Did You See Our Friend Lisa At Women's Conference? Also: A Few Teddy Bear Memories

Lisa and Wes served in Norway together.  She was one of Wes's dearest mission friends and is one of our greatest heroes.

Lisa worked at Huntsman throughout Wes's five year cancer battle. Her companionship was a highlight of so many of our appointments and she was always a true help as we juggled small children and battled strong emotion. 

One of Wes's Huntsman appointments, his last actually, fell on his thirtieth birthday.

Leave it to Lisa to make sure there was cake and singing to balance out the blood draws and sobering scans.

We love her more than we can possibly say.  As touching and wonderful as the Women's Conference clip was - it couldn't possibly capture the complete depth of such an amazing woman.  We feel so blessed to know her!

Also, these pictures remind me of some other moments on Wes's thirtieth birthday that I'd like on the record.  But I think they're best told directly to Spencer...

For Spencer:

On your dad's thirtieth birthday, he and I took you and Lucy (and a gift certificate from Uncle Brent and Aunt Tonya), to Build-A-Bear for the first time ever.

February 2011

You both chose and stuffed your bears,

while Dad secluded himself in the privacy of a Build-a-Bear restroom for the purpose of recording an eight second message to go inside each of your bears.  That seemingly simple task was an emotional one for him.   And a grueling one.  Articulation and word finding were points of great frustration for Dad at that time, but he insisted on recording something for each of you on his own.  So you and Lucy and I wandered around the store for about 30 minutes while he recorded and re-recorded those few seconds worth of love.  And then, when the bears were all stitched up, he helped you bathe and clothe them.

Thus came "Baby Bear,"

and "Goldibear,"

into the family.  

Where they have subsequently been much loved.  

March 2011

There was, however, one instance of heartbreak associated with your bear...

We moved into our new house about a month after Dad died.  Being already in the midst of so much change, I didn't want the move to be hard on you and Lucy.   I remember carefully turning down your sheets on our first night alone, and making sure to have Baby Bear and Goldibear waiting for each of you in your respective rooms.  We put Lucy to bed first.  We said prayers together and listened to Dad's voice from the recording in Goldibear's hand.  Lucy snuggled into her covers.  You and I told her goodnight and I carried you into your new room.  We knelt and had our prayers together and then we gave Baby Bear a squeeze to hear Dad's message to you.  But.................nothing.  No Dad's voice.

The batteries couldn't have chosen a worse time to die.  You panicked after a few failed attempts and I tried to smooth over the sadness by saying something about Baby Bear being "so tired too" and "Lets just go to sleep." But my silent tears flowed steadily as I laid by you in the dark, long after you were asleep.

August 2011

You continued to play with Baby Bear after that disappointing night.  You continued to love and snuggle him.  But one day, about a year and a half later when you were four, you asked me in frustration why he still didn't work?! and I found him later that afternoon scarred with several serious scissor wounds.  When I brought him to you and asked you what had happened, you didn't say anything - just burst into tears, so sorry about what you had done.  We tucked Baby Bear onto a shelf downstairs and I told you I'd try to sew him up sometime.  

Months, of course, passed before that happened.  But as Christmas approached, I thought that getting Baby Bear fixed would be a great job for Santa.  

Conversations with Build-a-Bear personnel had previously indicated that we probably couldn't salvage Dad's original recording.  So I tried my best to splice together a message from some other audio recordings we had, and I took them and Baby Bear with me to the store.  But before leaving the house, a few tiny batteries Heather and Royce had sent for your Hex Bugs caught my eye.  I threw them into the bag with your bear, wondering if they might work to save the original sound box.  And...they did!  The folks at the store were super hesitant to tamper with that original box, but I asked them to please try switching the batteries, and it did, in fact, work.  

So on Christmas morning,  a freshly stitched and miraculously fixed Baby Bear was waiting for you by your stocking.   

You were as thrilled as I hoped you'd be.

Almost in disbelief, you ran downstairs to the spot you'd last seen Baby Bear - to make doubly sure that this new Christmas bear was, in fact, your own cherished bear and not just a replica.  When you couldn't find Baby Bear where you had left him, you knew that the "new" bear must really be him. 

You were so full of happiness in that moment that you then spontaneously ran to your room, retrieved a brand new, much larger and nicer teddy bear that we'd been given at school a few days before, and with a sweetness and love I can't describe but so much want to remember, you solemnly offered the new, plush bear to Grandma Packer (who had been quietly watching on) followed by millions of hugs and overflowing love, all the while clutching your own sweet, stitched up old friend. 

It was the best part of our Christmas morning that year.

One other Baby Bear moment I want to remember happened a few months later.  After a long day of school for all of us, I was in the middle of making dinner and helping Lucy practice the piano and I asked your five year old self to retrieve something for me from the storage room downstairs.  You protested with terrified pleadings, saying how scared you were to do it.  "Please?"  I asked, without real hope, remembering how similarly scared I was as a child to go to the basement alone.  You refused again, this time near tears, so I said OK and turned my attention back to Lucy at the piano, planning to retrieve the item myself when I finished.

But a few minutes later, I heard the sound of Dad's voice, as recorded in Baby Bear's hand, floating up from the basement.  Over and over.  I realized that you had grabbed your bear, carried him downstairs with you, and kept squeezing his hand so that Dad's voice could give you courage to walk through the empty rooms.

My eyes misted up with love, and when you made it back upstairs with the requested item, I hugged you good and tight.

That was two years ago, and now you're seven.  Baby Bear's batteries have long since failed again.  Goldibear's too now.  But I hope you and Lucy will both remember to keep listening for Dad's voice in your hearts.  He will continue to whisper courage and love.

We love you both so very much! You're our Goldilocks and Baby Bear, after all,

 no matter how big you grow! ;)