Happy Birthday, Carly!

She's 15 now and keeps trying to get everyone to let her drive their cars! We went shopping on her birthday and her friends made her wear this sign and tiara around school all day. Then they threw her a surprise party on friday. What fun friends! :)

Thank you Gearld Wright Elementary and West Valley Elementary

Some of the teachers my mom taught with from West Valley Elementary and Gearld Wright Elementary (Yes, that's how it's spelled!) got together and made us a quilt. Several people made squares that represented what our mom meant to them.



















Thank you!! This means so much to us!

Molly's thoughts about death and the afterlife, part five...

On February 27, 2001, Molly wrote a reaction paper for a speaker who had talked about hospice care for the terminally ill. In this paper, Molly tells us how she would have preferred her own death to be. She states:

"What a comfort to know that something like Hospice is available when one most needs to feel at ease. We all would like to be able to have a choice in the way we die. Hospice tries to make that as much a reality as possible. If I had a choice, I would like to be at home surrounded by family with the least amount of pain as possible and still be coherent enough to enjoy my surroundings at home with my family. It's nice to know there is an organization available that will try to make this wish a strong possibility."

The circumstances of Molly's death prevented her from having the choice she speaks about above. Even so, it seems that a greater regret for Molly would be an element of what she outlines in the following:

"I think it would be easier to die knowing you lived your life with the five things she [the speaker] described: not so much who loved you but who and how you loved, forgiving others and helping them to forgive you, showing others how much you appreciated them by thanking them and reminding them what they gave to you has meaning in your life, and saying good-bye. A lot of distress comes over the fact of not getting to say good-bye one last time. This does indeed help one to not just die better, but to live better as well. Living well helps one to die well. I think it brings more peace to one's heart and soul and less regrets."

I feel very strongly that Molly would have wanted to say good-bye one last time to those who she was close to. Some, of course, are people she knew for years. Some had been instrumental in her life at different points. Others may be people she knew only a short time. I think her heartfelt goodbye to all would have been framed within a sincere sense of how important each person is and her prayer that they find in this life those things that are most valuable and important.

The First Grandbaby...

...will be here in late August/early September!

Congratulations to Jaron and Lauren!

I remember...

I remember listening to the radio and talking to my mom about how cute Jon Bon Jovi is.

When we would go on road trips, my mom would turn up the radio really loud and sing along, but she wouldn't sing the melody, she would sing the harmony and it drove us crazy. We would yell at her and say, "Mom, sing WITH the music or don't sing at all!"

My mom liked to put her feet on everybody. We'd tell her to knock it off and she would just do it more.

She would fall asleep on the couch in front of the window and open the blinds so the sun could warm her up. Then she'd grab one of the cats to cuddle with. We had only one cat that liked this. All the others were forced to cuddle against their will. "That's what kitties are for," she'd tell us when we complained to her to leave the cats alone.

When I was little, she would make me go to school in these ridiculous outfits that I hated. I remember I would fight and cry and she would just tell me, "Don't you dare change your clothes. You look cute, now stop it!"

When my mom and I were Christmas shopping one year, we got stopped at the mall by one of those guys at a kiosk selling rice bags that you heat up in the microwave to keep you warm. We asked him what was in it and he told us rice and tea. We looked at eachother and went, "We can make that ourselves." That's what we handed out to the neighbors and family for Christmas in 2006.

She really liked the movie Meet the Parents. She thought it was hilarious.

My mom would make us help her with yard work. She'd spend a whole saturday morning pulling weeds and edging the lawn and leave all the clippings all over the sidewalk and tell us to clean it up. We'd tell her, "You're the one that made the mess. You clean it up." That logic works for toys and spills but not yardwork.

We have peach trees in our back yard and my mom canned peaches for about 3 years in a row. I think up until last year we were finding jars of peaches in our basement that said "92" and "94" on them. They tasted just as good as they did 16 years ago!

I remember waiting for my mom to finish the "Beat The New Year" race with my dad and brothers and sisters in the blue station wagon. We'd go to the finish line at midnight and look for her. She always left with a T-shirt and a plaque that said, "I beat 1992!" or which ever year it was. I think she has four or five of them.

In junior high, I got big enough to fit into her clothes...and she could fit into mine. It was all free game from then on.

She told me she got kicked out of Disneyland one year for throwing a rotten apple off the skyride and hitting Cinderella in the head with it.

She had this horrible perfume that she loved called Emeraude. When she put it on it would make the whole house smell.

Her favorite flavor for anything was peach.

She would put fake flowers in the bushes in front of our house to "give them some color."

Her favorite drink was to take a glass of water, squeeze as many lemon slices as could fit into it and then add salt. I don't know how she even got the idea for it.

She really liked the chips and salsa from Chili's.