Pappa Hardy's Musings on Life.

My mind has turned to the eternities much recently. Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend the groundbreaking for the Payson Utah Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Today, I am sitting in a room at the Utah Valley Specialty Hospital with my father at the bedside of my mother. She is dying of Stage 2 Uterine Cancer and I can see the end coming.

I can’t say enough good things about my mom. She raised me, she instructed me in doing the right things and in how to be a good person. She is my role model. She is a Saint. Her illness has lead me to thinking a lot more about eternity and what we need to do to be ready to be there with our Lord and his Son.

I can think of nothing that would be better than living with my family forever in God’s Kingdom.

Much has happened this month in the saga of my parents. What has really happened is that the sickness of my mom has now been diagnosed and attempted to be treated. By now we were supposed to have been close to having radiation therapy done. What was lacking was the realization and knowledge that the treatment would almost kill my mother.

She didn’t do well with the treatment and eventually ended up in ICU with her kidney’s shutting down and her very sick. She has recovered somewhat, but now we face the real likelihood that she is not going to survive very long. We all eventually will face this reality but to have it happen to someone close to you is very difficult.

We are going to have to make end of life choices for her, as she nor my father seem to have the mental capacity now to make these choices for themselves. What we decide will also show what kind of people we are.

I received some terrible news on Friday. Early Thursday morning my sister called from American Fork to tell me that my 87 year old mother had been taken into and admitted to the hospital for heavy bleeding.

I spent most of Thursday at the hospital with her and my 91 year old father. She was discharged that day but only after her Gynecologist had set up an appointment with a specialist from the University of Utah in Gynecology/Oncology. That was an ominous referral. On Friday, my wife, daughter Julie and I took my mother and father to Salt Lake to see the physician. Part of the purpose of the visit was to get a biopsy which would hopefully tell us what was causing the bleeding and help us get her a diagnosis that would determine her course of treatment.

During the course of the biopsy, the physician described a “mass or tumor” on her cervix that was the likely cause of the bleeding and indicated that this didn’t look good. This was one of those moments in a person’s life when you face your worst fears. My mom probably has cancer. She has had good health up to now and has lived a long and productive life. However, to know that she might have a condition that might end that life was a great blow to me.

That sounds pretty petty, to be concerned for myself. However, I have always loved and looked up to my mother. Like most of the rest of us, mother’s mean just about everything to their children. I love her and want her to be around forever, to take care of me and my family. The idea that her life might come to an end is a blow to all of her children.

I just speak for myself at this point. I love my parents, and they have always been a comfort to me. She has feed me, has washed my clothes, has rejoiced in my marriage to my dear wife, has rejoiced in her grandchildren. She has rejoiced in my accomplishments and the accomplishments of my children, and she has cried with me when things didn’t go well and we faced challenges. She has been there when I had my heart operated on. She has been there when my children have had their challenges, and has attended their weddings and all the other things that grandmas do. She has a great love for all living things. She adores her dog Tascha, who just happens to really belong to my sister and her family. She has loved each one of us and nurtured us. She is my mother, and if this is terminal, I will miss her terribly. Sometimes life just isn’t easy.

It was fun entertainment. Bonnie, Julie, Shirley and I went to the Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City. We saw two plays, The Music Man and Noises Off. They were both fun to watch. I wish we had been able to stay a few more days, take in more plays, and travel around in Southern Utah. However, it was just a quick trip.

Plays are fun. Family is better. It was a lot of fun talking with each other. The campus of Southern Utah University was also beautiful and it was a terrific place to be able to visit and experience some “culture”.

There are days when life is tough, when things have become such a challenge that you wonder if you can handle it any more. It is on those kind of days that you hope for a safe port, a place where you can go and have all the hurts taken care of and the concern washed away.

For me, that was the Old Homestead, a house on 97 Dixie Street where my parents lived. I could go there, sit amongst familiar walls and know that I was home and that I would be taken care of. There are places like that for all of us. I am grateful for parents who made a home for me that gave me a place of refuge where I could be loved and taken care of.

Today, as I fought a freeway of ice and danger, I longed for the old homestead. I longed to be able to go there and have the fear of the unknown taken away and my feelings and concerns soothed and blown away. I longed for a simpler time when mom and dad would take care of it all. I longed for the Old Homestead.

We are up in Wyoming this weekend, dealing with Family Chaos. I use that term to describe the challenges to the family during the last two weeks. We have had 3 of 4 of the Wyoming Hardys in the process of moving. That is the chaos we are dealing with because this will be a new experience for everyone

First, Chris bought a new house and moved last weekend. I was not able to be there because of work concerns. I have been inundated of late at work and I couldn’t leave Utah. All the family forces were marshaled in Cheyenne and they helped him move. That job is still not finished.

This weekend it is Brian and Crystal and Julies turn. Bryan and Crystal are moving to Laramie because he has been accepted into the WICHE program for Medical School at the University of Washington in Seattle. He spends his first year in Laramie before moving to Seattle. That will be a great adventure.

Then, since Brian and Crystal are moving, that forces Julie to move to another place in Cheyenne. Therefore, this will be a very busy weekend moving the kids to where they need to be. I hope all goes well. We had one casualty last week when an arcade game got dropped on Gordon’s foot. It was still really swollen last night when we stopped in Laramie.

I hope that the chaos settles down. I am feeling older though, really not wanting to make the 8 hour trip as much anymore between Payson and Cheyenne. I do enjoy the kids. What I don’t enjoy is the sitting in the car for so long. It is so long across miles and miles of Wyoming desert.

I was impressed enough by the following email that I got from Mom Cox about Easter and its most important meaning that I post it here for all:

Dear Family,

This has been a wonderful Easter for me because of our special stake conference. I want to share with you those things I have been thinking about. I hope you won’t think that it is too lengthy. It really is from my heart and I am hoping that it will somehow be meaningful to you.

Today is Easter Sunday and it was stake conference. This was the best stake conference I have ever been to. Last night there was a meeting, but it wasn’t nearly as beneficial to me. However, I did gain one insight from last night’s meeting and that was regarding trials.

President Anderson instructed us that trials are given to us for three reasons:

1. Some trials are because the Lord wants to help us to grow and become stronger
2. Other trials are caused because of our own choice to sin
3. And other trials come upon us because of the sins of others. It could be family
members, government or otherwise

The key to handling our trials is the way we choose to deal with them. We can either let the trials destroy us or we can choose to become better and stronger because of them. If we seek the Lord as we face our trials He will bless us with strength and the ability to choose that which will enhance our spirits as we travel through this journey of life.

This morning this Easter Sunday I will report the messages that were imprinted upon my heart.

First: Part of this year’s challenge from President Anderson was in increase our faith in the Lord, Jesus Christ that we might know and trust in him and know the Savior’s ability to bless us with peach and strength. At the beginning of the year I intended to make an effort, but then in my mind I didn’t plan to do anything specific about it. However, since November I have been reading JESUS THE CHRIST by James E Talmage which was written in a room of the Salt Lake Temple. Since it is a book of over 700 pages with a great deal to ponder about it has taken me a long time to read it. I decided to read it because I was told the missionaries are required to read it while on their mission and that it is considered by church leaders as almost scripture. When I was young I had tried to read it, but there were so many big words and I didn’t know very much about the Gospel. Over the years I have acquired more vocabulary and know more about the Savior. My testimony, appreciation and depth of understanding of our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ has increased significantly as I have read this book. Indeed my faith and comprehension of the sacrifice of our Lord has grown considerably.

The March Ensign was all about Jesus and I immersed myself and feasted upon those words like I have never done before. I find myself more interested to hear his words and to learn of him.

Usually when I set out to accomplish something. I make a plan of how I will do it and go about it in a methodical way. The amazing thing about this is that it seems to me that it just happened without any set plan on my part. Perhaps, I was the victim of the prayers of our Stake Presidency. But whatever I have been richly blessed by our Father in Heaven. I can now testify of my faith in Jesus Christ and his atoning sacrifice with more excitement and fire than ever before. He is our Savior, our Redeemer, our Advocate with the Father, the Messiah, the Prince of Peace, Jesus is the Christ.

Today President Anderson enlarged upon the stake challenge of an understanding of faith. He spoke of the 4th Article of Faith involving faith, repentance, baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost being a pattern rather than an event. The sacrament is our opportunity each week to cleanse ourselves of our sins as happens with baptism. Through our faith we can repent, renew our baptismal covenant and be worthy of the Holy Ghost being a part of our life to testify of Jesus Christ, to comfort us and to strengthen.

Secondly: The Timpanogos temple president spoke. I was touched to think of the reasons why I go to the temple.
1. Because I love the feeling there.
2. Because I should and I want to obey
3. Because I receive inspiration and guidance there
4. I feel like I am home when I am there
5. My soul is refreshed
6. I receive strength and peace of mind
7. I go to pray for each of my family and place their names on the prayer roll
8. It is God’s way of teaching us
9. It is a house of prayer, faith and learning
10. Two most crowning eternal events in my life happened there:
My own endowment
And sealing to my husband
11. Opportunity to serve others
12. Association with others
13. I am a special guest in the Lords’ house. The Savior walks the halls of His temples.

I love all of you and pray for each and every one of you and your families daily.

Clouds of blessings,

Mom

That is a caption for a blog entry suggested by my wife. We are on a trip today. This morning we are in Cedar City and in a few moments, after a “most wonderful” continental breakfast provided by our motel, we will be on our way to Laughlin, Nevada, via Las Vegas. The caption for the blog comes from the fact that I am sitting here composing this at my laptop while my wife and mother in law are laying on the beds, stretching and exercising their bodies. Oh, how wonderful it is for us to grow older and for us to try and keep from growing older faster than we should.

Regardless, today we spend some time in Las Vegas. I think we are going to try and hit a brunch at the Paris and hope that it is really good with some seafood. It will be another walk through a very materialistic city. I want to take pictures of that place, but am not sure that I should take my nice new camera out and let other people see it. I am paranoid about loosing such things. Well, in any event, we are off and running.

Today’s star of the day is my mother. I have the greatest love and respect for my mother, who nurtured me, who helped raise me, and of course, who brought me forth into the world. She is such a loving women and she cared very much for us. I am so glad that she is still here to go and talk to, and of course, she hasn’t changed. She calls me a lot and I am so grateful that she cares for me.

She was born on Veteran’s Day. This is a wonderful day for me. It is a wonderful day for me not because of the holiday, but because it is my mom’s birthday. My mom is from good stock, the daughter of a rancher and she learned to work hard in her youth. That work ethic has carried forward since that day. Her care for her family was also started from that youth. She has always been very much a family women. She is my hero.

Today’s star of the day is my father, Charles Hardy. I love my father. He is a man that I have always looked up to and admired. He is a wonderful head of the family. He always has cared about me, what I am doing, and whether I knew how to work. He always made sure that we did things together as a family. We went on vacation’s together, and we enjoyed seeing new places and things that I have never seen.

My father loves my mother. He has always been a good example for a relationship. I am so grateful that he has shown me how a family should be. I love my father, and I respect him.