A tribute to Sandra Skouson

Soon
by Sandra Skouson

I will travel
slower than the dune
and let the blue-black beetle
leave her lacy tracks
in cool still
waves across my skin.

That day
I will lie in the sun
and hear
the warm wind’s
welcome to the sand.
Grain by grain
I will abandon
the groping cottonwood
And never mourn the shade.

Once I will rise wildly
in all my particles
and carry into my swirl
dust, twigs, and one stained paper bag,

Then in a surge of quiet
settle against the lava
and drown the sage
with my debris.

By night
My ear will find
the moon’s long whisper
to the owl
and I will learn
the one song
I have left to bear.

Come morning
I will let go
the careful chain
of time.

I first met Sandra over 30 years ago, shortly after she and her family moved to Monticello. I was invited to join a small writing group that included her, Leo Platero, Paul Pitts, and K.C. Benedict.
While living up north, Sandra wrote scripts for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and co-authored a book about the deceptiveness of television ads which, after initially accepting, the publisher rejected at the last minute.
She seemed unsure where to concentrate her writing skills in San Juan County, but during the time our little group met together, she settled on poetry as her primary focus.
Gifted as a musician, speaker, and teacher, she also had acute powers of observation and an unconventional mind. Because of those gifts, poetry allowed her genius to shine.
After reading a number of her poems, I eventually proposed a poetry class at USU-Blanding with Sandra as my co-teacher and applied for a Stars School Grant.
The grant enabled teachers to develop an enriched curriculum for broadcasting over EdNet. We divided the curriculum according to our strengths with Sandra developing most of the units on sound and rhythm.
In one class, to teach students about the rhythm, she jumped rope in high heels and an elegant suit while reciting Emily Dickinson. Years later, students still tell me they’ve never forgotten that lesson.
We taught the course until her husband, Garth, who had Parkinson’s Disease, required her help at home.
All that time, we continued sharing our writing and our lives. Our initial writing group – like an amoeba – morphed, grew, and contracted until finally Sandra and I met by ourselves every Friday afternoon. We did that year after year.
Much to my sorrow, though, Sandra’s world gradually started to diminish, and it became evident that she would soon need more help than her incredible community could provide.
In her 2022 Christmas letter, she wrote, “My new adventure started one day in April. Martha telephoned. ‘Hey, Mom, it’s Martha. Can we come and live with you if Brian gets a job in Monticello?’”
Sandra said, “Yes,” so Martha, her husband, and their family left Wisconsin and moved to Monticello. Before long, they found a home of their own not far from Sandra’s and brought her dinner every night, read scriptures, sang around the piano, held Family Home Evening, and took care of her when she needed help.
Two years later, in 2024, Martha and Eleanor, her two youngest girls, and their girls began collecting her poems into one volume for publication.
Sandra’s fear that her family didn’t read her poetry proved unfounded as we sat around the card table working on the book.
One granddaughter even quoted an entire poem from memory, and her daughters showed the same brilliance and insight into the images, rhythm, sounds, and line breaks that Sandra had.
By then Sandra struggled expressing her thoughts, but sometimes her own genius would still shine through like when I told her I didn’t understand how she’d written a certain poem. She said, “It was easy. I just wove two timelines together.”
As much as I love her poetry, I love her book, Things of the Spirit: Experiences in Faith even more. She had felt great urgency to finish the book, a collection of essays about her spiritual experiences, and the stories, published in 2018, are pure Sandra wisdom. If you’re missing her, like I am, all you have to do is read a few chapters, and she’s in the room with you.
In her introduction, she talks about her granddaughter, McKenna, who was born severely handicapped and died at age 13. Despite her handicaps, McKenna had a powerful spirit that radiated out to everyone.
Sandra writes, “In her short life she had never turned herself over by herself, never fed herself, and never got herself dressed.
“...That day, at the end of her mission on earth, I realized that we don’t really have many things we need to do in this life.
“...We can do without accumulating a fortune, acquiring a certain quantity of possessions, earning a college degree, or becoming famous.
What is required is much simpler than that. We must love each other, trust God and His eternal intent for us, seek his guidance, and serve as we have capacity and opportunity. McKenna did that perfectly.”
After Sandra’s family moved her to a memory care facility in South Jordan, I tried to call on Fridays, and one day, she told me, “I’ve had a revelation.”
I couldn’t discern what the revelation entailed, but her following words were clear and precise. “I was worried, but now I have a feeling of great peace.”
At her funeral, her son Mark said his mom’s superpower was her mind, and certainly it was astounding, but I believe her greatest superpower was her spirit which she unstintingly shared with all of us.
She did that perfectly.