Finding Peace

Thank you to all of our friends and family for sharing your memories with us. We are so blessed to be surrounded by so many wonderful people. It was very difficult to have to explain to my brothers and sister what I meant when I called them to tell them our mother was "gone". I knew they needed to know but I absolutely did not want to tell them. Initially, the hurt was so strong as I'm sure so many of you felt when you learned of the events that took her life. However, our faith, knowledge and understanding of our Heavenly Father's plan has brought peace and comfort to all of us.

Saturday night our sister, Carly, asked our brother for a blessing. Jaron gave hers, Scott blessed Brooke and Brandon blessed me. I remember feeling so calm during my sisters' blessings but I could do nothing but cry while Brandon was speaking. I have the most wonderful husband! I don't remember all the details of each of the blessings as they were specifically guided by the Spirit to address each of our personal needs, but the one thing that I remember during each prayer was the statement, "You're mother is happy."

Monday, after we had made all of her funeral arrangements, we were able to see her. She looked absolutely peaceful and even seemed to be smiling. I entered the room where she was and walked toward my sweet mother and couldn't help but smile as memories of her sassy attitude and captivating personality flooded into my mind. There is absolutely no way she would ever want to see her children crying for any reason, and I couldn't. We hovered around her fixing her hair and staring at her face and talking about funny things she would probably be saying to us.

When we finally pulled ourselves away, we all felt so calm and so much peace. We were able to spend the rest of the night talking and laughing like we would do at regular family gatherings. We can still feel her around us because our home still feels like home. She will be missed but there is no way she will ever really be gone. She never liked to let us out of her sight and I guarantee she never will.