cc: file, Tony Hafen, Sara and Des Penny, Claude and Katherine Warner, Lloyd and Luana Warner, Diane Cluff, Maxine Shirts via mail.
"Once again I have been traveling, and so my Thoughtlet is being sent five days later than normal: on Friday, rather than Sunday. One of the unanticipated advantages of this is I have had 6 extra days to think about what I want to write. I recognize this does not make the words or the thoughts any better.
Note, Rob and my Mom are not copied on this e-mail. Rob is not copied, because he his mad at me since I am taking my parental responsibilities seriously and forcing him to face choices he has been making. As a result he has asked me `to not clutter up his mail box' (see the first paragraph above). When requested I have stopped mailing Thoughtlets, as hard as it has been for me to not share my love in a way I have found which most find acceptable. Hopefully it is an exaggeration, yet in a sense, not sending Thoughtlets was one of my first conscious forays in unconditional love. It has been very hard for me to cut off what is sometimes the only regular communication (even if it is still one-way) there is with too many of you. Roice has requested being off the mail list the longest time yet, and I continue to hope and pray he, like the rest of you who have left and then come back, will ask me to start sending the Thoughtlets again. Maybe he reads them on the web. Maybe not. Oh well! My Mom is not copied on this Thoughtlet because I am going to write some stuff that would needlessly upset her, which I feel will be beneficial for you kids. Mom will get next week's Thoughtlet about the time as she would receive these delayed words, and so in my mind there is no reason to fuel anger she has already lost control of. I recognize one of you might choose to talk about or mail these words to her, and all I can do is hope and pray and trust you are all mature enough to choose to keep confidential those things which will obviously create unneeded anger to yourselves.
`Little' Sara, over the last week and a half, whenever work and life have not conspired to be in the way, I have been thinking about something you off handly said to me. I want to write about my feelings and my thoughts. I wish I could find the words quick enough to enjoy a two-way conversation about important things like I am going to write about. However, I recognize I continue to struggle with finding words, and since I have began to learn how to find the words to express my innermost feelings over the last few years, specifically between the Lovelets to Marti and these Thoughtlets, I am going to write out my thoughts, share them with each of you, and hopefully it will result in an opportunity to have the type of conversation which should occur when a similar topic comes up with each of you over the coming months and years.
Sara, your comment was, `Dad, if you are going to put conditions on some gift you give me, I do not want the gift. I can manage just fine without that kind of gift.'
After immediately recognizing these few words emotionally bowled me over, and after emotionally picking myself back up off of the ground, there were several thoughts which were flooding across my mind. Having had several days for the intensity of the emotions to dampen, I hope the exercise of typing out my thoughts and feelings will allow me to arrange and rearrange words until they hopefully make sense to each of you. It is certainly good to have Andrea here to help edit these words. The bottom line is this Thoughtlet is going to be an attempt to organize the intense feelings which instantly engulfed me as I heard Sara's simple words about unconditional love.
There was a feeling of pride (the good kind of pride). Pride in having helped raised a child who can succinctly state what they believe, stand up for what they believe in, and be willing to do so without a shread of fear. Several of you have told me you are or have been afraid of me. In a conversation which includes the possibility of loosing access to trust money to go to school because of not meeting the terms legally established when the trust was set up (especially for someone who going to school is very important to) is a natural place for fear to take root. Note, LifeWay defines fear as False Events Appearing Real.
There was a feeling of fear. Fear that I have lost the ability to set direction and encourage wise choices. Fear of all kinds of scary addictions. There is a real fear accompanying the loss of control. I have never considered myself a controlling person. Yet I care and so I have strived to insure you each arrive at the next stage of your life prepared for the challanges which naturally come with breathing and speaking. When someone else recognizes they really do have control of their life, and in actual fact they always have controlled their life, and they come out and tell you your conditions (especially conditional love) have no power over them, then it is necessary to learn to restart or relearn parenting.
There were feelings of hope. Hope that this child would always be able to make wise choices. Choices to avoid alcohol in all its forms, tobacco, coffee, tea, drugs, pornography, violent and sexual movies, sex activity of any kind outside of the bonds of marriage, bad language, and every other unwholesome and degrading activity.
There were feelings of concern. Concern about today's society. Concern about things like the emphasis on beer and sex in commercials and in social interactions. Continuum Resources has to have beer at the employee meeting each Friday. I just do not understand how this has become accepted social behavior. Especially when there are so many who so easily become addicted. I was blessed with wonderful friends: Randy Shirts, Dale Hatch, Raymond Gardner, Charles Garfield, and others. Rachel is the closest of any of you kids to have the same caliber of friends I took for granted when I was growing up. Friends have such a major impact on us, and if we choose friends who choose to play with fire, we are bound to get burned.
There were feelings of spiritual confirmation. I know parents can not have favorites, and I strive to love each of you the same. However, of the paintings I had Ken Turner paint for you kids, Sara's is my favorite so far. And of the songs I have written for you kids, Sara's is also my favorite so far. Let me quote the words from Sara's song:
I was a teenager in the 1960's. These were the times when drugs were first becoming available, and kids were throwing out the values their parents were teaching. Often because their parents were not living the values they were preaching. However, just as many of the hippies of my youth have reverted to the values our parents talked about, I have hope each of you will come to live your life in the way you have been taught, and that you will find your highs in life and not in artificial stimulants and situations. As the emotions of the moment overwhelmed me, I felt the spirit confirming I had been taught the words to write 18 years ago, which are relevant to the challenges of today, 18 years later.
There were feelings of dispair. I often think how ideal so many aspects of my childhood were. Yet there are scars that are deep and permanent. I recall one of counselors Marti and I went to had me take a test, and based on the test and lots of questions he said there was something that happened which really scared me when I was younger than 18 months old. I forget the words he used, but it was some kind of constant background depression. When I went to PAIRS, Dr. Nancy White came to a similar conclusion, quite independently. As I heard words of indepedence and self-reliance, I wondered what mistakes I have made as a parent and an example which will create the same kind of struggles for you kids which I have faced.
I recalled the night in Dallas I went crazy. I talked to Roice about this when we spent some time together after Melanie's reception. He didn't even recall the event. I do. We were watching a program about the Holocast on TV. One of the early TV specials after Roots was so successful. There was a woman shown screaming as she was being raped. I can still see the expression and the fear on her face, the background colors of black and orange, and the sound that came into our living room. It scared some part of me that I don't even know so bad that I exploded. There were words about that kind of pure evil and trash coming into my living room. I was in a rage for a long time. I went outside and walked around the back yard again and again and again and again. We lived on Lockmore Lane and had put the 8 foot fence up, so it was about 1978. I put my fist through the guitar I had bought in Juarez, Mexico the summer of 1967, and which had been my friend and comforter, and what I wrote all songs prior to that on. I sobbed for hours in the room off of the kitchen. I remember Roice coming in, scared, and asking if there was anything he could do. I do not understand, nor is there any way to justify this type of emotional or nervous breakdown. Having done it once, I am afraid it made it easier to loose my temper and throw a fit when things did not go as I thought they should over the next 15 years. I am so sorry this happened. And in this instant, as I was overwhelmed with the emotions of letting go, of thinking through how to make sure to not tie consequences to trust funds or cars, as well as the risks and rewards of unconditional love, I felt dispair for not being able to insure each of you will not have to travel similar roads to those which I have traveled.
A few years after this event, at Dad's funeral, Uncle Tony shared his perception of something that happened when I was a baby with my sister Sara. I'm not sure of the timing of the disclosure, and yet I recognize emotional times like a birth or a funeral might be the only time we are able to find the words to describe a significant emotional event. Evidently, when I was about 6 months old, my Mother took me to Uncle Tony and in a very emotional scene told him to take me because she did not want me. I have never consciously felt these feeling from my Mom. I have felt that my only value in life was to make her look good, and that I could never do things good enough for her. Uncle Tony, I was glad you were willing to talk about this with me directly when I asked you about it later. It provided a context for me to understand the night I had an emotional breakdown in Dallas. It also helped me reconcile the words of the counselors about a significant emotional event prior to having language. It has helped me understand why I do not do well with words when there are emotions involved. And understanding confirms and helps me realize how important the words and environment we provide our children is to their ability to function. Just as a thinking pregnant or nursing mother today would not think of drinking alcohol or taking drugs which could harm their baby physically, thinking parents will not expose their baby to the violence and explicit sexual activity available on TV and video, because they realize all of this becomes part of the learned behavior of the child.
A few weeks ago, Audrey came in and wanted to talk to me about stuff. One of the things I shared with her is a song I wrote in the days of HyperMedia's failure and the associated emotions. I think it provides some context to feelings of dispair I felt and have been attempting to describe:
Even if I don't remember the events Uncle Tony described, what I do remember are the good times Mom and I had. I remember learning the songs to all of musicals that came out. Like from Oklahoma, The Music Man, West Side Story, Porky and Bess, etc., etc. I remember singing with her as she played the piano. I remember her getting me all dressed up in a green and white outfit, taking me to the airport terminal to practice tap dancing, and performing with Marilyn Reese, who was also born on November 3rd. By the way I didn't like that, and I still think it was more for her to show off and to look good to her friends than to teach me anything. There are good things to be said for parents who play classical music for their children, provide them with mobiles, bells to ring, and dials to turn, which make noise. Sometimes I get jealous of folks like Ethan Evans, whom I havn't had the opportunity to meet yet, because I realize he will grow up in a world where there are more Barbie Dolls and G.I. Joe's with Internet Domain Names than Americans with Internet Domain Names. Barbie Dolls and G.I. Joe's that speak Japanese, Spanish, French, Italian, and even English if you connect them to the right internet site.
Anyway, back to my thoughts about unconditional love. There were feelings of sorrow. Sorrow that I have made mistakes, and recognition the sins of the fathers flow to the children for 3 and 4 generations (Deuteronomy 5:9 or D&C 124:50). I see many of Mom's mistakes as learned behaviors from her Mom, and many of Grandma's mistakes as learned behaviors from her step-parents and as an emotional reaction to having been abandoned by her father after her Mother, Charlotte Marie Ashby, died, which was probably due to a broken heart because he was having an affair. I am getting old enough to realize there is nothing I can do about the mistakes except say I am sorry, I am learning and getting better as I get older, and I hope you will each be able to forgive and forget my mistakes, as I strive to do forgive and forget yours. Free agency is tough stuff, isn't it?
If there was time, I could probably go on and on about the feelings and emotions which overwhelmed me as Sara shared these two brief sentences about unconditional love. I know all of the words about our Savior, Jesus Christ, and about his unconditional love for each of us. There are times, like this brief discussion with Sara, where I am so thankful I know as well as I do of His unconditional love for me. I hope by pouring out my heart, each of you will be able to find a truth, a truth which you can personally build on to make a better life for you and for our family.
As far as what happened the week starting July 31st, it is all a blurr to me. Monday night Sara joined Andrea and I at a LifeWay meeting for parents and relatives concerned about a child. There were good things said. Sara and I went out to dinner afterwards at the Black-Eyed Pea off of the Toll Road and between Memorial and I-10. I went in to work early every day, and worked late most nights. I did not make it to the Young Men's and Young Women's combined activity on Wednesday night because I was getting demonstrations ready. There is no question about the fact the demonstrations for this SEG Convention came right down to the wire as far as being ready for prime time. It was a tough week. Jim Lin left and went to work for Landmark. Lilly Johnson announced she was leaving and going back to Landmark. Peng quit and went to work for a Java programming company. Fusheng is talking about leaving, as are some of the other programmers. Needless to say, I am in the middle of all of this, attempting to be the strong one, to stay the course, and to keep the rudder pointed towards a safe port as the seas sweep across the ship and the captains hide. In a sense, my efforts in behalf of Continuum Resources, like the effort to share these Thoughtlets, is a form of unconditional love."