Gifts

   With the Christmas season just behind us and a new year in front of us I have been thinking a lot about gifts and in particular one gift that I received a little over a year ago. This was not your usual gift wrapped in paper with a bow. In fact at first it didn't look like a gift at all. Let me give you some background first.

A year ago August everything in life seemed to be going really well. My husband, who has schizophrenia and OCD, had a stable job and seemed to be slowly getting better with medication. My children all seemed to be doing well with life and friends, overcoming some of the things that were difficult to them individually. We lived in a home that we loved, in a neighborhood that we loved. We loved the church we attended and had made many lasting friendships there. My health was better than it had been in a long time. I was slowly but surely achieving my goal to lose weight and had already lost 30 lbs. I was excited for the new school year to begin. I had projects waiting to work on for the hours that the kids would be in school. One in particular was an armoire that I bought on Craigslist. I was so ready to sand and then paint it to use as a new computer desk in our front room. Life was good and then it wasn't.

Saturday, August 19th, Rob and I got a call that my cousin's wife, Joanna, had passed away in her sleep during the night. Joanna had been my roommate at BYU. She was one of those people that you instantly feel connected to within the first few minutes of meeting. I had counted myself so lucky that she married my cousin and became family. Joanna and Joseph lived only 20 minutes away but life being as it can be we only saw each other 2 or 3 times a year. It didn't matter though. Every time I saw her I felt that connection and her warm loving heart.

Joseph was on a business trip in Florida. Joanna's parent's were in Idaho preparing to view the solar eclipse happening the next week. Joseph's parents and brothers and sisters were mostly in Salt Lake Valley about an hour away from Joseph and Joanna. Rob and I went to see what we could do to help until other more capable family members arrived. We went to the house where their church group had already started providing service. The children were all at the Bishop's house (leader of a congregation in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints). There were women and men doing what they could to clean the house, do dishes and laundry to ease some of the temporal burdens for the family. I was given a job and waited for Joseph's parents and brother's and sisters to come. There was a lot of hard crying that day. There was so much heartache with the thought of not being with Joanna again until the next life. The thought that Joseph was far away and alone trying desperately to get home. The thought that Joanna's children's hearts were broken. She was a lovely mother. It was hard and painful. When we left for home late in the afternoon the left side of my neck was hurting and I had a headache.

The headache did not go away. It got much worse. Rob gave me a blessing and I was told in the blessing to lay down and rest. So I did for 4 days. That Thursday was Joanna's viewing. I figured I had rested enough. my neck wasn't hurting very much at all. I went to the viewing and hugged family for a couple of hours. On the way home I went to Instacare just to make sure everything was okay. The doctor gave me a prescription for headaches and sent me home.

The next day was Joanna's funeral. It was a beautiful service. There was of course a lot more crying and the same heartache. My head and neck were so much better. I hardly even thought about them.

Saturday my boys were getting ready to go to a birthday party. I wanted to run over to Lowe's and get some paint for my armoire. Rob came too (he almost didn't and I'm so glad he did). When we got out of the store and opened the trunk to the car I felt slightly dizzy and looked down to right myself and then the whole world was wrong. I can't even describe how I felt. Just completely wrong and so dizzy I couldn't keep my eyes open or remain standing. I lay down in the parking lot of Lowe's and Rob called the paramedics.

Laying on the pavement, though, is were I received my gift. My thoughts immediately went to Joanna. She had died and she was 2 years younger than me. I thought of my children and was terrified for them. Rob was better than he had been but he was still sick. I thought of how hurt Rob would be. I had just watched my cousin and his children lose Joanna. I was so scared that now my family would lose me. I prayed and prayed that I could stay a while longer, that I could be here to help my husband and children. I tried to have faith and trust in the plan that my Heavenly Father had for me but I didn't want to go if I could stay. In all of that turmoil I saw how unimportant everything else in my life was. All of those things that I cherished. A stable job, a beautiful home, my upcoming projects, the armoire, none of that compared to my relationships. In fact it was like they had vanished. Anticipating possibly finishing this life and moving on to the next I came to the stark reality that the only things that mattered were my family and friends.

I was taken by ambulance to the hospital. I don't remember much about the journey and only snippets of the hospital. I puked a lot on the ride to the hospital. Rob said that I was completely out of it when they wheeled my into the ER. I remember the doctor asking me to open my eyes, something I hadn't done since laying down on the pavement at Lowe's. I saw his face and then he moved away and I saw Rob. I could tell that Rob was sitting on my right and his dad was on my left from their voices but when I opened my eyes Rob looked to be on the ceiling and everything off to the left was just white and blank. The world was not right. After an MRI the doctors discovered that I had had a stroke.
The pain in my neck had been a tear in the lining of the left ventricular artery. A blood clot had formed to repair the tear. That day at Lowe's the blood clot moved to my brain causing a stroke.

My gift was being shown what really mattered and it was an important gift for all that was to come.

I was so fortunate. The stroke only affected my balance. After four days I was able to go home. After a month I was able to drive. After a couple of months I had finished my physical therapy. My balance wasn't perfect but it was really good and still improving. The stroke made me tire easily but I was grateful to be doing so well physically.

About a month after the stroke our sweet family dog, formerly Rob's service dog, Annie, passed away. We were so heartbroken.

My mom went into the hospital and we were told that she had congestive heart failure.

At the end of October Rob was laid off of work.

That December my brother told me that he wanted to sell the house we were renting from him that summer. He was hoping we would be able to buy it. When March came my brother needed to sell the house. Rob did not have a job. We had debt from my stroke. We were not in a position to buy. We needed to move and we had until June. Rob's brother had a basement apartment that he and his wife were willing to rent to us. For three months Rob and I went through everything we owned and got rid of anything that we could live without. It took 4 small moving trucks but we finally got to where we felt we could fit into the apartment.

We have been living with Dan and Dawn for 7 months. There was a lot of pain and heartache leaving our home. Giving up the life we had been steadily building in North Ogden. But that pain and heartache pales next to all of the blessings we have been given since our move. We are closer to my mom which has been so helpful with her illnesses. Our new ward has been so loving. I have seen my children blossom with the special care that leaders have taken over them.

As I have looked back over the last year and a half I can see that having a stroke right after Joanna died was a gift. Heavenly Father knew that all of the things I had been so excited about, my health, my home, Rob's job, my projects were about to be taken away. He allowed me to see what truly matters. I am so grateful for that gift. For that moment in the parking lot where I glimpsed the end of this life and saw that eventually everything will be taken away. The only thing left will be the people I love and that is perfect.