The eternal Evelyn Asay

Early this morning, my grandmother, Evelyn Asay, died. We have been expecting it for weeks. Months, even. But she chose today, roughly a week after my parents returned home from serving as missionaries in Argentina for the past three years.

What a blessing.

She was frail with age and tired of hanging on, given how much she wanted to be with her parents who died when she was a child, as well as to see her husband again (pictured below). It was a very good time to go.



I feel no sadness today - only joy. These past three years have given me an unparalleled opportunity to get outside of my self, and serve her. With my parents gone, I could no longer hide behind their service ("No need for me to see Grandma - Mom and Dad already do"), and had to do so myself.

I think it felt like a duty for exactly three seconds. That's about how long it took for me to realize that I wasn't rendering Grandma service, but rather she was serving me by talking to me, caring about me, loving me.

It was also a blessing for my children, who sometimes accompanied me. Lily and Greta, in particular, got to join me as their school demands were light. I love this picture of Lily talking with Grandma on a visit Jen had with Grandma back in 2008:



Serving Grandma these past few years has been one of the greatest blessings of my life.

Will I miss her? Of course I will, and do. But I don't subscribe to the irrational belief that life is extinguished by death. Anyone who knew my grandmother would not dare to suppose that such a strong, sometimes cantankerous spirit would simply evaporate at death.

Of course she lives on. Of course I'll see her again. Nothing could be more reasonable than that.

Luke 24:5. "Why seek ye the living among the dead?" It was a true question to ask of Christ, who made it a true question to ask of anyone else. I know without doubt that it is true.

And so I'm not saying 'goodbye' forever to Grandma, but rather letting her catch up with the rest of her family, those who have died before. I love her wit, her fire, her stubbornness (well, mostly I love that :-). It will be wonderful to see her again, but in the meantime I need to raise my own children to honor and respect her name by the choices they make.

What a beautiful person, my grandma.

Always someone faster

I got out my mountain bike for the first time in a year yesterday to ride with one of my dad's friends, Rob Rowley. This is a guy who enters races against Lance Armstrong and who, as nearly as I can tell, eats testosterone for breakfast.

But I didn't know that when he invited me to ride with him and a group of friends.

I only figured it out after we made the initial climb up the Spiro Trail (Midmountain Trail) and he managed to have a normal conversation with the other riders even while my heart was hammering at 2,000,000 beats per minute (or was that per second?!?). As most of the other riders zoomed on with Rob and I faded into the distance, I caught snatches of conversation that confirmed that I was riding with a group of cyborgs, with Rob the king of machines.

And I felt OK about it.

Not at first, mind you. I'm used to being the fastest among the friends with whom I ride. I'm used to patting myself on the back for my fitness and abilities. But on Saturday I got completely dusted. I wasn't even close to being the fastest, despite being arguably in the best shape of my life.

As I ate my way through the dust clouds left by the faster riders, it struck me just how pointless much of life's competition is.  All I got for my efforts was this scrape when a stump-masquerading-as-a-speed-bump thwarted my puny efforts to catch up.

I spend far too much time comparing myself to others around me, alternating between elation that I'm outpacing someone else and depression when someone richer/more athletic/smarter/better-looking/etc. blows past me.

Neither reaction really makes any sense.

The reality is that there is always someone faster. It doesn't matter what pace I'm at today, someone, somewhere is going to pass me. Even Lance Armstrong has been eclipsed after years at the top (and if you check those race results Armstrong finished three hours ahead of Rob, which makes me want to cry, just thinking of how fast Armstrong must have been going).

No one remains the "-est" in any category for very long, and most of us don't get anywhere near being the best in anything at any point in our lives, except within very small niches of very small segments of the world's population.

Far better to just enjoy the time with those around us, as was the case with Ragnar last week. Some of the people were competing to win - one of my neighbors saw his team claim fourth place overall in a field of 1,050 teams and 13,000 participants - but most of us were competing with ourselves to perform well, and enjoying the time with our teams and the people around us.

This seems like a sensible approach: pace yourself to perform your best, and try to forget about how fast others are going. Last time I checked, God doesn't care at all for how we fare against our peers. Neither should we.

My Ragnar life

Perhaps life is wonderful not in spite of difficulty, but because of it.

Jen and I spent the last few days gasping through Ragnar, the 188-mile relay race that starts in Logan, Utah, and goes to Park City, Utah, with some amazing scenery and lung-busting climbs in between. Operating on one hour of sleep, our six runners (I was #9 and Jen was #12) each ran about 15 miles, which sounds easy until you realize that it's split into three separate blocks with time for leg cramping and no sleep in between.

It was a bit miserable at times.

Like at 5:30 AM Saturday morning, when our team was done with our second stretch of running and headed to Jaime Wissler's cabin in Browns Canyon to sleep...until 7:00 AM.  

When my alarm went off, every rude or angry though I had ever had in my life (I've had many) went through my head and nearly came out my mouth.  I wanted to be doing anything but Ragnar.  I can be surly and antisocial at the best of times, but yesterday morning was not the best of times.

Or maybe it was.  Less than 24 hours later, I'm looking forward to next year, despite spending $100+ to feel pain and sleep deprivation.  

Why?  

Because I'm not sure it's possible to have this...

...without this.

Happiness is not what comes because we've somehow scored a free pass out of trials, but precisely because of those trials.  It is the overcoming and enduring well through such trials that makes us happy.  The more we seek to shirk struggle, the more we become intellectually, spiritually, and emotionally anemic.


I can think of plenty of ways to make Ragnar easier.  But that would defeat the point. Ragnar was great precisely in proportion to its discomfort...alloyed with good people, good exercise, and a good cause.