The Miracles that didn't happen (an essay written by my Dad a year and a half after he lost his hearing)

When Sister Alexander asked me to write an article on coping with trials, using my experience of the last year and a half, my inclination was to refuse.  I am aware of many people in our ward who have had to endure trials far worse than what I have.  Even in personal experience I've had tougher times in my life.  Sylvia and the kids could write an article on the trials they had putting up with me.  However as I considered the request I realized that I have learned a couple of things about coping with problems and if those things might be a help to someone else then I surely should share them. 

   We belong to a church which almost takes miracles for granted.  In our ward we have witnessed some remarkable instances of the power of God.  It has greatly strengthened our testimonies of the gospel.  But at the same time it makes us wonder why some miracles haven't happened.  When I was growing up I had a very close friend.  Ron was a very extraordinary person.  He excelled at everything.  Sports, academics, leadership, the gospel, everything he did he did well.  But Ron had to live with a trial.  He had Asthma.  It seemed to me it dogged him in everything he did.  We played basketball together.  He was the star of the team.  Without his athletic ability our team would have been in real trouble.  Yet we had to call time out at regular intervals to let him catch his breath and use his "wiffer" to clear his lungs.  Ron went on to serve a very successful mission for the Lord;  graduate from the U of U with a master's degree, excel in his profession and serve the Lord faithfully.  Hundreds of young people can point to Ron as one who helped them on their way.  Ron died a year and a half ago.  The Asthma that had plaqued him all of his life finally caught up with him.  He left many many people wondering why.  It would have been such a tiny miracle.  Just clear his lungs so he could breathe. 

Many members of our ward can remember Tim Gautier.  Tim was a faithful member of our ward.  I served with Tim for a time in the Elder's quorum presidency and we became friends.  Tim had no legs.  He was so faithful, bore such a powerful testimony, was a witness to hundreds of people.  Tim needed a miracle.  Tim died a couple of years ago. 

In the early spring of 1839 Joseph Smith was incarcerated in the Liberty Jail.  The conditions were horrible.  his flock that he had been called by the Lord to lead was scattered across northern Missouri; driven and persecuted by evil men; forced to leave the state; their farms, their towns, their homes.  Joseph sat in jail, unable to help.  The church needed a miracle to save them.  In March of 1829 Joseph Smith wrote a letter to the church that has become one of our classic scriptures.  In it he eloquently penned the question that is on the lips of all who feel they can bear no more.  "O God, where art thou?  And where is the pavilion that covereth thy hiding place?  How long shall thy hand be stayed, and thine eye, yea thy pure eye, behold from the eternal heavens the wrongs of thy people and thy servants, and thine ears be penetrated with their cries?  Yea, O Lord, how long shall they suffer these wrongs and unlawful oppressions before thine heart shall be softened toward them and thy bowels be moved with compassion toward them?  O Lord God Almighty, maker of heaven, earth, and seas and all things that in them are, and who controllest and subjectest the devil, and the dark and benighted dominion of Sheol- Stretch foth thine hand: let thine eye pierce, let thy pavilion be taken up:  let thy hiding place no longerbe covered:  Let thine ear be inclined:  Let thine heart be softened:  and thy bowels moved with compassion toward us."  No miracle happened.

Two thousand years ago in the garden of Gethsemane our Savior knelt before his Father and prayed "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me:  Nevertheless not as I will but as thou will."  Jesus needed a miracle right then or he would have to die.  No miracle happened.  Our Lord was hung on a cross.  He died, after suffering more than anyone else on this earth can imagine.  He could have saved himself.  He could have done the miracle.  But he didn't and because he didn't you and I have been saved from death and been given the hope of eternal life.  I'm truly grateful that that miracle didn't happen. 

At the time of his incarceration in the LIberty jail, when his flock was bing scattered and killed, there was no way for the Prophet Joseph Smith to know that the future leaders of the church, those who would lead the saints into the west and establish the "mountain of the Lord's house" in the tops of the mountains, were being fashioned, tempered and purified in the crucible of northern Missouri.  Without this trial the saints may not have had what it would take to build another Zion in the moutains and deserts of the west.  If a miracle had saved the saints in Missouri it is possible that you and I might not have had the blessings of the gospel. 

I think of the inspiration that Tim Guatier was to me and to his friends at school.  How much more his testimony meant because of the trials he had endured, and I wonder if Tim had not been called on to give this sacrifice what testimonies may have suffered.  What young people just finding their way in the gospel might have become lost. 

I surely don't pretend to know the answers.  I won't try to guess why Ron had to die.  Why some have to suffer so greatly.  But I know that our Father in Heaven knows the answers.  I trust him.  If I am asked to bear with a tribulation for a while I'll try to do it as best I can because I know he has a reason for it. 

Once we can put our trust in the Lord and say truthfully "not as I will but as thou will", then the question isn't "Why me Lord?"  The question becomes, "What would you have me do Lord?"  Does that mean the weight won't seem more than we can bear at times?  Of course not.  Just as was our savior in his darkest hour, we may be overwhelmed and cry out "My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?"  But the answer is always as it was to the prophet Joseph Smith "My son, peace be unto thy soul: thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment.  And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high:  thou shalt triumph over all thy foes."  God's love for us is total and overwhelming.  We can trust in that love forever.

My Dad and Music

My Dad loved music.  When I tried to describe my Dad to Rob once I settled on Hippie Cowboy.  Cowboy because he always wore cowboy boots and Hippie because he loved folk music from the 60's and 70's.  And he always seemed really liberal for a republican. His favorite singer was Joan Baez but he also loved Peter, Paul and Mary.  Simon and Garfunkel were up there too.  I grew up listening to Puff the Magic Dragon, Where have all the flowers gone, The Sound of Silence, Scarborough Fair, all the greats.   We had a record player and I remember my Dad every once and a while would  turn on Joan Baez and zone out.

My Dad played the trumpet and the harmonica.  He learned the trumpet in school and taught himself the harmonica.  I have a memory from when I was little of my Dad and Grandma playing Blue Moon.  My Dad on the trumpet and Grandma on the piano.  The Harmonica was my favorite though.  My Dad would sit on the front porch swing in the evening when it was warm enough and play his harmonica.  He would play songs that he already figured out and sometimes he would take requests and try to figure out new songs.

When I was a freshman in high school my Dad started to notice that he couldn't hear very well.  When he was a child he had Bells Palsy and lost the hearing in his right ear.  Now he was having a hard time with his left ear.  He saw some specialists and they discovered a tumor growing around the Cochlea of his left ear.  The tumor had to be removed.  There was a slight chance that it could be taken out without hurting or taking out the cochlea but more than likely my Dad was going to loose his hearing.  He practiced every night for three months learning how to lip read and then he had the surgery.  The tumor had grown into the cochlea and it was taken out too.

 I know that loosing his hearing was devastating for my Dad.  He couldn't hear his grandchildren.  He couldn't listen to Joan Baez or Peter Paul and Mary.  He couldn't hear his harmonica or trumpet. It didn't weaken his faith that he had a loving Father in Heaven though.  He wrote an essay called The Miracles that Didn't Happen.  He talked mostly about friends that lived their lives with some kind of disability.  He looked up to them and recognized the spiritual strength their trials had given them.

We saw miracles as a family.  My Dad never regained his hearing completely but doctors did discover a bit of hearing in his right ear.  He wore a hearing aid  that helped him understand others better.  He was able to go to college later in life.  Something that he had always wanted but thought was well out of his reach.  Once I had bought a CD of Peter Paul and Mary.  My Dad was excited that I liked the music.  I am not sure what made him try it but he turned up his hearing aid and put some headphones on to listen.  We were all startled when my Dad excitedly shouted that he could hear it.  He listened to Blowin' in the Wind and said he could hear the entire song.  He couldn't hear any of the other songs on the CD and I am not sure he could ever hear Blowin' in the Wind again but for one brief moment he could hear Peter Paul and Mary and he loved it.   

For a week before my Dad died he was in the hospital in a coma.  In that time he was given many priesthood blessings.  I remember that they all talked about him being able to do all the things he loved again.  At the time I wasn't willing to let him go and I wondered how a heart attack would allow my Dad to have his hearing again.  Now that he is gone I understand.  His Father in Heaven gave him the blessing of hearing his family again.  Many of us have had experiences since his death that have confirmed to us that he is still here helping his family.  I have nieces that play the piano.  I got to go to their final recitals and I thought how my Dad must be listening too and loving it.