My Book of Life

I've been turning over a pet project in my mind for the past year or so. I would love to chronicle some of the people who have entered into my book of life because of the way their lives have touched mine. My life is abundant with riches and treasures, both tangible and intangible, and all of these treasures, every single one, is a gift from someone. A project of this sort would require some diligence and staying power, and I'm still mastering that skill (though, for the record, I'd like it known that I am unfailingly diligent in the brushing of my teeth and the application of mascara every morning. If only I could be so diligent about saying my morning prayers and reading scriptures!). But Valentine's Week seems a good time to start, even if that start will prove to be inconsistent and fitful. And the first entry in my book of life, of course, belongs to my mother.

I've been telling the story of my mother for my whole life. How she was raised on an Indian reservation (she used to do presentations in my elementary school classrooms wearing her Navajo dress and bringing her papoose carrier and fry bread. No, she's not actually Native American, though you might think that, given her black hair and high cheekbones. My grandpa was a range conservationist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, so they moved around from reservation to reservation). How she met my dad in the Honors Reading Room at BYU, and she was everything that he had hoped for in a wife--smart, pretty, musical, hard-working, and a committed disciple to Jesus Christ. How every employer or professor she ever had wanted her to stay on with them and take over their work when they were done. How she bore and raised eleven children instead of running large companies or teaching at universities (though she actually does teach at universities now, as a religious teacher). How she bore and raised these eleven children in expensive Southern California in a one-income family. My mother managed to pay for private piano lessons and instrument lessons for all of us--that's about 100 cumulative years of paying for music lessons, if I'm factoring in all of the variables correctly. We ate a lot of scrambled eggs and pasta and red sauce, and I am so grateful that I have a robust musical education instead of memories of steak and pork chops. There are so many other parts to the story of my mother. She cared for my little brother Jacob during the year and a half that he fought cancer, and when he died at age 5, she spent the next year writing a book about him to try to overcome her grief. Six years later, she lost her last baby, Isaac, when he was born too early. Loss, grief, faith, pressing on, compassion, consecration--in the emotional lexicon of my brain, these words belong to my mother. But then, there's the many memories of seeing her at the kitchen table with the road atlas and a sheet of paper in front of her, carefully plotting out our annual family camping trips--an exhaustive itinerary complete with mile counts and equipment lists. There's the old book of "Having Fun in Southern California for Kids" (I made that title up--can't remember the real one), from which she planned summer and spring break and weekend outings to the California missions, Solvang, Olivera Street, the Central Library, the beach. My mother would claim that she's not good at having fun--and I have to say, you would be hard pressed to find a woman less likely to enjoy a manicure and lunch at a nice restaurant with a group of friends. But she created the conditions for fun and discovery and imagination and wonderment for her kids, and also for herself, I'm sure. Despite the fact that she was always holding a baby and handling a toddler, I know that she loved absorbing the rich history of Southern California, a place that I don't know if she'd even been to before she and my dad moved there after law school.

I could tell stories about my mother forever, and I probably will be. Telling stories about her is my way of navigating myself through the waterways of motherhood, as I continue to enter into the phase of life that she was in when I first came to know the world. My little Cici comes and wants to bounce on my crossed ankle as I'm nursing Joshey on the couch, and I remember doing that same thing to my mom as she was nursing Brigham. I find myself irrationally aggravated at Polly when she smears her fingers all over our front plate glass window, and I remember my mother's own battle against smudged windows. I find myself putting on mascara in the morning and putting on jewelry on Sunday, and I wonder if my children will remember me as being as beautiful as I thought Mama was. She defined beauty to me--her dark hair, her slender frame, her collection of Sunday dresses and Sunday shoes in the closet. Snow White couldn't have been more beautiful than my mom, I knew.

I don't mean to idealize my mother (though there would certainly be plenty of grist for that mill). One of the things that I value the most about her is that I've seen her grow and change as she's moved through different periods of life. She wants to keep growing and changing and progressing--she doesn't think she's perfect, and she's not going to stop battling the weaknesses that she feels she has. That is comforting to me, as I am so acutely aware of my own imperfections, even those that I think I should have overcome by now. My mother's greatest gift to me, I think, aside from giving me life, is her ability to see simultaneously my weaknesses and my potential. I know that I can't hide anything from her, no matter how much I might wish that some part of me didn't exist. But I also know that she sees in me infinite potential, infinite capacities for goodness and growth. And because she sees this, I believe it, too. Isn't that an amazing gift for a mother to give her daughter? The sure knowledge that the person who brought you into this life thinks that you will make good of it.

Happy Valentine's Day to the person who taught me first and most about love.