The Other Side

I’m going to depart a bit from my normal silly self tonight and share something very personal and dear to me.  Most of my friends know that over the past couple of years or so several members of my family have joined our dear ones on the other side of this life’s veil and my son has on two occasions come very close to joining them as well.  In the fall of 2006 my darling dad passed away.  Two weeks later Chad came way too close to death’s door with aspiration pneumonia and two weeks after ending our 3 week hospital stay with that Chad’s sweet brother, Curtis, died shortly after having gall bladder surgery.  In 2007 we came to realize the seriousness of my baby brother, Brian’s, illness from which he died in February of 2008.  Summer of 2008 began with Chad falling and having a spiral fracture of his upper left arm, which was very incapacitating for him and as he was just about to get over that he developed severe gall stones and had to have gall bladder surgery almost exactly 2 years from the day that Curtis had his surgery.  The surgery went well but he again developed aspiration pneumonia and our intensive care stay seemed endless. 

People often comment to me that I seem to take these things in stride and have a good outlook about everything.  Some wonder how I do it.  There are two very special things that help me to keep my perspective up and give me hope.  Please allow me to share them with you.

One of those is my sense of humor, which I hope comes through in my blogs.  There is always something humorous to be found in even the very worst of situations.  I like what someone once said about the opposite of this condition.  I believe it was either Dallin Oaks or Russell Ballard that said, “no situation in life can be so horrible that it can’t be made worse by complaining about it.”  I actually paraphrased that and I’m really not quite sure who originally said it, but you get my drift.

The second thing that keeps me looking up is my faith.  I cherish my membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and I cherish the teachings of Jesus Christ which I learn there.  It is those teachings which give me hope and which continually strengthen my faith.  Our Temples are in many ways a symbol of our faith and I’d like to share the following video to help others understand something of the peace the Temple brings me and the great help it gives me through life’s difficulties.  Please enjoy this short video about our Temples.  Perhaps  you will begin to understand the strength of my faith and perhaps, too, it will take some of the mystery out of the “Mormon” fascination with Temples. 

Hmmmm…………I think I feel a Temple Trip coming on…..!

Mama and Daddy outside the Orlando Temple

                   

Those two old love birds!