About me? Well, I’m about my family. My husband and I have been married 56+ years and we have four children and 25 grandchildren and one great grandchild. A year ago we lost our only daughter to cancer. It was the hardest thing either of us has ever lived through. She left behind a loving husband, five children and her dog, Skamp. Many, many friends from all over the country are left with memories of her fun loving personality. She also is dearly missed by many loving family members, most acutely by her cousin and very best friend, Stephanie Hohman. I have created this page in her honor because she is a huge piece of me. This first article is one I wrote. I’m humbled that it was accepted for publication by the Meridian Magazine.
Finding Peace When Promised Blessings Don’t Come
My daughter is gone. I’m in the throes of grief and have a hard time saying the “d” word relating to her absence.
Five years ago, my adult daughter got her first diagnosis of breast cancer. As a faithful young woman, her first thought was to request a Priesthood blessing. One phrase stood out in that blessing, “You will recover, but the road will be long and hard,” a proclamation we all celebrated. She joined a support group and organized her life to take on the challenges of chemotherapy, surgeries, and radiation. Her sunny disposition and positive frame of reference remained constant. She continued to walk, run, hike mountains, paddle board the lakes, and roller-blade her favorite trails. She planned family activities and baked for her family. She went all organic and delighted in posting newfound knowledge about healthy eating. She posted her progress to social media, always encouraging others to keep fighting their struggles and to pray for help from the Lord. She finished her treatments and was pronounced “clean” of cancer and enjoyed a year of bliss believing she won the fight.
Two and a half years ago, the other shoe dropped. Results from a regular check-up showed the demon known as cancer was back, this time in the bones. Again, a Priesthood blessing, this time from her older brother. He prepared for that blessing through fasting and prayer asking the Lord to help him say the right thing and for inspiration to know how to bless his little sister. The invocation was eerily similar to the first. “You will recover, but the road will be long and hard.” Again, we rejoiced that the Lord was blessing us and we all vowed to lend our faith to hers to worthily receive that blessing. This time the chemo was stronger and coupled with radiation to a spot on her back. Still, her confidence didn’t diminish.
She took classes to become a Certified Nursing Assistant and then a Phlebotomist. She worked in a nursing home and then for a hospital as a Phlebotomist complete with her own little office and regular hours. She bicycled 7 miles each way to and from work. She set a goal to become a Registered Nurse and determined to use her experience to work with others fighting all forms of cancer. She talked about adopting another child when she regained her health, and she wanted a puppy to cuddle on her lap. Her husband retired from the United States Air Force after 24 years of service, and he enrolled to become a Registered Nurse himself. This opened up a wonderful new life for them to include a move back to Utah where they could be close to family. She made a criteria list of what she hoped to find in the way of housing. It needed to afford her boys the option of playing lacrosse in school, and she wanted a bit of property so they could play loudly without bothering the neighbors. She continued to plan her life as though she would be mortal for many years to come.
A hospital admittance for a blood transfusion brought her into contact with an elderly mission couple, and the gentleman offered her a blessing. She agreed, and his grace again assured her she would recover, but it would take a while. She and all her family rejoiced once more, confident she was on the right track to enjoy an extended earthly life. We needed to combine our faith and wait for the miracle.
Several months before her death she asked me if I remembered the story in the Bible of the leper being told to go bathe in the River Jordan seven times to be healed and noted it to be a test of his faith. I told her I did remember that story and she said she would go to the House of the Lord, the temple, seven times as a show of her faith. I vowed the same thing in my home temple and even sent her some family names so we would have help from the other side of the veil. The challenge was issued to her brothers and their families. We were united in our faith and on one of Robyn’s temple visits, she had two very spiritual experiences confirming she was on the right track to be healed.
A few days before her death, she called me to her bedside and begged me to stay with her and not allow her to fall asleep. She told me she still had the tiniest bit of hope. I conveyed to her that we all had that same hope and that I was very proud of her because she passed the test. She responded with, “Yes I did.”
March 5, 2019, at 12:53 PM she took her final breath. Cancer destroyed my little girl. It took away her ability to conceive, she lost two gorgeous heads of thick curly hair, she suffered excruciating pain from a disfiguring tumor on her back. Her liver swelled to the point of causing her to appear very pregnant, and she had fleeting moments of clarity.
She indeed suffered the “long hard road,” but she did not recover. Or did she?
Those blessings were given through worthy Priesthood holders being inspired by our Heavenly Father to his spirit daughter, his daughter known to all of us as Robyn. Heavenly Father told his daughter that she would recover, but it would take a long time. If we could read between the lines, we might hear this. “Robyn, my beautiful child, you’ll recover, but the earthly covering known as your body has become diseased with cancer. The world you live in is polluted, and your earthly covering is likewise polluted by that disease. Your sickness will last a long time, and it is going to be very hard, but when cancer has destroyed the very vehicle giving it life, you will break free, you will recover, and you will come home.”
The person I have referred to as “my daughter” is not mine. I was privileged to provide her with a temporary earthly tabernacle and to nurture her for the first 18 years of her life. For the next 27 years, I was likewise privileged to associate with her as an adult. Now she is gone, gone back to her Heavenly home. My job is complete, she no longer needs me. I am thankful for that association, and I look forward to seeing her again someday. I miss her and am thankful for the blessing of having her as part of my “forever family.” She will be one of my favorite souvenirs from my mortality.
I have to admit I don’t “know” anything. I can’t even say I “believe” anything. Like my daughter, I have a tiny bit of “hope” that what I’ve been taught and what I’ve espoused to others is true and correct and that must suffice for now. I’ll continue to live my life as I’ve always lived it knowing that it brings me contentment and peace. The Gospel of Jesus Christ has always brought me comfort, and I’ll continue to do what I can to share it with others. I’ll continue to honor the covenants I made at baptism to remember Him and to keep His commandments. I’ll continue to honor the covenants I’ve made in the House of the Lord and will attend the temple often to be reminded of those covenants. I’ll look for ways I can serve and be a good example of my faith. I’ll attend my meetings and partake of the sacrament with the “hope” that Christ, my mediator with the Father, will not have suffered in the Garden of Gethsemane in vain. I’ll look forward to standing as part of His Glory to be presented to the Father and experiencing the next part of my eternal progression. That is “My Hope.”
Changing By Design
I asked my son, Roy, to shoot some butterflies at Thanksgiving Point for my Living Welderly website. He wrote of this assignment, “While creating this video, it’s hard for me not to get emotional about how these beautiful little creatures represent our little sister, aunt, daughter, mom, and wife….so beautiful, social, playful, broken winged, yet in the end, gracefully climbed into the light. Fitting. Hope you enjoy this tribute.” I decided to include it in this tribute.
Gone From My Sight
I am standing upon the seashore. A ship, at my side,
spreads her white sails to the moving breeze and starts
for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength.
I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck
of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.
Then, someone at my side says, “There, she is gone.”
Gone where?
Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast,
hull and spar as she was when she left my side.
And, she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.
Her diminished size is in me — not in her.
And, just at the moment when someone says, “There, she is gone,”
there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices
ready to take up the glad shout, “Here she comes!”
And that is dying…
By Henry VanDyke