24498...

...and counting.

At some point this week my blog will have been viewed 25,000 times.  Not much for the big time bloggers, but enough to get me thinking about all of you.

Thanks for taking a minute out of your life to read about a minute of my life.

...and to steal a line from Tiny Tim in The Christmas Carol...

God bless us...one and all!

He was here...

...and I was a witness to it as I cleaned out his things.

..............................

A couple of times I asked a couple of different people if they would come down and help, but summer is crazy, life is busy, and our schedules just didn't match.




...so I did it alone.




...and it reminded me of a time I did the same job all alone some 7 years ago. It was on one of my many trips home that Mother asked me to help her clean out Daddy's room. She told me she had done some of it, but I saw little difference between that visit and my previous trip to Dodge.




I opened his closet and quickly understood why it was too much for her. His cologne still lingered there...drifting through the room like the dust caught in a ray of sunshine on a summer afternoon. It encircled me and the deeper I reached into his things the more I fell into his memories. His shirts, all crisply ironed, all facing the left, hanging there on the perfectly matched clothes hangers and ,just like when I grew up, the top button and third button down were each buttoned, proof of my mother's finger prints on my dad's clothes...because, as she taught me, "...they hang better and don't get that funny crease in the front"(I can hear her saying that as if she were standing right next to me, right now, head bent over the ironing board).




...and on the shelves above, a box of army letters, pictures of his childhood, a collection of cowboy hats and baseball caps, cassette tapes filled with his guitar music, a matchbook collection...all things that I could remember from my childhood...




...all of them looking back at me saying, "...he was here".




Mother left the room, she couldn't watch.






I gently pulled each of his shirts out and folded them, just as he would want...carefully.




...then I started on his dresser drawers, my hand rests on his pile of crisply ironed handkerchiefs.  Handkerchiefs always close by to dry the tears of a 6 year old who has scraped her knee or to wipe the Kansas dust from his glasses after plowing the fields.


...and comes another memory, there was always a handkerchief hanging out his back pant's pocket, and then another memory, our little dog, Cuddies, that would run behind him and jump to grab it out of his pocket and my dad turning and laughing at the little pup with the big jump...and my dad sitting on the back porch, crying, when Cuddies was killed on the road...




...a shiny gold watch still in the box, along with a note in my handwriting, wishing him a happy birthday.  Postcards from friends and family from all over, a funny one from me, postmarked in Colorado.  The letter I wrote him when Mom(his mother, my grandmother, that we all called "Mom", the one we all cherished) died, telling him what I believed about where she was and who she was with.  Golf tees, tie clasps, rings, a silver dollar, his Zippo cigarette lighter, a collection of Father's Day cards from grandchildren and Valentine's cards from my mother...and a picture of her not long after they were married, she's laughing...and she's beautiful...and it was his favorite.






...and I somehow felt like I was intruding, eavesdropping, trespassing on very private memories...and just as I feel like I should stop, I hear my mother in the other room...and I continue cleaning out the proof that he was here.




...and tonight I began the same process...cleaning out proof that she was here...this is hard.




But I'm the daughter, the one and only, and it's my job and I tell myself it's an honor, but it is still hard.


...and I wonder to myself, which of my daughters will do this for me someday?   Will they do it together?  Will they laugh at a memory of me wearing a skirt they all hated or will they smile at all the black and white in my wardrobe?  Will they smell my perfume and remember with fondness my love of little glass bottles with heavenly smells inside?




...stop, I tell myself, focus, work, get this awful, beautiful job done.




...the job, I actually started this several weeks ago, but I didn't get very far.  I kept telling myself I would wait for one of the girls to come help, but that just didn't work out...then I was determined to just get it done, even if I was alone.  It's silly, I told myself, to let those nice clothes just hang there when there are people who could get good use out of them and I could use the space for other things.  Time and again I would march into her room, determination on my face, ready to get the process started and completed.




"It will just take a few minutes", I told myself.  But in the end I would open her closet or her drawers and she would be there in my memory, wearing that purple shirt or wrapping baby Lukee in her white sweater, and there is the suit she wore to Dani's wedding...and I would close the closet, safely keeping that memory hanging undisturbed until I had the courage to open it again.




...but tonight I swallowed the tears, faced the memories head on and put a whole-hearted effort into D.I.'ing her things.




A box of garbage bags in my hand, I started by putting on a pair of her socks, putting on my favorite music and opening her closet door again....and here is the proof.

...proof that I did accomplish something, 3 garbage bags of her clothes, and empty space in the closet...

....I was doing really well too, until I reached into her dresser and pulled out a stack of sweaters and found one of Daddy's white undershirts in the middle of it...


...and I worried...did she come across that at some point and cry herself to sleep...was she sad and I didn't comfort her like a good daughter should...did she leave that there, tucking it inside her things, knowing eventually I would find it...is it her reminder that he was here, too?




...and it was just too much...or maybe it was just enough...




...either way...I know...




...I know they both really lived and they were both really here.

25 years...

...of helping to make eternal families.


...and it all began with a call from President Hinckley. 

...................

Matthew had been in Dallas on a business trip and arrived back in Denver just in time to take the boys to Montana for a fishing trip.  I was headed to Kansas with the girls for some long needed face time with my mom and dad.

I don't remember the exact timing, but somehow President Hinckley's secretary called me and wanted to set up an appointment for Matthew to meet with President Hinckley in Salt Lake(that was a surreal phone call...not one you take lightly when you are LDS and the prophet's secretary calls to invite you to his office).  I called Matthew's dad and he went out onto the river to chase Matthew down. 

Mind you, this was 25 years ago and cell phones were something of the future still...so the closest place for Matthew to call President Hinckley's office in Salt Lake City was at the Blue Moon Saloon out in the middle of Nowhere, Montana.

 ...anyway, the phone call was made (I think he had to ask them to turn down the jukebox), and the appointment was arranged.  Matthew and I flew to Salt Lake together on the day we were to meet with the man that we reverence as much as Moses, Abraham, Isaac, Noah, etc., etc...I mean, he talks with God on a regular basis and God gives him instructions for us and then he tells us what we can do to become more like God...pretty cool.

We arrived at the office and the butterflies in our stomach quickly turned into a hornet's nest.  I remember his secretary telling us to go on in.  We stepped up to this massive, beautifully carved door and confidently...stopped...we both just stood there...like, really, just open the door and walk in.  She said, "Go on, he's expecting you"....again, we just stood there...eventually, I don't remember who, someone finally reached out and turned the knob, but it felt like we stood there for an eternity...then the door was open and we entered a very large office with him sitting behind a very large desk...he welcomed us and indicated we should sit in the chairs across from him.

As it turned out, Matthew was called to be the recorder of the still under construction, Denver Temple.  

However, there was more to that meeting than Matthew being asked if he was worthy and prepared for what was expected as temple recorder...it was somewhere toward the end of that discussion that President Hinckley suddenly grew quiet, looked up toward the ceiling behind us and then back at Matthew...(what's happening???  I remember thinking this is a little unusual, I mean meeting with President Hinckley was uncommon enough for us to be completely speechless, which is pretty amazing in and of itself, but the silence was deafening) then he looked back behind us again, briefly, before turning to Matthew and asking, "How old are you?"...Matthew, also sensing something unusual, was able to squeak out the words, "thirty three" then he cleared his throat(relax I thought, relax, breath)  "thirty three" he said again, with a little more force...

"I am to call you to be a temple sealer, as well as recorder.  That will make you the youngest sealer in the world,"  said President Hinckley.

...and so he was set apart by President Hinckley to work for the Lord in the House of the Lord...and Matthew has never looked back.  Most weeks he is in the temple 3-4 times.  It has required sacrifices of our family time and of Matthew's personal time...but the Lord always blesses those who give of their time so willingly.  Our children know he is gone a lot, but they can testify of the blessings it has brought to our family, the sweet spirit that abides in our home, which we believe to be a direct result of Matthew's sacrifice.

Today is the 25th anniversary of the phone call from the Blue Moon Saloon...and it has been a crazy adventure.  One that Matthew didn't see coming, but in looking back, it has been better than we could have imagined.

Matthew went camping with the Boy Scouts last night.  He came home early this morning and will spend the entire afternoon in the temple performing eternal marriages.  I know where he is and I know what he is doing.

It gives me joy.

Happy Anniversary, Matthew!

Love you more....

I can't remember...

...the last time I had to sew on a button.

It was always her job to do that.  She loved helping out, so I would take my latest button incident into her and hand it off.


"When you have time", I would say.  "No rush", and then I would thank her for helping me.


...and then I would leave for work or church or some other activity and come home to find my blouse neatly folded on my bed, the button stitched in exactly the right place, sewn with a matching double thread.  Perfect!


...so when I had a button pop off my white shirt this week, I stood there for a second and just looked at it in my hand...Oh no, I thought, I'm going to have to take care of this myself...


...big sigh...I miss her...bigger sigh!

Comments...

...anyone?

I've been thinking about this for some time now (literally a long, long time, because I started this post in April and haven't quite had the desire to finish it, but it's still on my mind so here it is) and I guess I will try to write the different thoughts I have had and we'll see how this all ends up when I get through. 

First of all...

...a big "THANK YOU" to Matthew's niece Kathryn.  She recently commented on one of my posts about how she feels guilty for not commenting on my blog more often and I was like...

.... "Yeeesss", a comment!!! and you can see how SUPER CUTE Kathy is in her new glasses HERE and read about her so cute family of red heads(we are more than a little partial to red heads in our family).


...and her comment got me to thinking about comments in general and how I have posted a lot of my thoughts and not gotten any comments...

...and that's OK...really...

I mean I love the comments when they come, but I don't blog just to have my self-worth elevated by the attention that comes from putting myself out there and then finding out that people like me, REALLY like me.

...at least not now...

...but that hasn't always been the case.  When I first started blogging I was always checking for comments on my posts.  Heaven forbid I should post something and not have multiple comments within the first 24 hours...and if I didn't, I would start to question myself.   A couple of times I became desperate for the recognition and called one of the girls asking if they had read my post and if so why they hadn't commented yet?  I mean, seriously, isn't it a daughter's responsibility to comment on her mother's blog?

...and then I would start to question myself...was it the subject matter....did I not make it entertaining...did I offend...or maybe I used the wrong adverb in describing how horrible the smell was from the backseat.

...and then, over time, I became a "stogger"  or maybe it's a "blalkster", as in a blog stalker.

For example, I follow several blogs, including Kathryn's.  She does an awesome job writing about her life and her family.  It's fun!  She makes me laugh!

...and so I read her blog...

...but I am not good at commenting.

...and that can make me feel guilty.

There it is in black and white, I confess, I am a loyal follower to many, but a poor commenter to all.

...but I do want to thank those random few who occasionally take the time to give me pats on the back. 

.......................

I'll always remember the day I overheard Lala telling D. about a blog she read and how it made her cry and then D. said she had just read the latest update and she had cried too.

...and like all good 50 year old non-techie women, I asked...

"What is a blog"?

...then they showed me the "Nienie Dialogues" and I was hooked.

 ...and I just knew I had to give it a try.

So for the most part, my blog is about our family with a little bit of my personal thoughts sprinkled here and there and though I don't have thousands of people looking at my blog on a daily basis like Stephanie Nielsen does, I do like the thought that a few people enjoy sharing in our story.  I can tell by the counter on my page that people are looking.  I know most of them are family (Hello to Preston and Maddie) and a few close friends and a few people who I have no clue who they are and they are all welcome(unless any of them start to get weird and then I'm going private).

...occasionally I wonder what are all those people who are reading my story thinking? But mostly, I don't really care, because this story is for me, this moment, sitting in front of my keyboard, this word is mine, this phrase came to me, this thought is part of who I am...all of them, they are mine and I don't have to have comments to feel I have fulfilled a purpose in this post.


...and I love the thought that somewhere down the generational lines one of my great-grandchildren will take the time to look at a day in my life and find something good in it, something that will help them know they come from a sometimes over-the-top, over-reactive, OCD family...

...but also a family who loved each other beyond measure.

......................

...and now, back to why I started this post...

...COMMENTS, anyone...

I guess the comments are kind of like the cherry on top of a hot fudge sundae.  I eat a hot fudge sundae for the chocolate rush, not the cherry on top...

...but the cherry on top sure makes it pretty.

(as a side note, I called Christine last night to thank her for being an awesome sister and guess who answered the phone...Yep, Katherine...she's visiting her mom for 2 weeks...and we had a great time talking about the whole blog thing and how it's not what it used to be at the beginning, but how it's better now, because we are doing it for the right reason...comments or not)

I kept thinking...

...Debbie would love this.

...............................

To say it was a surprise to find Bonnie at my front door is an understatement.  It was one of those moments that everything stops and you have to take a deep breath to make sure this is really happening. 

It was Bonnie...on my doorstep...with her three adorable children...

...and I couldn't have been happier.

Bonnie has always been special, she reminds me of Andy, with her gutsy determination and level headed thinking, and of course, always ready to laugh.

...and I had a precious afternoon talking with her, hugging her three babes and reconnecting.

Bonnie's mother is Debbie, the one and only best buddy to Matthew during his childhood.  Debbie, Matthew's best friend, the one Matthew always felt a special connection to...

Matthew would have loved being there to open the door.  He would have loved looking in Bonnie's eyes and seeing a piece of Debbie.  When I heard her in the next room talking with Kenya I thought to myself .... "that could be Debbie", with her gentle tone, so sweet, so kind...so Debbie.  The way she tips her head and then glances up at you, the way she kneels as she talks to her children, all reminders of who we miss and how grateful we are to have a piece of Debbie living on, now in the next generation.

Even now, as I think about those precious minute we had together, I tear up a little to think how close I felt to Deb while Bonnie was here.  Oh, how I want these sweet children to know how wonderful their grandmother is...


...Xander loving life...what a giggler.

...and the girls, not bashful at all, Kenya, the mature, calm, peaceful one and Mara, wanting to try everything and follow her big sister.  I loved time with them, to talk with them and get to know them.  Kenya, the reader, Mara, looking like her mother at that age...I just wanted to squeeze them.

We had ice cream cones, played with the trains, jumped on the tramp, and hopscotched on the sidewalk...yes, Debbie would have loved every second of it.

....thank you, Bonnie, for the gift of your visit.

It's an appropriate title...

...for Shay's "latest post..."..."Giving credit where credit is deserved".


One of the things I have missed about not having my mom here is that it's harder to talk about my kids without feeling like I'm bragging.


Don't misunderstand that, I mean, my friends are always ready to lend me an ear and applaud the amazingness (I know that's not a word, but it should be) of my children.


I think most of the time our lives, the Coil family happenings, are pretty ordinary, run of the mill, not a "15 minutes of fame" kind of thing, but occasionally...every once in awhile...I want to brag.


...and that's where it gets sticky.


...because a grandmother is always, ALWAYS, sure that her grandchildren are the MOST amazing kids ever and that anything their children tell them about their grandchildren is ALWAYS the MOST amazing, life changing, should be president, kind of thing...


...at least that's the way it was with my mom.


She loved our children, nearly as much as Matthew and I do.  She was proud of their accomplishments, but even more than that, she was quite certain that they were perfect.  She didn't just love them because she was their grandmother, she truly liked them.  She got it, she got them...and when I did brag to her, which was quite often, she would not turn around and tell me about how amazing her other grandchildren were, or what someone else's kid did, she just soaked it all in and glowed in the joy of being my children's grandmother.  Usually, after telling her about their newest accomplishment, she would call them and tell them I had told her, thereby confirming that we are good news spreaders(I like that phrase, I just thought that one up on my own...good news spreaders...do you like that one?).


...but she's not here, so the rest of you have to listen to me...


...or better yet, go to Shay's blog(bookmarked above for the ease of our readers) and see how the dad of our amazing grandchildren is doing.



...and you can see pictures of him intubating, inserting a chest tube and saving a life as the doctor on Life Flight. 


Check it out HERE.  Scroll down to "Motorcyclist critical after crash" then click on Photo Gallery at the bottom of his post to see pictures of Dr. Coil at work.

The moon over the Wasatch Back...

...rose in almost perfect roundness as Matthew and I left home Friday night at 11:45...




...headed off to do what he does best...




...love and support our kids.  This time it was Lauren.

.........................

When he suggested we get up at 11:45 PM to drive to Coalville and cheer her on in the...

Ragnar Wasatch Back 

I seriously considered saying, "Great idea, you go dad and I'll stay here to keep the sheets warm."




...but then I would have missed this...the smile on her face when she saw her dad.

...at this moment right here...I was reminded again why I married him.


...because he will get up at any time of any night and drive any amount of miles to give any of his children anything they need and a lot of things they don't need, but mostly to give them the love they are so deserving of.

...sweet girl was surprised, but not shocked.  If there is one thing our children know, if it is at all possible, their dad will be there to hug, cheer and love them at the moments in life when they need him the most.

...and you always run faster with "HOT" pink shoes...and if you know Lala at all, you know it is all about "pink" and "shoes", so when you put the words pink and shoes together...Lala will be at her best.

Coach Coil giving pointers, making observations and giving Lauren an emotional high five.

Combine a bad case of nerves with 36* and you have the shivers.  Matthew wrapped his heavy coat around Lauren's shoulders, doing what every good dad does...helping.

Check out her number and just below it is their team name, "Hot Stuff".

Shortly after my dad died Lauren had a major race at school.  She was a sophomore and was asked to run with 3 seniors in a relay.  She was scared.  I gave her one of Daddy's guitar picks and told her to put it in her shoe for good luck, knowing that just remembering him would bring her peace and encourage her to do her best.  They set a new record that was only recently broken at Viewmont.


It was the same guitar pick that I carried with me each time I went home following his death to take care of Mother after she was diagnosed with cancer.  I would pull it out of my pocket and rub it between my fingers and think of him and I would feel less vulnerable.  It was as if he wrapped his arms around me, telling me it would be OK.




There is something about a dad telling you that you can do it that makes a girl believe it.

We waited 3 hours for this moment...the hand off occurred at exactly 3:30 a.m.  

...and then she was gone...running into the darkness...

...but I like to think that as she ran off, into the night out of sight, she took with her something a little extra special that the other runners didn't have...the knowledge that her daddy was running right there with her, in her heart, giving her the courage she needed to take the next step.

Happy Father's Day to the best dad ever!

Fishing...

...finally.




Spring may finally have relented and given Summer her chance to make an entrance, at least long enough for Emry to reel in a couple of big ones at Strawberry Reservoir.

Catching the big one must run in the female side of the family.



Way to go girlfriend!

So this is my girl...

...my baby, my angel.

...no, no, no...not that one, the one with the lipstick and pearly whites...that's my Lala,


...and she totally rocks!




...cause right now she is somewhere just outside of Morgan, UT(according to my smartest phone ever), running the Ragnar Wasatch Back race and totally kicking it in her totally awesome hot pink, I mean "can't touch them magic slippers", totally hotsie tootsie shoes...TOTALLY!





...cause she started the race at like 4:30 this morning and ran the first leg of the 191 mile race for her team of twelve HOT STUFF ladies(including her best friend from high school, Jessie, with the most gorgeous hair ever), doing her 7 miles in under 53 minutes, beating the van to the exchange point!!!!!




TOTALLY AWESOME baby girl!!!!!!


Love you more...

Making up...

...for lost time.




The past few weeks at church I have sensed real concern from some of my friends that I haven't posted for awhile.


...and so this is a make-up post. I really meant to blog all of these events separately. Hopefully you can get a feel for them even though some of them are weeks old.




...remember the last blog, about time marching on?




...and there are always those jumbled paragraphs full of adjectives and adverbs tumbling through my head when I haven't sat down in front of a keyboard for awhile.  I start to feel like my brain is drowning and I can't breath until I have put them down into a sentence structure that would make my 6th grade English teacher proud...rest in peace Mrs. Snyder.


I'm sure a lot of what I write really doesn't matter to the world....but it matters to me and that's really who all this is for anyway...me.  Not in the sense that it's all about me, but in the sense I need to write, kind of like Matthew needs to fish, Andy needs to sew some one's head up or D. has to have sauce with that...any sauce on any food, it doesn't matter, just dump a boat load of ranch, salsa or barbecue on anything and she's good to go.




...and then there is this...I do love the back space key, with its straight little arrow pointing backwards to let me re-state my thoughts or state my re-thoughts, whichever and whatever.  I probably hit the backspace key more than any other key. 




...my life would be so much sweeter if I had a backspace key that would allow me to take back what I have said as easily as it allows me to erase my written thoughts.   I probably write 3 time the amount that ever gets published on my blog.  In fact, in the 4-5 minutes I have been typing this post, I have spent half that time erasing what I have already written.




...and there you go...I did it again...way off course from where I thought this was headed when I first sat down.




...and now, back to the regularly schedule blog post.




Here we have Miss Amelia looking all fancy in her mom's big sunglasses...

...and you know how Spring has been wet and cold, actually it has been drenching and freezing, but the Tyler's are a hardy crew and still managed to do extremely well at their swim meets.




Here we are headed to Logan to sit under umbrellas with our winter coats and gloves on, cowering in blankets and drinking hot cocoa as we cheered on the swim team.

...don't be fooled by the green grass on the side of the road.  Just a few feet away was another patch of snow...

...goofballs...I love little girls who love to giggle.

...food...it's all about the food.

...this is my favorite picture...Preston owning his lane, arms reaching from here all the way to there...I can't wait to see him at age 18 and the best on the Roy High swim team...Go Royals!

...Madison showing what she's made of...

...waiting for time results...

...and that's the end of the swim meet.




Now I'm off to Sam's pre-school graduation.  Cameron is a sweetheart, always just going along for the ride, willing to do whatever the girls tell him to do.   He is a doll!

...hiding behind his motorcycles...

...and then the big moment when our princess enters the room and she is bashful suddenly...only willing to make a quick glance at her mom and dad, who are beaming proudly.

...drumroll...she did it...she is a pre-school graduate with the highest of honors.

...and flowers from her daddy

...and the queen size doughnut, slathered with chocolate frosting...from Grandma LeAnn.

...followed by lunch at Zuppa's with her favorite cousin Emry.

...and that's that.   



...and now we are back home again, playing with the silly goose in the family...Miss Amelia.

...and our Southern Belle...

...twirling...

...and now a picture of Amelia...

...oops, the next one will be Amelia...

...still trying to get a picture of Amelia...

...and finally there she is...as the Southern Belle is sent to the sidelines...

...silly goose...

I grew up going to the cemetery on Memorial Day.  It was our tradition to honor not just the military, but a time to remember all those who have gone before.  It has been an honor to lay flowers at the graves of T.J. and Maddie Jo Hickman for years.  Matthew and I love their parents and feel it an honor to do what they would if they were living in Utah.  I feel, in some small way, perhaps we can ease the sorrow for Mike and Debbie and it makes me feel a little closer to my family back home in Kansas.  

...the back of their headstone has a beautiful saying that reminds me I often take life for granted.

...and just a short distance away is Caleb's brother, Paul.  There is a reverence in this hallowed place that makes heaven, and the ones we love, feel closer.  

This post seems a little discombobulated...which it is...which is how my life has felt.  But I'm thinking things are going to change and I will soon be back to sharing the life and times of the Coil Clan on a regular basis.




...thanks to all those who have encouraged me to get back to the blogging world.  This feels really good again...!