One Year Ago

Today marks the one-year anniversary of my aunt's death, so naturally I've been thinking about her. The grieving process has long since run its course (much faster for me than for her husband and children, I'm sure), but she's never all that far from my thoughts. I still wear one of those rubbery "live strong" type bands on my wrist in honor of her memory. Largely because I miss it when I don't wear it, and because it reminds me from time to time to be the kind of woman my aunt was.

My uncle's new wife wrote a beautiful piece about Amy and how they can still feel her spirit in their home. Her children each also acknowledged her lingering influence in their lives today, too. Even I can feel it. She did more to knit our whole extended family together than anything anyone else has ever been able to do. Before last year, I was just the college kid who occasionally saw my extended family. If family things happened, I didn't always know about them. If I did, I didn't always go. The cousins were strewn all over Utah and it was hard to get us all together. I didn't really feel strong connections to my aunts and uncles and, too often, just didn't care.

Amy's diagnosis and subsequent struggle did so much to pull our family together. Because most of us were down visiting her every week, we saw more of each other, and because, despite their best efforts, friends and acquaintances can never substitute for the emotional strength you can draw from your family, we all had opportunities to share in each others' faith. I got to know my entire extended family in a way that I'd never thought possible. Such intense trials are proving grounds for everyone involved. Not only did Amy show incredible faith and devotion, but almost all of my family did.

The results are still visible today. It's a lot easier to get us all together, and there's an undefinable change in the feeling every family gathering has. We're all just closer. I have better relationships with all of my cousins and aunts and uncles. I'll be honest, I used to prefer my mom's side of the family so much that I never wanted to hang out with the Jacksons. It sounds terrible, but it was true. In the past year, I have come to identify so strongly with my Jackson relatives that, for the first time in my life, I can honestly say I'll be a little bit sad to give up my name when I get married. My identity is tied to my heritage in a way that goes back further than just my parents and our name. I truly love my family--all of it--in that celestial, forever kind of way. And, for me at least, it started with Amy. Her struggles bound me to my extended family with so much love and attachment that I can't ever imagine life without them.