From 72685228a7aacd6daa44da3833ac2eaeb80d1e39 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Collin Williams <96917990+bluedragon1221@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Thu, 24 Oct 2024 20:03:03 -0500 Subject: move some stuff around --- src/md/23_Dem_Bones.md | 96 -------------------------------------------------- 1 file changed, 96 deletions(-) delete mode 100644 src/md/23_Dem_Bones.md (limited to 'src/md/23_Dem_Bones.md') diff --git a/src/md/23_Dem_Bones.md b/src/md/23_Dem_Bones.md deleted file mode 100644 index a6b4c1a..0000000 --- a/src/md/23_Dem_Bones.md +++ /dev/null @@ -1,96 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Dem Bones ---- - -Life Lessons: We become the sum of our choices. - -Thankfully, I've never suffered a broken bone in my life, but Lori and -several of our children have. The most recent occurrence was Lori's -wobbly-rock incident at Girl's Camp that resulted in a shiny new -stainless-steel plate in her left wrist. She now has a small collection -of metal objects in her body, but I'm not the least bit jealous. I think -perhaps the artificial lenses in my eyes trump the metal she has in her -wrist and hip.\ -\ -Lori's broken wrist got me to pondering over the children's broken -bones. I've decided to write about the time Emily broke her arm. I think -there is a life lesson in there somewhere, but only where you would -least expect it.\ -\ -We were living in our first house in American Fork, Utah. It was a -starter house neighborhood with mostly young families and tons of young -children roaming the neighborhood. Emily was probably about 5 years old -at the time. As young kids will do, Emily had climbed a fence and was -demonstrating her balancing skills by walking like a tight rope walker -along the top of the fence. I don't remember who the culprit was, but -some other neighborhood child thought it would be funny to chuck his -shoe at Emily in an attempt to make her fall off the fence. I don't even -know if he was successful in hitting his target, but he was successful -at making Emily fall off the fence. She came home with her forearm bent -at an impossible angle. It was quite apparent that some bones had been -broken and we needed to get her to the emergency room in a hurry.\ -\ -Not having a sitter for the other kids, Lori and I loaded up the other -two children and Emily in the car and headed to the hospital. The -treatment for the broken arm seemed rather bizarre to me. They put -Emily's fingers in metal springs that worked like Chinese handcuffs to -suspend her hand in the air. They then hung a bucket from her elbow and -started adding water to it to use the weight to stretch her forearm as -they tried to re-align the broken bones prior to adding the cast. I -believe they gave Emily some laughing gas to calm her down, but it -didn't work and she was making a pretty big fuss the whole time. It was -all very stressful to watch my own child suffer so much and the -procedure was taking a very long time. Lori suggested that she could -stay with Emily at the hospital and I could take the other children back -home. My nerves were a little bit frazzled by the harrowing experience -so I was glad to comply with the suggestion.\ -\ -I took Ryan and Megan back to the car and loaded them into the back -seat. Now this was before the days when seat belts and child car seats -were required and my children were quite used to roaming free whenever -they were in the car with us. It was also before we were affluent enough -to afford a car with air-conditioning, so the windows were down as we -left the hospital parking lot. Not long after leaving the parking lot, I -could see Megan in my rear-view mirror. She was standing on the seat and -quite happy with herself for her accomplishment. Recognizing that this -was a dangerous thing for a three-year-old to do and not wanting to have -to pay for two broken bones on the same day, I told her fairly firmly to -sit down on the seat. Well Megan wasn't about to comply while she was -quite enjoying her newly discovered ability to see the world go by from -a much better vantage point. I told her again with even more volume and -probably a good deal of anger in my voice to sit down. Again, no -result.\ -\ -Because I was driving and Megan was in the back seat, I realized I -couldn't do much under these circumstances to enforce my command to my -non-compliant child. So, with a bit of steam coming out of my ears, I -pulled over to the curb and braked hard to bring the car to a stop. I -turned around and yelled, "Megan, sit down!" as I rather roughly pushed -her into a sitting position in the back seat. Megan wasn't any too -thrilled about this kind of treatment and immediately started to holler -over the affront to her 3-year-old dignity.\ -\ -Satisfied I had reaffirmed that my authority was not to be trifled with, -I looked up and discovered I had stopped right in front of a house where -some kind of barbeque event was going on in the front yard. Everyone in -the party was looking at me with a look of shock and horror on their -faces. I was totally mortified to realize that they all had witnessed my -little tirade in front of their house. Fortunately, this was before the -days when everyone had cell phones and took videos of such spectacles so -they could go viral on the internet. However, my shame at being caught -in the act by so many witnesses was such that I determined to high-tail -it out of there as fast as I could. I put the car in gear and put the -pedal to the metal to make my get-away.\ -\ -Thinking about this memory more than 30 years later, I can recognize the -life lesson I didn't really learn at the time of its occurrence. I -wasn't really mortified by my lack of gentleness and patience with -Megan. I was mostly mortified that my little outburst had been seen by -others. I wonder how I would have behaved if I had remembered that -everything we do here in mortality is being observed by someone. It all -goes into the Book of Life and becomes a part of the permanent record. -Our choices become a part of our soul and the cumulative effect -determines who we become. I think this is one reason why marriage is -such a vital part of this mortal experience. We have a built-in witness -to our lives and a greater motivation to try to behave well in front of -our companion on the covenant path. -- cgit v1.3.1