And how.

How I love these little souls.  How I want to do better for them.  How I yearn to give them the whole wide world.  How I shouldn't wish that. How that would be excessive.  How I love cooking with them.  How I hope they can remember the good times, like this.

Unburdened

http://www.vesuviusathome.com/2012/11/horn-dance.html
I want to just copy and paste this whole post by a blogger whose writing I could just eat with a spoon.  But, here is the message that I found there, which just so happened to be an answer to some personal pleadings:

(The deer)"....drop them in the forest like offerings, unconcerned, unburdened, and grow new ones again come spring." 

I can do this. I don't have to feel so burdened.  Spring will come again. 

photo credit

"Youth comes but once in a lifetime..." Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Tonight found me lying on the floor in my boy's room looking up at three wiggly, full-of-life children hearing the goodnight story of their father.  Bear, grabbing Darrin's neck. Tess, snuggling up under a blanket.  Malia, trying to situate her long, (very long) limbs in a manner that she could still see the pictures and also manage to snuggle in to her daddy.  So much vitality in this little room.  So many cells regenerating and neural networks making new connections.

Just a few hours earlier I got a call from my dad informing me that my grandma had had a sudden hemorrhagic stroke.  Her neural networks were now disassociating after all those years of working together until finally, her breathing stopped.  She had passed.  Something about getting an announcement like this out of nowhere.  I feel a little shaky tonight.  Heart a little exposed and raw.  I struggle with the logistics of it all.  Life is messy.  Sometimes I wish we could just enter and exit all at the same time.  Wouldn't that be lovely?  I think in my mind, Lord, if you could just take this small seed and make it grow.  Make me shake with assurity and not doubt.

I think of my Grandma's husband, Clarence, who passed on about 10 or so years ago.  My Grandma missed him so.   And I do too.  25 years ago Grandpa took me into the water and gave me the first of many ordinances I would need in this life.  Love radiated from that man.  I'm sure my grandma always felt very loved.  How happy she must be right now.  Embracing her true love.

With our faith, death not only brings sadness, but such utter sweetness of soul and peace of mind.  My dad told me a sweet moment that happened today.  He was leaning over grandma telling her his goodbyes, and in true Kenny fashion, made a joke.  "I guess I won't be calling you up to tell you the BYU game is on anymore.  But, that's okay because I think their good games are behind them now.  You were here for the good ones."  He said he didn't know, but a nurse was in the room and overheard his comment.  She came up to him a moment later and razzed him a little by telling him she was raised catholic and went to a catholic school, and "sorry, but I was rooting for Notre Dame on Saturday."  And then my dad said she stopped, held his arm, and said something to the effect of  "teasing aside, I've never felt a spirit like this in a room where someone is passing.   The spirit is strong here."  My Uncle Doug had just before given a powerful blessing and my dad said the spirit in the room was very strong and peaceful.

I know that life goes on after this mortal experience.  Youth is indeed fleeting. And yet, it does not leave us, but is passed on.  Tonight I saw my grandma's cheeks when I looked at Malia's face, in Tessa's eyelashes I saw my beautiful grandma looking at me, in Jeremiah's love of sports and physicality I saw my grandma rooting on her favorite team.  (My grandma loved sports way more than my grandpa ever did).  Yes, youth may come but once in a lifetime...but my goodness, look how it lives on.  And never ends.

On my mind, the number 8.




Dear Malia,

I can't stop thinking about your birthday coming up.  I got you your own set of scriptures for your half birthday.  You shed tears one Sunday recently when you forgot said scriptures at home.  We make attempts constantly to read them together, but with a 2-year-old brother that likes to act out characteristics of a crazy monkey any time we attempt to read, it makes it hard.  

I keep thinking, have I given you enough?  (That mom guilt is pretty grueling).

Malia, I am fa-a-a-a-a-r from perfect. (Could go on with those a's for a long time!) This gospel and the enabling power it gives is so incredibly necessary for me.  I have so much to learn.  So much humility to gain.  So far to go.  Please know that I'm on this journey with you.  I think sometimes that I see you running leaps and bounds ahead of me and I wonder how I was entrusted with this precious task to "train up a child unto the Lord..." (Proverbs 22:6). 

And then there's this world.  You see, it scares me sometimes.  So much turmoil.  So much I don't understand. (and I'm the trainer here, remember???)  Here's what I do know, though.  There have been times when I have literally been overcome with things... guilt, grief, fear (all the yucky words that are the opposite of what the Gospel encourages us to feel: hope, joy, peace).  Malia, I have taken these yucky feelings and dropped them at the Savior's feet.  I have literally found it hard to breathe through some prayers.  And you know how we end our prayers...in the name of Jesus Christ?  It's the moment that I utter those two words that I can breathe again.  It is a very real thing.  I know this.  If there's anything I know, Malia, I know this.  There are powers for good and there are powers for evil.  This power for good is in your hands.  You can take it to Heavenly Father.  My biggest fear is ever sounding trite when I'm explaining this phenomenon.

And here's what I see in you, my sweet Malia:  LOVE.  My Dad, your Grandpa Ken, is currently unemployed.  You worry for him.  You told me recently that you mention him in your prayers every night.  (That's the pure love of Christ, there's nothing in it for you. You just have a goodness in your soul that you want good for others).  You worry for your friends that aren't coming to church.  You worry when you see me taking a moment to have a cry.  Just the other night you came up behind me on my bed and wrapped your little arms around me and just held me.  You are so good, Malia. 

I hope you'll read this someday and know how much I wanted happiness and goodness for you.  Wanted you to take this year and let it be the groundwork for your life now and forever.  Thank you for leading the way for your little brother and sister.  They look up to you more than you could ever know.  And remember the power you have, Malia, remember. 

I love you,
Mom

A long overdue birthday post....(that I forgot to publish)

Tessa informed me in December that she wanted a "snow" birthday party. Sounded doable at the time. Surely there will be snow around January 4, right? Well, as the days got closer to her birthday, January 4 came and went and her party was scheduled for January 7. The ground was a dry mass of grass and sidewalk. Not a spec of precipitation in sight. I geared myself up with snow games for inside including making snowballs out of yarn for a snowball fight and making snowmen out of marshmallows.

Malia (who possesses huge amounts of faith) suggested we pray for snow. I explained that we could pray, but that it would in the end be up to Heavenly Father if snow was sent down to Syracuse, UT on this particular day. Well, going right along with the title of this blog, Tender Mercy...we woke up to snow Saturday morning. My neighbor, Emily, yelled across the street at how lucky we were. Lucky indeed.

Snowman cake...CHECK.

This was the site of a future snowman that I forgot to document. It was stellar.

Snow and a giant, colorful lollipop. These are all this 5-year-old really wished for.

And now, a letter to my Tess.

Dear 5-year-old Tessa,

Wow, oh wow. How can you be 5 already? If I could describe you in one word (and I do often) it would be random. We never know what funny, random thing is going to come out of your mouth. Like, for instance, we'll be sitting down to a nice big plate of spaghetti and you'll randomly, out of no conversation leading up to it, say something like "When I'm 24 I'm going to have a baby and I'm going to name her Lucy."

And speaking of random, here are some random Tessa facts:

--You love broccoli. (yay!)

--You also love treats (boo!), but I guess it goes along with being sweet. ;)

--You love preschool. You love Miss Leah and often reflect on how much you miss Miss Parke (whom you had last year). And you're so excited to go to Syracuse Arts Academy with Malia next year.

--You could Play pet shop toys with Malia for days at a time.

--You ask to go"fun" places like the Treehouse museum or Lagoon or Disneyland just about everyday, as unlikely as it is that we will just randomly get up and go there!

--You love little kids and love playing with them.

--You like to do your chore chart and getting to move the clothespins from "to do" to "done".

--You love to learn things and tell me about it.

--You love to ask meaningful questions like "who is Heavenly Father's father?"

--You love to play with your friends and especially love to go over to Corbin's house. He's also who you say you are planning to marry (before you turn 24, because, you know...at 24 you'll have a baby named Lucy).

--Just as your brother and sister are, you are a snuggler. You'd love nothing more than for me or your dad to just hold you and kiss you all over your face...which I indulge in quite often.

--You can be so SILLY!!

--You love to dance. And do so quite beautifully. We love to watch you in your dance class every Friday.

-- You're so beautifully unique in this big world. I love you to the moon and back 5 million times (which if I told you that right now you would respond that you love me to the moon and back 6 million times).

Love,

Your Mommy (Alicen), which you like to call me just to be funny sometimes.

type it out...

Yes, it's that time again...time to purge all that is festering in my inner being.  Time to get some things out into my virtual memory bank.  I started a full time job about 3 weeks ago.  Darrin needed to change his career path.  We both applied different places and my job happened to be the better of the jobs we both got.  I'm not going to lie.  This has been HARD.  Like weight-of-the-world hard.  Like, I miss my kids so badly I think my insides are puking all over themselves at any given time of the day.  But at the same time, in all this rawness of emotions and turmoil, I have felt a surety that everything is going to be okay.  (And just to document the roller coaster ride of this whole experience, the moment I feel strong and sure of this whole process, is the moment I get a comment from someone that knocks all the confidence I had to the floor and I have to fester up enough energy to pick up the pieces and puff my proverbial chest out again).  And I know these comments are well-intended.  I know they have the best intentions in being concerned for our family.  But, just like anything where I can't control people's reactions to things, I can't control people's reactions to things.  My only hope is that they would trust our process.  Trust that we're working it out...that nobody's turned lazy here.

I have a husband who may be the world's best dad.  Who is rocking this whole SAHD thing.  Putting my former SAHM title to shame.  So, shout out to my babies' daddy who folds a mean basket of clothes and cleans up breakfast like it's nobody's business (which it's not, by the way).  Am I sounding a bit jaded? Because I think I may be.

Anyways....I should get to bed...early morning and all.  In summary...whole experience bringing us closer as a couple, judge not that ye be not judged, and finally my husband is a domestic rock star.  The end.

rolling, rolling, rolling...

For the record, I full-on showed the kids how this was done before this take. I was simply standing by the tree here to stop them from sustaining a serious concussion.

There's really nothing in life that compares to the thrill of having no control as your body plummets down a large uprising of land. One can't help but giggle. Loved this day with my family hanging out on BYU campus. Can you hear the bells in the background? It was lovely.