Naughty and nice

 I met with my team after school and we are kind of counting down for spring break.  It has been unseasonably warm, but the AC isn't on yet.  The students are cranky and weepy and whiny and teasing each other and overreacting to the teasing.

It's been a lot of fun....

The AC is supposed to be on after spring break and maybe everyone will get along when they have had a little time apart.

I sent home a message to parents that we aren't playing pranks on each other for April Fool's Day.  We aren't.  We can't handle it.

The shenanigans have kept me on my toes as well as the breathtaking honesty.  A girl told me, "I liked your hair better before."

A few other girls came to my immediate defense and said they liked my hair.  I'm not Nutella though, I can't make everyone happy.

(Also a kindergarten teacher tells me every time I see her how much she likes my hair.  Kindergarten teachers are the nicest people I know and it shows that she is one of them!)

Speaking of nice, a student brought me this yesterday:

She said she gave it to me, "because I have been through a lot lately."  So sweet!  She told me the plot of Fahrenheit 451 and I pretended that I hadn't read it.  She reads well below grade level, but has teenage siblings.  She had me smell the sugar scrub and soap and feel how soft the elephants ears are.  A few days ago she asked me my favorite animal and I said, "Elephant.  Or maybe goat."

I had no idea what she was planning because they ask me random questions all the time.  

About the gift basket, she also told me that there had been a Dr. Pepper, but she put it in the fridge and someone drank it!  She was disgusted with her family.  She said that she knew that I already had a water bottle, but this one was clear, "so I can see what you're drinking."

What does she think I'm drinking?!?

Another student saw the gift and sat herself down and said, "What is your favorite animal?"

I said elephant or goat.

She quickly drew me this.

 They can be a bit maddening (the boy who acted like he had no bones because he had to do his work....), but those kids delight me.

My eulogy for my mother

 In Salt Lake City, Utah, on April 2, 1949, Coralee Jaynes was born to Homer Warren Jaynes, Jr. and Thelma Louise Wood Jaynes. When she was two years old, they moved to Nevada.  My mother was the oldest of five children.  Her brothers Warren, Richard, Fred and sister Mary have always been an important part of her life. From a young age, her hard working parents taught them to work and to serve.  At first her family lived in Starr Valley and Coralee rode the same bus to Wells to go to school as our dad.  When she was in elementary school, her grandpa wrote a teasing message in her autograph book about “that Dahl boy.”  She cried until he changed it.  When she was 12 years old, her family moved to Wells.  While she was waiting for her younger sister, Mary, to grow up and become a friend, she developed close relationships with her cousins and made many lifelong friends at school.  Eventually, she came around to “that Dahl boy,” and she and my dad became high school sweethearts.  

After high school, she went to BYU where she studied accounting and our dad went to cow camp and served a mission.  In 1970, they were married in the Salt Lake Temple.  They lived in Provo briefly while my mom finished her degree.  From there, they moved back to Starr Valley, where they have made their home ever since.

Our mother loved accounting and passed the CPA exam, but her greatest desire was to be a full-time wife and mother. Our dad worked as a cowboy and eventually a silversmith and bit and spur maker.  Through the ups and downs of starting a business and being a starving artist, she stood shoulder to shoulder with our dad, with support and encouragement.  Their marriage is the kind of partnership I aspire to.

She blessed her children’s lives by giving her full attention to raising them. Our mother was a natural-born teacher.  She taught us to love books with hours of read aloud time nestled by her on the couch or in the car while our dad drove.  She taught us poetry and art appreciation and piano lessons and she taught my sisters and me to bake bread and to sew and quilt.  It’s not her fault that I’m not a good seamstress because she tried.

A big proponent of “work before play” and “any job worth doing is worth doing well,” she taught us to work. 

Our mother homeschooled my brothers and Olivia for parts or all of elementary school.  I think she would have homeschooled all of us if she’d had the idea earlier. She applied the tenacity and strong will she brought to everything else in her life to homeschooling.  Following her example, many of us have homeschooled our own children.  I know my mother never would have traded the extra time with her children she was gifted by homeschooling. 

Later, when we were mostly grown, our mother became a business teacher at Wells High School.  It was kind of a good news/bad news situation for my brothers who were still in high school.  She was there to witness their shenanigans.  Later, she enjoyed working as an accountant in Elko at McMullin McPhee.

Through all the busyness she surrounded herself with, she somehow found time to make wedding and graduation quilts for her children and baby blankets, receiving blankets, graduation afghans, doll blankets and doll clothes for her grandchildren.  It often seemed to me like my mother had an inexhaustible store of energy.  When our youngest baby was born, she came to stay with us and help.  She took excellent care of us, cooking and cleaning and tending to all of us. With all of that work, she still had my husband, Adam, drive her to the craft store to get a project because she needed more to do.

Coralee served in various positions as a member of the Church, including a mission in Nauvoo. She and my dad dressed in period clothing, (which was basically my dad’s regular clothing).  My dad worked with the horses and they both gave tours and participated in shows.  As in every stage of their lives, they made dear friends through that service.

She loved serving on the committee that wrote the Humboldt Stake History.  She was also thrilled to be part of the Elko Temple Committee. Temple attendance was an important part of her life. When we were growing up and going to Salt Lake to visit my grandma, have our braces tightened, or shop for school clothes, serving in the temple was always part of the trip for my parents.  Since the dedication of the Elko temple and as long as her health allowed it, my parents had a standing weekly temple appointment.  My mom would get teary whenever she talked about the blessing it was to have a temple so close.

Her most cherished roles were wife, mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. She strived to connect with all of her grandchildren.  When the oldest were small, there was a Grandma Party every summer.  She had tea parties and made waffles with granddaughters and mailed her best paper airplanes to Boston after he moved to Oregon.  Once grandchildren graduated from high school, they got a weekly email from her.

She took every opportunity to teach her grandchildren, regardless of her circumstances. She taught piano lessons, keyboarding, computers, crochet, and accounting lessons, either in person or virtually.  During covid, she offered virtual lessons to anyone interested.  When our youngest son, Mark, decided to take accounting lessons, our other two children cautioned him that Grandma’s lessons were really hard.  They weren’t wrong, but her teaching blessed all of their lives.  

The best instruction she gave us was her example of righteous devotion.  Our mother taught us the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  

When faced with discouragement, she knew where to go for help.  She had some small, yellowed with age, pieces of paper with quotes on them.  Sometimes they were tacked to the wall by the washing machine and sometimes they were in a drawer, but they became part of who she was.  Both quotes are from Elder George Q Cannon.

In 1864, he said:

I know that everything will be overruled for our good if we do right.  No matter how difficult circumstances may be to bear at the time, they are for our good, and God watches over us; His angels are round about us all the time.

In 1884, he said:

Therefore, however dark the prospects may be, however gloomy, let us remember that He who sits on high knows our condition, and that He can deliver us.

Her faith in and desire to follow Jesus Christ was a blessing to everyone around her.  These past several years, as she experienced the effects of her cancer and treatments, her faith and courage lifted me.  I had the chance to spend a week with her in Carson City a few years ago when she went there for treatment. Ever the teacher and wanting to enrich my life, she had brought a brochure about historical homes in Carson City she thought we might want to learn about while we were there.  It felt like the most Coralee Dahl thing she could have done.  At her treatment sessions, she was friends with all the other patients and knew their stories. I will always remember watching her walk into those appointments.  She had her oxygen in tow and I knew and she knew that the treatment wasn’t going to be easy, but she squared her shoulders and walked resolutely, never shrinking.  I recall thinking, she is the strongest person I know.

She constantly expressed her faith and trust in the Lord.  She repeated over and over, “This life isn’t the reward, it’s the test.”

Her final teaching to all of us is the most important one.  Like Helaman’s stripling warriors, we have been taught by our mother.

We do not doubt our mother knew it.

I know, like my mother, that Heavenly Father loves us.  I know Jesus is the Christ.  I know that because of temple covenants we can be together forever.  I have never been more grateful for that truth.

Happy/Sad Weekend

Happy/sad. That's my best way to describe the weekend.  So many times, I thought how much my mom would love whatever we were doing, all being together.  Why wasn't she there?!?  I wanted to tell her about things.  My sisters and Ammon and Melanee and Adam convened at one point to write thank you notes and when there were addresses we didn't know, the most natural thing in the world was to think that we needed to ask my mom.

We just have a big hole left behind.  We will miss her so much.

It's also been the opposite side of sadness, even joyful at times.  Our kids all arrived around noon on Saturday and it was so good to see all of them.  Adam and I went outside with QE.  She fell in the ditch.  Tromped through the lilacs bushes that are bare and scratchy right now and got tiny sticks in her hair.  We explored on the other side of the garage and I showed her where the chicken coop was when I was a little girl. She stepped into a badger hole--luckily I was holding her hand.  She lost her shoe in the hole, which I retrieved.  Then she was Cinderella and the shoe fit so Adam gave her a ride in his cart.

She is the perfect girl for here.  She is utterly unfazed by Nevada.  It won't be long before I teach her how to cross a barbed wire fence.  These are skills an adventurous Nevada girl needs--even if she only visits occasionally.

A little later in the afternoon, a bunch of family came over to visit.  I pulled out the snacks Molly and Ami gave me on our birthday, which was a perfect gift from them.  I don't think I can remember one thing we talked about, but it was good to be together.

That night we had dinner at Marianne's.  The Knudsens, our dear family friends, orchestrated it.  They brought pulled pork, a big pan of macaroni and cheese, chips and homemade salsa, coleslaw, and the most amazing rolls.  Other people brought desserts.  We were well fed!  Our aunt Mary and uncle Steve, uncle Richard and aunt Launa, and uncle Fred and our cousin Jenny came too.  Mary brought two big containers of her homemade chocolate chip cookies because that is her calling card.  It was another great evening of being together.  When dear Hannah delivered her desserts, she brought each of us a beautifully wrapped present with a wind chime inside.

At one point I was sitting with my brothers, just crying about our mom.

Happy/sad.

Saturday we went to the church and set up the guest book and a few things.  We were kind of waiting for things to start and Tabor said, "I don't know how to do this.  I never wanted to know how to do this."

Nevertheless.

We had an hour of visitation in the Relief Society room.  It was packed.  All my dad's siblings came, Aunt Jennifer from as far away as Austin, Texas!  My mom's siblings were there as well as some of both of their cousins.  We had so many cousins there!  It was incredible to me.  Sweet Leslie came from Montana, Jason from Kansas, Lincoln from Arizona.  Many came from around Nevada and Idaho and Utah.  It meant the world to me.  We hugged and cried together and I thanked them for coming and they said they wouldn't have missed it.

You can take your sliced bread or any other inventions.  Cousins were the best idea ever.

My siblings and our spouses sat on the front row of the chapel with our dad.  Edgar said the family prayer before the funeral and then Robert said the opening prayer of the funeral and Adam the closing.  I loved having them participate.  Jennifer and Katie and Melanee participated too, in more behind the scenes, but meaningful ways.  My mom loved our spouses.  She never placed her own children in a different category than our spouses.  I am grateful we all married well.

My siblings and I each spoke.  I was given the eulogy as my task, so I was first.  I was glad to be first, then I could enjoy listening to their talks more.  (I will add my eulogy to my blog because I want to remember it and it is easier to find here than in my chaotic Google Drive. Maybe I'll add it another day; I have a feeling this will be too long.) 

I felt so much love for my brothers and sisters and our parents during their talks.  I also felt grateful for the Plan of Salvation and the fact that I know we will all be together again.  My parents taught me that, but then I have had the Spirit confirm it to me.  I know what I know and I can't imagine how much harder this would be without that knowledge.

Also at the funeral, the grandchildren sang two songs.  One was "I Know that my Savior Loves Me," which was our mom's favorite primary song.  A smaller group, the ones who committed to learning parts, sang a medley that Emma had arranged of "Where Can I Turn for Peace" and "It is Well With My Soul."  I loved hearing all those talented kids.

After the funeral, I saw my stellar second cousin Katelin.  She was heading up the dinner where they were feeding all of us afterward.  She said she had enjoyed the funeral and it made her want to, "go home and be a better person."

I said, "Me too."

Hearing about my mom only makes me want to be more like her.

We drove to Starr Valley and gathered in a pretty spot near some trees behind the little building.  Edgar and his boys had dug a hole for the beautiful little box that held my mom's ashes.  My dad dedicated the grave, then placed the box inside.  He had one of the gold colored shovels from the Elko Temple groundbreaking (which meant a lot to me because of how much my mom loved that temple).  He and my brothers covered the little box and filled in the hole.  It was beautiful to me and very much in keeping with my dad's independent and can really do anything personality.  

I can tell the deep wells of his grief, but he is also so strong. 

We took a picture and my dad told me to stand in the front.  I said, "Why do I have to stand in the front?"

One of my brothers said, "Because you're short." (I was wearing chunky platform heels.  I'm still short.)

Mariann, Olivia, Ammon, our dad, me, Enoch and Tabor

Pictures are hard.  People are looking all different directions, but I love these people so much.

They are anchors in my life.  Tall ones.  Maybe I should call them pillars in my life.

We went back to the church for another delicious meal provided by good people.  I sat at a table with cousins.  Margaret, Catherine, Ira, Lincoln, Hannah, Mica, Sarah and Leslie.  It was a happy spot.  One thing we talked about was how close my dad and his siblings were.  We decided it was an inspiration to us to be close to our siblings and also a huge comfort that they have each other.

Olivia came and joined us later, saying she wanted to be at the cool kids table.

Lincoln asked me if I remembered when I was a little girl and used to come to their house and say, "L-l-l-l-ets play house."

I said I didn't remember that.  

Margaret said, "I remember playing army and you were always the general."

Lincoln said, "Well, of course I was."

We gathered at Olivia's for the thank you note writing then we had dinner again at Marianne's.  We called it a faith dinner in our planning.  We were thinking we'd have leftovers from everything and just decided to have faith that we would.  It all worked out and we had more than enough food.

We left kind of early because I was exhausted.  Chemo effects keep their hold, but I think it is loosening.  I am planning to get better every day (and hopefully my body will cooperate).

Sunday we had a lovely Palm Sunday Easter service in the Wells ward.  I told Adam that I was not going to cry that day.  I said, "My eyes can't take it."

I didn't do well with that resolve.

Grief and love and gratitude are all swimming around inside me and come out my eyes.

After church Desi and Liberty and Liliana made a lovely meal for us.  They are much like their mothers which is the best compliment I can give those charming and capable girls.  It was nice to visit some more, then we had a little Easter program, guided by Marianne.  She had these beautiful reminders of events.

Robert laid them in a line on the floor after everyone shared their scriptures about them. 

It is fitting this one has a baby blanket and a knee in the frame.  We were very cozy because there are a lot of us.

At the end, We knelt together and prayed as a family.  There was a mass food giveaway:  who will take this?!?  Then I hugged a lot and cried some more as we said our good-byes.

I am grateful for my family and for all of the really, really good people who showed so much love and support.  And I am grateful for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Now I need to remember how to be a third grade teacher.

Grateful Friday

 My sisters and I took a walk.  Our second cousin, Jon, drove by and stopped.  He said, "All three Dahl girls on a walk.  You don't see that every day!"

I wish it was every day.

When we got back to our house, Adam came out to chat with us.  I told my sisters about the new mop/vacuum I had and Adam brought it outside and modeled it like he was a Barker beauty and our front porch was The Price is Right.

Alas, the thing leaked!  I contacted the company and help is apparently on the way, but I was sorely disappointed.  I had to mop my floor like a regular person.

While I mopped, Adam power washed the front porch and cleaned out the garage a little bit.  It's nice to be here.  

In the afternoon, we picked up my dad and Ammon and drove to Elko.  We met up with everyone at the temple.  I think that temple session will be something I always remember.  First of all Craig and Jean Spratling, who were some of our nearest neighbors growing up, and Scott and Laurel Egbert were working there. Scott is my dad's cousin and Laurel one of my mom's close friends.  It felt good to be there with people we knew and loved.

The temple always reminds me of God's love for me and my place in the world.  I think I couldn't have been reminded at a better time.  After our session, there was a lot of hugging and crying by all of us.  And so much love.  We are bound together and I'm grateful.

I don't know what it is like for my mom; I don't know if she was there with us.  I do know that if there was any way that she could have been there with us, in the Elko temple that she loved so much, she would have been.

We took a picture outside the temple.  (Isaiah took it.  We posed and he said, "Do you want to be centered in front of the temple?"  We needed him!)

Enoch, Jennifer, Adam, me, Ammon, Olivia, Marianne, our dad and Robert

Edgar had been there too (handing me Kleenex in the celestial room), he was just already in the car.  We missed Melanee and Tabor and Katie who are still coming.  

And we missed my mom.

We all went to dinner together at Mattie's and enjoyed our time.  I love being with all of them.

I love this, by President Nelson, about the temple:

The temple lies at the center of strengthening our faith and spiritual fortitude because the Savior and His doctrine are the very heart of the temple. 

Spiritual fortitude is what I need.  I am grateful for all the places I get my fortitude strengthened: walking with my sisters, spending time tending to our ancestral home with Adam, basking in family time, being in the temple.

I am grateful for the many blessings I lucked into.  Life isn't fair and usually that works very much in my favor.

Leave it to my sisters

 Tuesday I got my hair chopped.  I don't have a picture and I'm comfortably tucked in with a blanket so a picture isn't forthcoming. 

But it's short.  

Every time I had chemo, a week later I would lose handfuls of hair.  All those handfuls added up to really thin hair.  Joelyn and I discussed and I showed her a picture on my phone.  I asked her, "Will I look like a Q-tip?"  (My fear with a circle of curls around my head.)

She said, "No.  Maybe if we dyed your hair platinum blonde...."

It wasn't exactly reassuring, but I went ahead with it.

My plan when I got home from my hair appointment was to get ready to go.  I was exhausted so I did nothing.  My body doesn't always cooperate with my plans, which is rude of it.

Yesterday I started with my typed up two page, with columns, list of everything that needed to be done before we left.  We were bringing the round of things we bring every time we come--bedding and towels, food--plus things for the funeral--a lace tablecloth, a guest book, a good pen.  We needed specific food--snacks for QE, snacks to share with the larger family, gluten free things, all the things.

I also needed to print the eulogy, pack my clothes, tidy up the house, do something about my shoes that were spilling everywhere in our mudroom.  (The solution was to move the winter shoes to the garage since I've brought so many summer shoes in from the garage.)

Things like that.

The problem was, I kept needing to sit and rest.  I feel fine, then I get tired, then I get dizzy.  Mark calls it "our vertigo" like Buster from Arrested Development.

I have my Lucille Austero moments.

Mark is very kind.  He helps me do whatever I'm doing and tells me to sit down and drink water.  

Adam loaded the car like the Tetris wizard he is.  I wanted to bring a wooden bookshelf and he laid it down and filled the shelves with all the things.

We finally hit the road and enjoyed our time together, like we always do.  We talked a lot and listened a bit to our latest podcast.  

I was happy to get to our little house in Starr Valley.  Adam brought in loads from the car with our wagon and I unloaded and vacuumed flies (there weren't many since we were just here).  We got everything sorted and I even cleaned the bathrooms.  I love how easy it is to clean this small, sparsely furnished house.  

In the late afternoon, we went to visit my dad.  I started crying when we drove up the lane.  It's so strange that my mom isn't there.  I had a book she had lent me.  I took it upstairs and put it on a shelf.  

It was good to see my dad.  I can tell how sad he is, but I can also tell how strong he is.  When my mom was near the very end, a hospice worker told him she would prepare him.  He said, "I've been preparing for this all my life."  And he has been.  He knows what he believes and he knows in Whom he trusts.  My dad knows that Heavenly Father lives.  He knows Jesus is the Christ.  He knows temple covenants bind us together.  All those truths buoy all of us up.

We visited awhile then went over to Olivia's for a birthday party for Adam and me.

Taught by our mother, my sisters knew exactly how to celebrate my birthday.  It was so good to see Marianne and Robert!  I've missed them.  They were a little jet-lagged, but their normal cheerful selves.  

Edgar made tostadas that were delicious like everything Edgar ever makes.  We enjoyed being together.  My sisters have a practice of having everyone say something nice about the person who is being celebrated.  Olivia called Ammon and Omar back into the room.  We said, "They don't have to say anything nice about us."

Olivia said, "They want to."

I watched the two teenagers trudge dutifully back into the room and I really doubted she was correct, but they rose to the challenge and each said kind things about us.  

Marianne had made a cake; there were candles to blow out and they sang to us.  It made me happy.  Marianne had given me a birthday gift before she went to Ghana, but Olivia had a gift for me (and she tossed a beribboned package of beef jerky to Adam, which made him happy too).

It was a nice celebration.

Today I'm looking forward to mopping the floor with my new mop vacuum that, if you believe the internet, is going to change everything about my life.  I'm going to walk with my sisters and later all of my siblings and spouses, except Tabor and Katie, who won't be here yet, and my dad are going to the Elko temple together.  That will be wonderful.

I wish a lot of things were different, but I know enough to know I have a lot to be grateful for.

Third graders

Yesterday morning, while we were doing Brain Bins, which is just free play with assigned groups, one of my girls came to chat with me.  I love when they do that.  She told me she had Activity Days at church.  She said, "I like it.  Last time we watched a movie that was happy and sad."

This particular girl is very sensitive and very dramatic.  Look for her to be a telenovela star.  She said, "Last time we watched a video about Jesus Christ.  And they-"  She pointed to her palms.  She couldn't bring herself to describe the crucifixion and I don't exactly blame her.

I said, "Yes, that was sad.  But He did it for us."

She agreed.

(I never bring up religion with my students, but if they bring it up, I acknowledge them.)

 I held off telling my students that my mother had passed away until I absolutely needed to.  (I guess I didn't need to tell them, but since I'm missing three days of school, I wanted to let them know.)

I told them yesterday.  Two of my students (one was, you guessed it, the drama queen from above) ran to me and hugged me tight.  They wouldn't let go.  It was starting to make me teary and we didn't need that.  I sent them back to their seats.  Another girl raised her hand.  I called on her and she said, "Yesterday my sister took our dog to the vet and there was another woman there who had a blanket around a dog...and it was dead."

Way to tell me a story that shows you can relate?

Another girl raised her hand and I called on her.  She said, "So, um...did you bring us a treat for your birthday."

I assured her I had. 

The conversation turned to my birthday, which is endlessly fascinating for them.  They wanted to know how old I am and when I told them 53, they were shocked and said I looked like I was 30.  I don't look like I'm 30.  They have zero concept of age.  

I was actually grateful that we were moving on in conversation though.

Except my little drama queen was not ready to move on.  Everyone was transferring to something else because we'd just said the pledge and she came and hugged me again.  She was weeping.  "I'm so sorry, Teacher.  I'm so sad!"

I told her softly, "Remember the video you told me about?"

She nodded, crying into my shoulder.

I said, "Because of that.  It's OK."

She looked at me and smiled at me through her tears.  She went back to her seat, but gave me hugs throughout the day.

I really love third graders.  They are tattle-tales (which is convenient).  They say the wrong things a lot.  They overshare.  They are really really sweet. They sang Happy Birthday to me and added the cha cha cha's which third graders are wont to do.  At the end of the song, they say:

          cha cha cha

          ooh la la

stick your head in hot lava

if it's nice, do it twice

stick your head in a bowl of ice

eat more chicken!

 I can't explain it.

But I'm glad I get to spend my days with those guys.

You've had a birthday, shout hurray

 Actually it wasn't all that exciting.

I decided next year I should make myself a cake, blow out some candles.

It was a good day though.  I felt very loved with all the texts and phone calls I got.  I felt sad that I didn't get to talk to my mom.  I also felt her love for me and I'm grateful for that.

We had a teacher work day so I got lots of stuff done, which is good.  People stopped by to wish me happy birthday and my team and I went to lunch.  They wanted me to pick a restaurant, but I wouldn't let them buy me lunch.  The other two have birthdays when we aren't in school.  So we bought ourselves lunch for our birthdays.  It was a lingering lunch because Kneaders was very busy and Miriam finally went up to the counter and got our food that was languishing there, waiting to be delivered.  We talked about all the things and I love my team.

Marianne called from the Accra airport and since I didn't have students, I could answer.  She was about 8 hours into their hero's journey and she is still in the air.  Such a long trip!  I'm so grateful that she is coming.

My dad called and I said that I was glad that we would all be together.

He said, "I wish it was for a different reason."  And so do I.

Adam and I went to Costco--like you do to celebrate?  I like being with him no matter what though.  I'm glad I get to share a birthday with that guy.