What's on your mind?

Yesterday I went up to Bountiful for cousins' dinner and Aunt Barbara and Uncle Reid's house. On the way up we stopped to pick up my Grandma Homer. I remember coming to Utah or Idaho when I was younger I always felt like our family was the odd ones out because we all called her Grandma Homer while all of the other cousins called her Nana. I remember really feeling like I was part of the Homer family after I had returned from my mission because I made the switch--I started calling her Nana. Anyway, on the way up to Bountiful I looked over to see what was written on a piece of paper Nana had in her hands. I saw my name along with the names of her other grandchildren who were in the car. About a decade ago she suffered a stroke, and since then her memory has all but gone. Time is a funny thing. It gives us all of our sweetest memories and moments, but then it takes them away. I think of a quote from a book I read recently:

“To think the affairs of this life will always remain in the same posture, is a wild supposition; on the contrary, everything goes in a round; I mean, goes round. Spring succeeds winter, summer follows spring, autumn comes after summer, and winter comes in the rear of autumn; then spring resumes its verdure, and time turns round on an incessant wheel. Only the life of man runs lightly to its end, unlike the circle of time, without hope of renewal except in another life, which is not bound by limits.”

Last Christmas while Nana was staying at our house, I was talking to her out on our hammock-swing. I noticed a beautiful damond ring on her right ring finger. I asked her if that was her wedding ring. She said it wasn't and then pointed to a tiny silver band on her left ring finger, "This is my wedding ring. Your grandfather bought it for me when he returned from the war. It cost him seven dollars. That's all he had and that's all I needed." I think about the time when Nana's memory won't be bound by the physical limits placed on her eighty-eight year old frame. I also think of a time when her love for her husband and for her children and grandchildren won't be bound by any limit placed on our fallen state.