My Favorite Arts Experiences 2015

Exactly one year ago I started this blog with the intention of using it to talk about my work in the arts and the many different experiences I get to enjoy. My inaugural post talked about my favorite arts experiences of 2014. Little did I know when I started it that I would soon give my blog over to charting my pathway through dealing with the unexpected loss of my five year old son, Jack, on Jan. 12, 2015. I will still likely use this blog for that reason, but I also feel like it's time for me to get back to talking about what I love so much.

Despite my personal family tragedy, I still had many wonderful experiences in 2015. I attended--and produced and/or presented--many thrilling performances throughout the year, and I offer here a recap of some of the highlights:

THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO | Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah | Jan. 21-31, 2015
If you had told me a few years ago that I would be producing the U.S. premiere of Tony Award-nominated composer Frank Wildhorn's (Jekyll & Hyde, The Scarlet Pimpernel) new musical at BYU in 2015, I'm sure I wouldn't have believed you. Yet, that's exactly what happened. The show had all of Frank's hallmark traits: epic story, exotic locations, romance, and lush melodies. It was so fun to be able to connect our students and faculty with Frank and scriptwriter/lyricist Jack Murphy during their visits to campus for auditions, rehearsals, and performances. Born from a personal friendship with the composer sparked by Frank's visit to Provo for my BRAVO! concerts series in Oct. 2013, Monte Cristo became a labor of love for me. How grateful I am that my colleagues at BYU were willing to take the leap. Fortunately, the show was a huge success, selling out of the entire run (more than 11, 000 tickets) before the first performance had even taken place. Perhaps even more thrilling is the continued friendship and mentoring Frank has offered me. Not only did I attend his wedding in Hawaii in July, but he regularly teaches and inspires me when we get together on my trips to New York as I attempt to make my first foray into the sometimes overwhelming arena of commercial (Broadway) theatre producing. Next up for Monte Cristo: the professional regional premiere at Pioneer Theatre Company in Salt Lake City, May 6-21, 2016, directed by Marcia Milgrom Dodge.

THE ENCOUNTER/ 887 / ANTIGONE / DRAGON | Edinburgh International Festival | Edinburgh, Scotland | August
Truly one of the great arts festivals of the world, this professional, curated festival showcases music, theatre, and dance from across the globe. I've attended it three times, and this was by far the most rewarding visit. Not to be confused with the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the Edinburgh International Festival (EIF) features ambitious, genre-busting, fully-staged programming from exciting troupes from across the globe. In 2015, I saw several shows at the EIF, some of which were the most thrilling live theatre experiences I have had in all my life. These included a production called The Encounter, by Simon McBurney's London-based company, Complicite. This solo play utilized sound design to tell a story of one man's journey deep into the Amazon jungle many years ago to photograph a remote tribe untouched by the outside world. Each person in the audience donned a set of headphones for the duration of the performance, giving the show an immediacy and intimacy I have never before experienced in a play. 887 was also a solo play, this one by the Canadian actor Robert Lepage. The production, basically a memoir of Lepage's childhood, used puppetry and incredibly detailed small-scale stagecraft to tell its story. Moviestar Juliette Binoche played the title role in Antigone, directed by man-of-the-moment Ivo van Hove. This exciting production melded music, acting, contemporary design, and simple staging with an easily digestible translation of the Greek tragedy to create a powerful performance. Last, the National theatre of Scotland's co-production of Dragon with the Tianjin Children's Art Theatre was a wordless play about the adventures of a boy and a dragon imagined in his mind. A cross between War Horse (the play) with How to Train Your Dragon (the movie), this fun and engaging production created a memorable theatrical experience with its impressive puppetry and ability to tell a compelling story without any dialogue. With a hearty dose of luck and good fortune, I hope to bring this show to Provo in the next season or two for my BRAVO! series. (Fingers crossed!)

VIVALDI RECOMPOSED: THE FOUR SEASONS by MAX RICHTER | Edinburgh Playhouse/Edinburgh International Festival | Edinburgh, Scotland | August 
In 2014 I fell in love with the music of British contemporary classical/minimalist composer Max Richter when the BYU Dance Dept. choreographed a couple of ballet pieces to music from Richter's modern re-imagining of Vivalid's Baroque classic. I was, of course, thrilled that he was performing the long-form work as part of the EIF during the time I was in Scotland in August. The live performance did not disappoint;  it's modern and new, yet familiar enough to evoke the feelings I've long held for the Vivaldi classic. Richter played music from his laptop along with a chamber orchestra (standing, in proper Baroque style) and soloist Daniel Hope on the violin. A classical music concert unlike any I've attended in the past, it was an excellent showcase of the modern and the traditional at the same time.

EDINBURGH FESTIVAL FRINGE | Edinburgh, Scotland | August
I saw more than 40 productions at the Ed Fringe this year (a few of them great, many of the mediocre, and some of them purely awful) and thus find it hard to single any of them out, although I will say that there are a few that do come to mind. These include the post-modern docu-drama puppet retelling of the Jack and the Beanstalk story by Blind Summit in their irreverent production of Citizen Puppet. One of the funniest plays I have ever seen, the real star of this play was the detailed puppets and the incredible skill of the puppeteers, who, as the puppet manipulators and also their voices, must be great actors and skilled movers alike. Also, noteworthy at the festival was Temple Theatre's Unmythable, a 50-minute mash-up of Greek mythology with the story of Jason and the Argonauts at its core. I also thoroughly enjoyed the contemporary circus company Ockham's Razor and their aerial work in Arc and Every Action. I personally really enjoy contemporary circus and hope to be able to bring this type of work to BYU in the coming seasons.

BROADWAY MUSICALS | New York City
The American musical is alive and well. 2015 saw a bumper crop of musicals of every size and scale open in New York. Fortunately, I saw several of them this year, something I have always enjoyed doing ever since I first saw Phantom in Los Angeles when I was a youngster. Some of the highlights for me included the beautiful choreography and scenic/projection design in An American in Paris at the Palace Theatre; stunning design and a lovely Tony-winning performance by Kelli O'Hara in Lincoln Center's epic revival of The King and I; Something Rotten!, probably the funniest and funnest musical I've ever seen, at the St. James, this bawdy musical is filled with over-the-top scene-chewing performances by a cast of Broadway regulars; a sturdy revival of Fiddler on the Roof at the Broadway Theatre at which I again came to realize why the music and message of this show has become so beloved by millions of people; powerful performances by Michael Cerveris and Judy Kuhn in Fun Home at Circle in the Square (a really charming, intimate theatre, especially from where I sat on the front row); The Last Ship, Sting's new musical, at the Neil Simon Theatre, had a very dynamic and exciting final few moments and some excellent music throughout. It was also fun to see Sting perform in the show for which he wrote the music.); I also thoroughly enjoyed Beautiful: The Carol King Musical, at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre, not previously knowing where some of those classic tunes had come from.

KELLI O'HARA IN CONCERT | Brigham Young University | Sept. 4
In what has become an annual tradition since I first brought Brian Stokes Mitchell to BYU in 2010, a first-rate Broadway star has opened my BRAVO! series at BYU each autumn. For 2015, Kelli O'Hara, fresh off her Tony-winning performance in The King and I on Broadway, gave one of the greatest concert performances I've seen yet as part of this initiative. She sang all the songs a true fan of her work would want to hear but also sang several other showtunes and songs throughout the program to highlight her diverse repertoire and storytelling abilities. These annual concerts have come to be one of the great highlights of my entire year and she did not disappoint.


Overall, I'd say 2015 was rich with exciting, thoughtful music, theatre, and dance experiences. I look forward to the treasures 2016 will surely unfold!

The Last Gift

I hadn't planned on sharing any thoughts during the holidays, but I think someone else has other plans...

My heart is both heavy and full of joy at this time of year--always my favorite time. My children and wife and I are full of anticipation and excitement over the wonderful things occurring as the year winds to a close: spending time with family and friends, enjoying the Christmas lights and decorations, delicious treats and food, and much more. When I mention that my heart is heavy, I think that's a fair description. I'm not melancholy or depressed, but Stacy and I both certainly notice the missing member of our family as we proceed with our annual celebrations--each one a new "first" for us as we navigate life without Jack among us.

There's a fair amount of guilt a parent feels when losing a child. Stacy and I both have felt, and continue to feel these things on occasion. They aren't constant thoughts, but they do haunt us every now and then. We know the source of such things and don't allow ourselves to give in to them, but part of the reality of our human nature is the constant struggle of dealing with "What If?"

For Stacy, it's "What if I had kept him better hydrated?" (Jack had been sick with a cold at the start of the new year and hadn't been eating or drinking much. His doctor said that one of the reasons the clot in his brain occurred was due to the thickness of his blood due to lack of hydration.) or "What if I had taken him to the doctor?" There are no answers to these questions, and even when we try to come up with some, the result is simply: additional questions. (In all fairness to the doctor, who we thought was very good, he told us that there was nothing we could have done to prevent this from happening, and we take comfort in that.)

For me, it's "What if I had been more tender and loving and compassionate during the time he was feeling so lousy?" (Not that I wasn't compassionate, but we are our own worst enemies, right? There's always room for more love and compassion, isn't there?) or, for me the worst guilt comes from the fact that I wasn't home when it all happened (I was in New York City at an annual conference.) Not being there in my son and my wife's time of terrible need has been a difficult pill for me to swallow.

I remember sitting down to watch a show in New York two nights before Jack left us. My spirit was not at ease. I felt restless. Stacy called me just before showtime and told me Jack still wasn't feeling well. I was worried but not overly concerned (we had spent so much time at the doctor's office and hospital with our twins since their birth that nothing really caused us alarm; getting sick was par for the course.) I couldn't be there in person to bring comfort, but I felt that a priesthood blessing could be of benefit to Jack. My friend and neighbor responded to my text message and graciously headed over to my house with a companion to administer to my family.

I firmly believe that blessing gave my son two more days of life. It perked him up, enough so that Stacy felt like he was improving. This allowed Jack to be with Stacy and his siblings for a couple more days before he had to leave us. This brings me great joy and strengthened my testimony of the power of the priesthood. This was a great gift to us, one that we will cherish always.

That wasn't the last gift, however. There was one more.

Jack departed this world on a Monday morning. On the Sunday evening prior, a series of small events fell into place (surely orchestrated by the Lord) to allow me the greatest gift I could receive from heaven and my youngest child (not knowing, of course, what was about to transpire). This gift was the last conversation I was ever to have with my son before he left us. Here's how it came about:

Sunday evening in New York City in January: the weather was chilly and the sky was dark. I was restless. I needed something to do. But I was uncharacteristically indecisive about how to occupy my time that evening. I wish I could say it was some epic choice between two noble deeds I was forced to choose, but alas, it was which show I should go see. There aren't too many shows playing on a Sunday evening in New York, but there were two I was interested in. I was trying to make a choice between them. One of them started at 7:30 p.m. and was a fairly new musical I had not yet seen. The other started at 7:00 p.m. and was five blocks closer to my hotel than the other show was. But I had seen this second show about seven times already (I know, I'm ridiculous).

I went to the box office of the theatre for the first show fully intending to purchase a ticket to see it at 7:30 p.m. When I got there, however, I couldn't do it. For some reason unknown to me, I felt like I should not go see that show and that I should go to the other show instead. I didn't know why I was having a hard time making such a simple decision, but I followed my heart and headed uptown to the other theatre. When I got there, I went to the box office and found that they did have a ticket to the show. I requested a seat on the aisle (again, not sure why). Shortly thereafter I made my way to the upper balcony and settled in for the performance.

It turns out that there were quite a few empty seats in that balcony for the performance I attended that night, including many seats ahead of me with a better view of the stage. I specifically remember thinking that it would be fun to move up closer so I could see better. However, there were no aisle seats, and for some reason I kept thinking in my mind that I was going to need to leave the theatre quickly when the show was over. So, because I would have been trapped in the middle of the row with no quick way to exit the theatre, I did not move forward to a better seat. Instead, I kept my seat farther back on the aisle near the exit.

As soon as the applause started for the curtain call at the end of the show, I jumped up from my chair and headed out the door. I didn't know why I was in a hurry, but I felt like I needed to get back to my hotel as soon as possible. I was able to get out of the building very easily without any trouble or delay.

Whenever I travel, I always make my best effort to call my children to say hello and find out how their day has gone. It's not always easy, however, because my schedule and their schedule, plus the difference in time zones, often means we aren't always able to talk at the same time. Because of this, I had missed a couple of times talking to my kids on this particular trip. But I really felt like I needed to talk to them on that cold Sunday evening before they went to bed back home.

I made my way back to the hotel. I entered the lobby. I felt a very strong urge that I needed to talk to my children right away. It was getting late. But my phone was almost completely drained of its battery. I knew I wouldn't be able to even make it through one short phone call. Another strange and unexpected thing had happened before I had ventured out into the city that day: I had, for some reason, thought to put my cell phone charger in my pocket. I had carried it around with me all day long, something I never usually do. Because I had the charger with me, I searched the lobby for an electrical outlet. Fortunately, I found one with relative ease. It was in an open, noisy area, but for some reason I didn't care. It was important to make this call. (I was staying at a big hotel and sometimes it can take ten minutes to get an elevator, which is why I didn't try to head up to my room.)

I plugged in and dialed. I talked with Stacy and with each of my children, individually. I listened to them tell me about their day. I told them I loved them. I told Jack I loved him. I have no idea what I said aside from that or what we talked about (probably not much; Jack wasn't much a phone talker). But we talked. Little did I know that that conversation with my baby boy, my sweet five year old angel, would be the last one we would ever have on this earth. I never spoke to him again after that, other than when I whispered and cried into his ear in the hospital after he'd already passed on from this world.

That conversation was the last gift. It was the greatest gift. It was the only one of any importance that could be given to me. I'm sure the Lord granted me this tender mercy. He knew what was coming. He knew it was something I would need to help me through the days and weeks of pain that were about to unfold upon me and my family. He knew it would bring moments of peace and comfort in a world suddenly turned upside down. He knew all of that. Oh, how glad I am that I listened!

You see, if I had gone to the 7:30 p.m. show, the performance several blocks farther away from my hotel than the show that started at 7:00 p.m., I would have missed the opportunity to talk with my son. I spoke with him at about 9:45 or 9:50 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. It was 7:45-7:50 p.m. in Utah. Our twins go to bed at 8:00 p.m. If I had not gone to the earlier show, the later time and the extra walking involved to get back to my hotel from the other show would have put me there after 8:00 p.m., Utah time. I would have missed the chance to speak to my Jack before he had gone to bed forever. What a miracle this was! I still can hardly believe it even now as I write this. What an amazing last gift this was to be able to speak with him one last time, even though I had no idea that's what I was doing. How much more pain and regret would I feel if that had not happened? God is so good to us if we listen to what He is telling us. If you ever have a prompting in your heart, you simply MUST follow it. It could end up meaning so much more to you than you'll ever know!

Now it's been almost one year since the last gift of that phone call took place. I treasure that moment so much. When I return to New York in a few weeks' time for my annual conference, I will be staying at that very same hotel. I am sure I will pass by the spot many times where I last spoke to Jack on the phone as people chatted and rushed past me. That will be a special place for me now, a sacred space.

One last thing I leave here now: during his final Christmas with us, for some reason Jack became familiar with the carol "What Shall We Give?" sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. I think we had been watching the video online and maybe he had heard it and/or sung it at church, too. Jack had really taken to this song and had, for some reason, started to sing it at home. He never really sang much in his day-to-day activities, but he loved the chorus of this song, with it's fun, rhythmic chanting "Tan ta tan tan ta ta tan ta ta tan ta."

It's meaningful words ring out:
"What shall we give to the babe in the manger,

What shall we offer the child in the stall?

Incense and spices and gold we've a-plenty-

Are these the gifts for the king of us all?"

I can still hear Jack singing the words of the chorus as he walks around our home wearing a Santa hat, not a care in the world. Stacy and our other children remember this, too. This thought brings us joy. What would I give to have him back to sing that song to us again? Everything. Unfortunately, that's not how things work. All we can do is give to others. Give something that uplifts someone else. Our reward will come later.

In my case, it will be a sweet reunion with an angel child in heaven.

Merry Christmas and God bless you all.

The Birthday

Sometimes I have the strangest thoughts. Sometimes I forget the terrible trauma that has visited our family. Sometimes I allow myself to get comfortable in our new normal before something jolts me back to reality. Sometimes there's sadness (often, actually). Never hopelessness or despair though.

Last Sunday I was sitting in Sacrament Meeting enjoying the messages being shared with us. I looked around. I saw friends and families with children doing the same things we were doing. I know these people. They are wonderful people. I considered, briefly, what it would be like if one of them suddenly was no longer here with us. What pain this thought brought to me. I couldn't bear for any parent to experience that. Then I remembered it has happened to me. To Stacy and I. To our family. And then I realized that must be how others must feel for us. They feel the pain of Jack's absence, too. I know they do because of the things they say and do. It really is a terrible thing, loss. We all feel it together. (Is it just me, or were a lot of the talks in LDS Conference a few weeks ago about death and loss. Many of the speakers seemed to address this topic in more plain and honest terms than I'd ever noticed before. It's all about the lenses through which we view life, isn't it.)

My twin boys turned six years old yesterday. It was, of course, a roller coaster day, with emotions running the gamut from joy and happiness to sorrow and grief. Not wanting to focus only on the loss of the son who is no longer physically present, and also wanting to give Tate a full and normal birthday of his own, we decided we would make it a day of celebration. This special day turned out to be wonderful in many ways and very hard, too. But we knew it would be.

I've thought over the last many months about what it means to give something to someone who is no longer here to receive things. The stuff we often give people as tokens of our love, appreciation, and affection are most often purchased at a store. But what can you give someone who is not here to receive such things? You can only offer your heart and good works. Thus, one of our extended family members had the idea back in February that we should all read The Book of Mormon as a family by Jack's birthday as our spiritual gift to him (and, of course, to ourselves). It was hard work. We weren't always perfect at keeping up, but with a few timely marathon reading sessions behind us, we completed our task. My wife, our kids, and I finished reading it yesterday morning. It felt great to do that together. It wasn't easy, but few things worth doing are.

Some of our family and friends also sent us cards and notes with special thoughts of Jack. They came to us marked "Do Not Open Until Oct. 16!" We obeyed.

As a family we all went over to visit Jack's grave and sat down together and read the kind words so many people had taken the time to share with us. It was exactly the right thing we needed. It brought back a lot of joyful memories and tears and helped us to honor him in the right way.

The rest of the day was dedicated to celebrating Tate at the park and pumpkin patch. Kids are such a gift. Truly a gift beyond measure.

I don't really have anything brilliant to say today. This seems more like a journal entry than an insightful blog post. In fact, part of me thinks this may be my last post on this topic for a while. But as I was thinking of one last nice way to honor the memory of my son, I thought I would share with you the life sketch I wrote about him for his funeral. I think it captures the spirit of our great little man. How I love and miss him and look forward to our sweet reunion one day.

God bless you all for your love and concern. It means so very much to us.
_____

Jack Jeffrey Martin: A Life Sketch by His Father

Jack Martin was born October 16, 2009, at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center in Provo, Utah. The youngest in his family of four children, he came into this world just two minutes following his fraternal twin brother, Tate. From the very beginning of his life he was always surrounded by those who loved him; Dad’s niece, Nicki, was one of the delivery nurses at the hospital when the twins arrived on earth, and that has always meant a great deal to Jack’s parents.

Having arrived four weeks early, the twins couldn’t come home right away. They spent two weeks together in the NICU at the hospital getting their physical bodies in prime condition for life at home. At that time there was a flu outbreak in the area and the twins’ older brother and sister were not able to visit the hospital to meet them, so Mom and Dad shuttled back and forth between home and work and the NICU until the boys were ready to go home with them for good.

Twins grow and develop in tandem, and since there were two of them progressing in the same direction, their parents compared them to one another constantly. Jack was always going through new developmental stages a few months later than Tate. This was nice because it meant that Mom and Dad could always know what would be happening in the coming months with Jack based on how Tate had acted previously and, if it was a particularly difficult phase, that it wouldn’t last too long.

One phase that did last a long time, however—his whole life, really—was Jack’s sweet personality, active physical nature, and enthusiasm for living. He brought tremendous joy to his parents, siblings, grandparents, cousins, uncles, aunts, friends, and neighbors. He loved his primary teachers and learning about the gospel at church and home. He also enjoyed his preschool teachers and riding the bus to school three times a week because it made him feel like a big kid.

Jack was naturally curious about everything, and he was a very hands-on learner. Of all the Martin children, Jack had the greatest sense of restlessness and adventure. Dad often joked that he wanted to take only Jack to Disneyland because he figured Jack would be his only child who would dare go on all of the rides with him.

Jack could never sit still for any long duration of time because he always wanted to be doing something different, even if the thing he was doing at the moment was already fun. Some of his greatest memories probably include: hiking and bowling with his family; bringing clean clothes to his Mom’s bedside in the morning when he wanted her to get up to make him sausage biscuits from the freezer for breakfast; visiting Dad’s office at BYU and getting taffy out of his candy jar and playing with the WALL-E toy kept in his drawer there; going ANYWHERE at all in Dad’s purple car because it was so much more fun than the boring old van; going to the library and the park or playing the Wii with his brothers and sister; swimming in Grandma Lyn and Grandpa Keith’s hot tub; looking out the window of Grandma and Grandpa Madsen’s house with their binoculars; riding the big red tricycles at Grandma and Grandpa Martin’s house; playing in the sandbox at home; going for walks and bike rides in the “jungle,” which is what his family calls the nearby pathway along the creek near their home; riding on Uncle Wallace’s lap in his wheelchair; watching The Pioneer Woman on TV with his family and then cooking gourmet meals on the toy kitchen in his bedroom; visits from his cousins Tyler and Chloe and all the other ones he didn’t get to see very often; fighting over who got to sit by Grandpa Hodgkinson when he came over for dinner; and most of all just spending time together with his family no matter what they may have been doing.

Even though Jack didn’t like to sit still for very long, he’d often make an exception to watch movies with his family, his most favorite being WALL-E. Like all kids, Jack loved these animated adventures, probably because they took him to places he, too, hoped to go someday. He eagerly looked forward to Friday nights when his family would gather—often with fresh-popped popcorn—to watch a show together.

In fact, to best describe Jack’s personality you might consider some of the movies he loved so much. He shared common personality traits with many of their leading characters: Lighting McQueen’s need for speed; WALL-E’s quiet love for his friend; Buzz Lightyear’s sense of adventure; Woody’s loyalty; Elsa’s desire to chart her own course.

Some of these traits sometimes made Jack a handful to manage for Mom and Dad, but they were a distinct part of what made him so special, and his family loved every bit of him.

Recently, Jack had really started to look up to his brother, Avery. He liked to torment Avery (and vice versa) but it was part of Jack’s way of showing his love for his older brother (and vice versa). Jack liked the idea of growing up, and Avery was the best person to follow. Jack had a lot of his own toys, but he always wanted to play in his brother’s room (something Avery didn’t always appreciate) and always wanted to sit by his brother at the dinner table.

Outside Primary Children's Hospital
following a visit to his specialist.

In May 2012 Jack was diagnosed with a rare kidney disorder called Nephrotic Syndrome. Fortunately, he received the very best care from the staff at Primary Children’s Hospital, where he often went for checkups. Mom always made sure he took his medicine and never once failed to care for his needs. Through it all, Jack was very brave. He often had to go get his blood drawn at the Provo hospital early in the morning before he could eat breakfast. He never complained about doing this and always put on a brave face when they poked his arm with the needle. He really liked the cool stickers the doctors gave him when it was over.

Jack had lots of friends, and he loved to spend time with them. Sometimes he would take off from home without telling Mom and Dad where he was going. This, of course, caused a fair amount of worry, but he always turned up at Quincy’s house. Or Brock and Chris’s house. Or Cohen’s house. Or Lincoln, Lilly, or Jack Taggart’s house. Mom and Dad are very grateful for caring neighbors who never turned him away and texted to let them know where he was or watched over him until he was located.

Jack was not inhibited by social norms. Once he got to know people, he felt very comfortable around them. Whenever he’d go with Mom or his siblings to Ian or Peter’s house (and probably others) he’d often walk through the front door, go straight to the kitchen, open the refrigerator, and declare he was hungry.

Most kids have a long list of favorite things, but Jack loved everything equally, except for his comfort object: shirts from his drawer. He always carried a clean shirt with him through the house and wouldn’t go to bed without a clean one to snuggle with. Mom and Dad sometimes tried to get him to use the same shirt two nights in a row or pass one off from the clothes hamper, but he would have none of that. He made sure they gave him a clean comfort shirt every single night, and eventually Mom had a big stack of them she washed and folded and put away in his drawers along with all the rest of his clothing each week.

Jack loved Mom and Dad very much. In fact, he loved his Mom so much that his very last thoughts on this earth were of her. Before he went to sleep for the last time, he said to the doctors working on him, “Where’s my mom?” He wasn’t nervous or scared or sad; he just wanted the assurance of knowing the most important person in his life was close at hand as he made the transition from this world to the next. “I’m right here,” she said, moving into his line of sight. She remained by his side every step of the way before gently sending him off to be received by his loving Heavenly Father and Savior, both of whom were surely very happy to be able to see him again so soon.

Breakdown at the McDonald's Drive-Thru

I'm not going to lie: things have been difficult lately. Very difficult. I realize I probably seem to have everything put back together in my life and that everything's just fine. And in all reality, it is, I guess. For the most part. We've just had such a wonderful summer of family activities, and I've had numerous very special personal experiences that have buoyed my spirits (including the first completely work-free vacation my wife and I have taken together since we had our first child eleven years ago--and to Hawaii, no less!).

July in Hawaii was a dream come true.

Even so, things have been hard. There have been a great many leadership and organizational changes at my work in the last couple of months. I always thought I was a forward-thinking-lover-of-change kind of person, but I'll admit that these changes have really thrown me for a loop, more so than I initially thought they would. The result? At some point in the last few weeks I stopped being my usual, chipper self (at least on the inside). Only today, however, did I really come to understand that these issues at work are only a small part of what's going on.

It took an Egg McMuffin to help me understand that.

I feel like I've been making less progress on some of my personal goals lately, and that's sort of brought my spirits down (I'm a very goal-oriented person with a lot of ambition). To hide my misery, I decided to stop at McDonald's on the way to work this morning for a sandwich accompanied by an obscenely large Dr. Pepper (not even diet--yes, this was serious!). I never stop at McDonald's for breakfast, even though it's conveniently located on my direct driving path to work. But for some reason, today was the day; I just had to stop. And so I did. As I was pulling up, I was pondering all the stuff that was going on and why I felt so low. That's when the dam burst. The tears just started to come. (Ever since Jack died, I've been very glad I don't have to travel to work on public transport; it's often my ugliest time of day, and I'm grateful I don't have to share it with anyone.)

As I waited there in the long line at the drive-in at McDonald's, I came to realize that I'm not done grieving yet. I'm not done. This sounds really crazy, I know. "Of course you're not done," you say to me as you read this, but I think a part of me actually believed that I was done. Finished. I had closed the chapter on that part of my life (not the loss, just the grief over the loss). But just the opposite is true. I'm not done. Not done at all. I'm still in my grieving-life infancy. I may never be done. Who knows? I'm making this up as I go. I've never experienced this before. Other people have gone through this process, but nobody is the same. My wife and I do not grieve the same way. The first few months I allowed the grief to flow freely. I made no attempt to stop it (the grief, the tears, the sadness, the melancholy, I mean). But somehow, somewhere over the course of my summertime adventures when I started allowing myself to have all of these wonderfully joyous experiences, I think I made the subconscious decision to be done with the difficulty of losing my child. Even as I write this I know how ridiculous it must sound, but I've felt so good so often over the last few months that I felt like a new page had turned.

The truth is, however, that it's only been eight months and three days, so I'm a long way off from healing.

This realization came full circle just a week or so ago. I was hosting a guest at work. She was such a genuine, lovely person, who, in my private conversations with her on the way to campus or lunch spoke so lovingly of her children back home. I enjoyed hearing her talk about them. As she spoke, though, I started to feel guilty of something I had done. When we first met, I had told her I only had three children.

Backstory: both my wife and I have really struggled with how to handle the most dreaded question we now face: "How many children do you have?" Not because we don't love our children or because we don't want to talk about Jack or our other children. Just the opposite is true. We LOVE to talk about Jack. We both love it when people ask us about him, even when they ask how he passed away. Anything that starts a discussion about his short life is welcome to us, no matter how it begins.

But we also loathe the idea of ever making anyone uncomfortable. As you can imagine, telling someone you've recently lost a child is a potential conversation killer. My wife and I are similar in that we never want anyone to feel bad, sad, or uncomfortable due to something we do or say, and so we haven't known how to handle the question of how to talk about how many kids we have with people we don't yet know. Another reason it's hard to answer this question is because whenever you tell someone you have twins, it elicits such a wonderful, joyous response. I always appreciated that response--reveled in it, even--until we lost Jack. Now it serves as a reminder of the things we won't experience with him here as our other children grow up.

As a result, we started telling some people (strangers) if they asked how many children we have, that we have three of them. This sounds like the lowest of low things to do, I know, but it's been so extremely difficult to know how to handle this. I feel awful just writing it here. I love all of my kids so much. I would never want to communicate anything other than that to someone, but seriously, when you're chatting it up with the Walmart cashier, you really don't want to get into a full-on discussion about the recent loss of a child.

That happened, by the way, the discussion of our children with a Walmart cashier. To my wife. And this is what led me to my change of heart about telling people how many kids I have. Stacy told me about her experience on the night when I came home from hosting my guest and told her I felt guilty for not telling my guest that I really had four children rather than three.

You see, my wife was at Walmart recently, our little Tate (Jack's twin) in tow. They were at the check stand paying for their purchases. The cashier was chatty. She kept drilling down every time Stacy answered a question about the weather, the summer, the kids, you name it. When the inevitable question came up ("How many kids do you have?") my wife said, "Three." The cashier smiled and continued with her chatter and scanning of items. Tate looked up, confused, at his mom and to the cashier and softly said, "But actually it's four."

"But actually it's four." He said it so innocently and purely. It cut to the heart. Yes. Yes, of course it's four. This tore my wife up. And when she told me this story, mimicking Tate's sweet, innocent voice, it tore me up, too. You're right, my son, we have four children. Always.

We enjoyed a family vacation in Southern Alberta, Canada, where my wife grew up.

And that's when Stacy and I both decided that we will no longer wimp out at the question of how many children we have, regardless of who asks it. (We may sidestep the question if necessary, but we'll always be honest.)

You may be interested to know that I have since communicated with my guest and told her about what I'd done. She was incredibly kind and understanding and everything I would have expected her to be.

That's just how life goes, I guess. We get to learn all the time as we chart this path of imperfection. Sometimes it's a lot of fun. Sometimes it's really hard and miserable. Sometimes it's all of those at the same time.

The good news is that we get to keep trying to figure it out.

Six Months Later: Ascending the Mountain

Pondering life at the top of the "Y"

I "hiked the Y" yesterday in Provo with Katey and Avery. It was very hard, but completely worth it once we reached the top. We've sort of taken up hiking the last couple of years as a family activity. In hindsight we know the Lord prompted us to do this as a way to spend valuable time together. Jack, in particular, loved to climb around on the rocks and explore the world around him, and I'm glad we had the experience to do that together.

Yesterday, as we were climbing higher and higher, I found it interesting how my perspective of the world changed each time we ascended and paused to rest at the end of one of the steeply inclining switchbacks. When you're down in the world, it's easy to become consumed, and even overwhelmed, by the things surrounding you. But with each bit of increased elevation, I found that the cares of the world seemed less acute when I had the opportunity to view them from higher ground. This really helped to battle some of the discouragement and pain brought into my life by Jack's death and the loss of innocence this has brought to me. Yes, at almost 40 years old I have found that some lessons can still shatter my world view, yet these same experiences teach me a lot and also create much deeper meaning in places where I had not taken time to fully appreciate what I had. This is, I guess, the essence of why trials exist and why the Lord allows them to occur in our lives.

The view from up above is quite spectacular and definitely worth experiencing. LDS temple attendance offers a similar and even greater view of the perspective we should try to maintain in our lives. Too bad we don't take advantage of these things as often as we should.

So, it's been six months. Life is falling into a routine again. We do a lot together as a family. We love each other, and we also drive each other crazy sometimes (a sure sign of normalcy). We miss Jack and think of him often. We pray for him always. (Before he died, I had never even considered the idea of praying for a deceased person, but he's such an integral part of our family--even after his death--that it just feels completely normal to pray for him even though he's not with us. In reality, I know he's just fine; it's us--the people left behind--who need the prayers.) We feel Jack strengthening us, and we cherish the memories we have of him. I know we'll be together again someday. We use these bright spots of memory, faith, and hope, to climb out of the deep valley of sorrow we unexpectedly found ourselves in on January 12, 2015. We use them to help us climb back up the mountain to find joy in the promise of forever tomorrows. We have happiness. We have hope. We're going to make it.


I wrote the rest of this post on Father's Day a few weeks ago (June 21, 2015) but decided not to post it at that time. However, after literally hiking a mountain yesterday to help find some peace, my thoughts have been focusing on Jack and our family and this journey called life, so I've decided to share it now. It's no great epistle, just my personal reflections.

June 21, 2015 - Some Thoughts on Fatherhood

I have no idea what I am doing. The longer I live, the more I realize what I don't know. I'm talking about Fatherhood. It's on my mind today because it's Father's Day.

My annual Father's Day photo with my children,
June 21, 2015

I've been thinking about my son, Jack, a lot. Truthfully, he's on my mind every single day, but I can say that over the course of the last 24 hours or so, he's been especially present. I don't live in a state of melancholy--that's just not the right course for me--but I do experience deep, scorching sadness sometimes. It's a sadness that's hard to describe. I'd never have been able to know this kind of pain had I not become a father.

Fatherhood is a gift and a privilege, but I've always been somewhat insecure about my daddy skills. I often feel like I'm not very good at it. ("It" being raising children.) But I keep going. I keep trying my best. (That's all we can really do, right?) My hope is that somehow, despite me, my children will turn out just fine, and that they will look back on childhood with fond memories. This is very important to me and has become even more so in the last few months. I think back to my own childhood growing up in the Rexburg countryside with much fondness. I want that for my children, too. And since losing my son, I have consciously worked much harder to ensure this happens. I want them to feel safe and secure and happy and loved. When they are all grown up I want them to be able to look back on their time at home with great affection.

So, I get to be a dad. I've been a dad for 11 years now, and everyday seems new and reminds me how little I know but also how much I love my kids.

From the moment my wife noticed Jack whimpering from a seizure in his bed at home to the moment she kissed him his final goodbye and the doctors turned off the machines trying to keep him alive in the hospital, approximately nine hours passed. Nine hours! He was awake for maybe four or five of those. This has caused me to reflect numerous times on what I would have done if I had known we only had nine hours left together.

The good thing is that I have few, if any, regrets, when it comes to raising my children. (Probably because my wife, Stacy, is such an amazing mother and does so much of the heavy lifting.) And now, looking back, I see how we were guided by God in Jack's final weeks to make lasting, meaningful memories as a family. These memories will be cherished by us forever.

So, if you only had nine hours left with someone you love, how would you use that time together? Perhaps I'd take my children on my knee and say something like this:

You are good enough just the way you are. But I push you forward so that you can become what you are destined to be.

Savor each moment in life; precious moments can never be repeated.

Follow your dreams. It doesn't matter if no one believes in you. I do.

Failure and pain are part of life. If you make an effort to live, they cannot be avoided. It's what you do with them that helps determine who you really are.

Don't believe the hype of the media which declares each day that humanity has broken down and the world is coming to an end. It's not true. There is so much goodness in this world. So much more good than bad. You don't hear about that on the news and you can't let the news be the only source for shaping your view of the world.

Avery, Katey, and Jack at Antelope Island, Labor Day 2014

To wrap up: there is great hope, joy, and peace to be had in this world. This comes from faith in God and solid family relationships. With those two things, nothing will overcome us. This doesn't mean it won't be hard, but it most definitely will be worth it.

A Broken Heart

It's been a while since I've written any thoughts down about the loss of our little Jack. But this doesn't mean I haven't been thinking about him. On the contrary, he is almost constantly on my mind from my first waking moment in the day until the very last one at night. I miss him so much. Stacy misses him so much. We miss him so much together.

Memorial Day looked like it was going to be just any other day, in terms of how we are coping with things now, which is to say, not so bad. But when we stopped by the cemetery this afternoon, the flood gates opened and all the heartbreak felt new again. There were a lot of people there, milling about, which is unusual. Often our family is the only one there, at least at the times when we have visited. Many of the graves had new flowers placed on them today. It looked really nice. But I couldn't help but think that I did not belong there. This is not how my story was supposed to go. "What are we doing here?" I asked Stacy as we, arm in arm, cried over our son's grave. "I still can't believe this has happened." Even though it's been a little more than four months, it seems as unreal to me today as it did on January 12.

I had never in my life truly experienced heartbreak before Jack died. Not like this. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. I now have more empathy for others when I hear they've lost a loved one, and most especially a child. It is like having a broken heart, or as my wonderful boss put it when we were talking a few weeks ago, it feels like I've been wounded. Wounded. Stacy and I have giant, gaping, emotional wounds and there are no band-aids big enough to cover them up. (Though there certainly are many fine ointments to help manage the pain.) Wounded is exactly the right way to describe how I have felt these last four months. The good thing is that all wounds heal, right? But they always leave a scar. Certainly the big ones do. This one will, and that's actually okay with me, because then I won't ever forget what caused it.

The reality is that I know I need no visual or physical reminder to keep Jack in my thoughts, but I can say quite honestly that one of my new greatest fears in life is that he will be forgotten. Not forgotten by me, but by the world. Life has continued to go on for everyone except for him. (Life on this earth, at least.) I can't stand the thought of the people around us not knowing him or, worse yet, forgetting him. This thought drives me to the edge of insanity and it's good I don't dwell there very often and not for very long. Jack is truly unforgettable to me, and the more I think about him and appreciate him and love him, the more I want people to know him and remember him and love him, too. The thought of him being forgotten causes a new wound, a new heartbreak, to open up whenever it crosses my mind.

I now know why people start foundations or establish scholarships or raise monuments on behalf of their deceased loved ones. We search for ways to keep their memory alive on earth so that they will not be forgotten as life continues to move forward.

I had to move forward with my work last week. I traveled to New York City for some business projects and to see a lot of shows. New York City is the place I was at when Jack passed away, so for me, I knew going back there would not be easy. I'm glad I went, though. I didn't for one moment believe something bad would happen to my family while I was away (even though I had every reason to do so). Perhaps I'm naive or an eternal optimist, but I knew I had to get back on the horse and continue to do my work and dream my dreams. The pursuit of great things in life (family and/or work) follows a path of great challenge and great reward. The journey is most definitely worth taking, even though some of the setbacks truly create horrible heartbreak along the way.

Every night after family prayer we all put our hands together and say "Sure do love ya!" Now we say "Sure do love Jack!" Jack is pictured on the left in the red pajamas. 

To Mourn with Those That Mourn

Last Saturday, March 28, I had a Hallmark moment. (As in, a moment so cliche it could have been stolen directly from a cheesy yet unable-to-stop-watching Hallmark movie.) I had finally mustered up the energy to get outside to do some work on getting my yard back into shape for spring. I spent a good, long while pulling weeds in the flower bed where the hyacinths were fading and the bright red tulips were about to burst open. I actually enjoy gardening and yard work, although I complain about it while doing it, at least to myself. (I'd never complain about it to my kids. To them it needs to be a fun Saturday activity otherwise they'd never learn to appreciate it.)

While I had my hands in the dirt amidst the flowers and weeds I began to think about the Easter holiday and the meaning thereof. I like to take time in my life to ponder about things. It's very important to me, although it's rarely a formal affair (and never scheduled or planned in advance). I find that many of my greatest creative ideas and spiritual insights come to me in these moments. Lately, these sessions of meditation (not my favorite word) also allow me to think about Jack in a personal way. I feel close to him when I do this. This is helpful because one of my greatest fears is that I'm going to lose him twice. What I mean by that is that I know I've lost his physical presence, but I also worry that I will lose him in my heart and mind, that the memory of him won't be close to me--thus losing him again. I don't want to forget how it felt to have him here in our home or to snuggle with him while watching a movie or holding his hand when he tagged along with me to Home Depot or Walmart.

Back to the bulbs. I was sitting there weeding the tulips while thinking about Easter. Easter, this annual holiday which I have observed all throughout my lifetime with candy and eggs and thoughts of Jesus. (Easter has the very best candy of all holidays, by the way. Seriously good. But I digress...) This year I knew it was going to be different. Quite a bit different. And it is. This year I am counting on the meaning of Easter (the atonement and resurrection of Christ) to actually be true. I am depending and relying on the promise of the future resurrection of the dead to actually come to pass and to be fulfilled for me and my family in a very real and personal way. Now, I have pretty much always held a belief in this. But there have only been a few serious times in my life when I have had to rely on this truth so deeply and personally. This year, this Easter, is one of those times. For me, this Easter bears the promise of a future reunion with my son, Jack. A reunion which Stacy and I look forward to very much.

So I'm sitting there in my yard thinking about Easter and what it meant to me Before and what it now means to me After. I begin to think about the idea of mourning and sharing the burden of mourning with others. Our ward, neighbors, and family have been such a blessing to us during this period of suffering. They have truly lightened our load. That's a large part of what it means to be a Christian. The words of Alma from the Book of Mormon came to me:

Mosiah 18: 9--Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death, that ye may be redeemed of God, and be numbered with those of the first resurrection, that ye may have eternal life—

[Later that day, at the General Women's Session of LDS General Conference, Pres. Henry B. Eyring would talk about that very subject. (Coincidence? I don't think so. Especially because he even related a story about a family struggling with the unexpected loss of their five year old son.) My wife told me about it, so I watched it online. You can watch it here.]

Back to the bulbs again. So I'm thinking about what it means to mourn. I look up and my neighbor is crossing the street, heading in my direction. He has something in his hand. He comes over to talk to me and offers me the gift he has prepared for us: a painting he created of the Saviour's hand lifting a child's hand into heaven. It's a very powerful image and a beautiful work of art. He created it for a family member a while ago and made me a copy. The accompanying letter was very heartfelt and meaningful.

Mourning with those that mourn--in action.

This experience, along with the inspired talk by President Eyring, gave me exactly what I needed that day in order to bring the true spirit of Easter and belief in the promise it holds into my heart. We look forward to these moments and cherish them dearly.

All of this came just a few days after Stacy and I had completed the task we had been dreading for the last two months: we placed the order for Jack's headstone for his grave.

Jack's grave waits for a headstone.

We hadn't necessarily been putting this off, but we hadn't exactly been hurrying to get it done either. Honestly, I felt conflicted about the whole thing. Part of me felt like Jack's transition from this world wouldn't be fully complete until he had a headstone to mark the location of his body's resting place. This thought crosses my mind every time we visit the cemetery; it just feels incomplete without one. But at the same time, the idea of installing a headstone feels so completely final that I don't want to do it yet. Once that rock is in place, it seems as though one chapter officially ends and a new one has to begin. I'm not ready for that.

Buying a headstone is one of the only things relating to the sudden loss of our son that didn't happen quickly, so I think I appreciate the delay for that reason. I'm not exaggerating: from his last breath on earth to his burial, only five days passed. Five days! For someone we'd had with us for five years. His departure was so sudden, and everything subsequent to that monumental event happened so quickly. The dramatic succession of necessary events flew into motion, and I felt like I could hardly keep up with everything that was going on (making impressions of his hands, hiring a funeral home, picking a casket, planning a service, etc.) Because of the rapid motion surrounding me in those early days of his loss, I have been unwilling to speed up the process of buying a headstone. It's the only thing out of this entire ordeal I can control.

But we've done it. We went headstone shopping (never thought I'd say that!). Part of this process includes browsing catalogs, websites, and all of the other headstones at the cemetery--including Jack's new neighbors--to get an idea of what we wanted to do in order to honor and represent him best. After a fair amount of browsing, pondering, and discussion, we settled upon a design. And the headstone has now been paid for. So we wait.

Wait for what? The monument to be installed? Yes (four to six weeks). Then what? We mourn. We wait. Repeat. We move on. We move back. Repeat. We do things in life that have to be done because they have to be done. We wish we didn't have to move on. Repeat. We find that everything we watch on TV means something different to us than it did before.

I conclude with a story from our time in the hospital, or rather Stacy's time in the hospital.

It turns out that life in the hospital can really be a lot more like Grey's Anatomy and ER than I had ever imagined. I always thought those shows were so over-written and overly dramatic, but it turns out that aside from being rather addictive soap operas, they have a fair amount of truth to them. (I hope you never have to find this out for yourself.) I know this now because when I showed up at the hospital (about two and half hours after Jack had passed away), I felt like I had entered one of those hospitals on TV. Things had certainly calmed down by the time I arrived, but Stacy told me that in Jack's final moments all of the frantic nurses and doctors had poured every bit of energy and skill into urgently turning his diminishing prospect of survival around. They desperately wanted to save him, but it just wasn't meant to be.

My wife had been waiting for news about Jack in a public room down the hall from where they had conducted emergency brain surgery on him. (A blood cot had enlarged and burst in his brain in the ambulance on the way from Provo to the hospital in Salt Lake City; it had been too foggy a night for Life Flight.) She hadn't heard from anyone for a little while. Then a nurse unexpectedly ushered her into a private waiting room nearby. The door was open. Suddenly the doctor was there, standing before her. He was panting and out of breath. He apologized and said he had run down the hall from the pediatric OR to find her. He still had his little surgery goggles and disposable gown on. He said, "He's not going to make it." Jack wasn't going to live any longer. The medical team was performing CPR but it wasn't going to bring him back. He was not going to wake up. His brain was not going to work any longer, and they couldn't keep him alive. The doctor asked Stacy if she wanted to come say goodbye to her son before they stopped the compressions on his chest. Of course she said yes, so the doctor took her by the arm and led her down the hall and into a room filled with busy nurses and doctors and monitors and cables and beeping machines and the still, silent body of our sweet, precious boy.

She looked at him. She said goodbye. We started to mourn. And others mourned with us.