Beneath the Wraps

  unfortunately somewhat of a short post.  unfortunate because of lack of contact.                  Before starting my senior year in high school I had gone to San Francisco to visit my Grandma Mary.   Uncle Bruce picked me up at the airport.   I hadn ’ t seen him for quite some time and wasn ’ t even certain that it was him.   I got in the car with him anyway.          I remember spending one day with his wife and son.   They had two cats.   I remember Joe had used two different methods of discipline one for each cat.   I also remember holding him when he was a baby.          When Jaime was two or three she received a child sleeping bag from one of the neighbors.   Bruce was visiting my mom and I happened to have the sleeping bag in the car.   I was having problems rolling it ...

                  I have twelve cousins – eight on my dad ’ s side and four on my mom ’ s.  My parents are each the eldest in their families.  Dad has a brother two years younger and baby sister (they are about twelve years apart).  My mom has two brothers.  All of my dad ’ s family lived in the Salt Lake area except for the few years that my Uncle and Aunt lived in Denver for a couple of years – that could be a different post and was several decades in the past.          My mom ’ s family lived in different parts of northern California.   My mom ’ s first brother and his wife had three children – a boy and two girls.   The youngest brother and his wife had adopted a boy.   We had visited our cousins on occasion but didn ’ t know much about them beyond their names. And even with that one I am not certain of his given name.   I had thought it was Joshua and th...

                  My brother no longer posts to his blog but has left MANY detailed posts on his facebook page.  Yesterday was a tribute to mom and some to himself for the grief of her loss.  He said he’d almost forgotten that it was 13 years ago yesterday.  His final note (after providing a detailed account of her final stages of life) was “hearts and wounds heal with time and that life continues moving forward”.           Am I a terrible person for forgetting when she died?   She passed the day after Richard and I celebrated our 12 th wedding anniversary.   We were married two days prior to the bombing of the twin towers in New York – a day when our nation seemed to pull together to show their support.   A time when Rudy Giuliani cared about his city and seemed to be loved and respected.           Having mom pass was ...

  Richard and I will often watch BBC’s “The Repair Shop” ( here ) in which patrons bring their time worn heirlooms to be restored to another time.   It’s great to see so many attached to sentiments in our throw-it-out/replace/upgrade it society.   I don’t recall having any family heirlooms. My mom had been raised in poorer circumstances with many relics that may not have been considered antiques at the time – certainly not of value either financially or sentimentally.   We threw things away and replaced them – though I remember my brother and I both hoarding “stuff” as sentiments.   Perhaps even now.   But nothing worth restoring . . . I don’t think. I do have a set of scriptures that belonged to my mother.   The binding on the triple combination is torn in places and many of the pages have definitely seen better days.   But it is a treasure because I see where she has marked certain scriptures and written in the margin.   That for me...

  It must have happened shortly after she was taken to the doctor for a different medication.   I hadn’t seen her for a few weeks.   I called and left a message.   I had more than once.   People were starting to worry.   Her family hadn’t let us know that she was gone.   We could have offered our assistance.   Why didn’t they tell us she had been called home to our Heavenly Father?   She passed two months ago and I am just learning about it today.   Perhaps the family didn’t know how to get in touch with us just as we don’t know how to get in touch with them.   At least I didn’t.   I didn’t know her for long.   What an impact she has made.

                                Between exit 112 and 110   I see a couple of deer quite close to the shoulder of I5 and I think of the doe who tried to outrun us in this post and wonder – do these deer not see the cars as preditors?   For the most part I have seen fawns – perhaps teenagers making a dare – going for the most luscious grass near the shoulder (which I don’t believe has any vegetation worth the risk)   I always think of “Watership Down” only deer instead of rabbits. car is moving to quickly to take an accurate picture.   I see them only on the return from Roseburg – never toward

                In April I was asked to outline the RS lessons to correspond with Come Follow Me lessons.   I had only my notes and the titles of the 2020 “Don’t Miss This” Episodes. It was right after general conference and so I didn’t have the titles of the talks we had picked, only the speakers. Of course I prayed for inspiration on where to put the 11 or 12 conference talks that we had picked for our lessons.   There were six that were definitely set in stone but wasn’t quite certain how to place the other talks.   This week’s theme was spot on as the reading in Come Follow Me was on the Strippling Warriors (starting here ) and the RS lesson was from this talk .