Look at me – Look at us.                            December 23, 2017

Some members of Carter’s family have what they call the “look at me” gene. It’s fun for me to watch the ones who have it have so much fun in the limelight. I don’t have that. Carter doesn’t either. But looking back, as I still do sometimes, I can see that we started to exhibit  a little of that family trait a few months after Ashton died, in a different kind of way, and it lasted for a few years.

I believe it was a plea in an unconscious way saying, “Look at me (Please notice that this is hard for me)…Please help me…..I need help from you…I can’t handle this alone.” We were unknowingly reaching out in a big way because it was just too hard to bear by ourselves. Knowing that others knew seemed to help us.

We are in Salt Lake City, Utah for Jacob’s wedding. Candace’s family arrives tonight and then everyone will be here, together again for a week. We’ve all been in our own isolated world connected by instant messaging. What a blessing for that. We are soaking in the grandchildren and just met our new little Ashton last night. He is 3 months old with big brown eyes…..sweet and pure from heaven.

Coming out of Costco today, I saw raspberries in someone’s cart. Ashton’s favorite. It reminded me that it’s not so important this year that we have Ashton’s favorite things. What is important is that we are together.

Many people we meet on our mission….missionaries young and old, members, mission presidents… have a heartache of some kind. It seems that our focus has changed now to “look at us”. Look at all of us. Look at how many people struggle. Let’s help each other through them.