Oh, if only this could be what everyone had to look forward to. Nobody would need to worry about aging for a minute!
Oh I know, her eyes are giving her a little trouble, and she no longer drives at night. And she tells me she can't remember names very well anymore. But she teaches a rambunctious primary class, and serves in the temple, and teaches a few piano lessons every week (just free of charge for a few neighbors and family members), and, when we were sitting out on the back lawn together at her birthday party, she hopped right up after, while I had to have Mike help me!
In any case, we had a big family party at Polk's End. (Sadly, the drought, combined with really low water pressure from Pineview this year, has robbed us of the full green of that marvelous backyard. It's still one of the happiest places to be though.)
How do I even put her in words?
She is an angel--yes. But not in some airy, fluffy, unrelatable way. She brought refugees and a million others who needed a place to stay into her home, she served God with the most dependable and solid faith one could ever imagine, she taught me--solely through example--to always be kind, she taught me not to be remotely afraid of questions and what ifs about life and the gospel. (Why would I need to be afraid or shy away from wondering about things when those wonderings could be explored against the solidness of her foundation. I spent so much of my growing up just ... asking her things.) But also ... her goodness dwelt in a personality that was totally in touch with all the complexities and messiness of life. She didn't do her good in a world of pristine, unearthly living, but in a practical, dig in your hands and get dirty sort of way that showed me all good could exist alongside the untidy and stressful and imperfect realities of a mortal existence.
I can't think of a better person to induct children into this business of living, but how can you say "eternally grateful" without it just sounding trite? I don't know, but I don't feel it in some small way. I am eternally grateful--forever and forever--that I got to be one of her children. I feel to rejoice every moment that I think of my parents and the life they created for me to grow up in.
Thank you so much for agreeing to all of us, Mom! How was it arranged? And why did I, of all people, get to be tied to it all? I can't wait to know it all someday.
The five daughters. (Almost all of her 11 kids were there. Only one brother was out of town.)
Brother Aaron, nephew Adam, brother Chris, and the back of his son Gordy's head. :)
Sister-in-law Missy and Amy's daugher Mia.
That's all the pictures I happened to take, but just for fun let's end with a few of my mom from days gone by.
With my brothers Rob and John.
Happy 90 years Mom!
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