headaches of my life and not being able to sleep well at all on Friday night. I felt like I might crawl out of my skin. Nate had finally had enough of my tossing and turning and got me a pill from his bag of tricks, put it in my mouth and told me not to worry about what it was. I still don't know what it was but I was able to get a little sleep after and my headache had subsided quite a bit by morning. I still wasn't feeling that great and couldn't talk myself out of my bed so I perused netflix and decided to take a change on a stupidly named film called "Salmon fishing in Yemen" -or something like that. I don't know how you would sell a movie like that and the description wasn't any more enticing, but when you are looking for things to watch that you likely won't have to turn off because of vulgarity, this choice seemed very promising. I'm no film buff and what I was really hoping is that I wouldn't want to gouge my eyes out because it was an environmentally driven agenda. Good news, I really enjoyed it.
In the meanwhile my husband got ready to leave for his concealed carry renewal course and teased me about being able to sniff out gooey love stories, gave me a kiss with a hope that I would be feeling better so I could meet him for lunch with the kids during his break. I finally decided to venture out of my bed and try to eat something and go for a walk. My eating habits have slipped again and I really needed the exercise. Plus when you are feeling bad it is the best time to get up and get moving. Sometimes all you need is a little momentum. Well, I successfully made it thru my walk but then my stomach started hurting. I was running out of time to get showered and get ready to meet my husband. There was a knock at my door from my neighbor and seminary teaching partner. She had my half of the case of honeycrisp apples we were sharing.
Then she broke the news to me. Their 3 1/2 year old dog Lucky had died the night before. She gave me all the details of what went down. Basically he was acting a little sluggish and had been taken into the vet 2 times within a day, had a seizer and was gone. Her 2 oldest are in our seminary class as well and everyone was devastated. So heartbreaking. The only silver lining was that they received an immediate answer to prayer. While the dog started seizing violently they went back into another room to pray to see what they needed to do for their beloved dog and while they were praying the noise from the rattling dog carrier stopped
and he was gone. They dug a 4 foot hole in the backyard, had a funeral and burried him.
After that I decided that I had to try and feel better with a shower. At this point I was surprised that Nate hadn't txt me to tell me it was time to meet. In fact it was getting to the point where he wouldn't have time to meet. At first I was a little relieved because I was feeling so horribly and I wasn't ready to go anywhere. I sent him a txt asking if everything was alright and hopped in the shower. When I got out I had a cryptic txt that freaked me out. "things are going pretty bad. Just finished CPR and he didn't make it." There was absolutely no context for the txt and my husband was at a shooting range. Was it him sending me the txt. Was it some stranger sending a txt from my dead husbands phone. What the heck? My husband does like to tease me, was he? I sent back "what? why are you doing cpr?" When it had been 15 min and I still didn't have a response I decided to call because now my stomach was really hurting. Turns out that he was doing cpr and then when the paramedics got there he was holding the guys wife back. It wasn't a gunshot wound. The 67 year old man was walking up to position to begin shooting and he just buckled at the knees and fell back onto the ground. Nate immediately knew something was wrong and ran up to the man. Cleared is airway and began calling out orders. Luckily there was a PA and his wife who was a nurse in the slot next to them and they ran over and began compressions while 911 was called. They had to reiterate several times that it was not a gunshot wound. Nate then moved to comforting the wife and trying to keep her off of her husband. They collectively worked on the man for an hour. I think it was 30 minutes with the paramedics and he was shocked several times when they finally called it. Nate was holding hands with the wife and hugging her and comforting her and baring his testimony to her. And then he was pronounced dead. She tried to leave by herself and luckily one of the other women at the course told her that she was going to drive her home. I'm so glad she was surrounded by so many people at this horrible time. I'm so glad Nate was there to provide comfort to her through it all. I'm also glad that he wasn't' driving home when this happened. What a horrible day. Nate was in shock and not ready to talk to me when I called because the shock was wearing off and all the held back emotions were being let loose.
Could the funk be over? Not yet. It was time to get Jordyn to her basketball game. My other neighbor and friend had heard about the dog dying because our daughters had been texting each other through their ipods. We were talking about how sad it was and then I told her about Nate's day and how it was feeling like a funk filled day. She then proceeded to tell me what happened to another neighbor of ours the night before - so the same day as the dog. On Thursday the husband of a retired couple lost a long battle with an illness. There was lots of family over at the house comforting the wife. She was unconsolable and had locked herself in her room. This is now the next day -Friday. She came out to the kitchen to get something and went into the bathroom where she proceeded to shoot herself in the head. I can't even tell you how many times I have walked past that house on my daily walks. I didn't know that couple personally but I know 2 of their neighbors. Needless to say I called it quits at 8pm Saturday night. I was done with the funky day.
I had some crazy dreams and woke up with a raging headache at 5 am and thought it was Monday and I was mad at myself for not having finished my lesson for seminary. I finally realized that it was Sunday and went back to bed to see if the headache would go away. One of the crazy dreams had something to do with people in 3rd world countries missing arms or legs and still being cheerful and surviving. There is no time for self pity when you need to survive and are grateful that you still can. I was contemplating how horrible Americans are about trials and self pity in this dream. I chastise myself even in my dreams as well as when I'm awake. I'm telling you - no one wants to be let into the inner sanctum of my brain or they would run screaming. I told my husband that I thought I had the dream because I was starting to feel sorry for myself again. What is really funny is that I went downstairs to get some breakfast and decided to read the Church news. What was the first article? "Spoilers of the future" by Brent H Nielson. 2 quotes from the synopsis of his speech were "don't let your trials own you, you own them." and "The key tomorrow when you wake up and face the burdens of your life is to submit cheerfully and with patience to the will of the Lord. Allow the Savior's enabling power....to make your burdens light." Between the dream and that talk.... message received. I'm also teaching about forgiveness for my lesson tomorrow which this goes nicely with. I decided to introduce the kids to someone they have never met before. You can find this person in a blog post of mine form April of 2009 called "takin a trip down memory lane." That was a trial that I didn't let own me.
There is a song I am totally into right now called "Unbreakable" by Jaime Scott. It fits nicely with my 2009 post. In this world where we are trying to learn about forgiveness and love we need to realize that we all have struggles. The advesary is working hard on each one of us and we just need to be there to put our arms above each other to shield and protect against the things that would break us.
On Sunday a friend of mine that likes to have deep thought provoking conversations with me posed a question for me to ponder. I love it! Challenge accepted. The only problem was that we started getting into the conversation instead of listening to the lesson. I can be naughty sometimes. If I can get this figured out there will be a post. First - start thinking about what's in a name and all the names we have. We had a name in the pre-exsistance. We were given a name and a blessing by our earthly parents. We take upon us the name of Christ at baptism. There is another name we are given in conjunction with an ordinance. We are going to be called something in the next life. Here's the question. What do we need to understand about Mosiah 5:8-9?
8 And under this head ye are made free, and there is no other head whereby ye can be made free. There is no other name given whereby salvation cometh; therefore, I would that ye should take upon you the name of Christ, all you that have entered into the covenant with God that ye should be obedient unto the end of your lives.
9 And it shall come to pass that whosoever doeth this shall be found at the right hand of God, for he shall know the name by which he is called; for he shall be called by the name of Christ.
I have a cool little app that makes studying things like this so much fun. It's called "citation index." Every talk that ever used that scripture as a reference is listed there. It is delightful. Problem with this subject - there are only 3 talks. Do I think I'm going to understand this? No, not at all, but it will be a fun journey and I'll most likely understand something better than I did before I started. Maybe all the death I was surrounded by this weekend got me curious about the after-earth-life. It's going to be a pretty mind blowing experience. I'm jealous of all they get to know now and I'm still left to wonder about. It was a perfectly timed question and a great way to end a streak of funk.
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