Ancestors & Gratitude

Today is the 24th of July, which always causes me to reflect on my ancestors and the heredity I have been blessed with. This is a difficult post to write without watering my eyes. I have such vivid memories of childhood. I loved my grandparents very much -not because of anything they did really, just because of the connection I naturally felt to them. Family connection is something I have always felt deeply. I know it is difficult for people to read wordy blogs, so although I am tempted to write about each grandparent, my parents, my husband, and each of my children, today I will limit myself to write about an ancestor on my mothers side. My mother is Danish. A combination of Jensen and Christensen heritage. I will start with the beginnings as I know them. Much of this story is taken from the book "The Jensen Family Saga" by the children of Andrew S. and Caroline Jensen.

On April 8, 1830, Peter Mogensen (Americanized to Monsen) was born in Denmark. When he was a young man, he worked for a wealthy landowner by the name of Christian Nielson. Peter met Christian's daughter Dorthea Marie and fell in love with her. They were engaged to be married but about that same time, Peter was converted to the Mormon church and was baptized March 9, 1853. Soon after his baptism he baptized several members of his own family including his parents, his sister, and his fiance Dorthea Marie.

The young couple soon made plans to join the members of the church in Deseret, in the Mormon Territory far from Denmark in the Americas. As you can imagine, Dorthea Marie's parents did not want her to leave. If I put myself in their position and imagine never seeing my daughter again, it is hard to imagine the pain they must have been feeling. It is said that her father offered to will all of his vast properties if they would give up the idea of going with the Mormons and stay in Denmark. If they gave up his offer, however, they would get nothing. Their minds were made up; nothing could influence their decision to join the Saints. By now they were married with a baby named Christian.

They set sail for America with their baby son, Christian, on the vessel "John J. Boyd" on the 6th day of December 1855. There were 508 people in the company; 437 of them were Scandinavian Saints. The Voyage across the Atlantic brought many sad experiences of hardship. A dreadful disease broke out among the people, and many of them went to a watery grave, little Christian being one of them. This loss brought a deep heartbreak and sorrow to his parents, who had great hopes for this little soul. I can't imagine the pain of leaving my parents in Denmark knowing I would never see them again, and then losing my only child at sea. I imagine as a woman, that the only possible way to survive such a hardship would be through great faith in Jesus Christ and the Atonement. I would have to completely surrender myself to the knowledge that I would be reunited with those I love after this life is over. The Spirit would have to bear me up completely, and fill my soul with peace, because there is no possible way that I could bear such grief without faith in Christ, and the powerful gift of the Comforter.

These painful experiences served to strengthen my ancestors and gave them the strength they needed to endure the many trials of leaving a life of wealth and comfort, to face life as a pioneer -both crossing the plains and living the rugged and challenging life on the frontier. This is just one story in a pile of stories of my ancestors that each are a part of me. I am overcome with gratitude for those that came before me. They are examples of courage, integrity, ingenuity, determination, and an undying faith in the Lord.

I Still Miss My Dog

How can a grown woman become so attached to a little animal? I grew up on a small farm on the west perimeter of town in Brigham City. We were hard-working, industrious people. My daddy purchased that land with the express idea of teaching his children the kind of work ethic he believed in.

Our dogs were family pets, but if they caused trouble with the farm animals, they were taken out and shot. That is the way of the farm. So when my oldest son Aaron was around the age of 8 and started begging for a dog, I REALLY fought him on it. 

We had tried our hand at owning a dog once before when he was little. It was a Yellow Lab named Chopper. He was a nice dog, but he was big, and he shed, and we could not keep him fenced in. Our home was new, our yard was not yet finished, he barked if chained up, but I didn't like his hair in my house. Then I got pregnant with my 3rd child, Hailey, and for some reason I began to despise him. The sight of his hair or the smell of his body would set off my gag reflex and trigger the pregnant mommy vomit. He had to go. But by then My husband was too attached. 


Fortunately, Lady Luck was smiling down on me. We went on vacation for a few days and left a neighbor to care for Chopper. He escaped, and though we searched high and low, he could not be found. We checked the pound regularly, scouted neighborhoods, posted signs, -all to no avail. We moved on. I had my baby. 


Eight months after Chopper had disappeared, my husband left for work one morning, and 10 minutes later he returned. "Nettie!!!" he cried out, "Look who I found!!!" And there he is with that dog. I have to say I was less than enthusiastic. He had found the dog jogging with a man. Chopper was now Charlie (his real name had been Charlie Choplicker anyway so that was pretty amazing)and he ran with this man everyday. He was in prime condition. He was a happy dog. He slept on the man's bed. 


Within a week I made my husband give him back. We just were not set up to care for a large dog, and anyone that was observant could tell that the dog was not as happy with us as he had been with the other family. My husband was NOT happy.


So it was with great trepidation that I embarked on this hunt for a new dog that would be more suitable for our family. It had to be a small house-dog, it could not shed, it could not be a yapper, it had to be kid-friendly. After much research we settled on a Shih-Tzu, and set out to find the one for us. It took a few weeks, but we did manage to find him. 

We registered him with the AKC as 'Bilbo Bag In' and called him 'Bubby'. He was with us for more than 17 years. He raised my kids. He slept on the bottom of my bed. He was in every family photo we took for 17 years. If I cried, he cried with me. When Dave spent 8 years caring for his mom, Bubby was my companion. In the end, I knew his time was near, but letting go was SO hard! I wanted to be sure that he was no longer enjoying life -that I wasn't putting him down just because he was soiling my floors and 'inconvenient' for me.

Domesticated companion dogs have absolutely the most exemplary personalities when it comes to exhibiting unconditional love. I am so grateful for the 17 years of love that he gave me -no matter if I was grumpy and mean to him or not. In the end, I awoke one morning to find him on the floor in the throes of a death rattle. Dave and I bundled him up and took him to the vet where they anesthetized him as I held him in my arms and he kept his eyes open, staring at me -his momma, his best friend.

If you are not someone that has ever connected with a companion animal on that level, then this seems like silly drivel to you, but if you have ever been fortunate enough to have an animal love you the way my Bubby loved me, then you know. And every time Sarah McLachlan sings while the TV shows the pitiful pictures of abused animals I feel that lump rising up in my throat, and I know that Bubby left a mark on me that nothing can erase.

Summer

Summer. The 4th of July holiday has come and gone, and with it a fear is setting in that summer will be gone before I have had the chance to find a rhythm. Being a schoolteacher has many inherent rewards. The first and by far the most rewarding is that of making a difference in the life of a child. I try very hard to remember each day that the children I serve are God's children, and there is a chance that I may be the only one in their life that is kind to them that day. I LOVE to work with the kids.


Another benefit is that my hours are basically the same as the hours I had as a child attending school. The holidays and weekends are spent with my family. I am home pretty early each day (though I often spend hours after work at home on the computer). There is that familiar rhythm of holidays and seasons that are the underlying fabric of school culture.


But summer, now that my children are grown, has become a challenge for me. There is plenty that I SHOULD get done, but not much that I WANT to do. I feel lazy. I lack motivation. MOST days I avoid even looking at my email! I am officially a slug.


So, what I WANT is to have a friend that will hike or go rock-climbing with me. I want to be fit, but I want to PLAY to become healthy. I don't want to just go to the gym or do mundane exercises. I want adventure. Why did everyone grow up?

Catching a Link

My roller coaster has inched ever so slowly forward, but I hear the familiar 'clink' and know that the car I am riding in has caught the link, and the ascent begins anew. Life simply marches forward. On the same day I am planning to visit my friend's comatose son for the first time, another friend's daughter has her first baby. A beautiful little girl. And I know that the circle of life marches forward.


Life is so filled with joy, victory, triumph over trials -and yet, the times of trial and sorrow are inevitable. But today, an angel kept my baby girl alive when the bolts sheared off one wheel of the car she was driving, and she could tell something was wrong, so she pulled over thinking she had a flat, checked the tires, felt that they were all full, got back in the car, but just felt that she should not drive. Something told her to check again. So she got out and checked to see if the lug nuts were tight.


When she came to one of the wheels, ALL of the lug nuts were gone. Dave left work and went to help her. She was at 12300 S in Salt Lake heading North. When he jacked up the car, the wheel simply fell off. The bolts were all sheared clean off except for one, which had about a 1/2 inch nub left on it. We have no idea how that wheel was still on the car, or how she was able to safely navigate off the freeway into the emergency lane. I am grateful that Hailey was in tune with the Spirit enough to know that something was wrong, and then act on it. We love you Hailey.

 

Devastated

The roller coaster we call life blazes on, accelerating ever faster as I age. Being an adrenaline junkie by nature, I should consider this good, however, I must say that there are some twists and turns in the area I consider rock bottom, that leave me so completely empty -heaving with pain, eyes filled with that familiar empty sting -dry, unable to shed another tear.


An empty, almost comfortable numbness begins to settle in. Like fog that erases you. And the numbness protects me somehow. I push reality farther away, and the peace of the fetal position cradles me -both body, and soul. And somehow the healing begins and the roller coaster catches the next link to urge me on. Wake me up. Refresh me. Remind me that I do indeed still enjoy breathing.


But for today, I will mourn. Because today I was told that a friend whom I truly love, has a son in a coma because of a drug overdose. My eyes sting. My heart aches. My soul calls out to God. And I know that the truth is, it could just as easily be my own son ..... or me

Life Is Good

Today I am happy. Not just for one reason, but for many. For one thing, I have been working for the past 2 years on getting my Utah Elementary Mathematics Endorsement (UEME), and Friday will be the final day of class! I am happy and relieved that it will be over because it has been so much work. I don't often allow myself to go anywhere and play because I usually have homework to do and am never fully caught up. But there is a part of me that is sad, because I will miss the association of some incredible people.

My teacher and mentor over the past 2 years has been Dr. Eula Monroe. She is a truly amazing woman. She has worked at BYU for the past 17 years, and I am blessed to have had her in my life. She is from Kentucky and she is a Baptist, so you can imagine that working at BYU could be a challenge. I did not know her 17 years ago, so I do not know what it was like for her back then, but I can tell you that the woman, as I know her now, is up to the challenge.

You can be sure that there have been many obstacles for her to overcome, and many people become soured by their experiences dealing with the bureaucracy that exists -not just there, but at ANY sizable institution of learning. The extra layer of being an outsider in a religious learning institution could have served as a mountain that was just too steep to climb, but not for Dr. Eula Monroe.
She has shown me how to be an example of scholarly excellence, and positive attitudes -even against the odds.

Moving On

Sometimes there are things that happen in our lives that simply knock us off our feet. We are blown away by our utter disappointment in the people we have allowed into our lives---not just a neighbor or a good friend, but someone you feel proud to call your daughter.  The betrayal cuts so deep that at times I have not been sure I will rise above the pain, but my son has shown a resilience that gives me hope and makes me believe that in the end, we will all be better for the loss. My daughter Hailey has lost her sister, my husband and I have lost our daughter, and my son has lost his wife.

Initially I dropped out of my graduate math courses, but my son --the one that should be the most distraught of all-- said firmly to me. "MOM! I'm not dropping out of school, and if I can keep it together, then YOU can do it too! I NEED strong people around me right now. PLEASE, contact your professor immediately and get back into your courses! We are NOT week people, and we will NOT let her actions destroy us!"

He is talented, intellectually gifted, and hard working.

On top of that, he loves his mama!

I can tell you that I have had many difficult days, however, I am so proud of my son for continuing with his full-time job, his full-time class load where he is pulling straight A's, and his work on his gorgeous bachelor pad in the spare moments in-between that load. I suppose there are girls out there without the self-esteem to handle a hard-working man, but for me, and the way I was brought up, there is nothing more admirable than an intelligent, talented, hard-working man. You go Brady! A real woman is going to set her eyes on your sexy work ethic and never let go!!!

my parents in their 70's

That is the kind of man my Daddy is, and when he came home from the war his weak-willed wife had left him for another man -and what she thought was the 'easy way out.' Twenty years later (my parents would have been about 40 years old at this time) she came to formally repent directly to my Daddy for her sins. I still remember my Momma's intimidation as she fearfully anticipated that dreaded evening. The woman my mom remembered was a beauty, and mom was more than a little intimidated and a bit haunted by her memory.

By that time, my Daddy was an Aeronautical Engineer and the Bishop of our ward. My mom was a 5' 8" striking beauty with a gorgeous smile. All of us kids were prepared for a beauty queen to arrive at our house, so you can imagine our surprise when a fairly heavy woman in a 'moo-moo' arrived to express her sincere apologies to my ever handsome daddy for her past sins and the pain she had caused him to suffer for so many years.

 

my mom deep in thought earlier this year,

and still beautiful at 77!

Did I mention how grateful I am that the first woman was WEAK WEAK WEAK!!!
I thank God every day that  I  got my momma's brilliant gene pool! And YES, God IS at the helm, and I continually thank him for unanswered prayers! 

Some of the lessons I have learned are to love my family MORE!
My eldest son Aaron and his beautiful wife Serod live nearby, and I need to nurture my relationship with them even more. Look how beautiful they are together! I find myself grateful for their simple fights, because their relationship is authentic!

 

Aaron and Serod

And I appreciate the close relationship that I have with my baby girl Hailey, and I'm grateful she has lived her freshman year of college at home. I am grateful for EVERY second that God grants me to spend with this amazing family of mine, and look forward to the years that lay ahead of us -whatever they may bring! With the love of each other and the help of our Heavenly Father, there is nothing we cannot endure.

 

Hailey at age 14 representing the 

State of Utah as the Teen

winner at Internationals along 

with Utah's Tiny Tot Ashlyn

Me and my man since 1983,

Dave Kern -a talented, kind, and

industrious man with a heart of

pure gold. A true gift from God.

In the end, it is not our trials, but our ability to pull together, LOVE one another, trust God, and put one foot in front of the other!!!

To my friends and family, I renew myself to being a better wife, mother and friend. When it comes to my friends, I TRULY have the most amazing friends imaginable. You have seen me through a lifetime of both joys and sorrows. We live, love, and grieve together, and share both life's joys and disappointments. I love each of you. I could not endure life without you. 

And to my family, how does one woman warrant such blessings from God? I married the kindest man in existence that continues to love me even when I am not very lovable. On top of that, I grew up in an amazing family, and have continued to live a charmed life with children that fill my heart with joy and fulfillment. Even when things are tough, my love NEVER wavers. No matter the course that your lives may take, I will ALWAYS love you. I truly love each of you and count myself a blessed woman!

Family

I have such a fabulous family! My friends and kids will tell you that I often say, "I WON the parent lottery!!! On top of that, my husband is the kindest man I know, and although we each have our quirky flaws, I love my children with all my heart!

We have been blessed to have a loving family dog named Bilbo; a little Shi-tzu that has been by my side since 1994. He has been losing his health at a stady pace over the last several months, and on Wednesday morning he was not in my room. He ALWAYS sleeps with us. I immediately asked my husband where he was, and he replied that he had been up with him much of the night, and he could have crawled off to die. I went searching for him and found him downstairs near the kitchen with labored breathing and a 'death rattle' to his breathing. We had to take him to his vet and let them euthanize him while we stroked his head, wept, and spoke our final words to him. Anyone that has had a close family pet knows the pain of losing one. I keep tearing up every time I think of him.

We have had other personal losses this month too, but this one hurts in a deeper place. Dogs are so loyal. They never lie. They give love unconditionally, and just want to be near you. I miss him at the bottom of my bed while I do my homework. It feels like my heart has been ripped in 2, but I am so grateful to have had him all those years. He was a fabulous companion to my 3 kids. He was great company to all of us. So here's to you Bub's -and hope to see you on the other side!

Gratitude

I have a dear, dear friend with many trials in her life. The amazing thing about her is her capacity to serve others despite the pain in her own heart. One of the trials she faces right now is that her only sister, Jeanel, is suffering with cancer - check out her link on my blog list to the lower right - Jeanel's Fight - ...anyway, I rarely visit the site without weeping. This battle has set her priorities in order to be sure. There is nothing petty left in her life. I am especially struck by her gratitude list written near Thanksgiving time, so I am reprinting it here:

"I am grateful for laundry because it means my kids have clothes to wear.

I am grateful for dishes because it means we have food to eat.

I am grateful for my husband being gone because it means he has a job and can support our family.

I am grateful for picking up because it means my kids have toys to play with.

I am grateful for feeling a little sick after my treatment because it means I have modern medicine to help fight the cancer.

I am grateful for the noise in my house because it means I have three little boys to love.

I am grateful for the door that is left open because it means my boys have a safe place to play.

I am grateful for the price tag at the pump because it means I have a car to drive.

I am grateful for balancing holiday time with our families because it means my husband was raised by loving parents.

I am grateful for the alarm clock because it means I need to go to the gym to take care of myself.

I am grateful for the toothpaste on the counter because it means some must have made it onto their toothbrush.

I am grateful for my monthly trips to Seattle because it means I get to spend time with someone I love while hopefully keeping my cancer at bay.

Things in our life may not always be how we would like, but we have the opportunity to find the bright side and let it be our focus."

My trials right now feel huge, but when I visit her site, my hardships are put in perspective. I do not have time for hatred in my life. I will not allow Satan to win by poisoning my heart. Life is too short, and there is already too much pain in the world. Christ's answer was love, and I believe in Christ. I believe that He can heal ALL pain, and He will heal mine. If Suzette can act in Christlike ways, if my amazing mom and daddy continue to press on through all life's trials, if Barb can act in Christlike ways, if Hailey can act in Christlike ways, if my dear husband can act in Christlike ways, If Jacque still checks up on me and finds time for fun, love, and joy, and if Brady can still be kind through all he is suffering, then I can overcome Satan and day by day become a kinder more grateful woman and rid my heart of the poison that has taken root. I love my family and friends and also my students way too much to allow the poison to destroy me.
Love you all,
Lynette

My Baby Girl

Hailey is my baby girl, and she has always LOVED to perform on stage. She started dancing at Center Stage when she was 3 years old, and when she hit 7th grade she fell in love with the theatre. Last year she auditioned to be in the Musical Dance Theatre (MDT) department at BYU which is extremely competitive (quite frankly I didn't think she would have a chance to make it). But God must have felt that she belonged there, because against all odds she got in.

Now as her first year heads towards the end, she is feeling more at home in her major and less stressed out about school. I love having her at home and cherish the precious moments I have left with her before she is snatched away by a career or a man, But for now, she is still my baby! She had her photo (taken by the talented Jessie Alexis Elder Evans) used on the poster that advertises the upcoming MDT showcase in the Madsen Recital Hall HFAC- BYU on February 26th and 27th at 7:00 and 9:00 p.m. Tickets are $8 w/ BYU ID, $10 Alumni & Seniors, $11 General Seating.

 Here is the poster with her cute photo.
Her Momma thinks she's HOT!

She's the only Freshman on the poster too!
Hope you can come and see the performance.
I can't wait!