"We seldom get into trouble when we speak softly. It is only when we raise our voices that the sparks fly and tiny molehills become great mountains of contention."
My
husband and I have the same annoying habit. We will neglect to
mention really important things.
For
example, one time I had a heart attack and my husband found out
because I said “Remember when I had that heart attack?”
several years later. I had already been in the hospital for quite a
while being treated for pre-term labor. My husband was away working
on housing. I had a small heart attack due to some medicine.
Apparently I forgot to share that.
But
he’s no better. A car accident this spring left him battered
and in pain. I knew about that. I knew the top of his head was
scalped. I knew it looked like someone shot him just above his ear.
I
did not know the thing I should have known. He avoided being
paralyzed by mere millimeters. He is seeing a surgeon specializing in
his type of injury to see if a repair for the displaced vertebra will
be possible.
I
found this out when he mentioned he wouldn’t be home when the
neck surgeon called.
If
you think we are poor communicators, I can only agree. I come from a
long and noble tradition of not talking about the most obvious things
that should be talked about. Compared to my extended family, I am a
veritable geyser of sharing and emotion.
My
daughter once asked if my willingness (comparatively) to talk about
issues would make her weak compared to the rest of the family. I
responded that I didn’t know since it had never before been
tried and we had no data.
In
college, I wrote an essay about my husband. It was about the steps
that would be required to elicit information from him about a
bleeding head wound. It was five pages along. Now that we have done
this with an actual head wound, I feel I was optimistic and should
probably revisit my premise.
So
all these months, there has been this miracle walking around my
house. That he could drive the kids to the ranch was a miracle. Every
hug was a miracle. Him holding my hand was a miracle. Him petting my
yippy little dogs was even more of a miracle than usual. Still having
him near to not talk to me for hours is a miracle.
Hopefully
he will be here for many years of knowing every opinion I have about
world politics but not why I had part of the house remodeled.
Do
not confuse our not talking for not loving. He is air and light to
me. The loss of him is unthinkable. I got everything I ever wanted
(again) when he survived that accident with some bad scars but some
good stories.
But
I didn’t know. It made me think about how often we don’t.
We try to be grateful. We see some things that happen and try to be
grateful. But obviously, we cannot see what didn’t happen. We
do not always see that millimeter between what happened and what did
not.
It
sounds funny, I am sure, that we at my house leave so many things
unsaid. Ours are maybe more obvious failures to communicate. But I
know I am not the only one who leaves such big things unsaid.
Maybe
you do it too.
In
prayer we give quick thanks for “safety” and then move on
to specific needs. We mention health but do it more often when it is
in question. We forget to be truly grateful. We overlook the web of
miracles that moves us through our days, brings us love, gives us
gifts. We don’t see the unhappenings. We do not know that we
have already gotten everything we ever wanted.
We
worry about answers for prayers we have prayed standing knee-deep in
the glory of the answers we didn’t even know to ask for. Our
needs feel huge and our time feels tight and we forget to say and be
grateful for all the ways in which we are already held.
I
know now that my gifts were even greater than I imagined those months
ago. But it is not the gift that changed. It’s me. I see now
what already was. If we want to be held, if we want to live
surrounded by our Father and his many gifts, the way is not to get
more. It is to see the more that has come already.
Once
we see it, we shouldn’t let those thanks go unsaid. That would
just be silly, after all.
I am me. I live at my house with my husband and kids. Mostly because I have found that people
get really touchy if you try to live at their house. Even after you explain that their towels are
fluffier and none of the cheddar in their fridge is green.
I teach Relief Society and most of the sisters in the ward are still nice enough to come.