Fear has kept me silent before and sometimes it still does. I hate that kind of fear. It can be constricting, debilitating and shameful. It creates resentment of oneself. Even now and after many years, I feel uncomfortable just thinking and writing about it. 

I used to fear speaking out because of the violence and anger that it would create within my home. That is the fear that sealed my mouth shut and helped me pretend in order to survive.   

Now I am just fearful of being misjudged due to the social and religious stigmas attached to domestic violence. I have worked so hard to put my life back together over the last decade and I don't want to be perceived as victim again, EVER!

During recent years, I have had this strong urge to thoroughly write my own personal history as a way to continue healing, but I haven't done it.

I have dismissed this prompting many times by reminding myself that I have been given a new life and I need to move forward and that the person I was - is no longer and the years I lived with domestic violence are just faded memories of a very bad nightmare. However, 'stuffing' the experience has never felt right to me and it wasn't just a bad dream. It really happened.

This was the first family photo taken of us at the beginning of our journey of healing. The girls often express how this was one of  the happiest summers of our lives. I felt like a caged bird that had been set free. I was so grateful that my children were able to finally have a happy mama. I was determined to set an example of strength and courage for them.

Then I started doing family history and something quite amazing happened. When I started digging into the past, I discovered ancestral stories of sorrow and joy, death and birth, marriage and divorce. There were inspirational stories of journeys completed and knowledge gained. Spiritual and emotional growth were intertwined among generations where some individuals suffered addictions, loneliness, suicide, and trauma. 

Many of those stories were never spoken or told because of social norms or fear of shame. I knew that I needed to include them so that history of my family would be real and authentic. I felt that this knowledge would somehow bless the posterity of my ancestors. I just didn’t realize that these blessings would begin with me.

While I have been gathering and learning about the histories of the people in my family, I have become more confident and proud of even the most difficult parts of my own personal history.  Authentically writing the stories of my ancestors has helped me overcome the fear of sharing the hardest parts of my own. 

Reading about the tragedies, as well as the triumphs of my ancestors, has helped me to make personal connections with them across generations of time. They seem more real to me. I feel like my familiar support system includes those that have gone on before and they are cheering me on in heaven. I am strengthened by their examples and I am learning wisdom from all of their varied choices and different journeys.  

This type of perspective has helped me to see more clearly how the adversity in my life has been an important part of appreciating the joy that I now experience. My joy and gratitude far outweighs any fear that I may still feel and as Great Grandpa Goulé would say, "It has given me the gumption to speak out."

A few years ago, I asked my grandmother Helen Marie Goulé Smith what it felt like to almost be 100 years old. She replied with a chuckle and a twinkle in her eye, "Darling, I feel trapped sometimes. I still feel 20 years old inside. I feel like a young person inside a body that doesn't seem like mine anymore." Even though I know she was trying to find humor and connect with me as a younger person, her response terrified me.  Aging is something that I have been rumbling with lately, especially as I have watched my parents age.

Helen boating in California, 1940's

Recently I visited my grandmother, Helen in the retirement home where she lives. As a family, we had celebrated her 100th birthday just days earlier. When I entered her room I saw that she was sleeping perpendicular on her bed with her legs hanging off the side. It was around 3:00 pm and too early for bedtime. When I first glanced into her dark bedroom and saw her laying this way, my stomach dropped. I thought she had passed away. She had collapsed onto the bed while her favorite Hawaiian music played loudly from her stereo. I turned the volume down and went over to stir her. I breathed a sigh of relief when she moved, smiled, and then closed her eyes again. We laughed about how she was laying on the bed the wrong way and I helped move her feet around and under the covers. Then she said in her grandmotherly way, "Everything will be alright, darling! Everything is going to be OK."

I crawled in next to her and spooned my sweet, frail grandma. I could hear her crying softly, but since her back was to me I could not see her face. This position allowed me to let my own tears flow freely and which to my surprise came so quickly and abundantly. As I laid there I wondered if she was sad because she missed grandpa or if she was frustrated from being caught between earth and heaven. She was sleeping more and the moments she was alert and cognitive required more of an effort. I am sure that her aging body was aching and that she was in pain. Then I wondered about my tears. I knew that I was mourning with her and I felt of her loneliness. She missed grandpa dearly. I missed him also. However, I think that I was also crying about the whole aging thing!

Helen and Harold Smith on their wedding day.

Growing old can be obviously painful and lonely at times. Yet, there is no way to stop the process so I have done a lot of soul searching lately on the subject. Our culture and the media seem to celebrate youthfulness in such a way that there tends to be some shame associated with looking older. As people mature into their 40's, it seems that society immediately looks for and discusses any physical signs of aging. Oftentimes a person's wisdom or life experiences are hardly ever mentioned or valued until their eulogy is written. I wish our society valued wisdom more than beauty.
 

I would like to grow old gracefully and I believe obtaining wisdom is part of that process. Otherwise one just becomes a wrinkled teenager. A person can grow older and not become wise. I believe wisdom is gained when a person continues learning while remaining humble and self-reflective.
While organizing and unpacking some boxes, I found a photo of my Grandmother Helen. It was taken by my daughter, McKenna when she was just 14 years old. She titled it, Beauty is Wisdom and entered it in a photo contest at school.



"Beauty is Wisdom" by McKenna Petty. The subject of her photo is her 95 year old great grandmother, Helen Smith.

 I looked closely at the photo and my grandmother's face and how her wrinkles hugged her smile and wrapped around her bright eyes and I saw joy. I remember when the photo was taken in our front yard at the little Orem house. McKenna got up close to her great-grandma's face that day and started snapping away. While she took these photos, she told her how beautiful she was and lovely her skin was and how she wanted to show others what wisdom meant. Grandma was flattered and joyful and we all smiled in the sun together on that fall day just five years ago. My daughter appreciated how her grandmother's face had changed over time because she recognized the knowledge that she had gained in the process of aging. McKenna knew through family stories and time spent together, that her grandmother valued education and chose to study nursing before marrying grandpa.

Helen Goule, Nursing School Graduation Photo 1937

She had also heard the stories of about how Grandma Helen, as a young mother in the 1940's, worked night shifts at the hospital so that she could be with her children during the day while grandpa worked as an Electrician. McKenna knew in detail how Helen felt about and coped with the polio diagnosis of her small daughter, my mother Penney. Throughout our lives we have all heard our grandmother wisely say, "Don't worry, be happy!" as she has faithfully lived her life.

Penney Smith, polio survivor with her mother, Helen G. Smith

The morning after I found McKenna's photo of my grandmother and had been reminiscing about her 100 year long life, I came across the beautiful, heartfelt story of a mother who was gracefully preparing to die after battling cancer for two years. She was in her forties and ached for more time in her life. Her husband wrote of their life together and their faith and their family and it all brought tears to my eyes.

 Seeing my grandmother's photo, pondering her life, and then reading this dying woman's story all in the same morning had a powerful effect on me. It made me think deeply about my feelings regarding aging and my lack of excitement about wrinkles, etc. I felt extremely humbled as I had this strong realization that growing old is luxury not afforded to many.  And then I felt grateful because I felt a little wiser.

 

Grandma and Grandpa living it up on their Catalina Island Honeymoon, 1937

Grandpa and Grandma Smith loved life and were always up for an adventure!

Heavenly Father blessed me right away with motherhood as Angela (our little 6 year old) came with her daddy to our marriage. As our wedding day approached she would always say, "our wedding", meaning the three of us or "we're getting married". Then as many of you know, the 3 of us were blessed very soon with a little angel from heaven, our Wendy Joy.

Our children bring much joy into our lives. Even when the days are stormy as just last Friday when Angie took sick. After the bad night, she was feeling fine the next morning and her little "I love my mama", sent a ray of sunlight through the clouds. As I was preparing this talk, she said, "Isn't it nice to be a mama?!" Yes, it is!

Jim and I marvel at this wonderful miracle called birth which you especially think about when you have a new little one in the house. She can't talk, and yet looking into those baby eyes, there is a true testimony of the existence of a Divine Creator. How privileged and grateful I feel to have been given a small measure of His creative power in my role as a mother. to know that you have been a part of this creation is the greatest blessing given to man and woman.

My older sister Angie and me. She was so happy to be a 'big sister'.

There is an old proverb which states, "Since God could not be everywhere at once, He created mothers." Along with the joy and happiness associated with motherhood, there comes much responsibility.

Our responsibility as women starts ever before our marriage. It is important to keep high standards, for each child born into the world has the right to be well born of goodly parents. Then as our children are born to us, we acquire the responsibility of rearing them, shaping their character, molding their thoughts, planting in them high ideals, righteous purposes, and faith in God.

Jim and Penney Griffith on their wedding day 3/31/67

Orson Pratt said, "Let each mother commence with her children when young, not only to teach and instruct them, but to chasten and bring them into the most co-operation. For then is the time when they are most easily trained and their tender minds are the most susceptible of influence and government."

My sister Angie sporting a swimming cap and hugging me

When you have a child of your own, you come to truly think of the great principle of pre-existence and how just a short time ago this little one was in the presence of our Heavenly Father, so very pure and innocent as to the ways of this mortal life. This makes me so aware of the complete dependence they have on us to supply their very need. A child's greatest security comes from a pure and unselfish motherly love. 

A little word, a simple word and yet it means so much. Love is the strongest force, and underneath it's magic touch a heart unfolds. Just like a flower that opens to the sun. This is the sweetest thing in life, when all is said and done.

"The mother's image is the first that stamps itself on the unwritten page on a young child's mind. It is her caress that first awakens a sense of security: her kiss, the first realization of affection; her sympathy and tenderness, the first assurance that there is love in the world..." -David O. McKay

In my short experience of motherhood, I find one of the great blessings is all that we learn from our children. Ora Pate Stewart expresses this in her poem, Lullaby,

We have come to the end of a busy,

You have come for a good-night song,

And although you think I am singing for you,

You have sung for me all along.

Your dear little lips, when you kiss me good-night,

Are as sweet as an angel caress;

And your soft little arms, when you hold me 

so tight,

Are the total of happiness.

Then folding your hands in a dimpled clasp,

And climbing upon my knee-

With your head half bowed

And your eyes half closed-

"Bless Daddy and Mama and me."

Today's been a day of correction for you,

I've mingled my tears with your own.

And tonight I am wondering who has taught best,

For I've not been teaching alone.
_______________________________________________

My great grandfather, Noel Henry Thornley Goulé was born January 16, 1886 in Malvern Wells, England. During his adult years, he was known as Harry T. Goulé. I have no idea why he preferred the name Harry over his given name Henry and it’s still a bit of a family mystery.

 I was going through my grandmother’s papers this last summer. Harry’s daughter, Helen at 14 years wrote about her French heritage.  She mentioned the name of this great grandfather who escaped France. She said that his name was Louis Etienne Goulé. It was the first time that I had heard his name so I Googled it, of course. I searched using Google Books rather typical a web search and to my amazement up popped an instant result. I had found Louis Etienne Goulé's obituary published in a society magazine titled, The Gentleman’s Magazine, Vol. XXVIII. It was a small paragraph of just 29 words that immediately connected me across generations and continents, to a childhood story and a great grandfather whose memory was just a whisper in my head. My eyes just overflowed with tears. It was 2:00 am and I sat there crying and downloading and saving and printing. It felt like a little miracle and it was completely unexpected.