Dear Family,
Ryan said he would come looking for those who didn’t get their letters to him by the dead-line, maybe I should be late with this letter! We like him coming home, which isn’t very often. He did, however, stay a few days for Christmas. As usual, we got him right to work helping us out with projects. Maybe that is why he stays away! He got fed pretty well, though, and some gifts for his video career so he was a pretty happy camper.
And speaking of camping, Ray did find his RV! Never mind it is some odd twenty years old, it is still an aged beauty. Ray called Gerald to ask him if he should buy it and he told him, “Sometimes you just have to pull the trigger!” Can’t you just hear him saying that! The RV was in good shape, clean and runs well. It wasn’t too pricey so we can continue to let it be the proverbial “money pit,” up to a point. I still want a new, used vehicle for me to drive because the van is getting old, figuratively and in reality. We are so glad we have good jobs and our health is holding up.
Yet, in spite of a new RV, Ray really enjoyed two backpacking trips in the summer and fall of 2012. Allison, our oldest grandchild, went for the first time and was a real trooper. Ryan’s girlfriend and fellow rock climber, Natalie, even went and got to know some of the family.
We continued to spend time with our ten grandchildren and are so happy Michelle and Ben are expecting their third in April! The more posterity the better! We are just like Grandpa Dean, proud of his best crop: sons and daughters. There’s no greater joy than watching these kids grow up. The youngest, Stockton Spear, just turned 1. I sang Happy Birthday to him over the phone as he happily babbled in my ear. Stephanie and Drew’s family moved to Indiana in June. After nearly a year with them and trying to prepare for the good-bye day, it was still hard to see them off. Yet, we are glad they are embracing this new chapter in their lives. Thank goodness for Skype, the Internet, airplanes and cell phones. We feel blessed the other girls and their families live close. Yet, even then we don’t spend enough time together but love it when we do, even the noise!
Mentioning cell phones reminds me to let you all beware that if you drop yours in bacon grease, like I did mine, and think you can wash if off a little, it doesn’t work! Your callers will keep asking you to speak louder. Then you will have to pay for your “free” upgraded new phone that doesn’t work as well as the last one!
We drove the new RV to the old homestead after Robert’s sudden passing in June. Getting to write some of his life sketch and obituary was indeed a privilege of mine. Looking at the old pictures we have of him during our college years brought back a flood of memories. Getting to smell deer, elk and moose roasts cooking in the trailer he shared with Ray was a new experience, but it usually tasted good, just different. He took my roommates and Ray and me on fun, spooky, midnight rides above his stables in Springville in ’74. One time he told Ray he could make me mad just so Ray could see how mad I could get before he married me. They took me on a “special” horseback ride up in the hills. Coming down was worse. To their dismay, I only got annoyed!
Years later, during a SV visit, as I started to back my car out onto the highway in front of the Etna home, I briefly saw in the distance Kenny and Robert being true cowboys. They quickly handled some frisky horses and jumped into the saddles. Wish I could have filmed it. No Western could have been better!
Then, spending time with him as he did business using his laptop in California at the 2011 family reunion, hear him sing at the campfire and enjoy his visits at our home are just a few of the many recent memories I have of him. Ray, I’m sure, has a lifetime.
During the family time, in the small room just before the funeral, I sat across from the foot of his casket. I could look out the window of the church to the East and see the rolling Star Valley hills. It was a beautiful, clear summer day. The green fields were moist and shiny from the morning sun. In the distance two young horses were nuzzling and playing with each other. It was a setting Robert would have loved to watch. Maybe he was. It made me feel that life would go on, on this beautiful earth, and that he, too, was going to continue to have great experiences in his post-mortal life. I know he won’t be too far away, still watching his family he loves so much.
Stay healthy and safe and see you at the reunion.
Love, Becky and Ray
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