Chapter 26: In Closing…the Circle

One typically rainy winter evening in Oregon we heard a knock on our front door. Standing on our porch were two drenched, but smiling figures in blue T-shirts silkscreened with the shooting star of the Make-a-Wish logo. As it turned out, Jaedin’s cardiologist had nominated him to be granted a wish through the Make-a-Wish Foundation.

“If you could have anything you want, do anything you want, go anywhere you want,” they began to ask him after taking a seat in our living room, “what would you --”

“I want to go to the Oregon Zoo,” Jaedin interrupted.

My wife and I looked at each other, a bit taken aback. We had been to the zoo less than a year before, and frankly I had no idea Jaedin was so anxious to return.

I wondered how we might tactfully intervene on his behalf to try to steer his wish in another direction; luckily one of the wish-granters beat me to it.

“You may want to dream just a little bigger,” he said encouragingly.

“How about I take you to the zoo this weekend,” I whispered to Jaedin, “what would you ask for next?”

He was stumped. He looked at his feet, and then glanced shyly upwards, avoiding each pair of eyes that was anticipating his response. Suddenly his own eyes lit up; he had spotted his Titanic model on the mantel.

“I know!” he said excitedly. “I want to go on a ship as big as the Titanic.” Then he hesitated for a moment, looking a bit worried.

“Yes?” prompted our guest.

“Only one that doesn’t sink,” Jaedin added resolutely.

The wish-granters jotted down some quick notes and said they’d look into it and be back in touch shortly.

A few weeks later we got a telephone call for Jaedin; we listened in on the call and discovered that his wish had been granted in the form of a Caribbean cruise for the entire family!

None of us had ever set foot on a cruise ship before, so it was quite a treat to leave the Oregon winter for a week-long circle around the Caribbean. Along the way, we went on every shore excursion we could fit in, and Jaedin got VIP treatment at every step.

By the time we got to the last night on the ship, Jaedin was exhausted. I carried him down to the cabin, and he fell asleep in my arms; he was still dressed in his tuxedo after having dined with the captain. During that week he had climbed ruins, rafted rivers, snorkeled reefs, pet dolphins, and even sat in the captain’s chair at the helm of the world’s largest passenger ship – over 200 feet longer than RMS Titanic herself!

I helped him out of his bowtie and jacket, laid him into his bunk, and turned off the light. Waves crashed outside the porthole as the ship steadily rode the swells; the sea foam – illuminated by the ship’s lights – followed the drifting wake to be handed over to the dimmer moonlight. On the horizon, thousands of breaking wave crests could be seen stretching across the vast sea. There was just enough light through the porthole to make the deep, zipper scar on Jaedin’s chest clearly visible; it was a distinct reminder of years that had focused on survival and recovery.

“What a week!” I said to Jaedin as he rolled over, “We’ve got a lot to be thankful for.”

He opened his eyes. “Especially that there are no icebergs in the Caribbean,” he added with a smile, then quickly drifted back to sleep.

Jaedin’s long-term prognosis is still uncertain; the procedures he underwent were only developed a few years before he was born, so those seas remain uncharted for now. He and a handful of others in the same boat are pioneer explorers, forging ahead into an unknown void.

With this in mind, for years we had wanted to play it as safe as we could, keeping him at all times in close proximity to the cardiologists and surgeons who knew every detail about his inner workings. We had limited our travels and scaled our dreams to fit the circumstances. But as we charged across the vast Caribbean Sea, I realized that his own physician had just sent us about as far from a pediatric cardiology unit as we could get. That being the case, who were we to keep him on such a short tether?

With his most crucial surgeries out of the way, perhaps we didn’t have to shield him so closely. We wanted to protect him, but any member of our family could just as easily get struck by a city bus tomorrow or face a number of other unpredictable scenarios that don’t constantly occupy our thoughts. Was there really any sense fretting about some future possibility of an unknown heart complication that might affect him? In the meantime, why not take in all that life has to offer? The notion was scary but liberating at the same time.

When we returned home we started talking about the possibility of changing our venue. The family consensus: “Why not?” So we kept our eyes open; and when a job opportunity came up in Australia, we jumped at the chance. We’d be taking nothing but our suitcases, so we got a storage unit, stuffed it full, and had to get rid of everything that wouldn’t fit inside…including Hamp’s boxes.

As excited as we were about embarking on this new adventure, I knew it would also mark the end of my little research project. There was still so much that I had left undone, but it was time to cut my losses and give everything back to my father for safekeeping. As I tried to box it all up in chronological order, I ran across the same high school-era items that had launched me into this effort to begin with. I had the yearbook, the graduation program, and one other document that seemed – if it were possible – to bring this rambling piece of work around full circle.

That third item was an amusing scrap of paper on which Hamp had written down the qualities he was most looking for in a girl – a top ten list he had made back in 1928. Topping the list in the #1 and #2 positions: quiet and logical, respectively. Now logically, the combination of these two traits makes no sense to me at all. Perhaps if he were to find himself an illogical girl, he would want to keep her quiet, but if she turns out to be logical, by all means let her speak! As much as I had learned about Grandpa through my research, this just added to an endless list of questions I’d love to ask him face to face.

Whether or not I can make any sense of it, I know full well that I owe my roots to Hamp and Marge’s quirky combination; and if time is a teacher, the lesson here in the meantime is to be careful what you wish for. I have to laugh when I think about it, but I doubt if either of the top two traits on Hamp’s list was ever once ascribed to Marjorie in her 90 years on this planet. Quiet and logical are the two things that my vibrant, artsy grandmother – bless her soul – definitely was not!

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As I wrap up this effort, something keeps taking me back to the Crossroads of the West on that graduation night back in 1928. What is it about that time period that draws me in? In our Mormon microcosm, at least, it seems to represent a bridge in time. If you had stood at the pulpit that night and aimed a camera at the audience, right there in one photograph you would see faces that span the entire history of the Church in this dispensation, faces that compress our history as a Church and show us that our origins are not that far distant.

The elderly in the audience that night overlapped with the lives of Joseph Smith and even some of the Founding Fathers. Literally straight out of the Wild West days of cowboys and Indians, these pioneers had marched with the Mormon Battalion, crossed the plains, returned to the rescue of the Martin Hancock Company, dodged the Civil War, and battled locusts with prayer-guided gulls, taking direct part in the stuff of Mormon legend.

The children in the audience would one day race for dominance in space, usher in a new millennium, watch the Twin Towers fall, and help the information age rise, swapping their scriptures for Ipads and wifi streams. Some of them are still with us today; you might see their wrinkled faces as you walk down the street. For now, you can still sit down with them, ask them questions, and learn from their life experience. As I have learned over these last few years, though, if we hesitate for a moment, the opportunity can disintegrate in the blink of an eye.

L.D.S. High was founded as Salt Lake Academy in 1886 and closed its doors 45 years later in 1931. The 125th anniversary of its founding and the 80th anniversary of its hapless closure have now come and gone. The students of the L.D.S. made a pledge, cited as a farewell address, in the last “S” Book ever printed:

Most tourists wandering through the Church Office Building and the surrounding grounds today have no idea of the block’s previous tenants. L.D.S. High is effectively gone from our collective memory; perhaps the memory loss will only be temporary, but it seems for now that their pledge has been broken. Resuscitating the memories would honor the students – our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents – and all they stood and worked for.

The L.D.S. Business College’s 125th anniversary celebration unfortunately proceeded without any former students of L.D.S. High in attendance. While the speeches were delivered and the confetti was dropped, the few remaining alumni likely sat alone in their care center rooms watching television. Perhaps Eldred Smith – who graduated five years before the school closed – is literally the last leaf on the tree, but I suspect there must be others. Let’s embrace those fluttering leaves before the tree goes completely bare! A single conversation would prevent the school from fading into the past and out of our memories; instead, that conversation would serve as a reminder and a living testament to its existence.

Take a look through the yearbook photographs; stare into Betty Callister’s eyes, for instance, frozen somewhere in time. You’ll see her experiences – with all of the accompanying joys and jealousies – come to life. Aren’t we all timeless creatures, all in the same boat together? You’ll find eyes just like hers in the nursing home down the street. I don’t know how else to put this: Let’s get our butts over there before it’s too late!

You’ll still find an occasional high school graduation taking place in Utah’s tabernacles today; as President Hinckley noted, the seats are still just as hard as they were a century ago. Those occupying the seats are just as likely – or unlikely – to succeed as any graduate from years past. Look around in that setting at this year’s graduating class; can you imagine what the future holds in store for this new generation? Do they show as much promise as the Class of 1928? Is there any less potential among them? By the time this new, young sapling reaches maturity and the last leaf blows from its branches, we can scarcely imagine what these green teenagers will have witnessed in the meantime.

What will we have contributed to help them along the way? A shoebox of photographs? A memory stick? A few dates in a FamilySearch file? Or will we pass along the actual, personally related stories, the insights that make us who we are? Will those insights be worthwhile enough for my children’s children to learn something from my own life? Will that leave them with anything remotely resembling a legacy?

If we seek out our ancestors and earn that inheritance, I believe it will; the connections may not hit us right away, but if we dive into it, I am convinced that they will, at some point, hit us right between the eyes. That will, in turn, give us something much more precious to add to our own legacy – a gift to the rising ranks.

Perhaps Nephi summarized it best: “The course of the Lord is one eternal round.” Bring it on, and it will always come…full circle.

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Epilogue

As I write this endnote from down under, Hamp’s 100th birthday is rapidly approaching. I took Jaedin out camping the other night and told him about the upcoming event; he still wasn’t impressed.

“But when will the Titanic be 100?” he asked, looking for a more meaningful milestone.

“Just a few more months until the century mark,” I answered, “Now that’s pretty old, don’t you think?”

“Well you’re almost forty,” he countered, “that’s pretty old, too!”

I nodded and cringed. “Yep,” I admitted under my breath. Dodging the subject, I added, “Did you know I have the same birthday as the Berlin Wall?”

The fact that I share a birthday with a defunct piece of masonry meant nothing to him, and he changed the subject right back again. “What’s the big deal about forty, anyway?” he asked, “Is that when they say you’re over the hill?”

“Oh I don’t know,” I said, “it’s a joke I guess.”

“But why do they call it --”

He wasn’t going to let it rest, so I interrupted him. “I guess life expectancy is around eighty,” I explained starkly, “so when you hit forty you’re half-way there.”

“So you’re half dead?” he asked, matter-of-factly.

“I guess that’s right,” I said with a nervous laugh and then tried again to change the subject before the truth’s sting could penetrate any deeper. “So do you still want to be an author when you grow up?” I asked him.

He nodded. “How about you?” he asked, throwing the question back into my court, “Did you ever finish your book?”

“No, I haven’t touched it since we moved; I’ll wrap it up when we get back to the States.”

“When will that be?”

“I don’t know…a couple of years, maybe.”

“So by that time you’ll be mostly dead?

“Well technically…”

I stopped in my tracks before digging the hole any deeper. His curt comment made me laugh out loud, but he didn’t see why it was funny – a fact’s a fact, after all. Pediatric psychiatrists have been inconclusive about where Jaedin falls on the autistic spectrum, but the bluntness represented by this particularly Aspergian remark is something they would all wish to cure him of. At times like this, though, I wouldn’t change a thing about him.

He’s right, after all; if I go by the statistics, I guess the curtains are closing on Act I of my life. I’m certainly curious to find out how Act II might play out, but while the orchestra plays a brief overture, maybe I should take an introspective intermission, fine-tune things for the finale, write out my manifesto, and revisit my bucket list. Or perhaps I should just dig this book off my hard drive, post it online, and call it good.

I put my arm around Jaedin. “You know what?” I promised him with a smile, “I’ll just go ahead and post it as it is…before I’m mostly dead.”

As we searched for familiar constellations in the night sky, the Big Dipper, the North Star, and other recognizable features were nowhere to be found. Instead, we found the Southern Cross and other new shapes – the same stars that the ancient Polynesian voyagers used to guide them as they traversed the South Seas. Though I haven’t had much luck instilling in Jaedin an appreciation for the classic harmonies of the early eighties, I handed him my iPod and played him the lines that Jimmy Buffet stole from Steven Stills:

When you see the Southern Cross for the first time,

You understand now why you came this way.

As I listened to the chorus myself – “I have been around the world” – I could distinctly remember being Jaedin’s age, mapping out my future path around the planet with a string and some pieces of tape. What a long, strange trip it’s been… Though the cells in my body have all been replaced since that day, I still feel like that same, naïve kid. Michigan seems like a dream to me now, but I don’t feel any wiser, any older, or any more mature than I felt back in 1985 as I spun the globe around in my bedroom – a full generation ago. I still can’t break dance – I guess I’ll have to leave Jaedin to break that curse for me – and I’ve only managed to knock a handful of items off of my bucket list. Now that the underwriters tell me I’m half-way through my earthly sojourn, though, I happen to find myself half-way around the world; so perhaps next time I’ll return to the U.S. from the east to complete that circle around the planet and at least cross that goal off my list. In the meantime, with the conspicuous crux overhead, all I can do at this juncture is to try to appreciate what life has offered me so far.

In the midst of life’s many confusing facets, sometimes signs in the heavens that have remained unchanged for – in this case – thousands of years, suddenly take on a new meaning. Whether it’s the Southern Cross, the North Star, or anything that lies between, these signs make everything feel meaningful and right…all is well, all is well.

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So there you have it; while some things in life seem to have come around full circle, I certainly haven’t closed the loop on my initial requests for copyright permissions and access to journal entries, photographs, and archived documents related to Hamp’s more prominent connections. As such, I have left this book undocumented, unedited, unabridged, and entirely unfinished. But as I promised Jaedin, rather than let the results of the effort fade away on my computer and disappear with my next hard drive crash, I’ll go ahead and send this draft around to my fellow descendants of Hamp and Marge as a way to commemorate the occasion of the century mark. To my immediate and extended family: I hope you enjoy Hamp’s story with all of its tangled tangents and that it helps bring his world to life for you as it did for me.

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Happy 100th Birthday, Grandpa!

from your grandson, Krey

March 2, 2011