And October marches on.......

In the interest of truth in "advertising", I wanted to post these pictures of my dining room and my kitchen during this crazy time of life.  I wanted any of my grandchildren or great-grandchildren to understand that it is not always possible to have things organized and cleaned each minute of each day.  (My kids already know this because they have lived with me for years.)  Often the pictures on blogs and Facebook and whatever method of connection in the future shows life cleaned up and polished for show.  Real life isn't like that.  It can pile up and be messy and you just have to keep plugging on--getting up each day and doing the tasks that need to be done.  Having fun and being okay even if stuff from the past five events are piled higher and higher.  Life can still be fine.  It did get put away at last and no one died so it was all okay.

A side note:  I love formal dining rooms.  Not because we eat there very often but because it is the perfect staging area for life---the school science projects, Primary sharing times, and now Utah Down Syndrome Foundation supplies, the list goes on.  I would suggest that secret to everyone!

I could identify the boxes and suitcases and what events they are connected, but it doesn't matter.  This represents five weeks of stuff....embarrassing but real!

October

My mom loved Octobers.  Of course it was her birthday month and the month where my two brothers, Todd and Mike, were also born so that would make it a great month.  But she loved it for the fall itself...the leaves, the changing of the weather, Indian summers (Richland, WA), and cool nights.

Who wouldn't love it!  Look at the sky and the beautiful colors of the trees.

My sister, Valerie (who shares the same mother of course), gave me a sweet card she printed it off Facebook, I think.  It is a picture of lots of pumpkins and wheat fields in the back. 

The quote:
"I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers." 
--Anne of green gables

I don't know if my mom ever read that quote but she could have written it herself.

October was a blur  as this flurry of posts can attest (and the fact that I am writing this on November 24th and these pictures are from the second week of October.  Oh, well.) but there were moments of beauty in the middle of it all.  I just wanted to let you know.

Allan

Allan with grandson, Dallin

Exactly one week after Valerie died, her son Christopher and his wife Jen had their first child, Dallin Christopher Page (for the record Jen has two daughters from her first marriage, Lisa and Natalie who we all love as our own family, too.  They were Valerie's first granddaughters on the Page side and she was thrilled to finally have some girls nearby.)  We took Allan to meet his new grandson two days after his birth.  A few days later, Valerie's second son, Bryon and his wife, Leslie, had a baby daughter, Evelyn.  Evie was the first Page granddaughter by birth.  We were so grateful that this two little spirits arrived safe and sound to earth and brought a new sweetness to the family.

My sweet brother-in-law Allan was left without his spouse when Valerie passed away but he was also without his main caretaker.  As he is slowly declining in his cognitive and memory abilities, she has been the one to care for him and help him deal with life and his illnesses.  For the past 1 1/2 years he has gone to adult day care when she was at work as it wasn't safe any longer for him to be alone.

It is very hard as he is so young and in many ways he can take care of himself, but there are the things or moments when he can't or he forgets things like something cooking on the stove.  Dementia is a tricky thing as its impact changes almost moment to moment, it seems.  During the week right after Valerie's death, family was there constantly day and night to help him.  However we all knew that we would have to make some permanent arrangements to meet his needs.  As a family we needed to make some hard decisions matching what we need Valerie wanted and also what Allan needed.  It added an additional worry during that week.

I had met with his neurologist right after Valerie's death to get help on how to help Allan.  The doctor encouraged us to quick make permanent plans for his care.  He said that the biggest change of his life has already happened and we can't change that.  It is best to include these changes all together and perhaps consider moving him out of his home which in his case may help lessen the memories of the her death and leave him with happy memories from the past.  The family met together to discuss our options and to review and consider all options for his care.

It was a hard process (not because we disagreed because there was little of that but because these are hard and serious discussions) and was much more emotional for me than I thought.  For the first couple of weeks we had a home care company come and stay with Allan.  He enjoyed these sweet women who helped care for him during an emotional time.  We were in and out every day as well as many other family members.  Other time was spent looking for the appropriate place for Allan to move and to be care for.  I "stumbled" into an organization for senior care help who provided me great support and ideas during this process which I shared with our family.  They also were able to send a social worker to evaluate Allan and determine what kind of care he might benefit from.  They were so helpful.  Even though we visited mostly very nice and new facilities, it was still heart-wrenching to walk into these places and think we were going to move him out of his house into a new place.  I told my kids that if I have dementia they have my permission to put me into a nice memory care unit and visit me once a week and not worry about me in between times.  I don't want them to have some of the struggles and emotions that I had through this process.

We finally selected a spot and made arrangements for Allan to move in on the following Wednesday.  All of these work was done without Allan's involvement.  However he did have conversations with Gary and our nephew Matt asking who was going to take care of him and that he needed help.  That was reassuring for all of us.  As a family we made a plan to gather on Wednesday morning and to talk to Allan about the move.  All of our support staff indicated that telling him too early would only confuse and disturb him so we followed their advice.  Although we were all there, there was a general assumption that Gary would be the one that did the talking.  I don't know if Gary slept at all the night before as he struggled to determine the best way to help Allan understand.  Gary did awesome and although it was hard for Allan and all of us, we made it though.  Allan chose to go bowling with Gary and leave the moving part to us.  My great mother-in-law, sister-in laws, and niece-in laws (is that a word?) were so great in making the move and getting those things we felt were most important for Allan.  It was a fast four hour move but we got it ready just in time for Gary and Allan to show up.

Charon adjusting the family pictures.  They had
recently had family pictures taken at
Layton Park in the summer with the Page boys
and their families.



Allan sitting by his entertainment center
Allan loves movies and has a huge collection.
We tried to move it exactly the way that it
was at their home.  We were thrilled it fit.

We originally brought the two recliners from
their family room, but we all agreed that
Allan really preferred the couch so
we sent the nephews back to get it and it
worked.

This adjustment has been very hard for Allan and he wishes that he could go back to his home.  It isn't a perfect situation...nothing is perfect compared to living with your beloved spouse in a home which you love too.  I think that he is settling down as best as we can expect.  Valerie's sons and their families have been great to visit him and Gary takes him to Taco Time, bowling, and usually a quick trip to Wal-Mart each Tuesday night for needed supplies.  We hope that he will be able to live there the rest of his life.  It is about 10 minutes from us which is nice and allows us to stop in for time to time as well.  Like I have mentioned many times, life just keeps on changing for all of us....

The ring

Monday morning on the 23rd, Tosha flew to Oklahoma City to spend 10 days with Austen Russell.  He is in the Air Force and stationed at Tinker Air Force base.  Tosha had met him in July during his leave in Utah and it didn't take them long to figure out that they really liked each other.

Tosha actually met Austen's dad and his step mom at Cracker Barrel where she was working as a waitress.  His dad is a bit of a tease and they enjoyed bantering with each other while they were eating dinner.  At one point, Tom commented that her boyfriend was very lucky to have such a fun girl friend.  She said she didn't have a boyfriend.  Tom then asked her if she wanted to meet his "cute" son in the Air Force.  She said that she didn't usually share information with customers but that their son could look her up on Facebook.  She forgot about it until the next day she got a friend request from Austen saying that his dad had told him about her and how cute she was.  It started with Facebook messages and then texting and then when he came to Utah for his leave they met and started dating.  He was only in town for a few weeks and then headed back to Oklahoma.  Since then they have talked, texted and FaceTimed constantly and fell in love.

Austen asked for Tosha's "hand" over FaceTime the day before she left for her visit there with Gary and I.  I have spent time getting to know him over FaceTime too as well as Jena, but we have only met him in person once in July.  He is a fun guy and I feel peaceful about the whole thing.

He actually proposed on Thursday and Tosha announced it to us by sending a picture of her hand with her darling engagement ring. 

It came with a short text:  He proposed!
So we had to exchanged texts to see if she said, "Yes"
which of course she did.

It was nice to have something positive to focus on in the middle of all that was going on with the funeral and taking care of Allan and everything else that needed to be done.

We have spent time with Austen on Facetime over the past weeks and it was nice to have some great conversations with this great guy who had won Tosha's heart.

The original plan was to have the wedding in December but a date was never quite set.  That should have been a clue to me to get ready, but I was busy with other things at the moment........

In memory of Valerie Jo Hall Burk

I am not sure how you talk about something serious like someone you love passing away on a blog.  In general, this is a blow by blow report of our comings and goings.  However it would not be right to not record it either.  As fall follows summer, so is death a real part of every one's life on this earth.  We accept it as part of the plan of our Heavenly Father and a consequence of having a mortal body.  It's the timing of it that hits us--almost every time--probably every time. And the loss which is emotional, physical, and spiritual all at once!

Valerie waiting for the Heber Creeper on our
Hall women trip to Park City, UT in 2008

Valerie is Gary's sister two years younger than he is.  She was born on June 23, 197 and died on September 23, 2013.  She and her husband Allan lived just around the corner from us for the past 15 years.  Valerie and Allan had just celebrated their 23rd anniversary the Saturday before.  They were a very devoted couple.  They both had unique health challenges--she had epilepsy and he had type 1 diabetes and short term memory difficulties due to a heart attack and coma at the age of 23.  Then two years ago he was diagnosed with frontal lobe dementia which added an additional burden to them both.  Through it all, they took care of each other.  He called her his "petunia".  You just had to love them.  They looked after each other and dealt with life's challenges in a sweet and giving way.  In recent years Valerie has had an upswing in grand mal seizures which forced her not to drive for many months at a time.  Of all the hardships her illness caused her that was really the only thing that she complained about.


Allan--a snapshot taken at their "Super Heroes"
Family Photography session this past summer
with all five Page boys (Valerie's five sons)
and their families at Layton Park

Valerie has five sons from her first marriage and Allan has a son and a daughter from his first marriage so they had a houseful as they worked together to blend that family and meet the needs of everyone.  For the past 20 years Valerie worked part-time as a cook for the school district. She liked crafts and quilting and spoiling her grand kids.  She and Allan had 15 grandchildren--10 boys and five girls with two on the way.  A new grandson was born exactly one week later and her new grand daughter arrived last Sunday.  She had already completed a set of blue blankets and burp cloths and a set of pink ones for the new arrivals.

She passed away probably from heart stress due to seizures although no one will ever know exactly.  Gary and I had received phone calls from Allan indicating that Valerie had had a seizure and since he couldn't reach us (this was during the play) he called 911.  It was our sweet neighbors (many of them) who went over when they saw the paramedics and one knew my phone number and updated me on the way home.  It was a frightening ride home with Gary and his mom in one car and me with the four girls in our car.  I kept relaying messages to Gary trying not to worry the girls in my car.

One sweet moment was after we dropped off Kaitlyn in Layton, Meggan asked if we could pray together.  I immediately pulled over and asked her to say the prayer.  In her prayer she asked for a blessing on Valerie but then spoke about strength for Allan.  It was then that I felt that Valerie was gone.  Fifteen minutes later I dropped Jena off with Meggan where she spent the night (Jena doesn't like to sleep away from her own bed--unless we are on a trip-- and especially not without her pjs.  I told her that she was going to spend the night with Meggan.  She looked around and said, "Did you bring my pjs and stuff?"  I said no.  She said, "Will Kristy (Meggan's mom) let me take my shoes off?"  When I assured her that Kristy would, she said she would be fine.  She actually wore some of Meggan's pjs. which is really unusual for her.)  As Kristy hugged me tight, I was just so grateful that we were not alone, we were surrounded by people who loved Valerie and loved us.

I arrived at their home to find neighbors waiting to hug me before even entering her house.  Gary, his mom, and his sister Charon and her husband, our Bishop Steve Slater (who is also our home teacher), the Relief Society President Marge Beardall (who is also our next door neighbor) and of course her sweet husband, Allan.  There was only one police car remaining in the cul de sac.  It was a quiet home as I entered in.  As we hugged and shared comfort with each other, I felt that sweet peace which only comes from the Holy Ghost.  It was shocking and so unexpected but we knew what to do.  We talked, we prayed, and we strengthened each other through the days ahead.  Her sons and then her two step  children gathered from across the United States.

Vonette, Charon, Gary's mom, Valerie,
Gary and Jena peeking out beside
Gary.  This is the last picture of Mom with her
four children taken during our recent trip
to Oregon at the first of September.
We are so glad we had that last special time
together.

We all spent most of our time together at the house, caring for each other and especially for her sweet husband.  It was always the plan that he would pass away first not Valerie his wife, companion and caretaker.  I said early and often to Allan that it takes eight of us to do what Valerie had done for him.  In reality each family member has taken a role in that caring.  Her sons were terrific and continue to do a great job in managing things  Gary has been amazing.  He has watched over his mom, helped his nephews with funeral and financial responsibilities, and was the "main" man for Allan especially until his two children arrived from Oregon and then after they left.  One moment he would be near as Allan re-remembered the death of his wife the next moment he would be taking Allan bowling because that it was Allan wanted to do.  I am not sure when he ever had a moment to grief as he was looking over all of us.  I would just watch Gary and love him even more than ever before.  We hardly talked with each other, it seemed, the month of October between everything we were doing, but I was amazed at all that he was able to get done in a day.

The funeral was held on Saturday with each of the five boys speaking for 5 minutes each talking about one of the roles of their mom.  It was great and very sweet.  She loved her sons and was very proud of them and their families.

Two sweet experiences from that week:  On Tuesday morning (after only about 3 hours of sleep), I was coming from running on errand into Syracuse heading to our neighborhood.  I thought about the same trip the night before and the fear and sadness I had felt and contrasted my feelings of peace that morning.  I thought how strange that was--the great peace that I felt so shortly after Valerie's death.  I was still pondering about that as I parked my car at Valerie's and hopped out of the car.  My sweet friend and Valerie's neighbor Tiffany called out to me from her driveway asking how we were doing.  I said that I felt peaceful and then she responded, "We are praying for you."  At that moment, I felt an overwhelming feeling of the love and prayers  of this sweet neighbor and all of our neighbors who loved Valerie and Allan and also loved Gary and I and our family--personally.  The physical sense of peace I felt as I entered my neighborhood was literally a response of our Heavenly Father to their prayers for us and our families.  It was a tender mercy for me.

The second experience also happened shortly after that on the same day.  I went home in the afternoon and walked into my kitchen to find some flowers and a wonderful picture of Christ holding a little lamb.  It came with a card signed by twenty or more of our sweet neighbors.  I was overwhelmed with their kindness to us and cried for a  long time--the good kind of tears of grief and love mixed together. 

All of that happened on Jena's birthday (of course since her birthday is the day after Gary's).  I was so glad that we had celebrated the night before as we didn't actually even open gifts for Gary or Jena until the Sunday after the funeral.  However throughout the day little gifts were also left for Jena for her birthday from our friends and also her Young Women leaders. My visiting teacher brought her salsa and chips just for her for her birthday.  It wasn't a typical birthday for a 17yr. old but it made special by our good neighbors.

And there is the "short" version of a very hard week for all of us!