Webb Update

My thumb is twitching as I write.  The past 24 hours has seen me pedaling for miles and miles gripping the handlebars of my spanking new bike we bought yesterday from "Rock's" bike store in Burley.  I had fully intended to go in and order a trike like Dad's (Grandpa's) but decided that loaders, semi-trucks, tractors and pickups are not a good mix for riding low to the ground on dusty dirt roads.  Instead I fell in love with a silver and purple bling of a girl's bike.  My last real "girl's" bike was when I was about 10 or 12 years old. It was a pink Schwinn gear bike with skinny wheels (for the girls in the family). Dad and Mom took us to Pocatello to pick it up along with an identical black bike (for the boys). Riding home in the station wagon, Peter and I literally laid on our respective girl and boy boxes we were so excited.  The last time I saw that bike it was flying through the air into Bob's pond where it disappeared into the moss, mud and muskrat infested waters.

 

So back to falling in love with my bike.  I call her "Girlfriend" because she goes with me when and where I want to go.  She comes complete with a woven steel framed basket in front and bungee strapped shelf in the back over the fender, peddle brakes and 3 speeds.  She's cool.  Gordon stopped in his cattle trailer pulling truck to talk to me just past the Raft River store. I was on my first adventure of the morning. In my basket I had a water bottle, little lunch of cheese and crackers, peach, a loaf of bread (for a recently operated on neighbor) and a copy of the visiting teaching message.  With the yellow sunflowers nodding to me in the sunshine along the side of the road and the hawks circling overhead looking for mice in the newly disked fields I had to catch my breath at what a picnical day it was. 

 

Stuart just walked out the door with tent, sleeping bag and walking sticks under his arm along with a bag of camping goodies he and cousin Ian are intending to consume on their "Before Harvest" camp out near Black Pine mountain. 

 

Larsen is in school at BYU-I. He had a week after returning from Cortez before heading to college. When I asked how things are going via text this morning he replied, "Too blessed to be stressed, Mother Dear."

 

Hayden has me baffled as he drove up to Rexburg to take one girl out and showed up at 3 am with 2 completely different girls in tow. Saturday Hayden and I fly out to DC where Jessica and Clayton will meet us for a week long visit.  The capitol building is 27 miles away.  Mount Vernon is just down the road.  Clayton will be in school most of the time while we enjoy Jessica.

 

Gordon will hold down the fort here and be a mom to Boston (or vice versa).  Boston has football practice and plays this Friday.  They have won both games although he is second up for quarter back and plays only if they get ahead.  He says he likes defense better though.  Hayden wishes he'd had Boston's build for high school sports. 

 

Kendrick is in school at U of I and lucky guy, he has a bug collection he's working on.  Out of 40 bugs he's on #30.  Megan is being a good mom taking Jennie for walks every day. Little Jennie wiggles out of her blankets and jammies and smiles alot.  Jennie Loudini! Megan's Mom bought matching dresses for Jennie and Francie.  They wore them to church Sunday and everyone thought they were just darling.  Thanks Grandma Eichner!

 

Anna and Steve and little Francie (observation only) are mastering skills in rug pulling and fan installation.  They hope to sand and seal the wood floor they discovered under their carpet.

 

The house is empty at times without dear Grandma Webb. We still turn our heads as we walk in the door to greet her.   Kent and Mignon surprised us at the viewing in Burley and Peter, Amy, Dan, Micheal and Virginia, Don, Greshen, Emily, Grant, Abby and Macey comforted us at the funeral in Bluffdale. Mom and Dad came over the afternoon before she passed away and were a great blessing to us with their visit. 

 

Following is an excerpt in one of my journal entries in regards to her passing.

 

"I dont' know where Mom went but she was determined to go and didn't hesitate once she made up her mind.  It's funny or odd or peculiar as I go into her room to see her walker, oxygen, treadmill, a myriad of medicines she was taking still in their assigned day of the week box, her reading and sun glasses, her garments, pajamas, clothes, bed, scriptures opened to where she was reading last.  All left so abruptly behind. Her existence with us was tethered by all these concrete life giving things.  But when the time came to lay down her life she most decidedly left them behind and exited.  She left no trace of herself, none what so ever. But everything burdensome, that kept her physical body alive, is here in this room.  

And I am left to marvel at her complete absence.  Only the painful memory of her frail existence was left in my mind immediately following her death; the small body, crumpled, hunched over, oxygen hose-dragging fighting for the very breath it breathed. But miraculously, as the days pass by, her physical absence in the room and painful memory are gradually being replaced by the memory of her whole healthy self that is happy and complete. I feel blessed to have been a part of her healing."

 

Thanks for you love and prayers.  Paula