My mom

I'm a mama's boy and happy to be one. I've never been left for wanting in her house and out of it. Neither have my friends or anyone who enters through her door. In fact years have gone and they know that the first place they can visit is the fridge of my mother's kitchen. For years I have had to learn to share her with the people who are in need of an angel in their lives. I've rarely seen her angry and too often disappointed by the things I have done. Nothing is as poignant as the guilt one feels as one who so weary lifts her hand to wash the dishes you said you would clean. A tender and watchful eye always accompanied the sickness that would ravage a young son's body and with great care would she nurse health back through the soul. Always attentive to her boy's worldly whims every birthday and holiday were but filled the frivolous joys that brings happiness for a moment. My Super Nintendo a present that took us to the far reaches of Mill City so that I could once again suit up as Mario and travel throughout the Mushroom Kingdom in search of my lost princess. It was my mom who sat on the couch and watched and my laughter, groans, and odd tittering filled the air at my approval of at her wisdom. Who knew my greatest gift would be the compassion she would bestow upon me and teach me to share with others, as love has a way of multiplying and adding a measure of true happiness to each of our lives. How she took care to instill me with a sense of family as she made sure each of their names would be etched into my heart as she lived far away from the land she called home. For all the dances and the music something that make my body quiver every time I hear music ring, the sheer love of traditions of a people who I can call brother and sister because we are all boricuas. The unknown in which she led us into which would bring my sister and I eternal joy as she became the pioneer in our family bringing the gospel into our home. The faithfulness that she has always demonstrated being always welcoming to home teachers and others into our home who would show us what it meant to server the Lord even when she had bratty teens who were into hearing another lesson from a prophet. The sacrifice she has put in which has helped me see what it means to put the Lord first in your life. In the quiet moments as she is on her knees I know she prays for each of us that the Lord will help lead us into our place in the eternities. I have been to edge where one sees the pain that death brings to one's soul, the separation that burns through the body, I have seen that on my mother's face as she buries brothers and sisters, a mother and father, uncles and aunts. One of the most haunting realities I have experienced was knowing that when we were in an car accident and she turned to me blood running down her face to comfort me or when I sat by her bedside coaxing her to drink some fluids someday that would be my pain. A boy without his mother. Yet as we walk the planes of eternity I know that her lasting legacy will be the fact that we will never be devoid of each other's company and that her love will shine through eternity.

The face of sickness

My mom was in the hospital this weekend. It has been a long week, necessitating two trips down to Salem to care for are she literally wasn't herself. All week long the woman who called herself my mother lied in bed, lethargic and without any energy to care for herself. As our family buzzed about her trying to get her drink the smallest sip of water, to get something into a system that was failing and rejecting everything at time I felt the deep despair that comes as we witness the twilight of one's life. Too often I have been party to scenes revolving the extinguishing of life so young, undetermined in it's course only to see it end before it began but this is altogether different and disheartening. Time has applied the Balm of Gilead to a wounded heart, the airs of change bringing me much more to experience and relish, laying aside pain enough for a lifetime. But this is my mother, someone who gave birth to me, I've admired, learned from. Death comes to all. This is a possibility and part of Heavenly Father's plan. Faith in the Atonement of Jesus Christ WILL bring peace in time but that being said I do fall to the weakness of being selfish and wanting a way out, a way for my mom to persist in this temporal plane. I think we all do. That's ok because it gives me the motivation to cherish every moment of my association with her and to wait with excitement at the fullfillment of the Holy Temple, where each and every one of us can be sealed as a family for time and all eternity. My mom is better now, the doctor diagnosing her with the flu and patching her up for another go. I am grateful for every moment.

PS Take care of yourself this winter, the flu is everywhere and the ER was jam packed with well worn people fighting with this very infectious disease. Don't panic but be sure to watch yourself and wash yourself.