Butterfly Commitee

I had to steal this pic from the obituary. I haven't had the chance to go through all my photos yet.

This is Miss Gae Beckstrom. We always called her Miss Gae, she was a school teacher. She was my first YW president when I was a kid. She served in YW's up until I went to college. I even babysat her kids a time or two.

I was lucky enough to have continued a relationship with her through out the years. She bought Rebekah her first pair of Hiking Boots.

almost 4 years ago she was diagnosed with Breast Cancer and I was able to watch from afar while she struggled with this disease.

When my parents returned home from their mission, my mother, who is a nurse was able to spend a great deal of time with Gae. She took her to doctors appointments, shopping and helped clean her house.

At the beginning of the school year, her condition took a sudden turn. She was discovered to have 200 tumors all throughout her body, many of which had ruptured making it impossible for her to have an MRI because of the intense pain of sitting in one position too long.

I was aware that she wasn't going to be around much longer, so I went to visit her a few weeks ago.

We talked for an hour of life and what was going on with all of her children. I am facebook or blog stalkers with most of them, so I was aware of a lot of things that were happening in her extended family life. Most of all we laughed.

One of the things that we laughed about most was when she died she was going to make sure and be in the line or "why didn't I get a beautiful singing voice" Her oldest two daughters were blessed with this talent and I sang with them on numerous occasions. That was her first

priority when getting to the other side. The next line she wanted to be in was for the Butterfly Committee. She wanted to make sure that butterfly's were kept beautiful and unique for the world.

It really got me thinking about what line I would stand in. We discussed patience, but decided that the line for that one was probably really long and I wouldn't have the patience to stand in it.

When she finally passed away on Thursday morning, I was once again shocked at how many memories I had of her and what an impact she had

on my life.

In an effort to help me feel as though I had done something for her, I asked my friend Andy at www.poppiesatplay.blogspot.com to design something to give to each of her kids.

In no time at all she had created this wonderful tribute to my friend. I can't wait to give it Erin, Emily, Adam and Jamilyn.