Life, Death and Heritage in the Balance

It was a wonderful summer evening. The tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and onions were ripe and ready to be chopped and garnished with fresh cilantro, lime juice and real apple cider vinegar (not the fake stuff). A heavy dash of cumin, some oregano, sea salt and a couple of jalapeños for a little kick. So I chopped and mixed and the famous Cloward family Summer Salsa recipe was prepared and ready for delivery to the widows and friends on the mountain.

It was getting late so our visits Monday evening were quick as the moonlight cast its spell over the lake and season's last hatch of snow flies smashed on the window as we drove back to the lodge. We knew I was at, or near, the bottom of the CHEMO cycle and would likely experience the now all too familiar "drop" in energy and vitality. We just didn't know it would catch me that night with a vengance unlike the previous collapse.

At 10 pm Judy found me chilling and very feverish and I wanted to try to sleep. Sleep for me has become a memory from my prelymphomic night dreams. I was badly in need of rest. However, rest was the last thing on the agenda that Monday night. The night was long and I was far from the hospital when at 4:30 AM I finally got up one more time to get to the bathroom. This time, however, like the parking lot at the office after the last CHEMO cycle, I collapsed. Judy heard me hit the floor and was at my side in a flash. Luckily, John, one of our two not-so-near neighbors, was on the mountain and had his cell phone on. He was quick to get to us to assist Judy in getting me to the car. I didn't remember the ride down the mountain being so long before.

At the emergency room in Provo they again found my blood pressure at 70/30 and suspected with the 103+º temperature meant that we were dealing with a sepsis blood situation due to the absence of the white cells. They put me in ICU and started pumping fluid and antibiotics. I was was in pretty bad shape.

It has been a most difficult week since that flight down the mountain. But, as with all challenge, pain, difficulty and struggle, there has been growth and goodness, faith and friendship and blessing sufficient to the test. Thank you, thank you - please keep the prayers coming. I am off the mountain, but a long way from out of the woods.

The week was oh, so long. As I lay in the hospital bed and watched the coming and going of the life-flight choppers over the long holiday weekend, I was again pained to realize how many others were being called upon to suffer and die in accidents and traffic tragedies. The weekend traffic was heavy and the storms were fierce for so early in the fall. As I looked out at the mountain, the pale of the moon on the aspens from last Monday night's flight had changed to the pale of a new dusting of snow. Oh how I am so not ready for the summer to be past and my labors unfinished.

There is wood and coal to haul, chop and stack. There is staining for the logs and a bit of cement work that has been waiting since spring. And there is the proverbial cleaning of the lodge of the dust and growth of summer which has passed largely with me away from my mountain retreat. Alas, time, summer and life waits on none of us, lymphoma or not. It will all either get finished somehow, or it will wait. Today it will wait.

I am confined to the hospital until my

white cell and neutraphil counts rebound. That could be yet days, maybe weeks. So I continue to work from the bed and cell phone and hope and pray that things will resolve for me to be with each of you at the Reunion Convention - again, prayers please.

As the gurneys shuttled back and forth from the ambulance and the choppers, I couldn't help ponder the lives represented and touched by those on and at the side of the victims. How had they lived? What were their priorities? How had they spent their day, weekend, summer, life, love, passion, service, priorities and values - so far, or totally?

Each of us live in the shadow of the unknown. This allows us to freely choose how and on what we will spend our lives. It allows us the freedom and the agency to determine the "most" important things. For some of us it is "things," for others it is "people" and for some of us it is "cause." For the best of us it is a good balance of each, such that we are not left wishing and wondering when we are called from, or to the mountains of our lives. Balance is tricky business because a choice to focus on one aspect of living is also a choice to not spend it on another. The key is knowing, rather, choosing on what to focus on, when. It seems to me that it is a matter of seasons.

If we are in harmony with the seasons of our day, year and life, we will experience the least regret, loss and disappointment. If we "render" to God, children, spouse, health and work, that focus and time that rightfully belongs to them -- "their" seasons with us, we, while still having wood to chop, will not be so burdened by its constant call to spend our hours, days and summers.

We have just completed a season of summer, with kids and vacations, goings and comings and now back to school. For most Heritage Makers, this has been a season of putting the cause of heritage on back burners, or at least on simmer. It has been necessary while we have tended to the balance of the season of heritage we are both making and protecting. Now, however, the season has changed. It is time for heritage makers, particularly leaders, to rebalance and focus on the business and the "cause."

We have seen a drop in the attendance on Leader Calls and Sr. Leader calls over the summer as the balancing act has taken its toll on time and business priorities. And there are those of you who are not able to connect in at the time of the call, due to work. But now we issue a clarion call to each of our Heritage Makers consultants and leaders. Now is the time to shift and prepare for September, Reunion, fall selling, workshops and your clients and teams.

Important announcements are being made on the Leader call today. If you are qualified, please do not miss the call. If you are not yet a Director, please get with your Director after the call for details and then, please stretch and become an HM Director. We need you. The cause needs you and there is growth and excitement in the days ahead that you will not want to miss. Now is the season for "Fall Selling Salsa" and we have a great recipe for you. Things are about to get really "hot" and we don't want you to miss out on a single bite of the new taste of heritage in the making.

Leaders, today we will be discussing the Leadership Principle of Life and Death. I believe it will help to move you into the new month, season and mindset. I look forward to sharing some impressions from my bedside with you. Please be there.

Onward and Upward

Love Doug