Lost and Found

In February I checked out a book from the library called A Year of Fog. I read about three chapters before I needed to return it unfinished. I had started my last BYU class and simply didn't have time to read like I wanted to.

The opening chapters have haunted me. Someday I will have to finish this book. It's about a woman who loses her soon to be step-daughter on a beach in San Fransisco. She looked away for just a few seconds and in the blink of an eye, this little girl disappeared in the thick fog. This reminded me of something that happened within my own family:

When Christie was three years old, I was pregnant with my second daughter, Heather. My mom, Ron, Christie, and I drove over to Santa Cruz where we enjoyed a lovely day at the beach. The Santa Cruz boardwalk with all their thrilling rides was nearby. After enjoying a picnic lunch, Ron and Christie went down near the water to build sandcastles. My mom and I sat on blankets and towels and visited with each other. The beach was very crowded that day. It was one of those perfect days where there wasn't any fog and the temperature was very warm.

After Ron and Christie had been playing happily for 10 or so minutes, Ron walked up to where we were sitting.

"Where's Christie?" he asked.

"She's with you," I replied.

"No, she isn't. She said she wanted to get a couple more toys from you and then build more sand castles."

Panic set in immediately. With all the people at the beach, she somehow had not seen my Mom and I. We immediately began searching for her. I know that each one of us had a prayer in our hearts that we would find her soon.

I approached a life guard sitting on his tower and explained what had happened. I described what Christie was wearing and he radioed the other life guards to let them know to be on the lookout. I began walking down the beach, heading in the direction of the boardwalk. Where could she be? Was she in the water? Was she attracted to the rides on the boardwalk? Had someone taken her?

Meanwhile, my mom came across a group of young adults from our church. She had overheard them talking about church related topics and so she asked if they would also join in the hunt. Ron, my mom, fifteen or so strangers, and I along with the lifeguards were now searching for our lost girl.

As I prayed, I felt prompted to head toward the boardwalk. I didn't even want to think about if Christie was in the water. She could not swim. I'm sure I was crying as I continued my search wondering if I would ever see her again.

After searching for what seemed like forever, a lifeguard approached me and asked if I was the mother of the lost girl? I told him yes.

"We found her," he said. "She's in the first aid station eating a sugar free lollipop."

He directed me where to go and I was so relieved to see her again. Christie had been trying to find us in the mass of people. She wasn't wearing her sandals and the sand became so hot to her tender feet that she began crying. When a family saw her, they asked what was wrong.

"My feet hurt and my Mommy and Daddy are lost, " she told them. They allowed her to stand on their towel to cool off her feet and then immediately sprung into action and took her to a safe place.

When I picked her up, the person at the first aid station told me what a smart girl she was. "She knows her name, address, and phone number." All the practicing had paid off! I was so glad she remembered this important information. I was so happy that we were reunited and that she was safe.

As I remember what happened all those years ago, I am so grateful that we had a happy ending. I'm not sure if the plot in A Year of Fog does.

Someday, I'll have to find out.

Time Capsule Opened

Yesterday afternoon, I was determined to find the lost time capsule. After a little bit of searching, I found it! When I looked at the carefully labeled lid I realized I was supposed to open the time capsule last New Year's Day! Ooops! I guess with all the excitement of Jennifer and Jacob's wedding and Christmas and the New Year's Eve youth dance that I was helping with, I forgot.

Well, better late than never!

Ron and I had a good laugh over some of our predictions. Some came true. Some did not.

A couple of my predictions that did come true was that I went back to college and that we paid off our mortgage. One of the predictions that did not come true was that Ron and I would travel to Israel. Oh well. Maybe this decade!

I also asked each family member to share a little bit about themselves for the time capsule on their "Who I am" paper. Jennifer's paper made me smile when she wrote as an 11 year old, "I like horses and hope to own/ride one someday." She also shared "I like playing Centipede the most (on my computer.) You have to destroy the centipede and save the world." Go, Jennifer!

In our time capsule I included the front sections of the local paper for Dec. 31, 1999 and Jan. 1, 2000. The New Year's Eve issue's headline was "Clock ticking down." It also mentioned that "Ex-Beatle stabbed by crazed intruder." The New Year's Day paper's headline read, "Jan. 1, 2000: Looks like we made it!" The whole Y2K scare was just that--a scare. Thank goodness.

My favorite part of the time capsule was the sheet of paper titled "Words of Wisdom." Here is what we wrote 11 years ago.

Emily (age 6) "Hug and kiss someone everyday."

Jennifer (age 11) "Don't ask Mom what you can do when your room is a mess." More words of wisdom: "Don't write things you don't want other people to read." A.K.A "I didn't want to keep the first message I wrote, but Mom said I couldn't cross it out."

Loralee: (age much younger than now.) "Start the day with prayer, scripture study, and exercise."

Ron: (age much younger than now.) "Buy low--sell high."

Christie (age 18) "Do what is right even when it's hard. Sometimes the right thing to do is not always the 'popular' thing to do."

Heather (age 14) "Always finish what you start."

Dear Christie, Heather, and Jennifer,

Your predictions will go into the mail next week along with your "Who I Am" papers. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

Love,
Mamoom

Grandpa Harmon

When my children were young, I used to sing to them before naps and bedtime. My repertoire included Primary songs, "Jumbo Elephant" which my mom sang to me growing up, and a song I have never heard anywhere else--a combination of Rock-a-Bye Baby with an added verse of Hush Be Still.

When I was a little girl, my parents took me nearly every year to visit my mother's parents. They lived several hours away, so it was always a treat to see them. One of my favorite memory's of those visits was sitting in my Grandpa's lap as he sat in a large, upholstered rocker. I remember it being a dark red, but that might be my imagination playing tricks on me. He would also be holding at least one or two of my siblings at the same time.

Grandpa Harmon

Slowly he would rock back and forth, back and forth and begin singing Rock-a-Bye-Baby. When he got to the end of the song he would begin singing:

Hush be still,
As still as a mouse,
There's a baby in the house
Not a monkey, not a toy,
But a happy brown-eyed boy.

He would then go back to singing Rock-a-Bye-Baby. I don't know how many times I heard him sing this song, but it stuck with me.

Three days after my eleventh birthday, I was practicing the piano when the phone rang. That wasn't too unusual in our house. The phone was constantly ringing. My mother answered the phone and then came out to the living room to tell me that Grandpa Harmon had passed away. I was shocked. It was the first person I ever knew who had died. I thought of this gentle man holding two or three squirmy grandchildren in his lap at a time and softly singing. I remember sitting at the piano crying.

Ten and a half years later, I held my first daughter in my arms. One of the first songs I sang to her was Grandpa Harmon's version of Rock-a-Bye-Baby. I changed the words slightly to describe her eye color and the fact that she was a girl. I sang this song to each daughter as they joined our family, but I'm not sure if I ever told them where I had learned the song.

I'm looking forward to someday being a grandmother and holding my own squirmy grandchildren in my lap as I sit in my soft blue rocking chair. As I softly sing Hush Be Still to them, I will think back to how their great-great grandfather introduced this song to my family. Perhaps one day, they will sing it to their grandchildren as well.

Grandma Harmon and the Moon

When I was a little girl we traveled to San Pedro, California nearly every year to visit my Grandpa and Grandma Harmon--my mother's parents. I always enjoyed spending time with them. There house smelled of bananas and their backyard seemed like a paradise with wooden walkways and many plants and flowers. My Grandma Harmon wasn't in the best of health, but she was always so kind. My favorite memory of her was her love of the moon.

I remember many evenings she would take my small hand and we would go outside in the backyard to look at the moon. Her love of the moon passed off on me and I always feel a small thrill whenever I view the moon. I'll frequently point out the moon to other family members. "Now look at that moon! Isn't it beautiful?" It doesn't matter what phase the moon is in, I just love looking at it and am grateful for not only this beautiful world Heavenly Father created for us, but for the heavenly bodies he placed in our sky.

A few weeks our family was returning from a boating trip on the Delta. The full moon was just rising and it was so large. I pointed it out to Emily and she began taking pictures.


The moon helps me feel connected to family members in a strange kind of way. When Ron, Christie, and I lived in Texas many years ago, I sometimes felt homesick for family back in California. As I looked at the moon in Texas I thought, "My family is able to see the same moon that I do." I know it sounds strange, but suddenly they didn't seem as far away and my homesickness lessened.

Thank you Grandma for the wonderful gift you gave me. You never knew how those quiet moments gazing at the moon would bless my life.