PHS

I know it's been a good three weeks since I've posted anything.  I think the past 10 days I have been suffering from what I'll call PHS:  post holiday slump.  It's like I've been pushing the snooze button on the New Year.  I've been dragging my feet a little bit, because my ambitions are high and a little intimidating.  I've built this year up in my mind as a watershed moment and although I'm not sure if you can force watershed moments, maybe I just like the cadence of change...but I also enjoy the downy soft comfiness of old habits.  What is or could be considered striking about this year?  A few things:  Ainsley is graduating, so there will be a big change in our at home family dynamics.  We will just have 3 little boys at home -- a house of boys -- and I envision this will have an effect on our family fun times and recreation and vacation destinations even:  less shopping, more camping,...you get the picture.  With only 3 at home, we could also potentially change how we live in our home or what car we drive,...Also, living in our home 10 years makes me want to do some updating or customizing like tear down the gallery wall or put crown molding and plantation shutters everywhere, or finish the attic, or all of the above.  Finally, Carlos and I are turning 45. On our honeymoon I asked Carlos if we could live till we were 90 and die on the same day, so if he keeps that promise, then we are truly half way there:  as middle-aged as you can get.  But the real reason turning 45 seems like a watershed moment for me is because of a story told and retold by my Grandfather Edwards.

William Foster Edwards was named for the father he would never know.  His mother was widowed a few months before his birth.  He was almost orphaned too.  His mother was so sick from childbirth, that the extended family huddled nearby and were whispering about who would take on the care of her three little boys provided that she passed on.  At this point, my great grand-mother didn't just ask in prayer to get well, she essentially demanded: "Heavenly Father, you took away my parents, and my husband, and you are not going to take me too.  Let me live and raise my boys in the gospel!"  It worked, so William grew up very poor but very loved by his mother.  While she made and sold hats at the millinery, the three little boys played in the back room of the store, or huddled around the stove when it was cold, or made a little money themselves thinning beets for a neighboring farmer.  My grandfather kind of miraculously managed to earn enough to go to Brigham Young Academy, working all sorts of odd jobs during the summers and while at school : barn painting, taxi driving, hotel cleaning, etc.  All of this work and study unfortunately didn't leave a lot of time for church.  During the young adult stage of life, William definitely identified with the church but could be considered semi-active.  After he married my grandmother, Catherine Eyring, she influenced him to grow in his faith and continue in his studies.  They settled in the great city of New York, where he earned his doctorate from NYU and built a great name for himself on Wall Street as a much in demand and respected adviser of finance.  When Ernest Wilkinson asked my grandfather to serve with him in the bishopric while William was still finishing graduate school, he accepted the calling and vowed to be totally faithful in all of his church duties from that day forward.  Later, I'm not sure if it was before of after his call to be stake president, grandfather decided it was about time to receive his patriarchal blessing.  He received the blessing well, and took a very proactive approach to the effect it would have on his life.  He regarded the content as a challenge to live up to the promises and possibilities outlined, which prompted Grandfather to make a short list of defining determinations that would put him in the temporal as well as spiritual condition to best qualify himself for the hinted at opportunities revealed in his patriarchal blessing.  The self-imposed deadline for Grandfather's lofty goals:  age 45.  By age 45, these were my Grandfather's objectives:

1.  To know how to be and to have established the reputation of being a good, exemplar member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

2.  Through faithful understanding, teaching, and loving have each of our children strong or potentially strong in the gospel.

3.  To be trained in the ways of the world to the extent that I can properly counsel and instruct others wisely.

4.  To have saved from the earnings of my own labor sufficiently that if a good manager and frugal, I can support myself and family to the extent of being able to accept any assignment or work that appears desirable regardless of compensation.

5.  And then at that point in life, make a careful survey and make all changes that will let me render the greatest service.  This is my road to happiness.

So did he do it?  What happened?  Six months before my grandfather's 45th birthday, Ernest Wilkinson was in his office with another invitation to serve, this time asking him to come and be the dean of the BYU school of commerce.  Grandfather was prepared to say yes, as well as say goodbye to his potential future earnings and the life they had built up on the East Coast.  Talk about watershed moments.  I suppose there were other ones leading up to the bigger one:  choosing to got to college, accepting the call in the bishopric, deciding to go for his doctorate instead of just a masters, and getting his patriarchal blessing.  These are easier to recognize in hind sight, perhaps when we are reading the personal history of someone who died over two decades ago, but how do we make sure we don't miss them in our own life?  I think, like grandfather, we need to be prepared to serve and that halfway through life just may be a wonderful time to gear shift from qualification and accumulation to service and giving back.  The shift may not be as dramatic or dramatically reflected on our bank accounts as was grandfather's, but it could be at least a mindset.  It is a good time as any to make that "careful survey" to "render the greatest service."  Of course, the Savior did it all before the age of 33, and Joseph Smith fulfilled his missions on the earth by the time he was 38.  For me, it may simply be to step up the missionary and family history work mentioned in my patriarchal blessing, but whatever the offering, whatever changes, I'm glad to keep the comfy knowledge that I am a wife and mother first and forever.