Save the Finger

Marina, California, 1979:

I had been working on my spirituality by daily praying and studying the scriptures, and by listening to Holy Ghost and acting on His promptings without questioning them. For instance, if I was walking out the door and the thought came in my head, "Your keys are not in your purse," in days past I would respond, "They are too in my purse. I just saw them there." Without checking my purse I would lock the door, close it, and then discover I was locked out of the house. So, I was working on just going along with the prompting rather than question it.

On this particular morning I had done everything to invite the Spirit. (It was a rare morning, but this time I got it right). I spent time in morning prayer and scripture study. Then, Amy age 5, Billy age 3, new baby Sarah, and I headed out to take a city bus to Salinas. I was in the Stake Relief Society Presidency and we were to visit one of the weekday Relief Society meetings at a Salinas Ward.

We arrived at the church building and I took the children to the bathroom before they were to go to the RS Nursery. I sent Billy into the Boys' Bathroom and took Amy and Sarah into the Girls'.

As Amy and I were exiting the Girls' bathroom, I could hear Billy yelling that he could not open the door. It was too heavy. I rushed off to help Billy. Amy was exiting the doorway behind me and accidentally put her finger in the door jam. The door closed on her finger, trapping her, and slicing her finger almost completely off!

I rushed back to rescue Amy and the thought came into my head, "Save the finger." I took a diaper out of my purse and shoved Amy's finger as much together as I could.

At that point I knew I needed to get Amy to a hospital, but I didn't even own a car. One of the women at the building volunteered to drive me. As we were driving she told me that she hadn't planned on coming to Relief Society that day, but decided she would come after all. She thought at first she would ride her bike, but then changed her mind and decided to drive her car. Then, she thought about needing gasoline, and decided to get gas before the meeting.

At the hospital, the doctor re-attached Amy's finger and said he had no way of predicting if it would heal. Tom gave her a blessing and after several weeks Amy's finger healed completely.

At first I blamed myself for Amy's injury. I should have held the door for her before rushing off to help Billy. As this woman spoke, however, I realized that she was totally prepared to help me out in my time of crisis.

Sometimes bad things happen, whether from our own negligence or bad choices by ourselves or others. Heavenly Father knows us. He knows our needs. He stands ready to help us and even prepares others to help us in our moments of distress.

The Case of The Flying Eraser

Marina, California, about 1979:

Tom was working at the fire station and I had put the kids to bed. It wasn't long before Tim came out claiming Billy was crying because there was an eraser in his nose. Huh? An eraser, you know, the kind on the end of a pencil if you break if off the pencil.

So, what's an eraser doing in Billy's nose? Tim said he threw it in the air and it LANDED in Billy's nose. Right. Right. Tim threw it in the air. Right . . . It was time to deal with the problem rather than troubleshoot how it happened.

I checked out Billy. Yep. There WAS an eraser in his nose. Now I had the challenge of getting it out. Should be simple enough. I tried to get Billy to sneeze. Didn't work. I got a pair of tweezers and started poking . . . Ooops . . . I shoved it higher. Now what? Not much I could do about it that night. I'd have to deal with it first thing in the morning. I sent everybody to bed, again, and hoped Billy could sleep with this thing in his nose.

The next day I took Billy to our pediatrician. He tried to extricate the eraser, but failed. The doctor sent me to an Ear, Nose, and Throat doc. We went straight there. The nose doc assessed the problem, and called in reinforcements. They put Billy in my lap, and then two other nurses and I held him tight the doctor worked to free the eraser, or was it to free Billy? Whatever it was, it was NO PICNIC. In fact, it was VERY traumatic for everyone. It was a struggle, but the doctor won.

Billy survived. We survived. The moral to the story: Don't try to retrieve objects from your child's nose without expert help. The other moral: Sometimes it's more important to deal with the problem rather than try to get the truth out of the culprit.

Saturday Night Routine

Marina, California, 1979-1984:

What were you thinking??? Of course you had baths. You just don't remember all of them.

When you were young, we were in the middle of a big drought in California. Water was rationed. To conserve, we put a brick in the toilet tank to displace excess water. We were encouraged by authorities to not flush the toilet every time it was used. (Thankfully, that was discretionary!) We installed low flow shower heads in the showers. Even the water from washing our clothes was drained into the vegetable garden. We used a biodegradable laundry detergent that would not hurt the vegetables. So weekday baths did exist, just not every night if they could be avoided. I bathed you on week nights when you were dirty.

Come Saturday night, however, you were required to take a bath so you would be clean for Sunday. I made such a big deal of the Saturday night baths, that you don't remember the weekday cleanups.

From your perspective now, you only remember the Saturday night baths and not the ones taken during the week.

How similar this is to what we do remember. Do we only remember those things we did on a regular basis, or do we remember the things we did that were not scheduled? How can we keep our memories accurate? Just remember . . . you did take baths.