Easter Talk 2017

Before I start my talk, I’d like to thank and honor my son and eternal missionary companion for making the noble sacrifice of coming to earth in a special body that has taught me so many lessons about becoming a disciple.

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It’s Good Friday, April 14, 2017, and my autistic 15-year-old son, Samuel, should be at school but instead he is lying in his bed and I am sitting at the computer working on my Easter talk and watching him on the video monitor because he had a grand mal seizure this morning. It started at about 7am when I was in the kitchen preparing his breakfast and, thankfully, I heard him yell and gag so I knew something was up and I was able to run to his room, keep his head tilted to the side, watch the clock, keep him from falling onto the tile floor, and pray. Again, thankfully, the seizure lasted a typical 3-4 minutes, and by 8am he was back to normal and happily eating breakfast.

It’s been an eventful week for Sam’s body and my heart. I started writing this talk on Tuesday morning in the dentist’s waiting room while Sam was under general anesthesia. He gets his teeth cleaned four times a year by a wonderful special needs dental team and is able to handle this by being wrapped snugly in something called a papoose board which looks like a small surfboard wrapped in Velcro fabric. If he wasn’t wrapped securely, he would get up and run away, or start hitting himself to protest. But when he has cavities that need filling as he did this week, he has to be put under.

It took months to get this appointment with an anesthesiologist who would come to the dentist’s office, so I was grateful that the day had finally come, but I was also dreading it for many reasons, the most serious being the fear of something going wrong leading to my child’s death. But aside from the risk of death, with an autistic teenage boy who is bigger than me, getting him to the point of being put into a drug-induced sleep is fraught with risks. That morning I had woken up at 5:15 to give Sam his seizure meds which the doctor had said he could have two hours before the procedure. At 6:45 I put the wheelchair and backpack with epi-pen and other emergency supplies in the car, then got Sam dressed and into the car.

Side Note: He used to try to hit himself every 20 minutes. Now it is only about once a week when he is triggered. The most risky times are mornings, especially when he hasn’t eaten yet, has a very short car ride, people talk to him, or he’s asked to go to a new environment. Every one of those factors applied to this morning, and as I was getting him ready he started to whine and I was praying hard that he wouldn’t escalate out of control. We made it to the dentist’s office without incident and I prayed hard that Sam wouldn’t be triggered by the receptionist’s cheery “Hello!” Thankfully, we didn’t have to wait too long to move into the treatment room and Sam willingly sat in the dental chair. The doctor gave him a shot of a calming medication and although Sam was wiggly, he miraculously stayed put long enough to have five separate monitor wires attached.

Finally, it was time to put the mask on his face and I held his hand and told him I loved him as I watched his eyes close and his body relax. The doctor said, “Mom, it’s time for you to leave.” Tears filled my eyes as I left my baby in that room and came out to the waiting room where a kind worker gave me a gift certificate to get something at the café downstairs.

Now, I still get choked up when I think about saying goodbye to Sam in that little room, but he was home and back to normal in two hours and from this vantage point the whole dreaded experience hardly seems relevant!

Isn’t it amazing how, in so many cases, how frequently and quickly we are healed?!

I have been struggling a great deal lately with the fear of death and separation from people I love. I just got home from spending a week in Utah with my first grandchild and I cried like a baby when I had to say goodbye to him and my big kids. My son, Sam, is literally at risk of death all the time. He has seizures a couple of times a year and every time he does, as I watch his body contort, lips turn blue, and face turn gray, I almost feel like I am watching him die, and pray that he will come back. I remind my husband all the time to watch Sam closely at church because “there are so many nuts there”!

No offense, but there really are, in the form of candy, trail mix, peanut butter sandwiches, and granola bars! With his life-threatening allergy to nuts, and the quickness with which Sam can grab food from others, church is probably one of the most dangerous places for Sam. Even when we are at home, I can never quite relax. When we are in different rooms I am watching him on the video monitor or listening for sounds of distress.

Yikes, what a downer this talk is so far! What does all this have to do with Easter?! 

Because I love my family and friends, and because we are all mortal and live in a risky world, I am inexpressibly grateful to Jesus for making it so that I never have to be permanently separated from the people I love. I know with all my heart that we knew each other in the spirit world before we came to earth, and we will be together again after we die, and as promised in the Doctrine & Covenants:

“that same sociality which exists among us here will exist among us there, only it will be coupled with eternal glory, which glory we do not now enjoy.” D&C 130:2

I also cling to the promise in 1 Corinthians that:

“eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.” 1 Corinthians 2:9

Finally, we are promised in the book of Revelation that:

“God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” Revelation 21:4

So, people, we know the story has a happy ending! Because of Jesus Christ’s life, atonement, and resurrection, I know that everything turns out all right in the end! So why should I be worried?

I guess it’s because I’m not a patient person. I don’t like waiting. And we are here, living this life, day in and day out, not just sitting around waiting for Heaven.

I believe that as we walk through this mortal journey, we can be bathed in hope by realizing that we can experience Easter Sunday every day! The prophets Alma and Moses testify that:

“all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator.” Alma 30:44

“And behold, all things have their likeness, and all things are created and made to bear record of me, both things which are temporal, and things which are spiritual; things which are in the heavens above, and things which are on the earth, and things which are in the earth, and things which are under the earth, both above and beneath: all things bear record of me.” Moses 6:63

Resurrection messages are everywhere! Here are just a few that I noticed this week:

--Sam came out of anesthesia with repaired teeth and no side effects.

--He missed a day of school, but that afternoon Lisa came over and watched him so I could go to Trader Joe’s.

--At Trader Joe’s I bought myself some purple tulips just for the sheer beauty and joy of them. When I got them home, they were extremely limp and floppy. I trimmed the ends, put them in water, and by the next morning they were all standing at attention, full of water and life!

--I was teary about missing my grandson, but the next morning I woke up to an email from my daughter with a link to 100 new photos of him.

--This ward is full of nuts, but even more full of angels of all ages who I can trust to watch out for Sam.

I believe that every time we experience healing, joy, beauty, renewal, hope, repair, cleansing, growth, forgiveness, a sunrise, new life, a second chance, repentance, reunion, relief…..or even something as simple as a haircut or a fresh coat of paint, God is reminding us of resurrection morning.

I’d like to close with another dental office experience, a blog entry I wrote exactly two years ago after a day that God resurrected for me:

March 31, 2015: This morning I had scheduled a dentist appointment for Sam that would require us to leave the house at the same time the bus would normally come to pick him up for school, so I figured I could handle this and then drive him straight to school, which takes about thirty minutes and is two towns away. Mornings have improved so much over the past couple of years that, although I was stressed about getting him ready on time and not making a scene in the dentist's office, I figured it was all going to be fine.

Unfortunately he started the day irritable and on edge but I was able to get him fed and dressed and out to the driveway on time.

I had called the school bus company to tell them not to come, but when we went outside, the bus was there at the end of the driveway, waiting for him! His driver and aide are two sweet little ladies in their 60's who absolutely dote on Sam, but they hadn’t received the message. As I told them that Sam would not be riding this morning, he started flipping his head and hitting himself in the face. Since I knew that I was never going to get him calm enough for his dentist appointment, and he always calms down quickly on the bus, I said, "On second thought, yeah, why don't you take him!" But he was flailing so intensely that I just had to get him safely into the house so he could calm down. The ladies were very concerned--seeing my big boy hit and yell like this is unsettling for anyone to witness--and they so kindly offered to help and brought my purse into the house for me.

I was able to brace Sam’s arms to protect his face without getting my face hit in the process while I walked him back into the house, and he calmed down quickly in his room while I sat at the kitchen table formulating Plan B. I phoned the dentist and cancelled the appointment and then scheduled his appointments for the next six months, all for much later in the day. Then I remembered that his backpack was all ready for school and in my car so I got him out of his room and he was really happy to ride in the car.

Whenever I have to drive the hour round trip to school instead of having that hour to myself, I'm pretty resentful. But as soon as I drove out of my neighborhood and into the undeveloped hilly areas leading up to the highway, I realized that, as usual, Sam had gotten me where I needed to be. I turned on my "Praise Baby" Christian CD and started singing along. I saw the explosion of yellow wildflowers that had burst onto the scene since I had last driven on the highway. In their vibrant colors I heard each one of them singing praises to our Creator.

When I arrived at Sam’s school, which specializes in severely autistic kids from ten to twenty years old, right next to me in the parking lot was a 250-pound full-grown young adult in the back of his dad's mini-van, lying across the third seat, refusing to get out. A petite female school aide was standing by and the dad was trying to figure out what to do without provoking the young man. Being deeply aware of how one wrong move can trigger a really difficult situation, I prayed for them.

Sam happily got out of the car and ambled to his classroom. On the way home I decided to drive along the coast, drink in the sight of the ocean, and count how many different colors of wildflowers I could see. Because of this "rough morning" I got to see wildflowers in several shades of yellow, orange, hot pink, white, and purple. I saw waves crashing on the Pacific coastline, smelled salty mist, felt warm air on my skin, thought about my church lessons from yesterday and what a blessing it is to have a body.

Because of Jesus Christ's atonement, He was able to heal my morning and make it a sacred communion between me and Him.

Happy Resurrection Day! He lives!

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Watch this beautiful short video about the Prince of Peace.