Happy Birthday Sam

Sammy and Grandpa Miller

My youngest brother, Sam, was born on the 4th of July, 1981.  My parents decided to name him Samuel Andrew Miller, initials SAM, as in Uncle SAM, born on the 4th of July.  My dad's funny like that.  Sam was beautiful, of course.  He was a special baby to me because when I met him I was pregnant with my firstborn.  As I held Sammy and loved him it prepared me to love my own baby.  Sam was blessed with many gifts and they were not lost on his 9 adoring siblings.  We marvelled at his early walking, early talking, and radiant smile.

Daniel and Sam
Nephew and Uncle 3 months apart

He had a couple of obstacles in his early childhood.  He had allergies and was often seen with a sock pinned around his Mentholatumed neck.  He was also a pretty committed thumbsucker, and Megan remembers him sleeping in his underwear and gloves.  Gloves to deter the habit and underwear because...well, what else?  Other than that there was no stopping him.  He was great at math, great at reading, great at memorizing, great at singing, great at dancing, great at sports, just stinkin' great. 

Sam's sister's enjoyed his love of movies and propensity for performance.  They begged him to sing the Pete's Dragon songs.  Mary remembers shopping with little Sam in the grocery store and hearing his Cowardly Lion voice say, "I can fight you both together if you want.  I can fight you with one paw tied behind my back.  I can fight you standing on one foot.  Oh pull an axe on me, Eh?  Sneaking up on me, eh?  Why, I'll ruff..."

Boys are in short supply in the Miller family.  In fact, there were 6 girls born before any males appeared.  They were all clustered in the end, however with one last sister mixed in.  Sam had Charlie just above him to play with him, torment him and make him strong'  He had Megan to love him and keep him safe, and Peter for him to look up to and to do a little equalizing when necessary.  Sam wasn't very big (especially compared to Pete and Charlie) but he was a toughie.  Once I was visiting and watched Sam and Charlie horse around on the trampoline.  Charlie came bugging and pestering Sam.  Sam jumped of the trampoline to chase him off.  Charlie laughed his mischievous laugh as he ran away.  Sam returned to the trampoline with a swagger muttering, "You'd better run."  When Charlie really needed a beating for messing with Sam, Pete would hold Charlie with his arms behind his back and say, "Sam, do your piston punches."  Sam would have a go on Charlie's unprotected abs and all was well.  

Once we went to a church talent show.  There was a cute little girl in the row ahead of us and Pete did not let the opportunity to tease a little pass.  He said, "Hey Sam.  What do you think of that girl in front of us?  She pretty cute, huh?"  Sam looked dubious and  replied without hesitation, "She has curly blond hair."  "Oh right" Peter shuddered knowingly.

Sam loved to play baseball and basketball and all was going swimmingly until he was in 5th grade.  The brilliant student was having a hard time remembering.  One side of his face dropped and the Dr. guessed that it was Bell's Palsy.  In time Sam began losing sight, losing his balance and experiencing nausea.  He was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor.  It was heart breaking for everyone, but my parent's and Sam's faith in God and His plan for Sam remained strong.  There were many anxious moments as the future we imagined for Sam's earth life was replaced with an unknown and wide open picture of what his life would now be and how long he would even be with us. 

Eliza, Mom, Sam

Megan, Sam

We lived in the small farming town of Dos Palos, CA with a population of about 2,000.  The people in this town were wonderful to Sam.  His school teacher had all the children in his class write him a letter, He still has the letters in a notebook and reads them and shows them to people to this day.  There was a baseball tournament dedicated to Sam with T-shirts made just for him.  The outpouring of love for our family was heartwarming and really helped make a difficult time a little more bearable.  

The next part of Sam's life was filled with shunts, radiation, chemotherapy, medication, pain and trying to find a new beginning place.  The damage from the tumor affected his growth, vision, personality, short term memory and physical abilities.  He remembered what he had learned, but struggled with new learning.  He clearly recalled old friendships, but now struggled to relate with his friends.  He grew to adulthood desiring independence but was not quite able to handle all the complicated aspects of living by oneself.  Eventually his health became stable and with help from kind people so has his life.  

Charlie and Sam

Carri, Heidi, Sam, Dad, Mom, Megan, Charlie

Sam and Charlie

the Miller boys taking down Pete's Dragon, Elliot

He lives in a home with a widow and her son.  He rides the bus to his Challenge program where he has new projects and new friends.  He attends church early and stays late to help fold the programs and prepare the sacred emblems of the sacrament.  Then he stays to worship a little longer.

Sam, Pete, Mary

Pete, Me, Sam, Mom, Dad, Megan

Sam still loves Disney movies and he writes and makes scrapbooks, and collects neat things.  He has cute sense of humor and can impersonate regional accents and memorizes the important things in life.    The other day I was talking to him about how he still remembers all the books of the New Testament, etc. from Seminary in High School.  Since I will be teaching seminary this coming fall and do not remember all the books I asked him to help me with the Books of the Book of Mormon.  He sang the song for me.  I tried to repeat it.  He filled in the missing parts and sang the song with me again.  I tried to sing it by myself and failed.  He filled in the missing parts and sang it with me again.  Finally, I almost sang it by myself.  Okay, just one more time with help.  I did it.  Thanks, Sam.  You're a great rememberer.

Katelyn, Mary, Megan, Anna Lisa, Jeff, Travis, Charlie, Me, Brandon, Sam, Carrie, Gabe, Paige

Sam has given some gifts to our family.  He has written countless letters mailed in homemade envelopes. He has made thoughtful phone calls and creative notes.  He visits family when he can and keeps family relationships a priority.  One of my favorite gifts is a folder full of talks.  Apparently Mom had given him a list of jobs to do.  He didn't want to keep going to the list after doing each job so he marked them all at once, even a couple of jobs he didn't do.  Mom decided that his punishment for not being honest would be to write a 3 page essay on honesty.  It turns out that he enjoyed  studying and writing about gospel topics so he wrote 5 talks that could be used in church any time he may be asked to speak.

Carrie, Heidi, Jeff, Mary, Sam, Dad, Mom, Travis, Melinda, Dan, Megan, Susie, Paul, Paul, Me

Another gift Sam gave to his family is that we all had to stare down our faith in God.  Why did this happen?  Did God love our family?  Is there more to our existence or is this life all there is with it's measures of beauty and athleticism, and intelligence?  Did Christ really come with healing in his wings, even for us?  The answers to these questions came as a gift, a beautiful gift.  This life is a test.  Will we love God and serve him at all hazards in every condition in every circumstance?  We are God's children and he loves us with a perfect love and because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ we can return to him and be encircled in His arms  We can be filled with the love of God and man and that is what really matters in life.  Christ suffered all and knows our pain and struggles and can succor us in times of need perfectly.  All people will be resurrected and in the next life Sam's body will be healed and he will have all the gifts he ever had in this life and more.  

In the final paragraph of Sam's talk on agency he writes, "Part of our reassurance about the free, noble, and progressing spirit of man comes from the glorious realization that we all existed and had our identities, and our agency, long before we came to this world.  To some that will be a new thought, but the Bible teaches clearly just such an eternal view of life, a life stretching back before this world was and stretching forward into the eternities ahead."

Sam, it is a privilege to be your sister.  I love you.

See you at the picture (2013 Paul Stoker Family reunion.)

For the last few years I've been lamenting that it's been a very long time since I've had all my children together. We have a family picture from 2002.

 We have this picture from  Daniel's wedding in 2004.

And there was that Christmas when Erica and Jacob photoshopped Aaron, the missionary, into the pic.

 Someone has been either on a mission or deployed or unable to come to the gathering for a long time.  I started dreaming of a family picture.  We knew that this could be the golden year since everyone is at least in the country.  At Christmas 2012 some of the family was home so we decided to set the date- 4th of July 2013.

We prayed for success, started planning, and watched hopefully to see what would transpire.  On July 3, 2013 all the Paul Stoker children were together in the same house.  Now you know.  Dreams come true.

In the months prior I called children and asked them what their dream was.  Daniel dreamed that everyone would be happy.  That was a good dream.  Erica dreamed more specifically that everyone would be happy, as in no complaining, while she took our picture,  an even better dream.  Joseph dreamed that we could play field hockey.  Caleb dreamed that we could play legos and ninja nerf.  Mallory dreamed that we could have a family history activity.  (Another excellent dream.)  We (as in Mallory and I) took the dreams and other ideas and made a schedule and assigned the activities to various family members.  We also assigned couples and teams to be in charge of the dinners and lunches.  For weeks I thought about where people would sleep and eat.  Finally we were ready.

Mallory and Brandon came with their family 6 days early.  They had to travel from Portland so they might as well make it worth their while.  This also served to help their kids adjust to Grandma and Grandpas' house.

Hiding from the bad guys in the fort

Grandpa and Isaac

Josh is trying out his cast protector.  It worked perfectly until Saturday.
Which I guess isn't perfectly.

Making delicious hot shmos.  Actually, roasting marshmallows
and eating graham crackers and chocolate chips separately.

On Monday, Daniel, Erica and their kids came from Savannah so the grandchildren could have cousin time and also because it's been so long since Brandon and Daniel have gotten to see each other.

Brandon's Annabelle (5), Erica and Daniel's Caleb (6 almost 7)

Well, not quite that long.

And then Wednesday came, the day we would have a complete set of Stoker children at home.  I need to note that we were missing Nathan's wife, Ariane, so not a complete set of family members, just original Stoker children.  Hopefully the set of Stoker family members will never be complete, ever.  We made signs for welcoming and were just so stinkin' excited.  To add to the excitement, there was weather (the bad kind) in Atlanta, so arrival times meant nothing and there was almost no telling what time people would really come.  We stayed by our phones and checked the computer and kept readiness alive

.  Nathan came first.  We met him with a "Woo hoo!" and hugs and a picture in front of his sign.

The next arrivals were Aaron, Eliza and Joseph.  We planned a little something different for them.  There happened to be rows of chairs in the music room that were begging to be used for a welcome.  So they got this:

and a picture by their sign.

Last to arrive were Jacob and his friend, Alexa.  She doesn't know us very well, but we wanted her to feel welcome so we gave her hugs, maybe a lot of them, well, only one from each person, but I guess that's a lot, and of course, a picture by their sign.

With all those flight delays we were a little behind, and we had a schedule to keep up with.  Wed. activities consisted of tie-dye shirts, trying on picture clothes and Family Feud Game.  Rebecca was in charge of tie dye (she's the master).  We got everyone rubberbanding and dying as soon as possible starting in the morning.  The only surprise was that the colors looked a patriotic blue and red on the box, but in reality we looked a little turquoise and pink on Independence Day.  No worries.  We're flexible.  Speaking of flexible, Thursday morning I woke to the sound of Joseph and Rebecca rinsing and debanding 20 shirts in the bathtub and sink so we could all don our tie dye apparel when the 4th of July activities began.  Thanks guys.

Family Feud went like this:  Before the reunion Nathan sent out a questionnaire.  He gathered and calculated the data and made a power point.  We divided into team 1 and team 2.

We sent a player from each team to the front where they competed to pass or play.

Team 2 won this one. (That would be my team:)

The questions were surprisingly challenging.  A little ways into the game Mallory divulged that her children had answered questions and had voted as a bloq so were statistically significant yet not predictable.  Take this question for instance:

The numbers represent percentages.

We just did not think to answer "My bunk bed room" for "Where is home to the Stoker Family?"

But now yeah.

We had an ambitious schedule for 4th of July starting with a 7:00 am Field Hockey game.  We (as in Erica and I) wanted the family to go to the parade in Peachtree City that started at 9:00.  There were dissenters in the ranks who were trying to be accommodating, but we observed their lack of enthusiasm.  These people were rewarded for their cooperation however, as the parade was cancelled because of rain which allowed for a late start for field hockey and no waiting in line on Peachtree Parkway to watch red white and blue golf carts buzz by.  The guests from the West said something about getting up at 3:00 am to catch their flight the previous day and GA 7:00 being UT 5:00 and how they needed to catch their breath.   Noted...slightly.  We didn't want anyone wasting our time together sleeping. (That sounded better in my mind.)   During hockey the mom's and kids made a 4th of July sign and hats for the parade.  Of course we couldn't skip the parade all together.  We just moved it home, and we were the parade.

And then we danced in the street.  You know how we do.

We then moved the party to the Sultan's house for swimming, grilled chicken, veggies and pineapple (Thanks Eliza and Joseph) and homemade ice cream.  Well, actually the most delicious ice cream ever.  (Thanks Sultans.)  There was more rain than swimming, but there was enough swimming to feel like a holiday.  Our next event was Stoker Olympics, but we had to forego this because of the rain.  Andrew still has all his game supplies at the ready in the back of his car so anytime we need to bust those out we can.

We ended the night with sidewalk fireworks hosted by Daniel and Erica.  In years past, 3 year-old Joshua has been scared by the boom so it was delightful to hear him exclaim "Oh my goodness!" when the "shower of sparks" were emitted.  We especially like the fireworks with no "report."

Friday morning was the "Big Picture" day.  We all dressed in green, pink and yellow and headed to the neighborhood lake.  Everyone was brave.  The children lasted as long as physically possible and there was only a whisper of the "Have we taken enough yet?" vibe from the "more sports-way less photography" boys in the family.  Thank you, dear children, for the beautiful gift of presence.  And thanks to Erica for sharing her photography skills.

Nine Stoker children documented-check,  onto the rest of the day which actually was Caleb's birthday.  As per the birthday boy's request we transformed into ninjas with black clothes, black headbands, and Ninja Turtle tattooes.  There were nerf guns and teams and lives and stealth and war strategies afoot.  We even had a ninja princess.  And then we ate lunch.

The rest of the afternoon was spent preparing for the after dinner talent show.  Show prep is sometimes more fun than the show.  My heart was very happy as I heard children going through music from their past, reviving old performances, modifying and adding new performers, going off on music tangents that would never be in the show, just so much harmony. <3 <3 <3

We had a fun birthday dinner with pizza and ice cream cake and 19 loved ones singing "Happy Birthday dear Caleb!"  Just the way birthdays should be.

We had our talent show in 2 phases.  Phase 1 was the children's show.  Annabelle sang "I Love to See the Temple." and Caleb demonstrated his Karate.  The kids went to bed, there was more practicing and then it was showtime.  Aaron organized and MC'd.  Stoker talent shows put a lot of stock in participation and not as much in perfection.  And I love every minute of it.  And I would happily share every act in video on this blog.

Well, maybe I'll just share 4.  Daniel and Brandon dusted off a favorite EFY talent show number from 15 years ago.  A classic.  Unfortunately choreography memory is not as good as music memory, but it was still a treat.

 Lids is always fun.  One of the original performances was with Jonathan Stanley and Taylor Elwood at a church talent show.  Nathan brought it into the family.  He is a percussionist.  Jacob wanted to learn it and he is determined never-giver-upper.  They've still got it.

Andrew sang a song for us that took us by surprise.  When I asked where it came from, since I hadn't heard it before, he revealed that he had written it himself.  Who knew?

 Eliza and Joseph's country dancing never gets old, to their mother at least.

And here is the Livin' on a Prayer sing along.

Saturday was the last official day of the reunion and we wanted it to be great.  We had spent much quality time in close quarters so we spread things out a bit and went to Yellowjacket beach at Westpoint Lake.  Our kind and generous friend, Phil Lachmayr, took us boating and it was great fun.  We still had rain issues, but I view that as a blessing.  Has anyone tried to sit outside on a typical July, Georgia Day?  We might have lasted 1 hour, 20 minutes with babies.  The rain came, we huddled under the tent, it left, we played on the beach, it came, more huddling, it left, more skiing and playing.  We ate a picnic lunch organized by Aaron and Nathan and eventually headed home happy and tired.  Mallory and Brandon provided delicious Cafe Rio pork salad for dinner, and we got ready for our fantastic after dinner activities.

Jacob had gathered everyone's favorite song of the year.  Some of us are a bit behind the times so we actually allowed songs from the last few years.  We also understood that the moms of young children might be tempted to submit "Dora the Explorer" or "Ninjago" theme songs, so we gave them plenty of time to remember what music they used to like.  Jacob made everyone a CD of the selections and one shuffled copy.  We played the shuffled songs and guessed who they belonged to. It was super fun. The 2013 Stoker family favorites are as follows:  Paul-"Bruises" (Train), Laurie-"Just the Way You Are (Bruno Mars), Daniel-21 Guns (Green Day), Erica-"Steal My Show (Toby Mac), Brandon-"Big Trip to Portland" (Mary Black), Mallory-"Just Another Day in Paradise" (Phil Vassar), Nathan-"All That You Are" (Goo Goo Dolls), Ariane-"Smile" (Uncle Kracker), Aaron-"Mirrors" (Justin Timberlake), Jacob-"Brave" (Sara Bareilles), Joseph-"Wanted" (Hunter Hayes), Eliza-"Cups" (Anna Kendrick), Andrew-"Sail" (AWOLNATION), Becca-"On Top of the World" (Imagine Dragons), Gabe-"Wavin' Flag"-(K'naan).

Then it was time for our excellent Family History Activity.  Brandon and Mallory took information from the blog to give clues to names of ancestors that we mixed with names of family members for a game of "Celebrity".  We divided into 2 teams and took turns seeing how many names our team could guess in 30 seconds.   In the first round we could say whatever we wanted about the name on the piece of paper.  The ancestor clues helped a lot.  We could only use 1 word descriptions on round 2, and on round 3 we had to act out the names with no talking.  

Mallory and Brandon had tried to prepare us for this activity by having us cup stack our family tree throughout the week.  We had every chance to prepare.  If we didn't know our ancestors we could blame no one but ourselves.

After Family History fun we went downstairs to compete in Eliza and Joseph's awesome "Minute to win it" events. The first event was moving cotton balls with vaseline noses.

Next up was the kleenex removal event.

I may or may not be in the process of refolding these for re-use.

Then we raced to make balloon animals that you would give to a child.  There was potential for debate here, but we reached an agreement and accepted even animals with no ears, 3 necks, and 5 faces.

Moving into the ping pong room, we shot rubber bands at cards perched on clothes pins, bounced ping pong balls, and rolled tennis balls over brooms into baskets. We finished the night with the ever popular "Shake the ping pong balls out of the kleenex box tied to your booty" game.  A good time was had by all,

and now Gabe and I have a plan to secretly practice our tennis ball rolling skills for the next reunion.

Sunday morning came and we felt that we had harvested all the fun possible from our 4 days together.  We had eaten 5 watermelons, played 6 board games, completed 3 puzzles, gone swimming 3 times, ate many bowls of popcorn, not taken enough naps and had the best time ever.   It was very sad to have people go, but we are resolved to do it again.  I miss you and love you, sweet family.   See you at the next picture!  2015?

Kids still going strong, but all the adults felt like this.

Joseph mustered up enough strength for one last game of
Epic Duels..