Endings & Beginnings

With the beginning of the fall comes beautiful colors and woodpiles.  Unfortunately a lot of cleaning up type of work comes with all of that.  The garden is cleaned out and most of the leaves are raked up.  Those yet to fall are obviously not raked and hauled away.

 With the end of fall comes winter and I just couldn't bring myself to post a picture of the white stuff just yet.

 With the late fall and winter comes the beginning of the basketball season.  Both for those playing and those officiating.  The end of my officiating season was last week.  The beginning of basketball means the end of the soccer season.  It was a good season to be outside and watch.  Many years the wind and cold are nearly unbearable.  This year was beautiful!

Today is October 29th which means it's an anniversary in our family.  It's the day my mom passed from this life to the next.  I wasn't initially thinking about that with the title of my post, but thought it would work and I wouldn't have to create two posts. 

This is my mom on the day she was baptized.  With her are Elders Marvin Olsen and Sam Rex.  I've kept in touch with Sam over the years.  Marvin is a different story.  I did speak to him a couple of years ago when I was doing some research for a talk that I never gave.  He gave me such sacred information about my mom's conversion, that I couldn't share it with the ward.

 One of my mom's best friends was Ruth Darnell.  I haven't seen Ruth recently, but she's such a sweet woman.  It's funny now that I'm getting close to the age my mom was when she passed, I think about my friends and I know that I have the same types of relationships with them as my mom had with her friends.  I just wish their mortal friendships could've lasted for more years.  I could totally see my parents working together in the temple.

Bonny's wedding day was the beginning of her life as a married woman and the closing chapter for my parents' marrying off their children.  This was 10 months before my mom died.  So many people say I have mannerisms like her or I say things that she would've said.  I supposed that's true, since I've said some things over the years only to realize that my mom's voice was coming out of my own mouth!

 This was Alison's first Christmas and my last one as a single woman.  Times were much more simple then.  I wouldn't want to go back though.  Now little Alison has five beautiful children of her own.  How I loved that little girl!  I couldn't imagine loving any other child the way I loved her.  Funny how the more you love, the more love you have to give.  It's also interesting how a mother's love is different than any other kind I've ever experienced.

 Eighteen years have passed and although I don't cry like I used to, I still miss my mother tremendously.  She was such a great example of obedience even when you didn't feel like being obedient; of frugality, of a scriptorian, of how to serve completely in a calling and just how to love your husband.  I know she wasn't perfect and she had many difficulities that I don't have to deal with, still, I had a great example.  When my dad would come home from work, she would drop whatever she was doing and go embrace him and kiss him.  If she was in the garden, he would go find her.  Iin my eyes they lived a true love story.  I'm sure they had their problems but I never saw them.
With the end of her mortal life began the beginning of her immortal life.  Sometimes I wonder what was so important to take her away from us while she was so young.  Fifty-five is way too young.  But I take comfort in the fact that she is still my mother and she still loves and cares about us and that one day we'll all be reunited.
I hope that one day when I grow up, I can be like her.  I miss you Mom!