Raising A Soul Surfer (14 page)

When Noah was about three years old, the hotel where both Tom and I worked closed down for a few months for refurbishment. It was tight money-wise, but we made it work. However, when our hotel finally reopened, four out of eight of the banquet waitresses were pregnant. I was one of them. Apparently, we had too much time on our hands during furlough.

The only dip in the road to my second pregnancy was that because we weren’t working during the hotel refurbishment, we had no health insurance when Timmy was born. To save the hospital expense, we decided to try a home birth with a midwife and doctor standing by. After a quick labor, our second son, Timmy, was born; but because he was suffering from jaundice, we ended up in the hospital anyway.

I remembered thinking that maybe I should only have one child because I could never have enough love for two. Then, when my second son, Timmy, arrived, I found that God had enlarged my heart with the capacity to love them both with equal intensity. (Although I do have to admit that being enraptured
with our newborn, Timmy, we accidentally left Noah at Sunday School. When we got home, Tom said, “Where’s Noah?” Embarrassed, we raced back to church. As for Noah, he was busy playing and never even missed us.)

Adjusting to this new chapter of our lives was challenging.

After a few months of being home with our baby, I had to go back to work. Because Tom and I both worked as banquet waiters in the same hotel, we were able to organize our schedules so that one of us worked mornings and the other worked evenings. We didn’t see much of each other as we passed Noah and Timmy off to each other like little footballs; but by juggling our schedule, we were at least able to raise them without too many baby-sitters.

Every day with the boys, living so close to the beach, I watched the perfect waves breaking; and as I watched my friends paddling out into the surf, I admit that it was difficult for me. What I didn’t quite realize at the time was that God uses children to help us “die to ourselves.” I learned this in small increments, through small sacrifices and daily exercises of patience. Love motivated me to lay down my life, my personal interests for the sake of my little boys.

All new parents probably experience a shock at the way a new baby changes the old rhythm of life. In my case, understanding that I needed to put myself second or third or even last allowed me to encourage Tom to go out and get a bit of surf whenever he had a break. On occasion, when time allowed, I still went out surfing.

Now that we had a real house—and not just a shanty—I was rudely awakened to the fact that living in vans and cars had not prepared me to be much of a skilled housewife, especially when caring for a newborn baby for the first time. So I developed some quirky house-cleaning strategies that I still use today and
have taught my youngsters to use as well. One can only be dubbed the infamous Laundry Basket Pick-Up.

When the house was cluttered with stuff everywhere—the sink overflowing with dishes, and clothes and baby things on the couch and floor—and someone stopped by for a visit, I’d yell out, “Just a minute!” hand the baby to Tom and grab a laundry basket. Then I’d race around the house, cramming stuff into the basket, no matter what it was, and take the overflowing basket of clutter evidence to the bathroom, stowing it behind the shower curtain. Then I’d run back and open the door to reveal a nice, well-kept living room for our guest.

Now, I can be an excellent housekeeper, but if you were to ever visit our house, you might not believe me. It seems that we’re always running out the door to chase waves, get to church, get to school or work, or head off on some wild new adventure. There’s little time to keep up with everyone’s messes, including my own!

As one kid went to two, and then three, I got so overwhelmed with trying to keep up with the clutter that I would try coming up with ways to enlist everyone’s help. When the kids were little, I came up with a way to at least get them to pick up some stuff, almost like a game. I’d tell them it was time for everyone to do a “10 pick up and put away,” and then we’d run around making a dent in the clutter. As the kids got older, I increased the number of items to “100 pick up”! Of course, when I’d announce it was time for the “100 Pick Up” game, they would wince, but we all could see the results of working together on an overwhelming situation.

To be frank, we live in a jumbled house, more often than not. Every person has to prioritize the important things in life, and for me, organizing everything and having a place for everything isn’t that super high on my list. Plus, whenever I get busy, it gets even more difficult to keep things straight.

That’s why this year I gave Tom one of his gifts a month and a half after Christmas. It wasn’t the first time I’d forgotten where I hid a Christmas present only to find it once I got around to straightening out this or that closet. It has become a family joke: The busier Mom gets, the more it can be Christmas all year round!

So much for saving money.

With two kids, we decided to move into a larger house on the riverfront in Hanalei. One vivid memory is of Tom teaching Noah how to fish for tilapia in the river. Those were great times. Our home was tiny. It was the old single-wall construction, no drywall, just painted wood. It had a rusty tin roof that made the noise of a thousand tiny drummers when it rained. We loved it there.

What we lacked in monetary wealth we had in natural beauty and a simple lifestyle that many people long for. Here’s a snapshot of our country life, Hawaiian style: Fruit “dripped” from trees; fish filled the rivers and ocean; pristine waves peeled along the point. Stepping out of our home, we could see the emerald-colored cliffs rising up into the clouds as waterfalls cascaded into the valley below. That was only one of the views; on the other side was the river as it met the turquoise ocean, surfers gracefully moving along the waves.

Because Tom and I were such water people, we made sure that our kids learned to be water babies. After all, when you live on an island, it’s a good idea to acclimate your kids to it as soon as possible. We lived in a house on the beach for two years when Noah was one to three years old. I was very concerned that his independent mind might decide to enjoy the water when I wasn’t looking. So I decided to give him a big-wave education to teach him to respect the ocean. I took him by the hand, and we stood in the shore break with the waves crashing against us. He could
handle it because I was holding on to him. He never, ever went down to the water without Mom or Dad!

Noah was four years older than Timmy, and it wasn’t long before we started to get him up and standing on a surfboard in the shallow water near the pier. I was definitely a pleased mom!

Each of our kids learned to swim early. Tom and I would take them often to a friend’s pool or to the ocean. If a child has been around the water enough to the point where he enjoys it and is not fearful because of lack of familiarity, it is simple to teach him the basics of swimming. We took all of our kids to the local swim program as soon as they turned three.

Still, a parent should never stop being vigilant, because that fatherly awareness helped save Timmy’s life when he was around three-and-a-half years old. Tom and I had taken the boys to surf the ankle-slapper waves in the shallows next to the Hanalei pier. I went surfing while Tom sat in the car as Bethany slept in her car seat. The boys were sharing a surfboard while Tom, parked near the pier, watched them over a surf magazine.

After sharing the surfboard with his little brother for the better part of an hour, Noah decided that he wanted it all for himself, and he sent his little brother back to the beach. The water was shallow enough for Timmy to walk in, but a riptide had formed a few yards from the shore, racing parallel to the beach and creating a deep channel. Timmy, up to his chest in the shallow water, stepped right into it and was swept away.

Tom looked up just in time to see his youngest son hurtling toward the pier, tiny hand extended upward in a universal sign for help. Timmy, a quiet, peaceful child, never cried out as he was swept along; he just kept his head above water. Tom was already out of the car and running out onto the pier as he watched Timmy slip between the pilings and shoot out the other side toward the wide bay. Tom took off running, dived off the pier fully
clothed and managed to grab Timmy just as he disappeared under water.

The church we were a part of began to grow as new people became believers and we all grew into spiritually healthy families together. God’s Word became the backbone of our lives as we were blessed with many gifted Bible teachers visiting the islands. We loved celebrating Jesus together. Going to church was never a duty; it was a passion and a natural part of our lives. When the Word of God speaks to your heart, it becomes real and personal and helps you grow close to Him and trust Him with your life.

Since all of our kids are adults now, and in particular, since Bethany’s story has gotten so much publicity, it is not uncommon for people to ask us our secret to keeping our kids from rebelling against their faith. They want to know what parenting formula we used to develop the amazing resilience Bethany showed in her comeback from tragic circumstances.

I am the first to say that it has only been by the grace of God that our kids turned out the way they have. I have a master child-rearing secret; it is called the Holy Bible. Its contents hold the greatest template to pattern our lives after. But upon reflection, and in talking about it with Tom and the kids, I do think there were some personal things we managed to get right. They were key things that helped contribute to how our kids have turned out.

The first key is that a healthy marriage makes for healthy families. I always thought that having a good marriage was the best gift I could give to our children. The value that Tom and I place on our relationship—our commitment to one another—is an anchor. This doesn’t mean we don’t get into squabbles from time to time, and we have had some rocky patches like anyone
else; but our children always understood that we were committed to one another through thick and thin.

What is the secret to making our marriage work? God’s Word! It teaches us to be slow to anger and quick to forgive. Jesus’ words and His own example teach us that unconditional love and learning to die to our own selfishness is the way to live. The Scriptures say we shouldn’t let the sun go down on our anger (see Eph. 4:26). I take seriously the idea that we must forgive each other and resolve conflict in a timely manner. Invariably this means that I have to be willing to forgive slights, whether they are perceived or real.

Another thing Tom and I managed to do was create boundaries for our kids that weren’t so tight that they felt constricted and weren’t so vague or loose that the boundaries were easily disregarded. We used God’s Word to figure out what we would and would not permit; what standards we would maintain and what things were negotiable.

For example, we had boundaries about what kind of stuff we would watch on TV, or the kind of movies we would welcome into the house. Anything that promoted evil or was built on values totally contrary to what we were trying to communicate was discouraged. It didn’t matter what other families were watching.

When the kids entered their teen years, I listened to the music they listened to as we drove to the beach. It was a great way to know the kind of music they enjoyed. The more I knew their tastes, the easier it was to find similar music for them that I knew, by my own research, had a positive message.

This actually worked pretty well because I had help from the church youth group they were a part of. It seemed that the best concerts on the island were the ones put on by the churches; so our kids naturally got attracted to music that was God-directed. Some really great rock bands formed from within the kids in the group who wanted to use their talent to honor God.

Above all, our kids understood that the boundaries we set were there because we loved them and because God loved them, and we wanted what was best for them, which is the same reason we disciplined them. “Discipline” is a word that scares a lot of people, including me, before I got to know and understand God’s Word. I am a very undisciplined person with attention deficit challenges.

Tom and I learned the basics of successful marriage and parenting from Bible studies held at our church. We learned straight from the Owner’s manual—the Holy Bible. We could trust what was being taught because it claimed to be of divine origin. There is plenty of evidence to back this claim. The 100-percent accuracy of thousands of years of prophecy and its proven fulfillment alone substantiate that the Bible could not have been written without divine inspiration and direction. The Bible teaches that Satan is alive and well and that he is the “Father of lies” (John 8:44). There is plenty of evidence on our planet and in our culture’s media and advertising to confirm what the Bible teaches about Satan.

Hosea 4:6 says, “My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.” Our youth are living in a time when they face monumental challenges. The Bible is not called the Book of Life for nothing; the principles for living found in God’s Word can give our children a hope and a future. But the simple fact is that children need to be given clear consequences for intentional boundary violations, like the time when I took Noah to the only Christian bookstore on the island at that time. I told Noah, who was three, that no, he could not get the card game he wanted, because I couldn’t afford it, and it was for older kids. A few minutes later, I happened to glance over and see him slipping the cards into his pocket. I couldn’t believe that my little three-year-old was stealing!