Easter...

It's been 2 years since both of my parents passed away within a few weeks of each other... Last year near the 1st anniversary of those events, I wrote about some of my feelings regarding their passing in the spring of 2007... 2 years later, I still miss them both very much... Today I was thinking that the year they both went home to our heavenly Father, Easter Sunday was on April 8th (I will always remember that because my daddy left us that Easter evening...) This year Easter is on a different day of the calendar because of the way that Easter is connected to the cycles of our earth... but the actual calendar day isn't really what is important in my recollections... what is important is that as a Christian I personally recognize the Atonement of the Savior of the world at Easter each year. In fact it is important that I personally recognized the great GIFT that is given me by my Savior each and every day of the year...

Somehow it felt very right that my father went home to our Heavenly Father on the day that we celebrated that gift of the atonement from our Savior in 2007... I realize today that forever in the future Easter will be even more special to me than it used to be... that is because of the connection to Easter of my earthly father's passing. That Easter was the end of many long weeks, months and years of watching them leave us a bit at a time... and knowing that ther were now free of the pain, sorrows and physical limitations they had in this world... and that they had been reunited again...

Easter each year will always be a reminder, to me now more than ever, that my father and mother are not gone from me forever... I will see them again... My parents lived lives of humble service, even while confined at the end by frail bodies... they were very Christlike... They are still those same generous and loving people they were in life... and because of how I miss them now it is my goal to live so that I can be with them again forever... because missing them forever is too much to bear...

This Easter season I am so very very grateful for the loving example of Christlike service that my parents gave me during their lives... I don't often measure up... but their examples give me hope and a mark to reach for. Maybe if I live to be 90 or more, as they did... I can get close to leaving for my own children a similar example??? It is a worthy goal in my estimation...