Tribute to My Mother

For Carolyn Jensen Wyatt

1934-2015

My mother was strong. She was born in Mink Creek, Idaho, and that right there qualifies a person to be strong, but she was strong even by Mink Creek standards. At age 4, she fell off a railing outside the church and broke her neck. The doctor said it could not be set without paralyzing her. But after a priesthood blessing and a chiropractic adjustment, she was up and running again. At age 5, her dad bought her a horse, a big bay named Chub, and gave her a job, riding Chub to the fields to deliver his lunch, and on the derrick to load the hay in the barn. At age 8, she started her first pay job, babysitting occasionally for a couple with three children and a newborn baby, in their two-room cabin with no plumbing, no hot water, and a coal stove on which she fixed supper for the children. My mother lived through The Great Depression, World War II, and the sudden accidental death of her father when she was only 11 years old. In her teens, she had her wisdom teeth removed and went to her senior prom that night.

In her 20s, my mom drove down the Alcan highway (that’s short for Alaskan-Canadian, if you haven’t heard of it) in a Volkswagen beetle with my dad and two baby boys in the dead of winter without telling anyone they were coming for Christmas--and lived to threaten us never to do something that stupid. With my father, she took us on vacation every year, but never to a hotel; always to camp in the wilderness, from which she returned with a plastic bread sack full of smelly cloth diapers to be washed. She managed the household while Dad traveled the world with his job. She had family night every week, and family prayer every day; this is no small feat.

Mom canned a bushel of apricots while in labor with me, and she rode in Dad’s new Jeep to the top of Mount Logan five days later, with me on her lap. She breastfed her babies when it wasn’t in style because she figured nature could never be improved upon. She was always (literally: always) the last one to bed at night, and the first one up in the morning. She fed us oatmeal, Germade and fried eggs for breakfast because they were healthy, and she never broke down under our complaints. She cared for her mother and her in-laws when each was stricken with dementia. She killed a mountain tarantula in my tent at girls’ camp when everyone else ran screaming. She balanced the budget to the penny, ground wheat for homemade bread, and raised her own fruits and vegetables. She survived for days on end with no sleep while caring for my Dad with Alzheimer’s. When my father died, she posted a note on her fridge: “Don’t cry because it’s over; smile because it happened.”

My mom seldom caught a cold. She never had a headache. I thought she would live forever.

At age 74, my mother learned to use Facebook to stay in touch with her grandchildren. At age 75, she wrote this Facebook status: “Cut a fairly large elm tree down today. I cut another one yesterday. They were both about 40 to 50 feet tall. I found out if you cut all the branches in small pieces, you can get a whole tree in one giant green garbage can. It’s interesting what an old lady can do once she puts her mind to it. My new grass, and new tree are doing great. Ya just cut some down, and then plant another. That's life!”

When she was diagnosed with Stage 3 Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma last spring, she never shed a tear. Her faith in God had never failed her before, and it didn’t fail her now. She said she’d been healthy all her life (except for a short but scary stint with hyper-thyroidism on her mission) and she had to expect to have her turn being sick sometime.

When my mom was a child, her father, Harry Jensen, was known throughout Mink Creek Ward for his faith. For example, he defied a doctor’s order to have a badly infected eye removed, saying his ward would fast and pray for him and it would be okay. The doctor said he would go blind if he waited. But Harry Jensen was right; his eye healed completely over the weekend. The ward members said the only way he would die would be in a sudden accident, because then he wouldn’t have time to pray and be healed. And that is exactly how he died: in an instant, when a hay rack fell on him and a nail pierced his temple.

My mother had the same kind of faith.

My mom decided to have the “red devil” chemo at the age of 80 because she wanted to live to enjoy the i-phone Gordie had just given her and to see her last two grandsons go on missions. She said she wouldn’t complain, and she didn’t. I know: I was there every day.

For the first time in her life, people brought her dinner instead of her taking it to them, and we as her children were able to help her instead of her helping us. She loved the visits from ward members and neighborhood children. May I say, the Providence Third Ward is truly outstanding in their care of widows.

One day I got a text message from her: “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.” Her chemo-brain had forgotten how to make a call on the i-phone, but remembered the new skill of texting. I insisted she come to stay at my house, but she was back home in a week, with part-time in-home care given by my daughter.

Mom was triumphantly declared cancer-free in September. I know the prayers of many of you combined with hers and ours to help her heal with less rounds of chemo than were expected. Her blood test in October was completely normal—“Not just improving,” said Dr. Ben-Jacob in astonishment, “but completely normal,” and she began physical therapy to regain her muscle strength. The only medication she was still taking was a blood thinner, and she even succeeded in her personal goal of making Dr. Ben-Jacob smile. Her faith combined with the miracles of modern medicine had made her whole.

Last Tuesday her grandson Aaron dropped in to visit for a couple of hours.

Wednesday night she played “Taboo” with my younger children and me, all of us laughing our heads off.

Thursday the bishopric stopped by and observed that she would soon be well enough to return to church.

Friday Garth Woolsey delivered a beautiful custom hand-carved cane to her, since she would soon be out of her wheelchair.

Saturday was her best day yet; she felt stronger and very optimistic. Her new DVDs of “The Ten Commandments” and “Ben-Hur” arrived in the mail and she was eagerly waiting to watch them with her granddaughter Savannah on Monday.

Sunday at 4:00 she turned down my offer to bring her to our house for dinner, but accepted my offer to bring her some lasagna later. At 7:15 I arrived to find her peacefully asleep on the couch with the TV on. But as I touched her arm, I realized she was not asleep. She had left this life in exactly the same way that her sister Coralie had left ten years before: her time was up, and her heart just stopped. And as in her dad’s accidental death, there had been no time to pray for healing. The strongest woman I ever knew was gone, and four days later her next great-grandchild would be born. Just like the big old elm tree, God “cut one down and planted another.”

I’ll never be as strong as my mother. I get colds and migraine headaches. I cry when I hurt. I’ve been known to sleep in. I sometimes let perfectly good fruit rot before I get around to preserving it (although I certainly never told my mom). I love the out-of-doors, but if my husband had ever asked me to get in a Jeep five days after delivering a baby, I’d have told him exactly where to take that Jeep. And I’m pretty sure I won’t be chopping down trees when I’m 75. Or any other age.

But if, like her, I can treat everyone as a precious child of God;

if, like her, I can greet each day, each person, and each situation with a smile,

if, like her, I can give without needing to receive;

if, like her, I can survive tragedy with triumph;

if, like her, I can love without limit;

if, like her, I can trust in my Savior Jesus Christ and serve in His church to the end of my life;

then, like her, I can face death with serenity—

and I will have been strong enough. 

--Given at her funeral, November 21, 2015