Twila Davis Bird and Raquelle Bird Johnson

[00:02] TWYLA BIRD: My name is Twyla Bird I will be 75 in just a few months. Today is Wednesday, October 5, 2022. Raquel knocked a new job, and my daughter, Raquel Johnson, is interviewing me today.

[00:25] RAQUEL JOHNSON: My name is Raquel Johnson. I am 52 years old. It is October 5, Wednesday, 2022. We are in Ogden, Utah, and I am interviewing my mother, Twyla Bird. As you might have noticed, mom's voice is a little soft. She's had hereditary tumors, and the surgeries have paralyzed her vocal cords. So she has a very soft voice over just as a introduction. So, first question, mom, do you feel that your life has gone as you planned?

[01:10] TWYLA BIRD: Does anyone feel their lives of God as they planned?

[01:15] RAQUEL JOHNSON: Probably nothing.

[01:18] TWYLA BIRD: Well, of course, as a child, when you grow up on fairy tales with apple ever after entreats, you hope for that kind of life, but it's not realistic. And it doesn't take very long for anyone with common sense to realize they have to make their happy endings, that they're not just going to fall in your lap. My life has been very different from what I planned, and for the most part, it's been wonderful. The bad has actually turned into very good things in my life. I'm very grateful for the directions that are the difficult experiences I've taken me.

[02:24] RAQUEL JOHNSON: Maybe we could start by talking a little bit about your early married life, maybe your health and what your expectations for the future were at that point.

[02:35] TWYLA BIRD: Well, my health was perfect. I've always been very healthy until I reached age 40, and then things changed. But you asked about projecting my future. Let me just tell you one experience that I had early in our marriage. I married a man I was deeply in love with, and we were at school together at BYU in Provo, Utah. And my aunt Richard was working on his doctorate degree in physics. I, too, went to school until I had our first child, your older sister, Tricia. And then I stayed home to take care of her. We lived in a mobile home in a brand new trailer court right close to the municipal airport in Provo. And one night, as Richard and I were in our trailer house, we heard a plane that I thought was going to crash into us. It was so loud and so low, and I literally breathed a big sigh of relief when it did nothing. But I knew that that plane was in trouble. The next morning, I read in the newspaper that the plane had indeed crashed with four people on board, and they all died. It was a father who was in his forties and three college age family members. They recently were taking. The plane ride was to celebrate the first anniversary of his daughter and her husband, who were two of them, the people in the plane. When I read that, it just hit me so hard because I thought, that's unbearable to have a marriage cut off so fast. One year is all they had. That wasn't much, a lot less than what we had been married. And I just was. I remember getting up, looking out the window and praying and begging my father in heaven to give me enough years that if we did have tragedy in our family, I would have enough precious memories to hang on to through tough times. I said, give me ten years. Ten years. And then I think I can handle it after that. Well, that's exactly what I had, was ten years. It wasn't that Richard died or I died maybe before.

[06:42] RAQUEL JOHNSON: Tell me a little bit about those years. Those ten years.

[06:46] TWYLA BIRD: Well, they were wonderful. They were. I had always wanted to be a stand up mom and raise our family. We had planned on having six children after ten years. We had five, and we were. Richard was well on his way with his career. He was an atmospheric physicist and had just gotten a wonderful job and was excited about the future and his contributions.

[07:27] RAQUEL JOHNSON: At this point, we were living in Denver. Well, oh, you're talking about right before then.

[07:34] TWYLA BIRD: Well, after BYU, after Richard got his PhD, we spent one year in Boston, Massachusetts, where he worked on a post doctoral fellowship. And then we went to China Lake, California, which was desert to the extreme. We lived one valley over from Death Valley. And it was. It took so much as seen. I wasn't wild about the desert, but we lived there six years, and it was a wonderful experience. As far as the growth of our family, our friends, Richard's job, our church activity and involvement, those were good six years, but we did not plan to stay there. Richard was working on weapons systems for the navy. It was a civil service job, and he enjoyed his work, but he didn't enjoy working on weapons. He wanted to work on solar energy. And he became aware that us government was going to establish a solar energy research institute somewhere in the country. There were 20 places that were bidding for that job to be the designated location for that institute. He applied to all 20, but it was several years before he actually got the job. However, that job, the Solar Energy Research Institute, was established in Golden, Colorado. Today it's called the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and it was called in for an interview. And they were building the building. Literally, the building was under construction. And when Richard was interviewed, the director was sitting in a chair in the middle of all this construction mess. He didn't have any staff. They hadn't even started hiring people yet. But Richard was called in for this interview, and it was a long while before we got word that he got the job. When we found out, I was. We were ecstatic because it was the job he really, really wanted. However, it came at a time when his health was beginning to show some serious downturns.

[11:03] RAQUEL JOHNSON: How old was he?

[11:05] TWYLA BIRD: Well, he was in his mid thirties when he got the job, early to mid thirties. But he had experienced some symptoms of paralysis on his left side when he got very tired once. He was a scoutmaster at the time, and he went on took his trip to climb Mount Whitney, which is in the Sierra Nevadas. And it was difficult for him to walk on that trip. He went to Santa clinic in Santa Barbara for tests to see what the problem was. And they couldn't determine. They took a lot of tests, but couldn't figure out what it was. However, the doctor there did say it could be the early stages of multiple sclerosis. But he said at that early time, they couldn't tell. So Richard got this job offer from the Solar Energy Research Institute. And that was even though I was what he wanted so badly. He worried about taking the job, because the job he had, internal lake, was secure. Even if he were to become disabled. He was ensconced with good medical insurance, with government. But we just couldn't pass it up. It took the dive and we quit. They were channel like, bid goodbye, and all of our good friends had moved to Colorado. The first thing they did when he came was to give him a thorough medical exam to see if he would qualify for medical insurance, disability insurance, life insurance. He passed her with flying colors. I remember him coming home. I said, I did great, and he was so pleased. And we were very happy about that. But it wasn't long before more signs appeared showing that all was not great. And it wasn't long before he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. And not only that, but it was not the chemical type that most people who have Ms experience. It was steadily progressive, meaning that there was nothing they could do, nothing they could give him, no miracles track. It would simply get worse and worse, which is what had happened at that point. It had a period of two weeks. And about two years after we moved there, we literally couldn't get out of bed. And that was a wake up call for us. We decided then that we have to prepare for the future. A future where I might have to take over the financial responsibility for our family. And even though we had five children under the age of ten, I went back to school full time for two years in Denver and got my bachelor's degree. My degree was in broadcast journalism. And my last semester, I was fortunate enough to get a coveted internship at KUSA television in Denver. And I worked 20 hours a week on that internship for no pay as an assignment editor. And after my school days were over, they hired me as an assignment editor. This was a very difficult time because even though I was moving ahead with my career, Richard's career was decade. He continued to be very productive at Siri. In fact, he was one of their most valued employees. Even though it was more difficult for him. He put in the time, he wrote the papers, he traveled to conferences. He made connections all over the world with his research. He established some patents for solar energy measurements and designed some equipment that is still business today.

[16:57] RAQUEL JOHNSON: And this was in the early 1980s, right, the early 1980s.

[17:03] TWYLA BIRD: They valued him so much that when he got to where he couldn't travel to work anymore, they brought work to him in our home and established an office for him in our home. And this was before Internet. It was before the marvelous Zoom conferences and connectivity that we have today. This was pioneering to have an office at home, but it did.

[17:40] RAQUEL JOHNSON: Well, I remember, just as a side note, coming home in junior high and having dad there working, typing away, you know, blink, plink, plink with one finger.

[17:52] TWYLA BIRD: Because his left hand was.

[17:53] RAQUEL JOHNSON: Couldn't put it. Yeah. And working on that and hearing the dot matrix printer going and all the processing of data he was doing on this computer at home. I remember that. It was actually nice to have him there.

[18:08] TWYLA BIRD: Yeah, it was. In fact, during this time, when Richard was diagnosed, the National center for Ms Research was in Denver. So he was immediately put into groups, support groups with a whole battle of doctors and specialists who gave him all kinds of advice. But he found out a couple of things, that those early connections in the support groups with other MS patients, he saw that most people who were in downward spirals like he was, were very bitter and their family life was suffering, their marriages were suffering, and he quit going. He did not want that image in his mind. And he came home and he said, I will never allow myself to be bitter like that. I'm just not going to do that for you as a kids. And it wasn't, it wasn't.

[19:34] RAQUEL JOHNSON: So how I know you had to go back to school, you got a job, you were working 20 hours a week.

[19:41] TWYLA BIRD: Well, that was for the internship.

[19:43] RAQUEL JOHNSON: Yeah. And then full time with the.

[19:46] TWYLA BIRD: Well, just an hour per day below full time so that they didn't have to pay me very much.

[19:52] RAQUEL JOHNSON: Okay, great. So you were working at the Channel Nine news as an assignment editor. So these adjustments, you'd been a stay at home mom before.

[20:05] TWYLA BIRD: Yeah.

[20:06] RAQUEL JOHNSON: Now you had a different relationship with the world around you. You were more engaged outside the home. How did you feel about that? How did you, did you enjoy it? How did you like it?

[20:19] TWYLA BIRD: I love to work. I loved the excitement of working in an active, bustling newsroom with journalists who were dedicated to their jobs and who were. Every day was different. I remember I would go to work every day, and as I approached the door on the way into the newsroom, I always got this adrenaline rush. It was like, whoa, what's today going to be like? And every day was different. I was among people who were climbing the career ladder. They were, they were children, either not married or married and didn't have children and looking to do well in their jobs so they could move up to better jobs either there or elsewhere. And a lot of them did move to more bigger markets. This particular television station was very well respected in the country. We had the highest rated team of photographers in the nation for photojournalism, and I enjoyed working there, but it was very stressful. I was always on the edge of wondering if I could handle crisis as I came along.

[22:02] RAQUEL JOHNSON: Crisis is at work.

[22:03] TWYLA BIRD: At work, okay, because I'm good at, I guess I'd be called an overachiever. I work hard at making the exam the way I want. I'm willing to put in extra time, but my mind has never been one of instant recall. My memory. I often have to ticken for what I want to get at. In the job of assignment editor, you have to have everything right on the tip of your consciousness. The assignment editor's job is to handle all the news that comes into the newsroom with a bank of police scanners, phones, the associated press coming in. I had to make phone calls all day long to find out what stories needed to be updated. I had to handle photographers and reporters, sending them out where they needed to be. And there were times when I worried about not being good enough. But I did okay.

[23:29] RAQUEL JOHNSON: I arrived on the excitement, the interaction, the intensity, the, and you enjoyed this interaction, but it came with a price.

[23:39] TWYLA BIRD: Yeah, it gave us a price. I always say that headache just below the surface because of the stress. And I missed out on you. You five children had to be there without me. Richard was home. I could be there as a parenthood. So he was always there, but I wasn't there. And I missed out on her school activities, on what was happening in your lives. If there could have been two of me, I would love to have one of me be this queer person and the other one be a stay at home mom. But the time finally came when we had to make a choice. Richard got to where he needed a full time caregiver. He became better and totally paralyzed. We either had to hire someone or I had to quit work and be his caregiver. That's what we decided to do. So I quit work and stayed home full time. However, the upside to that was, well, there were lots of upsides. But the day, my last day at work, I got a call from a man who introduced himself as Larry McFarlane, who was the director of public affairs for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, of which we were members. And he said, I hear your quitting work. Would you consider donating time to help public relations efforts for the church in Colorado? I was like, it was like a lifeline. I said, oh, yes. And from that time on, instead of going to work, I devoted my free hours to public affairs work for the church. I did that for 15 years.

[26:31] RAQUEL JOHNSON: Can you tell us what you did in that? Like speaking and writing?

[26:37] TWYLA BIRD: I was involved in making relations for our church better in the community. I helped follow up efforts in lobbying for social issues with the governors on several governor commissions on socialism, issues that the church felt strongly about, like pornography, abortion, child abuse. So I worked with the governor's office. I worked for writing to stake presidents and bishops in eight stakes states to keep them up to date on our efforts with public affairs. About that time, the church announced that they would be building a temple in Denver. Back in those days, that was a big, big deal.

[27:44] RAQUEL JOHNSON: We have a lot of temples now.

[27:47] TWYLA BIRD: No, we have a lot of temples.

[27:48] RAQUEL JOHNSON: That was the before.

[27:51] TWYLA BIRD: The Denver Temple was just the beginning of the huge temple building push that we've seen in recent years. So I was called to be on the Denver temple committee as historian. The perk that gave me was that I was the only church member who was allowed or permitted to go to the temple during his construction years. I go once a week to monitor and record the process, the progress, and I sent dimple updates to all boards and stakes in our temple district so that they would know what the progress was. And we also helped to organize and publicize the dedication of the temple and all the part of that I wrote a book based on being historians that was published the church. It was a church calling. We published 5000 copies and it was ordered by church members, so they had a heart bound copy.

[29:14] RAQUEL JOHNSON: I know from a child's perspective, one of your daughter's perspective. By that time, I was a teenager, so you were sort of a big deal, because we would. Anywhere we went in Denver, Colorado, area at all, people knew who you were. If they say, oh, you're Twyla Bird's daughter, they knew who you were.

[29:39] TWYLA BIRD: Well, along with writing the book that there were many speaking engagements that I was asked to fulfill. Just in one year alone, I went to 100 different locations, speaking not only about the temple, but about other church matters. And that, along with the book, made me very high profile, which was. I was not really comfortable with that, but it came with the territory.

[30:14] RAQUEL JOHNSON: Well, you had a voice.

[30:15] TWYLA BIRD: I had a voice.

[30:16] RAQUEL JOHNSON: Then you. Well, not just literally, but you had a voice where you were able to communicate with people. You were doing that a lot. You were communicating and interacting.

[30:29] TWYLA BIRD: I was.

[30:32] RAQUEL JOHNSON: So maybe in 1989, things changed. You were diagnosed with hereditary tumors.

[30:44] TWYLA BIRD: Yes.

[30:45] RAQUEL JOHNSON: Can you tell us about that?

[30:46] TWYLA BIRD: Yeah. This was at the peak of my involvement with church matters, which involved a lot more than what we've talked about. But in my family, we have what's called hereditary parakagioma tumors. I have. There are eight of us in my immediate family. Five of us have these tumors, and these are multiple tumors throughout our body that have to be removed. They're serious. They're usually benign, but there have been several cases with extended family members who have died. My sister died from her tumors, not as a treatise, direct result, but certainly that was the main reason for her death. In 1989, I had four tumors that were located. I had to have them removed. The first one was an egg, a deck sized tumor between my heart and my spine. To get to it, they had to go to my side, break my ribs, and collapse my lung to get that tumor out. Then I had two tumors on each carotid artery. Took those out, and then I had tumor on the right side of my head, behind my ear, and that tumor, even though it was the least painful, cause the most damage. After that, I had paralyzed. I was paralyzed. I'm on the left side of my face, my tongue, my swallowing, and my shoulder, and I still have the effects of that.

[32:49] RAQUEL JOHNSON: So how did this change your life? Maybe before that, you'd been this person that had a lot of voice. You were interacting. How did it change for you.

[33:04] TWYLA BIRD: At that point, just before those surgeries, I was president of the Colorado Family association, and I had founded that organization to try and promote healthy family values. It was doing very well until I had these tumors. But that put me out of commission for a year, and by the time I was getting back up to speed, that was gone. But I had other public affairs responsibilities after that. As I regained part of my voice, it came partly back, and I was.

[33:51] RAQUEL JOHNSON: Able to function as over the years, though, that has decreased slowly.

[33:57] TWYLA BIRD: I've had more tumors and I've had more surgeries, and each one has made it more and more difficult for me to function to the point where just my last round of tumors was just two years ago. And thank goodness I've been a beneficiary of advanced medicine, and the Huntsman Cancer Institute took care of those tumors easier than any of my previous ones. But what has happened is that my vocal cords on both sides were paralyzed to the point where I had 5% function in one vocal cord, which made it extremely hard to breathe. And I had as much as I had said, you shouldn't even be alive, you should be dead. You need to have a tracheostomy. Well, I did not want a tracheostomy, and I sought a second opinion. And my second doctor, a specialist at the voice disorder center at the University of Utah, said, well, one way to solve the problem would be to use a laser, and laser a hole in one of your vocal cords. That would be permanent. It's a choice of either breathing or talking, he says. You'll lose your voice completely, but you'll be able to breathe. Well, that's kind of a no brainer for a decision, and that's what we did. But since then, this is the voice I've had, and that was in 2012. 2012.

[36:01] RAQUEL JOHNSON: Was it 2012? 2011?

[36:03] TWYLA BIRD: January of 2012.

[36:05] RAQUEL JOHNSON: So maybe what would you say to someone who is able to communicate and speak easily? And how important is a voice to you? Because I know you have mourned this. You have mourned the loss of your voice.

[36:23] TWYLA BIRD: Well, I can identify with people who are blind or have lost their hearing or have lost other capacities because of my voice. It's very difficult to communicate. If there's any noise in a room, people can't hear me at all. I can't go to a restaurant or a party or even church, for that matter, and plan on being able to communicate.

[37:02] RAQUEL JOHNSON: Do you feel like you're on the outside looking in?

[37:05] TWYLA BIRD: I feel marginalized, but I think a lot of it is my own fault. I need to be more proactive. Busy parties don't serve any purpose. I have to reinvent myself. It's something I continue to struggle with.

[37:34] RAQUEL JOHNSON: So how, from now, this end of your life, how. How's it different than you imagined and you look at life differently?

[37:47] TWYLA BIRD: I would not change anything that the difficulties we faced as a person and as a family have produced five of the most amazing children who learned early to take more than their share of responsibility growing up. You grew up doing things that your friends never did, and you saw life's perspective differently than your friends did. And it has produced five wonderfully stable, great children also, it has provided opportunities for service to others that has enriched their lives. We met so many guardian angels over the years who have given profound service in so many ways. I wouldn't change that. That would take away their growth and their abilities to conquer their own demons. Richard's been gone for 20 years. In these last 20 years, even though I've had my own issues, it has given me the freedom to do what I love most with family history, research, and writing. I've done a great deal of writing. I've written a dozen books. I've gone on many trips. I've connected with family and friends all over the world. And I would want to mention here, too, that beginning in 20, 20, 15, when refugees started pouring into Germany and Europe from countries where they were just suffered terrifically because of the war in Syria, they flooded into Germany, where your older sister Tricia lived at that time. And based on her connections with those refugees, I joined in an effort to found a refugee aid organization where we traveled to refugees in many countries refugee camps, to collect their stories so that we could get these stories out and let people here in America see these people, refugees, as human beings who had good lives before they were. Their lives were turned upside down by war.

[41:18] RAQUEL JOHNSON: That's why the organization is called.

[41:20] TWYLA BIRD: Their story is our story. And through these many trips and hundreds of refugees that I've interviewed and gotten to know in their camps, in their extreme circumstances, how can I feel sorry for myself? But it's all a matter of perspective. I am blessed.

[41:58] RAQUEL JOHNSON: So if you could leave one thing, what is your last message that you would give to anybody who listens to this?

[42:06] TWYLA BIRD: I would say that being happy is a matter of choice, that you could take every situation and find a way to turn it to your benefit, and that there is so much good that can come from difficult situations. It's been my privilege to learn that lesson over and over again.