My mother is 87 years old.  Her name is Twyla.  She has the cutest sense of humor and I’ve grown closer to her this year than ever before…

She has had dementia for about 9 years and it’s been a pretty slow steady decline until May of this year.  We’ve been through a lot together this year.

But, this story isn’t about my mother even though she’s in the story.  Twyla sits in a nursing home at Crestwood now.  She is well taken care of.  She doesn’t walk.  She doesn’t sit up straight without being propped up.  She doesn’t dress herself or feed herself.

I visit her often.  Sometimes every day or every other day.  My mom’s room is the last room down the hall on the left.  We’ve lucked out so far and she hasn’t had to have a roommate.  Mom can get aggravated with others at times when she doesn’t understand what’s going on so it’s been nice to not worry about that.

Recently Doris has moved into the other bed in my mom’s room.  She’s quiet.  She stays in her bed all the time.  Doris has been here about a week now.

Today after pulling the privacy curtain between Doris and my mom and getting mom comfortable in her recliner (with the help of a CNA). I prop up her swollen hands on a pillow,  I pick up the speakers with her iPod plugged into them and pull up a chair next to her.  I say hello and kiss her on the forehead.  She slowly and strenuously tells me I’m wonderful.

She has three playlists on her iPod that I’ve added.  Twyla’s fun music, which by the way is not too rowdy.  It has one of her favorites “Tennessee Waltz” and a must hear if you haven’t haha “Bushel and a Peck” by Doris Day.  I’m so seriosu!   A Bushel and a Peck.  Two other playlist on her iPod are Church Music and Church Music Instrumental.  I settle in next to her and turn on Twyla’s Fun Music.

I feel a little strange, almost like im doing something wrong.  I feel like I should turn off the fun music and listen to something more spiritual.  I ignore the feeling and keep playing my word puzzle game next to mom.  I feel it again.  I think I should switch the music.  I ignore it.  A third time, change the music to something spiritual.  Okay, okay I’ll just do it.  I put down my book and switch the play list to Church Music Inspirational and settle back in.

I always feel good here.  The patients make me happy when I talk to them.  I’ve tried hard to learn all their names and something about them.  There situations seem miserable.  But, there is more to this place. I’ve also tried hard to learn the names of all the CNA’s and the nurses.

Some time passes and Steven comes in and peaks around the curtain to where I’m sitting close to my mother.  He’s a young handsome CNA that always has a happy attitude and I’ve heard him in the hall and in patients rooms singing out loud to them.  Steven quietly says to me, “Just so you know… Your mom’s roommate passed away.  I don’t want you to see her and not think that she is being taken care of.”

Over the next thirty minutes or so I sit in the room with my mother pondering what has just taken place.  I hear Tracy, the nurse, and Steven taking about what needs to be done and tenderly washing Doris, combing her hair and making sure that her body looks nice for her family.

I have come to think of death differently.  I feel it is a sacred time.  Sacred enough that I was prompted to turn on sacred music because of what was about to take place.  I heard once there were three life events that God was involved in more than any others, birth, marriage and death.  I don’t think that Doris was sad.  I believe it was a time of rejoicing for family waiting for her.  I know this life is just is an event we pass through and it is not finished once we leave our mortal body for a while.

 

 

Recently I listened to a great book by Mel Robbins called The 5 Second Rule.  Mel Robbins BLOG

Here are a couple of quotes I loved and noted from her book.

• “You have been assigned this mountain so that you can show others it can be MOVED!”

I definitely feel like I have climbed enough mountains in my life.  Some of them may have been thrown in front of me by none other than myself, LOL.  Regardless, I moved them, one shovel full at a time!  Hurrah for me!

• “ONE moment of courage can change your day!  ONE day can change your life!  Your life can change the world!”

I have plenty of those moments that I look back and say, “If only I had…”.  May God grant me the wisdom to continue learning from past experience, to forgive myself and others always, to remember the times that I displayed courage and to continue in courage day by day.  I know he is with me, and I want to change the world!  8)

I really love the idea of the 5 Second Rule.  I’m going to try and apply it in my life for a few things I’ve let get out of control.  1. My weight.  My eating habits and less than active life have got to go!  2. Things that I’ve always wanted to do.  Now that I don’t have to work anymore, I promised God I would use my time to try and help others and him.  I think I will start by writing a book.  Hahaha.  5, 4, 3, 2, 1 Take off!

Part 1        Part 2        Part 3        Part 4        Part 5        Part 6 Conclusion

I had held him, a sweet beautiful baby boy in my arms.  He existed.  He had his own unique set of features as do each of us.  I have been taught that my body looks like my spirit.  That each of us were created in heaven before we were created on earth.  Would Joseph Courtney come back to this earth… to different parents… to me?  If he came back to me wouldn’t I recognize the baby I had held?  It didn’t make sense to me that he could come back looking any different if he was created in heaven.  It didn’t make sense that a baby somewhere in someone’s arms could ever look exactly like my Joseph Courtney.  He was mine.  That was my conclusion.

The thought of whether or not I would see Joseph Courtney haunted me at times.  I’m not saying that I obsessed over the issue.  But, I loved him.  He had grown inside me for seven and a half months.  I had felt him move each night.  I had felt his love and held his tiny body in my arms.  It’s may be difficult to understand unless you have experienced it.  I loved him.  Would I see him again?  Is it possible that we would someday be able to be sealed for eternity as a mother and a son?

Life continues, we all know as we get older looking back seems like a dream.  I remarried close to 23 years old.  Before I was suppose to get pregnant, I needed a chromosome test to make sure there was nothing wrong with my chromosomes and that I could have a healthy child.  The test was good.  I heard Jay’s was good as well.  I got pregnant with a little girl.  We spent months going over the baby name book and fell in love with the name Jessica!  She would have my middle name, the same middle name as my mother and my grandmother!

Side Story: We spent months talking to Jessica in my belly.  “Hello Jessica!”, “How are you Jessica?”, “I love you Jessica!”  I had waited to take the chromosome test until getting married and deciding to have a child.  It was about $500 a lot of money for me at the time.  So down deep somewhere was the nightmare that I may never be able to have a child.  I was soooo thankful the results were good and this daughter was a long awaited for gift!  In labor with Jessica, this suppressed fear presented itself.  Once in the birthing canal Jessica wouldn’t come out.  Deep down I was so fearful that once she came out she wouldn’t be alive that I believe my body was fighting to keep her in.  Once again, Doctor Hurst’s face becomes a memory etched within my brain.  His worried look, his glances at the clock, his glances towards my mother.  I knew she needed to come and just as time was running out, Jessica’s cries sounded.  The nurse held her to me to hold and I heard myself saying, “Hello Jessica” and she quieted as she heard my voice.

More time, more experiences and three more beautiful daughters!  Still the thought in my head, “Where is Joseph?”, “Will I see Joseph?”, “Is he mine?”  One night when Jessica was about eight years old.  I wonder if that has any significance for what I’m about to share.  I was dreaming a vivid dream.  I remember every detail.  In the dream I was lying on my bed as I was in reality lying on my bed sleeping.  Jessica appeared above my bed slowing coming into view  the ceiling wasn’t there it was more like clouds.  She was holding a baby.  Upon seeing the baby I knew at once it was Joseph Courtney.  She came close enough to reach me and handed me the child.  I held him to my face.  I felt him.  I knew him.  I LOVED him.  I wept with an outpouring of love and appreciation.  Soon enough Jessica appears again.  Once again she descended from above and this time she spoke to me.  She said, “It’s time.” I knew that she meant it was time for Joseph to return and my vision to end.  My tender mercy!  I awoke as the dream ended.  My pillow was wet were I had wept.

“We may not know what the future holds, but we do know who holds the future, and to be in step with him is the greatest opportunity of our existence.” – author unknown

Why doesn’t God just show himself to all those on earth.  This is a question I have heard my husband ask.  Does he really want to know or is this an excuse to not believe.  Perhaps faith like love is not a thing that we have or we don’t have.  Perhaps it is a state of being, a verb, something that we can demonstrate more at one time and not so much at another.  I agree with idea that we cannot learn things of a spiritual nature with our natural mind.  There is a spiritual side to us that I am sometimes more in tune with than other times.  I feel it more in quiet humble contemplation.  This spiritual side takes practice.  It takes faith.  In order to grow spiritually, I believe I need to ponder spiritual questions and ask in faith.  As the answers come (through spiritual channels of communication) I grow in a knowledge of this spiritual side of life, until someday, may my faith be perfected unto a perfect knowledge of the way that my creator works.

Does our Father in Heaven care about our temporal needs.  He must.  He brought us here to experience joy.  Last year through my hectic  life (as I am sure you relate) I experienced some small Faith Building Experiences in the form of a very temporal nature.  Many times throughout the year I would misplace my keys.  One day after searching for my keys and feeling desperate to arrive on time to my intended destination, I decided to make an effort to grow and test my previous childlike faith.  After what I felt was a good effort to search and being nearly out of time, I decided to tell my Heavenly Father of my need to get to where I had to go, my faith that I knew he knew where my keys were and that I knew he loved me and cared about me as I was attending to the temporal needs of myself and my family.  I then asked him to help me find my keys.  In a matter of seconds I found my keys.

I know, I know, this could have been a coincidence.  But, Heavenly Father was the only one that I spoke to about this and he was the only one that knew of my “effort to grow and test my previous childlike faith”.  I believe he was willing to answer me in a more sure way.  Not too long after this experience, I lost my keys again.  I searched, I prayed and within seconds the experience was repeated.  “Okay”, I thought, “WOW, I have a direct line to Heavenly Father and he cares about me even looking for my keys… or am I being ridiculous?”  Not too long after the second experience, I lost my keys again and YES my experience was repeated a third time.  As if to drive the experience home and through my heart to my amazement I continued to misplace my keys and the experience was repeated several more times.  I wasn’t counting, but they were in succession and enough that I had to acknowledge to him (the only one that knew) of his hand in my life and his love for me as I traversed this mortal life.

Losing my keys wasn’t something that happened this often to me.  Sure it happened from time to time.  But, never as much as during that Faith Building Experience.  Gradually, things returned to normal and I stopped losing my keys so much and I stopped having to ask for his help in that regard.

Can I hold on to that experience in times of real despair and trouble?  I will have to try to exercise faith when that time comes.  Remember, faith isn’t a thing that you get once and BAM you’ve got it.  Is this an example of spiritual growth that we can go through?  I believe so.  Will he always tell me where my keys are?  I don’t think so.  Can I still trust that he is there if that same pray or another is not answered immediately or how I want?  This is why we must continue to pray for Faith Building Experiences so that we can have more and more of them, in the way the Lord chooses to pass them out, so that we eventually grow spiritually stronger until we have a knowledge he is there in all of our trials.

He is there in our joy and in our sadness.  He loves us eternally and will not leave us. All things will work for our good if we have faith.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was taught to pray.  I remember each night kneeling in a circle around my parents bed holding hands, bowing our heads and praying before we each went off to bed.

I still try to pray everyday. Those night time prayers my family had together set a habit within me for a life time. Thank you Mom and Dad. Night time prayers are the easiest. Morning prayers make my day go better and praying throughout the day helps keep me in touch with my Father in Heaven

I believe in God.  I happen to believe he is our loving spiritual Father.  I believe we lived with him before we came to this earth and may live with him again.  Please don’t stop reading if we don’t happen to share the same faith or religion.  I know that we have  different circumstances and pasts.  I believe we have much in common.  My goal is to be able to inspire, to teach, to learn, to love and to persuade others to open their heart and mind to feel the love God has for each of us.

“For the fulness of mine intent is that I may persuade men to come unto the God of Abraham, and to the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, and be Saved” – 1 Nephi 6:4

“Do ye not remember the things which the Lord hath said?-If ye will not harden your hearts, and ask me in faith believing that ye shall receive, with diligence in keeping my commandments, surely these things shall be made known unto you.” – 1 Nephi 15:11

I do love to write.  I know many of us do.  I’ve been told I have a way with words after I have written a card to someone important to me.  All I did was write down my honest feelings about that person.  I’m going to start.  I’m going to write about my life experiences.  I would LOVE to be able to share and touch hearts… someone’s heart.