One of our good friends lost his mother this week. The funeral was today, and I feel that I came away with some important lessons.
The daughter that gave the Life Sketch was explaining that the family was having a hard time coming up with some kind of poem or thought to put in the program for their straight shooting, plain spoken mom. One of the kids remembered a paper that had been on the fridge for as long as they could remember. She said that it was probably a handout from some long ago Relief Society lesson, but they felt it described their loving mom perfectly. I want to share it with my family because I am going to live by it.
"I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails.
I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp.
I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbors children.
I want to be there with a little dirt under my findernails from helping to weed someone's garden.
I want to be there with children's stickly kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder.
I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived."
* Marjorie Pay Hinckley *
Me too.
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