This is such an important message. So many of us allow those thoughts to steal our peace.  Faith and fear cannot dwell together. 

Today I'm grateful for my faith and my hope in the Savior. I am grateful I was born into a family who taught me the truth and taught me to behave in a certain way. I didn't always do what I should but I always knew I could change and do better. Every day I try to change bad behavior or bad thoughts or bad opinions and replace them with good ones. 

I miss you, Mom. Thank you for teaching me the right things and for believing in me. I miss you and Dad and I miss Taylor. I hope you are all happy and doing good work. I know you are.

A MORNING SONG FROM TAYLOR

Two hours of sleep, two hours of wakefulness, that's how Wednesday's night went. When the second round of wakefulness occurred I had a "morning song" running through my head. I knew it was from Taylor. These are the words that came:  

"...but 'till that day, I'll be your man and love away your troubles if I can."

It was from a Glenn Yarbrough song called THE WORLD I USED TO KNOW. Here's the whole song if you want to listen to it. Click here.

I knew that he was telling me he would help me through the rest of my life, being there when I needed him. He always wanted to know how he could help me. 

Not all the words came, just those few because they were relevant. "...I'll be your man and love away your troubles if I can." 

He always said about himself, "I'm you boy, Momma." Oh how I miss my boy. 

Here's the rest of that stanza:

"Some day the world I used to know
Will come along and bid me go
Then I'll be leavin' you behind 
For love is just a state of mind
But 'till that day, I'll be your man
And love away your troubles if I can

"But 'till that day I'll be your man
And love away your troubles if I can"

Thank you, my boy.

OUR SON, TAYLOR

 Writing on Taylor's casket.

Taylor's children, too young to lose their father. 

Taylor, age 24--he died at age 43

We buried Taylor’s body three days ago. It’s alone, in a steel coffin with everyone’s last words written all over it with magic markers. We buried him at East Lawn Cemetery in Provo. All that is there is a temporary headstone in the ground, with his last name spelled wrong. The flowers that covered the coffin were made of gerbera daisies in bright colors. It was beautiful. The deer, and perhaps the rabbits too, are snacking on it. It’s an expensive midnight treat for them and is fitting. Taylor always shared whatever he had.
Here's his obituary. Click here.

Some of the family has found peace—a feeling of peace washed over Trent when he got my first phone call, even before he knew what was wrong. Some are grieving. I have gone through every stage of the grieving process several times. Mostly I cry.

Who was this boy (of 43 years) that we buried on Saturday? Besides his extreme loneliness and sadness he was usually a joyful person, somebody unlike anyone I have ever known. He was a boy whose great humor covered up something. He once told his dad he never felt worthy. He set the standards too high. He was worthy. Worthy of our love and worthy of the love of countless others. 

He was bright and often had an unmistakable testimony of the Savior. He helped Phil give me a blessing once as I was suffering from depression I had had for several months. After the blessing Taylor asked to talk to me privately. He told me, “You don’t have to suffer this, Mom. The Savior has already suffered it for you.” The next morning I woke up and the depression was gone.

Mostly Taylor loved. He loved deeply and completely. He also forgave. No matter what was done to him he forgave. Who was this extraordinary individual?

He was my son.

I know that one day I will die and he will be there, with his sweet smile and open arms, and all will be well.

I hope I can disguise my grief from the world and the rest of the family until then, because I don’t want them to know, I want them to see me being happy and loving them, because I do. But always, for Taylor, I will grieve.

PIANO RECIETALS AND FINE PHOTOGRAPHY SKILLS

Today was two or our granddaughter's piano recitals. These are the two of them. They did a great job. They each played two solos.

 Here is a photo of them before playing. The cute little one on the end is their younger sister. She was snoopy about who was doing what behind her.  She doesn't smile on cue anyway. It's beneath her to smile on demand. She smiles plenty often, but only when something is actually funny. Why would  someone smile when they are bored? It just doesn't make sense.

 This is a picture of the whole family. BUT...because I am my mother's daughter I cut someone's head off! Sorry Max. (Almost every photo Mom ever took had people standing there, smiling with, only partial heads.)

 And so I tried again, only slightly cutting his head off, but cutting our daughter in half. Yup, cutting people's head's off and cutting people in half--it's in the genes.

 Here they are--all body parts accounted for. Although Hillary is done, done, done posing for photos, as is the little one too.

 So, then I asked our youngest daughter to take three photos of us, the proud grandparents, to use my camera to take a picture with the three girls. This is the ONLY one she got. She got all the photo taking genes from my mother and me. Oh my.

                           
Here we are at the recital. Phil is attentive, I'm interested in what Hillary is doing--taking our pictures. Elizabeth is doing what, I don't know, smirking, I think. And the little one, is not smiling for sure but is looking like the cat that ate the canary. 

 

And Hillary DID get a photo of us with the grandkids, while Elizabeth was doing who-know-what (not pushing the proper button on the camera, that's for sure). Here we are with the darling grandkids. We love them with all our hearts.

              

We went to our grandson's jazz band performance on Thursday night but I forgot my camera so I couldn't take a photo of him--he's lucky, I think. Who knows how I would have messed up. He had three solos and did a wonderful job. They are playing at his sister's high school graduation next week so I can try again. But, I will be half a block away and the telephoto lens can only do so much.

A ROMANTIC EVENING WITH MY HUSBAND

Phil and I gave our family room furniture away to one of our kids, and loaned out one of our recliners to someone who has had shoulder surgery. There is really no place to sit in the family room except some dining room chairs we bought years ago when we thought we'd remodel and make a big dining room.
  
They are not comfortable TV watching chairs. I'm not sure they are even comfortable dining room chairs. Aaand we bought 12 of them. We like to have plenty of whatever it is--just like my mom. (If anyone in town needed something odd, they came to mom and she usually had one of whatever they wanted, sometimes two or three.)

We put a TV in Elizabeth's old room and now we snuggle together on a small couch, sometimes under a quilt. 

This quilt is one I made for my mom about 35 years ago and, even though its faded, I love it because it was hers and because she added the blue side panels, because it was too narrow. She has been gone 28 years, in June. I miss her every day.

There is a little heater in there too, because if its winter, I'm cold. If its summer, I'm hot. I have a great little system worked out:(

The other night Phil and I watched a CES Devotional by Randall Ridd. It was excellent. (Click here to watch or read it) He told a captivating story about oranges and why one man was promoted and another was not. Soon after that story I fell asleep. When I woke up I told Phil this was my favorite things to do, snuggle with him, holding hands, etc., watching TV together. I was waxing romantic and then he said...

"You snored."

I laughed until I couldn't hardly catch a breath. I guess if you can't have a romantic husband you should be happy with your honest one.