Remembering

I keep thinking that if I just wait long enough, I'll be able to post something new about what the kids are doing, or write a funny story about what one of the kids did, and I'll be able to just skip over the whole part where my Grandpa died last week and I drove myself and four children to Utah and back in four days. But the more I wait, trying to forget, the more I realize what I really need to do:

REMEMBER

My Uncle Kay spoke at my Grandpa's funeral. He spoke about remembering, and about how we needed to go home and record in our journals our thoughts and feelings; how we need to write about what happened, and share our feelings with our children and REMEMBER what we felt.

So, here's what I remember.

It's really sad and hard and just plain yucky to say goodbye to someone you love. It doesn't feel good. It doesn't matter that he was 83 years old and had lived a full and happy life, it's still just really sad.

I remember watching my mom and and her mother and sisters and brother gather together over the casket and say their final goodbyes to the body of their father and husband. I remember their strength in doing this. I remember that they KNOW the blessings of the temple are true. I remember that they KNOW they'll see him again.

I remember seeing the tears my little boys shed as they watched their great-grandpa being burried. I remember what an extrodinary man my grandfather was. How he always had a joke or a song, or a smile to share with his seven children, 39 grandchildren, and 45 great-grandchildren. I remember that he loved me. I remember that he knew the gospel was true. I remember that he honored his priesthood.

I remember my Grandma's impentetrable strength... Her smile for the man who handed her my Grandpa's navy flag, her words of comfort to everyone who had lost this wonderful man, when she was the one who lost the most - her companion for over sixty years. I remember that she is such a woman of faith...always composed, and always with a kind word or friendly smile for someone else, even when she must be at the depths of her own sorrow. I hope someday to be a woman like her...a woman of faith...who KNOWS she'll see her beloved again. I'm working on it, and I'm glad I have such a wonderful example to follow.



I remember saying goodbye to all my own brothers and sisters as the weekend came to a close. I was crying like a baby and making them hug me while they made fun of me....I was an emotional wreak, but I just didn't even care.


Remembering all this makes me cry, and (despite all evidence to the contrary the entire weekend) I hate to cry. It makes you look funny and your head hurt. But I hope that in remembering, I'll be able to learn, and grow, and teach my own children about the importance of remembering. I know that most of them are too young to really remember my grandpa, but I hope they'll remember how they felt at the funeral, how the Spirit touched their hearts and gave comforts to their little souls. That they'll be able to tether back to that feeling when things are hard in their own lives.

Today was the last day of school for all my children. They've been on edge a bit this last week, being impatient with one another and picking on eachother, looking for ways to be be unkind. I guess saying goodbye is hard to do...even if it's just for the summer and to teachers and friends that you'll see again in two and half months. Sometimes it can bring out the worst in you. But, if we do it right, saying goodbye and REMEMBERING can bring out the best in you... I was certainly a witness to that this weekend.

Okay, I'll end this super-long and super-sappy post with scripture...something I've never done on my blog before. This scripture is from the Book of Mormon, found in the book of Mosiah, as King Benjamin is addressing his people, and it goes like this:

And moreover, I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness.

O remember, remember that these things are true; for the Lord God hath spoken it.