Grandma Lucy

My maternal grandmother, my mother's mother, passed away when I was 5.  I don't remember much about her except a sweet powdery smell and the way she bounced me on her knee and sang,

Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross

To see a fine lady upon a white horse.

With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes,

She will have music wherever she goes!

Then she would make me sway on her knee as she exclaimed, "Whoa, horse!"  I've jogged my own children on my knee countless times, reciting this same little song.  I love that I have a piece of my grandma that I can pass on to them.

A few months after Grandma died, Grandpa found a new sweet lady and married her - much to the surprise of his children!  She became my Grandma Lucy and we loved her.  She taught elementary school, and I thought she had a treasure trove in her downstairs closet because she had so many books!  They lived just up the street from us and I loved to spend hot sticky afternoons in the cool of her basement, lost in the dusty pages of her wonderful books.  She was always so good to us, and we never thought of her as a step-grandma; just Grandma Lucy.

Grandpa passed away 10 years ago, just the month before Jay did.  In the past few years, Grandma Lucy has gotten more and more frail.  A few weeks ago, she too crossed the bar.  We miss her happy smile, but we are happy for her.

The family has been cleaning out her house, and I found this stack of old school lunch trays there.  They were so cheerful, their pastel shades sweetly thinking back to a simpler time.  Just looking at them made me happy, and reminded me of Grandma Lucy.  Thanks for loving me, Grandma.  I hope I can encourage little children around me half as well as you did!

Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday to my family!  This crazy, wonderful train ride officially started 23 years ago, with these two babies:

I look a lot different now.  My dad took this picture the day before Jay went into brain surgery.  Jay was joking that it would be his obituary shot, but it wasn't.  We were in my folks' backyard, in front of their apple tree.  Those little green apples remind me of my boys, so young then, but growing up quickly.

To celebrate our family birthday, we had spaghetti on china, with sparkling grape juice poured ever so carefully into crystal goblets.  It's a tradition to eat something regular on fancy dishes, because our family is a bunch of regular, common, everyday and nothing impressive things, made special by our enduring family ties.

Happy birthday to us, and many more.

A Bird and a Burial

A pair of starlings made their nest high in the chicken coop this spring.  The children were delighted to see the daddy fly in and out, bringing food to the mama bird on the nest.  When the eggs hatched, we all heard the peeps and the tiny squawks for food when a parent bird flew in to the nest.  The kids found out that if they climbed high in the coop they could just barely see the little birds.  We heard of their progress and growth as the little birds got bigger.  They feathered out!  They are fluffy!  They are venturing out of the nest!  David rescued a baby bird from the floor of the coop before the chickens would certainly peck it to death!  

I think my little ones were feeling like proud parents as the little birds learned to fly.  Such fun to watch that growing part of life.  Inevitably, the circle closes down on the ending side, and we got to see that too.  Sadly, Angel brought me the limp body of a baby bird.  It was just barely as big as her cupped hands, its floppy head dangling against her fingers.  She was distraught.  The twins were bewildered that such a thing could happen.  Eddie was sad, too.

Angel wanted to put the dead birdie in the sunshine to see if the warmth would help it to wake up, and kept running away from us.  Eddie got the shovel and we scouted out an appropriate burial place.  I pushed the blade into the moist soil, turning over worms and bugs - evidences of life - while making a place for this new death.  Angel slowly placed the bird into the hole and smoothed its feathers.  Freddie peered over the edge of the tiny grave and announced that he wanted to go to Heaven, too.  Georgie hung back, hesitant to be too close.  We said a little prayer and closed the grave.  

With that, we put away the shovel and washed our hands.  Its short life was over, but ours keep going.  Death is an integral part of life, and I am glad that my children can see births and deaths.  Getting too far away from the natural cycle makes us fearful of ends and beginnings.

And I do believe that our deaths are just a new beginning elsewhere.  Our bodies get worn out and tired.  But there is that something, that spirit, that chi, that power that makes us who we are... and that lives on.  I'm so grateful for my faith in that progression - that death isn't the final end - that helps ease the sting of separation.

And helps me to console my little ones when a wee birdie dies.

Five Boys

It's been nearly a decade since these boys lost their daddy.  He slipped away peacefully in his sleep after a long, long battle with brain cancer.  They watched him struggle, but they had time to play with him and say their goodbyes.  It was hard.  I was 33, a widow with five young sons to raise.  It was hard.  I haven't written about it yet because it's still hard, but maybe I will someday.

I wish I could send a little message to that younger me.  I wish I could whisper into her ear that these brave little lads would make it through.  We wouldn't be without our share of challenges and difficulties, but we would make it.  I wish she could have seen that one day, they would be like this:  tall, strong, and handsome.  And still making it though.

Wherever you are today, hang on.  You'll make it through.

Familiar With Death

It's been interesting to watch how different family members have been dealing with the death of my mother.  For some, it's very obvious and difficult.  Some only mourn when they are alone.  Some swing in and out of sadness.  I find my own reactions interesting:  it is as if grief has been pulled from a variety of sources, and the whole wad has been slung my way.

My grandmother (Mom's mother) died when I was about 5.  I don't remember much about her, but I have a very clear memory of how sad and dreary it was on the day of her funeral.  My dad's parents passed away when I was in my teens.  I miss them dearly, especially my Oma.  Mom's dad lived well into his 90's, and his beautiful passing is a most sacred experience of mine.  All the feelings of loss from my grandparents' deaths have come back to me these past few weeks.

Another grief that has resurfaced is the death of my first husband.  After fighting brain cancer for seven years, he passed away just after our 13th anniversary.  He was my sweetheart, my confidante, the husband of my youth, the father to my first five boys, my rock.  I was a widow at age 33.  Too young.  I felt so alone, so abandoned. I'm feeling that way again sometimes.  Alone.  Left behind.

Most of the time, I feel fine - happy, even.  I am so comforted by my faith in God's plan.  I'll see Mom again.  I will.  But sometimes the sadness wells up and crashes into me and all I can do is deal with the wave of grief.

I guess I'm glad that I have been familiar with death.  My mother's final arrangements were much easier than my husband's, for example.  That was partly due to her good planning, and partly because of my own experience.  Been there, done that.  And this likely won't be the last time.  I'm glad that I know where we go from here, and that we'll be reunited as families.  Death is just another step through God's plan, and I'm glad it's not a horribly frightening one for me.  It's just that much closer back to Him.

Children Must Remain With Parents

Yup, that's what the sign at the funeral home said.  "CHILDREN MUST REMAIN WITH PARENTS."  Like that, in all capital letters like it was important.  We were tempted to reverse the lettering so it said, "Parents must remain with children."  Because we thought Mom should have stayed with us.

And there are all my handsome brothers, trying to put on sad, pouty faces (and squatting so their tallness wouldn't poke out the top of the picture).  It was hard to look sad, because we make each other laugh.  Right now, laughing is a good thing.

The Great Plan of Salvation

My five older boys understand death.  My little twins are too little.  But my almost-four-year-old little girl just doesn’t get it.  I was trying to explain to her what happened to Grandma Susie, the whole die, get buried, go to Heaven, be resurrected thing, and it went something like this:
    “Oh.  Resurrected is good.  I want to be resurrected right now.”  I tried to explain that before you could be resurrected, you had to die first.  “Then I want to die right now!”  I realized that strange things have to be looked at in a bigger context before they make sense.  The inequities and unfairnesses of this life make no sense at all until we look at them in a much bigger overview.

Things here are sometimes very hard.  To get through, I use my GPS - the Great Plan of Salvation.  Before I can get anywhere, I have to first acknowledge the terrain.  There are mountains, plateaus, rivers, and buildings which I didn’t put there.  They were there before me.  This is the framework set up by God: First, we lived with God .  There, we had the presentation and acceptance of His plan, the creation of the Earth, the fall, and our own births here.  During earth life is also where Christ atoned for our sins, making it possible for us to return to live with God.   We die, go to paradise or spirit prison as a temporary reward.  In the end comes resurrection, or our bodies and spirits reuniting, and the final judgement, where we are ultimately responsible for our own actions, and if we’ve been good, our reward: living with God again.

Next, I need to chart my course.  I have to decide which way I am going to go - on the freeway, the scenic route, through the city, making detours...  I can choose to accept God’s plan or not.  I get to pick whether I want to do the good things God outlined as the best way to stay on course:  accept Christ, be baptized, receive ordinances, share love - or not.  Moral agency, the ability to choose and act for ourselves, is essential in Heavenly Father's plan.

A testimony of the Great Plan of Salvation can give us hope and purpose as we wrestle with the challenges of life. We can find reassurance in the knowledge that we are children of God and that we lived in His presence before being born on the earth. We can find meaning in our present life, knowing that our actions during mortality influence our eternal destiny. With this knowledge, we can base important decisions on eternal truths rather than on the changing circumstances of life.

Going over this GPS is more than just an intellectual exercise.  Elder Henry B. Eyring said that it is “not just to know who God the Father is and who Jesus Christ is and who the Holy Ghost is. It’s to feel that is reality and that those individuals—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost—are real, that they know [us], and they love [us] and they are attentive to [us]”  And it’s an chance to use faith in choosing what seems to be the best course even though I can’t verify every traffic stop.  It is also an exercise in courage, to get started and keep going.

My mom taught me about the GPS when I was a little girl.  She used pictures in Family Home Evening to outline the terrain.  And she forged the path to show me which way to go.  She was an organized planner.  She knew that hard things were easier when we used a road map.  Anticipating her death, she outlined all of the important things we needed to know in this book, down to “don’t all five of you talk - the meeting will be too long.”  

When she wanted to progress in her job at the school district, she made a plan to go back to college and get her degree in computer science of something smart like that.  Then she mustered the strength to work her plan.  I remember her sitting down with her homework at the kitchen table, begging my brother to help her with her math.  She made a binder for us as we planned my wedding, noting all the important things that needed to get done, and planning when to tackle each part.  She taught me to plan out the steps, so that you would only have to worry when it was necessary. She made countless lists on yellow lined pads, wrote innumerable sticky notes of things that needed attention, and calendared just about everything - except this funeral.

She planned on having this family stay together forever, and worked toward that goal.  She made frequent phone calls to each family, to keep in touch and see how we were doing.  She sent cards in the mail and fun email cards.  She gave gifts and took the grandkids out to dinner on their birthdays.  She wrote down that we should be kind to each other, just in case we forgot.

And she had a firm testimony that the Lord can help as we drive through life.  One time we were on a family vacation, driving through gorgeous canyons.  She was driving along a road, precariously winding along the side of a steep cliff.  Suddenly, she pulled over.  She didn’t know why, but had been prompted to stop.  As Dad investigated, he realized that this was the last turnout for a while, and that the steering wheel had somehow worked its way loose.  If Mom had steered around one more sharp turn, the steering wheel would have come off in her hand, leaving the vehicle without direction.  It was sobering to realize that we easily could have been killed.  

I am so grateful for Heavenly Father’s Great Plan of Salvation.  I am grateful for my dear mother teaching it to us, and showing us the way.  I am grateful for God for engineering the path, and that Christ made it possible.  As I chart my own course, I remember her loving example, and hope that I can pass it along to my children.  Thanks, Mom.

I Want My Mom

My mother passed away a few days ago.  I miss her terribly, but I am filled with peace.  It's as if God took my broken-open heart and poured a double measure of love and comfort straight in.

I have to speak at her funeral tomorrow.  I have no idea what to say.  There are sweet things that would be nice, but totally insufficient.  And the things that are vitally important are so close to my heart that there is no way I could say them out loud, let alone in front of a crowd.

Many people loved my mother.  She touched countless lives with her kind, thoughtful nature.  She was so much to so many... but she is my mom.  My mom!

Love you, Mom.