Introduction by Emily Miller
A couple weeks ago, I came across the gorgeous photo above. It was posted in the I <3 Life in Rexburg Facebook group by Kaatia Larsen. I immediately contacted her to see if I could use her beautiful photo for Rexburg Commons, and she agreed. I wasn’t sure how I would use it, but I loved it and knew I could find a good use for it. I thought maybe I’d save it for a story that had to do with the Rexburg Nature Park, where it was taken. A couple days later I decided to share it, as is, on social media. It was lovely enough that it didn’t need a story to go with it.
I recently reconnected with one of my old Ricks College professors, Ron Weekes. I knew he had recently retired from BYU-Idaho, so I asked him if he’d like to write for me. We caught up over Messenger and I pulled up my college transcript to verify/brag that I had received an A in his video production class, 21 years ago. (I still have my old VHS recordings that I made for that class.)
Brother Weekes was following Rexburg Commons when I posted the sunset photo. In the comments, he said that he and his family would call that a “Grandma Sunset,” and that that’s a story he could write. I encouraged him to write it. He says that once he started writing, he couldn’t stop, and this was delivered to my inbox at 4:40 a.m.
We hope you love learning about “Grandma Sunsets,” and the love and memories that connect the generations of the Weekes Family.
“Grandma’s Sunset”
By Ron Weekes
For the first eighteen years of our marriage, the closest we had ever lived to either of our parents was over one thousand miles away. That meant our three children saw grandmas and grandpas once a year, if they were lucky. So when we moved to Rexburg in July of 1994, it was the closest we had lived to our parents in years. Our three kids were so excited when my wife Jacque and I told them that Grandma and Grandpa Weekes would be coming to Rexburg for Christmas that year. Not only was it the first time we had Christmas with my parents in a long time, it would be the last time that we would have Christmas with Grandma Weekes.
We had known that my Mom had been ill for quite some time, years in fact. But she was the kind of person that always put others first. She was the epitome of showing Christ’s love through her example of service to others. Growing up, my Mom was always off to some Young Women’s function. She was the stake Young Women’s president for eleven years in the stake that my sister Nancy and I grew up in in California. She loved being with the young women, even at Girls Camp for a week every summer. At the same time, Dad served as Stake Clerk for thirteen years.
My Mom’s illness was much more serious than she let on. She always told us it was a hiatal hernia. But I had a feeling it was something much worse. Serious illnesses always seem to follow on the Mom’s line in a family. My maternal Grandmother died of colon cancer. Her son, my Uncle Billie, died of colon cancer. What were the chances that my Mom was going to die of colon cancer as well?
I’m getting ahead of myself and the story. Let’s go back to Christmas 1994.
Having been born and raised in the San Joaquin Valley of California, my Mom rarely saw snow. In fact it has only snowed a handful of times in our mutual home town of Stockton. If you wanted to see snow, you had to travel at least two hours east into the Sierra Nevada mountains. So for my Mom to see snow on the ground and to see it actually falling that December in 1994, she had her first and only White Christmas.
When we moved to Rexburg there weren’t too many homes available to purchase that would fit the needs of our family of five. In fact the last house that the Realtor showed us was the only one that provided us with what we needed. The house was a perfect size. Four bedrooms and three bathrooms. But the one-acre-plus lot was a bit more than what we bargained for. Especially the first time we mowed the lawn with a push mower. We did it in two-hour shifts. It took over eight hours to complete. Next stop: Purchasing a riding lawn mower.
Regardless of the size of our lawn, our split-level home gave us a gorgeous view of the valley below and the distant mountains to the West. The sunsets? Absolutely breathtaking!
Each evening while my parents were here for that Christmas, my Mom would stand silently in front of our living room window, looking out at what the evening’s sunset had to offer. If any of us walked through the living room, she would turn to look at us, and with a smile on her face she would silently motion for us to come and see the sunset. Grandma’s sunset.
I don’t remember much about my parents’ visit that Christmas. Not even how long they stayed. We did attend the annual Ricks College Christmas Concert. It was right up my parents’ alley. The theme was based around a World War II story with a lot of Big Band music. It featured the fabulous singing voice of the late Elizabeth Bossard. My parents loved it so much that they asked me to buy them a copy of the video of the concert for them. I did. I recently came across the old VHS tape in some of my Mom and Dad’s things.
In our hallway hangs a picture from my parents 50th Wedding Anniversary, September 1992. Every time I look at that family photo I can tell that my mom doesn’t feel well. She didn’t. But she wouldn’t let on to us that she wasn’t well.
Jump forward to April 1995. I had just finished my first year of teaching in the Communication Department at Ricks College. Sitting in my office, my phone rang. I noticed on the caller ID that it was my parents’ phone number. I picked up the handset and my Mom’s voice was on the other end of the line. True to form my Mom asked me how my day was going. I knew something was wrong. Over the years my mom never called me at work. It was always at home. I knew she wasn’t well. I had known that for at least two years. But not well with what? My Mom’s sweet and usually strong voice cracked a little. Then I heard the words, “Ron, I’m sick. I have colon cancer and it has spread to my liver. The doctors give me two to six months to live.” I told her that I was coming out to California for the month of May to be with her and Dad. I called my sister Nancy in Utah. She said she would spend the month of June with our parents. We agreed we would figure out what to do at the end of June. The Lord had already decided that.
It wasn’t easy seeing my Mom, who loved sunsets, seeing the sun set on her life during that month. She slept more and more as each day passed that month. One evening my Dad and I were sitting at the dining room table. My Mom came out from the master bedroom with a legal pad and pencil in hand. She carefully sat down. She looked at my Dad, then turned to look at me. She then said, “I want to plan my funeral while I still can. Ron, since we have so many family members who are not members of the Church (my Mom was the only member on her side of a very extended Italian Catholic family), I want you to talk about the gospel aspects of The Plan of Salvation. I know you have the right touch to do that. I’m going to ask your sister Nancy to do my life sketch.” With that, and other requests my Mom made that evening, her funeral service was planned.
I returned to Rexburg. A few weeks later in late June my sister called and told me that “if you want to see Mom one last time, you need to come now.” We piled the kids into our van and began our 800-mile drive to California. Needless to say, my Mom was weaker than when I last saw her. Cancer will do that to you. After spending a few days with my parents, each of our kids had a chance to spend a few short minutes one-on-one with Grandma Weekes. So did my wife Jacque. I was the last one to go into her room so we could share special thoughts with each other. I knew this was the last time that I would see my Mom, only 71 years old, here in this earthly existence. We left on the 4th of July to drive back to Rexburg. That evening, as we drove through the desert towns of Nevada, we saw the various firework displays shooting high into the night sky. Usually such a display would draw ohs and ahs from our three children. That evening the van was silent. A week later my sister called me and told us that Mom had passed away on the 11th.
We returned to Stockton for her funeral. Speaking at her funeral was the hardest talk that I have ever had to give in my life. The year before we moved to Rexburg, our daughter Julie and her third grade class had a Mother’s Day Tea. Fruit punch “tea” and cookies. All 36 members of her class recited in unison a children’s story I had never heard before. It was called “Love You Forever” by Robert Munsch. It touched my heart so much that I decided to end my talk at my Mom’s funeral by reading it. After the service was over, two of my Mom’s friends came up to me and said that I couldn’t have picked a better story to share with those in attendance. They told me that in the last Relief Society lesson that my Mom gave before she got too sick to attend church, she talked about having good literature in our homes for our children and grandchildren. She ended her lesson by reading the very same story that I concluded my talk with that day. I know it wasn’t by chance that she and I used the same story. Yes, the Lord does move in mysterious ways, and sometimes he wants us to share things with others as a mother and child, albeit in different situations. In going through family history material that my Mom had gathered over the years, I recently came across the talk that I gave at her funeral. I haven’t read it yet. I will.
So what about “Grandma’s Sunset” you ask? That’s where I started. That’s where I will finish. In honor of my Mom, my wife Jacque wrote a poem called “Grandma’s Sunset.” Jacque took pictures from the very same spot where my Mom, our children’s Grandma Weekes, had stood to silently marvel at the sunsets she saw each evening six months earlier. If you come to our home, one of the first things you will see is one of the two photo montages that Jacque made, along with the poem. The other is hanging on a wall in my sister Nancy’s home in West Jordan.
You see, this is a very special poem in more ways than one. My wife Jacque passed away this past April after a three-year battle with Anemia of Chronic Disease. She, too, had been ill for a very long time, just like my Mom. Those who attended Jacque’s funeral saw the poem “Grandma’s Sunset,” the poem that she wrote for my Mom, printed on the back page of the program.
So the next time you see a sunset, wherever you are, take a moment and reflect on the words below. You will come closer to our Heavenly Father and Savior Jesus Christ. It’s all in the sunset. Sunsets created by a loving Heavenly Father and Savior Jesus Christ. Created just for us. I feel that sunsets are a promise from our Heavenly Father that we will see those who have gone before us again someday. For we ourselves will walk into a sunset when it is our time to return to our true home.
“Grandma’s Sunset”
There’s something Heavenly about a sunset
…is what Grandma said
Watching changing colors, clouds wispy, lavender, pink
Like Grandma’s clothes
…Grandma’s face
Come see tonight, She would say
All gather at the window, watch, in awe, sharing her esteem
No two alike, She would say
We nod, the sight softened any mood, any heart
…Like Grandma
Cannot behold a sunset without remembering her voice, laugh,
her touch
Now watch, sun setting, going away
Leaving us beauty in thought
…Like Grandma
~ By Jacque Lynn George Weekes
