An end

Recently my neighbors had their milk barn and the surrounding concrete and fences torn down. Their father had died a year before and since they hadn't milked cows for years there wasn't a use for the barn anymore.  It had turned into a place to store junk. The building was torn down and several loads of concrete, old tires, metal and wood were hauled away.  Several weeks later now the area is all clear and looking bare. Soon a new barn will go up and a fence will create a pretty border around the area.  It's really going to look good and they are going to like it.

As the building was being torn down I happened to be talking to one of the daughters.  The kids in this family all built homes on the land their parents own so we get to be neighbors with all of them. It's really fun. But as I stood there talking with my neighbor watching the machine tear away at the building I listened to her tell me how sad it was to see it go. Her dad built that building with his own hands. They helped him dig and pour the foundation and they spent their lives helping him on the farm.  To see the evidence of that all disappear was a sad thought. As she was sharing these thoughts I said, "yes, but the building was for you. The cows were for you. He wasn't really raising cows, he was raising you." I could see the truth of this because I wasn't attached to the building. At the same time I could understand how hard it was to see a piece of the past being wiped away. A week later I would understand this even more strongly when I visited my grandma.

I'm so glad things worked out the way they did that day that I ended up at my grandma's house. I had just spent a stressful morning trying to clean up the house for a showing with my messy two-year-old undoing all my work. I needed a place to wait until the showing was over and thankfully I was lead to my grandma's. I had a wave of nostalgia hit me while I was there that made for such a happy afternoon. Nostalgia is so magical, don't you think?  Being there with Brooke and in need of comfort and rest brought me back to the time that Emma was a baby and I would go to my grandma's for the same reason. I was a new mom and feeling severely anxious and depressed. Though my grandma didn't know it at the time her constant invitation for us to come over and have lunch with her and my grandpa saved my life. We were living next to her in her apartment and almost everyday we would go over and eat lunch and talk and Emma would play on the floor. Many times I would help my grandpa with his genealogy which helped both of us.

As I sat there that day with Brooke eating lunch with my grandma I looked over and could almost see my grandpa where he always used to sit and I could almost hear the prayer that he always gave. Because of his stroke he couldn't communicate very well, but his prayers were always sincere and he could always end them very clearly.  Brooke now sat in grandpa's chair entertaining us with her two-year-old language and silly faces.  As I was wrapped up in the nostalgia my mind turned to my neighbors and their barn. I looked at those tables and chairs in my grandma's kitchen and I thought that I never wanted them to be sold or given away or taken to D.I. We wouldn't need the chairs or the tables anymore and they wouldn't be the same anyway without grandma there, but how could anyone ever erase the evidence of so many meals and so much kindness over the years? Oh, it was such a hard thing to make right in my mind! Stuff is just stuff, but parting with it can be so painful.

I think all struggles like this come down to the purpose of life, don't you think? All the stuff we acquire, all the work we do is all done for one reason, to make our lives better, to help other people, to be happy. It's a means to an end.  Creating happiness for ourselves and those around us especially those we love the most-our families- is our end.  And without the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the plan of happiness that God made for us there wouldn't be that end.  Our lives would just be done and our stuff hauled away. But because God loves us so much, that happiness that we created lives on forever through us and our loved ones.  My neighbors won't see the milk barn again, but they will see their dad and he will see the people that they've become, that he helped them become, and they will thank him for the happiness he created for them and that's all that really matters anyway. What a gift and blessing! What a loving Father in Heaven!