Porter Thorkelson - a GREAT KID Needs Your Prayers!

For those of you who are so inclined…

We have a wonderful young man in our ward named Porter Thorkelson. The Thorkelson family moved in a few years ago, and I met Porter while driving him to a scout jamboree, down at the U. To say that the day was awful would be unnecessarily kind. The event was disorganized, poorly designed, and over-attended. I felt bad for myself, having to be there all day. But I felt even worse for the boys – for many, this was their first experience with Scouts.

Throughout the day, we would regroup as a scout troop, and try to figure out where everyone was supposed to be. Porter brought comic relief to each of these “get-togethers.” Finally, when we mercifully decided to leave early, Porter entertained me and the kids in my car, during the entire trip back to our homes. I was struck by how deep and subtly sarcastic his humor was. (Everyone who knows me knows that I love sarcasm. Subtle sarcasm is the best – where you and maybe only one or two other people get it) I remember telling his father that I had really enjoyed Porter, in part, because he has “an adult’s sense of humor.” His dad’s face told me that I probably needed to explain that better, which I did. (No dirty jokes, Dad. Just comments and the occasional barb that showed a refined intelligence.)

Porter messing around. He's always messing around; and if there is a new kid that needs to be welcomed, Porter is there!

Porter with one of his wonderful sisters.

About two weeks ago, Porter hurt his leg playing rugby. It didn’t seem like a big deal, at the time – it was just something that would require a little time to rest. When the swelling wasn’t receding after a few days, Porter’s parents took him back to the doctor, and the doctor ran some tests. You can imagine the family’s dismay when the doctor said, “We need to get Porter in right away to do a biopsy on the area where his leg is swelling." And by “right away,” they weren’t talking about the next available appointment, next week sometime. They were talking about going to the hospital right then, and staying until the biopsy was successfully taken. Several excruciating hours later, the doctors took Jared and Mary Ann (Porter’s wonderful father and mother) into a small conference room in the hospital to give them the bad news: Porter had bone cancer, and it was serious. Their recommendation was to place a port into Porter’s chest while they had him in the hospital, and start using it for aggressive chemotherapy treatments as soon as they could be scheduled. They were hopeful about saving him. Their plan is to go aggressive with the chemotherapy for about three weeks. Then, they will do surgery, I assume to remove any trace of the tumor they can find. If the tumor has spread, or if it is just bigger than they anticipated, they will remove the leg. Following surgery, they will start the chemotherapy again for at least another month.

One tough kid. Porter told his family that if anyone in the family had to get cancer, he was glad it was him.

Since we heard this news last weekend, I have been walking around in a bit of a funk. Of course, I love Porter. The world needs a boy like Porter! He has way too much to offer for his mission here to be finished. What put me in more of a funk, though, was the horrifying thought of what Jared and Mary Ann are going through. I’ve hugged my kids more this week than I had in a long time. Porter is a healthy kid. You would have never known something like this could be lurking in his body. The unpredictability of it just really gets me.

So, back to what I was alluding to in the opening line of this post. Our entire ward held a special fast for Porter on April 15. Even if you don’t know Porter, fasting for Porter would be so appreciated. If fasting is not your thing, we would welcome your prayers. And this definitely isn’t an exclusively Mormon invite. We welcome folks of all races, genders, and religions to join us in raising up our voices to our Heavenly Father (or whatever presence you pray to, when you do such things).

Also, Porter's family and friends will be wearing blue on April 27th, and posting pictures to the Support Porter Facebook page.

(On a side note, I just reread the talk given by Elder Neal L Andersen during the Sunday afternoon session of General Conference. If you haven't read it, you should. It's here:  What Thinks Christ of Me?    It's pertinent to this situation with Porter.)

Porter’s father has put up a Facebook page, to provide updates on his condition. If you would be interested in joining, drop me an email through Facebook, and I will get you an invite.

Thanks in advance for your participation, friends!

Paul

The Lady Pooper

Lucy comes into my office this morning: "Daddy, Mom needs you to get some Tylenol. It's on the Lady Pooper in the bathroom!'

I give her a blank look. "The what, Goose?"

"The Lady Pooper!" She gives me an exasperated sigh. "Come on! I'll show you!"

I follow her down into the bathroom. She opens the bathroom cabinet door, and points to the round double-shelf that turns on a swivel. "It's on there!"

"Lucy, tell me what that is, again?" I ask.

She giggles a little, in response: "I don't want to!"

"Come on, Goosey," I say, smiling, "Tell me what it's called!"

"Um, I think it's the 'Lady Pooper?'" She mumbles the second half of the sentence, as her face turns bright red.

I can't contain my laughter. "Oh sweet Lucy! That's called a 'Lazy Susan!'"

"Whatever, Dad! Mom wants the Tylenol!"

A few minutes later, she comes back into my office, gives me a big, unsolicited hug, and says sweetly: "Daddy, you won't tell anyone about what I called that, will you?"

"Of course not, sweetie."

Chalk one up for the Anderson family lore!

Lucy and the Family's Butts

So, the other day, I needed to edit a video on my iPad. This isn’t a task I perform regularly, so I had to get some instruction from an Apple-obsessed nephew (thanks, Alex) on the process. When I start importing my video, I notice that my Camera Roll – the folder the iPad uses to store pictures and videos – is full of pictures. This is strange. I don’t remember having ever used my iPad to snap pictures.

So, I start going through the pictures, and I see a trend. They seem to have been taken from a perspective of about three-and-a-half feet off the ground. There are pictures of the dogs. There are pictures of Barbies, going about their daily Barbie business (eating, lounging, looking fabulous, etc). There are pictures of various household items. There are lots of pictures of my lovely Lucy, like this one.

Some of these have been edited, like this one (I have no idea where she learned to do this – my then four-year-old little girl said she just figured it out herself).

And then, there are pictures of butts: Paxton’s butt; Sue’s butt; my butt; the dogs’ butts (including one particularly-nauseating close-up of Boris the angry Bulldog’s butt) – just butts! The only person whose butt is missing from the collage is Lucy’s.

Drugged-Up Dinosaurs – Road Trip to Colorado!

So, we just got back from our annual New Year’s trip to Colorado. Since we’ve been married, I think we’ve only missed this trip one year. The drive is a little over 500 miles – about 8 ½ hours, if you stay reasonably close to the speed limit. I estimated this to be my 75^th round trip, Salt Lake City to Denver. I love the drive! Susan and Lucy usually drive one way, and then fly back. I would much rather drive – even at 11,000 feet, in the middle of winter. We’ll typically stay in a hotel on the way out – it breaks the monotony; and the kids love staying in hotels. Then, Pax and I will drive straight through on the way back.

This year’s highlights:

·       Arriving at the hotel, and watching Pax and Lucy act punch-drunk with the energy they’d accumulated, being in the car for four hours. One minute, they loved each other. The next, they – um – didn’t. At one point, Lucy said they were running around like “drugged-up dinosaurs.” (No idea where she got that!)

·       Listening to the cacophony of Lucy singing along loudly with fairly horrible pop tunes (e.g. Party in the USA), while Pax loudly expresses his dissatisfaction with Lucy’s choice of music. (“AND THE JAY-Z SONG WAS ON!” “This song SUCKS! Dad, tell her to turn it off!” “AND THE BRITNEY SONG WAS ON!” “OH MY GOSH! THIS SONG SOUNDS LIKE IT WAS WRITTEN ON THE SHORT BUS!” “MOVIN’ MY HIPS LIKE ‘YEAH!’” “DAD! I hope you know that this is making us all DUMBER!”)

Good times! Not bad times!

Christmas, Part One!

I could hardly have one of these newfound blogs, and not blog about Christmas. Am I right?

So, Christmas! Christmas was a dark holiday in the Bubka home growing up. I wish there was a bright side to that, but it really is what it is. As we approached my seventh Christmas – not surprisingly, one of the first Christmases that I can really remember – my mother died in a car accident. We had a little, red Volkswagen Bug at the time – honestly, it was probably a horrible car for the harsh winters in Denver, where I grew up. One Saturday evening, a couple weeks before Christmas, my mom had to drive up into the mountains west of Denver on an errand. On the icy roads on the way home, she drove off the road, into a fairly deep ravine, and died from her injuries.

There was a bit of a pall over Christmas in our home from that time forward. We still celebrated, of course. But as the Christmas tree went up each year, I always remembered the Christmas that Mom died. I never articulated it, but I kind of thought of Christmas as a yearly memorial to my mother. And my Dad, God bless him, wouldn’t have been great at Christmas, under the best of circumstances.

My Dad was a lot of things – most of them very positive. He was a great provider. He was as honest as the day is long. He was a hard worker. He was a good, Bible-believing, God-fearing, Christian man! One of the things that really shaped his character was living in Manhattan during the Great Depression. He learned to conserve, and to live a frugal life. Frugality is not a bad philosophy to have, in a lot of ways; but Christmastime as the son of a frugal father left a little something to be desired.

Goose's Dance Recital - WITH INSULTS!

Ah, there is truly nothing like a dance recital - sincerely! I so look forward to Lucy's dance recitals. Most of this is because I am obviously quite fond of Lucy. But even beyond that, I think it's cute how proud, nervous, and excited these girls get. And up until about Lucy's age, they don't have experience with buffering their thoughts and emotions. You get what they are - in all of its raw, unfiltered glory.

We still laugh about the tiny three-year-old girls who got into a shoving match last year when they both felt their personal space was being breached by the other girl. For them, the dance was over, just seconds after it started. While their peers were going about their performances on the stage all around them, these two little balls of fury traded shoves - neither was willing to give in. Even when the music ended and they walked off the stage, they were staring daggers into each other.

This year, a little girl walked onto the stage, just as excited and happy as she could be - at least until she turned and saw the big, scary crowd. Then she froze, stuck out her bottom lip, and started to wail. The other girls awkwardly tried to ignore her - to dance around her; but she was front and center - literally and figuratively. Finally, one of her instructors mercifully came out and carried her off.