A Note from Lori...

Yep...we're still alive! I think this is the longest period of time I've gone between blog posts.

One of these days I'll share a little about Connor's birthday and the things we did (especially as Wyatt's, Harmon's, Abigail's and Ronnie's birthdays are coming up). But not today.

Instead I've wanted to share something my sister wrote in response to Spencer's blog entry.

I remember where we were and what we were doing when that anology was given to him. I sat and waited patiently while he scribbled it down furiously on a napkin, with blue ink. For some reason I'll always remember the blue ink.

He came home and wrote it down and I love the comparisons. They fit our experience so well. My sister Lori sent us a note this morning, which made me cry. She said it so well...and she reminded me that there is a power in "Remembering."

Someday I'll write more about remembering...but today I wanted to share Lori's note. Many of you were aboard our flight (jumping in with your heart and soul), and if you weren't, you were and have acted as our ferry boat captains.

With love,
Jennifer



Spencer and Jenni,

I've reread Spencer's posting to try to understand why this moved me so deeply. I don't know that I can capture everything here, but perhaps these paragraphs will shed a bit more light on emotional and thought processes that are more ethereal than concrete.

Life is hard and sometimes it's scary and uncertain. I think this particular post, particularly following the past year of Jenni's posts, captures the difficulty and the fear you two have faced head on, and that the rest of us dread facing someday. It also demonstrates the fact that, although we may not always do it well, we will somehow manage to survive difficult times when we are faced with them.

You and Jenni are not only surviving but are doing it with grace, dignity and style. And importantly for the rest of us (although a less immediate concern for the two of you), you have given your experience a voice, a light that can be shared with others to teach us how this can be done should we ever find ourselves in shoes like yours.

There is no right or wrong way to forge ahead with survival, and everyone must make choices along the way to meet their unique needs and situations. Your blog postings have given people in similar circumstances a view into how their own situations can be handled. And for the rest of us who are only bystanders, we are all too aware that we could, at any given moment, be caught up in a maelstrom that could turn our lives upside down and suddenly make us survivors, grappling with broken hearts and difficult decisions that seem unbearable, and which would seem to have no appropriate solution or answer.

I think what also moved me were the recollections of those days in December surrounding Connor's birth. Although I would wish him alive and well in a heart beat, I also cherish what was a very moving and spiritual time for me and my family. I look back on those days as something of a dream, with all of us connected to each other in a way that the normal world precludes. We were all in Salt Lake; we were a bit snowbound; it was coming up on Christmas Eve when everything is so silent and still, which is so unusual in the US with its 24/7 approach to life; we were fighting Christmas Eve deadlines and finding florists...and then we were so impressed with what she had managed to find and put together at the 13th hour (we were well past the 11th hour at that stage).

And I know I'm repeating myself, but we were all there and we were so connected. I feel like Connor gave us such a gift and I also feel like we, under your direction, accepted his gift and did not squander it. We recognized it for what it was and we seized it and did not let go--have not let go--and that we continue to honor his contribution to our family. I feel like we are Flight 1594: something bad happened, something that could not be changed. Things could have continued to go horribly wrong but they didn't: as co-pilots, you and Jenni took the necessary and correct actions, the right decisions were made, and you were able to move forward in a constructive way; as the flight crew your family and friends executed their responsibilities; and the neighbors and friends acted as the ferry boat captains, coming in to support with anything that was needed. We were all simultaneously passengers, observing the other players and not entirely sure of what was going on around us, but eager to do our part in the "rescue", and to do it well.

As a family, we owe both of you so much for allowing us to share this journey with you, because you could have so easily done this on your own. And that would have been fine if that had been the right thing for you to do, but it would have been such a different experience for the rest of us. I've read somewhere that the enlarging of the soul requires not only some remodeling but some excavating. For you, this experience has clearly been an excavation, and by sharing that experience, you have allowed some important remodelling to go on within the souls of your family members. We would have missed out on so much that was so important, that we didn't even realize we needed until we were faced with it. Thank you.

With love, reverence and respect,

Orli