I am finally feeling a little better today, after feeling sick all weekend. I had a lot of visitors yesterday and it was fun to see how many people responded to the little wish list I posted on Sunday night. I now have several books to read, movies to watch and treats to hoard. Our family did drive up the canyon after dinner to see the beautiful fall foliage. It made me appreciate the mountains and the beautiful area where I live.
Today I was able to go visiting teaching. We had to wait until the last day of the month so I could feel up to getting out. I am hoping to start feeling better each day until I have a treatment again in 2 weeks. I'm grateful that my boys are happy, doing well in school, and keeping up with their daily routines. Brenton made dinner for us last night. Aren't teenagers great?
The Oprah Winfrey Show today was about breast cancer. Some of the guests on the show told of the need to support each other and not try to be "superwoman." Having cancer has taught me to be humble, to accept more help, to put my family and priorities first, and to accept the Lord's will in my life. We all have lessons to learn in life and some of them cannot be learned in any other way than through our trials. I am grateful for my opportunities to learn and I want to become the person God wants me to be.
Emilee
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8 comments:
Hurray! There's an entry for today!
We watch every day for the entry so we can know how things are going!
Keep up the postings! We LOVE'EM.
Always LOVE from DAD!
Hi Emi: After a couple of weeks being occupied by new grandbabies, I finally have gotten around to reading your blog. Thank you so much for sharing as I know it helps all of us as well as you. I have lots of fun jig-saw puzzles if that interests you. Also, I have quite a few "gentle" mysteries that are fun reads if you are up to those. I have some old musicals (I guess I should let you know which ones), also on DVDs. Hope to catch up with you soon. If you are interested in any of the above, let me know. Loves, Linda
Hi Emilee- Thank you so much for your blog! Hopefully I'll stop being so contagious soon so we can come visit or drop something by. We love you and your family!
-Melissa E
Ryan wanted to say your blog is "Cool and very nice." :-)
I love reading it, too. You are a thoughtful writer. Keep it up!
Hope Nathan's brake on his bike got fixed. What a trooper with a good attitude yesterday. I caught him midway up your "big hill."
I liked what you said about the things you've learned during your trials. I think it's interesting that you've learned "to accept more help".
I think a lot of us feel like we need to do everything ourselves and that accepting help is bad. On my mission, there was a time when I was hanging out with a group of other missionaries on a P-day. One elder asked me in jest to do something for him that he should do for himself (I can't rememember what it was). I turned him down, but another elder half-jokingly said "Elder, you just missed an opportunity to serve."
Ever since then, I've often thought about the blessing of having opportunities to serve. Emilee, I hope you don't ever feel bad for accepting people's help. Not only is it a way for you to see that people genuinely love you, but it is also giving those people an opportunity to serve.
Meggin has been better at reading your blog than I have, so this is my first post. I read what you said about life's trials. It is a subject that I've spent a lot of time thinking about for the past seven years of my life. When I met Meggin and heard her story, about the pain of loss of a husband and the resulting hardships, it was just that -- a story. Bruce was a story to me, her two years of being a single mom of three was a story to me. They held no reality for me, and were nothing more than stories,until I immersed myself in her reality. I became a huge part of her reality and she became a huge part of mine. And now we have our own reality, based on trials that spill over from those times in her life. So yeah, I see how God's plan for each of us involves pain and suffering. Most of mine has been mental and emotional for the past 7 years, due to the eternal status of our marriage. Oh wait, I chopped my finger off and it still hurts....but that little piddly thing aside, the pain of not understanding His plan for me, and whether someday I'll just be "chopped off" from Meggin, like my finger was chopped off back in June 2002, is a real concern. The Meggin/Bruce/Daniel story is just that -- It's a STORY for everyone else -- it's a REALITY for us. It's a daily thing we live with. It is incredibly difficult at tomes. But we make it work as best we can, with three families to balance and deal with and work through.
Your trials are YOURS. And they were designed by the greatest of designers -- one who knows how to purify and sanctify his children, to prepare them to inherit eternal glories. Meggin's trial was losing Bruce. It has helped her learn to appreciate me better, to have loved and lost a husband. It is still a trial for her to love another man and yet be married to one she loves as well. The sealing issue is a real dichotomy. When my finger got cut off, that was an extreme trial for me. The pain was excruciating for months, and still exists nearly constantly, but the worst part was the feeling of helplessness. Being the stubborn male that I am, I resisted Meggin's offers to help me. Finally, I had to allow her to help me, which has opened up new avenues for closeness and trust into our marriage that might not have otherwise been.
Tragedy is a two-sided thing -- if only ever viewed from the negative side, it only serves to make us miserable. But the fact of the matter is that tragedy of Bruce's death made it possible for me to be married to Meggin and have the family that I have with her. The tragedy of my missing finger has developed love and trust and care into my marriage that was lacking at the time. We see the same thing in nature -- with a forest fire comes death to old, tired trees, but at the same time, the fire burns off the stifling undergrowth. Seed pods open from the fire's heat and new life springs forth.
I'm no stranger to the positive side of tragedy. It is real, and tangible. The real "tragedy" of all this would be if you hadn't learned to love and trust the Savior and His mercy. Emilee, for as long as I can remember, you've lived your life in fast-forward. I was only 12 when you left the house pretty much for good. You powered your way through Germany and high school and college and into marriage, and a grad program -- you're a hard act to follow, especially since I was the oldest son, and a far cry from the stellar path set ahead of me by you. I don't think the breakneck speed you live your life at was all coincidence, taking into account the present state of things. Similarly, Kalayna and Ryker are less than a year apart (not planned), and I don't think that the shortness of that interval was by accident either. God has a plan. We don't know it. It's unnerving not to know the plan for each of us, but the real growth comes in trusting God each step of the way, even if it doesn't make sense in our feeble human minds.
Well, seems I've run up a terribly long post, so I'll cut it shorter now. Mom's hopeful for "another miracle," as she's said. The miracle that I see happening is the positive impact your life will have on those around you, and on the generations that will follow.
Hang in there. And, in the inspired words of Dory, the Blue Tang from Finding Nemo....
"JUST KEEP SWIMMING, JUST KEEP SWIMMING, SWIMMING, SWIMMING....."
Emilee,
I have enjoyed reading your blog, although I wish that circumstances were different so that I could be of more service to you. Know that I think about you often and pray for you and your family.
Trials are an interesting topic. I remember as a sixteen year old, your dad talking to me about the journey of life. We were sitting in Grandma and Grandpa Baer's office room, I recall. I think I told him some of my concerns for the future and he told me:
"Susie, life is like climbing a mountain...we like to think we have a direct path up the mountain, but we don't. We all take different twists and turns, we may even fall or get lost. But what we can take confidence in is that as we keep climbing, our view expands and we see how much progress we've made. We soon find out that the rough patch that we experienced made us a stronger climber and helped us to overcome the next obstacle. As we keep climbing, we see what roads were necessary for our growth. Eventually, we will get to the top of the mountain, with the Lord, and we will look down upon our life's journey up the mountain and see how everything worked for our good. Ultimately, if we do what's right, we will return to Heavenly Father's presence and we will know with a surety that His plan was definitely catered for us...or in other words, we each have different mountains to climb."
I probably inferred a lot of my own experience and thought into that, but that little analogy has helped me to understand that the Lord has an eternal plan for us, and our job is not to have it revealed to us all at once, but to take one step at a time, trusting that each step is molding us in becoming something greater. Sometimes, we are allowed a glimpse back and we can think, "look how far I've come." But most of the time, we just have to keep plugging away. You've come a long way and I am so proud of you for that!
By the way, my new favorite movies are the remakes of Persuasion, Sense and Sensibility and Jane Eyre by BBC. They are phenomenal if you haven't watched them already.
Emilee-
I really feel the spirit in reading your comments about becoming what God wants you to be, even through trials. I think it's amazing that you are grateful for opportunities to grow.
My brother-in-law Greg recently lost a close friend, Rich, to cancer and was asked to spaek about it. I will attach the text, because it's uplifting and gives perspective. I will pray for you.
Love,
Jeff
"My name is Greg DeVore and I am one of Rich's oldest looking friends. I met Rich in high school. He became a part of a very special group of friends that have stayed together for 20 years now. There is probably not a group of people in the world, outside of my family, that have had a more profound effect on who I am than those friends. I could spend my time here recounting memories of the times we spent in high school, before our LDS Missions and afterwards. There were manny, many good times. Snow skiing, water skiing, frisbee golf, group dates, shooting the tube, and basketball, lots of basketball. But that would be telling you about who Rich was. I would rather tell you about who Rich is.
Over the last 15 years, since returning from our missions my life has come in and out of contact with Rich. After our missions I went to BYU, Rich stayed at the U and our lives began to take different paths. I moved away to Boston to attend the world renowned Berklee College of Music. Several years later our paths met again as Rich and Marianne arrived in Boston to attend the somewhat lesser known Harvard Business School. We had such a great time with Rich and Marianne during those days, Crane's Beach, Harry Connick, Jr. on the water front and the most frigid New Years Eve I can ever remember.
Then our paths parted again. Rich went to Texas, and I went to California. And our visits became more spread out. Sometimes several years would pass without us seeing each other. But when we did, we were always able to pick right up where we left off. Our friendship never changed. But this last year was special. I had the opportunity to visit with Rich on four occasions over the last year which was more than the combined number of times I had probably seen him in the last eight years.
I am going to tell you about the last three times I saw Rich. Because each time I saw him he was a very different person. Those of you who were with him day by day may not have noticed the changes as dramatically as I did since my visits were spread out over several months.
The first visit I want to tell you about was last summer. My family was moving from Los Angeles to Washington, DC. During our trek across the country with three kids and a minivan we stopped in Kansas to visit Rich and Marianne. How grateful I am that they moved to Kansas. I don't think that we would have made it down to Texas and we wouldn't have had that experience with Rich and his family. We had a wonderful day together. Rich was really on top of the world. He loved his job, he had a beautiful family, and lived in a beautiful and wonderful community. I remember him telling me that life really couldn't be better. Life was perfect.
Two months later he would be diagnosed with a brain tumor. A few days after this happened Rich and Marianne traveled to Salt Lake to get a 2nd opinion at the Huntsman Cancer institute. Our friends from high school were getting together to see him and so I made the trip from Washington DC to Salt Lake to gather in Rich's home with some of my longest friends. Rich was very different. Rich had been going up for the game winning layup and life had thrown him to the floor. And the ref's hadn't even called a foul. But he was prepared to fight. Clearly nervous about what lay ahead, but ready to fight.
Then in March I was able to see Rich again, for me, the last time. I came out for our friend Rob's wedding. I saw Rich the night before and was able to accompany him and Marianne to the Temple Ceremony the next day. After the wedding I spent the day with both of them. How grateful I am for that day. I must admit, when I saw him this time I was taken aback. He had changed so much physically. It looked like someone had finally bought my book "Greg's guide to Health and Beauty". We had the same hair cut and his face had become a little more oval like my own. I wanted to tell him, "Rich, if this is the look your after there are easier ways to do it. Let's go to Wendy's and I'll explain it to you."
But he had changed in more ways than one. He was not the same person I had seen in Kansas. He was not the same person I saw back in September. We was no longer on top of the world. He was no longer hunkering down for a battle against cancer. He was someone who had triumphed. My friend Rich had always been a good, good person. That Saturday I was in the presence of a truly great person. I remember as I walked into his room he turned to me and in his raspy voice said, "My good friend Greggory, come sit down." We talked, we laughed, we cried. I was amazed by his reverence, his gentleness, his patience, and above all his smile. Even through all that he was suffering he still had that wonderful smile that told you he was truly glad to see you. This is not to say that Rich didn't have these qualities before. But they were now amplified and purified.
I was no longer with one of my peers but I was in the presence of a spiritual giant who had a tenderness about him that was awe inspiring. There was a peace and a spirit in that room that can not be explained, it could only be experienced.
As I left that day I wondered if it would be the last time I saw my friend. But the news was at least somewhat positive. There was still hope. Last week Blake called me to tell me that Rich had been admitted to the hospital. From the moment I found out on Monday that he was in the hospital I knew that this was it. I knew that his time on this earth had ended and my prayers shifted from "Please help Rich live, to please help Rich pass peacefully and please grant peace and comfort to Marianne, his children and his family."
Rich's time had come. He had won his battle with cancer. He had faced one of the worst physical, emotional and spiritual trials that anyone can possibly encounter in this mortal life. Many will say he faced it and didn't let it change him. They would be wrong. It did change him. It changed him in all of the right ways, in a glorious way. We don't have life experiences so that we can simply endure them. We must endure them well so that those experiences do change us. That is the purpose of those experiences. If we don't change through them then they are simply tragic. But if they do change us then they are what I like to call "difficult blessings". They are blessings that we would never wish for, that we would never wish upon anyone else. But if we are honest with ourselves we realize that the best attributes we have, our love, our compassion, our desire to serve, to do better, to be better couldn't have come about to the same degree without those experiences. And so, while we would gladly do away with the experience we would never trade what the experience has done to us. Unfortunately we cannot have one without the other.
You cannot understand Rich or Marianne's strength unless you understand the plan of salvation. The plan of salvation is quite simply a plan that our Heavenly Father has prepared for us to bring us eternal happiness. The "eternal" qualifier there is important because sometimes, oftentimes, obtaining eternal happiness involves enduring temporary, and sometimes excruciating, pain and sorrow. His plan is that we would come to this earth and have experiences that would help us become more like Him so that we could return to live Him. And not only to live with Him to but live with our families. To be with them forever. In Rich's final days and weeks he was not preparing for the end of his existence. He was preparing for a transition. Marianne was not preparing to lose her husband forever, but bracing herself for a difficult, but temporary good-bye. If we did not have this knowledge then how could we possibly endure this. How could we make sense of it. Rich's death would be a tragedy, an injustice and a pointless waste of a life with so much potential. But I testify to you that it was not. As Rich's life was glorious, so was his death. Through intense physical suffering he overcame this world and did so in a way that inspired us all.
Which of us hasn't spent much time in self-evaluation as we have watched Rich endure his trials well. Which of us hasn't felt ashamed for the petty gripes we have concerning our own insignificant trials? Which of us hasn't felt the need to fall to our needs to thank our Heavenly Father for the many, many blessings we have suddenly realized that we have been taking for granted.
Rich has been my friend for a long time. But he has done more for me in this last year than in all the years I have known him. I am forever changed because I knew him. And once again he causes me to renew my commitment to live my life in such a way that I might become like he is and return to where he now resides.
Once again our paths have split. There may be a few more years between our next visit but I know, if I live my life as I should, if I can follow the example that Rich has set, then I will see him again. We will embrace and probably shed some tears of joy and discuss how much better we both look now with hair.
I love Rich. I love Marianne. They are two of my dearest friends. I am so grateful that I was one of the fortunate many who had the chance to be touched and influenced by his life. I know that God lives and that he loves us all. I know that as he watches us he weeps as he sees us go through difficult, but necessary experiences. I want David, James and Joshua to know what their father is: He is a great, great man and I am honored to have known him.
So, who was Rich Lloyd? He was one of my dearest friends. But, more importantly, who is Rich Lloyd? He is an immortal child of God who has completed his mortal journey. He is one of my dearest friends and now one of my greatest examples.
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