Dallen

My son-in-law's little brother, Dallen, left his broken body and passed on to the other side last week. His mom, Amy, broke my heart at the funeral. Even though it's a blessing for him and for her, really, she loves her little boy and she has been his lifeline for his entire life, feeding him through a tube, bathing and changing him. She will miss his constant presence by her side. Amy is a very special person. Dallen was a very special person. There is so much love in this family.

Passages Through the Veil

On May 22, 2016, my daughter Ashli gave birth to my second grandbaby, Rogue Dallen Brown. 6 pounds 13 ounces, 20 inches long, he is a perfect baby. I love him so much. Big brother Riken wasn't thrilled with his arrival, but got used to him and even started kissing his forehead once in a while. 

About a month after Rogue was born, our family friend Kellen Nielsen committed suicide. It was devastating for all of us. 29 years old. Seemed to have everything going for him. The Nielsens are a loved and respected family in Nephi, and Kellen's death was so hard for so many people, myself included. He didn't die immediately and I cried buckets of tears during the week that he spent in the hospital, putting myself in his Mom's position, and putting my sons in Kellen's brothers' positions. It hit really close to home. 

During that week, Ashli asked me if I would be willing to be Riken and Rogue's nanny when she goes back to work next week. I have a job that I LOVE, but I truly am not going anywhere in this position. I've kept the same job, working for $12.00 an hour, 25 hours a week, even after I got my Bachelor's degree. I've applied for a few full-time positions at work, but haven't gotten them, so it's not like I'm really going to be missed or hard to replace. 

But a Grandma? Yeah, grandmas are missed and hard to replace. So I've decided to do it. I will travel 3 hours to Ashli's house to be her live-in Nanny while she and Mack both work 7 days on/7 off. On their 7 days off, I will come home and be with Ken. He can't retire for about 9 years, so he has to stay here and work in Ephraim for a while. I'm going to miss him SO much. We haven't spent more than a night apart ever since we got married. Even when he's had surgery, I sleep in his hospital room. 

So I will miss Ken, but I already miss Riken and Rogue every single day, and Kellen's death just made it so much more acute for me. We have to take every moment we can to be with our loved ones. Nothing else matters as much as that. I desperately want to be a part of my grandkids' lives, and this is an opportunity for me to do that, even though it means giving up a job I love and being released as the Primary president. 

We had Activity Days girls day camp this past Thursday, and I had such a great time. I love these kids so much and I will miss working in the Ephraim 2nd Ward Primary. But I just keep coming back to the thought that I need to be at Ashli's. They need me. I need them. 

Also this week, Ken's uncle Lorin Stone passed away. He was 92 years old. The feelings around his passing are so different from the feelings surrounding Kellen's death. Lorin's funeral was a celebration of memories of a loving husband, father and friend. The service was so peaceful and although our hearts went out to Aunt Maurine, it wasn't really a time of grieving. He will be waiting for her on the other side. Maurine is Ken's Mom, Eva Deon Jones Carlson's, sister. I never got to meet her, but my husband loved his Mom so much. Meeting Maurine was kind of like meeting Deon. Maurine has the sweetest spirit, and she was so happy to meet me, as were all of Ken's cousins. They were so kind and loving to me, loving me just because they love Ken. It was a beautiful experience to spend the day with them. 

Even Steven, I guess. lol. Ken is the baby of the family and Steven is the next older of the five boys. He and I clash most of the time, but I am so glad that these boys get together in important moments like this. The only brother missing was Donald, who is working in California this week. 

So, all in all, it's been a really emotional time for me. My life is transforming yet again. I've never had a career. I thought Snow College would be it. But the truth is, I've never really wanted anything more than being a Mom and a Grandma. My first husband used to get so mad that I'd quit really good jobs every few years. When I had a new baby or when one of our babies started liking the babysitter more than he liked me, I just couldn't drag myself away from the kids. And now it's happening again. With the grandkids. I've changed a lot over the past twenty five years, but this hasn't changed. When it comes right down to it, a job is just a job. Necessary, but certainly not the most important part of my life. I hope we can make it work financially. Wrote out the tithing check this morning. Hoping for the best! 

BUSY-NESS

SUPER DUPER busy around here, which is GGGGRRREEAATTT!!! I used to brag to my kids that "I am the BUSIEST person ALIVE!" but then I heard President Uchtdorf's talk in general conference about not wearing our busy-ness as a badge of honor, so I had to lay off on saying that. lol. 

http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2012/10/of-regrets-and-resolutions

It is nice to be busy, though. I love it. 

Let's see. where to start? 

 Riken's Blessing was AMAZING! Tyler blessed him in the Moroni 3rd Ward on April 10, 2013, and he did a beautiful job:) I'm so proud of him. 

 We finally got to meet Zack's girlfried McKenna the weekend of the blessing. She's adorable. Super quiet, which is hard to get used to, but we adore her:) 

 Of course there's THIS guy:) LOVE HIM!!!!! 

I had NO idea my Grandma was coming to Riken's blessing, and I was SO excited to see her walk into the chapel. We couldn't do a 5 generation picture, per se, because my Mom passed away in 1987,but my Dad stepped up to stand in her spot for our photo. 

GREAT-GREAT GRANDMA Wilma Rebecca Abrams Freston Swenson Hunsaker 

GREAT-GRANDPA Thomas Jefferies Callister (wife was Rebecca Freston Swenson Callister) 

GRANDMA Tina Rebecca Callister Allred Carlson

MOM Ashli Rebecca Allred Brown

BABY Riken J. Brown  

Super awesome, yeah? 

Last Saturday we had a great Relief Society women's conference here in the Ephraim stake, and I was surprised to see Corinne Jenkins, who had been my visiting teacher for 10 years or so when I lived in Nephi. I went over to say hi to her after the meeting, and she, being 88 years old, had no idea who I was. Kind of broke my heart a little tiny bit. Getting old isn't fun. I'm ALREADY forgetting things and I'm only.... well, you know, only 29 and 15 or so. 

One of Ken's friends passed away this past week, and the funeral was yesterday. His daughter is one of the girls in our Sunday School class, and she gave a beautiful tribute to her Dad at the funeral. Things like this really make me appreciate the ones I love and how fragile life is. Kevin was one of the people who was immediately warm and loving to me when I moved to Ephraim, just because I was Ken's. They love Ken, so they love me. It's a wonderful feeling and part of the reason Ephraim feels like home to me. Kevin will be missed. There wasn't room to hold all of the people who attended his funeral. Chairs were set up clear to the back wall of the cultural hall, then they started lining up chairs in the hallways outside the chapels, the relief society room filled up, and people were standing anywhere in the building where they could hear the speakers from the chapel. It was a beautiful tribute to a great man. 

Then my final thought for this week. Kurt and I have been sending emails back and forth lately. It's easier than texting when we have more than a couple sentences to say,  and a phone call doesn't always come at exactly the right time. Emails can be opened, pondered and answered at the reader's convenience. It works for us. Well, in this one email, I was thinking a lot about how I used to treat people when I was married to Kurt. He is a huge flirt, he knows it, and I don't think it would bother him to know that I said it here. But I didn't know how to handle it, so I ended up just giving people (particularly beautiful young women) the cold shoulder when I knew he was friends with them. We'd be out in public and I'd completely ignore these people. I didn't realize at the time just how poorly I was handling the situation. Recently I've been going through something where someone is doing the same thing to Ashli and I can see how hurtful it is. I hate that I used to act like that, and I'm really embarrassed now that I did it. So if any of you beautiful women from Nephi read this, and I was rude to you because my ex-husband was your friend, I'm sorry!!!! Well, I wanted to tell Kurt I was sorry, too. So I told him in an email, and he responded saying that it was time for us to quit apologizing for the past. He said if he had to apologize for every time he'd hurt me, he'd be very unproductive because he wouldn't have time for anything else. lol. He said he was sorry for all of the hurt he caused me and he hoped we could just move on now and be friends, not just the kids' parents.  I wanted to hear that for a long time. He did hurt me. But I hurt him too. And it truly doesn't even matter anymore. I absolutely ADORE Ken, and he is the perfect man for me. I'm also really grateful that Kurt and I had our kids together, because I think we had the same ideas about parenting, and we did a pretty good job at raising kids. So all of the other stuff needs to finally just be put away. The hurt is gone. I don't like hug him when I see him or anything, but yeah, I think we can be friends. It feels a whole lot better than carrying around all the hatred and bitterness that I had for so long.