A Smelly Lesson

   As I start this memory I need to clarify a thing or two. My Mother was a great believer  and follower of Jesus Christ and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I state this as so no one might misconstrue my lack of straight forwardness in previous blog entries. The things spiritual and scared of nature I hold dear and won't be discussed here, they are held elsewhere.  However, not including my Mother's faith or the women that impacted my life so much would be like talking about the Holy Land and not mentions the Jews, or Italy and the Roman Catholic church. They are synonymous with each other and have effected the outcome and lives of all it's inhabitants.

   My Mother's firm belief in the principal of forgiveness was at her very core. It was a driving factor in the way she lived her life, acted towards others and approached trials and heart ache. I witnessed this so many times in my own life as I would do stupid things and she would simple say "We can't go back and change it, so why worry about it, let's figure out how to fix it." If I learned not to carry a grudge it was because of her, and sayings like this. It doesn't mean you forget...it means you get to control the emotions you remember it with. (a very powerful lesson I was taught) Mom had figured out that time and experience was not reversible, most of us still think in some way that it is and that we can change the past by what we do in the future. Sorry to tell you this, but it doesn't work that way. The past is the past, set in stone, unchangeable, inerasable and unforgettable. We can change our lives so as not to do the same thing. We can do what we can to repair any damage or effect and time will ease the intensity of the memory. Mother believed that only Christ has the power and authority to assist us in all three, but that we are still required to ask, work and apply its principles to be successful. She said "The hardest part of forgiveness will always be the part of forgiving oneself." How true that is.

   As I sit here in my cozy little den on a cool November day, if I let my mind drift back 40 years, I can still smell the acrid smell of Skunk and feel the burn on the right side of my face and the blindness in my right eye slowly creep over the lens... I am 12 years old it is a hot August day. I have been sent to get the irrigation water for the peach trees, I need to walk the ditch from our neighbors fence along the back of the property, down the hill where I can gate the ditch so the water will come out in small streams to go down each of the peach tree furrows. I carry with me a single shot 410 shotgun, and a round nose shovel. Since I am irrigating, I am in boots, levis and a t-shirt. I open the first gate that allows the water to travel down our ditch. As I walk along the path following the water to assure that the ditch is clear of debris, I step around a large bush and on to a large skunk...it opens both spray sacks full at me as I turn and lower my shotgun, the blast at less than two feet disintegrated the animal but not before the green plume had covered my right side with spray and the mist engulf the rest of me. I couldn't breath and crawled several feet to clean air. My skin was on fire, my right eye swollen shut already, my mouth thick with putrid vile stench that coated my tongue, my nostril's screamed from the overload of odor and my head felt as if it might explode. Leaving the gun I crawled to my feet and staggered down the hill, somehow finding my voice calling one word "Mom, Mom, Mom" still don't know how she heard but without hesitation she grabbed me to keep me from falling even though I must have smelled overpowering. As she laid me on the concrete surface of the basketball court above our home, I felt a cool damp cloth over my head and realized it was mom's mumu...she had dampen it in the sprinkler and know she was the one running around in her underwear (Long Garments) . When she returned, she told me to close my eyes and hold my breath for a moment, as I did the smell of vinegar fill the air, breathe she said, ok hold again the white dust everywhere (baking soda) caked my body, then came the unmistakable pop of a canning lid. What had she opened? I was soon rewarded with the answer as tomato juice began to pour over me...and I began to vomit uncontrollability from the skunk spray and smell of vinegar and tomatoes . I hated tomatoes. Even though it was August and hot I shivered on the cement. My Mother inspected my face and eye, she was very worried I might lose sight in my right eye. I had taken a direct blast from the skunk to the face and was very lucky. After awhile the liquid had dried and I had calmed down Mother told me to return to the stream remove all my clothes place them in the stream, place a rock on top of them, retrieve the shotgun and come back down where she would be ready to help me. I did as I was told, walking naked from the stream to the backyard in the day was a new experience since puberty had come, still I wasn't shy maybe just a little more self conscious (and yes it is still my favorite attire). Mom had laid out an old sheet where I laid down and received another round of vinegar, baking soda and tomato juice. Lucky there was nothing left in my stomach to vomit. Once dry I was rinsed by the garden hose and sniffed...nope still stunk like a skunk uuuugh. through the routine again and I still smelled. Then she realized the problem as I dried the next time I found the hair trimmers hooked to and extension cord, off came all my hair, yes ALL my hair truly the first time I would be embarrassed (Yes pun intended) in front of my mother.
The smell was finally gone.

    The clothes including my mothers mumu never lost the smell and had to be discarded. Not everything or everyone can or chooses to be saved. Mom taught me that all we can do is offer what we have, sometimes all we have and even then its not enough. I lost my clothes and my mother lost her mumu but it could have been so much worse. I was fortunate not to loose my eye sight and that is what I remember, not how painful the following weeks were for my eye, the fact that food tasted wrong for a month and nothing smelled right for months until all the nose hairs had replaced themselves. I also remember how immediately  Mother came rushing to my side. She knew what the danger and cost would be, yet there she was to aide and comfort me. Why? Well she believe in Christ and believe that this is how repentance and forgiveness are. Immediate upon asking, gentle, caring and comforting through the process, supportive and healing till finished.

   
   You may believe what you may and I will love you regardless, for I am simply telling you what my Mother believed and lived so you might know and understand her and her actions. We each have our own choices and roads to follow, if you choose to remember Gertrude Madsen, remember her with a smile on her face, open arms, a twinkle in her eye and a knowledge that she believed that every soul was worth her best effort, what love she could give and the freedom to find joy in the path they had chosen.    




Gertrudism #11 "There is no forgiveness without love, there is no love without forgiveness"