What I Have Been Given: What I Have to Give

What I Have Been Given:  What I Have to Give

Carolyn Hendry

My daughter Lauren made this for me as a gift.  The initials in the book are B&G for Boy and Girl.  The initials on  this tree are C&B--for Carolyn and Brent.

At the Ward Christmas party last night, I got to tell Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree.  At the end, I returned to our table, where Nathan is crying in deep, heartfelt sobs.  Asked  later, he told me that he felt deeply how much the tree had given—and still the boy wanted more.  Nathan’s Asperger’s usually keeps him insulated from strong feelings by walling him safely inside a shell.  He knows that God loves him, that the Lord knows him and his desires, but he is wired differently from most of us.  What he is feeling doesn’t reach his conscious mind.  I am glad that the story was able to work its way into his heart that night.

After I told the story, Mike came to me and thanked me for the story—he had never heard it before.  Two other members also thanked me for telling it.  For the first time in my life, I feel gratitude for the way that they reached out to me.  Like Nathan, I’m also wired strangely because of my manic depression.  I hold  far away from me what others think or feel about what I do.  It started with reactions to my manic depression—“water off a duck’s back” Brent would remind me when I had to be with those who thought I should just “snap out of it” and quit looking for attention.  For years I didn’t even bother to read Thank You notes that people would send me.  I figured that I had done what I’d done because I wanted to or felt inspired to do.  That someone would notice my actions or feel any kind of response to it was meaningless to me.  

The fact that I have always been able to open my heart to Brent without reserve—and that he has never violated that trust—is beginning to work its way from my inside to my outside.  As love and gratitude come from others, my spirit is enriched and I feel thankful for their good wishes.

When I was sixteen, I made a list of things that I wanted to accomplish by the time I was thirty.  One of those was to influence people so that they were better after having heard me tell a story, give a talk, sing, or read something I’d written. During high school, I wrote incessantly—pounds and pounds of paper filled with my hurried script.  I couldn’t write fast enough to record everything I was feeling, everything I wanted to share. I wrote essays and recorded events in my life from the perspective of someone floating at ceiling height . . . as if I were watching the drama of my life happen on a stage.

Sociologists and those who study world literature say that there  are no new stories—only the retelling of seven basic, formulaic plots.  The record of an individual would contain years when he overcame some incredible difficulty, how he became a success some aspect of his life, what he sought to obtain through his labors, when he left home to face the world on his own, happy times, tragic occasions, and—as when we are baptized—the rebirth of his soul as he embraces truth.

Elder Eyring, in October 2015, declared that “No matter where we go, our Priesthood goes with us.”  I personalize that for me:  “No matter where I go, my face, my soul, my heart, my reputation—all go with me.”  I carry the baggage of my personal history with me every day.  I will bring this lifetime of baggage with me when I die and face Christ—how I faced trials, what I spent my time on, how I acted when I was far from home and no one around me knew me, the joys I treasure, the sorrows that weigh down my heart, if I sought out and then embraced the truths of the Gospel.  

I see myself after this life recognizing Christ, dropping everything and running to Him to put my arms around him and feel His around me.  I want to thank Him for Brent, for my children, for my parents and brother and sisters—for all the incredible things I learned during my lifetime.  I want to thank Him for horses and for books to read; for dark chocolate and my body; for college and for limiting high school to just four agonizing years.  I want to press my face into his chest—for I imagine that I will still be 5’ 2” when my body is resurrected—and smell the light of his Being.  

Chris Young sings a song, “The Shoebox.”  In the song, he finds an old shoebox as he is cleaning out a closet.  He finds a card made for him by his mother.  In it she counsels him: “Don't forget to fill an old shoebox full of things to look back on.” 

The first time I heard it I wanted to rush back home and pull out a container that I keep underneath my bed.  In it is the first (and only) doll that my dad bought for my first daughter.  There is an ice scraper from my Grandpa Burton’s gas station—the first in Star Valley, Wyoming.  There is a rabbit made for me by my daughter: yellow flannel, pink paper, tape and thin white string.  There is a heavy, flat Christmas tree ornament made by my son with his pre-school picture in the center.  There is a plaster handprint, painted red, that my second daughter gave me for a Mother’s Day long ago and a Christmas angel my mother made out of a lace handkerchief.  These are all part of my story.  I may share a common storyline with all of humanity, yet my story is like my finger print, or my DNA.  It is impossible to mistake it for any other person’s. 

The items in my box, and hundreds more, fill the baggage I’m amassing right now.  Some things are heavier and harder to carry than others.   There are things marked by despair, others saturated with joy, some marred by shame.  I cling even to the difficult objects—they are part of my story, irrevocably melded to my soul.  I want all of these elements there when I open my bags to Christ’s view.  The miles and years that have made me who I am; carved a heart that I hope will be an acceptable offering.

At the end of The Giving Tree, the boy returns to the tree, that loved and gave all she had, that the boy could be happy.  The tree is stripped of her fruit, branches and her trunk chopped down.  Even though the story line follows one of the seven universal plots, the events themselves happened to a singular tree and a specific boy—grown to an old man.  We are left at the end of the story with an unforgettable image of an old, tired man resting as he sits on a stump.  This stump who discovers that, even though she thought she had nothing to offer, she is just exactly what her boy needs.  And she is happy.

Little Black Beans--In a Box

It happened today.  I was cleaning up the Church Nursery room after class was over.  In the corner of one of the storage closets, I found a small black bean.  From more than half a decade ago, evidence that the things I did with the Nursery-aged children still exists—hidden in places that no one thinks to look or to clean.  Those children spent 18 months of their life with me (from the time they were one and a half years old, until they reach their third birthday) for two hours every Sunday.  In those hours, I saw changes in each of them.

They learned that they were very important individuals.  When I asked them a question:  “Would you like some pretzels?”, I waited for an answer.  It could be a nod or a word or a finger pointing to where they wanted them placed on their small, paper snack plate.  Some, accustomed to a home where they were still considered a baby—took a little while to realize that if they didn’t answer, they didn’t received any of that treat.  The ability to make their own decisions was frustrating to some, irritating to others, ultimately liberating for each of the children.

I met this nursery member last week for the first time.

When I entered the nursery room for the first time, it was a bare, stripped down room.  No pictures, no colour, no music, no fun.  I soon added red curtains for the two windows.  I put together puzzles:  Noah’s ark, three children on an imaginary flying machine, a town scene complete with a train and rows of multi-coloured homes.  These were framed and hung on the walls.  

Old, broken toys and toys too old or too young for the children were replaced.  I loved combing stores for puzzles, blocks, and large activity cubes that could be set about the room on the floor.  I made a large quilt that had 18’x24’ padded patches distributed and spaced evenly over its area.  During reading time, each child had their own soft place to sit—each had a space defined by the unchanging pattern of the quilt.  

For lesson time, there were small, identical, tan chairs to sit in.  The small chairs each got a calico cover—different colours and shape designs ensured that every chair was different.  These covers stopped arguments that “This is MY chair!”  They picked the chair they wanted for the day—and no one else could sit on it during the two hour class time.  Ownership.  

This young man likes the chair with the rainbow on the back of it.

I introduced new foods at snack time.  Old familiars like fish-shaped crackers, and very thin stick pretzels were joined by baby carrots, apples that I cut into thin slices while sitting with them at the snack table.  I brought raspberries and small bowls filled with applesauce or yoghurt.  There were bananas and saltine crackers spread with peanut butter.  We made ice cream. 

There was routine:  opening play time with quiet toys:  puzzles, activity cubes, drawing tablets.  From there we had a short lesson and singing time.  Snack time went from a rushed-hurry-eat-don’t-make-a-mess-time to a pleasant, intricate pattern.  Instead of the adults smearing each child’s hands with liquid sanitizer, the children went into the attached bathroom and washed their hands.They learned to wait in line for a turn to rub hands with soap and then play for a few seconds in the running water as they rinsed their hands off.  The children helped to set the table and we had a short (very short) prayer on the food, ending with a joyfully loud chorus of “A-MEN!!” 

During the year, I called the children’s parents and arranged for me to visit each child in their home.  I brought cookies and spread each one with icing, watching my Nursery child decorate them with sprinkles and chocolate chips.  After I left, the preschooler got to show her older brothers and sisters, mother and father what she did that day with her teacher.  

Once or twice, I sent a handmade card (with a few stickers enclosed) to each of my students.  I told them that I was looking forward to seeing them on Sunday.  I told them that I loved them.

I spent lots of time (too much time my husband sometimes thought) planning the short lessons.  There were also colouring pages and other art projects for the children to make.  They brought what they had done home with them to show their families what they had done that day in Nursery.  

The number of students varied.  Some Sundays there were ten or eleven children, other times two or three.  One Sunday only a single child came.  When the mother saw that her daughter would be alone with me, she offered to keep her pre-schooler with her for the next two hours of Church meetings—embarrassed that I would be lavishing two hours on “just” her child.  I thanked her for her thoughtfulness, but reassured her that it would be wonderful to have the next two hours with just the two of us.  

One the members of our nursery now.  She is a kind, curious young girl.

It was a unique opportunity to get to know this youngest of women.  I was enriched by that time . . . I still remember the two hours I spent with her.

After all this remembering, I need to return to the small, black bean I found while cleaning after Nursery today.  That bean had come from a, well, a bean box.

As an added activity, I decided to bring the Nursery children something that my own children had loved when they were pre-school age:  a bean box.

This box I brought into the Nursery room, was as large as I could manage and we played in it just as we would have in a sandbox.  There were things to measure with and things to pour with and things to scoop up the beans with.  The rule was that the beans were to stay in the box—but of course that was really hard to enforce once we’d been playing for a while—so I laid a large tablecloth on the floor before the bean box came out.  In the end, the theory was that stray beans would land on the cloth and be easily swept up and returned to their storage container. 

For nursery, we used a light green, rectangular, cotton table cloth.  The bean box was an under-the-bed storage container—so it was long with sides just about 7 inches high.  Usually there were several things going on during play time, but when the table cloth was laid down and the bean box opened, all the children drew together and sat around the box.  Big spoons, measuring cups, funnels, a few small dump trucks and hands . . . lots of hands . . . moved the beans from one side of the box to the other.  They took turns filling up the teacher’s cup and then letting the teacher pour a cascade of silken beans over their outstretched hands.  It was a lesson in self-control and taking turns and finding joy in the feeling the constant motion of innumerable tiny spheres.  Thousands of tiny, shiny black beans flowing as if they were water.  

And escaping.

Scooting into corners; hiding inside the folds of the table cloth, skittering underfoot as everyone “helped” to capture the beans and return them to their family home . . . even in a room that appeared to have gotten every particle back and in place . . . still there were individuals who escaped.  

One of them tucked himself into the corner of the storage cupboard, waiting more than 5 years.  Waiting until I was released to fill other callings.  Waiting until I was asked to return and be the nursery leader again.  Waiting until I found him today.

I found him today and along with him, a flood.  There was a five years’ flood of old memories of children who had come into the nursery.  At a year and a half, they were just able to speak a few words but, as yet, unable to sit through a five minute lesson.  They grew to three years old in a moment in my mind.  Eager eyes, shy smiles, and increasing confidence—this remembering all came washing over me—like a cascade of beans poured into the bean box—over outstretched hands.  

That bean box was five years ago.  After I was released as Nursery leader, I left and the new leader threw away the beans and someone else took the box home.  The only part that remains is the light green table cloth.  This morning I spread it on the floor underneath the bubble machine and the three children danced about, heads tilted up, hands outstretched, feeling the tender “pop” of bubbles as they landed on their fingers.