Anna

Today marks the ninth anniversary of Anna's death. Today is a hard day for me. I sat in Sacrament meeting missing my friend. I can't believe it's been nine years since I lost her and yet she seems like a fuzzy memory from someone else's life. Today I just want to remember Anna. I met Anna when Mom and I were working at Dee's. She and her husband Duane were regulars and we became fast friends. We scrap booked together, watched movies (my first R rated one, Pretty Woman), went out to dinner (when I didn't have to work) and went to Idaho one spontaneous weekend to visit her mom. Her goal in life was to corrupt me and Todd. She made Todd a joke book with an R rated section that Mom wasn't allowed to read; she took me to Idaho and told Mom she was going to let me buy lottery tickets because she wanted to contribute to the delinquency of a minor. (She was mad when she found out you didn't have to be 21 to buy lottery tickets so I really was old enough.) We had plans to go to Vegas to celebrate my 21st birthday so she could teach me how to gamble. That plan was interrupted by my mission call which came 6 weeks before my birthday announcing that I was to report to the MTC one week following my birthday so it probably wouldn't be prudent to corrupt me just before I left. We made plans to go when I returned. Anna and Duane were there when I opened my call and when I read that M. Richard Walker would be my mission president. Anna whooped and got all excited that Dick Walker would be my mission president. I didn't know Dick Walker from Adam, but Anna had known him for years. He was the attorney for the company she worked for. Then one day 5 months into my mission came the phone call from President Walker. Anna and I would not be celebrating my homecoming in Vegas. Nine years later I anticipate another type of homecoming. Today in the temple dedication I felt the possibility of that homecoming. Hopefully Anna and I will be forgiven of all the corruption and will have the opportunity to be next door neighbors in Heaven. I am grateful to know that "... that same sociality which exists among us here will exist among us there, only it will be coupled with eternal glory, which glory we do not now enjoy. "