Yevet Tenney

Family traditions have always been an integral part of my life. We celebrate holidays and have family reunions, like many other families, but we have other traditions that fill our daily lives.

I have had four granddaughters born in the last year. When you have 11 children, it isn’t strange to see the babies come in multiples. It is amazing to see each one. They are all sweet and unique. Each has her own personality and certainly her own temperament, and I am sure each has her own mission while in this life.

Among the masses, prayer has become a thing to post on Facebook, a thing for only church-goers and religious fanatics, and seldom a thing to change the course of one’s life. Jesus meant it when he said, “Ask and ye shall receive,” but for many it is a matter of, “I don’t know how to ask.”

As I watch the new bottles of produce from the garden line the shelves of our storage room, I think of the many days my family and I spent in the garden weeding, watering and fertilizing the plants to have the harvest. Last night, we bottled the beets.

Today, I attended the graveside services of my uncle. It was a sweet service set in the old country cemetery of Heber, Arizona. The marble and sandstone grave markers are nestled under towering pines and surrounded by limestone hills.

Sadly, all is not well. Termites are at work. At first, no one noticed them. They were only innocuous holes in the bow of the ship and the mast. They were only dissenting voices in the political process and judges turning a blind eye to unethical behavior in the name of tolerance.