The Adventures of Paul

As we pondered how long Paul was in his mom's belly, we noticed that he had done quite a lot with his mom and dad during his short stay here on earth. He has camped and hiked in Big Basin State Park(CA), backpacked and cliff-jumped in the Sierra Mountains, listened to his dad sing and play the guitar, worked in the garden with his mom a lot, went on a motorcycle ride to Half Moon Bay, went tide-pooling in the ocean, hung Christmas lights, traveled from California to Nevada, Utah, Wyoming and Idaho, went 4-wheeling, fed horses, went snowmobiling and tubing, watched his dad graduate as a Doctor of Chiropractic, listened to many high school and primary lessons from his mom, including animal wildlife ecology lessons enthusiastically taught along the Hayward, CA shoreline, helped at the "Coastal Clean-up," helped organize the 10K on the Bay, went snow skiing several times, went on a tram ride in the Tetons, learned karate by kicking his mom in the ribs so many times, flew on an airplane, played with several of his cousins, cross country skied the Olympic course at Soldier Hollow, went to aquariums in San Fran and Utah, went to several of his dads soccer games, laughed with his mom and dad during funny movies, watched some great University of Utah football games, breathed in the majestic spring mountain air on trails in the Wasatch mountains, felt the fantastic sugar-rush of some good European chocolate, went over the speed limit on an ambulance ride, felt the loving touch of his mom and dad, got a sponge bath from his mom and dad, had his diaper changed by his mom and dad, he got to be in a parade of doctors and nurses on the way to get an MRI (and to go outside), finally got to be held by his mom and dad, and felt the warm sunshine on his face. He fought a good fight, he taught his mom and dad several spiritual lessons, he brought family and friends closer together, he increased the amount of love felt by many ten fold.



What most people see as a tragic loss, we at one time would have agreed and shed many...many tears. But there has also been enough to be happy about if we chose to acknowledge those feelings. We sure felt a strong presence at Paul's funeral of peace, joy and an overwhelming feeling of happiness. We know he was telling us it will be alright. There is no doubt that God could have healed him from his earthly condition, especially by all the prayers that were said on his behalf by all of you, but that was not part of the big plan. He was just too perfect for this world, and he has a lot of work to do on the other side.

This sorrowful experience, uplifted by your prayers, has helped us realize that just as there have been many opportunities to find feelings of joy, there have been equally as many opportunities to choose to be angry. It even seems that they cannot co-exist in your heart at the same time. You're either filled with anger, which pushes out all joy, or you're filled with joy and love, which replaces anger and propels one to forgive rather than take offense. We're blessed to have been given some insight as to discern between the two and we feel that we would not have learned that important lesson had we not gone through this. We hope that you can identify these choices in your life as well.

Thank You for your continued support and love, we definitely feel the love from all of you. You've been kind and generous and there is always room enough in this world for that.