Happy Mother's Day, Mom. We miss you.

In the end of March, Andrew's dad called him and told him that he didn't think his mom had much longer left with us on Earth.  She had been battling a serious illness for quite some time and had recently gotten much worse. 

Because we didn't have any concrete information about what was going on with VaLynn, we were unsure as to what to do.  The decision to all go back to the states, or just send Andrew back to the states, or not have anyone go back at all was a tricky one.  Perhaps it seems simple: if someone is sick and possibly dying, you go.  Duh.  But until you have lived in one of the most locked down countries in the world during a major pandemic, you just don't understand how complicated it is.

Finally we decided, for various reasons, that it was best to just have Andrew go back for 10 days.  He began compiling all the necessary paperwork, talking to HR and to a travel agency on what it would take to get out, and then back into Japan.  After scrambling for one week, he was gone.  

Andrew was able to spend 10 days almost exclusively at his parents home, spending quality time with his mom and dad and all of his siblings.  When he returned home, we still had no idea how much longer his mom had, or if, perhaps, by luck and prayers and faith and hope she would turn around and start getting better.  We really had no idea what was going to happen.  

Getting back to Japan took 3.5 days.  Partly due to a crappy situation from one of the airlines, partly due to a crazy long layover, partly due to the fact that the Fukuoka airport only has 2 incoming international flights per WEEK.  

Once he arrived back here, he was subject to a 10 day solitary quarantine (unless we wanted to quarantine with him, which, though we love him dearly, we did not, with kids in school etc etc.), and then a 4 day house lockdown (meaning he could be around us, but wasn't supposed to go galivanting around town).  During the 10 day quarantine is when VaLynn passed away.  Andrew was up in a studio apartment, all alone, with his family on a zoom call, watching.  My heart could not break any more.  

Often when a loved one dies, I write a....sort of...tribute blog to them.  I thought about this long and hard, but I realized it really wasn't my tribute to write.  

Andrew had the privilege of writing the life sketch that was read by his brother, Preston, at the funeral service.  What better way to remember VaLynn, than by this life sketch?  And so....

Valynn Christensen Rigdon was born June 1, 1955 to James and Desdamona Christensen in Pleasanton California.  She is the oldest of 6 children followed by - twins Teryn and Karen, James, Sharmyn, Colin, and Megan.  She was generally a quiet and shy girl who loved anything that her Dad loved, especially reading.  She had a very special relationship with her dad.  His nickname for her was “lovee”.  She was a kind and loving big sister. Mom always had her arm around Teryn because they were the “Power Sisters”.  Unfortunately this meant that their next sibling, James would often be left out because he was just a “boy” and “boy’s just don’t get it”.  She would always let Teryn come and play with her and her friends (even though Teryn was 4 years younger) and helped to take care of her when she got hurt. Since she was the oldest, she often took on a motherly role for her siblings.  Prior to her passing, she told us of times when she remembers holding Sharmyn for hours through the night because she loved her sister so much and wanted to be there for here in times of need.  She also did everything she could to be a “good daughter” sometimes to her detriment but always with a desire to be good. When mom was 12 years old they moved from Pleasanton, California to Salt Lake City, Utah up by little cottonwood canyon

Mom met her husband, Dan, while skiing at Brighton Ski resort where he worked as a ski CAT driver and liftie.  One day, while skiing, Valynn hurt her ankle and stationed herself for recovery.  Mom caught the attention of Dad and he struck up a conversation with her while working one of the lifts. Shortly after, Mom and Dad started dating. In 1976, after they had been dating for over a year, Mom’s family moved to Iran for her father’s work. My Mom loved Iran.  She learned to speak and write as much Farsi as she could.  She loved the Iranian people, going and getting fresh pomegranate juice at the open market, their quality craftsmanship and especially the food. In fact, for the past year she has had a tin of an Iranian dessert which she allowed me to try just a little bit but not very much because it was hers. If I were there now, I would go eat it cause she can’t tell me NO now.  She returned from Iran to be with my dad. They were married on January 7, 1977 in the Salt Lake Temple.  

Mom and Dad’s oldest child, Christian, was born in Salt Lake City to the same doctor that delivered Dad. Since they didn’t have any money, the doctor only charged them $400.  Mom and Dad lived in Salt Lake City for a few years before moving up to Collinston, Utah in 1980.  Mom always said that she wanted to live in more rural areas so that she could have more influence over us kids than any neighbors or school friends. At first they rented the old Bigelar house where one of her favorite things was milking her very own cow Jessie. Of course, her least favorite thing was when Jessie would swat Mom with her crusty, poopy tail.  She loved the idea of self-sufficiency and was always trying to figure out how to have her own a cow again.

  

Mom and Dad later bought and moved to our Grandma Rita’s home in East Garland Utah in 1985. It was here that she continued to develop that self-sufficiency. She would grind her own wheat, make bread from scratch (6 loves at a time), press apples for apple juice, pick her own fruit and dry it, had beehives for honey, and bottled food like crazy.  Her garden was a very special place for her.  She loved the dirt and facilitating life through it.  

During the summer we were required to spend time weeding the garden each morning.  I think I ate more peas from the vine while weeding than I actually did inside our home.  She cultivated her skill in the garden until she was pretty dang good at it.

  We had just about every animal, other than a horse, that you would imagine on a farm.  We even drank goat's milk for a while.  When that goat would get into weeds, that milk tasted like onion milk.  Seriously disgusting.

 

We had the opportunity to go to Edith Bowen elementary school in Logan, Utah when we were growing up.  This was an amazing school but there wasn’t a bus that would go there so my mom would drive us in the morning and pick us up after school (50 minute round trip).  Sometimes we were able to find people to carpool with but most of the time it was just mom taking us and picking us up.  (At one point Jason Grover, our neighbor would give Preston and I a ride. We made it to school a LOT faster when he drove his 1980 royal blue Camero with his radar detector engaged.)  She sacrificed a tremendous amount of time and money to take us there but did it so that we could have an exceptional elementary school experience, which we all did.    

 

Like most growing families, there were times when we didn’t have a lot of money when we were younger.   I remember that one time Mom spent 75 dollars on school clothes for all of us at D.I. and told us not to tell dad how much she spent because he would be worried.  I tell you this because at the same time my parents were spending 75 dollars each month to put us through piano lessons with one of the best teachers in Logan (Chiyo Homina who scared me to death as a second grader).  She wanted us to learn from the best. 

Mom knew the meaning of sacrifice and always sacrificed herself for the betterment of her family.  I cannot emphasize this enough.  As children we would be surprised if my mom ever bought a new article of clothing for herself because it never seemed to happened.  During our growing up years, she would take us to hundreds of soccer practices and games, ballet, piano lessons, service opportunities  and church activities. She helped us raise 4h animals and took us to school activities.  That eats up all of your free time when you have 6 children. Mom dedicated all of the time she had for her 6 children.

Mom also made sure that the time she had with us was precious. I know that she went out of her way to tell us how much she loved us individually.  She would praise us for the many strengths that she saw in us and gave counsel on what we needed help with. I cannot count all the times that she made me feel special in both her eyes as well as the eyes of our Heavenly Father. 

  

After almost 20 years in East garland my parents made the decision to move to Fruit Height Utah to be closer to dad’s work. Dane and Chelsea were still living at home.  This was a difficult transition for our family, especially for them.  They worked to adjust to a new ward, making new friends and attending a new school (going from a 3a school of roughly 900 students to a 5a school of over 2000 students wasn’t easy). Although the transition caused mom much anxiety, we can now see how much of a blessing it was for our family.

Mom held several different callings at church and put everything she could into each of these callings.  Some of the callings that she held were Young women’s president, Relief society president, Primary president, as well as a counselor in each of those auxiliaries, Den leader, and one of her most recent callings, a gospel doctrine teacher.  Despite her strong understanding of the Gospel, she felt very inadequate at this calling but did her best with it.  She would spend hours upon hours studying the scriptures and other sources to prepare something that would be doctrinally sound, scripturally based and would also teach things that would challenge people’s long held beliefs.  She affected many people’s lives for the better through her church service.  

She never stopped serving others even when her children were all out of the house and married.  Grandma Rigdon lived downstairs at my parents home for 3 years before she passed away.  My mom was her primary caregiver. They developed a special relationship over that time. She also cared for her ailing mother and father everyday before they passed away in the last couple of years.  Papa, her father also lived with my parents right after Grandma’s passing for a year before he passed away himself.  When my grandparents were struggling financially she reviewed their records, helped them budget, and completely turned their finances around (so they could have a) healthy surplus within just a few years even though our grandmother did NOT appreciate being put on a budget. There would be no way to count how many hours of service she provided for family, friends, neighbors and members of the church.  Truly countless hours.  

Valynn was an exceptional wife, mother, sister, daughter, and friend.  She was a caring, hard working, sacrificing, serving, motivated, strong willed (aka stubborn...very very stubborn), Christ centered person that was insatiable for knowledge, especially for health and the gospel. She always had a book in her purse that she would read if she had a spare minute, which wasn’t very often.  She was always talking about “something new” that she had learned. She even went to college in her 50’s just so she could learn. She didn’t care about a degree, she just wanted to go to class.  She was a strong proponent of missionary work but was never able to serve a full time mission herself.  All of her children had service opportunities abroad in Argentina, China, Brazil, Australia, Romania, and the Netherlands and was able to visit four of the six countries with her children.

 

She LOVED to travel.  She made it to many countries including England, Iran, France, Romania, Chech Republic, Austria, Hungry, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina. She was a great travel companion if you wanted to do what she wanted to do.  If not, then you had to be ready to argue a little bit and have really sore feet by the end of each day otherwise you probably would have just been left in the dust.   I am incredibly sad that she won’t make it to Japan to visit my family.  I know she would have been here in an instant if she could and she would have loved it.  

Mom fiercely fought until the end. She didn’t complain but tried to learn from her experience. Mom held true to her deep-rooted beliefs about health and nutrition (whether correct or not) up until the end which to me is admirable. Most importantly she believed and taught our family the Gospel including the truth that we will continue to be a family unit after this life and through eternity.  I love her.