A Tender Christmas Memory

One particular year, I was working with three mentally handicapped children in a group home.  They lived with a family and I would come to the family’s house and help these three boys work on goals and help them with basic life skills. On that first night of Christmas lights, the daughter in the family was scheduled to perform at Temple Square in the North Visitors Center and I was scheduled to work, so a friend and I and two of the boys drove to Temple Square. This first night tends to be a very busy night with throngs of people finding their way around Temple Square. My job that night was to lead Shaun, while my friend helped Jason, through the crowds and to the Visitor’s Center and meet up with the family. We slowly made our way through the crowds.  In the North Visitors Center, we stopped at the bottom of the ramp leading to the Christus, as we decided whether to head upstairs to find the singing group or to go downstairs.  At the moment we reached the ramp, tears came into my eyes as I thought of the boy I was guiding.  Shaun’s time on earth would most likely be shortened.  In his condition (born with an enlarged heart, a decreased lung capacity, and unable to talk), his body had to fight hard and yet he had made it through nearly 18 years, long past what the doctors expected.

As I stood unaware of all the people around me, I envisioned that soon Shaun would probably make that journey and that his time on earth would be short.  One day he would return to heaven and to his Savior, Jesus Christ.  I pictured in my mind Shaun moving through through space towards Jesus. I saw Jesus take him in his arms and express to Shaun the love He has for Shaun.  My vision lasted for just a small moment, but it was a beautiful picture. I knew then that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love all of us, regardless of our handicaps or circumstances, and they long for us to return to live with them again.

Every time I return to the North Visitors Center, I reflect upon that night twenty-three years ago.  As I slowly walk up the ramp, I picture sweet Shaun in my mind.  The boy who loved Bruce Springsteen’s song, “Born in the USA” and would dance excitedly every time that song was played, but now he is no longer hampered by his physical body.  He is with his Savior and one day I will see him again and I will run to him and put my arms around him and I will thank him for allowing me to serve him while he was here on earth. 

(Jason is pictured on the left and Shaun is on the right.  They helped at my wedding reception.  Their job was to help take the gifts as people came in.)

A Force Shield of Protection

It had been a rough day.  I was feeling frustrated about the challenges of moving and seeing my children being required to adapt once again to their new surroundings.  I found myself home in the evening alone while all our children were at the church with activities.  I decided to work on my talk for the upcoming Sunday.  I had added a story from a previous adventure through a snow storm.  My talk spoke of gratitude even in our challenges, and that night, as I felt weighed down by my challenges and I was truly working to find gratitude for these challenges and help in dealing with them.  I had gone through my talk numerous times already (I am not normal -- I love giving talks, I love the entire process, and I work really hard to prepare).  This time as I read that story out loud an incredible thing happened and I saw more to the story then I had every realized before. It was an emotional and incredible moment -- to see what had been a tender story take on even a greater significance. Jonny's answer to prayer has always meant so much to me, but then to compare what I had experienced during that snow storm in a couple different ways to Christ's Atonement and to how he helps each of us deal with challenges was a new way of looking at the same story. I shall never regret our decision to go through the storm, because I now personally know how Christ will be our foundation and help us through the storms of life. I needed that knowledge after a frustrating day. I can face life, even when I want to shrink from my challenges, because I know that Christ will still be there to help me.

Here is the rest of the story: 

Once when traveling as a family in a severe snowstorm in the Sierras, my frightened 7-year old son worried over our safety.  He prayed and then shortly later informed us that the answer was Yes! Yes, Jesus would protect us; He had put a force shield over our car.  A few hours later we were still on the road, detoured off of 1-80, around Lake Tahoe both directions, and now on Highway 50.  The night was late, it was dark, the road was icy, the mountain treacherous, the drop-off intimidating.  The blinding snow coming directly at our windshield.  Ray felt we would be ok; he had the skills and the determination to see us through.  We followed a snowplow for a while until it turned around, and we were left primarily alone to see our family safely through the snowstorm.  All of our six children were peacefully sleeping in the back, unaware of the increase in the storms intensity.  

At one point, our car slipped, turned 90 degrees and stopped right in its place—the force shield had held.  What normally took us 2 hours to drive from Reno to Sacramento became a 7-hour ordeal for us.  Ray and I carried the burden of getting our family safely through the storm and brought our family safely home. Just as Christ once said, Here I am, send me. He came to earth, sacrificed and Atoned for our sins and made it possible that we could one day safely return to God.  His Atonement acts as a force shield that makes it possible to weather the storms of life.  

At times, we may be like Ray, confident, determined and have the necessary skills to make it through the raging storms.  At other times, we may be like me, battling fears and just holding on hoping that Christ will protect us and that we can weather the storm.  Or some times we may be like our children who slumbered that late night in the mountains in California, who were protected from knowing the magnitude of the storm.  Each of us in that car, Ray, myself, and our children experienced something different that night, but each of us were still protected by the force shield placed over our car. 
 

I Answer, "Yes, absolutely!"

There are moments in life when you stand back in amazement and awe.  For me that occurs when I witness the hand of God in my life – through his watchful care or sweet miracles or help through difficult challenges.  Today, I am on the other side of the difficult challenge of this past year.  With Ray changing jobs, the job in New Jersey not working out, and a new job in Minnesota, and then trying to put all the pieces of one move and then another together, followed by a challenging summer, I can honestly say, God went before me, walked with me, and was always there to catch me when I fell. But now, we are settling in, enjoying the challenge of building our home, and feeling very blessed.

Instead of moving to Minnesota and getting a job, I am the Project Manager on the house we are building.  At first, I was daunted by this task, but I figured after a daunting year of solving problem after problem that I was up for this challenge. Ray and I have never built a house before and some discouraged us from this undertaking.  But we just live our crazy life regardless of the opinions of others

My husband and I found a lot – where peace and nature surround us.  It is truly an amazing and beautiful setting.  It is something Ray and I have always dreamed of – building our own home in a peaceful setting. 

We could have let fear or inexperience stop us from taking on the task of building a home, but instead we jumped it with both feet and with the help of our good friend, Paul, we have begun to watch our new home take shape.  Paul, Ray, and I are teamed up to see this project through. As we have contracted out the work, I have discovered a part of myself I didn’t really know.  I love making decisions and I can make quick decisions (maybe its all the experience of putting so many moves together).  I love researching, looking at options, studying it out in my mind, and then making a choice – cabinets, flooring, countertops, paint, doors, the list goes on and on. Every decision rests on our shoulders and there are many decisions required to get a house up and off the ground. We have an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to fulfill a long-life dream.  As the walls go up, as the roof is placed on, as I watch this home come together, I recall the day I stood and prayed on the beach in California over a year ago, trying to figure out our next step when things weren’t falling into place.   And these were the words that came to my mind in answer to my prayer,

“Do you trust Me?  Can you trust Me in this? Even when things don’t work out as you thought they would?”

 I answer, “YES, absolutely!”    

I May Have Let You Go, But You Shall Forever Be My Child

I know it’s the natural course of life for children to age, but as a parent I look back and wonder how come they grow up so fast?! It appears though that I on the other hand do not seem to be growing older, well at least in appearance to other people. Most new people I meet express complete amazement when they 1^st learn how many children I have, 2^nd the age of my oldest child, and 3^rd that I am older than 40.

Truth be told, my oldest turned 21 today. I wish I could celebrate with him, but alas he is 2600+ miles away and I am left to emails, pictures, and memories and his face on a stick at our breakfast celebration. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Two years ago I attended the last Harry Potter movie.  I believe I may have been the only one in the movie theater crying. I had enjoyed the books and then the movies.  Harry had been there while I was raising Jordan and I didn’t want those moments in time to end, but Jordan had just graduated the month before.  Harry and Jordan had grown up together.  From a 1^st grader plopped on my bed as we read the first Harry Potter book.  Each book thereafter, Jordan devoured. The movies began when Jordan and Harry were about the same age, so they both lived thru their teenage years at the same time.  So yes I didn’t want the Harry Potter movies to end, just as I didn’t want Jordan to graduate and begin a life as a college student and adult away from home.

As a parent, you quickly learn life is not about what you want, part of parenting is learning to let go.  It’s a process, not always easy, but there is no turning back the clock, or slowing time, nor stopping kids from growing up.  Letting go began long before Jordan turned 18 and graduated from high school.  When Jordan, who was almost six and starting Kindergarten, decided he would walk to school by himself.  He did not need me to come with him.  We lived close enough to the school, that he could do this, but he ensured me he knew the way and would be fine.  I wanted to help him.  As the first day of school approached, he consented that he still needed his Mom and that I could walk him to end of the street, that was all he needed.

In the middle of his 1^st grade year, we moved to Arizona.  He was upset he had to miss even 1 day of school, as we had to drive from Utah to Arizona.  On a Friday, I took him to his new school, and again I let him go.  He knew no one, and I worried, but I let him go.

As a junior in high school, Jordan was asked to participate in the Every 15 Minutes Program, which consisted of a staged drunk driving accident, and other students participated by being taken from class and obituaries read (the students who participated spent a night away from home and then were reunited at the school with friends and family the next day).  In preparing for him to participate, I wrote an obituary.  I imagined what it would be like to actually let him go, never from my heart, never from our eternal family, but from life itself.

            A life was cut short today, Jordan Ray Oborn, also known as “Utah” to his classmates and coaches, passed away at the age of 17 on March 23, 2010, following injuries sustained in a fatal car accident.

He was born October 2, 1992 to Raymond and Kimberly Oborn.  He has three younger brothers, Aaron, Jacob, and Jonathan, and two younger sisters, Annalisa and Abigail.  He is also survived by his grandparents, Mildred Oborn, of Murray, Utah and Timothy and Carolyn Noyce of South Jordan, Utah.

Jordan was a junior at Lincoln High School, a member of the Fighting Zebras varsity football team, a great student, almost an Eagle Scout, and the best son parents could ever ask for.  He was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  He had a great love for life, for learning, and for people.  He accepted each time his parents moved and had lived in Utah, Illinois, Arizona, Indiana, Colorado, and California.  He was an avid University of Utah fan, and would dress daily as a Ute fan.

He was preparing for his future – looking forward to college and going on a mission.  He wanted to be an inventor or entrepreneur and imagined himself coming up with a great discovery.  He was kind, respectful, determined to succeed, a hard worker, and an awesome son!  He will surely be missed.

Then again, I had to let go.  This time for two years as he left to serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Guatemala.  Again as I anticipated letting go, I turned to writing:

There I see a missionary embarking

To preach the Gospel to all who will listen

Far from home and family,

But protected by a loving Heavenly Father.

There I am… a mother kneeling

At the side of the bed

Praying to God to bless this son

For I love this young man as only a mother can.

“Please God. Protect my child.

Let him never feel all alone.

Be by his side when he is in need

And guide his hand to do Thy work.”

There I am… a smiling mother

Though tears run down my face

I feel privileged to be called his Mother,

But now I let him go and hand him over to God.

Yes, I have had to learn to let go, and I am continually learning that lesson, as one by one his siblings get closer and closer to that day when they will venture forward.  No matter where my children go in life, I may physically let them go, they may at times be 2600 miles away, but they will never be forgotten for I hold onto memories in my mind and feelings of love and tenderness in my heart. I pray I have given them the ability to fly on their own and they know that each of them shall forever be my child.