Beauty For Ashes Part 2

Beauty in our remembrance of Mom:

It took losing Mom for me to realize what it meant just to have her, just to have a mom. Take note everyone, that's a hard lesson to learn. The beauty lies in that I love her harder and deeper. We are going to have a happy and tender reunion. Death, for me, seems less scary knowing that Mom will be there waiting for me.

Mom will be memorialized for the grandkids in a different way now. Of course we wish they could grow up with her in person, but the way we talk about her and the stories we tell will paint a vivid and even angelic picture of her in their minds. We won't pretend that she was flawless, because nobody is, but their vision of her will be softer and brighter around the edges because of the extra dose of love that has grown out of our deepened appreciation for her. I think she would call that beauty for ashes too.

Watching each of my siblings get up before me to speak at Mom's funeral and seeing the dimples that she passed to each of us look back at me, I felt the peace of knowing that we still carry her with us. Cue The Lion King's "He Lives in You." She lives in me. Those words have life now, I get it. I like the parts of me that are like Mom because they're pieces of her. I think of her when I catch my foot bobbing around when I'm sitting down, or when I notice spilled food on my shirt and smile remembering how often Mom spilled on her shirt without noticing too. I think of her when I see something delicious and the first thing that pops into my head is, "Yummers!" and also when I nuzzle in to give my kids a kiss at bed time and think of how much she too loved my children.



Beauty of being taught through the trial:

This is where that sanctification can come from allowing trials to pass through us with intention.

There have been so many lessons for me to grab hold of and that I will continue to process and learn from for years to come, I'm sure.

Knowing my brain was foggy that first week, Heavenly Father seemed to be labeling things for me those first couple of weeks so that I would remember and reflect.

• Our time in the temple two days after Mom's death, the Spirit unrestrained.

• Thinking through our time at the temple. I have her. All things are in my hands. Anchor.

• Seeing Mom's body for the first time, the bitterness of death. There really are two components of the soul. My mom's body was there, my mom was not. Brent L. Top said of standing at the casket of a loved one, "...there is a distinct feeling that that is not him/her. The body of our loved one is not the real person that we loved, the real person is gone. You can feel it. You can see it." Tasting that bitterness allowed light to radiate out of the words in Mosiah 16:8, "But there is a resurrection, therefore the grave hath no victory, and the sting of death is swallowed up in Christ."

• The women who held our hands that first week and the army of angels behind them. This is how you serve.

• The flood of messages, calls, texts, cards, gifts, visits and especially seeing all of the people that came to Mom's funeral, mourn with those that mourn.

• Walking out of the room at the funeral home so that Dad could have a few minutes alone with Mom before they closed the casket, I started to lose it again. Jayce was outside putting the boys in the car, my siblings were dealing with their own grief. Where am I going? Who do I go to? I just kept walking towards the next door. A mother, I need a mother, but my mother is gone. My vision was completely blurry and just before I reached the exit, my Step-Grandma, Pat, caught me and my mind went blank except for one word, Mother. And I got the distinct feeling that the fact that she had bourn a child of her own in life was not what earned her that label. I still don't understand the depth of what I was being taught, but I echo Patricia Holland when she said, "I believe mother is one of those very carefully chosen words, one of those rich words--with meaning after meaning after meaning."

• Reality was particularly hard to bare the day Mom died. When the weight of it seemed crushing my mind called out for help, "Jayce..." "Dad..." as if just by calling out to them they could walk into the room and scoop the grief out of me. After this kept happening over and over I realized what my mind was really saying, "painful," "too hard," and "please, take it away." I don't claim to have a handle on how the Savior felt when he called, "Abba, Father...take away this cup from me," but when my mind made the connection I couldn't help but see a lesson for me there.