Funeral Talk Excerpts by Aunt Vickie

Funeral Talk Excerpts by Aunt Vickie ---

"I pondered, and have pondered, again, how someone like Joshua could understand the importance of praying to God"

It's an honor to be here and speak at the funeral of Joshua...  Joshua was truly a blessing.  It’s hard to pick a moment, or a time, or a story, to tell about Joshua.  But there is a couple that I would like to share.  When I was going on my mission, the one person I was afraid to leave was Joshua.  He’s closer in age to me than most of my siblings, and I feel like we grew up together.  And one of the funnest things about Joshua when he was younger, was that he just kind of stayed little.  He was 14 when I left and he still weighed 60 pounds.  And I could carry him everywhere.  But I knew that he wouldn’t stay 60 pounds forever and that a lot of changes would probably happen while I was gone.  Selma knew without me even telling her that this was going to be very hard for me.  And so the night before I was suppose to go into the MTC, she let me put him to bed.  And so we sang our song and we prayed and I was just laying there in bed with him and I was crying, because I didn’t want to leave my Joshua.  And then in, what I call those spirit moments, when it was almost like God let him break through his body, Joshua just started gently rubbing my arm, and I knew that he knew how much I loved him.

All of us in our family are grateful for the greetings – the big  loud scream of our name, and the hug, and I remember when Selma brought him to the airport before I left for California.  I walked to the gate and I looked I saw him, and almost before I saw him, I heard my name and there he was running, arms outstretched to give me one last hug before I left.  Those are two of my most favorite memories.

Some mention has been made about Joshua’s phrases, and when Selma and Michael lived in Sandy, I visited them so often they stopped introducing me in their ward.  One time someone felt bad and said you didn’t introduce the visitor, and they said she’s not a visitor.  And so I felt like I got to have a lot of wonderful memories with Joshua.  And we would go down to the park a lot.  And I don’t know how we managed to get him the toddler bike thing, when I look back it, that he use to ride behind the bike, but we would go down to the park.  And one time we were at the park and it was when he learned the phrase “one more time.”  We were, Selma was trying to get everyone to go, and telling him we had to leave, and he had just gotten down the slide and he said “one more time.”  And we said “okay.”  And he went down the slide again.  And he realized that that phrase really worked for him.  And he said it, and I don’t  know how long we stayed, maybe a half-hour or hour longer, and he kept saying “one more time.”

I asked Jacob and Janson what they would want to say if they were up here.  Jacob said that he knows that Joshua didn’t die, that he just started a new life in heaven.  And Janson said if he wasn’t in our family, we wouldn’t have learned about special needs and how to help people. 

I think the one thing that my family, and many of you are grateful for, is how Joshua taught us to be a better people.  I can almost imagine Joshua up there before he came down, talking to our Heavenly Father saying “I have a family, and they’re a good family, but they need someone to help them be better, and they need someone to teach them how to love unconditionally.  They need someone to teach them to look at the simple things in life.  And there is a woman, named Selma, who is going to love you.  With all of her heart.  And you are going to love her so much that every time she leaves your side, you are going to ask where she is.”

There’s a scripture in 3^rd Nephi 17 that I would like to modify for a little bit.  Because one of the things that was important to Selma was teaching Joshua how to pray, and she did accomplish that.  To preface this, when I was 18, Joshua was 9, Jeremy was 7 and Jamie was 3, Selma and Michael went on a one week vacation and I was chosen to watch these rascals.  And it about did me in.  It’s probably the reason I’m still not married.  And, oh man, it was hard.  And I learned the amount of patience that it took, and love it took to care of a special needs child 24 hours a day.  But the first night I learned a very important lesson.  It was important to Selma that Joshua learned how to pray, and every night before he would go to bed, she would kneel with him by his side, and Michael too, and they would say a prayer.  And he would bless everyone and everything.  Well the first night Selma was gone, it was really hard for Josh.  And he kept waking up, and coming into the room, and looking at me and not being very satisfied with what he saw.  And I’d get him a little calmed down, and take him back to his bed and he wouldn’t let me put him in his bed until we prayed.  We said five additional prayers that night.

And it’s something that I pondered, and have pondered, again, how someone like Joshua could understand the importance of praying to God, and someone like me, at that point, didn’t.  Joshua’s prayers were very special because he blessed those who he loved the most.

I would like to end with 3^rd Nephi, chapter 17, verse 17.  “And no tongue can speak, and neither can there be written by any man, neither the hearts of men conceive so great and marvelous things as we both saw and heard Joshua speak and no one can conceive of the joy which filled our souls at the time we heard him pray for us unto the Father.”

And I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.