I forgot how it hurts

I forgot what it feels like to know that someday very soon you will have to say good bye to someone you love so very dearly. I forgot how it starts in your chest and grows until it continues up thru the tightness of your throat  and into your head. I forgot how it begins to swell there, until you feel its pressure between your ears and behind your eyes. I forgot how then the tears come and with the tears that pressure is released, but that very real pain remains.
I forgot how it hurts. After all it's been nearly 20 years since I have had to say good bye to someone that I love this much. I forgot. But I remember now.

A few weeks ago, my 88 year old grandpa was diagnosed with cancer on his lungs, the type of cancer that is commonly associated with exposure to asbestos. Grandpa was a carpenter all his life. The cancer is very aggressive and there isn't anything to be done but to keep him comfortable. When I first got the news, I had a good cry, but I knew that grandpa would be at peace with this diagnosis. I knew that he was ready to move on to the next life, a new adventure. I knew that grandma would also be at peace with this, she's been near death a few times herself and every time she has been ready to go, but it hasn't yet been her time to leave us. My grandparents have been a perfect example of faith. They know death is not the end, just a door to the next step to becoming more like our Father in Heaven. So I was at peace, my biggest fear was watching him deteriorate as the cancer took over his body.
 I've been there before. When I was 20 years old, my grandpa Paxman was near the end of his long battle with cancer. I had watch over the years as the cancer had turned my strong farmer grandpa, into a frail old man. Watched as it ate away at him until it made him look much older than his 72 years. Watched as I sat beside his hospital bed. Watched as it caused him to writhe in pain just days before he was finally released from his mortal frame. I watched, and I cried, and I prayed that he could just be released from this awful pain. I watched, but never touched. I watched, but never reached out my hand to just hold his. And all these twenty years, I have wished I had done differently. I have wished that as I sat there watching, I had not let the fear I felt keep me from holding him one last time.
And here I find myself again, watching the cancer transform my strong cowboy grandpa into a feeble shell of a man. My fear now is that he will be gone before I get a chance to sit by his side and hold his hand one more time. I keep telling myself sooner rather than later will be better. The less he has to be in pain, the better. I keep telling myself, but myself keeps wanting just one more visit. One more chance to hold him. One more opportunity to tell him that I love him. One more moment to hear his amazing stories. One more memory created. One more...Oh how it hurts to think about saying good bye.

The girls that never quit

This year Kathryn has the chance to be playing up with the grade 9 girls basketball team. She is the only one of her kind in grade 8 who plays ball. Last year she had to play down with the grade sixes, and that was a rough year with little growth and development. You may remember my post about the Raymond tournament from last year. But this year she is back playing with the older girls and she has grown so much!

Last weekend we played at the Chinook High School grade 9 basketball tournament in Lethbridge. We have a small team of 8 girls. I had no idea what to expect from these bigger city teams. But I think what surprised everyone the most was what they didn't know to expect from our little rural school team. Our first game was against Rundle Collage, which I am told is a private school from Calgary. It was a fast paced game and once our our girls new what they were like, they were able to control the game and won 78-33. Our next game was against the hosting team. It was a pretty evenly matched game and the score bounced back and forth between the two teams, but once again in the end our girls were able to pull off the win, but only by about 10 points. Winning this game put our girls in the finals against Cardston. One of our players had injured her foot in the earlier game and was unable to play. But that didn't stop them. I don't think either team was ever more than 6 points ahead. Regulation time ended in a tie and it was off to overtime. To add to the pressure, the Cardston boys team had just finished on the other court and all of them and their fans that had been watching came to cheer on the Cardston girls. It was LOUD! But that didn't stop our girls. They battled to the end pulling off the win! It was the most intense game I have watched in a long time. It was awesome for the girls.

Fast forward to this weekend where our girls played in the Myers/Barnwell tournament. We had two girls out with injuries, so we came into the tournament with only 6 girls on the bench. We played LCI first and that didn't go so well. We lost by about 30 points. Our next game was against Seven Persons and we were able to control that game and pull out the win. Our Saturday game was against Myers. It was an intense battle again, Myers held the lead by no more than about 10 points. And then came the fourth quarter. We were in foul trouble. The Ref's had been pretty tough on us. One of our girls had fouled out so we didn't have any subs. We narrowed the gap by just a few points. Shortly into the quarter, another one of our girls fouled out, so we were playing 4 on 5. We held on and wouldn't let them pull any farther ahead. About half way through, another girl fouled out, so now we are playing 3 on 5. And yet we kept the score within just a couple of points and even pulled ahead. At the very last minute of the game we were down to just 2 players, Kathryn and one other. But these girls just don't stop. We even had the Magrath team cheering for us. The game was lost by one point, 50-49. How many teams can say they did that? Many of the fans in the stands gave our girls a standing ovation for their super human efforts. They didn't come away with the championship, but they certainly didn't have anything to be ashamed of. I'm sure these girls were just as pumped, if not more so, after this game than they were after winning the championship last weekend.

This is one killer basketball season. We are so lucky to have such a great coach working with our girls! He has certainly taught them to be confident in their play and to never give up! He is always positive on the bench and always seems to be smiling, and looks like he is having the time of his life out there along with our girls.

Fake Santa

On the way home from our ward Christmas party the following conversation was had
James "that Santa was a fake!"
Mom "maybe, but Santa has lots of helpers. "
James "yeah, like elves, but that Santa was a fake."
Mom: "How do you know?"
J: "because that Santa had a white beard, the real Santa has a grey beard."
M: "I thought Santa had a white beard."
J: "oh, well, the real Santa was at the place where we get our teeth cleaned." (The dentist office is located in the town hall building, where the town Christmas party is held)
M: "How do you know he was the real Santa?"
J: "because he had a curly beard. This Santa just had a wavy beard."

So there you have it.  The Santa expert has spoken. Santa has a curly grey beard, and visits the kids at the Milk River town hall.

Made my day

While in Lethbridge today, I stopped in for a visit with my Grandma Paxman. Even though the visit was short and she really doesn't know who I am, I couldn't help but leave with a smile. There are somethings that are still very much grandma, somethings that dementia has not yet stolen. Like her absolute love of red hair. EVERYTIME James is with me for a visit she comments on how lovely his hair is, and it is a recurring theme for the visit. The other thing that is still very much grandma, is her positive attitude about everything. Dementia has yet to take her smile and sweet spirit. Oh how I love this women, and I miss the parts of her that have been taken from us. But I rejoice in all that is still grandma. How could I not leave with a smile on my face? Our ten minute visit totally made my day.

There Shall Not Be Room Enough

This has been a dry year, and I know many have suffered because of it. But here at the Courthouse, we have been blessed with bounty.

We picked our first cucumbers on June 30 and we just ate our last one a couple of days ago. That's three months without having to buy cucumbers.

I've been eating green beans for supper for weeks on end and I froze some for the winter AND I gave buckets full away to friends.

 And then there are our tomatoes, they just go on and on. I have already made all of the salsa that I need for the year, and I've hardly made a dent in our tomatoes. I've also made green tomato raspberry jam and spicy tomato jam, both of which I plan on making more of, and the rest will be made into tomato sauce and canned tomatoes...here's hoping I have enough jars.

As I picked the rest of our tomatoes today and they just kept coming, and coming and coming(as seen above) I was overwhelmed with gratitude and the scripture from Malachi kept running through my head "Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it." Malachi 3:10

All that is left are the carrots, and those will likely be dug next weekend. As I looked over my harvested garden I was filled with joy. This sight, the sight of my garden freshly harvested, brings me as much joy as the creating of it and the beauty of it in all it's summer glory. 

A lesson in Gratitude

A friend of mine asked me if I would be able to take a meal over to a young mom in our community who had just had surgery. I said of course I would. So this afternoon I made up a delicious dish that I had made earlier in the week(you can find the recipe here) and took it to her, along with a copy of the recipe, as I was headed out of town. She was so very thankful, she couldn't say thank you enough times. I was so glad to have been able to help her out and headed on my way, not to think much of it again. Later in the evening, after the supper hour, I received a text from this mom, expressing her gratitude for both the meal and the recipe because it was just that good. She expressed how she has never had anything like this happen before and how she hoped to be able to return the favour sometime. Her gratitude was so honest and so sincere. I have had many opportunities to take meals to people in our church for various reasons, but I don't ever recall gratitude being expressed in this same way before.
 I have never felt it so deeply from anyone and that got me thinking. In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, serving others in common place. We are taught by the book of Mormon Prophet and ruler, King Benjamin that "when ye are in the service of your fellow beings, ye are only in the service of your god."(Mosiah 2:17) 
Because this is much of who we are, especially in the Relief Society organization of the church, this kind of service is common place. And I wonder if, because it is so common place, if maybe we just get used to it, and maybe even expect it, and so maybe we forget to show our gratitude as we should, as this young mom showed towards me.
And that got me thinking some more, it make me look inward. It made me reflect on times that such service was offered to me. How did I show my gratitude toward those who were serving me? Was it just a casual "thank you" or did I try to really express how much it was appreciated? I am certain there have been plenty of time that my gratitude has not been as sincere as it should have been, but I also can think of a couple of times where I hope that what I tried to express, matched how I was feeling towards those who had offered their hands in service to me.
In the end, I have determined to be much more honest and sincere in my gratitude, both towards men and towards God.

The Miracle of the Marker

This year was the first year that I have had the opportunity to attend Young Women's camp since I was a teenager in the Young Women's program. It was a hoot. On Friday morning our ward was responsible for doing a morning devotional, it was to be on Testimonies, but the morning got busy and the devotional overlooked and we were off and running before we remembered. But all was good. The plan for the day was to hike to Forum Lake. We decided we would do a shortened version of the devotional once we reached the lake and we had already planned to do a little activity there to tie into the mornings devotional. The activity was to make "I believe" rocks, an idea that was sparked from rocks that our family has found in the Lake at Waterton with positive messages written on the and also from this blog post I came across. We had one young women that was unable to go on the hike because she had had back surgery earlier in the year, so  one of the other leaders stayed with her in the town site while the rest of us headed up the mountain. Before we split up I reached into my ziploc bag that contained about eight permanent markers and handed the leader one. I told her what our plan was once we reached the lake and asked her if she would do the same kind of thing with the young woman that couldn't go with us.

The hike was a good one, but these 12 and 13 year old girls did amazing. I thought I was going to have to coax some of them up the mountain, but they never once complained and they all just kept going. When we reached the lake they were in complete awe and everyone of them said that they were so glad that we had done this hike.

We sat them down on the shore and shared with them our shortened devotional about testimonies. Then I pulled out my bag of markers and told them that I wanted them to find a rock and write their own "I believe" statement on it and toss it into the lake, and then here, part of their testimony will always be. I passed out the markers, and one by one the girls handed them back telling me that they didn't work. I was stunned, I hadn't even thought about testing them, they were just markers that I had at home and were frequently used, so I had just assumed that they would work. But not one of them did. Here enters my 12 year old daughter to save the day. She had stashed in her back pack on black permanent marker because she had wanted to write messages on rocks and throw them into the lake, like the ones we had found earlier in the summer. She said it was just a last minute thing that she had thought to grab the marker when packing her gear, but by so doing, we were still able to accomplish our planned activity. But then my thoughts turned to the two we had left behind and how I had built them up for this great faith building experience, and then given them a dud of a marker and they wouldn't be able to do it.
When we met back up in the town site, the first thing I asked was if the marker I had given them worked, they looked at me surprised and answered that it had and that they had had a wonderful experience. I was dumbfounded. What are the chances that of all the markers in that bag, the one that I pulled out, was the only one that worked? They aren't that great.
But here's the thing that I shared with the girls later that night at our fireside testimony meeting. Heavenly Father knows each one of us personally. He knows what we need. He knows what we want. He knows what is important to us. And not only does He know, but He cares, and He cares deeply. He cared about our little activity at the lake, and so He prepared a way for us to be able to accomplish that activity by prompting my daughter to pack a maker her back pack. He also guided my thoughts as I looked into that bag and saw that dark green marker and thought "green will be a good colour to write on rocks with" and so I pulled out the green marker, not the blue one or the red one or even the black one. The green one, the only marker in the bag that still worked and that was the one that I had left behind. I told those girls, that Heavenly Father loves them each individually and He cares about they things they care about, the big things and the little things. In the great grand scheme of things, whether or not we made "I believe" rocks and tossed them into that mountain lake really didn't matter. But at that moment it mattered to us, and so it mattered to our Heavenly Father.
I encouraged them to always remember that Heavenly Father loves them and never to forget the Miracle of the Marker.