Life is a box of Chocolates

Well, this past weekend can be called a real roller coaster, up, down all around. Saturday started out so great, doing a few things around the house and then I headed up to Salinas to get to spend some time with my two daughters and some of the grandkids and Seth. Rebekah came down to help poor Chelsea out who is going through the rough 3-4 months of morning sickness. Those who don't or haven't had to experience this are lucky and sometimes unsympathetic, it can be a on going non stop feeling of never feeling yourself. Always a little nauseus not just in the morning, waiting for and fearing the vomiting. Food is not your friend but then neither is non eating, one of the pleasures of life turns into a backstabbing two faced fiend. Anyway, so Rebekah came down with Nolan and Max to help her sister, catch up on her homemaking. Any one who has been around Beba when she turns into Mrs. Clean know an untapped national energy source! When I got there they were on to the food planning and shopping. Seth was great to watch the kids while we went off with list in hand to do the Costco thing. It was fun, we had a good time, Chelsea had to sit down now and again to let the unpleasant feelings pass but it was fun. We got back to Chelsea's where we were able to get some meals prepared some partly prepare and all the stuff put away and organized. Off to home I went feeling happy and content that I had been of some help.

As I pulled up into the driveway Bruce was pulling out. Turns out that Linda Thompson's special needs daughter was in the hospital. He and Brent went over to give her a blessing. While he was gone I settled down to watch the RS women's conference I had missed while at Chelsea's. It was a lovely conference, which encouraged us to love and serve one another. Durning the last part I started hearing a helicopter, sometimes we hear those when they are going to the hospital, of course I wondered if that was for Linda's daughter Anna. Bruce came home things were not good for Anna she was very sick, he felt that she was at the end of her life. The helicopter was not for her. Then we started to hear the helicopter more, then more then it was kind of just going over our block with the big searchlights shining down in our yard. OK, that is a scary thing, what's going on??? Lock the doors. Finally after about 20 minutes it goes away. Now it is about 11:00pm. Off to bed we go, a little shaken and tired. Eleven-thirty the phone rings, wake up, it is the high school principal. Turns out that someone broke into the auditorium got caught by the police, ran away, thus the helicopter but got caught so we can relax, back to sleep. 3:45 am phone rings this time it is Linda, can we give her a ride home. That means she is leaving the hospital, that means Anna has died. Who is Anna? Anna is Linda's daughter of about 40 years, born with special needs, Linda was advised to send her off to live in a care facility so Linda could go on with her life, besides they said she wouldn't live long anyway. I've been told to send a daughter to a care facility so I 100% understand why Linda said no way. So for 40 years Linda has cared for Anna, day in day out. It is a long and tragic story but you can understand how devestating this would be for a mother. So off we go in the middle of the night to take a friend home after this. We get her home, and stay with her a while then get her settled on the futon where she sleeps. She shares her home with her other daughter and her 3 children. But Linda sleeps on the futon in the front room. This is a home of small means, that is an understatement. Linda has a folded blanket for her head and a blanket to cover her. Though she is my age she is in a wheelchair now, diabetes has taken it's toll. She spent her strenght and life working the night shift at the hospital and caring for her children during the day. Now she spends her days caring for her 3 grandkids a troubled and ungrateful daughter and sleeping on a futon with a folded blanket for a pillow. Is she bitter, no, is life hard, yes. So I ask her if she has the folded blanket for a pillow because she prefers it, no she says, they don't have much. Funny how things work out, I was just cleaning out one of my closets and getting rid of an over abundance of what???? Pillows.

Well, home we went, sleep came hard even though I have a new bed and a great pillow and a peaceful bedroom. Morning arrived quickly, off to church, testimony meeting. Who it there to bare her testimony and give thanks? Linda.

President Jacobs was there, we chat after church. He is a great man with a lot of insight. He has listens when the Lord is instructing him, and he shared what he had been learning. He has been understanding that those of the saints who have will and need to be giving to those who have not. He believes and hopes that the saints who have will be able to feel and understand this without being instructed by their bishops. I have been feeling that it is important that we (meaning me) learn the principles of resource management. Which I have felt was some secret I didn't know. But have been learning and trying to practice what I have been learning. Now I maybe I am learning more. What can I do? I will now be searching out to find the answer to that. I am also overwhelmed with my blessings. Not just the "things" I have, more so the blessings of my wonderful children and children-in-love, and the great wonderful joyful grandchildren I have been blessed with. Still learning, growing and stretching at 60. Onward and upward.