An Eternal Love, Olivia.

Livie Leaves in Less Than 8 Hours...Sometimes I detest time. The finite measure that makes my heart pound during a timed exam, or makes my blood pressure rise during a race, the measurement that causes words like good-bye or time-to-go to have a place in our lives...it is what makes my heart ache knowing that our time is coming to a close.

Learning from the past and living in the now Liv I thank you for the perfect day! We got up this morning and shared strawberries in our cereal, then I got to spend the day with you while your mommy and daddy went to say good-bye to your old house.

It was a beautiful bright sun-shiny day so we played and went for a walk and took pictures in the freshly fallen snow and danced and sang songs then played some more watched baby Einstein and had a deliciously healthy little lunch and then read stories... and you were so tired you fell asleep in my arms with Bear, didn't even cry or fight when I put you down for your nap (I would have held you the whole time but I worried you wouldn't have slept as well...that and at some point I did actually have to study and work.) You slept for 2 1/2 hours!!! And were so happy to see me when you got up that you just wanted to cuddle with me and bear--even though mommy and daddy were home. Then we made fajitas for dinner, watched 24--I Love Jack--and LAUGHED. Livie, you laughed at everything--cars and dancing and 'the end' and your songs and the pass-a-long card--then horsie and your songs--then we said our good-byes and shed a few tears, read some more stories and called it a night.

I am reminded of something Sydney & I wrote while I served my mission in Washington and she lived in Utah that later usurped even more special meaning...

A: I love you.
S: I love you.
A: I love you more.
S: I love you more.
A: I love you bunches and bunches and bunches.
S: I love you bunches and bunches and bunches.
A: I love you all the way to Utah.
S: I love you all the way to Washington.
A: I love you all the way to the stars.
S: I love you all the way to the moon.
A: I love you all the way to California.
S: I love you all the way to Florida.

A: I love you all the way to Heaven.
S: I love you all the way to Heaven.

Livie, I love you all the way to Maine and more than that, I love you for eternity. I agree with Bruce R. McConkie that in God's finite and eternal realm if there is a measure of love it is time. Everlasting, eternal, endless, forever, the beginning and the end, without measure... I don't just love you 12 months or 8 years or the length of mortal life... I have learned a lot about love through life and loss and agency that the capacity of my heart to love has expanded and the questions of how long will I love, or not love, through what will I love, or not love, from what distance will I love, or not love... and I must say that not time, nor tide nor space can prevent the heart from loving that makes the choice and then commits to continually cultivate that love every day.

From the lyrics of Collective Soul:
"Change will come,
change is here,
Love fades out,
then love appears.."

I agree to some extent--because change is inevitable--without change we would not progress and become better...and while many loves do come and then fade or have some condition... we decide the outcome of love and when committed eternally there is something so much grander...

A new and everlasting love. The kind of love that binds a family through eternity. The love I see between Livie's mom and dad. The love I feel for my mom that would cause me to stay here and watch over her--but because her love has no limits she would not allow me to do so. The love I feel for a friend Liz who was baptized yesterday. The love I feel for those I've taught and served and learned with. The love I feel for my brother, now in heaven. The love our Heavenly Father and his son Jesus Christ have for us... I believe there is something so much larger than the finite love that ends with death or distance or addiction... I believe I glimpsed at this love tonight as my brother with tears in his eyes sang I am a Child of God to his beautiful little Olivia...

Although I cannot see it, although I have surely not mastered this love, it was not a part of my parents marriage, this love is a part of me. The love that God has for each of us--His perfect love--that love can fill our souls if we will pray for and cultivate it and exercise faith in it by putting it into action and allowing it to be a part of us.

So Livie, no matter where you live, or how many creative ways I have to find to show you I love you from afar...no matter how much I have to learn and grow and come to comprehend in order to love you forever... I will love you with a love eternal.