North Star

I grew up in a small town where the stars were visible almost every night, where neon and bright lights weren’t plentiful or bright enough to block them out. Sometimes I sat beside my father in the dark looking up at the stars. He taught me how to locate the ever changing big and little dipper and directed me from the pointers on the big dipper to find the ever-constant North Star.

It was a special time in my life to have my father’s complete attention. I was number three in a family of eight children. My father worked away from home often, so it was a real treat to capture his attention just for me.

My father was the Latter-day Saint Bishop in our ward. He was a singer. He had a beautiful tenor voice and he was in constant demand to sing a solo at almost every funeral and special gathering we had. My father had been on an LDS mission. He knew the scriptures of the Bible and the Book of Mormon very well. He could recite from memory many verses from those special books.

Dad was a theatrical man. He acted in many stage plays, going from town to town to take part in the entertainment. He was a good looking man, always the hero of the play. I was always amazed at the many things he knew and did. To have him take time to sit on the back porch with me in his lap and talk about the stars was a real thrill.

Living in a small town where the stars were bright, where each constellation seemed to be a special light, and with my Dad explaining each one to me, is a memory that has lived with me for over 80 years. I have stargazed in many other places throughout my life, but I never look at the sky without searching for the big and little dipper and then following the pointers of the big dipper directly to the North Star. The North Star is the guiding light for those who use it to let them know where they are, like my father was to me.

“Celebrities come and go, flashing across the sky like an occasional comet; but true heroes are as consistent as the rising sun and as timeless as the sparkling stars.” ~ Lloyd D. Newell

Sweetie Pie

My grandson, Derek, was only four years old when he lost his mother to a dreaded disease. He was my daughter, Judy’s baby, and they'd been very close. He called her “Sweetie Pie.”

Not many days after her funeral he called his Aunt Vicki, his mother’s sister. “It's Mom's day at school, Aunt Vicki. Can you come and go with me and be my Mom?”

“Of course I can,” she said lovingly.

“And can we pick up the other kids like Sweetie Pie used to do?”

“Of course. You show me where they live and we'll pick them up.”

Derek had been close to his Aunt Vicki. His mother had ‘shared’ him with her sister from the time he was born. When his Mom had to go out of town, it was Aunt Vicki that he stayed with. However, Aunt Vicki lived thirty miles away and couldn't see him as often as she wanted to.

Anxious to be his substitute mom, Vicki drove the distance and picked Derek up at his house. He showed her where to pick up the other children. It was Pre-School Mom's Day.

As they gathered into the car, one of them said as honestly and outspoken as only children can be, “Derek it is so sad that you haven't got your mother with you for Mom's Day.”

“But I do have her with me,” he answered confidently, with a kind of inner glow.

“Oh, no you haven't,” one of the children persisted.

“No,” another added. “Your mom's dead. We saw them put her in the ground.”

“Oh,” he said brushing off the comment. “That wasn't her,” (he couldn't say his “r's”). “That was just her body. Her spiit [spirit] is still alive and she goes with me everywhere. She’s always with me, every place I go!”

The eyes of Derek’s friends were wide with admiration. “Oh,” they exclaimed in wonderment. “How neat! She goes every place with you?”

“Sure. You can't see her spiit, but she's with me all the time,“ Derek smiled as his friends looked at him as if he was superman. And the way he strutted with pride, with his Aunt Vicki beside him as they entered the schoolroom, no one doubted what he’d said or felt.

[Pictured: Vicki and her little sister, “Sweetie Pie,” as children]

The Joys of Womanhood

I’ve always been glad I was born a girl, so I could become a woman, a wife and a mother. Even as a child, I believe I was aware of how special it was to be a girl. I’ve always felt that women were created with special gifts of spirituality, different than those of men, closer ties of communication with Heavenly Father, guardian angels and the Holy Ghost. I’ve always felt a little sorry for men . . . that they missed out on these particular special tender gifts, perhaps that is why Heavenly Father made it possible for men to hold the Priesthood, to make them equal to mothers.

Through out my life I have always been aware of the power and influence and responsibility that go with being a girl. Much has been written about the influence of an honorable woman, wife and mother. I have often felt this power or the lack of it, when I was young and even more so as I’ve gotten older. Life is easier if we have models to follow and I was fortunate to have goodly parents and to be raised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with specific role models to follow. I loved studying the life of Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ and Lucy Mack Smith, the Prophet Joseph Smith’s mother. I dearly loved my own mother and wanted to be just like her and tried hard to follow her example. I think we should live our lives as if we might become the mother of the next prophet, president, or the greatest teacher, piano player or movie star . . . something that would put our whole life into print. How scary . . . but famous people have mothers too. What if we became one?

Sometimes we live with people that are the opposite of what we want to become. These people too are examples for our lives. I had a friend whose mother was a ‘shouter’. She always spoke in a voice of command and my friend had a difficult time getting along with her. But my friend was wise. She disliked those qualities in her mother so much that she decided she would never be like that and she learned not to yell at people, or to judge and to be very forgiving. Knowing the circumstances of her teen years, I was amazed that she became such a soft-spoken kind person, building good communication with her husband and children. I asked how she did it and she said she constantly reminded herself of the person she wanted to become, learning to change negative feelings to positive ones. She also married a very good man who helped her in her guest. How did she get so lucky to find such a man? She became that kind of person herself.

This is the trick that I have learned and I’m still working hard at it . . . to become the kind of person I want to marry, to treat others the way I want to be treated, to love my children as much as I want to be loved. These are simple rules, but full of power to change our environment and thus our lives.

I have always liked movies and have followed the lives of my favorite movie stars quite closely at times. I find it is all about choices. We don’t change others . . . we can only change ourselves. Others may change if they admire who we are, but it will be their choice. People don’t change just because we want them to. So many of the movie stars and other famous people marry the wrong spouses, get a divorce and then marry the same kind of person all over again. It’s not only movie stars of course; their lives are just made more public and easier to study.

This is a wonderful age to live in! There are so many choices available. Today women can make their own opportunities, they can get education in many fields, and information and help are everywhere. Because there are so many choices it is also more difficult to decide and easier to make mistakes. However, mistakes are methods of learning and forgiveness is a blessing. We need forgiveness for our own mistakes as well as learning to forgive others. Our mistakes teach us to make better choices, not making the same mistakes over again.

A blessing that I have found to be so important to my life, is to remember the tender communication, the special blessing of womanhood, the spiritual ties that bind us to our Heavenly Father and Mother. We are born with those special feelings; those ties are always there, unless we break them. They are held strong with obedience to the commandments Heavenly Father has given us that keep them strong. However, if we break those ties, communication lines are down, we are alone and we feel that despair. Repairing the broken ties is difficult and painful, but it can be done. It’s called repentance.

I’m remembering the special times in my life . . . my happy days of growing up in a family of love, the sometimes sorrowful times of growth, the thrill of being a wife, bringing a new baby home from the hospital, and the joy of talking, playing and being with our children. The only advise I feel qualified to give is, “Enjoy being a girl! Feel the power of doing the right thing at the right time. Live each day caring about other people, listening to others and learning how to please our Heavenly parents.” This has been a guide in my life. If I can just please my Heavenly Father and Mother, then I can feel good about myself. Self-confidence comes from the approval of our Heavenly Father. Enjoy being a girl! ~ Shirley Sealy