skill and effort was our yearly trip to the Christmas tree lot each December, where the hunt for the perfect Christmas tree was just as laborious. Meanwhile, Dad pulled the car into the spot of empty asphalt as close as possible to the metal pole that held the speakers. He eased up the man-made embankment that positioned each car so it pointed up towards the screen, then he backed out a little, then up again, then back, then over a bit, then back until we had the best view. He rolled down his window and unhooked the speaker for our parking space from where it hung on the pole. When it was securely hung on the inside of Dad’s window, he rolled the window back up as far as it would go while carrying the speaker, then he turned the sound up so we could all hear—unless—the speaker didn’t work. Then we realized that was why that “good” spot had been unoccupied, and we started the entire process over again.
In spite of this annual adventure, most of our movie watching was on the small screen at home. Long before VHS or DVD, this is where Mom passed down her love of old movies to me. It didn’t matter that the movies were in black-and-white, so was our television—everything we watched was in black-and-white. As we watched the Afternoon Movie Theater on Channel Four, Mom talked me through the plots, shared her admiration of the stars, helped me appreciate the suspense or sentiment, and made sure I knew who were the heroes and villains. Old movies and Mom went together like popcorn and butter.
Life in the movies was glamorous and exciting, so it followed that death in the movies would be just as exciting and glamorous. The movie death-scenes I watched from the living room couch in the afternoon haze seemed to blend together into one familiar scene: the soon-to-dearly-depart lied pale and peaceful under the satin bed covers. Last wishes were promisingly tendered and tenderly promised in return. Devoted family members brimmed about the bed while holding hands and dabbing brimming eyes. With a fond last look at each adoring child and a final fare-thee-well, the beloved mother’s eyes closed and her head turned to one side. The sobs momentarily rose while the women sorrowfully buried their faces in the men’s chests, and the men put their arms around their wife or sister while they, themselves, stared off empty and trancelike, overcome with grief. The doctor announced, “She’s gone,” as he pulled the sheet up over her perfectly made-up face, and the devoted husband followed up with, “And to a better place.” The assembled nodded in resolute agreement and dried their tears as they walked each other from the room, resolved to be better people—the kind of people Mom wanted them to be.
Years later when my mother played out her real-life death scene, nothing about it resembled the naïve death fantasies I remembered from the old movies we watched together. Mom didn’t die like in the movies. Hers was an awful, ugly, two-year fight-to-the-death with metastatic breast cancer that left me physically exhausted, emotionally traumatized, and in the end, motherless. There was no doctor at the scene—insurance didn’t provide for that. We, mostly my two sisters, were the caregivers while Mom labored to die at home. No satin bed covers. At the end, as she lay in a brain-tumor stupor, all covers and even nightgowns were removed to provide for ease for the many procedures that were needed. To preserve some dignity, even though she lay unconscious, towels were strategically placed to cover the most private areas.
As we cared for our dying mother, we grown children watched our father “die” emotionally alongside his wife of nearly fifty years. We became caregivers to him as well as her, as throughout the ordeal he ran through the house wringing his hands and crying, crumbling as he watched his lover and sweetheart die one piece at a time. He wasn’t ready to let her go, he never would have been, and he never did. Until her last breath, he held out for the miracle that would restore her cancer-riddled organs, remove the tumors throughout her body, and return his sense of security and self.
Throughout her life, Mom had never been a physically strong woman. Her strength was in her mind and will, and that became more evident as she held on throughout each turn of her disease. So it was frightening to me when she went through a short, yet acute, depression when the word “terminal” first became part of her life. She was bed-ridden and wasn’t able to escape from her sickbed-prison to ever retreat from the cancer that was her constant companion. We stood by helplessly as she found her own way to run away: she “left” emotionally for a few days. She sunk deep into her soul to fight the battle inside, but when she re-emerged a few days later, she was ready to face what she could not change.
It was September when we learned that the cancer was incurable. The doctor told Mom she would survive from six months to ten years. We found out later that that was a pleasant platitude, designed to protect the medical community from a wrong guess. Her cancer was vigorous and advanced. Much later in the course of her suffering, we were to learn that the results from the surgery an entire year earlier had read like a death sentence—twelve out of eighteen lymph nodes were cancerous—a lethal percentage. Mom gave me the assignment to call the “short list” of friends and relatives she thought should be informed—loathsome duty, but I could never refuse Mom. She told me where to locate her personal address book, and I sat next to her bed and made the phone calls. First on the list was her only sister: “My mom asked me to call you and—let you know—that—her cancer—is—terminal.” I could not believe how difficult it was to choke out the words. It was one thing to academically understand that the cancer was going to take her life. It was quite another to hear the words come out of my mouth. Especially now—she was stronger and healthier than she had been in months. She had recovered through the summer months from the long winter of chemo and radiation. She was living her life again; she was feeling better, not terminal. I didn’t think that I was that tied to my mother, and I am the older and more mature daughter, I thought. But repeating that sentence out loud brought uncontrollable tears, and the catch in my throat gave me away.
As her time became shorter and her needs more critical, the family spent more and more time gathered at home—taking turns through the night or just standing watch over both of our parents. Some nights, every couch, chair, or spot of floor within earshot of Mom was filled with a family member—either too tired to drive home, or too worried to leave. The little room in the back corner of the little house had become the center of our lives. It was where our mother still reigned over her court: her throne—the sick bed where she lay propped up; her scepter—the IV dripping the morphine; her ladies in waiting—my sisters who did most of the procedures and washing and medicating; her courtesans—all who gathered near to offer a bit of solace to her and to each other.
There were moments of humor that lifted the oppressive cloud of sorrow that hung over us. One day before the disease robbed Mom of her mind, we were sitting about her bed offering useless clichés—searching for anything that might bring comfort. I reminded her of all the beloved souls from her life that had already gone on before. These were people that she adored and missed and included such family luminaries as her parents, her grandparents, and beloved aunts and uncles. When I finished my (what I thought was convincing) speech, Mom was quiet for a moment. When she spoke again she said, “Well, in my life those were the people that bossed me around. I would rather stay here.”
Another day, after the cancer had affected Mom’s brain, when one particular sister was the only one home with her, Mom produced an entire program—a dramatic talent that she was well-known for. This day, in spite of the curtain of cancer clouding her mind, Mom put on an entire “West Jordan Days” program. Though her married life had been lived in Midvale, Mom had grown up in West Jordan, and her roots were there. At the end of the “program,” Mom made an announcement (to the bedroom wall) in her best professional voice: “As you all know, Mrs. Sharp has been quite ill, so her daughter will now say a few words in her behalf.” What makes this incident especially hilarious is that the daughter in question is the extremely shy daughter—who never performs or speaks anywhere for any reason. My sister hesitated—even for an imaginary public speech. Mom would have none of it. “Go on—get out there. The audience is waiting.” So my sister gave a proper speech (to the bedroom wall) excusing my ill mother and speaking a few words for her. After the “program” ended, my mother leaned over and whispered to my sister: “I’m worried about the Japanese people in the audience—they look depressed.” We wished we wrote down the funny, poignant, and profound things that happened during Mom’s illness. We knew we would want to reflect on them later, but the immediate crisis consumed every effort we had.
I do remember how shocked I was when Mom calmly told me, after I had escorted one of her visitors to the door, her perception that they had come to say their “good-byes.” The thought was too vulgar, too brash, and hadn’t even occurred to me—probably because I wasn’t ready to say my own “good-byes.” I was taken aback to think that people were starting to send her off, and I was stunned by her own self-awareness. Her brother made a special trip to see her and flew in from New York City, in his words, to see her “before she got all sloppy.” They had a long and good visit about life, death, West Jordan, growing up, growing old, and—they said good-bye. A friend of many years came by one day to check in on her. It was a bad time. Mom was in tremendous pain and needed several urgent procedures. The household was in a dither (as Mom would have said) as everyone dashed to and fro taking care of various needs. On one hurried pass down the hallway, I stepped into the living room where her old friend was patiently waiting out the crisis so he could have a moment with her. I hastily apologized and explained the situation. He said words I have not forgotten. I can still see him in my mind sitting in the big chair next to the front door, his arms resting along the arms of the chair and his hands gripping the ends as he said, “Well, it’s hard getting into this world, but it’s even harder getting out.”
I felt cheated when the cancer took Mom’s mind. Her “terminal” status meant no more expensive tests, but it is safe to surmise that a tumor or swelling or both finally reached a point where the pressure affected her cognitive abilities. She was now semi-conscious and no longer recognized her world. I did not know this would happen; it came on abruptly, and I was not prepared for it. I had planned to say my good-byes when it was time, and though she was still here, it was too late.
It was now summer, and as the long, hot days wore on, so did Mom’s fight. We watched and waited as she outlived every prediction for the duration of her illness. On the Fourth of July, my sister shared Mom’s last lucid episode. It was a joyful, peaceful interlude. The late afternoon sun shown in through the bedroom window, where the hospital bed had been positioned and from where the two of them watched my sister’s five-year-old daughter dance with sparklers and play in the grass. Without any prior indication, Mom had “awakened” and spent a perfect, lovely evening with a daughter and granddaughter. It would be the last time. She lapsed back into a coma for eighteen more days.
Mom’s “limited engagement” closed too soon. The last week—an entire week—was filled with horrific grand mal seizures as the cancer took dominance over her brain. The seizures got closer and closer together until they were happening every seven minutes. In spite of the morphine, I never saw my mother completely relieved of her pain. I wanted to scream, “Give her more! Give her enough to quit the pain. She’s already unconscious. So what if she gets ‘addicted.’ She’s dying!” At one point she hallucinated that she kept giving birth. We realized later that that had been her only way of communicating the intense pain in her tumor-filled abdomen.

One sister lived just around the corner from Mom; the other sister was a professional nurse. Both were closer emotionally to Mom than I was, and I was crazy raising four teenagers at the time. But my sisters needed me—I needed—to help somehow. I approached Mom as to whether she would like me to make her burial dress. She was excited to choose her last dress. I brought pictures, patterns, and fabric samples to her bedside, and she selected a simple white satin with an iridescent lace bodice overlay. I was thrilled to offer something unique, needed, and personal. The cares of that summer were overwhelming and didn’t leave much free time for me to sew. And then she was “gone” before she actually passed on. I felt so bad that I hadn’t finished her dress in time for her to see it. I brought it to her bedroom the night it was done and hung it on her closet door where she could see it if by some chance she became cognizant. I stood there alone in the subdued lighting and looked at the cards, flowers, and pictures of Christ about the room. I approached her unconscious body and whispered, “Mom, here’s your dress. I’m sorry I didn’t get it done sooner. I wish you didn’t need it, but I hope you like it.” Then, having been told the sense of hearing is the last to stop working, I continued: “I love you, Mom. Thank you for everything. Good-bye.” I left a kiss and half-expected her eyes to open. I strained to hear her say, “I love you, too,” but all I heard was her heavy, unconscious breathing. The dress hung there, specter like, until it was delivered to the mortician. However, it also hung there hopefully and beautifully: hopeful, for as long as it was there it signified that she lived, and beautiful, as if to represent the new life waiting for her in the arms of her Heavenly Father.
When her body finally came to terms with the cancer, the violence of the seizures ceased. Though the house was filled with loved-ones, she peacefully took her last breath with only one son-in-law in her room keeping watch. Mom had dictated a portion of her obituary to me several months earlier. There was to be no trite “after a valiant fight with cancer” in my mother’s obit. Her first paragraph reads: “Donnabel Spratling Sharp died after a rip-roarin,’ snortin’ battle with metastatic breast cancer. She lost.”
It wasn’t a movie; it was life.

Amanda's Final Post

tale as old as tYme

My name is Lily. I am in my junior year at Brigham Young University, and I love to write poetry. For me, poetry is a way to express myself in ways that only those who take the time to study it would understand. I am Lily, the word crafter, weaving tapestries of nature to show the world. Unfortunately, many people around me do not see the beauty of my work and instead praise me for my intelligence in school or my beauty, attempting to convince me to put the poetry behind me. All of that changed when I met Edmund.

Edmund was a new member of my ward; he had just moved in the previous week. He was mysterious and shadowy: hardly anyone saw him outside his apartment, and when they did, he always had on a coat with a long collar that hid his face. When he spoke, his voice was as the roar of the forest’s king, but usually he was silent as a serpent. He hobbled along with a limp, which made him even more curious. No one was certain if he was a student or if he had just moved into the complex to work somewhere in Provo. Although hardly anyone had talked to him, everyone could cross the ts and dot the is of all his stories. Rumors were flying around like misguided fireworks, and everyone seemed to believe the stories, no matter how crazy they were. Despite their curiosity about his origin, people usually tried to avoid him. He was just different, and they would rather guess at the truth than find that their tall tales were false.

False tales aside, Edmund’s mysterious personality made him seem like some sort of a fairy-tale creature to me. In many of the poems that I was writing, I used a dragon to symbolize him. To me, he was like the keeper of the treasure—I felt that he had a secret of great value that he was protecting. I always wondered what it was that he was protecting. One day, I decided to follow him to find out.

Out of the blue, I decided to go home to eat lunch rather than studying in the library like I normally do. I was a couple doors away from my apartment when I saw Edmund leaving his apartment, carrying a large black case. I watched him stagger down the stairs and head towards the mountains. Without thinking twice, I flew down the stairs and started following him. I almost couldn’t find him again. Like a chameleon he seemed to have adopted the colors of the outdoors. Fortunately, I saw a small piece of fabric whisk around a nearby tree. I had to scuttle to keep up with him, but I finally caught up as he was approaching a small, broken down shack. I crouched down in the bushes as he scanned the area for intruders and slipped into the shadows beyond the front door.

The door closed, and the silence was thick. I strained my ears to catch the sound of movement in the shack. Moments later, the most beautiful melodies danced away from the house. The air reverberated with the sound of rich, deep tones. Under the spell of the music, and wanting to see what human being could make such sounds, I found myself moving towards the house.

The house was old—I didn’t know why it was there or who had lived in it before, but I knew that I had to find out who was playing the music. As I stepped through the door frame, the floor creaked and the music immediately stopped. I rounded the corner and saw the cello lying on the floor, the rosin still sparkling in the sunlight that slanted through the windows. I knew that the music had come from this cello, but where was the master? I received my answer as I heard a roar, as if from a dragon, and felt someone tackle me from behind. I screamed as I felt myself hit the floor, a giant beast pinning me down. Edmond’s eyes, the only part of his face that I could see, opened in surprise as he saw who had followed him to his sanctuary.

“You! You! What are you doing here?” His coarse voice reinforced my fear. “How did you find this place?” I hoped that the fear wouldn’t show on my face.

“I . . . I . . . um . . . wanted to see where you were going . . . and I heard . . . beautiful music . . . and I wanted to see who was playing it.”

“Did you bring anyone else with you?”

“No.”

“Good, let’s keep it that way. I don’t want anyone to know what I do out here.”

“But why don’t you want anyone to know? You play beautifully.” He sneered at that, and turned back to his cello.

“I must ask you to leave now, and you must not tell anyone what you saw today.”

“But can’t I stay and listen to your music?”

He took a long look at me. “What will you give me in return?”

I thought for a while, and then came up with my answer: “I am a poet. I will write a poem about you that will immortalize you and your music.” Just like the bard of old, I would use my words to praise my patron—a patron that would pay me with notes and rhythms.

“Okay, I guess you can stay on one condition: that you never tell anyone what you have seen today, and only show the poem to me, not to anyone else. Understand?”

“Yes, yes.”

So I stayed and listened to his music. His music was the voice of the heavens. He played, swaying in the shadows as I wrote my poem. His fingers danced up and down the board; the strings trembled under the force of the bow. I knew that he was echoing notes that his closed eyes once saw, but he didn’t miss a beat. When the song was finished, he stood up and requested that we left separately so no one would see us together. I agreed, and offered to leave first.

As stepped out of the haven and arrived on campus again, I was startled to find Ian throwing a football back and forth with his buddies. He was not the person that I wanted to see, ever. You see, Ian had been trying to get me to date him for the past couple months. A lot of people told me that he wanted me as a prize, for he saw me as the most intelligent and most beautiful girl in the ward. He loved to follow me around and ask me lots of questions, lavishing praise on me for my supposed brilliance every time I answered him. I thought the praise was fun at first, but after a few months, it got a little annoying. When I stopped answering his questions, he started subtly flexing his muscles around me, hoping that his sheer massiveness would win me over. Unfortunately, it did not, for I wasn’t impressed with his bloated head. He had started on the football team since his freshman year, and used every chance he had to impress the ladies, with me at the top of his list. He always had a little herd of freshman girls flocking around him, but he always seemed to look right past them.

Needless to say, I tried to duck back into the bushes before he could see me, but he caught sight of me, as if he had been waiting for me to appear. He immediately told his friend to go long and threw it as hard as he could, but I kept walking straight to my apartment. I didn’t want him to ask where I had been or what I had been doing. I especially didn’t want him to ask what I was doing this weekend, because I hadn’t made any plans with my roommates yet. I usually didn’t have to make plans this early, because he didn’t usually ask me out until Thursday night, at the earliest.

“Lily!” He shouted across the gaggle of girls that were watching him play. “What are you doing on Friday? I have some tickets to the Divine Comedy performance and I was wondering if you wanted to come with me.”

“I . . . um . . . sure, I don’t have anything going on.” I wasn’t very good at lying to people. “I’ll see you on Friday.” My fate set, I sprinted back to my apartment, avoiding the jealous stare of the other girls.

I slammed my apartment door behind me and leaned against it, gasping for breath. I didn’t know whether my breathlessness was because of my sprint, or because of the shock of what I had just done. Did I really just accept a date with Ian?

As the days passed, I took to coming home and wandering out in the mountains, searching for the music. I always found it, and entered to sit on the floor and listen to the dancing melodies. I liked the little hideaway—the place was an abandoned house, and flowers were growing around the windows. I felt like I was out in nature, listening to the voices of the trees and the flowers as they swayed in the wind. It was a perfect place to sit and write my poetry. Oftentimes, I glanced at Edmund, sitting in the shadows, and wondered why he had to come out here to practice his beautiful music. Many times, I thought of bringing my roommates out to enjoy the music, but then I remembered the promise that I had made to him and went back to my poetry, although my curiosity was still piqued. I wanted to know more about the shadow dragon. I didn’t know very much about him, but I still felt drawn to him. I wanted him to come out of the shadows and let me see his true colors.

That first week flew by, and Friday came before I even had time to think about it. As I came home, I stared longingly at the mountains that had become so much of a sanctuary for me after a hard day at school. Gritting my teeth, I walked inside to prepare for my date. Divine Comedy couldn’t be too bad, right? There would be a ton of people there, and Ian wouldn’t try to pull anything while he was there. I sauntered to my room to get ready for the longest night of my life.

Ian showed up for the date about fifteen minutes late, a little overdressed in a shirt and tie, but still wearing his cocky, crooked grin. At least he had shed the extra baggage that giggled and hung on his arms all day. We walked to his car and started making our way to the Joseph Smith building. During the whole ride, I listened to him babble about football and how neither the schools inside the state nor the schools outside the state could beat him. At least he had stopped asking me random questions and praising my brilliance.

The first part of the show actually went pretty well, despite the fact that he continually tried to hold my hand. I don’t know what it was, but he just wouldn’t take a hint. Finally, as the show was nearing an end, I started to relax a little. The show had actually been pretty funny, and besides the attempted hand holding the date hadn’t been half bad. Now all I had to worry about was listening to Ian babble on. He mostly just talked about football, a sport that I neither cared for nor knew about. I would only have to grunt and nod my head and he seemed to be satisfied.

The satisfaction, I should have known, was short lived. Near the end of the show, he turned to me, winked, and said that he had a surprise for me. My heart turned to ice. I had no idea what to expect, but I knew it wasn’t good by the way he was smirking and waving to his football buddies, who were conveniently seated a few rows back. The Divine Comedy actors seemed to know what was going on, as they stopped their skit and said to the audience, “Everyone, please give it up for our very own star quarterback, Ian.” I could hear girls screaming and shouting, waving their hands in hope that he would notice them. However, he just grabbed the mike and turned straight to stare at me.

“Lily,” he started. “I have written a poem for you, since I know that you love poetry. It goes like this:

Roses are totally red

Violets, blue as the sea

I know we haven’t dated for long,

But will you marry me?”

I looked at him incredulously. Was this really happening to me or was I in a bad dream? I started to sway a little bit and I felt all of the blood in my body rush to my face. The bright spotlight started to hurt my eyes, and I felt faint.

“What?” I gasped.

“Will you marry me? I think you and I are perfect together, as this date goes to show.” He smiled again with his crooked, cocky grin. He reached into his pocket and began to pull out a ring box, handing it, opened, to me. I couldn’t take it.

“No!” I screamed into the mike. “No, I will not marry you. I don’t even know you.” With that, I rushed out of the building, trying to hide my face from the blank, staring faces.

Mortified, I reached home only to find that my roommates were still out for their date night. I didn’t know what to do. I knew that I had totally embarrassed Ian in front of all of his friends and hundreds of other people that knew him. Somehow, though, I didn’t feel too bad. What was he thinking proposing to me like that? It was our first date, and I had turned him down for nearly a month before that. I didn’t know what to do, so I decided to take a walk in the mountains.

In the mountains, I was surprised to hear the soft melodies of my friend, and I decided to stop by for some comfort. I slipped into the house as quietly as possible, because he wasn’t expecting me and I didn’t want to disturb his music. As I turned the corner to see where he was playing, the floor made a loud creaking noise that startled him. He looked up, and I froze. The face before me—Edmund’s face—it was . . . it was . . . really good looking. The setting sun lit up his chiseled face, his blue eyes gleaming in the twilight, the sun glinting off his dark, finely coifed hair. I sat there, stunned, as he rushed to cover his face again.

“Get out!” He shouted, in a rage, before I could say anything. “Get out of here!” He steered me to the door and pushed me off the porch. Stumbling, I fell to the ground, but I didn’t need to be told twice. I scrambled away from the house as fast as I could, failing to notice one of Ian’s friends hiding in the bushes. I ran home and hid my face in my pillow. I had faced two horrors in one night—completely different, but terrifying at the same time.

The story was all over the next day, the story about the beast who hid in the mountains and lured people in with his music, and then scared them with his mighty roar. Apparently, Ian had noticed that I was going in there quite often and asked his friend to follow me every time I went in there. Luckily, no one knew Edmund was the “terrible beast,” but rumors were flying around like wildfire. Sallie had a better story than John, John had a better story than Jimmy, and Jimmy had a better story than Shannon. Everyone knew the seen and the unseen; only I knew the truth. Most people suspected Edmund because of his mysterious nature and because he disappeared for a few days after the incident. His roommates said that he was shut in his room, refusing to talk to anyone.

Meanwhile, the old shack in the mountains was torn down. As each board was taken down, I felt a little piece of my heart torn away. The music had come to represent to me the chance that I had to be away from the world. My soul could speak from the little house because nature spoke to me through the music. I didn’t know if I was ever going to be able to go back to who I was before I followed Edmund. I moped around the house, hiding every time Ian tried to visit me, hiding when people wanted to talk to me about the “horror,” hiding because I knew that everyone wanted to hear my story.

After feeling sorry for myself for about a week and trying to ignore all of the false accusations flying around, I decided that I needed to go and talk to Edmund. I was the only one that knew the truth, and I had to get Edmund to tell me what was going on. I couldn’t believe that such a handsome guy would want to spend his time in the shadows, stowed away like wedding china. I made my way over to his house, determined to pull him out of his shell.

Unfortunately, he refused to come out of his room, not even to talk to me. His roommates had already begged him for a week to come out and they told me that I needed to do a lot more to get him to come out. Finally, I lost my temper and shouted that I would let everyone know his secret if he didn’t come out and talk to me. That really got to him, so he slowly came out, dressed in his long-collared coat, and informed his roommates that they were to leave or incur his wrath. They left without further ado.

After they had left, he turned to me, pulling down his collar, and whispering my name, “Lily, Lilly.”

Trembling, I looked up at him and asked, “Why did you hide yourself away? You’re every girl’s dream.”

“I didn’t want everyone to like me because I was handsome. You know Ian?” I grimaced. “I didn’t want girls hanging around me like they do him, never really getting to know me, but admiring me because of my outward appearance. I just wanted some girl to love me for being me.”

“So that was your true secret—you hid your outward beauty so someone could find your inward beauty.”

“Yes, and I think I have found that someone—a special someone who was willing to come back to me even though I was rude to her—someone who was willing to come back because she knew my secret, despite what everyone else tried to tell her.” He took a deep breath and took my hand. “Lily, you don’t know my whole secret. Lily . . . I love you. You spent time with me even though you didn’t know what I looked like, even though you had other guys trying to win your love. You fell in love with my music, which is an expression of who I am inside. I think that, during the time that you came to visit me in my shack, I found out what it was like to really love. I just had to overcome myself to find what I was missing.”

In the end, we both got what we were looking for. We both wanted someone who could appreciate our songs of praise without our facades distracting from the real meaning. He could continue to be Edmund, keeper of the secret, and I would continue to be Lily, word crafter.