Six Month Anniversary of Larry's Passing

"The wonderful prospect and attitude of accepting everything and everyone as being perfect is that change is also perfect! What you are going through is perfect. It will cause you to move toward the growth you are to experience, gaining the understanding or learning the lessons that are necessary for you to learn in this life. With this frame of mind, your life becomes more fluid--more flowing without you feeling the need to always run things your way, thereby blocking God's way. There is a purpose for every challenge and every situation to which we find ourselves. The purpose if for learning and growth--and for getting to know who we are are...The more we avoid or resist what we may consider in our mind to be an undesirable person or an undesirable situation, the more we block the flow of energy that facilitates change...And how does this work? It all comes back to love. Love is accepting what is...When you do not see yourself and the situations in your life as being perfect, there is no energy for anything to change. You stop the flow of energy."--"Feelings Buried Alive Never Die" by Karol K. Truman

As I reflect back on all that has happened over the past six months I feel so much gratitude to my Heavenly Father for giving me the strength, energy, wisdom, and healing to continue moving forward with my life as a widow, even though it has not always been easy and has pushed me greatly out of my comfort zones. I am also so, so grateful for all of the opportunities and blessings that I have been given as I go through this grieving process and adjusting to life without Larry.

We survived Bekah's first semester at college. Not only was she adjusting to the changes at college with a disability, she was also very much grieving the loss of her father, her best friend. I am so proud of Bekah for pushing through and growing in ways that have tested, and continue to test her, to the very core. 

Since Larry's passing I have been able to more consistently go to Downata Hot Springs to swim and relax. I have also been able to carve time out of my busy schedule to attend the temple every week and go for a weekly massage. These things have been a foundational key in my healing process.

I have learned to get out of my comfort zones and start interacting with others who are in my same situation. I didn't realize how key this is in the healing process. When you are in mourning, your instinct is often to withdraw from society, but when we isolate ourselves we are actually perpetuating our sorrow. I attended my first LDS widow/widower conference about a month after Larry had passed. It was a very good conference and I learned a lot, but I felt very much like a fish out of water. For this conference I only attended classes as the activities were too much for me. A few months later I attended another conference in St. George where I got way out of my comfort zone and participated in the shotgun shooting. After practicing, I was able to hit the targets on about a quarter of my shots! I have also attended an activity at Crystal Hot Springs, a Valentines party, and a singles dinner in Logan. I am also getting ready to attend another widow/widower conference in Salt Lake.

Since Larry's passing I have almost survived (thanks to my children and extremely kind neighbors with very big and powerful tractors) the most relentless winter I can ever remember in my nineteen years of living in Idaho. It has been brutal!  I am having to watch the weather very carefully as the majority of the days have snow in the forecast. Just looking at next week we have snow everyday with the exception of Thursday and Saturday. I am very grateful for the much needed moisture that we are receiving, it has just been a lot to adjust to and there are several of us that are now at high risk for flooding.  There have been numerous times this year that I have gotten home from my day's activities and I can't get up my driveway because of the drifts (in past years it would maybe happen once a year). I have learned not to go anywhere without throwing my bogs, a warm coat, a hat, and gloves in the car because you never know when you might be stuck or hiking up a hill in the frigid weather. The pictures below show the crazy ice and how deep the snow is. If you look at our pasture area the horses could just walk over the fence. 😔I am also grateful for studded tires that we just had put on our snow plow truck. Just wish we had done it earlier in the year.

We have also mourned the loss of our milk cow that died from a nutritional disease because we were uneducated and not giving her the proper nutrition. This was devastating to me as it was one of my dad's cows and it was just the beginning of some of the steep learning curves I have had to go through with losing Larry and all of his wisdom. We continue to feed the two horses that were Larry's project. I am not sure what we will do with them yet, but thankfully we have been able to keep them alive. We have also acquired two of the cutest dogs that have very much become a part of our life. Rachel has a goldendoodle named "Sis" and Nate has a pompsky named "Buddy".

We have survived several 1st including Larry's birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Valentines day. We have also had three missionary farewell's since Larry's passing--Ashley, Hailey, and Ben. I can only imagine that Larry was at these events. I pray daily to feel his presence in our lives and I am grateful for the times that I have felt his presence.

The kids surprised me with a "heart attack" on my door for Valentine's💕

These are the flowers that the boys bought me for Valentine's Day from Larry.❤

Some of the family activities we have been involved in this month include attending the movie "A Man Called Otto" with Aunt Christine and Shelby. This was a very good movie, but a little rough on the heart strings especially for someone who has lost a spouse. We attended the Rexburg temple visitors center while in town for Nate's wrestling match. We celebrated Dallin & Enoch's birthdays. We celebrated West Side's 1st ever team wrestling trophy at state. They took 3rd place, beating Malad who took 4th place (I never thought I would see the day)! To add to the excitement, Colton Gunderson came home with a 1st place medal!!! This was someone that Enoch has helped coach through the years.  Larry loved working with the youth and would have been so proud of these boys. I have to believe that he was there in spirit. The Mumford family was so kind and included us in their yearly ice skating at twin lakes. It was so much fun and it just felt good to be outside!!!

One of the hardest part of losing your spouse is being a single parent. You have lost something, a parent is that is their flesh and blood and cares about them more than anyone else in this world, that can never be replaced. Rachel was miraculously able to get her feeding tube out in December. Larry would have either been with us for the procedure or at home taking care of things there, but this time I was all on my own. He had such a comforting and calming influence with me and my children and I miss it everyday.

The ACE store has come a long way since Larry's passing and is scheduled to be finished in May and open in June. The Ward Feed & Seed project has been both healing and hard on our family. All of our lives are on hold as we work to manage and figure out the future of these businesses. This month I had my first really bad bought with anger. I felt very angry that Larry brought me here to his home of Idaho and left me with his life. If I had a choice I would not be running two stores right now and living on the property that I do by myself. I just felt very angry at Larry for bringing me here and then abandoning me. I was so angry that I took down all of his pictures off of the wall in our bedroom. The anger lasted about a day and they were back on the wall by the next morning. 

I am grateful for the overall physical health that I have been blessed with through this process. Even though I tend to do quite well, I have noticed that my hair and my nails had stopped growing during the last year of Larry's life. I think my body was in so much shock from Larry's diagnosis and everything that we were going through. I also think my body was just feeling so sad and didn't have any extra energy to dedicate to nail or hair growth. I have since started taking some supplements to help with this and have started to notice my nails and hair growing again over the past couple of months. I also put on a lot of weight over the past nine years since Larry's very unpredictable illness of pancreatitis started. Since his passing, it has hit me really hard that my children really need me to be here and I have worked very hard to start getting my weight off. Through diet, exercise, and fasting I have been able to lose 25 pounds so far! I still have 75 pounds to go, but I am very grateful and excited for the progress I have made. I also slept through the night for the first time right at my six month mark.

Since Larry's passing I have been called to teach the five year olds in primary and called to take birthday gifts to each of the Relief Society sisters for the year. I have also been asked by our Stake Relief Society President to give a 30 minute talk at our stake widows dinner that is coming up in September. As I am one of the younger widowers and more recent widows in the stake, I pray that I may receive inspiration as to those things that I can share to inspire and uplift much more seasoned and experienced widows than myself. I am grateful that I have lots of time to prepare for this.

I can't believe it has already been six months since Larry's passing. It has felt like forever since I have physically seen Larry and yet it feels like yesterday.  I am really starting to come to a better understanding of what I can and can't do and of different things that I need to do to make my new life work for me. It has been really good for me to take the time to blog about my experiences monthly as I go through this grieving process. I am reminded of the good times, the hard times, and it helps me process the range of emotions that I am going through. Reviewing the pictures and videos for the month has helped me remember all of the good in my life and how blessed I truly am.

One Month Anniversary of Larry's Passing

It has been a month now since Larry left this world. Even though I was so happy to hand him over to the "Master Healer", I would have rather have  had him healed and here with our family. The five stages of grief that oscillate between as we try to adjust to a new reality are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. The "sting of death" has been something that I have recently become acquainted with and have prayed continually for the Lord to help succor me through this process.

Everyday I make myself get up and get out bed. To allow my mind to go into a deep depression or start asking "why questions", that have no good answers, will only lead me down dark roads and is something I have worked to avoid at all costs. For the many nights that  I have had trouble sleeping I will often listen to meditations to help heal the pain that I am going through and relax my body.  Other sleepless nights I will write in my journal or call a friend.

The loneliness and sadness that I feel runs very deep and is very hard to explain. One of the most heart wrenching aspects of losing Larry is that I have lost the only other person in this world who loves my kids as much as I do and I have lost my sounding board for kid struggles and the calming force that he was in our home. Bekah has really struggled since going to college. Yes she probably did go to soon after her father's passing, but what else was she going to do? Her track to go to college was Fall/Spring. If she didn't go in the fall she would have had to wait until spring and there is nothing here for her, especially when we live in the middle of nowhere and she does not have the ability to drive places. We could have possibly petitioned BYU-I to get on the winter track, but Rexburg is not a good place for her to be in the winter

She made it two weeks at school before we made the decision to switch her to all online classes and bring her home for a few weeks. Our learning curve for having somebody with her disability sustainably survive at college was just too high. Her scooter (which is essentially her legs to be able to get around) was also giving her problems and had become unreliable. She also had a problem with one of her roommates disobeying the rules about boys being in the apartment and it was making Bekah feel very uncomfortable. I was really missing Larry's counsel in knowing how to deal with this situation and I really missed him when we went to go up and pick up Bekah and visit with her roommates about Bekah's situation and the situation with her roommates. It was such a blessing that one of my good friends went with me, but I really missed Larry's gentleness. He would have had a way with the girls that I just did not have.

Last night I attended my first widow event. It was a very lovely dinner held in the Relief Society room at our stake house. Even though it was nice to get out and meet some of the sisters who are going through similar struggles, it was hard and I did not feel like I belonged there, especially because I was one of the youngest, if not the youngest, one there. I did however, meet an elderly lady that knows how to make the memory bears out of flannel shirts and has offered to help me make some for my kids for Christmas.

I went to my water aerobics class on Wednesday at Downata hot springs for the first time since February. I didn't realize that I hadn't been in so long and it felt soooooo good to be back. I have always loved the water and I love being out in the fresh air and sun shine while I get some exercise that is easy on my joints. I have also been going to get a weekly massage. Massage has always been a very healing thing for me and I will likely go every week for probably the first year as I try to make sense of everything and adjust to a new life.

Other things things that have happened since his passing:

1. His funeral, burial, and design of his headstone. Even though the funeral ending up being two hours long it was beautiful and helped to give a lot of closure to Larry's passing. It has been healing to celebrate his life and have recorded memories and a picture video of his life. His headstone will serve as a constant reminder of who he was, what he stood for, and of the eternal family that we have.

2. Five days after his passing we had a baby calf born that we named "Little Larry". Because the momma cow had so much extra milk, we ended up getting three more calves to put on her. Tragically, three weeks after she gave birth she died from milk cow disease. Due to our lack of knowledge of how to properly take care of a nursing cow, she literally gave her life to these calves. Our Bishop is a vet and he came out to try to save her with an IV, but sadly it was just too late. What made this loss even more tragic for me is that the milk cow was my dad's and has been in our family for years. She was such a good cow and it was heart breaking that she had to die the way she did. I made the decision to give all of the baby calves to another farmer who could take care of them. Nate is very upset that "Little Larry" is no longer here and we are looking at getting him back.

3. I have started going through Larry's clothes and things, but keep finding myself freezing through the process. It is very hard for me to have his things just laying around, but the process of being able to think about and do something with them is a lot harder than I ever imagined. So many memories attached to even just the littlest things.

4. I took the kids to the traveling tabernacle that was in Logan. It was so good and it was a spiritually uplifting reminder of our purpose here on earth and the power and importance of covenants that we make with God when we go through the temple.

5. I have continued to attend the temple on a weekly basis. I love the peace that I feel when I go there and I love being able to put people's names on the prayer roll whom I know that are in need of blessings from on high. 

6. I have started on the checklist of all of the paperwork that needs to be done in relation to Larry's passing. There is a lot to do and I just have to fit it in between taking care of children and everything else that I have going on.

7. Our ward has had a service project at our house to help get us set up for winter. One of my biggest concerns about staying where I am at is being adequately able to manage our 8 acres and all of our equipment on my own. I am so grateful that so many kind people have stepped in to make sure that I am set up for the winter. I would really like to be able to stay here because I love it here and I don't know where else I would go, but I have got to get things to where they are manageable for me to be able to take care of.

8. We planted an oak tree in our play set area in honor of Larry that was given to us by IFA.

9. We attended a BYU game together as a family. This is one of the three yearly traditions that we decided we would start doing as a family in his honor before he passed.

10. I have made it through another month of overseeing the operations and doing the book work for our two businesses. In the near future this will be one of the most stressful aspects of what I am dealing with. We are working on getting the seed side of the business sold, but there is so much work that goes into this whole process. On the retail feed side of the business the new store is currently under construction and will be opening in the spring. I am so grateful for all of my boys help with all of these projects, but it has been very difficult on all of us as we try to adjust to a "new normal".

I love the following quote by Elder Wirthlin that was shared at the widows conference:

"The Lord compensates the faithful for every loss. That which is taken away from those who love the Lord will be added unto them in His own way. While it may not come at the time we desire, the faithful will know that every tear today will eventually be returned a hundredfold with tears of rejoicing and gratitude.

One of the blessings of the gospel is the knowledge that when the curtain of death signals the end of our mortal lives, life will continue on the other side of the veil. There we will be given new opportunities. Not even death can take from us the eternal blessings promised by a loving Heavenly Father."

Bekah Goes to College

It was a bitter sweet day moving Bekah Ward into her new apartment in Rexburg. Thank you Jen for all of your help and helping us survive the day. We couldn't have done it without you. So excited for Bekah to have this new adventure with so many awesome cousins, friends, and opportunities! Shortly before Larry passed away he emphatically declared that he was so excited because he gets to go to college again! He told Bekah that he would be there for her every step of the way. I have complete faith that between God and Larry that Bekah will be well watched over and taken care of.