Falling Rocks

I got a phone call today at work. When Nellie transferred the call to my office, she informed me that the caller was my cousin, "Falling Rocks". I knew immediately that she was referring to my Navajo cousin, Larry Bennett.

Larry came into my life when I was about 12 years old. He and his brother Leslie were taken into my Uncle Bill and Aunt Ruby's home as part of the Church's Indian Placement Program. They had them every school year and then they would go home to Arizona for the summer. There finally came a time when Larry didn't want to go home for the summers so he started to stay all year round. He eventually graduated high school then went on to college and became an engineer for Utah Power and Light. He married a local girl and raised a beautiful family.

He has always been my cousin as far as I was concerned. We fished and hunted together and spent family vacations in the Uintah mountains. Larry could spot a deer further away than anyone I ever knew. Not only could he spot it, but he could tell you if it was a buck or doe before anyone could get binoculars on it to see for ourselves. One of my favorite memories was a horse back trip into the Indian lands in Arizona. His dad arranged for some horses and we spent four days and three nights exploring Anasazi ruins and old Navajo sites. We carried only what we could put in our saddlebags and slept on the ground. Larry claimed that it would be warm and that we wouldn't need a sleeping bag. He was so wrong. I spent three miserable nights trying to keep from freezing to death. Larry, on the other hand, was quite comfortable in his sleeping bag and space blanket.

Larry has never lost his Navajo accent, and he was always a little difficult to understand. When we spoke today I noticed that he was harder to understand. We exchanged greetings and then he asked, "Guess What"? I said, "You sound like you have been drinking". He said it was worse than that. He had suffered a stroke three weeks ago. He had been feeling poorly and went to see his doctor on a Friday, but was checked out and sent home. The next day he was in his home when he suddenly wasn't able to stand and fell to the floor. They got him to the hospital and they diagnosed the stroke. He has lost the use of the right side of his body. However, they have been working with him and he has already recovered the use of his leg, but his arm is still quite useless. He has made great progress, but still has a long way to go. He's working hard to try to overcome this.

We're all pulling for you Larry. We'll keep you on the prayer list until you get back to normal. At least as normal as you're capable of being.