What an interesting Week

So this week you have all heard about Jessie and the broken cheekbone--her run in with Russell in the horse trailer.  It is still a mystery of how that all happened.  It was an emotional deal for me, though outwardly I was all calm and felt it would all be ok.  Late Monday night driving back home after having driven Jessie along with Doug and Jennifer Larsen to the hospital, going over to the Melton's to watch grandkids while MIke and Angie were at the Hospital with Jessie, and then Mike and Angie finally coming home with Jessie--I finally started crying--letting some of the emotion out. It's not easy seeing your first grandchild hurt --weren't totally sure how serious it was going to be.  I was just not liking life and all the hurts that can come.  How do you be happy again?  We are such vulnerable creatures. Doug was waiting up--he couldn't sleep worrying about Jessie and blaming himself (for nothing)--Doug is like that.  He absorbs it all.  We said our evening prayer and I prayed for God's healing and comfort to be on us--to heal and comfort Doug and I as we had absorbed this pain and were so sad.  I am grateful to share that "it" came--and I could let it go.  I think Doug did too (but more gradually).  The atonement is so very real and so very wonderful for all these things.  I can only imagine what it would be like otherwise.

Last week I was in the temple and had been weighed down by the problems in our family--not that they are so terrible.  We really have been so greatly blessed--but the issues still seem to get to me.  Anyway the Lord chose to instruct me then. The thought--"Our children have a Savior, and it's not me" --Several meanings, but the one that applies to me is I am not capable of handling all their issues in life.  That is the Savior's job. I am only a mortal, and though I have always tried to be a responsible parent, I can't solve all my children's problems, neither am I suppose to, but to allow them to learn on their own.  That of course is easier said than done.  I found myself falling into the same trap with Jessie's accident. I can't absorb her pain and take it away, fix it and make it all better.  She got to go through that for whatever reason.  So I have to kind of step back and only support.  Mike and Angie learned that about Grace, and it applys to a lot of situations.

I got to go to Tom's preschool graduation.  Very cute and fun to watch Kay how she had that little program for the kids.  There were 2 other teachers besides her for the year.  They taught their own children, and one other little girl, Jenna.  She was the little girl who's mother unexpectly died about 1 year ago and Kay and the other mother's took it upon themselves to include Jenna in their preschool. It was wonderful to witness the dad and Jenna and her little brother (she also has an older brother) play and interact.  Happy and whole.  I got a great opportunity to visit with Jenna's paternal grandmother while there and got to learn alot more of how the family dealt with this blow. Pretty remarkable.  Makes me wonder how I would have handled something so overwhelming.  This family is pretty amazing.  You go to a simple preschool graduation and get instructed about how people deal with their situations in life--humbling.

So I get to write a letter to all my neices and nephews for June.  You have received other letters from your aunts and uncles so far this year. Now it's my turn.  It's intimidating--but I think I felt inspired to write what I wrote.  Then we were reading a conference address the other day, and a quote was given from a 1916 conference address that intrigued me.  I wanted to read the whole address and think that the quote will apply to my letter.  So---I made a trip down to Salt Lake today to the church history museum/library.  Copied the address by Pres. Joseph F Smith.  Haven't read the whole thing yet.  Then I went over to the Salt Lake Cemetery to find the gravesite of my ggggrandmother Lucinda Bybee Layne.  That was an interesting trek.  The Salt Lake Cemetery is old and looking like it could all cave in anytime.  The roads, curbing, streets are being pushed up and warped. But what do you expect when you dig that many holes in the ground.  You can't very well go in and smooth it all out.  Anyway--took a little bit of tracking on the internet and at the cemetery, but I found out where she is. It really is very beautiful there.  There is no headstone or marker, just from the map I got and about where she was buried. I wanted to go remember her.  One of the only ancestors I know of who is buried here in Salt Lake.  So I put some flowers there in front of the tree (wrote her name on the package) and left it.  The flowers were acquired miraculously.  As I was driving out to the freeway on 106th S.  (I usually go 11400), but decided at the last minute to swing by the library to pick up a book I had requested and I had to get gas--so there I was on 106th S.  I drive by Jenkins-Soffe Mortuary and they have a sign out--giving away free mums for Memorial Day.  I have to do a U turn and come back--but there I now had flowers to put on her gravesite.  How nice and fitting to remember this great lady.  I am going to write up a history about her.  One of the mormon pioneers.  She lived to be 90 yrs old--1805--1895.  A long full life.  Doug suggested that we get some money together and put a plaque to mark her gravesite. Good idea.

looking S from gravesite back across Salt Lake City Cemetery

So now tonight, we are going to the temple to do a sealing session for names Grandma Tiede needed to have done on some of her family and friend's families.  That will be special too. All goes hand in hand with the theme of the week.  It's all about families and God's plan for us.