One of the reasons I was so excited to come to Utah the end of May was to be there for Memorial Day. I grew up going to our family's graves every year. I loved it. I loved clipping the flowers out of my grandma's garden, I love arranging them in vases, I love taking lawn chairs and blankets to the cemetery and hearing the stories while my grandpa lovingly cleaned up and took care of the headstones and lawn around them. I loved running into other family members there, sometimes distant ones. It had been 10 years since we had gone and my heart yearned for it and I wanted my children to experience it. As luck would have it it was pouring rain on Memorial day. So we went on Tuesday and ti was still cold, wet, and rainy. We were only there for a few minutes and only got out of the car for 1 site, the rest we gathered around my grandparents car. It wasn't the experience I had hoped for. but as I have learned that God compensates and I believe my kids will remember something, the sacrifice, the love, the smell, something.
However as we drove around my kids, especially Brock, became very interested in some of the prophets headstones they found around the cemetery. Brock would make us stop the car and he would go take a picture. It was pretty cute and I was glad they were excited and having fun. And then we saw it. The Hinckley headstone. President Hinckley was a wonderful prophet, the prophet of my youth. He was the one that I first came to know that God calls prophets and that they are on the earth today. But the real reason I had to stop and take a picture was for his dear wife, Marjorie. Marjorie is my person. She is the main reason I am who I am. I have modeled my mothering, my role was a wife, my discipleship, my service, my everything after her. I first picked up a book about her when I was 17, it was on my mother's night stand, I started to read it and I was filled with light. In fact, the light was too strong, I closed the book and put it down. I knew I wasn't ready, I would wait a few years before I needed the truths in that book. Since then I have read it almost every year, it re-centers me. Reminds me of who I really want to be. One day I will be able to thank her. Everything good in my life has come from Jesus Christ, then her, then probably Karli. haha
Then we went to the Murray cemetery where my grandpa's family is buried.
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