Mother's Day

Today has been a good day, in so many ways.  Maybe the secret is to just go with things.  I remember several years ago, leaving church early and going home and crying.  I just felt like such a failure on so many levels.  Today has not been that day.  My thoughts are a bit random, and lengthy, so please bear with me.

This morning, I was, once again concerned about Aaron.  As I was getting ready, I was pondering and praying and going over everything in my mind.  He is doing well, just creeping up on his oxygen, and has been for the past three weeks or so.  We've been at his upper baseline or higher the whole time, except for about 4 hours on one day.  As I was thinking about the whole picture, I also realized he's been snoring and vocalizing just a bit around his trach.  Then I realized that his worst times are when he's asleep, read "very relaxed" and if I sit him up in a more upright position, he does better.  This is what he was doing last December when they brought us in to add a cuff to his trach to help him oxygenate better.   My best guess is that he's grown enough to be leaking air a lot more around his trach.  This would mean that he's not getting the oxygen or pressures that he needs to keep his lungs open well.  So I came out and put in .5cc more of air into his cuff and, lo and behold, dropped his oxygen usage!  He's had a good day too.  He slept through Sacrament Meeting and Sunday School, and was awake and playing and smiling in Relief Society.

I got up this morning to hear someone in the kitchen.  That someone was my oldest daughter, Deborah, making french toast for me.  Something you have to know is that Deborah believes getting up anytime before 10:30 a.m. constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.  But she got up before I did at 5:50 to have breakfast for me.

Another payday, this morning the graduating seniors (some of them, we have 14!) spoke on mothers.  Mary made me cry almost from the start.  She started with a quote from Washington Irving

“A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine desert us; when trouble thickens around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts.”  

Then she proceeded to say that through all the hardest times of both my life and hers, I always had a positive approach.  I'm so glad she sees it that way.

Jonathan gave me a note that said that when Joseph Smith described God the Father and Jesus as "Glorious beyond description" he felt that mothers could be described the same way.  Another payday.

And then cute Michael.  Four years old is so honest.  He filled out a paper about his favorite things about mom.  The first said "My favorite thing that you say to me is:"  and he replied "Yes, play Wii!"  I think it was probably supposed to be "I love you" or something like that.  But he's right, that is his favorite thing for me to say. 

Yesterday, my mother-in-law said she was "listening with her heart" and Aaron told her what he wanted me to have for Mother's Day.  I came home to a gorgeous hanging basket full of flowers.  I cried when I saw it.  (I seem to be doing a bit of that lately.)  And William has been working since last night on a wonderful steak dinner for tonight.  And to top it all off, the rain that was coming today, held off until this afternoon so Aaron could go to church.  I'm glad we live in a desert, because it takes me so long to load and unload him, and ventilators and other equipment aren't real compatible with water!

Since last Wednesday's adventure with his sats, things have been more stable for Aaron.  Thursday was gorgeous so we walked up to Matthew's soccer game with the stroller.  We also got to see Mary & David reffing a girl's soccer game as well.  They were just on the next field.

Yesterday was the quarterly Hopekids birthday party.  I found that I just couldn't sing "Happy Birthday."  We were warned by so many that we probably wouldn't see this day.  I was just so overwhelmed.  It was held at the Sandy Fun Center.  The kids who were there (Mary, David, & Jonathan had soccer games to play and ref) had a blast!  And I discovered that I can still roller skate.  I think it's been at least 25 years.  Of course, it helped that I had Aaron's stroller to hold on to!  He got a cute leapfrog book and his eyes got so big when he saw it.  He really likes it a lot!  

One more thought to end with.  This came as I listened to Mary's talk.  She referenced the 2000 Stripling Warriors.  I think I've heard that story a million times, but this time something else hit me.  We always talk about how they were saved because of their mother's faith.  They were, but not in the way we always think about "saved."  These were not naive young men marching off to play soldier.  Their parents were those who buried their weapons of war and allowed themselves to be killed rather than kill. They knew full well the effects of war on people and families.  They knew that men were killed and they hadn't grown up practicing to fight.  They had to have known that their chances of coming back at all were slim.  But they put their trust in the Lord.  Alma tells us that "Now they never had fought, yet they did not fear death; and they did think more upon the liberty of their fathers than they did upon their lives, yea, they had been taught by their mothers, that if they did not doubt, God would deliver them.  And they rehearsed unto me the words of their mothers, saying:  We do not doubt our mothers knew it."  (Alma 56:47-48).  They knew they were right with Him.  They were fighting a just cause, to defend their liberty and families, and they knew that they were okay with their Father in Heaven.  They drew on the faith their parents had taught them and they knew that if their time on earth was over, it was okay, because they were righteous young men. They were delivered in the most important sense of the word. 

This life is not the end.  Our most important associations will continue beyond the grave.  This is a school we have been sent to and some stay longer than others.  Our home is not this earth.  We are the divine children of a Heavenly Father who loves us.  And someday, we get to go home.