Looking back with Lot's Wife

Will we? My tombstone will say: HERE LIES OUR BELOVED MOTHER INHER LAST REST ROOM. Does no one realize that I “go” often to get away from everyone? That my kidneys have been trained to a hair-trigger sensitivity so that I can lock a door somewhere and not feel guilty? I recently read that the great thing about being a parent is that you find that you can be hated for long periods of time and not be bothered. Think of what a character builder that is! I have just stopped defending myself as a parent. I think the most effective thing to say when someone tells me what a terrible parent I am is, “Absolutely. You are absolutely right. You have no idea how completely right you are.” However, we are now emerging into the quasi-empty nest years. The years when they go, then come back, then go. Clay and I veer back and forth between exultant freedom and this illusion that we’re still young if we have kids at home. We’ve lived so long that we’ve now become the heroes of the stories of what we we...

Mom’s Thoughts May 16, 2001 Mother’s Day always makes me feel the same way I feel when a 19-year-old salesgirl says, “My, you look cute in that bathing suit!” Sure, I look cute—who has she been selling bathing suits to? Elephants? I’d believe her if she said, “man, if I were you I’d make sure I was only going to swim in a private pool with a 12-foot concrete fence, no mirrors and extra room in the deep end for when the waves hit. You ‘re not going to dive are you? You look like the Titanic?” Sure, I wouldn’t buy the suit, but at least I’d respect her. People don’t tell you you’re okay unless there’s some question that you’re not. You don’t tell healthy people they look in the pink. You say, “Hey, you look great! Your hair is really growing back fast since you quit chemo; you can hardly see the bald spots.” No one ever tells skinner people they look skinny. They say, “That shirt makes you look SO THING—you’d NEVER know you got it at Intermountain Farmers.” It’s just hard not to suspect ...

Women were made because after men were invented, the Lord realized that no one was there to organize anything. Adam probably just stood around talking about things and nothing got done and He said, “Oh my heck [because he was from Utah valley], we need a woman!” I mention this because we just got back from vacation and I am the person who did al the work to put the whole trip together; who has given up her whole life to keep this family together, THE PERSON, in fact, who spent the last month with no grocery money so these people could go into 7-11 and buy $36 worth of Oreos and Sunchips. My husband was appalled when I suggested that we had exactly one weekend this year when our last remaining babies would have days off at the same time and that we should maybe take a couple of days for a vacation. After all, he took two days off from work last year for us to have a first-ever family reunion and I thought he might be on a roll. “Maybe I should just quit working completely so I can spend...