To My Siblings and Your Spouses

Dear Tyler, Tenielle, Troy, Tristen, Tony, Tanner and Your Spouses,

Thank you for your support and love over the past 2 1/2 months as I've battled a unimaginable battle.  Thank you for taking time out of your busy lives to travel distances several times a month to be with me, to sit with me when I was in the hospital, to spend uncomfortable nights in the hospital so that Mom and Dad could have a few comfortable nights in their own beds and I didn't have to be alone.  Thank you for leaving your children so that you could spend time with me, but also thank you for bringing your children to visit me, even though they can't possibly comprehend my illness.  I love your children like my own and am so grateful for each of them and their different personalities.

Even though Tanner hasn't been able to be home this Summer I'm grateful he was able to come home for the one, short weekend that I was so ill in the hospital so that we could all be together as a family.  I'm grateful for our nightly phone calls to hear of your successes and the impact that you have had on others live's through your Summer job.  I'm excited for you to come home this weekend and to be closer to our family as I continue to have my treatments and fight this fight.

I'm grateful for your hugs, for your children's hugs and for your gifts of love.  I love watching you with your children, how you teach them obedience, responsibility, and especially how you teach them in their young ages the gospel, that you take them to church on a weekly basis even though you may have to wrestle with them a bit; and you might wonder if it's really worth it.  They will appreciate it in the years to come when they have testimonies of their own, just as it has because of the traditions that our parents instilled in each of us; and we know it wasn't always easy, especially when shoes were missing on Sunday mornings!  I'm grateful for spur of the moment pizza and swimming parties that bring me joy as I watch your children swim like fishes in our pool.  I love when you unexpectedly drop by, especially in the mornings when the kids are still sometimes in their pj's, or when you come late in the evenings when they are in their pj's.  I don't know what it is about kids in pj's but they are so cute.  I'm grateful for Sunday evenings that bring us together after church to eat ice cream cones, kids sticky hands from dripping ice cream and happy faces; which we need more of!

I'm grateful for this illness that has brought us each a little closer, taught us that time is so precious, that it's the relationships that we build with each other that truly matter in the end.  Mom has always taught us that friends come and go, but our family will always be there.  She is so right, even though we have been blessed with amazing friends that continue to be by our side.

I love each of you and am so grateful for the love we share as a family, for the many memories we have made over the years and the memories we continue to make.  I know that families are forever, especially ours and am ever so grateful for the temple that binds us together here on earth and in the eternities.

Much Love, ME.