Grateful for that moment in time

20 some years ago I had a friend named Tripp who went to church with me in Tennessee.  We grew up going to stake dances together and he had dated one of my best friends.  Flash forward to winter of 1994 - we had both returned home from our missions.  We dated a bit here and there as friends at BYU and then we went home for Christmas.  While there, we hung out quite a bit and Tripp began to tell me about this friend of his who was thinking about running for student body president at BYU (Trip was the current vice president at BYU).  He talked this guy up and said that I would be a perfect running mate and should consider it.  I agreed to meet his friend and when Christmas break ended, Tripp and I went back to school.  Little did I know, I would marry that "friend" within the calendar year.

A week or so later, he introduced me to my prospective running mate - Jammin James Johnson.  He was cute and outgoing and shy all at the same time.  He was crazy around everyone but shy around me.  We began to attend the 6am meetings that all candidates must go to during the vetting process.  And we discovered that in order to run, we would have to give up things we didn't want to give up (for me it was teaching at the MTC and for James it was being an EFY counselor).  So after several weeks of meeting going together, we decided not to run.  Instead, we hooked up with 2 of the other candidates (Matt Cowley & Kami Hobbs) and helped run their campaign.  Thanks in no small part to our amazing efforts, they won.  And true to political nepotism, James was appointed Vice President over Activities and I was appointed Associate VP of Involvement.  We each got a scholarship and a cute little office on the 4th floor of the Wilkinson center which aligned and cemented our paths together.  All of this happened during the winter semester.  We saw each other every now and again as we bumped into each other on the 4th floor or attended a meeting for BYUSA.  Life was busy and hectic.  I was dancing on the Ballroom Dance team, teaching at the MTC, working for BYUSA and trying to be a full time student.  I was dating several guys and one quite steadily.  Life went on pretty normally till the spring.

Spring of 1994 was fast and furious and fun.  There was so much going on.  James asked me out for the first time that spring.  I was legitimately busy and couldn't go.  He asked me out again and again I had a conflict that I couldn't get out of.  Then again he pulled out all the stops and got 2 tickets to the James Taylor Concert at Sundance - could it get any better than that?  And again I couldn't make it (I was the maid of honor at my cousins wedding!).  I'm sure James wanted to move on but luckily he was persistent.  Though we couldn't find time to "date", being in BYUSA required us to attend a lot of "leadership activities" together.  They were bonding activities to help all the BYUSA officers work as a team.  We went to Timp Lodge, Aspen Grove, and on a rafting trip.  During these trips, we all hung out and did exactly what we were supposed to do, bond.  I was there.  James was there.  Our purpose in going was to bond and we did.  By the 4th of July, he asked me out and we actually went on a date.

That's when time sped up to almost an unbearable speed.  We went out again and again and fell in love.  And got married and had 5 kids and got grey hair and loved each other so so so much.  So today on my sweetheart's 44th birthday, I have to give pause to think about Tripp and the gratitude I feel for him placing me in the path of the man I love the most of all.   Without that little detour set up by Tripp, I feel I never would have had the occasion and opportunity to meet and date my husband.  Thanks Tripp.  I owe you big.

Fear

What do you fear the most?  I have been asked that question many times and my answer has to be the same each time:  For someone I love (most especially my children) to be kidnapped.  This fear is well founded.  Stories of children taken and held captive and exposed to every kind of depravity and abuse.  I can hardly stand to listen.  A child being taken from her bed at night... I set my home alarm religiously.  Could there be anything worse than loosing a child who is findable?  But you can't find them?

When I was first married, I had a dream that I was outside my house in Tennessee and I could hear one of my children crying for me up in the hills around the home.  They were gone but wanted me to find them but it was impossible - there was nothing to tell me which way to go or what direction to begin my search.  The voice was all around me and yet so impossible to discern.  A child - MY child needing and wanting to be saved and me unable to do anything.  I woke up crying - sobbing really and terrified.  I would rather my whole family be killed and for me to have to pick up the pieces and start again than for one of my children to be taken and not be able to save them.  The fear and not knowing would destroy me.  How could you ever stop looking?  How could you ever go on?  How could you do anything but be consumed by the obsession of finding and saving your child.  How could you take time away from your search to love your other children or to be happy without wondering if that were the exact moment you might have found a clue...?  The thought of it all terrifies me still as I write.

So how has this fear changed my life?  I watch my kids like a hawk.  I follow them home from a friend's house on their bike after dark in my car with my lights shining on them protecting them all the way home.  I dress them all in fourescent orange matching outfits at amusement parks to warn predators, "THESE ARE MINE, HANDS OFF, It will be super obvious if you try to separate a member of MY pack!".  I don't let my kids go places alone - the buddy system is omnipresent.  When my teenage daughter begs to meet a friend at In & Out Burgers at midnight (because everyone is doing that!) I allow it on condition there are 3 or more going, one has to be a boy and they have to pick her up.  Yup - I'm crazy like that.  And I pray.  I pray a lot that God will not every ask me to bear that burden.  I will love, give, serve, sacrifice, fight, or whatever God asks of me as long as he does not ask that.  And I pray for those who have been given that cross to bear - the cross that would break me.  

I know I can't protect my children from all danger and harm - nor do I attempt to.  But the one danger that would be unbearable to me (and them) I do all I can do to protect them and I always will.

Go argue with my mother

Hello.  My name is Tricia.   It is not TRISHA - it's TREEEESHA.

When I was little and would meet a new friend, I would say my name was Tricia and they would promptly parrot back the name Trisha.  Whatever.   In my world, she could call me whatever she wanted as long as she wanted to play.  But my mom always took a moment with each new friend to make sure they knew how to pronounce my name as if proper pronunciation was apparently vital to the survival of the name.  She would have them practice saying it properly several times before they were approved to play.  I usually wanted to crawl under a rock by the time the lesson was over but I learned that those who were to be in my life for a long time, took the time to pronounce my name correctly.

So by way of introduction, my name is Tricia.  Pronounced TREE SHUH.   If you would like to join the masses in telling me that is not the proper way to pronounce my name - please take it up with my mother.  Truly, I had nothing to do with it - though I must say, the pronunciation of it has grown on me over the years.