Happy 12th Birthday to the Blog

Here we are on Easter. There is Richard who spent the day preparing food in his smoker, wearing one of his many blood donation shirts. I rushed into the day without thinking about doing my hair (typical), but tried to set the table beautifully and have a clean kitchen. Mark wears his favorite color and will go on to eat more than anyone sitting at this table. Tim teases us with the BYU shirt and remains mysterious about his plans for the future. I’ll add that he is so strong from his landscaping work. I notice that Daniel is wearing a new version of the teal and white shirt he loved and wore all through high school and his mission. He’s almost finished with his first year at BYU, and his friend, the lovely McKenna joins us at the table. Paige is effortlessly elegant and happy, and has spent the last year since graduating from BYU settling into working as a freelance illustrator. And there is handsome, hardworking, and smart Michael, who changed jobs this year and is enjoying more sleep (even in April… he’s an accountant).

The blog is less about our children than it used to be, but they remain the ones who occupy our thoughts and conversations. They are still the focus of our energy and time, and when they linger at Sunday dinner as they did this week, I can draw from that happiness for a long time.

Some of you have read this blog from the beginning. There are 1,919 posts in the archives. I owe you a diploma or something, not that I have anything figured out except perhaps how to muster a tiny bit of faith. To each reader, whether you have read for years or months, I send my love to you.

Adventure stories

Easter weekend is here. The Sanchez family has been busy getting ready for the memorial for my grandmother. Mixed in with music practice, writing her life sketch, and other things, I have been editing pages of my dad’s memoir of his growing up years playing in the hills. Paige finished the illustrations for the last pages. Our goal was to finish by Easter, and we have done it. His book is a cross between The Hobbit, John Wayne Westerns, and Hardy Boys mystery books.

At times, it has been an escape to work on these stories. We included a map in the book. I think this is one of my favorite illustrations she did. The blog can’t do it justice.

We are celebrating being alive, celebrating those who have passed away, and celebrating the Savior’s Resurrection this weekend in the sunshine.

Last recital

Tonight we attended a piano recital, a long one, with enough songs stored in fingers from a year of pandemic living. I think this was Tim’s last recital. (Noooooooooo!) Mark played Beethoven and Tim played Schubert, and both boys elicited more than polite applause from somebody in the audience. “Whoo hoo!” called someone else’s mother as they took their bows, and I will love her forever for it.

2020 photo album

Richard is on the 9th or 10th day of his bout with COVID-19. We don’t know where he was exposed. The illness has a new character each day, but his oxygen levels have been fine, so I am grateful for that. He has stayed isolated from us, and no one else at home has tested positive. The worry I have felt is a small thing compared to what others have gone through with this illness so I hesitate to even mention it. I will say that although Richard’s case can be termed as “mild” and he has not complained, this is a different kind of illness and unpleasant at best.

What is helping us get through quarantine? Entertainment. Empathy from an employee of the attendance office at the high school. Dedicated teachers who make education happen. Surprises left on our porch from friends. Sunsets. For me, it helps to have routines I can do without thinking and something to look forward to each day. On Tuesday, it was the arrival of our 2020 photo book. I wrote before that creating this album helped me see that 2020 was a great year for the Ross family. God gives us eyes to see sometimes.

Grandma

Will she really be lost to us when she dies? I’m not talking about life after death, but my relationship with her. All my life, if I was lucky, I saw her once a year. Her influence wasn’t so weak as to only be there when we were together. It lived in memory, in letters I still keep, and in her uncanny ability to know when I needed something. Our understanding of one another grew as she revealed her generous nature. She pampered me in childhood, encouraged me as a teen, and mentored me as a young woman.

Wisdom in books and recipes and exchanged notes carried us through the turning point when I could be a help to her. She trusted me to write her story, to help her during an illness, and I sat with her as we drove away from her home for the last time.

Now she withdraws from us, settling into the idea of rest. My hope is that in death she’ll be restored to us more than she is now when I visit her, shrunken and white on her bed. I rouse her sometimes to say goodbye, but lately, I feel strength to let her rest, trusting that the quality of our relationship doesn’t depend upon a goodbye.