IAT = I am thankful
Do NOT answer the phone! Ever.
It was dark. It was chilly at night. I had just come home from a typical
day of classes and social activities and fun. I was a student at BYU and the
phone was about to ring. A phone call that would change my life. If there were
some kind of caller i.d. then that said, “don’t answer this call if you don’t want
your everything to change forever,” I am sure I would have let it ring, and
then not picked it up for oh say, the next 80 years.
It was a Wednesday. My roommate answered and handed me the phone.
It was my Granny. We chit chatted for awhile and she talked to me about a new
dress she was making for me. I loved talking to my Granny. She was a big part
of my life, loving me as both grandmother, and sometimes surrogate mother. My
parents separated when I was only five years old.
Then I was kidnapped, by my dad. (That’s a long
story too). I grew up with him and my brother and had a mostly happy life. A
mostly happy life without my mom. I had no idea this call was really about my
mother. The dress discussion was winding down when an emergency call came in.
Twenty-five years ago, there was no call waiting. So, if a phone call was
really important; practically life threatening or of an emergency nature, you
could call the operator and break through the busy signal.
The operator said this was an emergency call and could I please clear
the line. Wow! an emergency call? Of course, I wondered what that was all
about. And then my Granny dropped the news.
“Well Dawn, that’s probably your dad calling with some news. I
thought I should be the one to tell you. Your mother’s attorneys called me
today. They wanted us to know that your mother died.” Just like that. And then
I dropped the phone.
This was the horrible, unexpected end of a new eighteen month
relationship. As a freshman at BYU, I timidly began searching for my mother. It
took a few phone calls to track her down, and when I finally did reach her and
knew it was her voice, she did not believe it was me and I had to give some
trivia about myself before she did believe it.
That led to an exchange of letters, our first visit over President’s
Day, a summer job in California where I was able to see her a couple of more
times, and more writing back and forth. She gave me gifts and began to
tentatively hope that she had a daughter again; and maybe someday a son. I got
to connect with my younger half-brother who I had briefly met when he, my
mother, and her husband unexpectedly tried to see me when I was 13. A sweet
little boy with clear brown eyes. He even helped me plan a stealth Mother’s Day
visit when I had the summer job.
But the last six months, things had gone terribly wrong. She was
diagnosed with breast cancer. I didn’t know much about that. My father’s family
was pretty anti-medicine. My grandmother was a devout Christian Scientist. The
only time I had ever been to the doctor was when I had pneumonia in second
grade. I was in the hospital for three weeks. I don’t ever remember going back
to a doctor until I was preparing to get married.
She had written with the news and the steps she’d had to take. I
knew it was bad, but I did not really realize the weight of it for her. She had
given other family news and I finally decided it was time to come clean and
share my relationship with my family. Bad idea. The short story is, my family
went nuts. My parents’ divorce was less than friendly. It was downright mean
and ugly and my extended family must have still been feeling the effects of it
over ten years later. I opened Pandora’s box. Nobody was happy. They came down
on me from all sides. They were certain her only intent was to cause trouble.
The worst of it was the ultimatum from my father. End my
relationship with my mother or suffer the consequences. Meaning, the
relationship with my father would end. He said he’d send me cards, but no more
support at school, and if he moved, I wouldn’t know where he was.
Have you ever been hit so hard in the stomach that you lose your
breath? It felt kind of like that. I didn’t know what to think or do. I was
angry, resentful, hurt beyond belief. So I stewed. For weeks I wondered
what I should do. So, I wrote my mother and told her what was going on. Back
then, we did not have cell phones and we did not call long distance. It was
expensive. I wrote.
How did I think she would take all that bad news? I don’t know. I
was only nineteen. When you are nineteen, you do the best you can with these
kinds of things. I had no idea how it was going to turn out. She was livid. And
she called my family names. And there I was; caught between two people and my
future. Which should I choose? The budding relationship with my angry,
defensive mother? Or the safe, loving relationship with a father threatening to
cut off everything I’d ever known? Piece of cake. NOT.
So, I compromised. After I compromised. At first, I was angry and
wrote my dad a letter. Fine. Cut me off. See if I care. I can take care of
myself. But I was afraid. I never gave him the letter. It’s still in my
journal. But, I decided I would tell him it was over and then I would just
write her now and then. That would be ok, wouldn’t it? It was near the end of
the summer and time to head back to BYU. I should have let her know before I
moved.
In the weeks that followed, getting back to BYU, moving into a new
apartment and church family, and settling back into a routine, I figured I’d
get around to it. Then September came. A miniscule whisper appeared in the back
of my head.
It quietly said, “call your mother.”
Me: “I should call my mother.”
A few weeks later, it came a little more loudly, but still soft,
“call your mother.”
Me: “Yep, I really need to tell her. I have to handle this
carefully.”
The voice: (more urgently, a little louder) “call your mother.”
Me: “Ok, ok, I’ll call.”
I called. I got her answering machine. I left a message. I didn’t
leave my new phone number. I didn’t even think about it. I didn’t even realize
she didn’t have my number.
The voice continued. “Call your mother.”
Me: “I did call. I left a message.”
It became a drumbeat as October began. “Call your mother. Call
your mother. Call your mother.” It got lost in the busy-ness of college, and
youth, and inexperience….and regret.
The phone hit the floor and I did too. I collapsed in a heap and
began screaming, “She’s dead, she’s dead, she’s dead!!!!!!!!” Even in the instant,
I can still replay the seemingly super slow-mo reaction of my roommates.
Puzzled looks, advances toward their ailing friend, and questions of “who,
who?” I pleaded for them to get my friend Terrell. All I knew was I needed a blessing
from a trusted friend. I needed someone to make this better. Nobody could ever
make this better.
Camille, my best friend from my teens, later told me that she
could hear me screaming INSIDE of Terrell’s house as he and his roommate Jeff
rushed to my aid. When Terrell got in the door, he slipped underneath me and
wrapped his arms around me and began rocking until my screams subsided into
sobs and I was able to regain a portion of composure to receive a blessing.
I’ll never remember the words they said, I only know they brought comfort. In
the most desperate moment of my life, I was rescued by two worthy young
priesthood holders who reached out to me in a crisis.
I was able to pull myself together and they went home and once
again, the phone rang. This time I knew who it was, and what was wanted, and
quite frankly I did not want to talk to him. But I answered. It took me years
before I finally had the courage to say no to things I did not want to do.
“Hello.”
“Hi Dawnie, it’s Dad.”
“I know Dad. I just got off the phone with Granny.”
“Did she tell you?”
Through my tears. “Yes, Dad, she told me.”
“I’m so sorry honey.”
“No, Dad, you are not sorry.”
“Well honey, I’m going to let you go. Good-bye.”
I still didn’t know how, or why, or when. Nobody I knew seemed to
have those answers. I called one of my dearest friends who used to be my young
women’s leader. She gave me such loving comfort. And then I took a deep breath
and called my grandmother. My grandmother. I didn’t even know her. What she
told me made it much worse. My mother had taken her own life.
And it was all my fault.
It wasn’t all my fault, but it sure felt like it was.
In the quiet that fell over our house that night, I laid on the
couch in the living room in the dark and felt nothing. Light streaming from the
kitchen did nothing to make me feel better. My best friend, Camille came and
sat at my side. She just sat, while I laid there. I don’t know how long she sat
there, but it was a comfort that she said nothing, until I was ready to say
something. And when I finally did, she helped me know it would be all right.
Some day.
Right now though, it felt like nothing would ever be all right
again. I didn’t listen. I didn’t call. We fought. She was gone. I could never
get any of it back. It was all my fault.
The next few days were a blur. My bishop came to visit me. I
planned the trip to California for the funeral. I met my family. My family. People
I was supposed to know and love but didn’t. People who showed me kindness
anyway. I felt so completely and totally all alone. The funeral was strange.
Not that I had been to very many funerals, but it was not comforting at all.
All I could think of is why isn’t Oh My Father part of it? I wanted to hear Oh
My Father.
Then a ray of light. We were all at the cemetery for the small
service there. It was time to leave. I wanted to say good bye. I bent over and
put my head on the casket and cried. And in my heart I said, “I love you mom.”
I had never said that to her since we had begun getting to know each other.
“I’m going to miss you.” And then I stepped away from the casket.
I stood all by myself. And as I felt a wave of darkness and misery
and loneliness begin to descend upon me, I felt something else. I literally
felt as if the clouds parted, but there were no clouds. It felt as though a
shaft of light fell upon me, but there was no shaft of light. I felt embraced
in the arms of love. I felt heaven smile down upon me and I felt an outpouring;
an abundance of love, that took me by surprise.
I wondered at it until I got back home. I had missed church that
Sunday. My roommates told me the bishop had announced what had happened and he
asked all of the ward members to pray for me. All of my young college friends
were praying for me. When I heard that, I knew immediately, that it was the prayers
of those friends and other friends and family I had felt in my desperate moment
of need. I was so very grateful for those prayers and the comfort that came
from them.
I had experienced answered prayers before. It was an answered
prayer that took me to California for the summer job that allowed me to have
some time to get to know my mother and my brother. But this was different. This
was the first time I felt God’s love for me. Like I was something special? Yes,
I was something special and God had shone His love down upon me. He knew ME.
And He knew my needs. While at that moment, I am sure there were plenty of
other people whose needs were being met, it felt like mine was the only one.
It’s 25 year later and many more experiences later, but it has
only been the last few years that I have truly realized the love of my Savior
and my Heavenly Father for me and for each and every one of His children. I am
a daughter of God who loves me, and I love Him.
My most
recent discovery is not only that I am His daughter, but I am His gift to the
world. He has given me unique talents and abilities and placed me in a time and
space, where I can have an influence for good. So it is, with each of his sons
and daughters. That is my message. That YOU are God’s gift to the world. With
that knowledge and the strength and power God gives you to go with it, you can
do amazing things in His kingdom. It is my prayer that you will truly
internalize who you are and be empowered to go forward and accomplish things
never before seen in any other time in history.
*For anyone who knows my dad. He was a GOOD dad, and he did the things he thought were right under complicated circumstances and my life is BLESSED because of it. He was a mom and a dad to me and my brother and I am grateful.
