Remedial Course on Mt. Aire

A month ago (September 29th), I tripped over my own feet and fell on my face on Mt. Aire. I broke three ribs, collapsed a lung, and spent the next eleven days in the hospital.

During that same time, Michelle gave birth to our 8th grandchild in the same hospital (St. Marks). That was convenient for Carolyn who could walk back and forth between 4-West and The Women's Pavilion and visit us both. Sometimes I accompanied her to visit Michelle. Sometimes I even went by myself.

That's where I ran into a few problems.

Homely old men in off-colored hospital gowns dragging oxygen canisters behind them are not common sights in the Women's Pavilion and I was frequently challenged. "Sir, may I help you? Are you lost?" "Isn't this 4-West?" "No, sir. It is not!" I learned not to make such flippant responses. It didn't help. For the most part I could convince them that I had a reasonable excuse to be there -- to visit my daughter and hold my hours-old grandson. Only once was my nurse called on me and even her I was able to convince that I did know where I was and how to get back to my 4-West home.

These experiences reminded me of when that same daughter had her learner's permit some 2 decades earlier. I was sitting in the obligatory passenger seat admiring the competence of my pretty little chauffeur. I knew that she would pass the drivers test with flying colors -- which proved to be prescient. She got 100%, something I have never achieved either before or since.

Anyway, on that particular occasion, the task was simple. She was to navigate the car from one corner of the large California mall parking lot to the opposite corner where we could get out on the road and go home. The trouble was that it was mid-December, the Christmas shopping season was in full sway, and the parking lot was oozing with vehicles, all trolling for parking places. It was a new situation for little Michelle.

I was a little startled when I had to yell, "Stop!" at the first intersection to keep her from colliding with a car. I was even more surprised when I had to yell "Stop!" for one reason or another at every other intersection across the parking lot. That shook my confidence a little. Hers, too.

I realized that she was navigating the entire parking lot simultaneously. She was attempting to gain and keep intellectual control of every turn and every route and every alternate turn and route, and every alternate-alternate turn and route between her and her destination -- the complete parking lot, all at the same time. In the process of filling her brain with all that data, she was missing vital info, such as the fact that within 30 feet of her were multiple moving vehicles, all on a collision course with her. "No, Sweetheart," I could say. "The human brain doesn't work that way -- not even super flexible, active, 16 year old, female brains. You know exactly where you're going and generally how you want to get there. That's enough. You then have to focus on the here and now -- exactly where you are at this very second -- and make those decisions which will facilitate your eventual arrival at your known destination." I was proud of myself for my great understanding of this life-metaphor and of my ability to explain it to my daughter.

Little did I realize, as I lay face down in the dust of the Mt. Aire trail, trying to relearn how to breathe, that I was beginning a remedial course on this same lesson.

After I mastered some of the more basic techniques of breathing, I got to my feet. There were only a few things I clearly understood about my situation. First was that I hurt something awful. The second was that, at that location just below the sharp bend in the Mt. Aire trail at the saddle, I was almost exactly 1 mile from the trail-head where the car was parked and about 1200 feet above it. That meant that the average slope was 25%. And that was the average. Often it was far worse than that.

It's strange what one thinks of under those conditions. What I thought of was the allegorical story of the man who looked back over his life and noticed that every where he went there were two sets of foot prints, one beside the other, and he knew, for reasons that I don't remember, that this was because the Savior had walked with him, hand-in-hand, his entire life. But sometimes he noted that there was only one set of prints. And he also observed that this always occurred when his life had been the most difficult -- when adversity had been most intense.

"My Lord," he asked, "why did you abandon me at such times to walk the path alone? How could you have done it?"

"My son," he replied, "those were the times when I carried you."

And I thought, "Ok, my Lord, feel free to carry me now. You won't find me complaining of only one set of foot prints here. I'm ready and willing for you to carry me."

"Yes, my son," he said. "I will carry you by placing your feet exactly where they need to be all the way down the mountain," and I was filled with peace, love, joy, and security.

Then I looked down the trail and all those good feelings went away. They were replaced by uncertainty, doubt, and a fear that bordered on panic.

"You're doing it wrong," He said.

"OK, my Lord. How am I supposed to do it?"

"Don't look so far down the trail. Focus on the few feet right in front of you and I will show you and help you place your left foot. Then I will show you and help you place your right foot. Then move your focus a few feet further on and I will show you and help you place your left foot. Then I will show you and help you place your right foot, and you will be carried, inexorably, to safety."

"Yes, my Lord. I can do that." And I was filled with peace, love, joy, and security.

Trouble is, I kept screwing it up. I knew the trail and so I often looked around to see where I was, how far I'd come, and how far I still had to go, and, when I looked down the trail I was filled with fear.

"You're doing it wrong, again."

"Yes, my Lord. Focus. Left foot. Right foot...."

And, even though I kept screwing it up, eventually, with surprising abruptness, I found myself standing by the car door. I was filled with tremendous relief and gratitude for having been carried to safety.

I was then shocked at the agony induced as I folded my body into a configuration that fit inside the car and I drew all my body parts in after me. Then I gingerly drove down the canyon and was happy when there was cell service so I could reach out and touch Carolyn, and whine.

But I later could paraphrase Elizabeth Smart's statement to Oprah a few weeks earlier: "I'm not sure I'd ever choose to go through that again, nor would I ever want to wish it on anyone else, but good things resulted." In fact, I think she was saying some of the same things that the Willey and Martin handcart company survivors said. And although my tiny hour in no way compares to their multi-month ordeals, yet I can say that (1) I've never felt closer to the Lord in my entire life, nor (2) understood more fully the importance of continuously, day by day, minute by minute, making those decisions with the help of the Lord which will most optimally facilitate our journey toward the goal we all clearly have in mind. And (3) it doesn't matter how often we screw up. He has infinite patience and continues to give us help and guidance as soon as we are amenable to such. And (4) the peace of the Spirit is powerful and can coexist with physical misery, which is good because, having already had three different forms of cancer, I can expect my last days to be physically unpleasant, and (5) the Spirit is also quite different from the chemical effects of medication such as the well-expired Vicodins Carolyn gave me which induced a feeling of comfortable floating within an hour of my getting home. I've never had a clearer opportunity to compare these two effects, full-strength, in real time.

I can't think of anything I would be willing to trade for those experiences.