I Heart St. George (Part 4)

Sara and I are throwing our annual Christmas party tonight. (For any newbies, we are serious about you performing a number; no exceptions). Things are beautiful, ready, and calm. Nine years ago, that was not the case.

Sara was in the hospital, in Salt Lake City, with a pregnancy that had gone awry. I was in St. George with our three young kids (our oldest was 4 ½), traveling up twice a week to visit her and trying (unsuccessfully) to keep all the balls in the air down here. At a church Christmas party, JoLynne Miller asked how I was managing. “Fine.” Her suspicions having been raised by the way my girls were dressed and “styled,” she stopped by the next day. Looking at the chaos, she said, “You lie. This is not ‘fine.’”

So, JoLynne arranged things, and, for the next few weeks, she and a brigade of other saints would show up to clean, cook, tend, and help us manage. People would show up with cleaning stuff, and I’d just say “thanks,” and they’d do their thing. Up in Salt Lake, Sara was extremely grateful to get these reports that her babies (and clueless husband) were being taken care of. But, she was mortified/stoked to learn that notorious clean freaks Kamie Truman and Valarie Snow had cleaned our house. Anyone we tell the story to who knows them asks, “Did they clean under the beds?” Yes.

One Saturday, a teenage neighbor boy, Mark Blake, knocked on the door with a Christmas tree from the nursery where he worked, saying he figured I hadn’t had time to get one. He left, and I cried (and I’m tearing up as I write this) at the generosity of my fine community. I’ve never seen angels from on high, but I’ve seen plenty of angels just off Red Hills golf course.