Memorial Day Weekend

It has been hard getting back into real life after such a wonderful Memorial Day weekend! For as long as I can remember, Memorial Day has been more than just a day to honor our veterans and servicemen (although I thank and appreciate each of you who give your time and lives to protect our country) but a day to honor and remember loved ones who have passed on, veteran or not. Memorial Day has been a day where we would go to Salt Lake City to see family, and then travel throughout the Utah valley to the various gravesites where loved ones from as far back as I can remember are buried. My mom and dad would buy lots of flowers and would lovingly clean up each gravestone they could and leave flowers for each of their loved ones and would then tell us stories about them. I remember Dad telling me about my great great grandmother who would come and take care of my grandmother as a little girl, my great great great grandparents who saved up money for their daughters to go to America from Norway even though they wouldn't be able to go along and how they never saw each other again, my great uncle and how he said this or my great great aunt and what she would do with my dad when he was a child. We would visit my mother's side of the family and celebrate my grandmother's birthday with a huge party. Each year we did this and it has only been in the past few years that we haven't been able to go as much which is hard because I always look forward to the drives to Heber City, Midway, Pleasant Grove, and Salt Lake City cemeteries and to the stories I would hear about them. Especially because I did family history research before Finch was born while I was at home, I felt the ties of family even stronger this year than ever before.

This year we went to stay with Ben's family in Provo and enjoyed a fun family dinner with his side, and then on Sunday we enjoyed the homecoming of one of my cousins who just got back from Chile. Yesterday, Ben and I went to Heber City and left flowers on the gravesite of my father's parents and then had to head home because we were running late and had a long drive ahead of us. I wish I could have done more and could have visited all of my loved ones. After getting lost and spending twenty minutes searching for their plot, I was grateful to see that my grandparents were doing well and that they had been visited by more loved ones apart from us. If only Jeanne knew there were spiders on her side of the gravestone. She hated bugs of any kind and would have had a fit. We tried to clean everything up and leave it beautiful and touched with love.

Ben and Finch were super tired after a day of driving up to Provo

Did I forget to mention that I was too? :)

Finch in his Sunday best :) He was a bit serious after a day of being held by family he didn't know.

Finch was charming his great grandmother on Ben's side of the family. She loved getting to hold him :)

This was at Doc and Jeanne Mahoney's gravestone (my grandparents on my dad's side)

Now we are back to the hubbub of being new parents and it is hard to think how quickly this last weekend went. I am grateful for the loved ones I got to see and so grateful to see how each of them welcomed my little Finch into the family with so much love. I can't even tell you how many people held him and wanted to be near him. He was so loved and it made my heart warm just to see how the ties of family extend so far. I know that loved ones beyond the veil were there and that many loved ones were there to welcome him when he was born that I couldn't see, and it's holidays like Memorial day that I appreciate the binding ties of family with the gospel. One of the happiest messages I think the LDS church teaches is that of eternal families. I look at my husband and my son, and then at my immediate and extended families and I see that eternal families can and do exist. I think of those who are gone in this world but who are flourishing in the next and I know that they are preparing it for us and are there to help us when we are in times of need.

I am grateful for family and so grateful for the love and friendship that ties us together forever.

Love,

Liz, Ben, Finch and Zola