Where Did Love Get Lost?

By Nichole Giles

This next weekend my grandpa’s extended family is getting together for the first reunion in eleven years. Regrettably, we won’t be able to make it to this one, but we hope to attend another function of some kind, where we’ll be able to see those relatives we only see once or twice a year. Sadly, I realize that in many cases I won’t be seeing some of my relatives until next Christmas, or possibly summer 2010. How sad. And yet, mostly unavoidable.

With the approach of summer and gatherings, I find myself thinking about relationships of all kinds, and the efforts required for each one. The truth is, there is no relationship in existence that doesn’t require work or effort from all parties involved. Be it the relationship between man and woman, husband and wife, parent and child, siblings, friends, colleagues…heavens, even a relationship between a pet and owner. All types require us to…well, do something.

In order to have a relationship with someone, you need to spend time with them, have conversations with them, and understand where the boundaries are. Make no mistake, every relationship has boundaries, or in other words, rules of how you are and are not allowed to treat one another. For those of us who choose to cross those lines, do we know what the consequences will be? We should, and yet so often we don’t.

For example: If I…choose to call up my step-mother and curse and swear at her because I don’t like the gift she gave us for Christmas, (even though she put a LOT of thought and effort into having it custom made) she—as well as my father—may choose to not speak to me for a long time. And they’d be justified because I was acting like an immature, spoiled, brat. When someone gives you a gift, especially one which was made out of love (however that love can be misconstrued), you say, “Thank you for the thoughtful gift.” And if you absolutely hate it, you put it away somewhere and only ever take it out when that person is coming for a visit. This is not an opinion, people. It’s a matter of respect. But what are the consequences? I guess it depends on the people involved and their ability to forgive and forget—or not.

Example number two: If a husband has a choice between going to his daughter’s dance recital and working overtime (for no extra pay) and chooses to work, the wife has every right to be angry, and so does the daughter. And if that same husband (by the way, this example is NOT my husband) then opts to work on major holidays like Christmas, or during big family reunion picnics in order to avoid visiting family members or setting up new toys, how is his family supposed to feel? Is this a healthy situation? Is it okay for work to be more important, more desirable than family? Absolutely not. That’s not an opinion either. It’s a matter of love, and if your love becomes twisted in such a way that money becomes more important than the people it supports, well…where does love go then? Again, it depends on the people. But my guess is that at some point, the happy family will break down.

Example number three: Two friends, who have been close in childhood, move on with their lives. One gets married and has kids; the other friend gets married, but soon divorces and spends several years single again—with no children. If the married friend continues to keep in touch with, to check on, and be concerned about the single friend, she is being a true friend. But if the single friend waits for her married friend to always call—rarely returning calls herself—visit—never even wondering how big the children are getting—and generally puts forth little or no effort, the relationship falls flat. Eventually, the married friend will feel like a burden to the single friend and slowly fade out of her life. Because the truth is, a one-sided friendship isn’t a friendship at all.

I’m not trying to analyze the relationships between others (although it may appear that way) but instead, I’m wondering about my own relationships and hoping I can pay close attention to those people who matter to me. When they grow up and move away, will my kids remember that I was there for them at the most important moments? Or will they look back and say; too bad my mom missed the best things? When my husband is gray and wrinkled, will he look back in time and know that I was the best, most faithful, loving wife I could be? When I die, will there be a hundred acquaintances lined up to give condolences, or a handful of close, loving friends clutching each other and bawling their eyes out wondering why I had to go at the tender-young age of a hundred and five?

Now don’t get me wrong on the other end of the spectrum, either. I’m not saying you have to spend every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon with Grandma Lindsay, whose only known conversational skill is that of complaint. Nor am I expecting that we should all invite great uncle Jim—the person who is constantly looking for only negative things like the temperature being one degree too high, the water too tepid, and the food to bland, no matter who is taking care of him, and always without a word of thanks—to move into the guestroom and live with us indefinitely. Unhealthy relationships can be a drastic energy drain, and when you put so much effort into a relationship that never changes and never gives forth any kind of gratification, all you get is exhausted. Even though we love these people and want to spend some time with them, there has to be some effort to balance the scales, or eventually, we’ll lose our ability to deal with any of it.

I’m not a relationship expert. And I’m a long, long way from perfect with these things. But I am trying to learn from my life experiences. And I learn a little bit more with each year that passes. I hope with a bit of effort I can strengthen my relationships with the people who matter to me. I’m looking for balance on all levels, and I’ve learned that life balance starts first in the relationship with one’s self, and then in the relationships with the key people in a person’s life. Family, close friends, neighbors, work associates…it all fans out from there.

Does that make sense?

I don’t often allow myself to ramble—especially on my public blogs. But more and more often I watch the way some people treat others, and I do not understand where love got lost. Not just the love between family members or friends, but love for our neighbors, our community, and our fellow human beings. Have we really become so callous that we can turn our heads to a homeless person on the street? Is the universe we live in truly so imbalanced that we would lose completely the desire to acknowledge the existence of each other? The needs of each other?

I don’t understand. Not at all. And I realize I can’t fix the thoughts running around the heads of other people. Nor can I tell anyone besides myself how to fix the problems of the world. What I can do is work on the issues in my own self, and make a large effort to balance the scales in my life. I can be a good example to my children, and try to teach them the same things I’ve learned.

And if, for some reason, someone gives me a gift—even if it’s a used, re-gifted, odd dollar amount gift card—I’ll accept it graciously and say, “Thank you for the thought.”

And people, my words will not be a lie.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Pushing My Luck

By Nichole Giles

A few days ago, my friend Cindy offered to help me pray for a little snow, because even though the towns around us were getting piles, we had none. So, I took her up on her offer, and Cindy prayed. Now, in case you’re wondering about my motivation (if you know me, you’re scratching your head wondering if someone spiked my Dr. Pepper—I usually hate snow) it all has to do with snowball launchers, specialty sleds and Santa…Anyway, yesterday I asked her to please stop praying. The grass was covered and the air clean—the light blanket we received was plenty as far as I was concerned. Cindy claimed she would stop. But the snow kept falling.

This morning I woke up to a pure white world. White roads, white trees, white cars, white houses, and people covered in cold, slushy, white. I thought it was pretty at the time. As luck goes, this morning my husband and I both had appointments in different cities, meaning one of us could drive the four-wheel-drive truck, and one would have to brave the unplowed roads in my Mustang. Uh oh.

More luck dictated that since Gary’s appointment was twenty miles away and mine was only a mile and a half, the person driving the sports car (with no, none, nada traction) would be me. Bummer.

Now, this is not a complaint, mind you. I love my car every day of the year. I just don’t drive her in the snow. She’s made for sunshine, not slush. Snow is bad for her health.

But today…

So Gary left for his appointment, and a little while later, it was nearly time for mine. I purposefully prepared to leave fifteen minutes earlier than I normally would—to allow for driving in snow conditions. When I opened the garage door to snow taller than my bumper, I should have closed it right back down and stayed home.

But my nails were in need of serious repair. So I put the Mustang (aka Squeak) in reverse and slid down the driveway, glad I had a large space for sliding and nothing to crash into.

Getting stuck at the bottom of my own driveway should have been the second sign telling me I really should just stay home. But after living in Utah for seventeen-odd years, I’m finally getting better at getting my car unstuck—or, sort of. I turned the wheel right and punched the gas, then turned the wheel left and punched the gas. After repeating this several times, I reversed again and realized I could gain traction going backward. So, I backed down the street until I felt a little snag in the ice, and then I shifted to drive. My tires spun and I repeated my wheel turning motion until—after ten minutes of struggling—I finally got out of my neighborhood. The fact that I backed most of the way was irrelevant.

Yes! I was on my way. I ignored the nagging little fear lodging in my brain telling me my own driveway was the easy part, and slowly made my way to a busier street—certain that snowplows and SUV’s would have cleared away at least some of the snow.

Not so. The first traffic light held me up a little, as I slid around hoping to gain purchase and NOT be stuck in the middle of the intersection, but I made it through and was able to join the other crazy people who were braving the weather. Slowly and with caution I inched my way through the second light—trying not to crane my neck to see the flashing lights of emergency vehicles to my right. Other people were not so lucky as me. At the last minute, someone driving a compact car from the other direction decided to turn—right in front of me. I slammed on my breaks. Slide, slide sliiiiiiiiide.

I said some not-so-nice words, referring to a lack of brain cells in the crazy woman’s head, and missed sliding into her by a fraction of an inch. Another sign? Not to me!

Switching on some Christmas music, I plowed forward. Slipping and sliding for the entire mile and a half, and thirty minutes after leaving my house, I parked, brushing snow out of my hair as I ran for the building.

When I was through, I said to my friend Anet, “I hope I’m not stuck in your parking lot.” And laughing, jumped in my car. Duh. Did I jinx myself? No way. I got out of the parking lot. And got stuck on the street.

I turned my wheel this way and that, backed up, moved forward, and rocked my car. All the old tricks except having someone push the car. Luckily, a man in a tractor had come to plow the parking lot. He jumped out of the tractor and single handedly pushed me out of a bank of snow I was now lodged in. “Thanks!” I yelled as I drove away, not daring to stop again. I took the long way home, afraid to make a u-turn on the ice. The long way took me past two gas stations where a sudden, overwhelming thirst dictated my next decision.

The drive through window beckoned.

Without thought, the wheel turned and before I realized what I was doing, my tires spun at the bottom of another parking lot. As soon as I realized this, I turned the wheel in the other direction and maneuvered myself out of that parking lot, and across the street to the other one. But I should have known better. I was pushing my luck already.

I slid into a parking stall thinking, As long as I can go backwards, I’m fine.

But I wasn’t fine. I was good and stuck. After three large men and one woman pushed me out of the stall, I slid backwards into another one. My engine revved and my tires spun, but to no avail. The people around me laughed.

“That car shouldn’t be out in this weather,” said a man.

Yeah, I thought. I know.

“You should get some rock salt for your trunk.”

“Good idea,” I agreed. “Or maybe I should go home and be done for the day.”

As a second set of people tried to push me out, a woman I knew stopped in her SUV.
“Looks like you’re stuck,” she said.

Really? I thought. You think? But I said, “Yep.”

“If you want to leave your car, I’ll take you home.”

That was the best idea I’d heard yet. I turned off the engine, and left the car where it was, parked sideways but mostly out of the way—sort of. Three hours later, as Gary sat at the wheel and four people pushed the hood, he said, “Hm. I think you might need some snow tires.”

Really? I thought. You think?

And I drove home in the warm, four-wheel-drive truck and didn’t leave my house again except to get my kids from school. The moral of the story is, never ask your friends to pray for snow.


Epilogue: I wondered if my poor little Squeak would have to be left at the gas station until the spring thaw. Oh the torture! But Gary was able to get her going and take her home to her warm garage—where she will stay until the snow melts. She is, after all, a sun car.

Stephenie Meyer Nailed "The Host"

By Nichole Giles

Well, I finally got to it. After months of whittling down the never-ending pile of books on my dresser, I finally got to read The Host.

I have to admit, I was worried, for more than one reason. First, I was concerned at the size. A book that big is either going to so engross you that you can’t concentrate on anything else, or drag on so long that you can’t stand to finish it—or if you do finish, it takes a month. I’m going to be honest, I don’t have a month to dedicate to one single book—unless it’s my own. And I’ve been hesitant to open a book that will consume my mind when I have about fifty other things I should be working on—though it was so tempting.

Another thing that deterred me was my love for Stephenie’s Twilight series. I loved her vampire / werewolf world, but that was a fantasy. And it was such a wonderful success, I wasn’t sure I wanted my opinion of her writing to be diminished in any way. I worried that her attempt at science fiction would leave me disappointed. Also, I’d heard mixed opinions on The Host.

Then there’s the thing. The one big thing—actually, come to think of it, the same reason I put off reading Twilight. Those idiotic thoughts running through my brain (this is called closed-mind syndrome, and we all get it from time to time) that made me think, “Ew, invasion of the body snatchers? That doesn’t sound appealing at all.” Except when it was Twilight, I thought, “Ew, vampire romance? No thanks.”

So, it is with humble chagrin that I admit how wrong I was on all accounts. The Host was every bit as brilliant and wonderful as Twilight. It had romance, and friendship, and impossible relationships—even a love triangle of sorts.

The size wasn’t bad once I got started. I read the entire thing in about three days. Not quite as quickly as I read Twilight, but considering that I was sick in bed then, and that this time I had to keep up on other writing / editing projects as I read The Host, I thought that was pretty great.

Stephenie proved to be every bit as brilliant writing science fiction as she is writing fantasy. Her characters are well developed, her plot continuing forward at a steady pace, and the conflicts always present, even hovering at the edges of thought. Her writing is engrossing and full of emotion and feeling.

So, that brings me to my last point. I will never doubt one of Stephenie Meyer’s books again. But not for reason’s you are thinking.

Being a writer myself, and an avid reader, I’ve learned a lot about the way authors work. I’m going to use Nora Roberts as an example. The first book I read of hers was brilliant, and wonderful, and I was an instant convert. Of course, I went right back to the library and picked up five more, which I read in the period of about two weeks. I continued this pattern until I’d read all the Nora Roberts books in two libraries. Then I started buying the other ones. After having read twelve or thirteen, I finally got a trilogy that was one of Nora’s earlier works. This trilogy was wonderful too. Well-developed characters, a complex plot, fantasy elements, all of it. But I could tell it was an earlier work. Part of it was wording, I think, and lack of certain details I’d come to know of Nora’s work. And there was just something about the entire series that told me it was years old.

My point is, I didn’t think any less of the earlier series because I read it after several of her later ones. But I was able to see certain elements of style and description in some of her books that weren’t necessarily present in earlier ones. She started out as a brilliant, talented author. Her books were loved for a reason, and with every book she has written, she’s become better. The first ones were wonderful, and each consecutive book got better.

That’s how Stephenie Meyer is for me. Twilight was brilliant. New Moon was better, and so full of heartache and emotion that I couldn’t help but bawl. Eclipse was action packed and full of even more of that emotion I’d loved in the first two. And Breaking Dawn was the perfect finish for the series, even though the end fizzled just a bit. It was the all time most-happy vampire / werewolf ending.

I’m not saying The Host was better than the others, because it’s very different in so many ways. But Stephenie’s writing style is very present, still there, and her ability to inject large amounts of emotion into her story is strong and true. I’m constantly impressed with her creativity and her fresh new ideas that will continue to suck readers in on the first page, and keep them engrossed until the very last. By the time I finished, I was disappointed that the story was actually over. I might have read it through a second time if my fifteen-year-old son hadn’t taken it from me. (And he’d already read it twice!)

What else can I say, except, way to go, Stephenie. Thanks for creating such inspiring and entertaining stories. You deserve your own happy ending.

The Host receives five diamonds!

Someone Stole Christ

By Nichole Giles

For the past few years, Clear Horizons Academy, a private school for autistic children, has held an auction to help fund scholarships to pay tuition for special needs children. Tickets to the event include entry to the silent auction, a formal dinner, entertainment, and a live auction featuring beautiful art pieces, furniture, and even a baby grand piano. It’s a wonderful event, focusing on autism, and the progress children can make by having their special needs understood.

My dear friend, Tiffany Wood-McCarthy, is on the board of trustees, and because of her, I was lucky enough to snag a couple tickets to this year’s event. When we showed up, the silent auction was underway. Gary and I perused the tables, bidding on the things we thought we could use, knowing the money was going to a good cause.

Among the items featured were a few canvas prints from talented local artists. One—by Liz Lemmon Swindle—happened to be a stunning portrait of Christ holding a little boy on his shoulder in a wheat field. Raylene, another of my friends, fell instantly in love with the portrait, and continued to increase her bid through the duration of the auction. In the end, her number was the last one on the bid ticket, and she laughed with glee as we left the silent auction to go into the next room for the dinner.

Ten minutes later, a few of us snuck out to have a group picture taken—my four girlfriends and I—in our nice clothes. Someone had donated a beautiful island themed Christmas tree for the silent auction, so we snuck over to pose in front of the tree. As we did, Raylene noticed that the canvas of Christ was gone. “Hey,” she said. “Where did my painting go?”

Tiffany scrunched her forehead. “Maybe they started taking the items to the register already.” And then we all went back to finish our dinners and participate in the live auction.

At the end of the night, though, the painting couldn’t be found. Sometime between the silent auction and the dinner, it was stolen.

Now, it’s bad enough to steal something. No matter what, it’s dishonest. But how does one wrap their mind around stealing a picture of CHRIST? From a children’s charity, no less. To me, that’s tantamount to stealing a stained glass window from a church or temple. It just isn’t done. Like I said, stealing is a terrible thing anyway, but…if you’re stealing, how can you dare look at a painting like that as you carry it out of the building? Wouldn’t you feel Him watching your dishonest actions?

I just don’t get it.

Last month, I was running errands and picked up a couple of Christmas gifts. As I went through the checkout, I realized I didn’t have my checkbook, and because I was digging through my purse, didn’t listen to the dollar amount the clerk announced, just blindly ran my credit card through the machine. Luckily, I have a habit of scanning receipts before I leave a store. When I looked closely, I realized I’d only been charged for one of the two items in my bag.

From the doorway, I looked back. The lines were very long, and I was in a bit of a hurry. I’d watched the lady scan my items, and she had scanned both—so maybe (I tried to convince myself) they were on a two-for-one sale? But the original purchase was for ten dollars, and I knew I should owe another fifteen.

What should I do?

It would have been so easy to walk out, dump the bag in my trunk and feel glad I’d saved myself fifteen dollars. Except then I’d have had to live with knowing I hadn’t paid for that item, and every time I looked at it, I’d feel a pang of guilt that I’d stolen it. Even though it wasn’t intentional.

I turned around. A security guard stopped me in the front of the store. “Did you have a return?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “Actually, I was checking my receipt and noticed I didn’t get charged for one of my items. I need to go back and pay for it.”

The security guard was so impressed, he walked me to the front of the line where I’d originally paid and asked the embarrassed employee to hurry and ring me up again. It cost me less than five minutes and fifteen dollars to be honest that day.

As I drove home, I wondered about how I would have reacted if the situation were reversed. Then I remembered it had been. Last year I was charged seventeen dollars for a tube of toothpaste. It was a complete computer error, but you can believe I was all over it. I marched myself to customer service immediately to get my fifteen dollars back and though I wasn’t angry at the store employees, I sighed a breath of relief that I’ve taught myself to be diligent in checking my receipts. This year, I had another opportunity to feel that relief, though from the other side of the spectrum.

I don’t know how to live with small dishonesties like that. I’ve spent my life believing in the importance of honesty, which is why I have such a hard time understanding how someone could steal a portrait of Christ. How will they live with themselves?

I don’t understand the universe, and I can’t answer that question. All I can do is promise myself that I, personally, will choose to make honest choices and try to be a good example of honesty to my children.

As for the auction, I’m thinking next year Clear Horizons may have to hire security. But it’s like Tiffany said. “If they really needed a portrait of Christ bad enough to steal it, I feel sorry for them.”

Yep. I agree.