Five Month Anniversary of Larry's Passing

Even though this month has been packed with so many people and activities, it has been a long, dreary and depressing month. I'm sure the relentless snow and short, dark days play a huge role in how I am feeling. I think also more of the permanency of Larry's passing has started to set in. A lot of the widows claim that year two is harder than the first year because of that reason. I really am blessed and grateful to have family living with me right now. It helps take the edge off of the loneliness and I don't know what I would have done without their help with all of the snow removal and all of the many other responsibilities that I have.

This is the Christmas card that we sent out to the community over Christmas. The building of our new store was a project that Larry had been working of for the past several years. I know that he would be very pleased with how things are moving forward and very proud of Enoch for doing such an amazing job at such a young age with such big shoes to fill. Not only will Enoch be involved with management when the store opens, he has also been a huge part of the actual building process which he has really enjoyed. We keep joking about how Larry is trying to figure out how to reconnect his Spirit with his body so that he can come help also because he would have loved to be part of the building process as well.  Dallin is currently managing the seed side of the business and Spencer has returned back to BYU to finish his education and comes home when he can to help out. They have both played a crucial role in keeping this side of the business alive and it warms my heart to see all three of them working and laughing together as we confront the very sizable tasks that we have in front of us. Larry would be so proud of these amazing young men!

Dallin and Alyssa both graduated from college in December and flew out to Florida to be with Alyssa's family for a month. They returned to Idaho mid January to start their college free life. Dallin came to help with the business until we can transition it over to other management. We were finally able to celebrate Christmas with them!

Dallin had my name for Christmas this year. I was super excited to open a "Family Adventure" challenge book. The Adventure Challenge is the original scratch-off keepsake with 50 unique adventures that help you explore outside your habits, dive deeper into your relationships and make meaningful memories for your family! We did our first challenge this month where we were challenged to build a large domino using things from around the house.

I was so grateful to be able to spend some time with my good friend, Rebekah McCullough, her boyfriend from Belgium, and her children at Downata hot springs. Despite the many challenges that she has had in life, she still remains one of the kindest people I know and has raised seven amazing children!

This month we said goodbye to my niece, Hailey Spencer, as she will be serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints in Washington for the next 18 months.

Sometimes I have to be creative as to how to keep the kids active during the winter. I started putting on the "King of Country" line dance videos and having Nate learn dances. He loved it and when we went to our friends house, The Mumford's, Nate was teaching everybody. We had so much fun!!!

It is a tradition in the Ward family that the week after Christmas we reserve the church and get together for a Christmas party. The white elephant gift exchange is one of my favorite things to do and is always a lot of fun! We also play games, eat lots of yummy food, dance, and have a talent show. I am so grateful to the Ward family for putting on this fun tradition that our family has the opportunity to be part of. 

This was a number put on by Bekah and all of her cousins who also attend BYU-I.

This month I lost my bragging rights for never having hit a deer. I had picked up Ben from working at Deseret Industries in Preston when a deer came out of nowhere and I hit it with my Honda. Even though Ben and I were a little shook up, I was so grateful that nobody was hurt and the damage was minimal.

I got Spencer to take us all shooting in preparation for me practicing shooting for the Women's Conference that I was planning to go to in St. George. One of the activities that I was planning on participating in was the shotgun shooting and it has been a minute since I have shot a gun. It helped me feel a lot more prepared and it turned out to be a lot of fun!

January 14th & 15th I had the opportunity to attend the widow/widowers conference in St. George with my cousin, Julie, and her dad, Uncle Roger. They are officially Larry's blood relatives, but I claim them as my own.  This was the first time that I attended a full widow/widowers conference and for the most part I really enjoyed it. There were times where I felt awkward or out of place, but for the most part it was very healing and insightful to spend time with my widow/widower friends. In the shotgun shooting I ended up getting 5 out of 20 of my shots! Much better than the 0/0 that I was hitting in the beginning.

Following are cliff notes from Lisa Valentine Clark's opening talk on Joy. Lisa has been a widow for a couple of years and was a caretaker for her husband who tragically passed away from ALS. Lisa starred in "Once I Was a Beehive" and "Random Acts".

In order to have joy we must have pain

You can feel joy through the pain

Joy is a creative act (combine the light and the dark and create something new)

We need to open our minds to what is really possible. What if we were to open our minds to things that we hadn't even considered?

The Savior offer peace and joy that surpasses all understanding

Joy can be practiced by living in the moment and really living!

If you are not present in your life you will miss the joy!

Focus on the things that you can do

We have moments that take our breath away, just don't live there! Give yourself 10-15 minutes to cry, scream or whatever it takes and then get on with life!!!

Being present in grief is so important; find others to be present with you

Gratitude creates joy (gratitude journal)

Me posing for a picture with Lisa

We are so blessed to have the BYU ballroom dance team come and perform at our local theater every year. They are so incredibly talented and so fun to watch!!!

January 22nd was Ben's farwell. He has left to go and live with Spencer and Molly in Provo where he will be serving a two year service mission. Some of the places that he will be serving at include the temple, the Family History Library at BYU, and the MTC. He will also have some other assignments that we are still waiting to learn about. We also just got word that the Provo service mission will now be under the direction of the Provo mission president (they used to be under the Stake President) which will give Ben the opportunities to teach lessons with the full-time elders and be involved with the different mission meetings. Ben was so excited for this opportunity. I am proud of him and I know that Larry is watching him with great pride for his willingness to serve the Lord and serve others in this capacity. Larry loved missionary work so much and one of the things that we were looking forward to as a couple was serving a mission together. I am grateful that missionary work lives on through our children and I look forward to the day that Larry and I can serve together.

This is Ben's good friend, Baylor, whom we have not spent as much time as we we like to since leaving Malad. Ben and Baylor are the same age and have both faced great trials in regards to their physical health. His mother, Marla, and I are pictured below. She has been a very dear friend of mine since I showed up at her house about 16 years ago to introduce myself because I had a friend tell me that she too had a disabled son. We love Marla and Baylor so much and are so grateful for the blessing they have been in our lives.

A dear friend of mine brought me over this fast growing and blooming flower. It is beautiful and a great reminder that there is still a lot of beauty in the world and that I am loved.

In closing I would just like to share some thoughts from a book that I have been reading and a few other thoughts about grieving and experiences that I have had.

One thing I have worked really hard at, especially through this grieving process, is to really pay attention to what is going on inside of me and take the time to recognize and process my emotions.

In my more recent years I have come to a better understanding of how negative emotions can affect our health, just like a virus would. This was also one of the healing modalities that was addressed when we went to Hope 4 Cancer in Mexico.

I have found this book very helpful as I have worked to understand and process these things better. A quote that I really like from this book is as follows:

"Negative vibrations (fear based) create a heaviness in you, while the positive vibrations (love based) create a lightness. If you have experienced more negative vibrations throughout your life, you will feel an imbalance somewhere in your Be-ing. When the negative becomes so overbalanced, something finally has to happen to make you aware of this overbalance/imbalance...whether the imbalance be physical, mental, emotional, spiritual or financial. Many people will experience a crisis of some kind before they truly recognize that, one needs to take another road in life. Some of us have to get to the point of crisis before we are open to the possibility that we would really benefit by changing or shifting to a new awareness." 

I came across this quote on grief this month that I really liked:

"You will lose someone you can't live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn't seal back up. And you come through. It's like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly - that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp. Make sure that you live your life through a lens of gratitude and appreciation. You are always going to be sad about your loss, but take that feeling and channel it into love for the life that is all around you."

An experience that I had with my girls this month really started me thinking about Larry's passing from others perspective. The girls and I were having a heart-to-heart talk and they said, "Mom we need you to get remarried because we need a dad." I felt like somebody had put an arrow straight to my heart because it told me how much they were hurting and I recognize that it may not be something that I can give them. They went on to elaborate and explain that mom's do the indoor things like cooking and taking care of the house and they needed a dad to help with all of the dad things. As I reflected on their insights and feelings I started to wonder how it must be from their perspective. Being two disabled girls I hadn't ever thought about how much they looked to their father for physical strength and protection. I don't know what the future holds for me or for my family, but I do know the importance of learning to accept the life that we have been given and finding joy in that life!

I continue to go to the temple every week, go for a weekly massage, and write in my journal/blog on a regular basis. These things help me find strength and process the grief that I am going through.