Editor’s note. This is a chapter from Mary Ellen Edmunds’ new book, MEE Speaks.
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I was thinking that somewhere in this big world this morning, a woman is praying for her mother, who’s now living in an assisted care place and spends so much time alone. She’s praying that SOMEBODY will notice her mother, will touch her, be kind to her, make sure she’s all right.
And somewhere in the world there’s a father whose boy is going to start in the “regular” school class next week after being in special ed for several years. Oh, how he’s hoping that SOMEBODY will reach out to his little boy and build trust and friendship with him.
There’s a daughter somewhere who knows her dad should quit driving, but she hasn’t been able to stop him yet. He’s careful and doesn’t go far from home, but he drives so slowly. And she’s hoping that SOMEBODY will be patient with him as he’s holding on tightly to one of his last sources of independence.
In an apartment building there’s an older woman living alone who doesn’t have any family living nearby, and it’s too cold and snowy for her to go out much. She’s wishing SOMEBODY would stop by to visit with her and perhaps help her with a couple of things she hasn’t been able to do
.
In a home not too far away there’s a wonderful man caring for his wife who has Alzheimer’s, and it’s almost to the point where he can’t do it alone anymore. He’d love to have SOMEBODY come by and help him make some extremely difficult decisions.
There’s a single mom in the neighborhood who’s feeling completely overwhelmed with trying to put together a wonderful Christmas for her children, not knowing how she’s going to pay for it all along with the many regular bills. She’s desperate for SOMEBODY to help in some way but doesn’t know whom to ask and is not even quite sure what she needs.
Well, I didn’t mean to have quite that many examples, but I hope you get the idea. I want to be SOMEBODY. I think you know what I mean – what that feeling is like. We all have times, don’t we, of wanting to be more aware of those who are around us, wanting to see if we can do little things (or even sometimes big things) to make a difference.
I want to tell you a true story about Pam, Natalie, and Leanne. I like true stories best, because you don’t have to make anything up.
I’ll start with Pam. She’s Natalie’s incredible mother. I’ll let her tell her story herself:
Natalie was born with lots of medical complications. She cannot walk, talk, sit up, crawl, or move herself. Although she had these problems, she had always been healthy in the sense that she never got sick.
Unfortunately, in December of 2005, she began to have health problems. She ended up being in the hospital for 150 days during the next one and a half years. She received twelve blood transfusions and multiple surgeries.
In August of 2006, when Natalie was seven, we took her into the ER because of respiratory distress. Due to a hiatal hernia, gastric acid from the stomach was shooting up the esophagus. During the night, she inhaled some of this acid. She stopped breathing and had to be resuscitated. Two surgeries later, Natalie had an artificial hiatus and was no longer able to eat on her own and couldn’t tolerate any food by mouth. She began to receive nourishment through a feeding tube.
With the help of a physician who specialized in nutrition for neurologically impaired children, a special diet was created. The “recipe” was pretty specific and complicated. I had to drive all over the place to get all the organic ingredients and then go through a process of cooking, grinding, and blending the food to a consistency fine enough to go through Natalie’s feeding tube pump without clogging anything.
During this time, I had visited Temple Square during a three-hour stopover in Salt Lake City, Utah. I had a lot of questions, and the tour guide asked if I’d like to have someone come to my home in California and answer these and other questions.
Missionaries stopped by, and they helped me become acquainted with my neighbor, Leanne. I didn’t know her very well, but when we talked I told her what was going on with Natalie. She immediately asked if there was anything she could do to help.
I politely refused – I don’t feel comfortable inconveniencing people. But Leanne said, “Why don’t I come over right now, and you can show me how to make the food for Natalie, and then I’ll make it for you.” And she did. A woman I barely knew had come to help.
She proceeded to take over the entire task – doing the shopping, cooking the food, grinding it up, and then blending it until it was of such a fine consistency that it would go through the feeding tube without trouble – no small task! She spent a lot of time trying to figure out the best way to do it, and bought an expensive blender that could “blend” the cooked beef to the finest texture. She also bought a manual grinder to get the food to an even finer consistency.
Leanne spent hours and hours making Natalie’s food each week, and carefully packaged it up so that we could track the calories she was getting. She has done more for me than any other friend I’ve had, and I will always remember what she did for Natalie and me. It made such a difference for us during that hard time.
Now let’s hear from the neighbor, Leanne:
In the fall of 2006, I reintroduced myself to my neighbor, Pam, a single mother of five, at the invitation of our missionaries. They had followed up on a request made by Pam at Temple Square. I invited her to attend church meetings and activities with me. She wasn’t able to go and eventually let me know what was happening with her youngest daughter, Natalie.
Pam explained the care Natalie needed, with daily feeding, bathing, therapy, and so on. With her other children and the work she needed to do to support her family, Pam had a full plate. I could quickly see how devoted she was to Natalie. It became easy for us to talk, as we both had several children and many things in common.
I soon realized that Pam needed somebody who could and would lift even a small part of the burden she had been trying to carry herself. Natalie was being fed canned protein drinks through a feeding tube and was not doing well on this diet.
Then Pam got in touch with a doctor back East who suggested a diet that began working wonders for Natalie.
She was gaining weight and wasn’t in constant pain any longer. But the ingredients were hard to find, and they had to be cooked very slowly at a low temperature to get them soft enough to “fall apart” and blend to a fine consistency. Then the ingredients had to be put through a very fine sieve or strainer.Pam was having to leave Natalie at the hospital to drive to every health food store in the area, then go home to prepare the food and take it back to the hospital.
One day while talking to her I felt prompted to ask, “What can I do to help?” Pam couldn’t come up with anything, so I just told her I was going to come over and learn how to make the food. That’s all it took. Pam showed me how, and for a couple of months I made Natalie’s food. I did this until Natalie finally came home from the hospital and was doing better, and Pam felt like she could handle everything herself.
This is where you want Paul Harvey to come in and tell you “the rest of the story.” He’s not here, so I hope I can do an adequate job.
Natalie is doing much better these days, although she still faces a lot of challenges in her young life. She has a wonderful mother looking out for her, a mother who recently married again and is very happy. Pam and Leanne have become good friends and are keeping in touch.
One thing that impressed me in Pam’s account was this: “What stood out most in my mind was that the Mormons walk their walk. I have plenty of religious friends who have said that they would pray for me, but it was Leanne, a woman I barely knew, who actually went way out of her way and made a significant difference for us.”
She was SOMEBODY.
You’ve had your own sweet experiences, haven’t you? I hope you’ve written them down (as President Henry B. Eyring has encouraged us to do) so that they might become a source of inspiration and blessing to others.
I’m convinced that as we open our hearts to heavenly influences, the SOMEBODY who is the Father of us all will give us wonderful (and sometimes challenging) chances to be a blessing to others.
Today and every day, let’s be SOMEBODY.
