Linda Loosle and Michael Bingham

[00:03] MICHAEL JOSEPH BINGHAM: Okay. My name is Michael Joseph Bingham. I am 60 years old. It is May 10, 2023. We are in Logan, Utah, and I'm here with my dear, dear friend Linda Loosle

[00:20] LINDA LOOSLE: And you know my name already, Linda. And I'm. Michael and I are like siblings. Today is May 10, 2023, and we're in Logan, Utah.

[00:41] MICHAEL JOSEPH BINGHAM: Okay. Hi, Linda.

[00:44] LINDA LOOSLE: Hi, Michael.

[00:45] MICHAEL JOSEPH BINGHAM: It's been a while since I've seen you, because you've had some health issues and some troubles, which is not new to you in your life. I know, but I can't. I can't see you and not smile. Just. Just the side of you makes me smile. I thought we'd just start by talking about how we first met. And I was taking a. I was getting a master's degree at Utah State University, and I was taking. My master's degree is in fine art, painting and drawing. But I have had this passion for working with people with disability challenges. And so I was taking a class called the Idassel class, which. Embarrassing. I still don't remember what those initials stand for. But you, it's a course, master's level course on disability issues, and you were a guest speaker. Do you remember that day at all?

[01:54] LINDA LOOSLE: I sure do. That was a really fun day. I loved being in front of everybody, and I came in, in my wheelchair, and they took me up in the front of the room, and I met your eyes right off the bat.

[02:17] MICHAEL JOSEPH BINGHAM: I don't know what it was, but I was instantly had this thought in my head, which was, you need to know this person. Like, she needs to be your friend. And you spoke, and I honestly, I kind of don't even remember what you spoke about. I think you told about the accident that you had that left you paraplegic. I think you talked about that. I think you talked about some of the challenges of your life after that accident. But I just had this overwhelming feeling, like, I have to know this person. So I think I've shared with you the rest of the story. When you left, I think it might have been Colorado. So the bus came and loaded you, your wheelchair up on the bus, and I saw them loading you up, and I just, again, had that really strong impression, like, you need to know her. You need to be her friend. So I stalked you, I followed the bus to see where you lived, and it took you to Legacy house, the assisted living center that you live in. And I waited a little bit out in the parking lot while you went in. I didn't follow you right in because I was feeling a little weird about. About following you home, but this, this drive to, like, know who you were was just, I just couldn't deny it. And so I went in to the front desk and I said, linda, Loosle she lives here somewhere. Like, how do I find her? And they said the funniest thing. They're like, oh, Linda, we love Linda. You'll know her apartment. And I thought, how am I going to know her apartment? Said, go up to the second floor, turn right. You'll know her apartment. And I got off the elevator and went right. And the entire hallway back then was like an art gallery. There were paintings and things, drawings and pictures of everywhere in this hallway and especially around your door. I'm like, well, they were right. And you used to just, like, it looked like a creative bomb went off and artwork was everywhere. Do you remember when I knocked on your door and came in? Do you remember how weird that was for you?

[04:55] LINDA LOOSLE: It was so interesting because I knew you were who you were because of your. Where you were sitting, and you were so intent on what I was saying. And I, you were so happy, and it just opened yourself up to how much you loved art. And you looked at my walls and you enjoyed looking at the variety of my paintings. And we just, you sat down and we talked and about, about all the art experiences you had. And it was just, and I was.

[05:37] MICHAEL JOSEPH BINGHAM: Just really at the beginning stages of starting a nonprofit art studio for people with disabilities. It's called jump the moon. And I was out of my element. I'm an artist. I'm not a business person. And here I'm trying to start this nonprofit. And for some reason, I just knew that you would be helpful, that you would be really helpful in getting this thing off the ground. And I think I told you about that and said, I need your help. Like, I'm so lost. I just feel like I don't know what I'm doing. And you agreed to be a part of it and to help us get going.

[06:22] LINDA LOOSLE: It was so exciting to me to be a part of that, and I knew it would give me a chance to teach, to share with.

[06:32] MICHAEL JOSEPH BINGHAM: You did a lot. We had this great gallery or studio that we started out with big, about 5000 sqft, all kinds of room and something you mentioned that you got to teach there. I was in amazed, like, with little kids we would bring. We did remember when we did, like, had 90 kindergarteners there at the same time, and we had groups, and these kids were so mesmerized by you. They just so intent and so, and you just were sharing your soul with them and connecting on this amazing level. I just stood and watched you with a big group of kids around you, all just completely focused on you. That's magic. I taught for ten and a half years, and that just doesn't happen easily. Talk about that. Talk about why, how it is that you have come to be so good with kids.

[07:40] LINDA LOOSLE: I know that it started when I was very young. My little sister just is a year younger than me. And when she was a baby, she was in the hospital. And my mom, we used to just cry about her because she was not doing well. And I just became determined to do, to be her guardian, like her guardian angel. And I was so young, and she was. She was this really poly little baby. She was so cute. When she came out of the hospital, she was very thin and very. She wasn't. She was not active. And so we played together and worked together. And when I was my first memories, I knew I wanted to teach. I just love children. I love the way they live, the way they walk and talk, and the happiness that they, they bring in my book, my planning book, every day I wrote on it, just have fun.

[09:13] MICHAEL JOSEPH BINGHAM: Oh, I love that. Just have fun. That makes sense now, because every time you were with a group of kids or even adults, like, I could tell there was this, let's just have fun. And it happened to involve making art. I've known you for about six years now, almost. And I know that you not only taught, but did you run a school in Abu Dhabi?

[09:44] LINDA LOOSLE: Yes, I was. Well, I didn't run the school. We had a director, but I was the head teacher for the preschool through second grade. And our preschool was a program that had infants through four years, five years old.

[10:02] MICHAEL JOSEPH BINGHAM: Okay.

[10:03] LINDA LOOSLE: And then they went into kindergarten, and I had a first grade class that I taught. And they wanted to be over equipped. They wanted me to also be over the curriculum. They wanted to get the certificate from America that they were qualified. I've forgotten what the word is.

[10:32] MICHAEL JOSEPH BINGHAM: Well, so they brought you over to teach. But I don't know much before that. Where. Where did you get your education?

[10:42] LINDA LOOSLE: I went to Utah State, and I looked at the people that had gone many places, but I think that my education was much, was far better. The examples from the teachers. And I wasn't afraid. I already knew what I was going to do. When I was. When I was young, we had primary, and it was on a Wednesday. And we talked with the little children, older children, and often, if there wasn't a teacher, they would ask me to go teach the primary. The little kids.

[11:29] MICHAEL JOSEPH BINGHAM: Yeah, I can see why. So was your education in childhood education or what was the official.

[11:38] LINDA LOOSLE: It was just regular education, and I was provided with opportunities from the community. So before my first class, before even enrolling in the university, I asked the principal if there was any teachers that had children that needed to learn, had difficulties or behavior problems and that I would like to teach them or help them. And when I went down, those teachers just clamored around me. There were three. And I said, they said, well, who is it that you're willing to teach? I said, anybody. But if you have children who are not, who are way behind in class or have disabilities that they're having a hard time learning, and I would like to teach them.

[12:51] MICHAEL JOSEPH BINGHAM: Yeah, I think it's probably good to point out here at this time, you were able bodied, like, you were completely fine as far as your physical. So I'm going to jump ahead a little bit. After you left Abu Dhabi, which still kind of blows my mind, you learned Arabic and went halfway around the world to teach at a school and to help children. Then you were sent to. I don't know if there's one in between. But eventually you ended up at a Navajo indian reservation again, teaching, correct?

[13:28] LINDA LOOSLE: Yes.

[13:29] MICHAEL JOSEPH BINGHAM: Just maybe tell us about the moment that changed your life forever.

[13:39] LINDA LOOSLE: I guess that moment came when I was much younger than that, but I didn't know how to. You might not be able to use this little piece, but when I once was baptized at eight years old, I knew I had to make a promise, but I didn't know what it was. So I left the room where everyone was going to start the baptisms, and I went into the restroom and knelt down and ask what I should promise. And I was told that there were three things that I was going to do and that I would love it. I would love my life, and I would love what I was doing. It was to teaching and working to help learning about injuries and helping people. And I was. I did that when one year I qualified for all of the programs and got trained. Iv actually, it was just an EMT assignment, but with all the classes that I took, it was more like a paramedic. And we went on the ambulance, and I did that while I was teaching. I didn't know that about you, but it was really. It was good, and it was so. It helped me so many times with the children. And one of the men almost sawed his thumb off, and. And I was able to take care of it right away. And I. The last one was that I would teach somewhere. And I saw it in my eyes. I saw it in a big desert, and people that were very different than me. And it was Abu Dhabi. And I didn't realize that till I saw it came back to me. But I've had a wonderful life. And when I went to the. To be in the position that I had, there was a little boy who was brought to this school, and he had a. No, he had no desire to be in school. His mother was dragging him, and they said, go to Linda. She can take care of anything. And so they came. He came in, and she introduced him to me. And I took his hand, and he started kicking me and pinching me. And I just picked him up, and I put my mouth near his ear and I said, you can cry and miss your mom and feel badlandhouse, but I will always be here to help you. And I love you, and you're a beautiful boy, and you will do a lot of good. And at that time, he then really started to scream. And so I put my hand over his mouth, and he started kissing my hand. And I knew that he wanted to bond with me, so I carried him upstairs and put him down on the floor and let him walk into the room. But he was an escape artist, and I ended up having to keep him close to me. And it was amazing how this child, he had been in eight different schools and kicked out every day from that school, and they all wanted to fix.

[18:31] MICHAEL JOSEPH BINGHAM: It until he found you and you were able to see. And the key there is, I know enough about you that you love everybody, that you don't have anything but love in you. For everybody I want to talk about, we only have about ten minutes left. When you were at the Navajo indian reservation, you had an accident, which was you stepped off of a curb, basically. That was a farther drop than you thought, fell and broke your neck. And so I don't know if we have time to go all the details, but you became a paraplegic at that moment.

[19:12] LINDA LOOSLE: Quadriplegic.

[19:13] MICHAEL JOSEPH BINGHAM: Quadriplegic at that moment. And that was the moment where I was saying, I thought that would be the moment that changed your life. But. And we can talk about faith, religion, anything we want. We can talk about anything you want. So, nothing wrong with talking about your spiritual experience when you were baptized. I've had spiritual experiences all along. My life, too. When I heard about the accident, you told us about it at the college. And I think when I first met you, I said something to the effect of, Linda, I'm sorry that you had that accident, I didn't know what else to say. And you said something that actually kind of changed my life. Do you remember what you said?

[20:04] LINDA LOOSLE: Yeah. I said it was a blessing. I would never want to not have had it.

[20:10] MICHAEL JOSEPH BINGHAM: Yeah, that stunned me. I'm thinking you'll spend the rest of your life utilizing a wheelchair. You've actually improved since then quite a bit. You can now use your hands and have improved in so many ways. But for you to say it was a blessing and I wouldn't change it, I'd do it again. At that time, I didn't understand that. And then, as you know, I had my own little accident.

[20:43] LINDA LOOSLE: Yes.

[20:44] MICHAEL JOSEPH BINGHAM: Fell 20ft and broke my neck in seven places and so many things. Almost died. Should probably be paralyzed or dead is what my doctor tells me. But there were some miracles, and we've both experienced some amazing miracles in our life. And now if somebody says to me, I'm sorry that accident happened to you, I understand completely from my heart it was a blessing and I would do it again if I was going to lose what I've learned from it. I felt like that kind of bonded us a little bit. Do you have any thoughts on that?

[21:27] LINDA LOOSLE: I remember watching you climb stairs and ladders, and I was very afraid for you. And I remember you, when you came down, you asked me about how did you. How were you able to choose? I mean, how are you able to feel happy about your. What happened?

[21:53] MICHAEL JOSEPH BINGHAM: Yeah, it was a question in my mind for a while.

[21:57] LINDA LOOSLE: You said, I just don't know if I could do that. And I just said, happiness is a choice. It doesn't have anything to do with our circumstances or the way people treat us.

[22:16] MICHAEL JOSEPH BINGHAM: A choice.

[22:17] LINDA LOOSLE: It's our choice.

[22:18] MICHAEL JOSEPH BINGHAM: What we do is we can choose to be happy, we can choose to be unhappy, we can choose to be grateful, or we can choose to be ungrateful. And you and I both are extremely grateful for heavenly father, that blessed us with the experience of having some pretty serious challenges for a while. I still feel a little guilty because I have recovered and don't have to use a wheelchair. I think I needed to so I could run 100 miles an hour and keep helping people in the way I do. But you still have to use your chair. But at the same time, you find so many ways to bless other people's lives. You do it every day. I've seen you. I don't know. And what would you like people to know about our experience that might help somebody who's going through a difficult challenge?

[23:26] LINDA LOOSLE: You know, I think that is really important to be. Excuse me. I just got out of the hospital with pneumonia, that if my sister hadn't called it in, they said I would be.

[23:46] MICHAEL JOSEPH BINGHAM: You would have been gone.

[23:48] LINDA LOOSLE: Would have been gone.

[23:49] MICHAEL JOSEPH BINGHAM: I'm glad you're still here.

[23:51] LINDA LOOSLE: Me too. And that was a great experience. But with your question, the choices that we make, I think for the most part, everybody does their best, and some people have. They feel really bad about things that happen to them, and they have to mourn their way through it, and that is fine. I think that we. That it isn't one way better than another. Morning invites the Holy Ghost or the spirit of Christ to come into our lives, and so we can find joy in heaviness. That's what Peter says.

[24:55] MICHAEL JOSEPH BINGHAM: Joy in heaviness.

[24:56] LINDA LOOSLE: Joy in heaviness. We can have things like, I had experiences where I felt like I was walking like that with my nose just barely under the.

[25:10] MICHAEL JOSEPH BINGHAM: In the air above the water. It's gonna go under any minute.

[25:15] LINDA LOOSLE: Yeah. And so I think that it just. If we can understand that there's not just one way. But I wouldn't want someone to lose out on what they would have been, the experience they would have had with deity. But I know that Jesus is happy when we're happy, and he wants us to come to him when we're not, and he will help us. And I know his father feels the same and loves his son. And I think the only thing we need in this life to learn is to love the people that God has chosen to represent him. And when I was in Abu Dhabi, that people said they wanted the. They said, you are a Muslim. And I said, I am. And I had learned what the word Muslim means, and it's one who submits to goddess.

[26:53] MICHAEL JOSEPH BINGHAM: Oh, beautiful.

[26:54] LINDA LOOSLE: And when I fell, I remembered that, and I tumbled head over heels. And at that time, my one, two, and three were broken off of my spinal cord, and four, five, and six were all separated and broken. And they. They didn't even do anything with the three that were broken off. They're still broken off now.

[27:29] MICHAEL JOSEPH BINGHAM: Yeah.

[27:30] LINDA LOOSLE: But they did do surgery to repair these, and then I had them in my back, in my thorax area, and in my lumbar.

[27:43] MICHAEL JOSEPH BINGHAM: It was serious stuff. My c one is still in four pieces, but it's kind of fused that way on its own. Yeah. And leaning against my spinal cord and should be paralyzing me, but it's not. We've had that in common. We're just almost out of time. But I just want to point out something else. I think we have in common. It was during the time when I was experiencing, on a pain scale, unbearable pain, and that I came to know what Jesus had done for me in my life. To know that the pain that I felt was only a small fraction of what he had done for me, just for me. And it brought me so much closer to knowing God and knowing who Jesus was. And for that reason alone, if I was going to lose that knowledge, I would go right back up that ladder and do the whole thing again, just like you said you would do it again if you were going to lose what you've gained from it. It's just a different way of looking at things that could have been looked at as really horrible, but we see it in a little different light. I think we're pretty close. I want to just thank you, Linda, for being you and for being my friend and being my teacher. I've been taught so much by watching you teach others. I use what I see you do, and I. After. Before I met you and I was a teacher in the high school only one time, but I gave up on a child and said, you can't be in my class. I don't know what to do with you. And then after that, I met you and I felt bad about that now because now I know you don't ever give up on a child. That was wrong of me. And I've learned so much from you that if you love the children enough, the students enough, and they know that. That you're there for them and you care for them, how valuable that is. So I just want to thank you for being here and sharing some thoughts with me and any final thoughts you want to go out on?

[30:10] LINDA LOOSLE: Well, yes, thank you for that. I feel the same. I admire you. I look at your sketchbooks and I think, well, I don't. I can't draw at all, but I can love what I do. And that doesn't matter that it's not as good. I can. I can have, like for the children, tolerance and acceptance of their beautiful drawings just because it came from inside of them. And I know you're that way, too. You see, you see that potential and you don't want a child to not feel joy when they're doing it. So you find whatever they can to hold and do to make art with.

[31:06] MICHAEL JOSEPH BINGHAM: And just go with it. By the way, those who are listening, Linda is an amazing artist and her drawings are just fine. There's nothing wrong with your art. Well, thank you, Linda. I love you.

[31:21] LINDA LOOSLE: I love you, too.

[31:22] MICHAEL JOSEPH BINGHAM: And I'm so grateful to have you as my friend.

[31:25] LINDA LOOSLE: Yes, my twin.