Our two loved ones we have been anxious about have passed away. I won’t write about it here, at least not yet.
I spend quite a bit of time at my desk which is surrounded by family photos. The serenity of this room is helpful. Our children have stayed close and that is also helpful.
I love family stories. Family history research is not my favorite thing to do, but I can read or write family stories all day long. I love old family photos and display them in many rooms of the house. There are just so many ways to connect with our ancestors. I find strength in learning about them and visiting where they lived. So, this video of Elder Holland and his family gathering in southern Utah was fun for me.
I love how my aunt Kate compiled generations of family recipes as Christmas gifts to the family. Just last night, I made a cake using my Great-grandmother Violet’s recipe. After enjoying the cake, I asked the boys to find Grandma Violet’s picture on the wall. In her portrait she smiles as a young teenager with a great big flower in her hair. One son rolled his eyes at my request to find her, but I didn’t care. Someday he will be glad to know something about her.
Will she really be lost to us when she dies? I’m not talking about life after death, but my relationship with her. All my life, if I was lucky, I saw her once a year. Her influence wasn’t so weak as to only be there when we were together. It lived in memory, in letters I still keep, and in her uncanny ability to know when I needed something. Our understanding of one another grew as she revealed her generous nature. She pampered me in childhood, encouraged me as a teen, and mentored me as a young woman.
Wisdom in books and recipes and exchanged notes carried us through the turning point when I could be a help to her. She trusted me to write her story, to help her during an illness, and I sat with her as we drove away from her home for the last time.
Now she withdraws from us, settling into the idea of rest. My hope is that in death she’ll be restored to us more than she is now when I visit her, shrunken and white on her bed. I rouse her sometimes to say goodbye, but lately, I feel strength to let her rest, trusting that the quality of our relationship doesn’t depend upon a goodbye.
The book that I used to learn how to make dolls is called Storybook Toys by Jill Hamor and it is gorgeous and thorough. The embroidery stitches that I use for the face are very basic, the backstitch and satin stitch, and sometimes a French knot for a shine on the eyes. I will use several shades of blue and gray and flecks of gold for the eyes. Right now I have the base shade of one eye finished. Every thread is anchored on the back of the head with tack stitches as I showed you before.
My week will be spent at home, stitching a doll, reading a book about a Supreme Court case, editing more stories for my dad, and cleaning out a bedroom. I will post more progress on the doll when I can. I am still reading more than anything else… good job, me. I wish you the very best week. Let’s hope that you can do something that feeds your soul between the mundane and stressful things.
For many weeks, Paige and I have been helping my dad work on a big project for the family. He has typed a memoir of his childhood adventures in the rolling hills and rock formations near his home in Pittsburg, CA. Paige is illustrating the stories and I am editing and formatting the book. We are mailing a few stories each week to my siblings and their children, with the goal to print and bind a complete version by early April.
It reminds me of a project that I began in January 2020 to write memories of my childhood. I wrote about 15 or 20 pages before I set it aside. Living in close quarters during the past 10 months has made it a little harder to focus on writing. Plus, I struggle to define a work space. The desks are being used, the kitchen table must be cleared often, and I need extreme quiet. This project with my dad keeps some of my desire to write alive, and inspires me to pick up old projects and not find excuses to delay.
I am making a little progress on creating a portable workspace for myself. I need to be present a lot of the time, not hidden away in an office. So, my work world revolves around a book bag and lightweight storage containers more than a single desk.
Stephen King, in his book about writing, suggests a writer should not have a massive desk that dominates a room because writing is not the primary thing. Living with your family is more important. He thinks a smaller desk in a corner is best. 🙂
This December, my Advent theme is Hope. It’s my plan to share something each day leading up to Christmas. On this day, I include some words of women in my family about enduring difficult times. Knowing these stories and others from my family history gives me strength and hope to endure my own difficulties. I thank my Heavenly Father for these stories of hope.
“…We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things…”
The Articles of Faith 1:13
My Great-grandmother Della Griggs Stewart, who lived during the flu epidemic of 1918:
“The influenza epidemic broke out and [my husband] Del was very ill for two weeks. This was a terrible time for everyone. The high school was closed and turned into a hospital, cots were sent in and everyone available was called in to nurse the sick. I helped what I could, nursing some and helped take care of children whose parents had died or who were very ill. We had to wear masks; no one could come into town or leave. Our friends and neighbors were dying two and three per day. Our families were spared.”
My Great-great-great grandmother Fanny Fry, who traveled without family as a sixteen-year-old across the plains, pulling a handcart in 1859:
“At the Elk Horn River, my feet were so swollen I could not wear my shoes. Then when the swelling went out, my feet were so sore from the alkali that I never had on a pair of shoes after that for the entire journey…
“We had to pull up quite a long hill, and part of it was steep. In climbing we got behind one of the teams for the oxen to help us, for it was all we could do to keep it moving. Captain Rowley came up and called us lazy, and I did not consider we were at all.
“While pulling this heavy load, I looked and acted strange. The first thing my friend Emmie knew I had fallen under the cart, and before they could stop it, the cart had passed over me, and I lay at the back of it on the ground. When my companions got to me, I seemed perfectly dead. Emmie could not find any pulse at all, and there was not a soul around. They were, she thought, all ahead, so she stood thinking what to do when Captain Rowley came up to us. ‘What have you got there, Emmie?’ he said. ‘Oh my, Fanny is dead,’ she said. It frightened him, so he got off his horse and examined me closely but could not find any life at all. He asked Emmie to stay with me and he would go and stop the company and send a cart back for me, which he did.
“When I came to myself, my grave was dug two feet deep, and I was in a tent. The sisters had sewed me up to the waist in my blanket, ready for burial. I opened my eyes and looked at them.
“I was weak for some time after. I did not fully recover during the rest of the journey. Through it all I found I had a great many friends in the company.”
My mother, who had a brother wounded in the Vietnam War when she was a teen in 1968:
“I was 14 years old and Doug was 11. We were home alone because Mom and Dad were out on a Sunday drive, and two Marines knocked on our front door. Finding out that our parents weren’t home, one asked if they could wait in our living room. I stayed in the back TV room with Doug and was dying inside and praying so hard for Mom and Dad to get home. They did arrive a little later (seemed like two years) and when they pulled into the driveway, they saw the Marine Corps car and wouldn’t get out! Finally, I heard them come in the front door and from the hallway I heard, “He’s not dead!” That’s when I lost it and ran to the back room again. We learned that my much-idolized-by-me big brother was barely hanging on to life. I couldn’t speak. Well, that’s when the daily telegrams started that always ended: ‘RECOVERY QUESTIONABLE’. Weeks later, when my mom was at least 10 pounds lighter, the ‘RECOVERY EXPECTED’ telegram came. Elder Bruce R. McConkie, an Apostle in the LDS Church had been in Vietnam at that time and had given David a Priesthood blessing. Elder McConkie told Grandpa Que later that David’s healing was a gift from God and a miracle.
“David recovered and honorably served for twenty-nine years in the Marine Corps.”
Richard and I came away from Paige’s wedding day without a single picture, which tells you what a great time we had. We will post more another day. These are snapshots from family and friends who have taken the time to share with us. Thank you!
Leading up to the wedding, we had a big week, including Timothy’s 17th birthday and Christmas, and a hundred other interactions and lots of music. We saw Star Wars and decorated candy houses, turned in two Eagle Scout applications, and finalized special gifts. I am very happy.
Wherefore, lift up thy heart and rejoice, and cleave unto the covenants which thou hast made.
Doctrine and Covenants 25:13
Latter-day Saint temples have high ceilings, beautiful windows, and brilliant chandeliers. Sometimes I attend the temple by myself so I can focus on my essential identity as a daughter of God. I sit in the Celestial room and look up, up, up and feel the Father of Lights reflected in myself. I think one reason we are asked to cleave unto covenants is to maintain our individual, unique, and ancient relationship with our Father in Heaven. As I try to do this, He blesses me with joy and help of every kind.
Feeling a bit low this week, I went shopping for a gift, and noticed a beautiful rug in the store. I took picture after picture and admired the price. But the thought came that buying this rug wouldn’t fix the way I felt. I remembered a friend in Arizona whose home was filled with expensive, beautiful rugs. When I complimented them, she told me that she bought them during a time of grief.
On this beautiful week of sherbet sunsets, long walks, porch conversations, and a midnight message that family traditions live on while apart, my lapse in courage does not need to be memorialized with a rug!
Finding courage is about gathering from a depth of being and experience we no longer remember. My courage this week came as I studied pictures and stories of ancestors, and from a small voice in my mind reminding me of the power within myself to handle this time in my life. It came as I trusted in my ancient and continuing relationship with God.
