Gloria Gay Neves Garrard

I wrote about my mother-in-law, Maurine, in this post last week.  Today, I need to talk about my own mother and how her greatest strengths have influenced the person I have become.

Mom & Grandpa Bob

Here's my mom, Gay Garrard, with her husband, Bob.  My mother is amazingly talented and creative.  My memories are packed with vivid images of art she has created, songs she has composed, poems she has penned, clothes she has designed, houses she has decorated, photos she has taken and words she has written.  It seems there is nothing that my mom can't do and do well.

My mom is currently working on a fabulous Book of Mormon novel about the People of Ammon and the 2000 Stripling Warriors.  It's amazing.  The work is scholarly, enlightening, spiritual, and engaging all at once, which, in a nutshell, is my mom.  I truly hope she gets it published and doesn't give up on it.  It's something that needs to see the light of day.

On Timeless Beauty

I'm not quite exactly sure how to take this, now that I think about it.  Like all brilliant poetry, there are many facets to explore and angles from which to view it.  Be that as it may, my son, Paul, age 23, has a Shakespeare class at university and decided to dedicate this to the senior people in his life.  The dedication was instigated when he said that no one told him they grow up so fast, referring to his five-month-old daughter.  He got a shower of 'cry me a river' from his middle-aged relations, and so thus came the sonnet in reply. I am going to go with my knee-jerk response on this one and proclaim it a beautiful sentiment and an undeniable truth.

Sonnet #2 by William Shakespeare