Dr. Duane H Smith: A Legacy Of Balance

We share a special tribute to our father, Dr. Duane H Smith, and the life lessons he left us about faith, family, and what matters when everything changes. We talk through grief in real time and use the Wheel of Life and “big rocks” to make meaning, re-center priorities, and keep moving forward with purpose. 

• how health crises force a reset of priorities and schedules 
• using the Wheel of Life to evaluate what needs attention now 
• finding meaning and purpose through the gospel of Jesus Christ 
• expanding the definition of family to include chosen support 
• a tender story of siblings showing up before a goodbye 
• adversity as resistance training for spiritual strength 
• our dad’s model of intentional parenting and one-on-one time 
• the plan of salvation as a framework for bodies, families, and hope 
• the legacy line we hold onto: Jesus Christ sanctifies through the Holy Ghost 
Please share it with somebody you love. Share it with somebody who may need some guidance or help or uplifting in their lives. 

Transcript

A Different Kind Of Episode

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to the D Times 2 podcast, hosted by Sisters Denise and Deborah. We are all about finding balance in the various parts of life. Using the Wheel of Life as our guide, we explore how to keep each spoke rolling smoothly. We discuss health and wellness, education and spirituality, as well as mental and emotional growth. Join us for real conversations, practical tips, and a few laughs as we share stories, insights, and strategies to help you create a life that feels balanced, purposeful, and designed by you. This episode of our podcast is going to be just a little bit different. We aren't going to have any commercials this time. It's a special tribute to our father, Dr. Dwayne Smith, who passed away on May 13th. So please join us as we share some of our thoughts and lessons and love for our dad. I hope you enjoy.

Big Rocks And Shifting Priorities

Debra 0:58

A large part of what Denise and I are trying to do is carry on the legacy of our father, Dr. Dwayne H. Smith. He recently passed away, and we are in the process of preparing for his funeral services and burial services. And we thought it would be really nice to share some of that with you so that you can be kind of behind the scenes in our lives and also understand a little bit more of why we are doing what we are doing.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Last week in our podcast, we talked about big rocks and the things that are most important to us. And over the last month, we have had to really focus in on what our big rocks are. Our father had some health complications, and in trying to solve those, it took a lot of our time and effort, emotional energy, mental energy. And so we had to adjust our rocks. Sometimes in life we have to adjust our priorities, and our dad was really good at showing us how to do that. So we went from focusing on just our everyday life to focusing on what matters most to us. And for Deborah and I both, God comes first, and second is family. So we were focusing on our family, on our dad and our mom's needs. So I think it's important as we come to certain stages of life, and as we evaluate our wheel of life, which our dad is the one that taught us about that. As we evaluate that, it's important to be able to shift when we need to. Sometimes things just require more attention at different times than others, and that's okay. It really is okay. The

Finding Meaning Through Jesus Christ

SPEAKER_00 2:58

noise in the world keeps getting louder and louder. So I think it's important that we take a step back and look at the big picture of life. And if you're looking for meaning in your life and purpose in your life, and questioning whether what you do actually matters, I really think that the best way to discover that is through the lens of the principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ. There's no other system or formulation or get rich quick or self-help book or guru that is going to help your life more than turning it over to Jesus Christ and living by his principles. Our father was a really, really good example of that. He was very kind. He had the biggest heart, literally and figuratively. Everybody was, felt like they were part of his family, and he just had a real gift for that. I think when we can take a step back from the noise of the world and look at what is most important in our life, we will find with a deep thinking hat on, that it is our relationship with what is greater than us and also with our family. And our families look different. Some of us are not married. That doesn't mean that you don't have a family. You have a mom and a dad. Maybe you don't have siblings. That's okay. Kaylin did an episode with us where she talked about the family that she chooses, and she has people in her life that are not family, but they might as well be. Because just like our dad, her heart is open to giving love to anybody. And it's a beautiful thing. So if you're looking for meaning and purpose in your life, the gospel of Jesus Christ is the biggest thing to do that. And hopefully you can evaluate that and come to that conclusion for yourself. I'm going to share a real quick example of moving your big rocks around like we talked about last week. So about uh five weeks ago, I was talking to my siblings on a video conference call and letting them know how dad was doing. And one of them had decided to make a trip out the next weekend. And another one of them decided, hey, if he's going, I'm going. Let's all go. Let's all go out and see mom and dad and just let them know that we love them and support them. And so the next weekend, all four of our brothers came to my parents' house and spent the weekend with them, and we had a good time together. They got to talk to my dad and see him and show him their love. And within a week and a half, my dad was gone. And I feel like that was a very tender thing for my brothers to be able to see him and talk to him in person before he left this earth. They know how important family is and they made their schedules work so that they could all be here at the same time. I thought that was really cool. And as their sister, it was really great to have their support and love as well as Deborah and I help our parents and now our mom through this next stage of life. And maybe you haven't lost somebody in your life, and that's okay. Our lives do change, our lives take curveballs, and through adversity we get stronger, or we let the adversity beat us down. And with the help of the principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ, they can make us stronger. And I really like to liken physical things and spiritual things to weightlifting because it's something that I'm comfortable with. Or talking about what we eat. So we can't get stronger physically if we don't have resistance, like weight training. And we can't get stronger spiritually if we don't have some resistance. Something that tests us and makes us stronger, and we can learn more about ourselves and about Jesus Christ. So when we come to hard times, it's the most important time to lean on your faith in Jesus Christ and that there's something greater. And that gives me great strength. It's been a great help over the last month while I've been helping children and my parents into different stages of their life. I'm going to leave the heavy lifting of most of this podcast episode to Deborah. She's going to share with you some deeper thoughts.

Defining Faith Terms And Legacy

Debra 8:01

I'm going to preface this talk with just a little bit of vocabulary clarification. Denise and I are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, sometimes referred to as the Mormons or LDS. And in my remarks, I will be referencing the church. And that's what I mean is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I will also be referencing the scriptures. And when we talk about scriptures, we mean the Bible. We also mean the Book of Mormon, which is another testament of Jesus Christ. And we also mean the Doctrine and Covenants, which is modern-day revelation or revelation given closer to our times that we live in now, as well as the Pearl of Great Price. So when I reference the scriptures, I am referencing all four of those books. My father lived two vocations at once. He was a healer of bodies and a witness of Christ. And in his hands, those were never two different things. They were one calling. He also believed with everything in him that the family was the center of that calling, not a side project, not the thing you got to after the work was done. The family was the work. Today I want to tell you a little of who he was, through stories, through doctrine, and through the words he left with me in his final days. One of

Lake Days And One On One Time

Debra 9:31

the pictures I carry of my dad is a summer one. He would load us up and drive us from Colorado Springs to Pueblo to the lake, where we would spend the day or maybe half a day on the boat, waterskiing, knee boarding, tubing, or just laying in the sun. Sometimes we'd camp out on the shoreline and fall asleep to the sound of the water and the wind. It was one of his happy places, and he made sure it was one of ours too. He didn't just take us there once, he took us there often. He was intentional about it because he understood something that his faith had always taught him, that families are not accidents, they are covenants. And covenants require time and presence and showing up. Some of my fondest memories in this life were spent on the water with him. But it wasn't only those lake trips, the bigger trips. What I want you to understand about my dad is that he was deliberate about each one of us kids individually. He had eight children, and he arranged his work schedule as a busy physician so that after he got off work at noon on Tuesdays, he could take one child, just one, camping overnight. We'd be back in time for him to work Wednesday afternoon. This meant every seventh or eighth Wednesday, one of us kids would get a day off school because it was our turn. Our turn with Dad, just the two of us. Now I remember one of those nights like it was yesterday. I was in sixth or seventh grade. It was cold. Cold enough that we didn't even bother with a tent. We slept in the back of the suburban. There were no chairs, no camp furniture, just us and the fire and the dark. But before I sat down, Dad disappeared for a few minutes and came back with two lengths of two by four. He nailed one into the other in the shape of a T, a little stool just for me, so I wouldn't have to sit on the cold ground. He sat on the ground himself. And we told jokes and stories back and forth by the fire until it was time to sleep. I have never forgotten that stool. It was a small thing, two pieces of scrap wood and a handful of nails, but it was my father saying, You matter to me. This time matters. You are worth building something for, even out here with nothing. That's who he was. My dad would actually keep a list in the shape of a wheel. The names of each of his eight children were a spoke on the wheel, and he would score himself on how he was doing with each relationship. He'd go down the list or around the wheel asking, How am I doing with Adam? How am I doing with Denise? And if the numbers were low somewhere, he'd focus on bringing them up. And he understood that relationships like health require consistent intentional attention. You don't get there by accident. To understand my father fully, you have to understand what he believed about why we are here. The

The Plan Of Salvation Lens

Debra 12:44

plan of salvation, or what we in the church sometimes also call the plan of happiness, teaches that we are not accidents, we are not random, we are children of a loving heavenly father who created this earth as a place for us to come and gain a body, be tested, learn, grow, and ultimately return to Him. Before this life, we lived with God. We chose to come here. We knew it would be hard. We knew we would forget. But we came anyway because the growth possible here, the joy, the refinement, the love could not be gained any other way. At the centerpiece of that plan is Jesus Christ. Because we would make mistakes, because we would fall short, because our bodies would age and break and eventually die. None of that is the end of the story. Because of Jesus, through his atonement we can be forgiven, healed, and made whole. Through the resurrection, death is not a conclusion, it is a transition. My father believed this not as a nice idea, but as the organizing framework of everything he did. It is why he cared so deeply about the body, because the body is not just biology. It is a gift from God, a sacred instrument for the work of mortality. It is why he cared so deeply about families, because families are eternal, not temporary. It is why he worked and sacrificed and showed up and built little T-shaped stools out of scrap lumber on cold Tuesday nights. He was building something that would last beyond this life. Now,

When Faith And Work Become One

Debra 14:31

when I was about 13 years old, dad came home from work one evening and I could tell right away that something was different. My dad was really the steadiest person I knew, calm, consistent, and unshakable. But that day he walked in and said with complete seriousness, I'm in trouble, I am in fear for my life, and I think some of my patients are going to try to kill me tonight. We were stunned. But he explained. Caring for people's bodies, yes, but also sharing his testimony. He talked about the gospel at work. He gave out Books of Mormon. Some of his patients had been baptized, and some people had found out and they were not happy. He said, We need to backpack up. We need to go. We can't take the cars. They know what they look like. We're going to walk. So that's what we did. We gathered what we could carry and started walking up the dirt road behind our home, up through the trails toward Palmer Park in Colorado Springs. If you've ever been there, you know it feels like the mountains, hidden, quiet, removed from the world, even though you're still in the middle of town. Well, Dad knew a place where we could camp, stay hidden, and be safe. We were maybe five minutes down the trail when Dad suddenly stopped, truly concerned. He said, Oh no, I forgot to bring the scriptures. We need to go back. I unzipped my coat and showed him I had tucked them inside my coat before we left. I said, I got it, Dad. He looked at me just for a moment and gave me this quiet smile and said, That's my girl. And we kept walking. We didn't understand the full meaning of that night until we arrived at Palmer Park and found a campfire already burning, food already prepared, and dinner waiting for us. It was only then that we realized what had happened. Dad and mom had orchestrated a living reenactment of Lehi's family leaving Jerusalem. This is an event that happens in the Book of Mormon. It's a family fleeing for their lives, gathering only what mattered, walking by faith into the wilderness. And mom and dad were overjoyed. Not just because we had all gone willingly, but because when it mattered, we hadn't had to go back for the scriptures. Someone had already brought them. That was my dad. He didn't separate his faith from his work or his work from his family. He wove them together constantly, sometimes quietly and sometimes dramatically, because for him there never was a division. Healing the body and the soul were part of the same sacred errand. And the plan of salvation wasn't something he quoted, it was something he lived.

Final Words And What We Carry

Debra 17:33

In the last couple of days of his life, I was sitting with him. He was in and out, drifting, resting, the way people do when they're moving toward the other side of the veil. I had read his grandson Jagger's most recent letter from his mission, and then asked if he'd mind if I played a short soundbite that I needed to edit for the podcast my sister Denise and I produce. He said, Yes, please play it. In the soundbite, Denise was talking about how we are part of something bigger. How when you look up at the stars at night or stand in the mountains looking out over the earth, you feel it, that sense of being connected to something vast and eternal, something far greater than yourself. He heard that segment probably four or five times. Every time he heard it, he would say, That's good, that's right, that's good. And then when I was finished, he spoke with a voice that was strong and firm and absolutely certain he testified to me. His words were never forget that Jesus Christ will sanctify you through the power of the Holy Ghost. Never forget. Don't ever forget. Now early the next morning, I was back at his side. He was wide awake, alert, coherent. I asked if he remembered what we had been doing the night before, listening to the podcast. He said, Yes, that was good. I asked if he remembered testifying to me. He said, I remember exactly what I said, and I never want you to forget that Jesus Christ will sanctify you through the power of the Holy Ghost. In his very last days, with everything stripped away, that is what remained. That is what he wanted us to carry forward. He knew the plan. He had taught it his whole life as a missionary, as a husband, as a father, as a physician, and as a community leader. And now he was standing at the threshold of the next chapter of life, and he was not afraid. He was testifying. My father spent his entire career caring for people's bodies and their spirits. He believed with every fiber of his being that the power that made the body heals the body. He taught us that everything is connected, that you cannot separate the physical from the spiritual, the structural from the emotional, and the temporal from the eternal. The plan of salvation was his lens for all of it. We came here with bodies on purpose. We came to families on purpose. The struggles, the growth, the healing. All of it has meaning within that plan. And because Christ is at the center of that plan, no wound, physical or spiritual, is beyond his reach. My dad testified of Christ the way a healer testifies of the innate intelligence of the body, with quiet conviction, backed by a lifetime of watching it work, seeing it happen again and again in the lives of the people he loved and served. My dad never had a priority to leave us a lot of things when he died. He left us this. He left us a lake in Pueblo and the smell of a watermelon and the sound of the water. He left us cold Tuesday nights with campfires and a little T-shaped stool built from two pieces of wood so that we would know we were worth showing up for. And a voice strong and certain, even at the end, saying, Never forget that Jesus Christ will sanctify you through the power of the Holy Ghost. He intertwined his faith and his work and his family, his entire life. He's still doing it now because what he believed he lived and what he lived, he gave to us. I know he is well. I know the plan he spent his life teaching is real because I watched him walk toward it without fear, still testifying on the way. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 22:27

Thank

Share This And Stay Connected

SPEAKER_00 22:28

you for tuning in to this special episode where we share what's on our hearts and close to our hearts. And we hope that something in here was helpful to you. Please share it with somebody you love. Share it with somebody who may need some guidance or help or uplifting in their lives. And let us know what you think about the podcast. Give us some questions and we'll answer them the best we can. Again, thanks for sharing this special episode with Deborah and I, paying tribute to our dad. See you next time.

Debra 23:06

Thanks for listening to the D-Times 2 podcast with Denise and Deborah. We hope you enjoyed today's episode. Be sure to subscribe and share it with someone who's ready to roll toward a more balanced life. Your support means the world to us. And just a quick note we're sharing our own experiences and ideas, not professional advice. Always do your own research and talk to a qualified expert before making big decisions. Until next time, keep your wheel rolling strong.