My Dad took such pride in his back yard. It was a sanctuary for him and my mom. Peaceful and quite, they could get away from the hectic day there. In the summertime, we would often eat dinner out there, because it was a lovely back yard. Mom and Dad always liked to work in the yard, planting flowers, and creating rock gardens…all the things that give a feeling of peace.
Not being a gardening type myself, I nevertheless always appreciate beautiful gardens and yards, especially if I don’t have to get them looking that way. My parents always took that great pride in their yard and garden, and it showed. Of course, in my younger years, I hated that we had to help with the yard and garden work, and I probably didn’t give it my best efforts. I liked just about anything better than gardening and yet that was what the family was doing, and they required my help. Now it is my sisters and our families who take care of my mom’s yard. Once a year we get together and do a major clean up in preparation for the coming summer, and before the snow falls, my daughter, grandsons, Bob and I rake and dispose of the leaves. Afterwards, we have lunch in the back yard, and think back on all the lovely times we had out there over the years.
Dad and Mom created their back yard as a haven where the family could gather in our own private…almost campground kind of place, and just enjoy being together. The best memories find my dad at the grill, cooking hamburgers or steaks for dinner, the girls in the kitchen preparing the rest of the meal, and when all is ready, we sit around the picnic table and talk and laugh. 
Then of course, there is sitting around the fire, or back then the grill, and roasting marshmallows until it got so late that we had to go to bed.
Yes, our family always loved camping, and Dad and Mom made the back yard into an extension of that favorite thing to do, in an effort to incorporate that beloved activity into our everyday lives, and thereby bring the family closer together. A pretty wise move, since we are all still very close to this day. I guess you could say that it was a legacy that they could leave for their kids, and a living legacy of my mom, who is still with us. It is with a grateful heart that I look back on the memories created in the back yard.
Bob’s great grandfather, Edgar Knox was an unusual person. He was the type of person who just never quit, never gave up on life. I only met him on that one visit, but that in itself was an amazing thing. He and great grandma traveled from Yakima, Washington to Casper, Wyoming for a visit in July of 1976, when my youngest daughter, Amy was just a month old, and my oldest daughter was 1 year old. They came down with Bob’s great aunt and uncle, Helen and Frank, but I still call the trip amazing in that Great Grandpa Knox was 93 years old at the time it took place, and yet he didn’t seem like he was a day over 70.
He and Great Grandma Knox still lived in their own home, just the two of them, with no help. They were both fully able to handle life on their own. Their home was beautiful, and well kept. He tinkered around the house keeping things maintained, while Great Grandma kept the inside of the house in perfect order and gave it that warm and welcoming feeling.
We enjoyed the time spent with them so much, that we made plans to travel to Yakima to visit them again. It just wasn’t often that you had the chance to spend time with someone his age that was so full of life, and we wanted that chance again. Unfortunately, that was not to be. When Great Grandpa got back to Yakima, he once again started doing some things around the house to prepare it for the winter months, and while cleaning out the gutters, up on a ladder, he fell and broke his hip. He was taken to the 
hospital, and seemed to be doing ok, but went into shock and was quickly gone.
We grieved the loss of this wonderful man, but made the decision to go on the trip anyway. It was a good decision. We had a wonderful visit with Great Grandma Knox, even though it was overshadowed with some grief, but we all agreed that Great Grandpa had lived a very full life. Going home at the grand old age of 93 years, isn’t the worst thing that can happen, when that life was one filled with activity, strength, and one’s full faculties right up to the end. While we missed him on that visit, we were always glad we came, because I think it was what he would have wanted.
Like most Americans, I spent part of the 10th anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks watching old footage of the attacks. Several things struck me looking back on those 102 minutes in time. It’s easy to see things like mistakes made, when you have the advantage of hind site, but at the time, everyone was operating under the normal procedures for emergency situations for the pre-September 11, 2001 world. We, however, no longer live in the same world we woke up in, on that Tuesday morning 10 years ago.
We had been taught that in a hijack situation, you cooperate with the hijackers, and you would most likely be freed when they got where they wanted to go. Of course, it had been quite a number of years since an airplane had been hijacked in the United States…and we had become complacent…assuming that it would never happen again…but we were wrong.
We had been taught that in emergency situations, stay where you are and help will be sent to you. It was all we knew. In reality, for anyone below the impact floors, evacuating immediately would have been the best thing to do. There was almost an hour from strike to collapse of World Trade Center Two…even longer for World Trade Center One. No one ever considered that the building could collapse, so many people were told to stay put. Listening to the recordings, makes me think about how awful those dispatchers must feel, knowing that the people they told to stay put, died because they didn’t evacuate the building. I’m not blaming the dispatcher, they were taught to keep people calm and in place until help comes to them. I also realize that there were people who were injured or otherwise incapable of getting out, and help had to come to them, but the able bodied citizen needed to be told to get out and take anyone they could with them.
I was struck with a renewed sense of shock when the towers fell. It seemed 
to be in slow motion, and very surreal, almost as if it wasn’t so, but was just a bad dream, like the dreams people have sometimes about falling, and they they wake up. Even though I knew it happened, and have lived with that reality for 10 years, it still didn’t seem possible…or real.
The rules all changed on September 11, 2001. We now have to each assess the situation we find ourselves in, and take the proper action for that situation. There is no norm. The new kind of terrorist and the new kind of war are the new norm, and they are sneaky and devious. We must be ever alert. Our survival could depend on it.
Like most people, I can tell you exactly where I was and what I was doing when the news came out about the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. I was at home, my grandchildren were just arriving to await the time to go to school. I was getting ready for work and to take them to school. Kevin, my daughter Corrie’s husband, called to tell us that there were fires at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. I remember saying, “How can that be? They are nowhere near each other!” I couldn’t wrap my mind around how that could be, until we learned that it was planes and terrorist attacks.
I remember feeling stunned all day, and for the next several days as well. Thoughts of all the people killed in the attack haunted me all day. I felt a deep sense of dread and pain for the families who had lost so much. Like most Americans, I wished I had a way to help, but I didn’t know of one, and I was needed at home. So I prayed, constantly for the people still trapped, as well as the dead, dying, their families, and our country.
As I look back on all that horror today, and listen to the people who complain about airport security, I have to wonder what they are thinking. It was complacency that opened our country up for those attacks. And it will be complacency that will bring them on again. If we are going to protect ourselves, and our country, we must stay ever alert.
And when I hear people saying that we should not profile those we search, I say, “Wake up!!” If we go into most other countries, we are looked at differently than their citizens. And while I am not racist, I feel like anyone who looks like they have an Arab background, needs to understand that if they are not a terrorist…then, we are doing this to protect them too. The rules have changed so much since that day, 10 years ago, when we found out the we can’t afford to be so trusting. We all need to be more understanding of those trying to protect us, and stop trying to make their lives more difficult. They are, after all, just doing their job like everyone else.
In a perfect world, none of this would be necessary, but in a perfect world, we would not have lost 2,819 people in one day, as the result of one planned terrorist attack. We don’t live in a perfect world, unfortunately, and there are people out there that hate us. I think we owe it to those who lost their lives to do our very best to make sure it never happens again.
Today is the 10th anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks. The memory of those attacks and those who lost their lives should be as vivid in our memories as they were 10 years ago, or 10 years from now. We must never forget!!
When Christopher was little, he wanted a baby brother very badly. His cousin Shai, who he spent a lot of time with had a little brother, and Christopher really wanted one too. A cousin can’t really compare to a brother of your own. When Corrie and Kevin found out that they were going to have another baby, they began talking to Christopher about being a big brother, and when they found out the baby was a boy, they began calling him by his name, Josh…so Christopher would already know it. It was a happy time, and Christopher was a happy boy. He was finally getting a brother too…just like Shai had!!
When Josh’s arrival came 5 weeks sooner that it should have, Christopher was taken to his Aunty Amy’s, and then when Josh had to be taken to Denver, due to immature lungs. Since Corrie was still in the hospital and Kevin had gone to Denver to be with Josh, Christopher came home with Bob and me. Corrie and Kevin had enough on their minds, and we wanted to assure them Christopher would be just fine. We then made plans to take Corrie down to Denver the next day when she was released from the hospital. We took Christopher to Denver too so he could see his new brother.
We stayed over night in Denver, and Christopher stayed at the hospital with Corrie and Kevin. We had one more visit to our little Josh, then Bob, Christopher, and I went back to Casper while Corrie and Kevin stayed to be with Josh. They would be there 2 weeks before Josh would be able to come home. They called Christopher every night to talk with him and tell him about his brother, but mostly to tell him they loved him and would be home soon.
Unfortunately, 2 weeks can be a very long time to a little boy who is only 2 1/2 years old. Corrie and Kevin tried to make him understand how much they loved him too, but he had seen their new baby and their new house, 
and he thought they didn’t want him any more. After two weeks of “living” with his “new family” he literally cried at the drop of a hat…his when it didn’t stay on his head. It broke my heart to see him so torn up. He just needed his mommy and daddy. He missed them so much, and just in time, they were able to come home.
Christopher was so happy to have his family back. And the really good news was that they brought that little brother that he had been wanting so badly. Most importantly though, his mommy and daddy still wanted him too. Christopher was the happiest boy ever. All was right in his world. It just doesn’t get any better.
When my oldest daughter was pregnant with her younger son, Joshua David, she had been given a due date of October 15th. That September, Bob and I were going to Denver for a Rockies Baseball game. I told Corrie that she was not to have this baby while I was gone, as I had been at the births of my other three grandchildren, and didn’t want to miss this one. I didn’t exactly expect Josh to come while we were gone, but I did have a sense of unease. Our trip to Denver was going along just fine, when Corrie called to tell us that she was in labor, and that they were trying to stop the labor. If Josh came at that time, he would be 5 weeks early. Some babies do ok that early, while others have problems.
Of course, my first thought was that she was kidding me, since I had told her that she was not to do this, but it quickly became evident that she was serious. I asked how much time we had, since it is a 5 hour drive home from Denver. She said that they were trying to stop the labor, and to wait just a little bit. We waited anxiously for the call to come that would tell us whether or not to race home. The decision was finally made to go home, as the labor would not stop. We headed out about 4:oo am and I was on pins and needles all the way, not to mention praying constantly.
I could not be on the phone with her constantly and that tore me up. It is hard to watch your daughter go through labor and birth, but far worse to have such a premature labor and you are 5 hours away. Every mile was excruciating. We did make it before Josh’s arrival, but not by much. I was so thankful. God saw to it that we got home safe and in time.
Joshua David arrived at 11:57 am on September 9, 1998, he weighed a pretty good 5 pounds 6.5 ounces, but plans were quickly made for him to be flown to Denver. His lungs were immature and he needed help with his breathing. It was decided that Kevin should accompany him on the flight. It was one of the hardest things the kids have ever done. Corrie was a wreck because she wanted to go, and Kevin was a wreck because she couldn’t. We assured them both we would bring her to Denver as soon as she was released.
Josh was placed in the Neo-Natal ICU at Presbyterian St Luke’s Hospital. His weight dropped to 4 pounds 3 ounces. Sometimes, as was the case for the kids, they had an available room on the nursing home side of the hospital where Corrie and Kevin could stay. The nice thing about that was that the kids could go over and see Josh, 24/7, and that is comforting to a parent. Josh was monitored constantly, and given superior care, for which we are eternally grateful to the staff. His 
weight began coming back up, but as they got close to coming home, he had a couple of Brady’s, which is when the heart skips a beat. It is normal for that to happen, even in healthy adults, but they won’t let the baby go home until it has been more that 24 hours, so they had to stay longer.
Finally the day came when Joshua David got to come home. We were so excited. His lungs had taken 2 weeks to mature, and he was healthy enough to come home. It didn’t take him long to make up for lost time once he got home. He quickly gained weight and grew into a wonderful little boy. We are so very blessed. God had provided a miracle for Joshua!! We love you Josh!! Happy birthday!!
When you look back on the lives of your babies, whether it’s your children or grandchildren, you see that there is an age at which you wish time would stop. They are at that perfect point between the sweetness of a baby, and the fun age of a child. You look at their little face and you see all the promise of the future, and yet you want to hold on tightly to the present. It is a mix of who they are, and who they will be, and you want to know who they will be, but yet you hate to lose who they are.
I could hardly wait to become a grandmother. I was ready for those babies to come, and every moment that I was blessed to spend with them, I have cherished…will always cherish, but when I look back at some of those pictures, each one has that one picture that holds such sweetness that it just melts your heart. Those are the ones that I just wish I could stop time for. My grandchildren are precious to me every day, and I love each one of them with all my heart, but there are moments and ages that will always live in my heart as being so special. That moment you wish would never end. Of course, you would miss out on the next special moment, if that one never ended, so you really don’t want that, and you are thankful that there is a picture to mark such a wonderful memory.
I have found that there are so many such moments that when you think about it maybe you wouldn’t want to stop time after all. That moment when your teenaged child or grandchild comes up to you for no reason and just gives you a hug and tells you they love you…or posts that they love you on Facebook. It sometimes surprises you so much to think that they don’t care if their friends see it, because it is simply how they feel. Does life get any better than that…ever?
I find myself very thankful for my memory, so I can store all of those sweet moments in it, for review later on…especially during a bad day. Those memories can change any bad 
day into a good one, just 
by looking into that sweet little face. I guess that is really my reason for having children and grandchildren. There is no greater blessing than to have a sweet little person who loves you so much, just because you are Mommy or Grandma. It doesn’t mean you are perfect, or even all that important to the rest of the world, but to that child, you are important, and you are great, and at least for a moment in time, you are their whole world…and they are yours…them and that sweet little face.
When our girls were little, Bob and I took them to Helena, Montana to visit he Aunt Marion’s family. Aunt Marion was Bob’s dad’s older sister. She and her husband John lived in Helena with their 8 children. Bob and I had not gone to see them since our marriage, and we were on our way to visit his mother’s grandmother, so we decided to take a couple of days to visit Aunt Marion and her family too. It was September and the weather can be unpredictable.
We were going to run a couple of errands, and the sky was clouding up. Aunt Marion suggested that we leave the girls at the house in case it rained. So we headed out to the store. We completed our shopping much more quickly without two babies to carry too, so we were thankful that Aunt Marion had offered, and of course, her kids were excited about having some time to play with their little cousins too. And our girls were having such a good time when we left, that we knew they would be fine with it.
Nevertheless, I had an uneasy feeling as the sky got more and more black and the clouds began to look menacing. As we finished up our errands and headed back to Aunt Marion’s house, the lightning and thunder began. The weather almost reminded me of tornado weather, and I definitely didn’t like that. As we pulled up to Aunt Marion’s house their was a flash of lightning directly in front of us. The lightning hit the power line in front of her house, and literally danced along the power line for several seconds. I had never seen anything like it. Now I had a new dilemma. To go into the house…under that power line, or to stay in the car and leave my babies 
in the house with that monstrous lightning storm threatening my girls. I knew it was unreasonable. The girls were in no danger, but I just couldn’t get past the obstacle that stood between me and my girls.
Of course, everything was fine in the house, and I was just being silly, but I can tell you this. Seeing lightning strike…in any of the dramatic forms that can take, is something that you never forget, and to this day I can still see it in my mind. That has been 35 years ago, and I have never seen lightning strike in front of me again, something I can honestly say I’m not sorry about, but I will never forget the day in Helena, Montana when I did.
Every year about this time, I start to get mixed feeling about the weather…or should I say the changes that are happening in the weather. It is a mix of sadness that the summer is just about over, and anticipation of the coming fall. It is getting up in the morning and shivering around the house, and needing air conditioning before the day is over.
I can’t really explain how I feel about the coming of fall. The lazy summer days are behind us again, and the days with my grandchildren back in school, and filled with activities and sports are upon us. There is excitement as my grandson, Chris starts football. And before we know it there will be concerts, basketball, dances and the holidays.
I always miss the longer summer days, with all their warmth. Wearing shorts and sandals, and not needing a coat. Those days that are just easier. No need to bundle up, or dig our way out of snow. And yet, there is a certain amount of anticipation that makes me look forward to fall…just a little bit. Even though I know that fall will soon give way to winter, I can’t help but look forward to all that the next season will bring. The changing of the leaves, bringing yellows and a few reds in my area. Foggy mornings now and then, as the cooler air settles down on the warm ground.
I know it’s odd coming from a girl who truly hates winter, to say that she is looking forward to fall, but the older I get, the more I realize that I really like spring and fall, because the days are warmer, but not sweltering, and yet I love summer for it’s hot days that can be enjoyed with just a little help from an air conditioner, and winter…well yes, winter will come after fall, but it won’t last forever, and after it is over, we will once again move forward into a glorious spring, that is waiting…just a few months away.
Bob and I used to make frequent trips to Montana to visit his grandparents, and sometimes there would be a special occasion in which the whole family would go, or at least a lot of them, for a reunion or some other bigger occasion. Often that would mean some of us staying at the homes of family in Forsyth, while others stayed at the ranch. But no matter where they had everyone stay, at some point, everyone would end up at Grandma’s…the ranch.
The times spent out at Grandma’s always meant big, delicious meals…all home cooked and fresh from their own cattle and garden. Everything tasted so much better there. The cream in the coffee is like nothing you have ever had, unless you got it right from the cow. It was not that tasteless stuff you get at the store, but rather, rich, creamy, thick cream that you had to spoon into your coffee. I’m partial to cream in my coffee, but I have never found anything to compare to that real cream. It just tastes heavenly. The Strawberry-Rhubarb jam that Grandma made from fruit grown in her garden. The beef that Butch raised on the ranch, and eggs right from the chickens. My goodness, I can still taste those things in my memories.
Then, ultimately, after dinner, while the women cleaned up the dishes and kitchen, the men would retire to the front yard, for a meeting of the minds. They would talk about the ranching business, and whether or not they would get a good price for their cattle that year. They would talk about how the mining business was going, since Uncle Eddie and my father-in-law both worked in mines. They might talk about the rain, or maybe the lack thereof, depending on the year, because the life blood of a rancher is the rain. They have to have it if at all possible. These were men who knew what they were talking about. They had watched the trends and made careful decisions based on what they knew of the business they were in.
It was always such a heart-warming thing to watch this father and his sons and step-son talking things out together…each one giving their input while the others listened intently, gleaning every bit of wisdom that the others had to give, and tucking it away in the innermost recesses of their minds, knowing that some day the information stored there would come in handy. These men knew their businesses and had the wisdom of many years behind them. And the memory of those little meetings warms my heart, and I wish with all my heart that those meetings were not just a memory, but since Grandpa has gone home to Heaven, that is what they must sadly remain. Memories of a different time and place.
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