Sunday after church we decided to take some flowers to the cemeteries.  I made some arrangements with the peonies, lilies and iris.  We headed up to the Salt Lake City Cemetery first.  

 Kelley loves to go to the cemetery!  (NOT!) He is kind of weird about anything death related.  I have to force him to go to any viewing and when we are there, he won't look at the dead person.  He says he doesn't want to have a funeral, just have his ashes spread out over his favorite fishing spots.  Ha!

 He used to say "Why would we visit the graves?  the people aren't there"...which is true, but I told him how all the years of my growing up,  it was just something we always did.  Mum would make enough flower arrangements for all the relatives graves...the back of the car was always loaded. As I got older, I'd help her get flowers from the garden to make the bouquets with.  She could make something pretty out of practically nothing, which was usually what was left blooming by the end of May.  

Anyway, it was kind of a special time for remembering and honoring those that had gone on before us. We would walk around the cemetery to all of the relatives graves and mum would tell us stories about them.  Brenda has such a good memory and could remember details about them too. I felt like as the youngest, I had missed out on getting to know a lot of my cousins  and grandparents the way my sisters did.  My grandma Lena died before I was born, and my grandpa Tibbitts died with I was 5 so I loved hearing about their lives.

Anyway, Kelley is great to go there now whenever I want to because he knows it's important to me...and he just makes this face.

 The drive up to Logan was so nice.  Sardine Canyon was real pretty and green!

 We went right up to the Providence cemetery, avoiding driving by the old house.  It was one of those "I want to see, I don't want to see" things.

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 I picked some pretty yellow roses for Bruces grave.

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 So grateful for this bunch that I have that loves and supports me and will drive for three hours to make me happy.

I love that KC gets me and will linger a little longer with me, asking questions about my folks and others who are buried near by.  He has a tender heart that understands.

We did drive by the house on the way out of town.  Probably shouldn't have.  It was pretty sad. I was just hoping that maybe...

 I was thinking on the way home how much things have changed in the past 10 years.  It seems like everything went along the same for so many years, I thought it would always be like that.  Now when I go to Logan, things are so different.  The town is built up so much and there are homes and businesses everywhere.  Old places that I grew up with have been replaced with new homes or buildings.  Empty fields and pastures are now subdivisions.  It all feels very foreign and like I don't belong there anymore.  It made me sad and I had to keep looking out the window on the way home so no one would see my tears. 

 I know I can't expect things to stay the same forever, it's all part of life...and death.  This is kind of a weird analogy but I always think of it as I'm dead heading my flowers.   My flowers start out as a tiny seed, in time, with care, they grow into a little plant.  After growing into a bigger plant, it will begin to make a bud.  Soon this bud grows and finally bursts open to reveal it's full glory. They are really something now and you can almost feel the joy of the blooming plant!  After some time though, the bloom begins to fade and wrinkle.  It starts shrinking back and sinking to the ground, soon to be just a little brown dried up petal that will return to the earth.  All this time, new little buds have been forming though and when their time comes, they will spring open to replace the one that's fallen below.  

I guess life's kind of like that... we come here to learn and grow and hopefully to bring some joy to those around us.  Then when our time is done, we'll quietly slip away, and the next new and brilliant generation will take our place...and the cycle will go on.  Hopefully we have left some good seeds of our life behind that will  carry on and continue to produce a wonderful heritage of our family.  I know I will be forever grateful for the wonderful parents, siblings, husband, and children I've been blessed with and for Gods great plan for all of us here on earth.  When I think about it, there's no need for sadness or tears because it all makes sense...and it's a really good plan.