Birthday Thoughts

Today, February 28th, is the 85th anniversary of the birth of my father, Leon Leishman Hall. I have wonderful memories of him. He was confident, but not brash. He had excelled in athletics, especially in his 20's after he got his growth. One year being named the All-Church 3rd baseman in fast pitch softball. He served in WWII, graduated from Utah State where he studied entomology (the study of insects). He taught high school biology in Duchesne, Utah for several years and then accepted a job in California with a mosquito abatement district. Later he became manager of the Fresno Westside Mosquito Abatement district. He loved to camp and hunt and fish. He was an attentive husband and father. He coached several of my Little League baseball teams and encouraged my participation in athletics and in my school work. He had a creative, artistic streak that leaned toward the clever, whimsical and unique rather than the classic style. (He and Mom were a great balance in that way.) He had a maturity and warmth that drew others to him.

He and Mom married in the Logan temple but I get the feeling he wasn't completely active in the Church during his growing up years. (His father was not nearly as faithful as his mother.) But I remember how he was devouring Church books during the years I was old enough to be aware of such things and I remember his deep excitement in preparing a talk he gave on the premortal life just a few weeks before he passed away. He seemed to have a genuine hunger for a deeper understanding of the gospel.

How odd that he only lived to be thirty-six years old. Happy Birthday Dad -

In Praise of Light and Water

Bringers of Life: light and water. Supple, brilliant in their interplay. So satisfying, so simple, so unfathomable. Beautiful and fulfilling, bringers of hope and possibility.

Reminders of God.

Scintillant partners woven into joy!

In Praise of Light and Water

First Birth

Thirty four years ago today in Bountiful, Utah our firstborn, a daughter, came into the world. Being our first experience with this remarkable and wonderful process we didn't know quite what to expect. And things were a little different then. While the women in labor waited until they were wheeled into a delivery room they were all in the same general area, separated only but curtains. This means that you could hear, or couldn't help BUT hear, all the preparatory sounds of pain in a chorus that carried no comfort and little pleasant harmony.

Fortunately everything went well and A. was born. That was a great treasure. She has been a wonderful oldest child whose faith, values and sensitivities point truly to goodness. She continues to be a strength and a blessing to our family and to her own family. Happy Birthday!


In the Labor Room

In the cloth-partitioned room
Discreetly sectioned into separate cubicles,
Doctors and nurses hover at intervals like angels,
With long silver needles in their hands
And voices that unroll like gauze.

My wife,
One splintered tone
Among the tortured chorus of maternal voices,
Feels the mounting tension of constricting fire.

And like a whip
Her body is jerked taut by pain
And holds--
Then eagerly releases
Falling limp and waiting . . .

Her lungs pluck quickly at the air
And suck the air from up around my face
Until I feel a lightness in my head
And tumble freely down the well of pain
That plumbs forever in her eyes.

Far removed from time I burn in awe
Beside the greatest flaming vise
That ever tightened on the flesh.

Knowing & Doing

Between the knowing and the doing stands the self in various guises. There is the lazy self, the tired self, the procrastinating self, the self-absorbed self, the proud self, the lustful self, the greedy self, the fearful self, and the timid self. I suppose all this is self evident.

Happy Birthday ! Yesterday

Yesterday was my wife's birthday. Things have been so hectic that she almost forgot that. It was a busy day for everyone but we had some time in the evening to go out and celebrate quietly in a restaurant with a delicious sense of tranquility. Although not very original, what follows is an alphabetical listing of some adjectives and some nouns that begin to paint the complex, wonderful, and incredible picture of who she is:

Adventurous
Beautiful
Creative
Decorator
Empathetic
Frugal (well . . how about Friendly)
Generous
Hot
Interested in others
Joyful
Kissable
Listener
Mother (of 11 children)
Nocturnal
Open to learning
Prayerful
Quick to help
Remodeler
Spiritual
Temple loving
Unselfish
Valiant
Without guile
Xciting!
Young at heart
Zion bound

A Distillation

This past Friday we held the funeral for my mother-in-law Virginia Frey. She was almost 93 years old. Condensing a life, even the recognition of a life, into an hour and fifteen minutes brings a certain distillation. The distillation of each of those who participated in their individual way was similar and, with a variety of examples and experiences, underscored a few defining words: service, love, generosity and faith. We were the beneficiaries of the individual moments these words are drawn from.

And these words describe a woman's life that helped give life to others and will continue to do so as long as memories of Virginia echo down through the years.