Where am I, or better yet, where are you?

Family, the most important reason to continue to breathe. For the last forty-one years, I have truly believed, no known, that family is the purpose for my existence. At twenty, I married the love of my life and we began our family in the Manti Temple. Over the next thirty-five years our family of two grew to six. That family grew to seventeen--two parents, four children, three children-in-law, and eight of the most beautiful of all grandchildren. Six years ago, on May 23, our family shrunk to sixteen with the death of one of the parents. Then three years later we grew again with two more beautiful grandchildren. We are now at eighteen. A family, a unit, a group of people bonded together by blood and by experience. We have fun together, are sad together, work together, remember together, and sometimes fight together.

(DIGRESSION)

Change

Lying on my back,
sucking the
juice out of
sweet
fall harvests
of pink
and orange, I
watched as

The point goose tucked
tightly into a
triangle
and
broke
through autumn blue,
creating smooth laminated
space
for companions
nestled closely
to left and right--

wings like
sleek bicycle racers
avoiding the noise and drag
of echelon space.

With juice dripping
off my chin
and elbows,
I wondered as

The point goose moved with
fatigue gently to
the left,
then dropped to the
end of the
strand of the
migrating flock
to rest,

as the
next goose in line
took the
lead.

Tim and I went to the desert this weekend. A wonderful trip filled with laughs, new experiences (I got to ride a 4-wheeler for the first time, Tim got to sleep in a tent for the first time), a beautiful night ski, red rock, wind, rain and sand. But one of the most memorable experiences of the whole trip was when we were traveling back to the main highway. Just beyond what is called Dry Lake, out on the middle of an alkaline flat was a lone goose. Walking back and forth across the barren crusty desert floor, it looked lost and very much alone. Now, I had learned that geese are family birds--they live and move in units, work together, and take care each other. But this goose was alone. We stopped the truck and watched for several moments to see where its companions might be, but there were none. Just this one lonely bird out on the desert in the storm.

When I wrote Change, my writing group didn't like it because I was trying to assign human characteristics to birds. (The beauty of being the writer, one can like what he or she writes whether anyone else likes it or not.) I still liked the poem so I didn't throw it away. I argued that I wasn't assigning human characteristics to the geese, but wondered at how wonderful it would be if we as a unit in the human race provided a protection from the echelon spaces of life for those of our family units as do the geese.

If I may go on with my metaphor, I question if the family of this one lone goose may have assumed human characteristics (instead of the other way around) and cut this one member of their unit out of their flock for some reason--left it to wander alone in the echelon space.

(My picture taking talent is generally poor, but it is exceptionally bad when I am walking on uneven ground trying to get close to a wild bird. Sorry for the very blurry pictures.) As I got closer to this one lonely goose, it watched me carefully moving slowly and staying just ahead of me. (Probably afraid of my amazing camera skills.) Just as I was ready to shoot a second picture, I was startled by a rhythmic whir as the lone goose took flight--hopefully off to rejoin its flock.

Family is the most important thing in my life and I hope that my family will continue to protect each other from the echelons spaces in life and never leave one of us alone in a hard alkaline place. Happy Birthday, Blaine--we miss you--have a good flight.