The wrap on Hadley

June 7, 2017 By

As I’ve mentioned previously, the last few months in Hadley’s world have been tough. If you have any doubts what a nightmare middle school is for girls, watch this seventh grader’s poem that went viral about the pressures of seventh grade.

The good news is now that she’s removed from that social environment, we are seeing our beloved spitfire starting to reemerge. One of the results of her downward spiral were her grades–she went from the honor roll and feeling on top of the world the first two terms to a couple of Ds and several Cs as she struggled to turn her work in on time and stay on top of her exams. To her credit, she clawed her way out, ending up with all Bs and As but it reconfirmed that we need to hire a math tutor for eight grade because that was one of the triggers for a lot of her stress.

She got a phone and texting plan on her old iPod for her birthday and her first texts to me were 1) “Come get me” (during a lame assembly).  And 2), While I was mountain biking, I got several texts from her while she was at an end-of-year event at school: “I’m bored.” “Entertain me.” Because I had nothing better to do. 

She has put her love of art, drawing and painting on the backburner and has a new interest in photography. Her main Christmas present was a new Canon and since spring has sprung, she has become more excited about it (this is also likely related to her new Instagram account and desire to take good pictures).

I took this picture when she was a 2-day-old teen: She slept in until 1:30 pm and she didn’t notice the deer photobombers as she took her profile pic for her new Instagram account. P.S. Yes, that would be the Pumpkin Man in his patch even though he has been suffering with debilitating vertigo the last few days and I had to take him to the hospital clinic. BECAUSE EVEN IF YOU CAN’T WALK WITHOUT PUKING, PUMPKIN SEASON MUST GO ON.

She convinced me to let her skip the last half-day of school so we could go hiking on the WOW Trail. The kid knows how to manipulate me in the best ways. She somehow finagled herself a shopping trip to Park City to buy her new socks…and she came home with everything but socks.

I was working on an article for Discover Utah Magazine so Hadley had two zipline weekends in a row. The first was with the entire family at Adventure Zipline Utah, a super fun and casual canopy tour with plenty of adrenaline-charged moments. We were encouraged to do all kinds of zany stunts–our guides even did front flips off the platform!

Hadley’s adventure started during the 4×4 drive to the top of the course where she had to stand at the back of the vehicle, clip in her carabiner and hold on.

Those views of Mount Timpanogos aren’t bad, either!

The following weekend, Hadely and I conquered Zipline Utah overlooking Deer Creek. There are plenty of tour options available and we selected one of their more more extreme courses–8 ziplines and 2 suspension bridges. Our feet didn’t touch the ground the entire 2-hour tour as we flew from platform-to-platform, climbing lots of stairs. I wouldn’t recommend this tour for the beginner but we still had loads of fun, with the exception of the second-longest zipline on the course where I crash-landed on the platform. Not too fun and probably terrifying for our guide to see me careening toward him at 50 mph.

Suspension Bridge

 

Not recommended for those afraid of heights

That bad landing made us both nervous to try the Screaming Falcon, the longest zipline in the world over water–3/4 of a mile–but our guide assured us there was a different braking system on that zipline so we decided to go for it (especially after we saw on the guide’s DOG doing it; he even had his own harness!) We were apprehensive as they drove us to to the top of the mountain with the platform. Adventure Girl went first and it was a thrill to watch her disappear over water and it was my turn next. The sheer velocity made it difficult to catch my breath and I regretted not doing up my coat because it was flapping all around me.

Longest zipline in the world over water

But it was truly one of the most exhilarating things I’ve ever done!

One night for FHE, we let Hadley choose the FHE activity and what started as a casual stroll ended up having a 2,000-foot elevation gain. 

As I was limping down I commented, “Hiking and skiing are my favorite activities to do all together.”

She scoffed, “Together? You were like a mile behind me.”

Welcome back, Hadley.

Filed Under: Hadley, Humor, Uncategorized

The wrap on Bode

June 5, 2017 By

We made it across the finish line to summer!

Bode: Has been stuck between a rock and a hard place along with all the other fifth graders. Due to the fact the Heber Valley is exploding with growth, the schools are busting at the seams. We live a few blocks away from the elementary school but they bumped it down to K-4 so he had to go to a weird intermediate school dedicated to 5th and 6th graders. They’re opening a new elementary and middle school in the area so that means everyone is getting shuffled. He’ll be bumped up to the same middle school as Hadley (yuck) and will miss being the king of the school in sixth grade.

But as usual, Bode is highly adaptable. He ended up with almost straight As this year and was ticked on his last report card when he had an A- in media but when he looked at the actual percentage, it was 93%, an A. I chuckled how much he agonized over that and I told him he could get it corrected but in the end, a fifth grade A- in media won’t keep him out of Harvard.

Fifth grade certainly wasn’t his best year ever but he made some new friends and had some fun adventures. Here’s a snapshot of the last few months of his life:

We joined thousands of other fifth graders at the Salt Lake Bees baseball game. I volunteered but we got grouped with some kids who were not his friends so the first chance he got, he apologetically ditched me to sit with them. I didn’t blame him; I would have ditched our group as well.

Also of note: for his track and field day at school last week, he encouraged me to come but told me “not to speak to any of my friends unless first spoken to.” Apparently my years as the Queen Bee being invited to play four square at school are over.

He won the pinewood derby and later earned his Webelos rank. He will be entering 11-year-old Scouts this summer.

He wrapped up another great season of soccer with Jamie as the coach and Bode was the top scorer on the team. We lightly discouraged him from doing competitive next season because 1) of the cost and 2) they practice several times as week and travel extensively on the weekends. If he was a true soccer prodigy, we would have supported him but he ultimately decided to keep it casual and do rec soccer again in the fall. Better to be a superstar than to sit on the bench!

He was so sweet and made me breakfast in bed for Mother’s Day all by himself. Even if he has to save face with his buddies, he’s still a mama’s boy at heart. :-)

The whole family had a blast doing the Adventure Zipline Utah in Provo Canyon (more details forthcoming on that).

He joined in the fun at his new middle school’s Color Festival. Bonus: It involved a lot of color wars without having to run.

Our local library offers free coding classes so his three besties–Eli, Charlie and Jonas–joined him at the library every Thursday to learn how to code.

One day after class, I asked him what they learned and he proudly boasted, “We learned how to hack a website.”

While he gave his disgusting backpack a final scrub-down, I tried to give him a last-day-of-school pep talk. “Now Bode, if someone is sitting by themselves while everyone is getting their yearbooks signed…” “I will offer to sign their yearbook and ask them to sign mine.” “Yes, and as for your teacher…” “I will give her the gift and thank her.” “Yes!” “And don’t worry, Mom. I will only give my phone number to ‘trusted friends.’”

It’s sure nice when kids know how to parent themselves.

Filed Under: Bode

Welcome to Summer!

June 2, 2017 By

Everyone’s social media is “hey look, my kids is valedictorian….

…and I’m like “hey look, my kids is juggling his iPod, Nintendo DS AND TV at the same time.

Filed Under: Bode, Humor

School’s (Almost Out) for Summer!

June 1, 2017 By

Tomorrow is the kids’ last day of school and I already feel like a huge weight has been lifted. We survived. It wasn’t always pretty, but we did it! Already with the prospect of sleeping in, travels and camps, the kids are in their happy place.

My preliminary observations/frustrations after six months in Utah: Everyone has such big immediate and extended families they don’t make as much effort to go beyond that. On Sunday, we invited a couple of families over for a BBQ and one of the moms said just that–they’re always so busy with family commitments they rarely have time for anything else. In Colorado, our ward was our family and we did EVERYTHING together, even traveled. This makes me sad because my friends were the kids’ best friends and I don’t think we’ll ever have that here.

We have a pretty busy summer and I’d scheduled three weeks of “downtime” in June to explore the area with friends but I’m scrambling to fill it with other activities. My worst fear is the kids are bored, bored, bored and they’ll just stay at home playing video games (Bode) or watching insipid YouTube tutorials (Hadley).

Here’s what we have on tap for the rest of the summer:

Yard Work. A Lot of It.

We’ve been busy busy busy with yard work. When I say that, I envision mowing the lawn, trimming flowers and wearing a fancy gardening hat but our lives have been anything but. The last several weeks have been spent prepping our front yard for sod. Hauling out rocks. Grading the soil. Hauling out more rocks. Digging. And weeding. Have you ever seen a 1/2-acre with weeds? Welcome to our plot in paradise. We finally had sod delivered for our front lawn last week and it’s about 85% complete. The backyard is a different beast altogether and we can’t afford to sod so will go with hydroseed…just as soon as we can save up enough money for all the rocks and then weed the whole thing.

The only good thing to come out of all of this is that it’s teaching the kids to work hard. I was consoling Bode about it and said,

“This is price we pay for having a beautiful, big yard. I mean, we could have a small condo or apartment so we need to be grateful. Don’t you want a nice yard like this someday?”

“Yes, and I plan to pay someone to do it for me.” Smart kid.

Kids Adventure Games

Hadley and Bode are once again doing the Kids Adventure Games (but this time in Park City) and Hadley has had some struggles finding a teammate.  She’s well-liked in school and church but her friends just don’t want to do anything beyond that–I’m not sure if it’s a teen thing, they’re too busy with other commitments or they are just homebodies… maybe a combination of all three? It’s pretty unbelievable to me in a recreational paradise like Midway that there aren’t more outdoorsy girls but we have yet to find them.

We finally decided to invite one of her besties, Maeve, from Colorado. She’ll be staying with us for a week and Hadley is thrilled to have a friend who actually wants to do something and I’m thrilled she’ll have someone with whom to do things.  Bode will be running the race with his good friend and ski buddy, Porter. It’s one of the highlights of our summer and we can’t wait!

Dirty Dash

About six weeks ago, I was feeling sorry for myself and missing my friends in Denver. I saw an ad for the Dirty Dash, a 5K mud run in Midway, and casually sent a text to our snowshoeing/hiking group to see if anyone was interested. Seventeen of my new friends signed up! My knees are still giving my problems so I haven’t been able to do much running to train. My friend Jana is a hardcore cross-fitter and she worked with me yesterday–it felt so good to get back to boot-camp-style workouts and we plan to do them through the summer. Never mind that she could dead lift me; everyone has to start somewhere, right?

Colorado

The kids will be going to the acclaimed Keystone Science School so we’re joyously returning to Colorado for 10 days. While the kids are at camp, Jamie and I are going on a second honeymoon in Crested Butte and Keystone, topped off by a family trip to our favorite place on earth, The Broadmoor. That’s the good part. The bad part is I’m doing campaigns and travel articles on everything so my real work will begin once we’ve returned.

Activities

In addition to Keystone Science School, I’ve signed the kids up for some fun camps and activities. Hadley begged me to enroll her in rugby but she lasted one day (fortunately I was able to get my money back because they switched practice days). She’ll be doing a volleyball camp at the high school, as well as a week-long BYU volleyball camp thanks to the generous donation of her Grandma Johnson. Recreational activities are so cheap in the Heber Valley so we signed Bode up for a fishing class on Wednesdays (just $15 for six weeks) and he’ll also learn to play golf at The Homestead while Hadley is at Young Women’s Girls Camp.

Canada (and Cousins)

My brother Jade is getting remarried so we’ll be be in Canada for a couple of weeks for the wedding and our annual family reunion in Vernon, B.C. My mom’s MS is so far advanced she can no longer travel so the kids and I will spend a week in Calgary with her and my dad and then a few days at the lake. And we won’t be returning alone. While my brother is on his honeymoon, his two boys will be coming back to Utah and spending the week with us. Bode is thrilled; Hadley NotSoMuch. We plan to expose those city kids to country livin’ activities like the rodeo, which should be pretty interesting because we’re still getting acclimated to it ourselves.

Bring on SUMMER!

Filed Under: Bode, Hadley

Welcome to the teen scene!

May 26, 2017 By

From teen back to toddler, that’s how I’d discuss this phase of our parenting journey. Once out of the irascible toddler years, I thoroughly enjoyed elementary school and watching these kids of mine flex their independence and grow. But with Hadley finishing seventh grade and Bode starting Middle School next year (don’t get me started about my displeasure that it is grades 6-8), I’m bracing myself for even more tween/teen angst and meltdowns reminiscent of the toddler years.

To be fair, Bode is still really delightful and naive to all the drama and I’m honestly not sure what his teenager years will bring. He’s smart, kind, helpful, thoughtful and happy 99% of the time. But he’s also really sensitive and cares a little bit too much about his grades and I worry he’ll have a nervous breakdown working himself to death. And I’m sure he’ll be moody because what teenager isn’t?

Hadley’s first birthday as a teen was a testament of the roller-coaster we’re on. She wakes up at 6:30 a.m. for school and I gave her a backrub to ease into her day and then some apple-marmalade crepes before driving her to the bus stop. I would have driven her to school for her birthday but she actually really love the bus(?!) and her friends (including some really cool high school boys in our ward) sang her “Happy Birthday!”

After school, she opened her presents: New clothes from Jamie’s mom and a huge make-up case from Aunt Lisa. We gave her a new sleeping bag and pad, a pillow top mattress for her uncomfortable bed and the most exciting (for her) of all: a phone plan. We can’t afford to get her a new phone and frankly, I don’t know that I really want to at this juncture so we’re updating her iPod to include texting and Internet. I’m easing her into social medial with Instagram and will ease back out just as quickly if this proves to be premature.

At her request, we signed her up for rugby, which she doesn’t like because she doesn’t want to get hurt. I’m a “I paid the money so you’re going” kind of parent but didn’t force it on her birthday because I figure it’s the one day of the year to have fun.  She didn’t want a party with friends and said she just wanted to go to dinner at Tucanos for her birthday so we’re doing that tonight. For her actual birthday, I had suggested we have a quick dinner at home and then go see “Guardians of the Galaxy 2″ at our local theater. As we were driving there, we pulled up to the theater and she said in disdain, “I don’t really want to go here.” “Why, what’s wrong?” “It’s not a nice theater and I don’t really want to see the movie after all.”

Now, we haven’t yet been to the theater and I’m sure it’s a small-town one without all the fancy bells and whistles she’s used to in the big city but it seemed like a rash judgment without actually seeing it. Keeping our cool (it was, after all, her birthday), we asked what she wanted to do and she said “Let’s just go home and rent “Allegiant.” The problem: That movie is not yet rentable so we ended up watching “Fault in our Stars,” which is actually a really great movie about two star-crossed cancer-stricken teenage lovers…funny, heartwarming and depressing all at once.

Welcome to the teenage years.

=====

My Facebook memories for today when life’s problems could be solved with Twinkletoes and Fat Kitty!

Filed Under: Hadley, Humor

Happy 13th Birthday, Hadley!

May 25, 2017 By

Dear Hadley,

I never thought I’d be relieved to see birthday #13 but your 12th year of life was a huge roller-coaster and I, for one, am glad to put seventh grade behind you. It was a tough year for sure. Moving away from the friends you’ve known since birth and getting thrown into the lion’s den of middle school is not for the faint of heart.

(Chief Mountain Summit)

The long delay in selling our house had its advantages: it meant one last summer to spend with your Colorado friends and you played ’til your heart’s content with parties and fun. You went to High Adventure Girl’s Camp in Leadville, summiting your second 14er. You then flew out to Utah the following week to attend Girl’s Camp with our new ward where you made some awesome new friends and camped in the Uintas.

You went to Canada, fell in love with wakesurfing on the lake, played in the mud, stampeded and were your usual unconquerable self. Later in the year, you had some other memorable adventures like getting “Maximum Interlodged” (snowed in) at Alta, flying back to Colorado Springs for the Great Wolf Lodge grand opening and spending New Year’s with our besties in Colorado.

Even after we moved from our beloved Colorado home and had those two months of commuting from Park City, you adjusted well. You made new friends at school and church. You went above-and-beyond in your academics and landed on the honor roll for the first time. You became newly obsessed with your appearance and spent hours doing your make-up and hair in the bathroom and are turning into a beautiful woman.

Things were really going your way until they weren’t. Call it hormones, call it “Pomegranate” boy drama, call it being 12 and in middle school but your self-confidence tanked, as well as your happiness and grades. Those few months were some of the worst of your (and my) life and you’re slowly clawing your way out. I’m not sure what happened to trigger everything and maybe I’ll never know. Maybe it’s just all a part of growing up in a messed-up world where your every insecurity is compared to those gleaming, filtered examples in social media. Maybe it’s just part of leaving your childhood behind. video games, technology held zero appeal to you but you have turned into a full-fledged teen this year with YouTube and texting obsession on your iPod. My hope is you will find some way to reconnect with those passions. Like your Grandma B., you were born to create, to imagine, to dream. I’m hoping your newfound interest in photography will be a way to fill that void.

It’s all part of growing up and I’m trying to grow up along side of you but it’s painful to watch your beautiful daughter struggle to figure out her place in this world. The one thing that has been repeatedly confirmed to me is that you will not do anything unless you want to do it but when when you’re on fire, you’re unstoppable. You fell in love with volleyball and are constantly setting the ball against the wall. You’re going to a couple of volleyball camps this summer, as well as Keystone Science School where you’ll backpack, rodeo and kayak your way through Steamboat Springs.  Your love affair with skiing is still going strong and we sprung for season passes next season (or at least our credit card did and we’re slowly paying it back).

You have also recently started playing in a girl’s Rugby league this week (what could possibly go wrong there? :-) and on Saturday, you and I conquered Utah Zipline’s Adventure course where I saw you leap off a daunting platform and careen down the longest zipline in the world over water. That was not for the faint of heart–and neither is being a teenager–but I hope you’ll embrace these next years with the same bravery and confidence that have brought you to this point in your life.

Channel your resolve, embrace the suck of these years and, remember these wise words from S.C. Lourie:

Be confused, it’s where you begin to learn things.

Be broken, it’s where you begin to heal.

Be frustrated, it’s where you start to make more authentic decisions.

Be sad, because if we are brave enough we can hear our hear’ts wisdom through it.

Be whatever you are right now.

No more hiding.

You are worthy, always.

And no matter how tough that road may be, please always remember that you are loved.

Love,

Mom

P.S. For a stroll down memory lane, read letters for your 12th birthday, 11th, 10th, 9th,  8th, 7th, 6th, 5th, 4th, 3rd, 2nd and your birth story.

High Achieving Week at Outdoor Lab

Hiking Chautauqua

Deer Valley hiking

BYU football with Coscmo

 

Filed Under: Hadley

Nacho Libre

May 20, 2017 By

My friend Cheryl has been a longtime devotee to the 2006 American sports comedy film, Nacho Libre.

If you haven’t seen it, Jack Black plays a character who works as a cook in the Mexican monastery where he grew up. The monastery is home to a host of orphans whom Nacho cares for deeply, but there is not much money to feed them properly. Nacho decides to raise money for the children by moonlighting as a Lucha Libre wrestler with his partner, but since the church forbids Lucha, Nacho must disguise his identity.

I know your life is totally changed from reading that paragraph.

I’m not one for stupid humor and Napoleon Dynamite is one of the few corny cult classics I enjoy but the kids and I decided to watch it one evening and laughed our heads off the whole way through.

Apparently Jamie was remiss to miss out on the fun so he announced to me a few weeks later that he, too had watched Nacho Libre.

“Do you feel like your life has changed?” I asked.

“I now feel equal to you.”

Apparently, we have a very low bar for equality in our household.

 

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized

That time we were featured in the Wall Street Journal

May 17, 2017 By

A few weeks ago my friend Eileen Ogintz, founder of Taking The Kids and a syndicated columnist, emailed to ask if I could put the word out to my friends that a reporter from the Wall Street Journal was looking to interview families who let their kids help plan the vacation. I put the word out on Facebook but nobody responded so I acquiesced to be interviewed by Sue Shellenbarger. I really didn’t think much would come of it–maybe she’d include a quote in her article–until she emailed me again in a panic saying her editor wanted her to interview my kids as well. So on Friday after school, Bode and Hadley casually talked to the a reporter from the biggest newspaper in the United States. No biggie.

If you are questioning the reliability of journalism in this day and age, rest assured the Wall Street Journal is the most fact-checked newspaper I’ve ever seen. For our small quotes in the article, Sue emailed me several times.

Anyway, here’s the link to Dare to Let the Children Plan Your Vacation and I’ll include screenshots and our quotes below.

And yes, Bode totally talks like a 40-year-old man.

 

 

The Johnson family of Denver is planning a car trip to western Colorado this summer. Amber Johnson says her daughter Hadley, 12, persuaded the family to go jet-boating, racing over the Colorado River at speeds of up to 40 miles an hour in boats driven by professionals.

It’s a plan Ms. Johnson and her husband Jamie would never have chosen for the family. But Hadley sees children’s museums as cheesy. “I’m kind of growing up and everything,” Hadley says. “I’m a little more crazy and adventurous than museums.”

Bode, 10, says he was nervous at first about jet-boating. But Ms. Johnson reassured him that the boats have seat belts and life jackets. Now he’s on board with the plan. “I think I might actually learn something, including having a positive attitude and being willing to do new things,” he says.

Giving the children a voice keeps them excited and interested, Ms. Johnson says. It also means suffering through their mistakes. Bode and Hadley picked a hotel online for a road trip last summer because it had a big pool, says Ms. Johnson, editor of Mile High Mamas, an online community. She suggested they might want to do more research, but “they jumped on it because it looked really fun,” Ms. Johnson says.

When they arrived, the pool was closed for renovation. Ms. Johnson sees such “soft failures,” or missteps with minor consequences, as learning experiences. “We would call ahead and do more research” next time, Hadley says.

 


Filed Under: Bode, Family travel, Favorite Posts, Hadley, Utah

The Glories of Rec Soccer

May 10, 2017 By

“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

The same can be asked of if a blogger fails to write about the last several months, does it mean it ever really happened?

I’m long overdue on an updates post that will probably be a compilation of pictures and narratives. We’re in the middle of landscaping hell; Jamie has been living it since we moved in but the real push will be the next couple of months as we finish putting in the sprinkler lines in the backyard and seeding it, sodding the front and planting everything. We ran out of money we’d set aside from the sale of our house last week so we’re scrimping and saving to get at least the basics completed. Oh, the joy!

My intention was to write about Bode’s last soccer game yesterday but then I realized I didn’t even write about the first one! If you’re in fifth grade and above in the Heber Valley and like soccer, you play competitive because recreational soccer only goes through fourth grade, and then 5-7 th graders are co-ed because there aren’t enough players. We missed competitive tryouts for this calendar year and when I tried to sign Bode up for the co-ed league, he was too young so he’s been playing with the fourth graders on the rec team.

The good: He is a very skilled ball handler and a smart player. He’s incredibly strategic and always makes smart passes and is very coachable (his hardcore coach a couple of years ago said he was the one kid on the team who would listen and implement what he instructed). But he has never had the big kicks and scoring ability of the superstars so he’s always been very middle-of-the-pack in the Denver leagues. But playing in a small-town rec league, he’s been one of the strongest players so has had a chance to shine. Plus, playing with the fourth graders, he’s no longer the smallest on the field.

The bad: The level of play is waaaaaay lower than his previous league so he isn’t progressing like he would be if he was in a more challenging situation.

Competitive tryouts are next week and I’ve been vacillating on what to do.  If he was a prodigy and wanted to keep pushing himself, competitive would be the obvious choice. But he’s not. He enjoys playing but isn’t obsessed with it. He could no doubt make the competitive teams here but he would no longer be the superstar, would have way less playing time, we’d be traveling every Saturday, he’d practice several times a week, it’s a full year commitment and it costs a lot more money.

Can you tell I REAAAAALLY don’t want him to be competitive?

I was relieved when he says he’d just like to stick with rec and so next fall, he’ll be playing co-ed with girls. If nothing else, it will be great blog fodder because if the kid can’t string two sentences together to talk to a girl, what will it be like to play with them?

Here are a few pictures to commemorate the season.

Jamie has been bossing people around from the sidelines for many years. It’s about time he made it official. #CoachJamie

I realized during our final game, I hadn’t taken any other pictures so snapped a couple of them. This one was taken of Bode (on the left) moments before he took his worst shot on goal ever.

Fortunately, he later redeemed himself and went on to score three goals, the final one was the most impressive of his soccer career.

And you can’t wrap the season without a shot of Team WhatchaMaCallThem. Unlike in years past when Bode named the name (Angry Piggies was a favorite), these dudes went unnamed.

See our goalie on the back row in yellow? He got Scott Sterling-ed yesterday with the most brutal soccer ball kick to the head that knocked him senseless to the ground.  He was fortunately OK but after the game when Jamie asked him if he was blindsided, he replied, “I saw it coming but I felt like a paper doll and couldn’t move.”

The Paper Dolls. It kind of has a nice ring to it.

Filed Under: Bode, Humor

The Mile High Mamas Miracle

May 8, 2017 By

I was biking home after dropping off my kids at school when my iPhone rang. Little did I know that message would be the makings of The Mile High Mamas Miracle.

Every Mother’s Day, I issue an invitations for Denver moms to tell their story.  One year, it was their own experiences in becoming a mother; for another, it was their favorite mom moments. Last year, I launched a Mother’s Day contest where entrants wrote an essay about their Mom Hero–whether it was their own mother or a peer or someone they admired.  All of the entries were so inspiring and I published 20 of them the week of Mother’s Day.

With so many amazing stories, I knew I wouldn’t be able to choose (plus, I felt I was biased because I knew some of the women who submitted). The Grand Prize winner would receive a day of pampering for two at Allure Skincare and Lash, True Bliss Massage AND Rooted in Tradition Acupuncture so I asked the PR rep of the salon to make the final selection.

She chose Brenda Lane’s My Mom, My Hero, Advocate and Artist.

As a side note, I was in the middle of a very stressful season of my life. We were [unsuccessfully] selling our home, permits were delayed on our new one, I had umpteen end-of-the-year responsibilities–from recitals to graduation parties to assisting at a wedding reception to my daughter’s own birthday bash and Sixth Grade Continuation.

The timing is an important note in this miracle because it was almost two weeks after Mother’s Day when I finally emailed Brenda to let her know she had won.  I didn’t hear back from her. Five days later, I emailed the PR rep to see if she had made contact. She hadn’t so we resolved to call her.

That was before I received the message on that fateful day while riding my bike home. It was from Adriana, Brenda’s partner of 15 years, who requested I call her back because she wanted to to share the beautiful backstory of Brenda winning the grand prize.

The experience that unfolded was the makings of miracles.

Adriana shared that just eight weeks ago, Brenda’s mom Sylvia had been living a busy and happy life as she finished illustrating a children’s book when she experienced some back pain. The next weeks that ensued involved a visit to the ICU, a nursing home, hospital visits and finally, her health had declined so rapidly that it was time to send her home with hospice.

The family was gathered together with her mom on the brink of death when Brenda received my email that she had won the Grand Prize. She didn’t have the strength to tell her mom but it was a hospice worker who said, “Brenda, you have to share this with her. This is your moment.”

So Brenda stood by her Mom’s bed and shared the news that her “Mom Hero” entry had won. Adriana read the essay to her mom in what would become her final lucid moments.  “It was the last gift, the last words Brenda was able to share with Mom,” said Adriana.

Sylvia Lane died four hours later.

“So, I just wanted to thank you for this. This miracle,” Adriana told me during our phone call. “Tomorrow is Sylvia’s service and we will read that essay. This has been the one thing that our family and close friends keep talking about. This was the perfect moment for all of this to happen and has helped us come together as a family.”

Here’s the thing. Our Mother’s Day hero contest wasn’t some big nationwide competition but for this family, it was a touching reminder that by small and simple things, miracles happen.

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