Learning from Trials

This last Friday we attended the funeral of Jason's aunt Terry. She waged a 13 year battle with cancer and it finally won out. The service was beautiful and her 7 children spoke about their mother. Hearing all that her kids had to say about her helped me to choose a few of the attributes that they loved about their mother that I would like to incorporate into my life. She was really an incredible person. One thing that all of her daughters mentioned about her was that she would never let them out of the house if they did not look perfect. Their hair was always curled with ribbons and bows, she made almost all of their clothes, etc. One thing that really caught my attention about this particular thing is that she would always tell her kids "If you look good you feel good." and that was very important to her. That her kids felt good about themselves when they walked out the door every morning. Thats the kind of mom I want to be! She also chose to laugh. Even when it was hard she chose to laugh and make sure that her kids remembered her smiling and laughing. I need to laugh more, enjoy life and all that it offers. She was great at making friends, something that I don't feel I am the best at. She was the first one to talk to someone new. She was on the school board in Pocatello for a very long time. One thing that was brought up about her was that even the people who really disagreed with her way of thinking and her opinions still liked and respected her because she did the same in return. I want to be that kind of person, the kind that people can like and respect in spite of differences in morals, values and opinions. Hopefully I really can take the things I learned about a great woman, even though it was not in the best of circumstances that I learned these things and make myself better in those ways.