The Opportunist

   Now before you start thinking my life was fully of hardship and tragedy, I want to tell you there were times in my young life that were positive.
   Now give me a minute.....
   Oh, yes. Austin Avenue brought much freedom to my young life. South Salt Lake was a place of fun surprises and interesting places of adventure. It was a good place to live for a girl who needed to spread her wings and get her feet wet on this planet Earth.
   My brothers and I (I don't remember much at this time without them involved) were wanderers. We loved to ride our bikes, park them and walk up a stream that ran behind the houses across the street. We would find water skeeters and fresh mint to pick and eat. Mom sent us to pick mint for her mint jelly that we would have with a lamb roast some Sundays. I can still smell that roast cooking and the mint jelly simmering in a pot on the stove. Mom made life bearable. She still has a knack with that.
   There was a little meadow where the water would swell to in the high runnoff time in the early Spring.
   The air was clear and the tree canopy coverage let through tiny bits of sunlight in streaks we would call the "Angel's Road to Earth." I imagined myself an angel. I would "fly" through the meadow with my little five-year-old feet taking me as swiftly as you could imagine. It gave me a dizzying feeling and I would fall to the ground, watching the world go around and around, finally stopping when my breaths became slower. What a wonderful world this meadow was. It was truly a tender mercy of my father and mother in heaven. I was so grateful I had this place.
   Church on Sundays consited of Sunday School and Sacrament Meeting. We met in the old 700 East chapel that has since been demolished and a new-fashioned meeting house built in its place.
   That old chapel was a great place to go. We would sometime walk to church when the weather was good. Sometimes we drove. We loved the enormous ramp that was built for wheelchair access after the building had been in use for decades. The cultural hall had windows the length of it. The primary room in the basement seemed large enough to house a small army of children.
   Mom was a den mother in the Cub Scouts organization so I would go along with her and the brothers to Cub Scouts at the chapel where my other primary buddies and I would have the run of the place. Oh, we found the many pockets and nooks and crannies of that building. Forty years later I can still follow the corridors in my mind. The opportunities seemed endless.
    Then, one Sunday at that church took us all by surprise when a bullet went off, driving itself into my brother's stomach...