Enduring the trial of the Rocky Mountain pass, then and now.
I arose on Saturday morning after a night of many awakenings; my mind wandered to a holy landmark. It had been nearly two weeks since my husband had surgery to remove a benign brain tumor. At 16 years old I traveled with the youth from my stake on a journey to remember our pioneer ancestors. Pioneer Sheroes Early Mormon saints were driven out of their homes and land by extermination order in Missouri, and then again in Illinois. They...
Making Friends with Despair
It was another Sunday, another weekend, another week. Another endurance of medical problems, illness, financial struggles and despair. I thought life was going to be different than this. I never imagined that at nearly 40 I would continually be facing greater and greater challenges. On our weekend date, my husband and I drove around a lot. We talked a lot. I cried, he doesn’t like that. He was frustrated with my despair. I didn’t...
Following the Light: Lessons From My Garden
Everyday I water my seedlings. They are in their tiniest forms, just peaking their sleepy heads out of their seeds. The roots sent towards the earth, their green leaves soaking every parcel of the sun’s rays that it can. Some seeds take forever to sprout. I am beginning to thing that Impatients were named after the emotion they conjure for lack of sprouting. And so it began, another year of gardening has taken root in the tiny...
I thought I was the seed, it turns out I am the dirt.
St. Patrick’s Day of Old This last Tuesday was St. Patrick’s Day. When I was a little girl the holiday merited pulling out a piece of emerald material, in whatever form you find it; a scrunchie, a t-shirt or a pinned on swatch of fabric from mom’s gonna-use-this-fabric-someday-but-if-i-don’t-you-can-have-the-lot-of-it-when-I-die -pile. In today’s world St. Patrick’s Day consists of leprechaun...
Doing What You Love
When I was a little girl my grandparents lived in a closed subdivision called North Point up in the Avenues by the old Primary Children’s hospital. Up on top of the northern Salt Lake Valley mountains, on the western edge of the neighborhood you could look over Memory Grove, from way up high. One day my mom brought our little family up for a visit. Leaning up against the front entry closet were two small pairs of skis, poles,...
Is the journey THAT important?
Salmon hatch from eggs in streams. They are born quite small and after a time have an urge to swim down stream. They swim to the ocean, sometimes as far as 100 miles, and others swim more than 2,500 miles, where they live for five years! They again have an urge to return to their birth place. Only now they have grown 100 times their size at birth. Traveling upstream is difficult. They become strong. The salt water mixed with the fresh...