Good People, Part Two..

As soon as I published the last post I remembered a few more good people moments I had, and since then I have had a few more.  So here it goes.

On Sunday at our Young Women board meeting we were discussing and planning an upcoming event.  The event is focused on reviewing the year and the things that we have accomplished, focused on and done as a group of Young Women.  As we were discussing one of the leaders said that we needed to put in some pictures of the YW that sang at Tatum's funeral and the picture of Tatum that they were holding because Tatum was a big part of the girls year.  I don't know if I had thought too much about that aspect of the program for this event.  It was so sweet of the other leaders to remember Tates in that way.  I felt very strongly, during her entire life and especially after she got sick, that she was meant to come and be with these girls and be an example and a help to them.  If one girl from this group looks back on this past year and remembers in the future a lesson learned, it will be satisfying.  It just made me feel so loved that these good women that I get to work with honor and reverence her memory.  Good people in my life.

After our meeting one of the ladies stayed after with me and we had a really sweet conversation.  She has experienced loss and illness in her family also and so she has been a great support through all of this.  Another example of a good person.

The past few days I have had several people call and check on me, ask how we were doing, go to lunch, and let me just hang out at their house.  I have good people all around me taking care of me.

Despite all of this, can I just say that it is still soooo hard to get up every single day.  I don't know how people who don't have a good support system survive this heavy broken heart.

Today started off really good.   One of our YW leaders and myself were taking some girls to the Temple at 5am.  We haven't always had the greatest success at these early morning attempts.  This morning we had all of the girls that had signed up and confirmed that they were coming, come.  We even had a girl call and see if she could come while we were gathering girls in the neighborhood.  I knew that it was going to be a good day.

When we got inside the Temple, guess who was there?  Chad Lewis!  BYU football player who went on to play for the Eagles in the NFL and now he does motivational speaking and he wrote a book.  Pretty cool.  It was nice to sit and be in the temple to start off the day, even if it was at 5am.   We got home in time for me to help the kids get out the door to school.  Things were going great.

The rest of the day was pretty good.  I got a lot of things done that I needed to.  I was able to go and do some hand molds for a family that lost their 11 year old son to a tragic accident.  As I was watching that mom touch his body and hug him and smell him and talk to him and cry, it was so heart wrenching.  She kept saying that she didn't want to leave him.  That is exactly how you feel.   Part of our love for our children is so wrapped up in their physical bodies, because that is how we know them.  We just ache for that physical them.  That may have started the funk that hung around the rest of the day.  I started feeling pretty heavy, thinking of that devastated mom and then thinking about myself and how emotionally devastated I still am.  Some days it can all of a sudden just feel very heavy.

I came home in the afternoon and got everyone settled and home from school.  We had decided that we were going to go fulfill one of Lance's dreams tonight so I was telling the kids that they needed to be ready to go when dad and I got home from our bike ride.  For probably 15 years every time Lance has passed this sign in Salt Lake that says "Worlds First KFC" he has said that we need to go and eat there.  He just always thought it was cool that  the first actual KFC is right here in Salt Lake City.  A few years ago he drove by that area and he thought that the sign was gone, so he assumed that maybe they had tore the building down.  The next time that we drove by we realized  that it was still there.  Phew.  We thought that we had better act on this "bucket list" item quickly.  The other day we decided to just do it.  My niece and nephew and brother-in-law met us there.  The whole way up I was thinking about how funny of a post this would be on facebook.  Who else has such a funny bucket list item?  We are pretty ridiculous.

FYI: The chicken at the "Worlds First KFC" tastes the exact same as the one down the street in Lehi.  Lesson learned:)


 While we were driving up the entire family was giving me a hard time about posting on instagram.  They were saying that I post too much and they didn't like me posting their pictures, etc.  It kind of hurt my feelings.  I thought that I was being fun, and keeping a journal of our family events and keeping people that care up to date about our family.  I also have to say that while Tatum was sick it became very fun and therapeutic to take and post pictures of her and keep people updated on how we were all doing.  After she died I did not want to ever take another picture or video.  I do not like how our family looks now.  How could I take another picture, she will never be in another picture! I didn't take pictures or video for awhile.  Then I decided that I couldn't do that.  I need to still take pictures and document what our family is doing.  It takes every ounce of energy to make myself try and have fun and enjoy doing it.  I have tried to find joy in taking pictures again.  Now all my family could do was complain about it.  I just wanted to go home and curl up in a ball and cry.  I am sure that I am just tired, but my feelings were pretty hurt.  I wish they could understand how hard it is for me to document this very hard time in all of our lives.  I am sure I will be over it tomorrow but for right now I am just sad.  

To end on a happier note.  Last night Hilary whispered for us to pray that Tatum and Trevin would gain weight!  Hilary saves the day and is that good person in our lives, always reminding us of the important things.