I was watching conference this morning and I was inspired to take a moment on my blog. I was noticing that President Packer was showing his signs of age and that he may not be here for many more conferences. Sis Burton (I believe her name was from the Relief Society Board) told the story of Elder Richard G Scott and how he had gotten up with his ailing son who had a heart condition. And how special a moment that time was when it was just a few months later that his son passed away.
I reflected to the 2 people that I lost in life this year. My brother, I have talked about. I haven't talked about Chris's dad, who passed away in March. I guess my perspective was not as clear with him. We had never had a bad relationship but it was not a close relationship. When he owned the photo store, I made it a point to visit him regularly. We had a couple of years when Chris and I were first married that we had a fairly good relationship with his dad. As the years passed, it was rocky. Ron Jr had an expectation of how we should be. Chris had a different idea. And those two ideas didn't match and they are both stubborn Hochrine men.
In the past year, the repairing of some of the old wounds was finally being addressed. He reached out to us and we did anything we were asked to do. We tried to rebuild the relationship. Ron Jr. died in his sleep. There was no warning. He was seemingly improving in health and he was looking forward to life. And it was a moment that strikes you of how short life is. Ron Jr. was young, only 60 years old. We had seen him at Christmas and had a nice visit. We had spoken on the phone with him. We were blessed to have no regrets in that we had unfinished business.
Now we were in the unique situation to be planning the service. Chris was going to do it all himself. And took care of many of the arrangements himself. I insisted that I take care of the actually service because I had dreams of brawls and people saying things that we could never take back. Since grandma Hope has passed, the family has had a fractured existence. I wanted this moment to maybe be a time where healing would start. The day went well. The service was nice. We had a family meal at Chili's and for the first time in many years, people talked.
So even though he is gone and there are things we won't be able to fix with him, I try to reflect on the things that his death has allowed. I think of him being in no pain. His family members are fixing their relationships. He always desired to help us in a meaningful way financially. And he did.
And I reminded one more time to tell those I love that I care. And do it now when I can so that we are left with no regrets.
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