Tag Archives: death

What Will Matter?

Given the recent passing of a loved one my thoughts have been turned toward each of our own lives and what will matter to each of us as we face our time to pass from this life. I’ve thought about what we take with us, what we leave behind, and what will truly matter. I came […]

Life is a series of unexplained, unplanned, and the unexpected

“Life is a series of unexplained events, unplanned laughter, unexpected tears, occasional sorrows and overwhelming joy.” -Susan Gale Life – we have our calendars all laid out and booked up for our week ahead so we think we know what we will be doing each day and when we’ll be doing it. But then something […]

What You Forget You Can Never Retell

“Preserve your memories, keep them well, what you forget you can never retell.” – Louisa May Alcot Tonight my sweet Mother came over to my home and we sat and scanned in several stacks of her Father’s (my Grandfather’s) papers he had written back while he was alive. As I sat scanning the different documents […]

Life Is A Gift

“Today before you think of saying an unkind word– think of someone who can’t speak. Before you complain about the taste of your food– think of someone who has nothing to eat. Before you complain about your husband or wife– think of someone who is crying out to God for a companion. Today before you […]

It’s all about relationships

A dear friend of mine received an award this last week and I was able to be there to congratulate him at the event. I knew I was going to have to slip out early and that I might miss his acceptance speech so I asked him to quickly share it with me before we went […]

Thank heaven for Guardian Angels

Today when my weekly email arrived from my daughter Ashley who is out serving a mission the subject line “I GOT HIT BY A CAR”. My heart dropped! I opened the email to find that she had been riding her bike with her companion and as she crossed the road an elderly man was entering […]

We Do Not Forget

I have to say that there is something especially great about the Memorial Day Holiday weekend. For one thing it signifies the start of the Summer season and I don’t know about all of you, but I am SO READY for summer! I feel like it has been an especially cold and rainy Spring this […]

Will That Help Me Get Better?

Today I had the opportunity to interview someone about their professional and personal journey as an entrepreneur. Having the chance to hear other people’s stories is such a blessing because you can learn from their life lessons without having to go through the actual experiences yourself. It happened that the entrepreneur I interviewed today has […]

Happy Easter and #Hallelujah

Happy Easter everyone! I love Easter Sunday. I remember as a little girl how excited we would get to wake up and find that the Easter Bunny had left each of us a basket of brightly colored eggs and candy. I also remember how excited I was to receive a new spring Easter dress to […]

Our Perception Is Our Choice

This statement is something all of us should really stop and think long and hard about…Our perception is our choice…There are many things in our life that ARE NOT our choice, for example – how the weather will be, or whether a person will fall in love with us or not, or whether we will […]

Witnessing A Tender Mercy

Tonight something amazing happened but I have to back up so it will all make sense. Yesterday a dear friend of mine came to me crying because she had found out that her Mother, who has a tumor growing on the side of her head, had taken a turn for the worse and the tumor […]

Divine Intervention

Today I was at a meeting where I ran into a very dear friend and mentor of mine who is someone I admire and care about very much. A few months ago he had a major heart attack and went through serious heart surgery. It came as a shock to all of us when he […]

All We Need To Do Is Apply What We Learned As A Child

We learn so many simple life lessons as a child, yet often times we overlook how those simple rules apply to us as adults. The fact is that those life lessons, if remembered, will help us all our lives, no matter how old we are.  I love the words of Robert Fulghum: All I Really […]

“Sometimes you’ll never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.”

“Sometimes you’ll never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.” My husband’s older brother and his family came to visit us today. They started reminiscing about their growing up memories together and the friends they’d had along the way. My husband shared with his brother that a few weeks ago one […]

Life’s Short – Live it Honestly.

If there is one thing in this world that I cannot tolerate it is being around a person who blatantly lies. I can forgive a lot of things but I struggle to forgive when someone tells bald face lies. I recently sat listening to a person spew lie after lie without any shame whatsoever. This […]

It’s Never Too Late to Change for the Better

As long as we are still alive it’s never too late to change our lives for the better.  And there is no better time to start working on it than right now, this very minute.  It’s always good to step back and to recommit ourselves to keeping focused on living life each day in such […]

Celebrate this event called LIFE

I came across an amazing quote. I have no idea who wrote it, but I absolutely love it because it reminds us to celebrate this event called LIFE: “As soon as you die, your identity becomes a “Body”. People use phrases like: “Bring the body”, “Lower the body in the grave”, “Take the body to […]

What Memories Will We Have Left Behind?

This weekend I attended the funeral of a neighbor and a friend. She left behind a husband, children, and grand-children and many friends who loved her dearly. She was an amazing person and she lived her life with love and service for others and I feel lucky to have known her. It was really hard […]

Live, Love, Leave a Legacy

I hope all of you had a fabulous Memorial Holiday Weekend! There is something special about seeing all the flowers laid on the graves of everyone’s loved ones on Memorial Day. It serves as a great reminder of the love and the legacy that great people leave behind when they pass.  In my own family […]

Life is short, Live it well

Today we got word that a friend of ours, who we love and admire greatly, has been diagnosed with stage four lung cancer which has spread throughout her body. It came as such a shock to hear the news about her because we ran into her and her husband just a few weeks ago and […]

You Never Know How Strong You Are…

“You never know how strong you are…until being strong is the only choice you have.” Some days you come to the end of your day feeling like you have taken all you can take…you have given all you have to give…dealt with all you can possibly deal with…you literally feel like you are at the […]

True Friends

“Good friends care for each other…close friends understand each other, but TRUE FRIENDS stay forever…beyond words, beyond distance, beyond time…!” Many of us have friends in our lives over the years. Some friends we make as children and then lose contact as we grow older. Other friends we make as adults and stay in touch […]

Live Life To The Fullest

We all have a limited time here on this earth, and none of us really know exactly when that time will come to an end. We all hope to live to an old age and then pass peacefully in our sleep, hopefully with our spouse right next to us going at the same time just […]

Being a good person does not guarantee a trouble free life

“Expecting a trouble-free life because you are a good person is like expecting the bull not to charge you because you are a vegetarian.” It’s so easy in life to think that because you are trying to live your life right and do good things that therefore nothing bad should happen to you. I mean […]

Success Comes From Focusing On Things You Can Control

There are a million aspects to life that are out of our control. And focusing on things you can’t control is absolutely pointless…no matter how much you focus on them you can’t control them so why waste the energy? Success comes when we stop worrying about those factors and things that are out of our […]

In The Famous Words From Disney’s Frozen “Let it Go”

There are just three short days until we celebrate Christmas! This weekend was fantastic. Our kids came home from college and we went to an awesome Christmas concert by pianist Kurt Bestor. During the concert he brought out a children’s choir and one little girl sang the famous song “Let it Go” from the Disney […]

Do It In Memory Of

For many people the holiday season is the happiest time of year, but for many people who have lost someone they love to death it can also be an incredibly difficult time of year. I was reminded of this over the last several days as a dear friend of mine lost his father and then […]

The Brick Walls Are There For A Reason and other great words of advice

“The brick walls are there for a reason. They’re not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something.”  ~ Randy Pausch If you don’t know who Randy Pausch is, let me tell you a little about him. Randy was a professor […]

What Legacy Will You Leave Behind?

Four years ago, October 16th of 2010, I received a phone call telling me that one of my very best friends, Steve Gasser, had died suddenly while participating in a bike race down in St. George, Utah.  I was at Disneyland when I answered that call and I literally crumbled to the ground when I […]

“Love your Parents. We are so busy growing up, we often forget they are also growing old.”

Life the past few months has been a reminder that I am growing older, especially facing an empty nest.  However, in all my focus to deal with seeing my own children grow older I have honestly lost sight of the fact that my own parents are also growing old… My parents stopped by the other […]