Where I've been and a BIG THOUGHT!

Seems I have been away longer than I expected! Sorry loyal blog readers! I keep asking myself where May went. I really don't know. This much I do know...on Thursday, May 7th, 2009, my sweet 27 year old niece died giving birth to her fifth child. She leaves behind twin girls, who are 6 and three little boys, ages 4, 2 and a newborn. Yes, Baby Joseph Ryan survived. He is doing well. He had a hard week last week, but we will see. Because I have such a wonderful husband and some pretty awesome children, I was able to leave immediately and go to Ohio to help in any way that I could! (I don't think I did much, but I tried.)

My niece was the the only daughter of my oldest brother, Richard and his wife Barbara. I was there when she was born. I remember driving my sister-in-law to the hospital in the middle of the night, with three older brothers curled up in the back seat of the VW Bus. We were to drive 2 hours to the Air Force hospital but didn't even make it to the English hospital around the corner. I left my sister-in-law on the curb and drove home. That was so hard, but we didn't know what else to do. Who would have stayed with my three little nephews?

I guess what has been the hardest for me, and for my family, is that this is the second child my brother has buried. Twelve years ago, my 15 year old nephew was killed in a car accident. To see my brother and sister-in-law and the pain that they carry is difficult to say the least. They are amazing people! I have stood in awe of them many times as they have faced some very difficult times in their lives. They have always risen to the occasion. This was a time that was very difficult for them.

*One bright moment for me came as I attended church with my four little nieces and nephews and my brother and sister-in-law and my niece's husband and some of his family. At the beginning of church all of the family and children were on the row in front of me in church. By the end of the church meeting, I had all four children on my lap. Such a sweet moment for me! I received more than I could have possible given them in the time. :) Life can be bitter sweet!

So for the last month...that is where I have been. I hope to get back to regular, everyday blogging. I miss my friends. I miss my time of writing my thoughts everyday! And so I share with you the following:

________________________-from the blog "Light Refreshments Served"

Disabled

Emily
May 31st, 2009
burdens or blessings? handicaps
I missed our ward’s sacrament meeting today, as I do approximately every third week because that’s how often our turn comes up to spend the weekend with my husband’s severely disabled sister, who was born with Down Syndrome. She is not one of those high-functioning Down’s kids who can get on a bus and have a little job and participate at least somewhat in real life. She understands a little, talks even less, and basically eats, sleeps, and enjoys car rides and going to the swings. Her mother, sole caregiver, died a year ago February, and my husband’s magnificent sister-in-law stepped in, quitting her job and taking the weekday shift to care for this girl in the mother’s home every single week. The rest of us trade off on weekends. This was to be our temporary solution until a suitable group home could be found, but with funding for such things pretty much dried up in today’s economy, we’re realizing that may never happen. So we do the best we can and carry on.
Because I teach Gospel Doctrine, when it’s our weekend, I take the early morning shift and then my husband rushes over right after sacrament meeting so I can dash out and teach Sunday School. Then I generally attend a later ward’s sacrament meeting long enough to partake of the ordinance.
And that’s how it went today. Except today I got a little verbose in Sunday School and we didn’t get out in time for me to get to the 11:00 ward’s sacrament meeting, so I went back over at 1:00, to a ward I hadn’t attended before. It’s one of those wards in which the youth program is small, and there was only one Aaronic Priesthood kid helping; the rest were elders and high priests. I realized from watching him that he too was suffering from some sort of disability. But not until they said the prayer on the water did I get the severity of it. An older man (I’m assuming it was his dad) knelt beside him and whispered the words in his ear, and he repeated them in that kind of blunt voice that is characteristic of kids with Down’s or other similar problems. I wouldn’t have understood his words, but as he said them I knew that Heavenly Father did.
It was a sweet experience. I thought, “This is a young man who probably didn’t even need to be baptized, much less ordained, but someone recognized the worth of what he could give, limited though it might be, and gave him the chance to give it.” All our lives were blessed by that decision, by what that boy brought to the table with him in a pure and undefiled spirit.
THAT thought took me back about 15 years to the one year I went to girls’ camp as a leader. We had a disabled girl in our group who suffered with both physical and mental challenges, but her mom was coming to camp and they decided she could come too. It was so precious to have her there. No one could be catty or mad at each other; the usual squabbles disappeared in the innocence of her concerned, “Don’t be sad. I love you.” I was especially moved when one of the girls, seeing that we might not be able to take this girl on our “flashlight hike” devotional, hoisted her onto her back and carried her the whole way. Our entire camp was blessed that year because of the girl who might have been seen as a “bother.”
And that brings me full circle to my husband’s sister. Is she a “bother,” or is she the catalyst that has allowed her brothers and sisters to continue to work together, to sacrifice together, to unite in a common goal? She is nearly 40 years old–a long life for one with her condition. Could her lingering here in mortality actually be a sacrifice she was willing to make for us, to help us learn things and gain experiences we could not have gotten any other way? I don’t know how that works, exactly, but I DO know this: Her life counts.
And our responses to her life count. The willingness of her siblings to defer their own inheritance (they will not sell her mother’s house until their sister no longer needs it) and a significant portion of their own lives to see her safely through–it may end up counting more than they know. It’s about as close to doing it “unto the least of these” as it gets, and the Lord is pretty clear on how He feels about that.
I look forward to meeting my little sister-in-law someday on the other side of the veil. I expect her spirit is quite magnificent. I hope I’ll be worthy to look her in the eye, unashamed of how I treated her here, and thank her for what she brought to our family. Her burden was our blessing, I’ll tell her. A sweet young priest reminded me of that today. I hope I’ll remember it always.