Richins

Life keeps moving on. This week has seemed hard but it’s been good. I am trying to find and focus on the good more so here are the things I have noticed. We made it through Festival of Trees and the first week of SilverRush. That week is full of long hours but so fun because of the time I get to spend with my siblings, cousins, aunts and friends.  It was weird not to have my mom at festival this year. She decided to swap places and take care of Evelyn and grandkids and not go over. Lilly and Lucy are old enough to be able to help at festival, which made it even better. Evelyn is getting better! Her tailbone has healed enough from her fall the day after Roberta fell, enough for her to be mostly comfortable sitting around in the house. She also has been getting dressed more. And though she wanted to be a Scrooge this year, since it’s the first year with our Roberta, and not sent Christmas cards, but with, my sister Marian’s, help she signed and even wrote notes in them.  It is...

Warning - this is long and detailed and probably TMI. It was helpful to write it out for me and it will be good to have a record of it. The good with the bad have to be recorded. Two weeks after Roberta passed away and three days after her funeral I had a miscarriage from an unplanned pregnancy that I hadn’t told anyone about. I figured it out around the time Roberta started to decline in August. I was mad and in shock and didn’t know how to tell anyone especially Glen because we were suppose to be done having kids. I was hoping it wasn’t and that all the signs I knew so well from 5 other times were something else and that my body that has worked the same way for over twenty years was just giving me a break or I was just getting older or something. So I didn’t tell anyone or do anything but try to ignore it and deal with life outside my body and a dying loved one. So on November 5 after young women’s in excellence was over and I was visiting with the new Relief society president and ...

 Here are some things I want to remember about when Roberta passed away and the time leading up to the funeral and the funeral. My mom and dad had been out of town and got back the night before Roberta passed away. I feel like she really waited for my mom to be back and Mom does too. She said she could tell it was close when she got back that night. Marian and I got to spend the day with Evelyn and Roberta while my mom ran an errand to Gunnison, Utah on Tuesday. We didn't give her the bath we had planned on but changed her brief for the last time and got to just sit and be with her. My mom and Evelyn were in the room with her when she slipped through the veil. My mom was present and not on her phone but crocheting and just sitting being with Evelyn and Roberta, which wasn't a normal thing. I was helping to clean up the set from the play Lilly was in that night. I dropped the trailer off at my cousins that I had borrowed and was planning on going to Evelyn and Roberta's ...

For now here is a link to the obituary, recording of the funeral and slide show.  Roberta June Crane Hopefully I will get them here permanently soon This the obituary that ran in the newspaper. It is slightly different from the one on the mortuary website. Boy, how I miss this good lady. For someone who physically took up so little space in the world her spirit and influence were gigantic.

My dear Roberta passed away tonight, October 22, 2019 at 9:50pm with her sister and my mom with her. I am so happy for her and can imagine the huge welcome home party happening in heaven tonight with her parents aunts uncles cousins friends and neighbors. I will miss her so much though.  I love you Roberta!

There is so much going on in life other than taking care of Roberta and Evelyn, but this whole dying process is what takes up most of my brain space lately.  I don't know what I thought this part of things would be like but it is different than that. Glen ask me today what the hardest part of this end of life process is with them?  It took me a minute to figure out. I think it is the unknown and anticipation.  The unknown part for me is not knowing the dying process well enough and not having first hand experience so I lean on the hospice nurse's and social worker's information for the next little steps to look for. Maybe experience wouldn't help? Maybe everyone dies in their own way? The clinical/ medical side of me thinks it would. That everyone goes on their own time but that there are certain things that happen no matter what. I don't know, but that is one of my thoughts right now. Don't worry there is a part of me that is very happy that I don't have...

Life is moving right along. We had a good summer with fun family trips with each side of the family. School has started and it’s going to be an exciting year. Glen got to stay at Riverton High which is great because Lilly and him go to school together.  It is his fourth year there. Lilly’s is a sophomore. We thought she was going to have to do early morning seminary to fit in all her classes but we adjusted some things and are all so happy. We are only a week in to school and she is already so busy and involved. We are all happy for the extra sleep. She has stage crew, theater, physics, 11 honors math, French 1, 11 honors English, release time, and AP European History.  She is in a one act play at the high school called Squirrel Girl, auditioned to be on the Shakespeare team but didn’t make it on that or tech olympics, and was cast as Oaken the shop keeper in our community theaters production of Frozen Jr.  Her schedule makes me tired thinking about it.  Lucy ...