“The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man be perfected without trials.” (Danish Proverb)
My Work as a Professional Typist
For fifteen years, between 1964 and 1979, I supplemented our familys income by typing for students and professors at three different universities: Indiana University, Utah State University and Brigham Young University. It was something I could do at home, and something I enjoyed and became quite proficient at. I estimate that I typed over a hundred lengthy dissertations and theses, plus several hundred shorter papers during this time.
This was back in the day of electric typewriters, and often the writers needed four carbon copies of their dissertation or thesis. This alone was great incentive to type accurately, as making corrections on four copies was a nightmare! Through the years both my speed and accuracy improved greatly and I felt that this was something I could enjoy doing throughout my life. I enjoyed reading the material on so many interesting topics, plus it provided added income for our family.
One morning in 1979 I naively wrote in my journal, “There is something wrong with my left hand and I need to take a day off and go to the doctor and get it taken care of.” I had one more paper to type before doing so and I sat down to do it the next morning. I couldnt control my index finger, my third and fourth fingers curled under, and my wrist pulled downward. When I had struggled through one page, which I could normally do without error, I held that page up to the light and could see that I had made 32 white-out corrections on it (remember this was 1979no home computers). I sat back in my chair stunned at the realization that I may have typed my last paper. I turned my typewriter off and called my doctor for an appointment.
Thus began a twenty-year odyssey of going from doctor to doctor, from therapist to therapist, spending a week at the University of Utah Neurological Hospital, traveling to Virginia to a special Myotherapy Clinic, and countless other painful and fruitless therapies to solve this problem. I tried every orthodox medical path first and then, in desperation, I tried some very unorthodox kinds of treatments, always with the same result: no diagnosis, no cure.
My Work as a Composer
When this problem first began, I was just beginning to have success in my songwriting career and when I couldnt type any more I decided to focus on this happy aspect of my life. One day I sat down at the piano to compose music for a sacred cantata, “The Savior of the World,” which I was writing with my cousin Joy Lundberg, and found that the same problem I had typing followed me to the keyboard. I was devastated! The way my wrist and fingers pulled under created a lot of pain from my hand to my shoulder, which accumulated the longer I tried to force the hand to function correctly.
I became so frustrated one day, I slammed my hands on the keyboard and prayed in a rather desperate way that I could be healed as the people in the song I was writing had been. This seemed only fair since I was writing music to glorify the Savior! At this specific moment I was writing music for a piece called, “His Infinite Power,” which tells of Jesus power to heal men of every affliction, and even to restore the dead to life, and I knew he could also heal me! In retrospect I probably prayed in a way of counseling the Lord. Nothing changed.
Click here to listen to “His Infinite Power”
His Infinite Power (from the Album “The Savior of the World”
by the Mormon Youth Symphony and Chorus, 1980)
Words by Joy Saunders Lundberg
Music by Janice Kapp Perry
Every creature on earth, the water, wind and flowr
Subject to Gods spoken word, witness His infinite powr.
He speaks and the winds obey,
He speaks and the lame walk away.
He speaks and the water recedes
He speaks and the multitude feeds.
He speaks and evil takes flight,
He speaks and the blind receive their sight.
He speaks and the leper is healed,
He speaks and the fishnets are filled.
He speaks and the water is wine in the cup,
He speaks and even the dead rise up!
Every creature on earth, the water, wind and flowr
Subject to Gods spoken word,
Witness His infinite powr.
I went through a time of great frustration and sorrow over having lost two very important parts of my lifetyping and playing the piano. I cried often and could not understand why I could not be healed so I could continue writing music on gospel themes. I tried many braces and therapies, all with no success. Then I just decided to finish the music for the cantata no matter how bad the pain was. The tone of my prayers was changingI was now praying that I could understand the purpose for my problem and find the faith to deal with it in a better (not bitter) way. With a more humbled spirit I sat down to work on the next piece, “On the Cross.”
Joys text was moving and heart-wrenching and I prayed to be able to write powerful music to match her words. As soon as I rested my hands on the keyboard, my mind was filled with the music I was to write and the feeling was so exhilarating that I wept the whole time I was writing it downjust as I am doing now as I recall this profound experience. I never wondered what to write, it was just given to me, and I finished the piece in less than an hour.
Yes, my hand and arm hurt but I only really noticed it when I had finished because I was so caught up in a much grander experience, overwhelmed at my new realization that my pain was utterly insignificant compared to His. From that moment on I knew the Lord was aware of my distress because, in spite of my questioning prayers, he had blessed me with such a marvelous experience. This feeling stayed with me as I completed the rest of the pieces in the cantata. The Mormon Youth Symphony and Chorus recorded and performed our work in the Tabernacle on Temple Square.
Click here to listen to “On the Cross”
On the Cross (from the album “The Savior of the World)
by the Mormon Youth Symphony and Chorus, 1980)
Words by Joy Saunders Lundberg
Music by Janice Kapp Perry
In agony on the cross He hung.
The hour of fulfillment had come.
The suffering, more than intense,
As He hung in recompense.
At His feet, His mother bent,
Engulfed in absolute torment.
In anguish she cried:
“Oh my son! Oh my son!
Please, dear Father, let it be done!”
The heavens groaned, the sun hid its face
From the utter shame of this mortal disgrace.
Then He died! Jesus, the Savior, died!
In heaves of grief an angry earth cried!
In heaves of grief an angry earth cried!
The Savior of the world has died!
Going Forward with a Quieter Spirit
There was a time, about eight years after I developed my “thorn in the flesh,” when I knew I needed to stop grieving my loss, accept my new reality, and move on in the best way I could. Still, it was hard to give up something I enjoyed so much. A turning point came one night when I was trying to accompany someone on stage and my left hand just couldnt do it. A little way into the piece, my daughter Lynne slipped from behind the curtains edge onto the piano bench and whispered, “You play the right hand, Mom, Ill play the left.” Such a sweet rescue that was for me!
From then on, Lynne did all the accompanying. I had always been a ward organist and accompanist in the church, but realized I could not do that anymore. I quit playing in public and just used my hand long enough to get my music written down. This turned me more toward composing which was probably a good thing. About this time I made a list of every doctor I had seen and every therapist I had gone to and came up with a total of forty. None had been able to diagnose or cure me, but the fortieth one helped me in a very important way.
Dr. Iliff Jeffery was a blind osteopath who had helped various friends and family members through the years, and I decided to go to him for one last try. He did his best to find the problem and fix it and as he worked I sometimes complained to him how inconvenient my problem was for a typist and songwriter. He laughed and said, “Its almost like our trials come where they really are trials!”
While I was pondering that bit of wisdom, he said, “I wanted to be a surgeon but lost my sight as a child in two separate accidents. I didnt think a blind surgeon would be very popular so I adjusted. I can still work with my hands and maybe even more sensitively than others, and Ive had a fulfilling career as an osteopath.” The sudden epiphany that I had been complaining to a blind man, was quite humbling!
Dr. Jeffery admitted that in spite of his best efforts, he could not correct my problem, but added that he might be able to help me accept it more gracefully. As he massaged my arm he taught me things that were healing and life-changing. He reminded me that there is a healing time for all things, whether in this life or the next, and that he looks forward to having eyes again at that time (his had been surgically removed to relieve pain).
He also taught me that our prayers become more sincere when we go through trials and we grow closer to God and learn to trust in His will. Then he made me a promise that if I would accept my trial patiently and with faith, there would come a time when I would not trade having normal use of my hand and arm back, for all I had learned from being without them. I left his office feeling a new peace. I later wrote the song “The Test” to honor him for all he had taught me, and it was sung at his funeral many years later.
With my new understanding of trials, life went on more peacefully for the next decade or so. My husband Doug, and my son John did my typing for me, Lynne was the family accompanist, and I just played piano for short times when I was trying to get a new song written down. My cramping muscles adjusted a bit to their new way of functioning and the pain was a bit less severe. I quit thinking much about my hand/arm.
An Unexpected Tender Mercy
After I had been unable to type for 21 years, something happened that could only be labeled “a tender mercy.” One night Doug and I had just returned from speaking at a fireside somewhere In the Ogden, Utah area and when we got home we sat down to watch the TV news and unwind a bit as we always did. When the news ended, Doug said he was going to bed, but I started flipping mindlessly through the channels to relax a bit longer.
As I clicked on a channel that I had never watched before, a man said something like this: “So if you are one of those people who thinks you cant type because of a hand disability, you really can. Stay tuned and Ill tell you how.” My first thought was, thats impossible, but he definitely had my attention and I got a pencil and paper and waited, albeit skeptically. When he returned he said that anyone can find a new way to typeall one had to do is sit quietly in front of a computer keyboard and start typing, no matter how awkwardly, and your brain will come up with a system that works for you. He warned against being impatient because everyone who will see the process through will find a way to typeno exceptions. I was sure he was wrong because I had tried many times during those 21 years. Nevertheless, the next morning I talked to Doug about getting a laptop computer.
I waited until I was all alone one night, and knew I would have no interruptions, then I sat at my desk in front of the laptop.
I tried typing super slowly while willing my hand not to curl up. Typing slowly is just not acceptable, your mind races ahead of your fingers and you start typing faster and then the hand balls up in a cramp.I was so tempted to quit, but remembered his promise that it would work for anyone if they didnt give up too soon.
About an hour into my second night of trying, my left hand inexplicably went into a weird position where my thumb braced against my second and fourth fingers, and my third finger rested on top of them pointing downward. I tried striking keys with that one finger and found that my hand didnt curl up when braced that way.
Then came the thought that if even one finger on my left hand could strike keys without setting off the cramping, maybe I could pick up extra keys with my right hand, and it just might work. If I had learned to type a certain way at 16, why couldnt I learn to type a different way now?
I started slowly and had to look at the keyboard for some time to make this work, but before long
I was typing evenly and began to feel a ray of hope that I might be able to type well again. My excitement grew with a few weeks of practice. For the first time, I began typing my journal entries in September of 2000. Soon I was doing all of my own typing, picking up more speed and feeling liberated that I could do this for myself! It has been fourteen years since I made that unlikely discovery and I type at a normal speed and rarely need to look down at the keyboard. Something called “muscle memory” has made it possible for my left hand to find the keys without looking.
It is miraculous to me to think that I was an expert typist for twenty years, then could not type at all for twenty years no matter how I tried, and now I have been able to type well again, but in a whole new way, for the past fourteen years. Sometimes I look down at that left hand and think how are you doing that! I can only chalk it up as a tender mercy that I clicked on that channel that I never watch just in time to hear the information I needed to hear. After Elder Bednars landmark speech on tender mercies, I analyzed his talk and wrote a hymn on this subject. The first lines say, “Tender mercies of the Lord come in quiet ways / Not by mere coincidence but by heavens grace.” And so it was for me.
Final Thoughts
It has now been 35 years since my hand quit functioning normally. Nothing has changed in my hand, but something has definitely changed inside of me as I have progressed from tears of bitterness and questioning why, to a quiet acceptance of things as they are, knowing that Gods ways are not our ways. Dr. Jeffery taught me a great truth: “If I bear my trial with patience there will come a day when I would not trade having normal use of my hand and arm back, for all I have learned from being without them.” That time came long ago.
Janice Kapp Perry: Composer, author, lecturer
You can find all of Janice’s recordings here at www.JaniceKappPerry.com
Click here for The Savior of the World CD.
Click here for The Savior of the World on iTunes.
