Isn't it great?

For some reason I love Memorial Day. Growing up I remember traveling around the valley to all the cemetaries to visit those passed on. We drove over to Honeyville, UT to place a plant on my Grandma Isaacason and her baby's grave and later we added my Grandpa Isaacson, then over to Logan, UT to see my Grandma & Grandpa Nelson, then up to Mendon, UT to visit a brother-in-law. I learned at an early age the importance of respecting those passed on and the ground they are buried in. I'm grateful for this experience I had for 19 years. Today I don't live close enough for my children to have this experience, but I hope to share with them the importance of Memorial Day. A time to honor those who have passed on before us. In our sacrament meeting the speaker shared this poem...It really touched me so much that I asked for a copy of it. I will end my post with this:

"I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails. I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp. I want to be there with grass stains on my shoes from mowing Sister Schenk's lawn. I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbor's children. I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone's garden. I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulders. I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived."

Sister Marjorie P. Hinckley