Egg Nog and Pizza

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and is looking forward to an exciting 2011. Christmas at my place was absolutely spectacular. We held on to the long tradition of eating pizza and drinking egg nog on Christmas eve. I love egg nog! That stuff is pure heaven and I look forward to it all year long. I have a 14 year old son, 12 year old daughter and a 2 year old daughter. We covered everything from new snowboards to a battery powered Tinkerbell ATV. It was loads of fun. We got up super early and opened all the gifts, ate a delicious breakfast casserole and then loaded up the Van and went to Idaho Falls and visited family. It was great times. My Aunt Kathy cooked a wonderful dinner for us that night and we ate like kings and queens. The holidays are a great time of year and I wish the feeling lasted longer. 

I lost one of my brothers(Matt) just over a month ago and there isn't a day that doesn't go by that I don't think about him. Sometimes there isn't even a moment that goes by. I find myself hearing something funny or just today I heard an ad for a snowmobiling get-away being advertised on the radio and I grab my phone to call Matt. I get kinda mad when that happens and I wonder things like "do they have phones in heaven?" I think I am going crazy at times.  I know I need to let life continue and people tell me all the time that as time goes by things get easier. Well that will be nice but I also don't want to forget Matt and take him for granted. I couldn't live with myself if I taught myself to just forget about him and move on. That seems like the ultimate crime anyone could commit on a family member. So what do you do? How do you cope? I have no answer and wonder that a lot. I do know that I have wonderful parents and a wonderful 2 brothers and 1 sister. We all love each other tremendously and it makes me happy when we get together for all sorts of occasions. We had a great family christmas party on Dec. 19th and I really enjoyed it. It also provided me with an opportunity to go visit Matts grave site. We had a good chat. I told him about the BYU bowl game and spewed off as many stats as I could remember. I told him that I missed him a lot. His grave had the greenest grass. I'm sure that is from all the tears that have landed there over the last month. Then I walked away and what seemed like a million miles I got into my van and looked at my wife and 3 kids. I am a very blessed man and I know the Lord knows my pain and longing for my brother. He provides me with the strength needed get through the tough times and helps me keep my sense of humor. 

My son was ordained a Teacher in our faith the Sunday after Matt passed away. The bishop asked him to bear his testimony and Tyler started off by saying that " He knows life is good and that good things are going to happen in our lives" That was really all he said but that was his testimony and I will never forget it. Life is good and good things will happen in our lives. Sometimes before we know what is "good" in our lives we have to know and feel what is bad. That part is the hardest but it provides the sweetest nectar to ours souls because it is then that we are able to sit up in the morning and welcome it with open arms and say out loud......Life is good and good things are going to happen today.