A Growing Time

When I left my first teaching job in Ogden, Utah for a closer-to-home job, the staff gave me a gift certificate from a local nursery so we could use it to help beautify our unfinished yard in our new home. I had a difficult time saying good bye to my colleagues at Mt. Ogden Middle School, and wanted to have a reminder of their love and support, so I asked Brett to pick out a beautiful blue spruce with the certificate. We planted this little tree in the corner of our back yard and watched it grow. Every time I looked out my window and saw the majestic symmetry of the small evergreen, my thoughts went back to those wonderful teachers and support staff who really showed me what my new teaching career was all about.

Here is a photo from May 2004, and you can see our little tree just over Abbey's shoulder. Unfortunately, this doesn't show the perfection that the tree started with because a winter storm had already broken off two delicate branches with heavy snow.

Our tree has grown quickly over the last fourteen years, and in spite of the harsh conditions of Utah summers, Utah winds, and the neglect it has endured, it stands today. But it is definitely a much different tree now.  When we first planted it, the blue spruce had a perfection about it that I was so proud of. If there had been a photo of the perfect evergreen in the dictionary, it would have been of my little tree. Even though it survived some of the big wind storms at the beginning, as it grew, our tree became more susceptible to the monstrous winds and winters of Bountiful, Utah.

I really noticed the toll our tree has taken when we came home last summer after living overseas for four years. The 2011 winter had brought a dangerous wind storm in December that tore down fences, flipped shingles everywhere, ripped trees out of the ground with their roots, and prompted a county wide disaster clean-up on a Sunday with church meetings being cancelled. We had to watch that storm, with its 100+ mph winds, play out on the internet in Qatar, and we prayed that we would still have a house standing when it was all over. Thankfully, our house had damage that could be repaired, but our precious tree in the corner had been unearthed. The photos our son sent to us showed the naked roots above ground that were as vulnerable as a compound fracture. The tormented tree lay prone on its side. The fence was gone too and made the tree all the more hopeless and exposed. The work of repair and clean-up would have to wait until summer when we could orchestrate the monumental task, so the leader of our back yard forest had to bide its time. I gave it up for kindling and prepared myself to watch it be chopped up and hauled away.

It is difficult to see in the photo, but this is one of the insurance photos that shows the fence gone and our tree laying on its side with the roots exposed. So sad!

When we finally returned to Utah in June 2012, standing next to my tree was even worse than looking at the insurance pictures, but remarkably the tree was still growing. I don't know how the spring had won over this hopeless cause, but life was definitely left in my Mt. Ogden memory tree. We didn't know what to do. If we tried to straighten the tree and replant the naked roots, would it die? What if we removed the exposed roots to make it look more "normal"? Would it survive the makeover?

Here you can see the exposed roots of the tree.

 

Well, sometimes there are too many decisions to be made, so some go ahead and make themselves. Our tree went ahead and kept growing while we kept working out the other issues. Maybe it was our way of letting nature repair itself or not wanting to face the inevitable demise of the tree. It wasn't my perfect tree anymore, but it was alive and it was thriving. There were new knobby starts on the ends of the branches. The exposed roots were settling into their new environment and standing firm. So the other repairs and decisions took priority.

When fall arrived, the growth of our tree was remarkable, and instead of growing in the horizontal direction that the top had been pushed to, there were inches and inches of growth shooting at a 90 degree angle for the vertical sunshine. This was one tenacious tree. I could only stand in awe and take pictures of something that would not be stopped or deterred from its mission - to grow.

So now our tree has survived yet another winter, and a harsh one at that with more snow than we have had for quite a few years. It isn't the perfect little tree we once planted, but its remarkable shape is inspiring and even more forcefully reminds me of those in my life who grow and bless others with their love in spite of their challenges. Our blue spruce continues to grow towards the heavens and believes it will brush up against the glories of God one day to be ushered into the forever forests of the next life. This brave tree has made me believe the same thing, and not only about my tree, but about myself and anyone else who keeps bracing themselves against the winds, worries, and disasters of this life and keeps growing towards the Son.

The Silver Lining

The silver lining of the dark cloud of a funeral trip included:

Seeing family and friends,

cuddling with grandchildren,

Abbey holding our new Amelia for the first time,

seeing our home improvements that Randy did,

getting to know Janie (Randy's wife) better,

meeting Danny's wife Mary for the first time,

shopping (Thanks for spoiling me, Pat),

slurpees (and yes, I spilled a red one on our new carpet),

Taco Time (crisp meat burritos),

eating delicious homemade (thanks Mary, Janie, and Randy) food,

and a little snow action with hail thrown in.

Other bonuses of the trip:

Lots of time with this adorable granddaughter

Watching Millie's intense conversations with both Great Grandma Drawe and

Great Grandma Kearney

Uncle Randy's Bouncy Castle was a hit!

Seeing these Pizza Face Guys go crazy in our newly finished back yard was delightful.

Amelia modeled her handmade blessing dress and shoes for the creator (Great Grandma Kearney) and me.  We didn't make it to the blessing but this was almost as wonderful.

We even had the pleasure of an impromptu play, complete with a scary dragon, a princess (Abbey's best friend Jalisa), and a cheerleader.

It was reassuring to know that the awesome family tradition of putting our babies in household containers is being carried on with flair.

And of course we had the joy of being in Utah for the always unpredictable Conference Weekend when anything goes as far as weather is concerned.  Nice deck, right!

This is how we all felt when we had to leave.

Thanks, Sweet Pea for expressing it so well.

Getting Caught Up and Many Thanks

It has been a busy few weeks. The best part was being in Utah for our son's wedding, seeing the joy in his face as he knelt across the altar from his glowing, beautiful bride Mary, and catching up with family, especially my grandsons. Kristy has posted quite a few pictures of the wedding already, and you can check them out at thebonnymess.blogspot.com, but I have posted some of my favorite shots here.

Coming back to Doha has been quite difficult, especially because we left family, our comfortable home, and the crisp cool temperatures of Utah in October. The fall colors were amazing, and the weather for the wedding couldn't have been better. The other difficult part is the jet lag - boy has it been tough. Abbey was up all night one night, not able to sleep. She then went to school and came home and crashed on the couch. But it has all been worth it for the treasured experiences we had. It was wonderful to be in the temple, especially for such important and sacred purposes.

I want to thank those of you who sacrificed time, money, and energy to be a part of Ben's wedding. We have an awesome family and remarkable friends who are generous and supportive. Thank you to Jared for traveling back and forth to and from Colorado twice (once by car, once on the plane) so he could teach and be in Utah at critical times. Jared was also Abbey's hero when he made time to carve a pumpkin with her in the middle of all the hullabaloo. He thought she had been cheated out of some the normal Halloween fun, and he really helped restore some of that. Thank you to Kristy who gracefully balanced two little boys while creating a breathtaking hairdo for her little sister Abigail and beautifying herself for the reception as well. In fact, she balanced many things while throwing a bridal shower, creating beautiful wedding gifts for Ben and Mary and precious birthday and Christmas gifts for us to bring back to Doha. Grown up kids are such a blessing!

Thank you so much to Mary's parents Ed and Ann. They, along with their fabulous family, created such a glorious day for Ben and Mary. And the work they did over the last three months has been invaluable, and I'm not just talking about planning a wedding. They have been Ben's surrogate parents since we have been in Qatar. Thanks also for understanding when we left all the clean up to you and your crew so we could go home and pack. I can't say enough good things about such great people. And the best part is that now we are related! Speaking of being related, I want to thank my brother Mark and his wife Amy for coming from Hurricane to participate. Mark jumped in to help with the audio visual difficulties at the wedding dinner, even though he has never even been close to being a computer geek.

Thanks also to my good friend Jennifer who tended Abbey, Thomas, and Kimball while we were in the temple for the endowment day, even though she had seriously burned her leg the day before with boiling water. What a trooper! Thanks Jacque for watching Abbey the morning of the sealing and delivering her to the temple at the perfect time for her to see the bride and groom come out for pictures. Thanks to Jenny and Jacque for taking Abbey and 15 of her friends for ice cream one night. It was perfect timing because she got pretty tired of all the wedding chaos. A big thank you goes to the Reilley family and Josh for saving the wedding dinner by magically pulling a laptop out of your car so the "show" could go on. We have so much gratitude and love for all of you who have blessed our lives and helped Ben get to this point in his life.

As I danced with my son at the reception, I realized that the biggest part of his life was just beginning. We have had him in our home for 22 precious years. Mary will have him for . . . well forever. Then I remembered the gold locket around my neck that I had dug out of my stored jewelry box that night to wear. Brett gave it to me years ago, when Kristy and Ben were small. I had placed small photos of Kristy and Ben in that locket then. Over the years Kristy's picture had fallen out and gotten lost, and I hadn't found a small enough picture to put in its place. So little Ben's photo was solo in my locket that night.

Even though moms have their children for such a short time in comparison to the rest of their lives, moms know them in a unique, microscopic way. Just as I can hold that tiny photo of Ben in my locket, I can also hold all those times with him when he was first discovering how scissors worked on my bedspread, how his new carving set could cut through anything, including his knee, and how to stand up for himself with his sister and chased her around the dining room table to retrieve the last candy bar that was rightfully his. I can even hear his dead pan comment in my head when we told him he was going to have another sister: "Well I guess I'm going to be mowing the lawn the rest of my life." He didn't know how true that would be! Those times and many more sacred and blissful times are treasures to me. Ben is a remarkable man now, one who has grown in leaps and bounds in the last year, especially since meeting Mary. I just hope he forgives me for hanging on to my locket-frozen Ben, pulling him out at times, and cherishing the baby and the boy he grew from. What a blessing you are my Ben!