simple addition

Driving in the car home from soccer practice this week I absent-mindedly listened to the kids talking in the back seat. They were talking to me, and I was trying to listen, but my mind was processing what I was going to serve for dinner and how I might trick the kids into helping me get the laundry folded and put in their drawers and who could I ask to pick my kids up from school on Friday and mental reminders to call the sisters that I visit teach to see if I could drop by sometime next week and which clothes should I wear for my 8.7 mile run in the middle of the night as opposed to my early morning 3.1 miles run the next morning and hoping against hope that my husband could just shoot a buck already and get home! These are just a few of my thoughts that were interfering with my mind focusing on Wyatt and Waylan's conversation. I finally tuned back in when heard them arguing over numbers. They were both adding lists of numbers but coming up with different results and they wanted me to decide who was right! Oh crap--I had no idea what numbers they were adding nor had I listened well enough to figure anything out. Luckily, I was quick on my feet and instead of admitting that I wasn't listening I just asked, "Where did you get those numbers from anyway?" That was the right question because Wyatt replied, "we are adding up the ages of everyone in the family to see how old our family is!"At least I know everyone's ages and after only a minute hesitation was able to declare the winner of this mathematical problem. Just so you know our family is 98 years old!

This gave me a moment of serious contemplation as I thought, "the combined ages of all eight members or our family is 98 and Thelma Abbott (Jon's grandma) is 94 almost 95 years old all by herself (I know. An overly obvious observation and yet so deeply profound in the moment!). It has only been 233 years since the Declaration of Independence! To think about what has come about during her lifetime is jaw dropping to me. She was born January 25, 1915 in Beaver Dam, AZ (just outside of Mesquite, but before the gorge). She has lived to see the automobile become the widespread mode of transportation, airplane travel around the world, lived through the Great Depression, man on the moon and space exploration, invention of television, satellites, computers, cell phones, the Internet, texting, so many forms of instant communication between people anywhere in the world, lived through two World Wars ( o.k. missed the first few months of World War I but still) and many other conflicts and wars, great improvements in modern medicine: organ transplants, cancer treatments, vaccinations, etc. (Makes you stop to consider what more we will see during our own life time.) This is in no way an extensive list of all that has taken place in the last 94 1/2 years just what readily comes to my mind. I am in awe when I think about what this great lady has lived through and experienced. She is such a pillar of strength and an awesome example of hard work, faith, putting family first, and pushing through life "come what may and love it" (I loved that conference talk by Elder Wirthlin in April 2009). I could post pages and pages about this great lady in my life, but don't have the time right now. That will just have to come another day. I hope to make the most of my years here on earth whether long or short I want to make them count!

This is Grandma-Great and Savvy Novemeber 2007. ( love this picture)