Author: Peter Watkins

Answered Many Times Over

On By Peter WatkinsIn 20143 Comments

Dear Will:

I was a horrible Boy Scout, among The Worst Scouts of All Time according to some pundits. To wit: I never earned so much as one merit badge. Over the course of my Scouting career, I ascended to the rank of Second Class, which I think in those days required that you show up to a meeting and recite from memory the Scout Motto (“Be Prepared”). Second-class indeed. More like Low-class Scout if you ask me.

So you cannot begin to calculate the magnitude of my stupefaction over the fact that my very own son, Seth, has become an Eagle Scout. It’s an occurrence that seems simply impossible. If you’re anything like me (and I pray that you aren’t), your first thought on hearing that news is: Excuse me?

And yet it’s true, due in no small part to the excellent leadership of adults who are quite decidedly Not His Parents. He has been blessed with the inspired influence of several talented men who have provided him the instruction and good example that his father never could have. His Scoutmaster, Warren Owens, has set high standards for him and his fellow Scouts and expected them to live up to those standards. Since Seth became a Boy Scout at 11, Warren and others have taught him, coached him, tolerated and disciplined him, devoting time and attention and love to him as if he were one their own sons.

And then, to his credit, Seth has added to that good influence his own motivation to achieve. Case in point: To reach this rank, Seth has earned nearly 30 merit badges (whose son is this?). For his final project, he raised over $10,000 which he used to rebuild the bald eagle exhibit at the Santa Ana Zoo. You should go there and check it out, reminding yourself as you gawk that the work was organized and directed by a 14-year-old. Remarkable.

I’m reminded of the helpless feeling that Dana and I had when we brought our firstborn, Luke, home from the hospital for the first time. There was no owner’s manual, no service contract. There are more detailed instructions on a bottle of shampoo than you get when you bring home an infant. I remember all too well those first panic-filled weeks of parenthood. How do you hold this thing? What does that cry mean? Who would entrust us with something so fragile? I was fairly certain that we were going to break that little thing. (In fact we did: Luke’s leg was in a cast before he had learned to walk. But that’s a story for another time.)

We prayed hard in those days that our ignorant efforts might be supplemented by a steady dose of Divine Intervention: Heavenly Father, watch over our son. Keep him safe from harm and illness. Help him to be happy, and bless him with just enough success and sufficient opportunity that he may live up to his divine potential. Please don’t let our poor parenting be a detriment to him in any way, today or tomorrow or later in life. And when he is not with us, please send angels to watch over and protect him and show him the way.

It’s a prayer we have offered in some form for each of our children every day of their lives. A prayer that has been answered many times over by people such as Warren Owens. Angels. Sent from God. In answer to the heartfelt pleading of two parents in way over their heads.

PW

Blown Away

On By Peter WatkinsIn 20136 Comments

Dear Will:

As I think I may have mentioned, my daughter Bryn left her job dancing for American Ballet Theatre and enrolled in BYU in the Fall. Although at first it was tough to adjust to Provo after having lived in Manhattan the previous year, Bryn took immediately to college. She loved the chance to explore new ideas, meet new people, and feel like a “normal” person for a change.

So imagine our surprise when she called us in October to inform us that she had accepted a job dancing for the Royal New Zealand Ballet in Wellington. Starting December 9. A week before the end of the semester.

Suddenly we found ourselves trying to help Bryn figure out how to move to New Zealand without failing all of her classes. Our efforts were mostly ham-handed, I must confess, as we found it difficult—the amazing Internet notwithstanding—to determine where to live, how to set up a bank account, what to do about phone services . . . the list goes on.

Fortunately, we have a missionary serving here in our ward who is from (it’s hard to believe) Wellington, New Zealand. When he heard our exciting, perplexing news, he immediately contacted his family and just like that we had new friends in Wellington offering to help.

(An aside: If you haven’t met Elder Savaiinaea yet, you should make a point to do so. He is one of the most charming, delightful missionaries to come through here in a long time.)

It then occurred to me that there is a family from New Zealand right here in our stake. I barely know him, but I approached Brother Broederlow and told him of Bryn’s impending move. Within 24 hours he had reached out to friends in Wellington, and before I knew it I was corresponding with Leonie and Peter Brunt, who offered to pick Bryn up at the airport, show her around the city, and give her a place to stay until she figured out a permanent solution.

(Another aside: When Bryn departed LAX, we knew we’d have no way of corresponding with her until she reached out to us somehow. So you can imagine how I felt when I got an email from Leonie which included a picture of her and Bryn on a windy hill in Wellington. I wanted to cry. I can’t tell you how comforting it was to know that someone was watching out for my little girl.)

Bryn and Leonie

I could go on for pages about the Brunts, but they are not the only people who have reached out to Bryn since she arrived in Wellington. When Christmas arrived, Bryn spent several days living with the Charions, a wonderful family she met at the ward there. While it was very hard for us to be apart on Christmas, it was wonderful to see Bryn gathered in by another loving family as she tries to find her place in a strange land far from home.

As I contemplate all of this, I am blown away. No one could reasonably expect this sort of selfless regard by strangers for my daughter’s welfare. The Savaiinaeas and Brunts and Charions are simply living the principles that Jesus taught—and as a consequence their actions cause me to feel His love as well. After telling the story of the Good Samaritan, Jesus said, “Go, and do thou likewise.” Which is precisely what they have done.

What a blessing it is to associate with people such as this: members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, my brothers and sisters in a very real sense.

PW

Cold Turkey

On By Peter WatkinsIn 20131 Comment

Dear Will:

It’s Thanksgiving morning. My mother is coming over, and so are my in-laws, which is another way of saying that Dana has been worrying and stressing and prepping for this day for weeks. The last couple of days have produced a frenzy of kitchen activity, most of which I have observed from the comfort of my La-Z-Boy. But today I got my chance to step up and actually contribute. Today my lone assignment was to get the bird into the oven. Not wanting to screw up this seemingly simple assignment, I even got up extra early to be sure I got it right—only to discover (about an hour too late) that I had miscalculated the roasting time. So I did great, except that it looks like the main course will be done long before any of the guests arrive.

“What’s the best way to get people to quit coming to your house for Thanksgiving? Cold turkey.”

As perhaps you can sense, we’re really no good at this stuff. We have one or two go-to menus that we haul out pretty much every time we have guests over, but we decided we really can’t get away with grilled salmon or marinated flank steak today. So Dana has turned to The Pioneer Woman for counsel, plotting and scheming a menu so elaborate that we’ll still be eating leftovers when next Thanksgiving rolls around.

Speaking of Thanksgiving rolls, every year my sister Nancy makes these potato rolls (key ingredient: lots and lots of butter) that have become my boys’ favorite item on the menu. Which is great except that Nancy won’t be joining us this year. Now Dana’s no idiot: She knows that it would be foolhardy to take someone else’s signature recipe and try to replicate the magic, so she declared early on that this year there would be (alas) no potato rolls. Her husband protested but to no avail. When Luke and Seth protested, however, loudly and vehemently and with technique refined over many years of practiced manipulation, mother-love trumped reason and Dana agreed to give it a go.

So there’s hope, in other words—hope that the day will not be a total fiasco after all. What I’m banking on is that Dana’s rolls will be so tasty that maybe everyone will forget about the cold, desiccated turkey. Or at least the boys will—which will at least solve the potential whining problem. That’s certainly something to be thankful for, right?

For that, and for the pie. I think if you performed some sort of anthropological reconstruction of the history of Thanksgiving, or ran some kind of elaborate regression analysis of data going back to Chief Massasoit himself, you would come to the indisputable conclusion that pie is the central reason that the Thanksgiving tradition persists. To me, you could pretty much skip the stuffing and potatoes and parsnips (especially the parsnips), ditch the cranberry sauce and the other 12 dishes we are somehow supposed to get onto a single plate, and still have a hugely successful feast. Rolls for dinner. Pie for dessert. Nap on sofa. Who could ask for anything more?

That, in any case, is my official position on the day in which the turkey went into the oven three hours too soon. We’re all here for the pie anyway, right everybody? Right? Who’s with me?

PW

Photo by Timothy Wolff on Unsplash