A POSITIVE NEGATIVE....

I was flying all day on Saturday, September 30th which was the first day of October 2017 General Conference.  I hate to miss hearing the gospel messages in their original broadcast.  So, I was happy that I had a scheduled day off on Sunday, October 1st.  I like the feeling I have had a Church experience, even though the broadcast comes right into my own home, so I still go to a stake center to view the Sunday morning session of General Conference.  This time I went to the Loveland Stake Center because it is actually closer to us than our own Windsor Stake Center.

I felt spiritual uplift from all the messages that morning, but when Elder Donald L. Hallstrom began talking about a man who had miraculously survived an accidental fall from Mount Shasta while hiking, I was just about to silently make a statement that some people don't survive whatever accident they incur.

Before I could let that thought settle on my mind, however, I heard Brother Hallstrom continue..."But what about those who do not receive the expected miracles that are prayed for?"

Then he gave this definition:  Miracle.  A beneficial event brought about through divine power.

I thought of Jeremy's death and the way I have often described that event as a "positive negative".  Indeed, if Jeremy had to die there were so many positive aspects about that negative occurrence that those positives were blessings in themselves to comfort us.  Each a tiny miracle which, I am convinced, were brought about through divine power.  They spoke of a heavenly long-view  with details that were orchestrated long before that fateful morning in July 1987

Jeremy's death was an accident.  No one to blame.  No one to forgive.

Jeremy wasn't kidnapped, tortured, or left to suffer somewhere.

Jeremy's death wasn't self-inflicted, so there was no guilt to deal with, no wondering why....

Ross had just returned from a business trip and I was at home with my Visiting Teachers who had made an appointment to visit me that morning.

Jeremy wasn't alone when he fell from the tree.  He was with friends and his sister Burgandy.   They enlisted the help of a worker from the Church Ditch Company who gave Jeremy CPR.

That first responder act bought Jeremy a few hours so he didn't die at the tree but at the hospital the following afternoon.

We had about 24 last hours to spend with Jeremy to say the "I love yous." The  "I'm sorries."  The "goodbyes."  There were sad moments but funny ones, too, like when Britty insisted to Karen Frei that it was okay for her to have Pepsi because diet drinks were against her religion!

Families from our ward were with us throughout the night and the next day providing food for those waiting with us in the hospital, giving loving care for our children by staying with them at our home or taking them to their home to sleep.

The sudden spiritual understanding I had in the car on McIntyre Street when the whole family was preparing to pick which cemetery we wanted for Jeremy's final resting place.  A comment Harold made which his Seminary teacher had said was the catalyst for that understanding.  Jeremy wasn't just a statistic like I had initially thought--at the wrong place at the right time.  His time in mortality was over for whatever reason, and I could accept that and move forward or be bitter and rage against God.  I chose to move forward.

Someone anonymously gifted us with brand new temple clothes in which Jeremy was buried.

The funeral director belonged to the Church and provided a loving atmosphere as we planned Jeremy's funeral service.  (I had dreaded that part because it was such a garish experience when Grandma Nichols died and we had to choose her casket etc.)  But this was a blessing.

Ross was adamant that the kids be involved with every aspect of Jeremy's funeral, where he was buried, and then design the headstone which became the permanent marker of his grave.

The Golden Cemetery personnel who were also caring and compassionate.  They even made arrangements for Ross and Harold and Brice and Schuyler to fill Jeremy's grave by shoveling the dirt themselves after the dedication of the grave...one last service for his turn on earth.

The impact on our non-member friends and neighbors was phenomenal.  They silently witnessed all the loving concern and service bestowed on us from the first minutes after Jeremy fell from the tree until well after this cataclysmic event was nothing but ripples for everyone else.  Most attended the funeral, which in itself was enlightening because of its intimate focus on Jeremy as a person.

•     One family was so impressed, they called me and said because they had watched how our church took care of us,  they wanted to know more.  They began taking the missionary discussions and subsequently joined the Church.
•     When  school began again, Schuyler's  2nd grade teacher had all the kids in the class meet a day early.  She told them about the sad thing that had happened to the Nichols family that summer so the kids would know and not find out in whispers from kids in other classes.  A thoughtful and loving gesture for Schuyler who was apprehensive about returning to school.

The first thing I noticed about Ross' Patriarchal Blessing was the part that said his ancestors had rejoiced when he joined the Church, as he would be their means of obtaining salvation.  After Jeremy's death I came to know that part of his mission is to preach the gospel to those many, many Nichols family members who have gone on before.  Who better to do that than a member of your own family!  That possibility of Jeremy's role in uniting a family has been a source of comfort to me many times over the years when I have missed him with the bone-deep ache of separation until we are reunited.

All of these "beneficial events" flashed through my mind as Elder Hallstom was speaking.  When he closed his remarks by saying spiritual miracles are available to all of God's children and those miracles should be our supreme focus, I silently testified that I have been the recipient of a multitude of spiritual miracles.  Jeremy's death was just one MAJOR time when I have benefitted from that divine power. 

Our lives are full of "warm tones and tiny miracles".  Focus on them as you give daily thanks for the divine intervention that is omnipresent in everything we do.

 




























But I am grateful which become personal friends over the next six months as I listen to them in the car.

GOLDEN NUGGETS OF THOUGHT

I believe the Family Home Evening program was divinely inspired, and that the promises associated with having regular Family Home Evenings are sure and worth the time and effort.

Family Home Evening was first instituted in the early 1900's when the membership of the Church was admonished to bring their families together one night a week for gospel instruction.  Then it was emphasized again in the 1960's with a manual much like the Gospel Principles manual.  I don't think many families were plugged into FHE at the time.  But during my senior year when I was at BYU, our wards were divided into Family Home Evening groups which met together each week to ostensibly discuss some gospel principle. Instead those meetings were a hot bed for flirting, pairing off, and getting a date for the next day's Devotional or the Friday night stomp.  I sincerely do not remember ever having a real lesson.

Could be because I was smitten with the guy who had been put in charge of the group--Larry Dilly.  Larry Dilly--just  returned from a mission, in pre-med, an Idaho farm boy, and the object of my romantic desires.  He had the dark hair that always captivated me--no blondie for my dream guy!  Apparently, he had also been bitten by the love bug, and miraculously, it was I who was the object of HIS fancy.

It didn't take long before our friendship was soon moving toward something more serious.  By Thanksgiving, and then Christmas we were seeing each other all the time.  I even stayed longer at BYU for the Christmas break because Larry was staying longer, I think for the campus job he had. It was sooo hard to say goodbye for the holidays

I had lavished the little money I had on Larry for what I thought was a mighty fine present.  No gift for me, but he sent flowers to me in Rawlins.  Expectations for commitment were running high on my end.  I could hardly wait to get back to Provo for finals in January.  I was sure there might be something we wanted to discuss.  I imagined it all in my mind.  The wedding, the marriage.  Yes. YES. YES!!!  I would support him in school clear through his becoming a full-fledged doctor.  I would give my almost free-of-school life for him!

Imagine my surprise when classes resumed in January and instead of our relationship racheting up, Larry was clearly not interested in me any more.  Family Home Evening became awkward and downright painful for me.  It wasn't long before I was done with THAT little bit of gospel learning.

Fast forward a few years during which I met Ross, we got married, had Harold and Brice, and moved to the Welch Court house.  It was the early 70's.  The Church came out with a whole different sort of FHE manual.  Family friendly and full of fun ideas.   It was our weekly "Bible" when it came to holding FHE.  There was a new manual every year, and every year we  had every lesson in the book .  Little by little, we added our own special "TRA -NICHOLS-TIONS" to make Monday night--literally from supper through bedtime--a true Nichols Family Home Evening.

By then I was well aware that the efforts made to hold Family Home Evening were worth their weight in gold.  That consistent practice was the glue that held us together through good times, and a lot of years that weren't so good.  I am so grateful that the kids loved FHE, too.   Our kids would never accept an invitation to do something with a friend on Monday night.  FHE was too fun to miss, so they invited their friends to come and be with US.  So friends often came and joined in the fun.

Well, Family Home Evening has been so ingrained in my life that I still have it.  Usually for one, though.  Louis has never warmed up to the enthusiasm the Nichols Family always had for FHE.  No matter where I am on Monday night, I have FHE in my hotel room.  I sing "There Is Beauty All Around", say the opening prayer, and have a lesson for one.  Sometimes it is a Conference Address, sometimes an article in the Ensign.  Often I set aside BYU Magazine so I can use the one spiritual article in each issue for one of my FHE lessons.  Then I work a cross word puzzle or read a chapter in a book for my activity and end the night with a treat, just like always.

Tonight I picked up the SPRING 2017 BYU Magazine which has been sitting on my kitchen desk ever since it arrived in the mail, just waiting for my personal "FHE for ONE".  Good article from Matthew O. Richardson's Devotional Address last October about his four BYU mementos. 

The best part was the many aphorisms he quoted--true golden nuggets.  And because I am still an aphorism addict, I add them here to share their wisdom and food for thought.

Ezra Taft Benson:  "It is our privilege to store our memories with good and great thoughts and bring them out on the stage of our minds at will."

Spencer W. Kimball:  "When you look in the dictionary for the most important word, do you know what it is?  It could be remember...."

Winston Churchill:  "Success is not final,  failure is not fatal:  it is the courage to continue that counts."

Karl G. Maeser:  "Be yourself, but always your better self."

Jeffrey R. Holland:  "You gotta believe...you gotta believe."  [That God will work his mighty miracles for you, too.]

Pick one of these little golden nuggets and make it yours--for a day, a week, a month--and see if it doesn't bring a patina to some aspect of your life that might need uplift.  There are great lessons here.  Mine them....

COUSINS!

Courtney Cox said:  Cousins are people that are ready made friends.  You have laughs with them and remember good times at a young age forever.

My niece Janet Hamblin Smith had a brilliant idea a couple of years ago that she would like to renew acquaintance with some of her Huggins cousins with whom she had formed friendships when they were all much younger.  That idea slowly developed and finally blossomed into a full-blown Huggins Cousins Reunion.  Bette, Marcie, and Georgia are the only aunts still around, so they were invited to represent the first generation Huggins kids.

The reunion was held in Alpine, Utah, Saturday, August 19, 2017.  Janet was the overseer and the hostess, having logged literally countless hours in planning and executing a fun afternoon for over 75 family members who were able to attend.  All came with the giddy anticipation of seeing people that belonged to their family.  Lots of pictures were taken, and I was apprehensive about seeing them because I am so very  un-photogenic. But I was pleasantly surprised to see I didn't look half bad--and I know it was because I was genuinely happy to see everyone and be with my family.  It reflected in my face. 

 As an added treat for those of us who lived in Rawlins, George Huggins who is our first cousin, came to represent Uncle Aft's family. ( Grandpa Huggins' brother's son.)

Georgia and George at the Huggins Cousins Reunion

Janet asked me to prepare a trivia game with some Huggins  Family history that we could play as a group during the festivities.  I had a good time reading through journals, bits and pieces of writing my mother had jotted down, and memories the family had of Grandpa and Grandma Huggins.  

In one of the boxes where I found several small notebooks in which Grandma Huggins chronicled her days--like a diary--I discovered this picture of me and George. It was one of those pictures in a booth that came in a strip of four for 25 cents.  We were probably eight or nine.  No date....

I do remember when the one below was taken, probably about 1956 or 1957. It was during one of the trips Uncle Aft spearheaded to Denver with my dad and mom and probably only Marcia and me in our car, as well as Uncle Aft, Aunt Fern and George Lee in their car.   We went to Lakeside Amusement Park, Museum of Natural History and lots of other amazing places to kids who lived in a hick town in Wyoming.  Wonderful memories.  

And, as I was reminiscing, I remembered something I wrote about that relationship in one of the Nichols Family Newsletters years ago.  That is where I rediscovered this picture of George and me.  Cousins are great! 

      

·         A cousin is a little bit of childhood that can never be lost.                                                                                                                                                Marion C. Garretty

·         By the time I showed up in the Huggins/Crane extended families, most of my first cousins were already parents and some were soon-to-be grandparents.  On my dad’s side only my adopted cousin George Huggins, who lived up the street from me in Rawlins, was younger that I was.  Two other boy cousins, who were sons of my dad’s sister, were just two and four years older than me.  Their siblings were all older, too. My Grandma Huggins lived with them in the Sugar House neighborhood of Salt Lake City.  We didn’t see them often. But when we did, I don’t remember much more than a feeling of their superiority because Grandma lived upstairs in their house on Blaine Avenue.  However, when I was a freshman at BYU, there was a knock on the door one Sunday night and there stood Terry Reid, the younger one, who was dating a girl in our dorm and somehow recognized my name.  He had just returned from his mission and was one handsome man!  Too bad he was a cousin—and engaged to be married.

·          

On my mom’s side of the family, only Aunt Cornelia and Uncle Bill had kids younger than I was.  Fred Butterfield was just older than I and his sisters Ralphene and Helen were both younger.  They lived in Herriman, Utah, on the same block as Grandma Crane’s tiny little cottage. (They all suffered from asthma, and their house always smelled like urine.  So, I equated the two.  I was shocked years later to find out that asthma had to do with lungs—not kidneys!)  Truthfully, I don’t know Uncle Bill’s kids, but I did run into some of them at BYU.  Not really interested in forming some kind of relationship, though my mother would have liked that.  (I can understand that now, not then.)

So  George Huggins, and my second cousin Lynn Butterfield (daughter of my mother’s first cousin Tony), were the only cousins that were close enough in age—and location—to have any kind of friendship.  I was born in December 1945.  George’s birthday was Washington’s birthday in 1946 (February 22^nd). Lynn was also born in 1946 but not until September 13th.  The three of us were all in the same grade, as Lynn barely made the cut-off which was September 15^th.  We lived within a few blocks of each other and all went to Mountain View School.  George and I had the same teachers the last few years of elementary school, but Lynn was always in the opposite class (every grade had two classes).  Obviously, we all went to Church together, too.  The early years we were often together playing at each other’s houses or when our whole families went to the mountains for a huge campout together.