The Strength to Listen

Each week as I attend my transplant clinic at Primary Children's Medical Center in Salt Lake City I run into other families with a child who has a heart defect or is waiting for a heart transplant.

This past week I was fortunate to spend a brief moment with Lucas and his mother. They checked into the hospital in the room next to me shortly before I left home. Lucas needs a heart soon. He is a sweet infant with a beautiful smile who gets the affection of the nurses who cared for me.

In Lucas’s room I could feel God’s love and I know He is deeply involved in their battle. I was honored to be in the presence of Lucas.

Photo: Visiting with Lucas and his mother Kristin while he waits for a heart tranplant

As I was leaving the hospital on the elevator after visiting with Lucas I accidentally got off on the wrong floor. These things are not a coincidence because I was fortunate to run into Briton and his mother Stacee.

I was wearing my green mask since I was in a public environment, which protects me from catching the flu or a cold while my immune system is worse than a newborn child. Unfortunately, my mask frightened young Briton.

I felt bad and offered him my Three Musketeer candy bar I had just purchased. I had a good time talking to them and know God is deeply involved in their lives.

Briton received the Fontan procedure several weeks ago and is doing quite well. He should have a long life ahead of him. The fontan has greatly improved from the time I had received it more than twenty years ago.

As I visited with these two families I again realized that even though I feel a season of victory there are others in the midst of a hard battle.

Often, so many of us are oblivious to what’s happening next door or in our own homes.

I hope I never forget or lose sight of the fact that there are children and adults throughout the world in need of our kindness, love, prayers, and a little help.

My scars are reminders.

Photo: Visiting with Briton and his mother Stacee. He is recovering from the fontan surgery

You and I can only do so much. We can improve the world by choosing to mourn with those that mourn and comfort those who stand in need of comfort.

I believe God will guide us to where we need to be to serve others.

If I've learned anything at all through my experiences it is that I know God is the Father of us all. He loves his children more than we can imagine. We can trust in Him.

No matter how much we do or try to do to help in the end it's the love of God that is going to help ease the pain and suffering of others. I felt His love through the kind acts of others.

Of course we need seasons to celebrate!

However, I’ve learned that even though we are in a state celebration or like we don’t have a care in the world, we should have within each of us the strength to listen to our impressions and be ready to go and do all that is asked of us.

So what can we do today?

Instead of focusing on everyone we know with a trial try selecting one person in need and go and do something about it. Maybe that means offering up a prayer, sending a thoughtful e-mail, making phone call, delivering a kind note, or simply listening to their burdens without saying much. Be a listening ear and enjoy the time you have with that person.

By doing this you’ll find more peace and happiness because you’re thinking of others.

My State of Mind is to Follow Good Counsel

Photos: Top - With Eden in the Salt Lake City Cemetary briefly without Oxygen, Bottom - My brother Brian with his daughter Ava Skye

Eden asked me the other day if I was “Blumpoe The Grumpo?” in reference to one of her bedtime stories. My roller coaster of emotions is challenging to deal with at home when it’s just the three of us. I do my best to control my frustrations as to try and not impose my own suffering upon others. I count my blessings. But, when my 3 year old notices a problem it breaks my heart.

The truth is I’m tired. It’s been a tough month! Having poor health, waiting for a heart transplant, experiencing a disturbing death in the family with my brother Brian passing, watching my daughter grow up too quickly before my eyes, and the burden my caring wife is undertaking, sobers my soul. In addition, I know folks suffering in their own set of circumstances. I ache to get well and give back to everyone who has selflessly cared for my family and me as well as reach those who need help.

It is in the quiet hours of my personal darkness that I continue to call out to God, our Heavenly Father, to help sustain me. He has never failed me. I have only failed Him because of my own inadequacies and weakness. Amidst my circumstantial frustrations I look to the future with hope! I see the Sun rising from the east bringing new life and a sense of purpose! I’m excited and determined to fight! Give me freedom! Give me life!

Yesterday I was reading Michele Gledhill’s heartfelt blog for her deceased little angel Gracie. I was inspired and uplifted by a quote she put there by my spiritual leader, Thomas S. Monson. He said, "Mortality is a period of testing, a time to prove ourselves worthy to return to the presence of our Heavenly Father. In order to be tested, we must sometimes face challenges and difficulties. At times there appears to be no light at the tunnel's end—no dawn to break the night's darkness. We feel surrounded by the pain of broken hearts, the disappointment of shattered dreams, and the despair of vanished hopes. We join in uttering the biblical plea 'Is there no balm in Gilead?' (Jeremiah 8:22). We are inclined to view our own personal misfortunes through the distorted prism of pessimism. We feel abandoned, heartbroken, and alone. If you find yourself in such a situation, I plead with you to turn to our Heavenly Father in faith. He will lift you and guide you! He will not always take your afflictions from you, but He will comfort and lead you with love through whatever storm you face.”

In addition, as I continue to contemplate the life of my brother Brian, I have found great joy and satisfaction in the precious opportunity of reading his journal. His soul and his words inspire me and I see life through a new lens. At an early age, while working as a missionary in Spain, he began compiling a journal full of his thoughts. It contains a list of nearly 100 goals and quotes that became personal mottoes. He wrote he didn’t want “a day by day summary of the routine they call life, but a record of the highlights… It could be that I die tomorrow, and these pages (journal) go left blank. Or it could be that I live to be 100 and slip into my eternal rest with a treasure of satisfied ambitions. That isn’t for me to decide. But it is for me to decide how I use the precious time that I have been granted.” He continued, “I’ve always believed that life is not just meant to spend time existing, but to spend it living. Dreams are the very sustenance of life. And as dreams are achieved, life’s purpose is achieved, and life is truly lived.”

I have chosen to follow the counsel of Thomas Monson and my brother Brian. Therein, I am confident any one of us can find peace, strength, and hope for a better tomorrow beginning by living today. In fact, here a few inspiring quotes Brian wrote in his journal that I am also adopting as my personal mottoes.

“Yesterday is but a dream, and tomorrow, is only a vision. But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope.” -Unknown

“Happiness is a state of activity.” -Aristotle

“The best and most beautiful things in this world cannot be seen or even heard, but must be felt with the heart.” –Helen Keller

“Experience is not what happens to a man, it’s what a man does with what happens to him.” –Auldous Huxley

“God left the world unfinished; the pictures unpainted, the songs unsung, and the problems unsolved, that man might know the joys of creation.” –Thomas S. Monson

“Simplify. Simplify.” –Henry David Thoreau

One of Brian's many gifts was making short films. He used to package these up and give them to his wife. Here is one he made for her. The film briefly chronicles their honeymoon to Peru. Together they supplied a "CHOICE" school with educational materials for some children. Later they climbed Mount Kilimanjaro which was one of the many things on Brian's list of goals.

As I climb my own mountain I know there will be many helping me carefully ascend to the top and slowly ascend renewed or born again with life.

The Waiting Psychosis and a Few Things I've learned

My wife and I have a phrase called “the waiting psychosis” which is a state of peril, a social stand still or lack of progression where nothing seems to be moving forward until a concluding event. This could happen to a person in my situation whose waited a long time for a life or death surgery, or on bed rest during a difficult pregnancy where you might enjoy new life or none at all, diagnosed with cancer, living in a troubled marriage not knowing if it will last, losing a child to drugs, immorality, or something else. In any of these situations human emotion intensifies and life can seem confusing.

I can’t speak for others but I have learned some important principles in suffering if you’ll permit me to share them with you. Of course, I don’t have a doctorate in philosophy or psychiatry but I am almost an expert witness in these things. I realize that many of you have gone through far greater trials than my own. Survivors of the holocaust could teach us all a thing or two about pain. Please permit me to share with you a few things I’ve observed.

I’ve learned how a person reacts to suffering affects more than just one. When you throw a pebble in a pond there is a rippling effect. How you act or react to your situation effects those around you. It’s ok to be angry, impatient, and frustrated. Voice your concerns to those closest to you and talk through the problem. But, how often do we forget to tell people in our lives how much we love them? Share with them that you appreciate their help and sacrifice in serving you. It’s not a party for them either but together, as Martin Luther King Jr. said, “we shall overcome!”

There are four principles that I have realized help during a difficult situation. They are humility, patience, courage, and service.

First, suffering will humble you and if you aren’t humble hold on to your hat because something at some point in your life, call it deity or whatever, something will happen to remind you that you are powerless against your own situation. In speaking of overcoming a problem one of my favorite political influences Mohandas Gandhi said, “I will combat it by humble love.” He oversaw a peaceful revolution that led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world.

Second, waiting for a concluding event teaches you patience. “Patience is waiting. Not passively waiting. That is laziness. But to keep going when the going is hard and slow - that is patience.” Leo Tolstoy wrote, “The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.”

Third, courage is strength in the face of fear, pain, or grief. There are many great examples of people who overcame their fears and took courage as their course of action. My maternal grandfather was a captain of a gun artillery unit in France during World War II. He led men into battle and was wounded. He reminds me of all those who face war which is the darkest hour of human suffering with all of its death and destruction.

George Ambrose popular book and HBO series Band of Brothers follows the men of East Company from D-Day through the war. A few days after D-Day, they were walking down a road toward a French village when a German machine gun opened fire on them. In spite of their training, the men ducked for cover and froze. The company commander, Dick Winters, knew if they stayed there, his men would be cut down. Lieutenant Winders reacted. He stood up in the middle of the road, away from cover, bullets whistling all around him and ordered his men to move out. His men stared at him, not believing what they were seeing-but only for an instant. The courage of their commanding officer inspired them. They moved out.

You don’t have to go to war to face courage. My father in law raised ten children after my wife’s mother passed away from cancer. He was a schoolteacher and retired early to raise his children who have become great people.

My sister's husband chose to follow his convictions and serve a mission for his church although his own father discouraged him from going.

People like these are my heroes. They do something extraordinary even though it’s hard. “Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point,” said C.S. Lewis.

Fourth, service is love. It is the humble act of giving of your time, talents, and whatever you have to help another person. Accepting service takes humility. Once I realized the growth experienced in serving another is when I understood that to deny someone else the opportunity is to be selfish. David O. Mckay preached, “Happiness is the end, really, of our existence. That happiness comes most effectively through service to our fellow men.” He also said, “It is a principle the application of which promises to supplant discouragement and gloom with hope and gladness; to fill life with contentment and peace everlasting. This being true its acceptance would indeed be a boon today to this distracted, depression-ridden world. Why, then, do men and nations ignore a thing so precious?” The great American poet Maya Angelou said, “My great hope is to laugh as much as I cry; to get my work done and try to love somebody and have the courage to accept the love in return.”

Humility, patience, courage, and service are principles you work at. It takes time. When my doctor opens my chest for the sixth time in my life it won’t be his first time working on a heart. He has been trained. It takes courage, humility, patience, and service to do his job. Surgery is a practice like playing the piano. You work on your skills and spend a lot of time developing your talent. When it comes time to perform you hope that you’ve practiced enough to be the most effective at the most critical time. Likewise, I will hold to these four invaluable principles, which should empower me though the drama of recovery, and any future event that challenges me. I am not perfect and this is why I needed an imperfect heart.

Finally, I find great comfort in a statement made by one of my spiritual guides who passed away from cancer. Neal A. Maxwell recorded, “We tend to think only in terms of our endurance, but it is God’s patient long-suffering which provides us with our chances to improve, affording us urgently needed developmental space or time.” I pondered that word long-suffering, a word used to explain God by almost every great spiritual leader in all kinds of denominations. What does that word mean?

Long-suffering means to be stoic, charitable, understanding, forgiving through the difficulty. I’ve learned that if we endure these challenges with humility and patience and ponder all that we’ve endured, no matter what the circumstance, we will be stoic through the storms of life that our family, friends, or associates face. We will become that much more endowed with power to reach our hand down and grab their hand pulling them up as we all climb this ladder called life.

(Pictures: All photos by Copyright 2009 Jeffery D. Allred, Deseret News, Used by Permission, except the one of my arm)

Acts of Kindness

Acts of kindness continue to pour down upon us like a much needed rain storm. A large group of our neighbors and church goers thoroughly spring cleaned our yard, removing all dead leaves, weeds, pruning trees, branches, edging, mowing, straightening our mailbox with new cement, prepping an area for a garden, putting a trampoline together for Eden, planting flowers, and much more.

What can we say? We’re overwhelmed. There are kind people in the world. Amidst all of the sensational headlines of war, death, and destruction, there is goodness. Generally people have good hearts and use them. I also hope for a heart that I will use for good.

I believe there is hope for anyone in great need of help. People won’t take away your grief. They won’t solve all your problems. They won’t abolish your fears. What they can do, if you’ll let them into your lives, is ease your burden.

Neil A. Maxwell wrote, “To withdraw into our private sanctuaries not only deprives others of our love, our talents and our service, but it also deprives us of chances to serve, to love, and to be loved.” He also said, “Of a truth, those who can easily bend their knees in prayer do not feel they are stooping when they bend to help a neighbor in need.”

Most great service and acts of kindness go unknown and un-rewarded except for that inner conscience which gently soothes the soul with comforting words saying inward “job well done!” There have been many of you who've done kind things that we don't know about. Thank you!

We’ve always tried to surround ourselves with goodness in our home and in our friends. And we try to do all within our power to lift others to be worthy of service.

Soon I will have renewed energy to tutor relationships so I might find out what it is I can do to help them, lift their load, ease their pain.

It’s hard for me not to be among people and shake their hands. I miss it. I miss serving and sharing things in common and enjoying conversation.

With a new heart, God knows I will continue to share my love for life, not only through my music, but also through common friendship and private acts of kindness. But, I know it is not up to me. Our lives are not completely under our control. One minute we're here enjoy things and another we're not.

No matter where I am God knows I will always strive to improve things. If I land in hell - I'll gather people one by one and start making a heaven out of the place.

(Picture: TOP - Our City removes compost piles each Spring and Fall. This pile is a result of acts of kindess, BOTTOM - Carl Bloch painting that has hung in our home for many years.)

A Chapter of My Life

Life is full of chapters. We close one and start a new one. I am in the middle of “the heart transplant” chapter of my life and the plot thickens as I continue to wait. It has been nine months. That’s full term and my water hasn’t broke!

Nevertheless, Albert Einstein said, “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” We try to make the most of our circumstances reflecting upon what we have learned or hope to learn from our situation. I am learning more than I could ever dream of and I hope to pull through to share that with many more people.

My spiritual hero, Thomas S. Monson shared this powerful insight to happiness, “This is our one and only chance at life—here and now. The longer we live, the greater is our realization that it is brief. Opportunities come, and then they are gone. I believe that among the greatest lessons we are to learn in this short sojourn upon the earth are lessons that help us distinguish between what is important and what is not. I plead with you not to let those most important things pass you by as you plan for that illusive and nonexistent future when you will have time to do all that you want to do. Instead, find joy in the journey—now.”

I continue to find comfort in my knowledge that God is good! God is close! God is my friend. He has wrapped His loving arms around my family through the love, service, and support of those who also love Him. It’s a miracle!

Yesterday I was fortunate to attend the closing chapter of a few college students as they graduated from Salt Lake Community College where I attended school for an associate’s degree.

I was invited to attend by President Cynthia Bioteau and the SLCC Alumni association. The school honored me with the “Distinguished Alumni Award” which was quite shocking because it is awarded to those who’ve made a contribution to our community and yet it’s our community, which for the past nine months has been making a contribution to our family. Matt Bunker, Alumni Advisor, made it clear that this award was decided upon before they knew I was sick.

And so, I am thankful for SLCC alumni’s kindness in acknowledging my music career which has been a tool for me to share something peaceful, positive, and uplifting in a world full of pain and suffering.

I am grateful for the Salt Lake Community College chapter in my life. Before graduating high school I was recruited by their Freshman Leadership Council despite my average grades and offered a full-ride scholarship.

Getting involved in student government where I sat on the college activities board, served as student Fine Arts Chairperson, later as the student Public Relations Vice President, and as an aggressive recruiter, gave me many opportunities to learn things that I have applied to my business and life.

College was an enjoyable chapter of my life and I had moments of nostalgia sitting before the graduates.

Congratulations to all of you who graduated!

(Pictures: Top - Wearing the honorary cap & gown, Middle - sitting next to Dan Young (PC Laptops) who also received an award, Bottom - With my parents Margaret & Duane Cardall)

106 days on the list. 15 weeks. All is Well.

106 days on the list. 15 weeks. Any predictions?

Despite the minor physical anxieties of waiting for a heart, always wearing oxygen, taking a bazillion pills, giving myself shots twice a day, and carrying around a bag of medication going directly into a permanent IV in my right arm, I have the larger anxieties experienced by those who are sick for a long time and happily married. Keep in mind that I am too tired to stay busy so all you have to do all day is think and reflect. Above all, you hope your wife, the love of your life, is happy, fulfilled, and appreciated because of her sacrifice, service, and love.

My dad is a journalist and once interviewed one of my hero's Howard Hunter, a former spiritual leader of the LDS church and community giant. The man was soft spoken and humble despite his enormous list of credentials and accomplishments. In the interview my dad asked about all the years that Pres. Hunter tenderly cared for his sick wife who later died in a rest home. "How where you able to do that all those years?" my dad asked. President Hunter with some emotion and pause in his voice said, "She would of done the same thing for me."

I'm also reminded of another time that I was at Bryner Clinic in Salt Lake to see my family doctor. While waiting I observed a feeble old woman waiting for the pharmacist to complete her prescription. She was with her husband. They were both very old, petite and weak. She sat in a wheel chair and was so tired that her head kept falling backward. And I watched this husband, who stood by her side, hold her head up, even though his hands shook and they had to wait for some time. I think he held her head for 20 minutes.

I also remember while serving a mission for my LDS church I was responsible for several missionaries of which were an old couple serving in a small mining town in California. Like all of our missionaries they were responsible to knock on doors and share a message of love about Jesus Christ. The wife had really bad arthritis and knees. At many times she couldn't use her legs because of the pain. But, she didn't want to give up. Her husband drove them in the car from house to house. He would get out and knock on the door while his wife waited. If people said yes to letting them he'd go to the car, open the door, pick up his wife and carry her into the home so they could do what they loved to do most which was bring hope to people through their message.

These several experiences that I observed are always on my mind. And I hope I get the chance to show the same expression of love and service for my wife who has so kindly sacrificed, served, and loved me through this experience. It is much easier to serve than to be served.