Lightening

 I’m sitting at the airport. The girls are on the plane and I am at the gate. Lightening has started and they are delaying the rest of the boarding and the flight until is passes. Hopefully it will pass quickly, it’s very typical to have thunderstorms here in the afternoon and evening. Hopefully they will have a safe and uneventful flight home. Last night the girls and I were piled in my bed watching Pan. We had the cozy blanket up to our necks and all the lights were out. As the movie ended we lay there a little longer chatting. They said they couldn’t believe how fast the trip went, that it felt like 3 days! I agree! It was just so fun and full of the magic and the delights of childhood.  To be completely frank when I was the mom and my kids were the kids it was magical and amazing too. I recognized in the moment that this was it, as good and wonderful as life can be. But it was also hard and hectic. I was distracted and tired and in a hurry. While I really loved raising the kids it wasn’t all rainbows and cupcakes. With grandchildren it is. It’s a chance to step back and relive and remember. It’s also an opportunity to make new amazing memories, to try to be a good influence and a support. Anyway, it was great. Our pool got a lot of use. We watched a few movies, read aloud a lot, went some fun places, baked some delicious treats, talked and laughed and planned when we’d be together next. 

Today we got to go to church, first time for me since March. I knew it would be different but I was still excited & it was still great. 

I felt some melancholy as I saw my friends in masks, sitting apart and we were NOT able to visit or hug. Seeing the YM prepare and bless the sacrament with gloves and masks on was also eerie and just weird. 

The talks though were so good. I felt the spirit and my eyes filled with tears of gratitude. 

After our meeting just a few of us, Bishop Cole, Bro. Gooch, Bro Williams, our family, and the high counselor gathered together and Ethan was ordained an Elder and given the Melchizedek priesthood. He was given a beautiful blessing and I teared up again. He is such a good young man and has always taken the challenges and trails that have come his way in a calm and measured way. This, Covid, is not the way we pictured him getting ready for his mission and who knows when he’ll go to the temple, if he’ll do home MTC or Provo, if he will go straight to Madrid or if he’ll have to be reassigned somewhere else first but whatever happens I know he will do great. He will serve valiantly, he will be who God wants him to be.