Clara's Here!

I love my Grandma.  As a little girl I used to love to go to Cardston to see her.  She was just like the grandmas you read about in storybooks.  She always smiled, she gave you big hugs, baked homemade cookies just for you, told you stories about the olden days, made beautiful quilts, golfed with her friends, and loved you no matter what you did.  She is a faithful Latter-Day Saint and I have thought on many occasions throughout my life in tough circumstances "what would my grandma do in this situation."    When it was time to have our third little baby I spent a whole week in what I like to call uncomfortable labour - you aren't screaming in pain but you think with every uncomfortable contraction that it will only be a few more hours.  This all started  on Monday morning when at the time we had decided our little girl would be named Elizabeth Clara. Elizabeth, because I love that name and Clara, after my grandma.  The contractions just kept going on day after day - I sent my kids over to my mom's house day after day thinking this baby is surely going to come today.  Five days later, I went to the hospital at 11pm to say I have been doing this for five days I'm exhausted surely the baby is about to arrive.  They examined me and said not yet and sent me home.  Just as we were packing up our things to go home I went into excruciating labour for 45 minutes and my little girl was born just after midnight on January 10th 2004, my beloved grandma's birthday.  It was like she knew she had to hold on until that special day, and when it arrived, out she came!  We changed her name to Clara Elizabeth.  

    Re-introducing her to her great grandma and namesake at the reunion just made my little Clara's face beam.  She had never met another Clara, certainly not one who was as important as my wonderful Grandma!  I would find Clara slipping away from the group to go sit next to her great grandma throughout the reunion.  Even though she lived far away, and didn't get to see her very often, it was like she knew this lady is something special.

A Little Lesson:

     Sometimes without reason or understanding there are people in our lives we just adore.  We can hardly see their faults, we hold them in high regard and we love them with all of our hearts.  I feel that when this life experience is over we will come to know with a greater understanding why that is.  Perhaps it was something we experienced with these special souls before we came here.  I don't know.  I sure do love my Grandma!