In The Spirit Of Friendship

This holiday season I have so much to be thankful for. I love my family. They are truly the love of my life. My husband, children and grandchildren bring so much joy and sunshine into my life. Because of my wonderful family, I feel fulfilled and have meaning in my world. We had a beautiful Thanksgiving dinner and yes, I did make Lindsey’s apple pie and it turned out beautiful and very tasty. I didn’t even burn it.

This time of year I am also grateful for friends. I have such dear friends who have sustained me through the most difficult times in my life. I have literally been sustained through the love and support of my dear friends. I have received texts, flowers, hugs, listening ears, tender hearts holding me while I cried, meals, cards, emails, words of comfort and an offering of strength from other mothers who have lost children. These mothers have offered their love and understanding from a remarkable place of power that has come through their own suffering. I have truly been buoyed up by the love of God through the blessings of friends.

During our greatest struggles this past summer when it felt like I was in the pit of despair, I can see that I was sustained through the power of friends and family gathering around us physically, emotionally and spiritually. It was my friends outpouring of comfort and love that helped me understand that God was calling Lindsey home. My friends also helped me accept God’s will as he responded with a firm but, gentle “no” to our desperate pleas and prayers in Lindsey’s behalf.

Friends loving arms around me helped me understand that I couldn’t go with her and that I am still needed here. I was being invited to surrender my will and trust in God even if it meant giving up my daughter. Friends have literally help me cross over the deep abyss of death and brought me to the other side.

So this Thanksgiving marked three months exactly from Lindsey’s passing. I did shed a few tears and we talked about her and spent time remembering her. We thanked God for all we learned through this blessed daughter. She was not only my daughter but she was my friend. I know that Lindsey is helping us from the other side, she and many others. I know she has helped me personally with my work over the last three months.

During all this I have been working on editing and preparing my book The Bright Red Bow for a second reprint. I have had friends working on this project for several months. This week it goes to print. We will have it at our Christmas Party Dec. 1, 2011. I just wanted to thank God, my family, and my friends for their love and support in all the many ways their support has been expressed. I have truly been blessed. I am acknowledging that all this couldn’t have happened on my own accord and that it has been through the work of many that we are even crossing this bridge of completion.

If you notice the cover, it was designed by Joshua Karr, Lindsey’s husband. The cover was designed in June and will always remind me of Lindsey and Josh and the time we spent together in our home. It is a beautiful design and again, brought forward in such a way that I cannot deny that it came from God in a loving and supportive way. The Bright Red Bow was rewritten during my last few months with Lindsey and if you put that with the creation of the design by Josh, and this book will live as a legacy in my mind and heart. The creation of this book will serve as a tribute to Lindsey and her life and the sacrifice Josh made in letting her go. They both participated in the coming forth of this book in the spirit of friendship. It has required great sacrifice to bring it forward. This book represents the beginning steps of my own personal healing and it has come back around to help me get through my healing after Lindsey’s passing.

I think the thing that I am coming to is that Lindsey was truly a friend to everyone she came in contact with and it has been the power of friendship that has carried me through all this. And I think about the Savior saying that “no man hath greater love than this, than he lay down his life for a friend.” I say that this kind of love is more powerful than death. This kind of love has the power to reach beyond the veil and is the kind of love that cannot die or be destroyed. It is the power to suffer with those that suffer, to mourn with those that mourn, and to lift up the arms that hang down.

As Lindsey was with us her last few hours in this world, her best friends and family gathered in the spirit of friendship and supported her til the end . . .when it was time for her to pass over. Such tender expressions of love and concern were shared with her, and heartfelt goodbyes with soft tears flowing, as we bid her farewell to the other side of the veil. A true spirit of friendship I have never witnessed than what was offered to Lindsey and our family on that day and since then.

I trust that I shall never forget that moment. I pray that as many gathered to support Lindsey and our family in friendship that I might be able to give back and be a friend in the ways that I have truly experienced friendship. I shall never forget the gentle acts of caring that have been shown to us by all of you and that have been given to us by God. God truly made the ultimate sacrifice, his own Son.

May we continue to learn about friendship and deepen our capacity to love in the ways that God and the Savior have shown us. May we come to understand on a deeper level, the beautiful gift of friends. From the bottom of my heart and soul, thank you dear friends for your sustaining influence in my life and especially this past year. May God bless you and may he bless us all with the renewal of the spirit of friendship.