It’s difficult to talk about my own strengths, but I think my greatest strength is probably my desire to serve my family and my husband, Because, really, that’s my greatest desire. And, of course, I love serving my grandchildren too. They’ve been a great blessing in our lives. My mom said I was a peacemaker. I don’t know if I feel like I fit that, but that’s how she describes me as one of her children. So, I must have done somethings in the family to help things go smoothly. But I don’t remember specifics, because when you’re involved – when it’s you – you don’t notice. But that’s what she has said, so maybe I’m a peacemaker.
There probably isn’t anything about me that my family needs to know, that they don’t know already. But I can restate what is important to me. The importance of returning to our Heavenly Father. Keeping our lives pure and clean. Strengthening our testimony. Mainly I’d say that the Book of Mormon is one of the most important books that we can read. It’s important to know a lot of things. I have a lot of grandchildren that really like to read. But I think it’s most important to be sure that we give equal time to our scriptures and developing our talents to serve other people and help where help is needed. Because there is nothing more important in my life than service to my Heavenly Father and doing what I know we have been sent her to do. And right now, I’m feeling insecure about missionary work because that’s one of the harder things to do. We would like to go on mission, but at this point it’s not working out for us. We’re still working to try to do that. But I don’t think that’s a secret. I don’t think I have any secrets. I really don’t have any. I do enjoy reading and I enjoy quiet time, which I haven’t had a lot of. I don’t mind sitting in the car and reading, just to kind of stay with him while Lary does what he needs to do. As we’ve grown older now and had an empty nest for a while, we just really like to be together. I enjoy being with the grandkids and seeing their excitement and their talents.
I enjoy having the kids come home with their spouses. One of my little granddaughters came to visit this fall, and her daddy couldn’t come. She said, “We can take some of grandma’s food home to daddy, he would like that.” I have always had the bottled fruits, and I make bread all the time. That’s one thing that usually turns out just fine- well, it always turns out just a little different. But that’s one thing I’m fairly confident in and one thing I love to serve. I know there are certain things they expect to eat when they come home. And gathering around, we’ve always tried to have meals together, and I think that’s a special time. We always had our family evening. That’s another thing that was really important. To me that’s one of the greatest things, having family time together. I think the kids will always remember it. You know, a lot of times you think you’re just keeping the kids separated – “You’re breathing MY air!” And it seems like their attention span is not so good, but they get the feeling, and they get the desire. They do remember those times together.
I have known that I have cancer since even before my brother LaMarr knew he was affected. I should say that I feel that the Lord has totally been in charge of my life, because I was never really sick when I had children. I never really had any hard deliveries to speak of, and I probably had this cancer for years, because it is latent a lot of times for many years. And then, when you turn a certain age, sometimes it just raises its head, which in my case was about a year ago. I was aware that I had it, and I was anemic some, but not to the point that I couldn’t live a normal life. And I’m still not to the point that I can’t do things. There are a lot of things I don’t do anyway – I was never one to run a race, or that kind of thing. I’ve never been really physically active, other than doing the housework and things like that. But I ‘ve always been able to do what I ‘ve needed to do, and I feel like I’m at that same point now. I’m on a low dosage of chemo right now, but the doctor’s been really careful. He watches my blood, and I take a blood count every week. And if my counts drop too low he stops the chemo. I think at this point we’re just maintaining, and I just feel like I get tired sometimes, but not in too much pain – I’m NOT in pain.
I feel like the Lord is going to let me live for as long as he needs me to, so I’m not worrying about it much. Worry does worse things. I feel at peace with the situation. Fear doesn’t creep into my world. Just … sorrow maybe that I may not live till I’m 90. But I think it’s OK. I feel like the Lord will be merciful, and when my time to go comes, it will come. Honestly, I sleep well, and I don’t feel like I’m in any dire circumstance at this point. I’m trying to do everything the doctor feels is right, and he’s been very careful not to invade me with anything that’s harsh. He’s been really good. He says I’ve already outlived all the other people who have it., so I don’t know what’s going to happen. I could live another ten years easily. But we do have to treat it some at this point. This kind of cancer attaches itself to the white blood cells. But honestly, I’ve never felt like I have cancer. So, I have it, but I haven’t had a lot of symptoms. And now, with the low dose of chemo, I haven’t been sick, I haven’t been upset, I haven’t had sores in my mouth, or a rash, or anything like that. I can only tell I have it from the blood tests. I had to have two units of blood around July 24th because I’d been on chemo for three weeks and it dragged me down. I could feel it then. But now we’re back to only two pills a day and hopefully it will balance out, because the chemo did do what it was supposed to do, but too much too quick.
