Extended family – Page 23 – Letters from Home

Holes in the wall

If the book club is meeting at our house, I will need to redecorate for weeks beforehand. Even after this, the gallery wall will need to be rearranged the day of the meeting, still to no effective end.

If I am arranging a gallery wall, I can’t handle climbing into the attic to place the bucket in the usual spot when the roof starts leaking. Richard will need to come home and do it because my mind can only juggle so much.

The gallery wall isn’t really what occupies my mind the most; it’s the new baby in the ward and a neighbor grieving; illnesses and milestones in people’s lives that I want to help them face; it’s juggling motherhood and being a wife; It’s worry for my grandmother who has had a major stroke. But I obsess about the gallery wall.

I need to do something that doesn’t involve making more holes in the wall, I think.

Easter Weekend

My new neighbor heard that we were musical so she gave us her tickets to Handel’s Messiah since she couldn’t go. This was a powerful experience. The music felt like heaven reaching out to me.

At the family Easter gathering on Saturday, my dad took the children on an Easter walk around the property. He set up simple objects and food for the children to handle and eat as he talked about the last week of the Savior’s life. He selected scriptures to be read at each stop. The small children were reverent and aware. I followed along and was touched by my dad’s testimony of Christ and his efforts to share it with his grandchildren. He has no pattern to follow in these acts from his own family experience, so one of my Easter lessons this year was how the gospel of Jesus Christ enhances the family dynamic and blesses generations.

Paige came home for a day. It was our eighth year attending the General Women’s meeting of the Church together and we took the traditional picture. We were called to action by our leaders, and that is a good thing.

Easter is changing for our family. Instead of the highlight being eggs and the traditional Easter scriptures in eggs, it was the Sunday meal. I don’t usually cook much on Sunday, but I prepared an Easter feast and enjoyed how the family lingered at the table for a change. Daniel filled the house with Easter music all day; Paige filled the house with art, photographing her work for her portfolio. Mark helped fill eggs with candy for his siblings. It was a good day.

Truths about the Savior I experienced this Easter week include feelings of gratitude for his grace lifting me and accepting me when I knew I could have done better. As I listened to Messiah music, I followed the Libretto, or text. The words were familiar even if the full musical score wasn’t. I realized how many of these scriptures about Christ are fundamental to me, their words framing my testimony. They are the lens by which I view many things, and a beloved guide for how to respond to challenges and try to help others. I feel my flaws in high relief, but Easter weekend reminded me that I can’t and will not fix them alone. Our precious Savior is the solution to everything.

Temple Celebration

My parents have served for many months on the Provo City Center Temple open house committee. They are so excited about the new temple near their home. My dad worked on the missionary committee and he and my mom helped direct visitors that walked through the temple. Did you hear that over 800,000 people toured this temple? There were many nights spent at planning meetings to make this run smoothly.

They took Paige and Daniel to the cultural celebration in the Marriott Center on the night before the dedication. Paige walked a few steps from her dorm and met them there.

My mom is an ordinance worker and organist for the new temple. She played for patrons for the first time yesterday. This is such an exciting time.

Day 3

Road trip day 1

Betty Burns

Betty Burns, 2003-05

While we were living in Texas, we adopted local aunts, uncles, and grandparents for our children. One of our favorite adopted grandmothers was Betty Burns. Our friendship began when she was assigned to visit me every month as a visiting teacher. She will always be one of my favorites. She came every month and taught me the gospel and loved our children.

Betty lived in a small apartment and had limited means, but she lived with generosity. She joined our family activities naturally, coming to dinners, lunches, and a road trip. If the kids were a little grumpy, she was there to diffuse the situation with a grandmotherly laugh which taught me not to react in a negative way.

Paige invited Betty to her 8th birthday dinner. We have a video of Betty as Paige opened her handmade gift, an apron with ballerinas printed on the fabric. Baby Timothy pelted her with a balloon and she just laughed at the little boy’s painless attacks.

Baptisms and baby blessings can be lonely when you live far from family and they can’t make the trip to attend. Along with my parents and Rob’s family, Betty and a few other friends came to Paige’s baptism. I felt overwhelmed by support. Betty’s attendance at the baptism sealed her adoption in my heart, along with the other friends who were there.

One January day she invited the kids and me to her apartment to see her decorations. She had been sick during December and hadn’t been able to decorate her house for Christmas, so she decided to do it in January instead. We walked in to a cozy scene with nativities of many kinds everywhere. The festive decorations trailed all the way through her apartment, not just in her living room. She told us stories of where her nativities were purchased and let the kids touch them. I realized that this wasn’t just a casual visit: we were her special guests, invited to celebrate Christmas with her. She presented me with a large box and we opened it to find a beautiful porcelain and gold Nativity from Dillard’s inside. This nativity has a place in our home each year.

Betty was my ally. She cheered me on in my efforts at church and with our children. I have kept all of her notes to me during those years. They are full of encouragement, clothed in thanks. I was in my late twenties and she was in her seventies, and she could move among the roles of mentor and elder to friend and confidant. I needed this nurturing at this time in my life, especially because I was serving as the Relief Society president and had a responsibility to nurture many people in our church congregation. I think she needed our children, and our children needed her. One of their favorite memories of Betty was when Richard took the kids to her apartment to fix her computer. She fed them ice cream at dinnertime, as any good grandmother does.

What did I learn from Betty? I learned generosity in friendship and faithfulness in visiting teaching. I learned that generosity needn’t spring from a healthy bank account. She showed me in endless ways that she cared. I learned that generations need each other. With her laugh and attention to our kids, she influenced me to view them in a more precious way, not being so hasty to correct them. I learned that the important relationship with grandparents can be filled by someone who isn’t related to us.

Thank you, dear Betty.

Provo City Center Temple Open House

This picture is a a memento of a day which was very sweet. We toured the newly completed Provo City Center Temple on Saturday, hosted by my parents, who are on the open house committee. I loved the wood work, stained glass, staircases, and stencils. (Richard and Timothy were camping with the Scouts.)

I spent a lot of time in the Provo Tabernacle growing up and I have good memories of the pews and organ and walking around the grounds after church meetings. We visited Provo just days after a fire destroyed the building. It was so sad to see the ruins.

Here is a nice video of the transformation from burned tabernacle to temple.

Christmas 2015

1-DSC_0039 — Nativity kids at my parents’ place in Spring Lake on Christmas Eve

1-DSC_0021 — The smallest shepherd with his sheep. This is my nephew and this is my favorite picture from Christmas. Richard got a new camera. so we have no photographs of him because he was the photographer.

1-DSC_0036 — No worries, this angel is pretty cool. This is the last photo of the younger boys because they received video games for Christmas and we didn’t see much of them after that.

1-DSC_0045 — Paige was with us again and Daniel was the piano man providing background music.

1-choir — Richard and Daniel participated in the ward choir. Photo from Janine Clarke

1-DSC_0052 — View from the front porch on Christmas morning

1-DSC_0051 — We had no place to go, so it was great.

1-DSC_0055 — Sitting in this chair, bundled up and cozy, I watched the entire Roosevelt documentary series over two weeks. 14 hours, people. Richard and Paige joined me for the last 10 hours. I often bundle up like this in the house.

Paige's paint doodles — Paige’s paint doodles

1-DSC_0073 — For the upstairs tree we used mostly red and white ornaments and it was one of the prettiest trees we’ve ever had.

2-DSC_0053 — Richard was eventually able to dig us out.

Christmas cheer

I don’t have much to say about last week, which included a death in the family, a basement flood, a canceled vacation to visit family, a funeral, and blizzards to drive through, except that we are still smiling. The role of the Savior in our lives has everything to do with it.

I shopped for religious, non-photo Christmas cards in many places this year. Most were too expensive for my budget. I read recently that we should reevaluate how we use our family pictures as Christmas cards. Sometimes a person in mourning doesn’t want to see a smiling, complete family in a Christmas card. And if we are celebrating Christmas, where is the Savior in such a card? I have decided that the Savior is in our smiles. He is in the growth that we have accomplished during the year. He is in the beauty of the surroundings, and the source of joy in our lives. Truly, we smile because of Him.

Merry Christmas, dear readers. Smile, give cheer, and rejoice. The Savior lives.

Grandpa

I was blessed to have 41 years of time with my Grandpa Stewart. I will miss my grandpa’s deep blue eyes, funny stories, requests for violin music, boots, and the way he always talked about his wife JoAnn. On the night that he died, I lay in bed awake, remembering his voice speaking her name, again and again over the years. Oh, how he loved her! That’s my favorite part of who he was…and is.