3 October 2012...
On my parents' 54th anniversary, they are taking daughter in for a medical procedure today,about 12:15. Thank you for your prayers. (For the doctor, anaesthesiologist, nurses, and for the presidential debate and citizens viewing it, who each merit our prayers, even if I am a bit out of it.)
I just got this fun card from Marion, my family history center supervisor, who has added limbs and leaves of family names with pictures, gravestones, crests or flags to her ancestry account, but still has time to be creative and help the rest of us want to wake up and do good things! This is my Sunday letter that has taken a minutes to prepare (downloading 400 pictures to find a few!) but hopefully is the beginning of better things.
Lost Leaf Under a Lady Bug
Dear family and dear friends, 30 September 2012
I wonder if autumn allows for turning over a new leaf. I realize that it has been nearly a year since I penned anything to family or friends online in the form of a real live letter! My last entry of stories about the celebration in honor of my father in San Antonio for 50 years of membership and service in the Soil Science Society of America marked a milestone. Then the holidays came and went. Midstream toward spring, I was able to care for a little grandson, while helping to welcome a granddaughter into the world. Preparing a duet with our daughter Maria, I decided organ practice would be in order. Hunting for the music (which had been marked and remarked for months—believe me, it was remarkable music!) the pages refused to be found. After driving 20 minutes to Kristen’s house, cleaning and searching, I drove to my mom’s house (no need to clean it—have you ever visited Shirley, even without notice? it was not there.) I then tried Val’s mom’s house—no luck, no luck, no luck. After checking the church, I finally resolved that the music and the ladybug bag it was in were permanently lost. Lost and gone. Then I realized that in the bag were my scriptures ($60 to replace) and a journal with three pages left to write. Not long before, I had queried a dear junior high confidant—how does a person get to be like President Monson—ever so busy, finding time to jot something every day. Every day! How? Truly, how? She did not know, and neither did I. I decided it might be a good thing to pray about (but I was not sure that this trait was one I wanted to commit to, even if it was enviable.)
Then, I realized that a whole two years of journal had gone missing. Amber tells me that her institute teacher told her that as long as it is written down, it will be recorded in heaven (even if it gets lost.) But something lurks as disconcerting, a challenge to a person’s identity, to lose a whole year of life—worse than losing a purse. So, after asking my Relief Society friends to include me in their prayers, and after some soul searching and prayers of my own, I finally resorted to bargaining—“If only I could find that journal [knowing it to be coupled with nearly a year of marked music and more years still of seasoned scriptures] I would write every day.” More searching, no journal found. Then, reflecting on the disgruntled nature accompanying the local gardener (me) asking for assistance to dig the Japanese maple with less-than-enthusiastic help, I decided I could promise to be nice--for the rest of my life. That did it.
Arriving home from our Sunday meetings, I had fasted, hoping it would help. No luck. But before finding lettuce for a family dinner, I decided to look one more time in the car. Then check the banquet table in the garage that housed three of Maria’s boxes. To get ready for a visit from son-in-law-to-be, Jake, Kristen had visited and gently moved the boxes there, commenting, “You may want to empty them sometime; I found a twenty dollar bill in there!”
“Why did she not just give her sister the money?” I asked myself, walking inside. “Maybe God is like Kristen, placing treasures in the middle of the clutter, so when we clean up, we find good things.” Just as this profound little nugget of goodness nudged its way into my consciousness, I looked down at a bag of 24 double rolls of Quilted Northern toilet paper which had worked at being carried inside from a full car, toddler in tow. Right next to the toilet paper sat a tapestry tote with tags taunting “sign here,” like Pamela Davies uses with her music.
The bag looked suspiciously marked with lady bugs, and though it was next to several similar totes containing travel pamphlets, inside was indeed music-laden with “America, the Beautiful” (And, oh! Was it beautiful!) … along with a miniature quad and a 100 page journal with three blank pages beckoning to be penned.
I get to write frequently in a little book, which wants to multiply monthly
… and (the hard part) I have to be nice for a long, long time. The “nice” part is the struggle. The journaling grows on a person (though it takes time, which may be a factor in failing to pen my family letter… along with loving two nearby grandchildren, hearing about seven more farther away, graduating Maria, 
helping with two family reunions, seeing Amber married,
whisking Maria off to BYU, and cheering some gracefully aging parents and in-laws. This week, Grandpa Starkey got released from McKay Dee Hospital after shaking off the odds of a life-threatening health challenge. Sooo glad to enjoy corn on the cob and pork chops with him tonight!) Maria marks her 18th birthday on the morrow, voter application set to go out in the morning mail. Val joined me at two “victory” centers Friday making calls for two of our favorite candidates--a privilege to take part in the political process! A journal is said to enlarge memory…if one can remember the place that journal was last seen!
And writing about life can make living more interesting—possibly more so when someone writes back—so jot a note if you choose. You do not have to do it as regularly, and if you have not promised to be “nice” for the rest of your life, there may not be quite the puzzlement of what to say! Take care--blessings from the Starkey empty nest
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