Family Blog

These past two weeks have been very busy and stressful for me, but, somehow, I have also managed to squeeze through some coherent thoughts. First and foremost, yesterday (2/28) was the first anniversary of Jay’s passing, and I know that Ben, Jeni, and I each processed that in different ways. Jay Reed’s funeral was a really wonderful service that seemed to book-end what has been a truly death-filled year. What I most took away from that was the importance of being a pillar to the people close to me. As much as it seemed that he relied on others, literally, for his life, it was very apparent that many people will be utterly lost for some time without Jay. And it was the same with our Jay. This past year has been a time for us to prove that Jay’s years with us were not wasted- that we took as much light from him as we could, and are using it to go forward. At the exact hour of the anniversary, Jeni was toasting his memory with a friend who was with us that night; Ben and I were both stuck at different points on the outer loop of the Beltway. I turned the radio off, and said a prayer of sincere gratitude- thankful for the gift of memory. I feel like that is probably as close as I’ll ever get to the meaning of life. If the Book of Mormon is to be believed- all we have to do is remember- blessings, trials, revelations, traumas, commandments, examples. It’s all given to us, if we would only remember.
I think that’s all the coherence I can handle for the evening. I can share, though, that my company “passed” our audit, and we are being “recommended for certification” - with no nonconformances! (And that never happens, so it’s pretty incredible!)