Over the last year, our ward leadership has made several calls for increased reverence. I admit that I am a repeat offender.  I am not one to stay in a row where planted.   I do understand the value of quiet devotion.  One of my favorite psalms admonishes me to “Be still and know that I am God.”   When I actually unplug from the world around me and train my attention towards that which transcends my household chores, I do feel an otherworldly peace.

Sometimes this happens by design during the passing of the sacrament or during a talk from the pulpit.  But I also believe that small, unscripted moments at church have power to transform lives.  While at the church building, I delight in observing my brothers and sisters connect meaningfully with each other in the halls and stalls.

As I walk through the halls on Sunday, I overhear snippets of conversation: “Yes, I can take your daughter to piano so that you can go visiting teaching.” “I have hand-me-down clothes for your son.” “Can I borrow the novel we’re reading next in book club?” Many of these conversations look mundane, but these small acts of support help build relationships so that ward members might accept more ethereal gifts from one another.

I am especially warmed by those saints who make an effort to talk with people who are a little less visible, a little less networked.   It may cause a little flurry of activity for someone to cross the chapel during the prelude music to greet a brother who hasn’t attended for months or years, but waiting to find him in the hall afterward might be too late. He might leave the chapel quickly even before “Amen” fully resonates through the room.

Sometimes the best sermons delivered on Sunday are those that happen in the foyer, in empty classrooms, in parked cars, or in low-traffic corners of the building.  Sometime in January  two women talk in the foyer during Gospel Doctrine.  A woman wearing slacks talks about her struggles to go to school and raise children while her husband’s back injury prevents him from working.  She talks about the volunteer work that she and her children performed during the holiday season. They donated their time delivering meals to people with health problems.   This accidental meeting in the foyer gave her the opportunity to demonstrate her faith and industry when the formal meetings give her little opportunity to talk. Just based on appearances, many sisters misperceive her as having more trials than strengths.

About a year ago, I left Relief Society in order to address my allergy symptoms. When I entered the bathroom, I found one sister in the ward comforting another in the oversized stall for the handicapped. The lesson that day was on parenting. The woman in tears was upset about her teenaged daughter’s depressive symptoms, which had recently worsened. This caring mother was worried that her own choices were affecting her daughter’s life, a fear that was fueled unwittingly by the discussion in the Relief Society room.  As I stood around the corner near the changing table, I heard the voice of the other sister offering her comfort. She spoke in soothing tones that echoed off the tiled walls of the bathroom like a hymn.

Because I am hypoglycemic, I frequently dash out to the parking lot between meetings to eat a granola bar.  On a number of occasions, I have been part of parking lot sermons where “two or three are gathered” in His name, conversations that contain these snippets:   “Yes, I have faith that through the atonement we can forgive those who have physically abused us.” “I am strengthened by observing the faith in eternal families that you and your husband demonstrate as his cancer continues to spread.”  “I admire the fortitude you show as your family strives to help a family member caught up in addiction.”

These conversations could not take place in more public venues, and the people involved were not connected through auxiliary service or visiting teaching or by geographic proximity as neighbors. They happened to connect as their paths crossed at church, and God-filled moments happened – off script, out of bounds, on accident.

Reverence is important. But defining reverence as behaving oneself and adopting strictly prescribed behaviors can erase some opportunities for cross pollination of hearts and souls.   As I watch the conversations that happen in the borderlands beyond formal services, I rejoice.   This impromptu activity supports the values and principles established by formal sacrament talks, by auxiliary and quorum lessons and by highly correlated service projects.   Thank heavens for these little acts of misbehavior.

Have you observed informal sermons in the halls and stalls of your church building?  How do you define reverence? Have you noticed how some of the more reserved saints occupy the borderlands of formal worship?

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My siblings and I did not leave the house for a date or social activity without hearing those words from my father. I believe it was a tradition handed down from his parents and was just as much a reminder to honor the family name as to be mindful of the name we take upon ourselves every Sunday. Being teenagers, we were likely oblivious to the full significance of both meanings. But there was still a power in those words and in the love we felt behind them.

Now, some thirty years later, I often find myself surrounded by even louder voices trying to make me forget who I am. Not so much in such a way as to tempt me to misbehave. But rather to cause me to forget or deny who I am: a daughter of a loving God, blessed with divine and eternal gifts with which to serve. The voices are everywhere. Not just an invasive and pervasive media and society that continually tell me that in every single way I am “not enough.” But also people in my life for whom, for whatever reason, I will never be enough.

As ingrained as my father’s words are, sometimes I listen to the world. I forget who I am.

A couple of Sundays ago I was standing outside the Primary room, waiting to greet the Primary children as they arrived from Sacrament Meeting. I was tired and also a bit beat up after that weekend’s encounters with the usual naysayers, which had been especially intense and hurtful. A friend passed me in the hall. We said hello to one another, I gave her a quick hug, and she walked on down the hall.

Suddenly, she turned around and came back.

The details of what she said to me, almost in passing, are not important. She simply mentioned something she loves about me and told me how she has known since the day we first met that this particular trait embodies the very essence of my heart. Those were her words, but her message was this:

“I know who you really are.”

As soon as she said them aloud, her words rang true in my heart. I recognized that the words were not just hers. I knew she was heaven-sent from my Father, with a gentle but sure reminder expressly for me, in that moment:

“Remember who you are.”

I am profoundly grateful for the people in my life who care enough about me to look upon my heart. To see me for who I really am and to remind when I forget. Or when God sends them on an errand to tell me so. I want with all my heart to be that kind of friend and messenger for the Lord.

And so, this morning, I’m telling you,

“Remember who you are.”

Seek out the people in your life who will truly know you and who will, when you forget, remind you of who you are.

Who are the messengers in your life?

What can we do to remember who we are, especially as the cacophony of naysayers becomes deafening?

How can we, as women, do better to look upon the heart?

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“The kids and I are sick and have been all weekend. I want some comfort food. I can’t bear the thought of opening another can of Campbell’s. I’m wondering if you’re not busy if you could make us a simple soup. And you know how I HATE to ask.”

We all hate to ask, but the truth is sometimes we find ourselves in need and it just doesn’t seem right to deny others the opportunity to serve while we sit there sick, or needing a ride or a friends or a listening ear. I went home from work that day and cheerfully made some savory chicken vegetable soup, and a batch of these amazing biscuits. I was thrilled that my friend would ask and that her simple request turned what would have been yet another night of menial labor—figuring out what to fix for dinner—into an act of deliberate and loving service. Service which I was not only able to share with my family and hers, but also with another member of our ward who I knew was ill. I was also humbly reminded that perhaps I should perform all menial tasks in my life as labors of love.

All because my friend had asked.

Perhaps part of the reason my friend was not afraid to ask (even as badly as she hated to) is because on a few occasions in the past (even as badly as I hated to) I’ve texted her and asked her if she was free to give one of my kids a ride up to campus (or whatever). Sometimes she was free and gave my kid a ride (she likes my kids, or I wouldn’t have the nerve to ask). Sometimes she’s not and she tells me so (also why I have the nerve to ask–she’s not afraid to tell me “No.” I know not to take it personally when she does).

We’re all aware of so many wonderfully inspiring stories of people who were moved to call, visit or take food to someone who was truly in need at a particular moment. I have complete confidence in the Spirit. But I recognize that I’m kind of thick-headed. I failed Mind-reading 101. Our lives are so full of things to do and places to be. It’s easy to be distracted by the busyness of it all–church, work, home, play, whatever. Some of us need a less subtle hint.

I appreciate the courtesy of someone who is not afraid to tell me what she needs.

What about you? Are you able to ask for what you need? How do you take an “I’m sorry, but no?” Can you accept a “Yes” without guilt when it comes?

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Let me first introduce Big Parker. He is mine. He is the handsome boy with eyes the color of the water he’s dogpaddling in. On July 20^th , 2007 he was eighteen years and five months old to the day. He was also lying in a coma in an Idaho Medical Center with the French name, Port Neuf. He’d been trying repeatedly to free a college classmate from a hidden whirlpool in a rural irrigation canal, and in the end he wasn’t able to get out himself.  The next morning there was no remaining brain activity.  He was removed from life-support.  A week from the very hour of his death, we buried his Big Parker body in a dark, narrow groove of earth.

Little Parker, (or Petit Parker or “P.J.” for Parker John), is Renée’s.  He is the cherub on the red velvet throne.  He and his twin sister, Penelope, were conceived a few short months after Big Parker’s funeral, which Renée attended.  She’d flown to Utah from her home in Paris, which is where we Halls and Bradfords lived and loved each other and where strapping Big Parker had been the Hall’s enthusiastic home teacher with his dad-partner, Randall. For their visits, the two always rode across town together on Randall’s Vespa, and the Halls always gave Parker love-in-a-can: real, chilled, imported Dr. Pepper.

The twins formed the favored baby spotlight of an equally favored life complete with superlative parents and their three older princesses who kept things at a rollicking clip with high-froth-quotient parties, spontaneous dance-a-thons, picnics in the local parks, and frequent excursions to Eurodisney.

That is, in fact, exactly where they were on February 20^th, on what would have been Big Parker’s 20^th birthday.  That was the day when Little Parker (who was just turning eight months old) contracted pneumoccocal meningitis.

When I got the phone call that Little Parker was in a medically induced coma and “probably would not make it another day”, I caught the next plane to Paris. Folding and refolding the waxy white airplane napkin, I couldn’t block out possible scenes of an ashen-faced Renée folding up baby boy’s clothes to be boxed or given away; I tried to suppress the impossible notion of my boy’s name being a curse; I foresaw the fragility that would invade and potentially reduce these mighty parents; I narrated to myself the story of loss Renée would yearn to tell, and I feared all the  ears that wouldn’t want to hear it, that sacred but scary story of The Phantom Child.

At l’Hôpital Necker Enfants Malades, (the children’s hospital on the left bank of Paris), and cloaked in paper gowns, masks and gloves, Renée and I entered the isolation booth where her Parker lay motionless, his swollen head and listless body wrapped in gauze and sterile cotton, the hospital personnel avoiding eye contact while attempting efficiently light conversation. It was, to me, a still life, (“nature morte”, in French), of unspeakable but crashing familiarity. The volume of my pleading inner dialogue with God and with  Big Parker—“Make him live! Strong brain! Strong lungs, strong, strong!!”—was so loud I was sure the staff would ask me to, s’il vous plait?!, keep my thoughts down.

From that week-long coma Parker did miraculously return to life, but it was not a strong one. Cerebral meningitis had ravaged his system leaving him virtually deaf, hydrocephalic, convulsive, shunted and cut and sewn so many times his head looked like a Spirograph drawing. He was gravely compromised neurologically, his gravitational vector was shot, he was floppy and unresponsive and had to be fit with cochlear implants in order to retrieve any hearing.  (John and Renée and their four girls under age seven began teaching themselves sign language—both in English and in French. For firsthand descriptions of their ongoing journey, this is Renée’s blog, http://parkerupdate.blogspot.com/ )

Renée also writes full-bodied emails, as do I.  So we two Parker Moms have amassed volumes going back and forth tracking our shared days and boys.  We write of heaven’s severe teaching methods, the wonder of small joys, the isolation and irony that mark major loss, the sharp or bruising contours of grief’s landscape, the deepening spiritual experiences hardly transferable by written word, and our love and hope and yearning and passion for our sons who, we recognize only now, actually never were just ours.  They are, before all else, God’s.

We’ve also shared accounts of the increased presence of the Spirit—and of spirits—in our lives.  Of all such narratives, I offer you this one written by Renée during last summer’s vacation.

We arrived late on a Sunday night July 25^th at my parents’ home in southern California after driving all day long from Utah. We put the kids to bed, and John fell exhausted into bed well after midnight. I stayed up a couple of more hours, tooling around and organizing, filling my notebook with to-do’s and ideas as I always do whenever I grab the rare silent moment.

At precisely 6:22 a.m., I awoke to repeated, panicked, unrecognizable screams. John and I slept in a room facing the study where we put the twins to sleep. Their door was shut. The screams were not coming from that direction. The older girls were fast asleep upstairs. The screams did not seem to be coming from that end of the house, either, but they ripped me out of bed, these high-pitch and panicked screams for help.

I wandered quickly through the dark and into the kitchen where I met my mother, who was also awakened by the terrifying, continued screams. She reported that the girls were sound asleep upstairs, I indicated that the screams were not coming from the twins’ room, either.  Puzzlement growing to panic, we wondered, “Is it the neighbors? Maybe it’s a—“

Then I saw something out of the corner of my eye through the dining room window.  A child, floating in the pool.

Not only was it a child, but it was my child, my Parker, screaming, thank God, face up, floating on his back.

Screaming and half crying, racing but unable to move quickly enough, we ran to rescue him. He was floating on his back. His limbs were not flailing or thrashing, he was not bobbing in & out of the water. His body was perfectly calm & nearly still, but he was screaming. A shrieking, unrecognizable, repeated plea for help.

He had screamed for probably 3-5 minutes by the time I became alert enough to get out of bed, traverse the length of the house to the kitchen, and wonder aloud with my mom all before we finally found him.

Melissa, you know my little boy does not know how to swim. He does not know how to float. How many two-year-olds do, even the healthy ones? The week previous I’d even noticed that with Parker’s balance issues and unusual dispersion of weight due to his hydrocephaly, he actually tended to end up on his face while in the water much more frequently than other children. And the life jackets designed to force children onto their backs actually forced Parker to his front.  He can also barely stand, let alone walk, so supervising him means we are physically holding part of him all the time close to water or while in the water.

My two year old son who can barely stand let alone walk, somehow got out of his crib and crawled through the garage, opened and passed through a second door from the garage, headed down the side yard and discovered the pool, opened a gate and decided to get into the water. All at six o’clock in the morning. How could this child navigate his way there, through a dark garage and into dark waters?

Had he not screamed (this deaf boy who without his cochlear implant is mute), we would not have found him for at least one hour when the girls woke up, asking if they could swim, or an hour later than that, when Penelope would have awakened and seen that Parker’s empty crib.

There he lay; cold, fatigued and limp for an hour in our arms before he warmed and livened up. It was then I remembered that the night before, at approximately two a.m., I’d knelt to pray.  I had prayed earnestly for a sign and for more inspiration regarding Parker and his care. I had prayed that something significant would happen the next day, something to signify to me that the Lord was still mindful of me. Me, his aching daughter, and my baby. His baby. Our sick, growing baby.

I don’t know what to think beyond these facts: That He heard and answered my prayers a little too quickly & a lot too literally for me. That there are clearly angels watching over us, over this boy, and I am so infinitely indebted to them. That miracles happen every day. That we have already seen miracles with this boy, and that I fully expect to see more. That a loving Father not only hears prayers—aching prayers of a mother with a growing boy— but that He answers them, too.

I know, too, that in spite of all precautions and vaccinations and closed doors and gates—in spite of all I want to do and can do—I am, in the end, not the one in charge here.

Melissa, can I ask this next thing? Forgive me if it cuts you wide open.  Do you think your drowned son was there holding mine up from drowning?

I’ve already given my friend my answer.

Now, friends, I’m interested in reading yours.

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Last Sunday I looked around the Relief Society room and realized that after more than a year in my new ward I don’t actually have a friend.

This is a somewhat unusual position for me: I always have a friend, and if I don’t, I make one right away. My ward is mostly friendly, but not terribly welcoming, if you understand the difference. Most of the women are at least 15 years older than I am and already have friends in the ward. I’ve never been an ageist friend-maker so it would seem that these women are simply not interested in me. I’m the outsider: the one who speaks up in Sunday School, the one who works, the one who doesn’t quite fit.

I have yet to have the “hit-off” that sometimes comes from great visiting teaching pairings. I go to Enrichment activities but sit with different women each time, and never quite feeling like I belong. I’m in the cub scouts, so I don’t have the chance to build up a rapport with a regular group of women (my awesome co-den leader is in a neighboring ward.)

I have plenty of friends at the stake level, and even friends who meet in the same building but at different times. I look forward to stake activities because I’ll get to see a dozen women whom I love and with whom I can commune.

When I’ve been in this situation briefly in the past, I’d just get up my gumption and try assigning myself some friends. I’d sit next to people and engage them in conversation, I’d try to find commonalities and turn up my sparkly-self to Mach 10. It hasn’t worked so far. I’ve spotted another woman on the other side of the room who I think could be my friend. She also sits alone a lot. I looked for her this week and she wasn’t there. I can try again next week.

I don’t necessarily need a friend in my ward, but having a friend at church really does make it a nicer place to be, right? Even President Hinckley said that every convert needs a friend, a responsibility, and nurturing. I’m not a convert, but I think I’d still like a friend.

Have you ever struggled to make friends in a ward?

Did you even decide to move to attend a different ward?

How has making friends made your ward a better place?

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Friends who know our weaknesses but laugh them off and frankly forgive us?

Five days a week, for the last nine months we’ve carpooled with these sweet people. It’s part of rhythm of our days. I drive Gwen and Mary to kindergarten, Brad picks them up and each month we switch directions. We stop and talk to Butch the crossing guard every afternoon and the girls talk us into afterschool playdates at least once a week.

But at least once a week I call Brad in a semi-panic, “I’m downtown and I’ll never make it back on time.” “I’m at the doctor’s office– would you mind picking up and I’ll drive both ways tomorrow.” “Um yeah, I’m at lunch with friends. Could you…”

And every single time, he answers, “Sure. No problem. Don’t worry about it.”

It means a lot to me. In this world where people scream at others for making a wrong turn or choosing the wrong word or neglecting the tiniest detail, it is so refreshing to know people who say– “You’re fine.” “I know you’re doing your best.” “It’s OK.”

And I’m especially grateful for these people– Erik, Ben, Stefan, Hans, Xander, Gabriel, Mary– who spend every day with their flighty, forgetful, overscheduled, silly mom. They laugh off my quirks and work around my weaknesses.

I try to do the same for them.

Who gives you leeway in your life? Who accepts you ‘as is’? Isn’t it the best?

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I called her the next day, for old time’s sake, and things were different; a little awkward. She was perfectly nice and friendly. But ultimately I hung up the phone and thought, I don’t really like her anymore. She’s not the person I used to be friends with.

We met over twenty years ago. During our last two years of high school together we were inseparable in that obsessive manner of teenage girls. We went to different colleges—mine Mormon, hers Catholic—and things started to change. But the changes were slow and I never realized how big they were until now.

When my friend suggested at the end of our conversation that we, and our other two best friends, meet up and spend the weekend at a spa, I knew it would not be cute and touching like those chick movies. Our lives all seem so different. I would rather just not go there. I’d rather keep the memories of my old friends happy and sweet, even if it’s only like that in my head.

Growing away from friends happens now and then in the lives of women, but it still makes me sad and melancholy. Sometimes the growing apart is mutual, and sometimes it feels more like you’re getting dumped. Some friends can come and go and when you’re with them it’s like nothing has changed. This friendship is not one of those. It feels irrelevant to my life and who I am now.

I know my friend will call back and want to know when we should start planning our get-away. I don’t know what to say. Part of me thinks I should just go along with it, but that seems a little too dishonest—both to her and to me. I’m not sure what to do.

Have you had this happen? Was it mutual? How do you know if a friendship is worth fighting for and when it’s just better to let it go? Is the parting of ways something that both parties speak about, or is that subject taboo? Is there something wrong with not wanting to be friends with someone when the only reason is that you just don’t like that person anymore?

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I never thought about it happening on a play date. My new-found friend and I had spent a delightful day making bread, mixing soup and baking cookies. While the kids played happily, we talked about art, literature, church, friends and living providently while we swapped funny stories and checked on the kids. We talked about our families. Genetic traits. Birth order. Age.

We were sitting on my friend’s playroom floor picking up toys while our boys played together; her second son, my last, when I noticed the briefest of pauses. She said “You’re 44?” And like a jolt it occurred to me that a twelve year age difference could be a big deal.

With her, I knew it wasn’t. She said (in a way that made me feel like an icon) “I hope I look like you when I’m 44.” So what if I felt a little older. My outer shell was creeping past my inner self. The realization hit, and it sat in my gut for a few days. But she had seemed surprised when she inquired, so maybe it wasn’t as blatant as I thought. Should I be making reservations with AARP or could I still feel comfortable with friends more than a decade younger than me? She said she wanted to use me as a leg model in her newest series of paintings. I made a sarcastic remark about middle aged legs, but I felt hope.

I have often thought about what age people are on the inside. I’ve talked about it, blogged about it and wondered if aging really matters. I have a good friend near 80 who drives herself across country twice a year. She loves the freedom, the scenery, her music and being able to really enjoy the journey. I think of her, and strive to enjoy my journey now. She is the best at finding really cool places to visit. She’ll tell me, with a sparkle in her eye that she wants to take me on a field trip. When I’m with her, she makes me feel like the most important person in her life. I know I’m not, but I love her gift of making people feel of worth. I wish she lived closer.

As I reflect on my friendships, whether I’m the older or younger in the pairing, I wonder if I make the other person feel as important, or if I’m still leeching because I need to feel validation.

Growing up I felt worlds apart in age from my parents. They were too old to be in touch with my generation. I remember staring at my mom’s hands in church and thinking they looked so old. I love that memory now because I know what I saw was evidence of years of hard work.

When my own daughter rubs my softer, wrinkling skin in church I feel contentment and don’t worry that she finds my older skin strange or unattractive. She also takes pleasure in plucking the gray hairs from my head. I tease her and tell her I’ve earned them. I want her to know that I’m okay with aging physically, but I long to make her understand that my inner self isn’t too far removed to be able to relate to where she’s at in life.

I love that the relationship with my parents has morphed into more of a feeling of being on the same team. We’re working towards the same goal, and they’ve had a few years to gain some valuable experience and important resources I can draw from.

So here’s the thing: I can hang out with my 80 year old friend and feel like her peer, and I can spend the day with my 32 year old friend and see no age discrepancy. When my husband tells me I’m exhibiting a trait that reminds him of my mother, I tip my head back and smile. Inside I’m laughing. A blip in time makes a difference. I like who I am despite the fact that the inside doesn’t always match what’s on the outside.

I’m planning on living a long and happy life. I hope I can make people feel of value along the way. So bring it on, aging crust! The soft bread-y part of me will probably never mature much past 34.

Does age affect how you think about or act around people? Do you act differently to accommodate a more mature or younger audience? Does feeling older than someone invoke negative emotion(now that you’re not a teenager)? How old are you on the inside?

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We ended the day at Washington Square Park. There’s always a motley crew in this park. We entered at one corner and passed a jazz trio meandering in and out of discord, a couple hundred more feet brought us to a punk trio, with their amp out getting ready to rock, couples chatted around the fountain, college kids clustered on the benches smoking cigarettes and eating take-out sushi. We found a spot to let the kids run around as we chatted. I noticed a guy sitting on an apple green blow-up couch behind the bench. Hard to miss. As people were passing he would hold up a big container of cookies and say, “Would you like a cookie? They’re free! They’re fresh. They’re vegan.” A lot of people stopped to take a cookie or two. They’d say, “What are you doing out here?” He’d reply, “Just making friends.” Then he’d go on to ask people’s names and start up brief conversations.

Before too long my kids noticed him too. They wandered over, watching him a little suspiciously. Strangers don’t just offer you free cookies, do they? My four-year-old looked to me first and said, “Can I have a cookie mom?” I nodded, though admittedly I leaned to my husband first and said, “Do you think they’re okay? I mean, he could just be crazy putting weird stuff in cookies to give away for free.” My husband rolled his eyes and said, “I’m sure they’re fine.” As my son approached the guy on the couch said, “I can’t give cookies to people under the age of 16 unless I know it’s okay with their mom or dad.” I spoke up from a few feet away to give the go-ahead as Cole reached up and grabbed a cookie out of the pile. My six-year-old daughter followed suit , then my 18 month-old toddler wandered over to check him out. It took her a few minutes before she decided to get a cookie. First she waved and said hi, then she stared, sucked her thumb, took a pile of his business cards, gave them back, waved again, and finally took a cookie. I grabbed one too at this point. I asked him about his blow-up couch, other passers-by stopped for cookies and from snippets of all the conversations I learned that he’s been doing this for a few weeks, a couple times a week. He tried it in February without the green couch and it didn’t work that well. Yes, he’s made some new friends. That didn’t surprise me; everyone knows chocolate chip cookies are a sure way to open hearts-even if they’re vegan. (Side note, these really were the best vegan treats I’ve had.)

This experience got me thinking, as my time with New Yorkers often does. I’d spent the day sharing time, good food, and conversation with a friend I’ve known since I was twelve. She took a plane, a bus, and a train to come and spend time with us. And at the end of the day we met someone who is giving out free cookies on an inflatable couch, so he can make friends. I don’t know how philosophical I can wax here, but doesn’t there seem to be a cosmic connection? Isn’t it cool that people out there want to make connections? Meet new people? Be friends? Give us cookies? I like it! We need friends; we want to be connected; it’s not really that hard to do and yet it takes some doing.

How have you made your closest friends? How do you keep those friendships thriving? How do you meet new people?

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3. Does my moral responsibility start now, or can I get a new couch first?

Ten years ago this month I went to China for two weeks with my good friend when she adopted her second daughter. (She said she invited me to go because I was good in groups and she knew I wouldn’t tell her what to do with the baby.) There were seven families from Boston traveling in our group. I spent time on the Great Wall, visited two orphanages, took a boat ride along the Li River, witnessed the families meeting their daughters for the first time and enjoyed traveling for two weeks in an amazing country (we traveled to Beijing, Nanning, Guilin, Guangzhou and Hong Kong.) I captured the two-week trip on 55 rolls of film–it was a memorable experience! I don’t think my friend would have invited me if I had had my own family (and I probably wouldn’t have left a family behind to travel to a third world country).

When my older brother, a sportswriter living in Florida, was diagnosed with a brain tumor at age thirty-seven, I saw him a dozen times during the eighteen months before his death. His becoming a hospice patient coincided with a timely layoff from my job, and I flew from Boston to Florida and spent two months; caring for him and helping his wife and three children with the day-to-day duties of their household. I would not trade that time in my life for anything. For all the sad memories that I have of his struggling as his mind and body stopped working correctly, I have many sweet memories—of his recognizing me after his first brain surgery, feeding him jell-o in the middle of the night, asking him sports trivial pursuit questions, and talking about what life after death would be like.

Twice I have served as the president of the Young Women for a total of five years (in my wards in California and Massachusetts). I enjoyed attending the sporting events, concerts, and plays that the girls were in and tried to visit each girl on her birthday with a card and balloon in hand. I have many fun memories of a summer filled with only outdoor activities; a fall where every activity was service related; temple trips to Washington, DC, and Toronto; and many personal stories and experiences shared by the leaders and girls each Sunday reminding us of the seven Young Women values. I will never forget how touched I was when the Laurel class presented me with a quilt they made with each of their handprints on it; I was speechless and tearful. That quilt is a reminder of the many young women I have worked with and the many blessings I enjoyed while serving in that calling.

My life didn’t turn out the way I thought it would but I have always worked hard not to identify myself or my options in terms of being single. I simply believe that I am blessed – blessed with a great family, blessed with wonderful friends, blessed with a loving ward, and with many opportunities to connect with everyone I meet, every day, wherever and however I happen to be.

Related posts:

1. Unexpected Adventures
2. The Only One
3. Supper of my Discontent