Hello Blog World!

A good friend and colleague passed away a few weeks ago. She was very ill due to complications with her heart. I think she had her first heart surgery when she was in her 40s. She was 62. I first met her when our husbands were serving in church leadership at the Stake level. We attended a dinner/get together for leaders and spouses. We sat across the table form each other. She was working on her master's degree at BYU, and I was working on mine at the "U". We ended up working as counselors in the same school district, took care of many work-related committee assignments together, traveled to the same national conferences a couple of times, and much more. When she was the RSP in the Lake Ridge 9th Ward, she asked me to speak at her Relief Society's Women's Conference on hope. She talked to me for weeks about the needs of the sisters in her ward and how they needed to see life as hopeful and felt strongly that I had something to share. I studied for the talk, and it was probably okay, but I always thought it awkward that she would ask me to speak on hope when she exemplified greater strength in hope that I could ever know. She lost three children as babes, struggled with health issues for as long as I knew her with the most difficult and aneurysm that brought on an early medical retirement. As I look back, it may have been my lesson to learn as I think about that talk tonight.

My friend was also very smart, clever, witty, and funny. In fact, it was in 1998, that she wrote up her funeral plans and left them as an icon on her computer desktop. Her children carried out their mom's wishes with funny stories and events. The funeral service was truly a celebration of her positive impact and a fun-filled contributor to the world around her. Interesting to note that she went to Hawaii with her husband and sister and brother-in-law just after Christmas. Needless to say that was a trip to cherish.