Happy Birthday, Jono!

Jonathan Alma Hill.

Never did I ever know that that man would mean so much to me.
I met Jon in May of 2013. I went with my big brother to a bonfire. These were held quite frequently during the summer. There were always different people who came, but I loved going with my brother, sister and her family, and a couple of my best friends.
This bonfire only had a few people there. One of them was Jon, who was one of my brother's good friends. When I met him, I literally could not control my laughter. In fact, almost everyone there was a little embarrassed by me because I didn't even know him and I cracked up at almost everything that escaped his mouth! He and I immediately became friends, and saw each other a lot after that! In a very short time, he became one of my very very best friends.

Now, let me pause for a second and tell you a little about Jon. He was 28 years old. He was adopted by his wonderful parents and older sister. He recently reconnected with his birth family, and he loved them all so much. He served an LDS mission in Canada, and spoke 3 different languages. He was hilarious (as you saw above), and he had an incredible eye for photography. He saw such beauty in all that was around him. He had such a testimony of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and he was never afraid to share that. He always had a light in his eyes that was certainly unforgettable What an amazing man! He struggled with depression and anxiety and many other mental and physical problems. He also struggled with a severe drug problem. He had been clean for a long time, and was doing so well. He always told us that we (me and my friends) were his light, and always helped him to do the right thing. He wanted nothing more than to not have this problem, and did everything he could to get away from this Demon inside. He had a detox procedure done and also checked himself into a rehabilitation center, "Turning Point", for six weeks. He LOVED it there, and my best friend Zoey and I went to visit him every Sunday, the day he could have visitors. He was the happiest I have ever seen him when he was there. It was so relieving and amazing to see him so happy. Every second with Jon was a memorable moment.
Well, the day he was released from rehab, he overdosed. He was found unresponsive two days later.
This was the most devastating news of my life. I have never cried so hard. I have never felt so numb. All of the sudden, those memories were all I had left. In the blink of an eye, he was gone.

 Our first photo together ("official best friend photo")

Our last text messages

Now, I don't mean for this post to be a depressing one, because Jon was everything but depressing! I want to dedicate this blog post to him for his birthday, November 20th, because I know I would not be where I am today without him and his influence in my life. I wouldn't be the same without his amazing testimony of the gospel. He is still with me, and I can feel him every day. I believe that he wanted me to share that he knew that his Father in Heaven loved him, and he loves each and every one of us perfectly. He wants me to share that he knows that he was not perfect, and neither are we. We are only human, but through the Atonement of Christ, we can all be saved and made perfect. We can not sink lower than the Atonement. Our God is a forgiving God, and He wants nothing more than for us to return to Him. I know that I am going to be able to see my Jono again, and that instead of seeing him suffering in all of the pains and trials he had to go through, he will "stand before us glorified and grand, breathtakingly perfect in body and mind. What a thrilling moment that will be! I do not know whether we will be happier for ourselves that we have witnessed such a miracle, or happier for (him) that (he is) fully perfect and finally 'free at last.'" (Jeffery R. Holland)

That day truly can not come soon enough. 

To say that Jon was an amazing man would be a complete understatement. Losing him was one of the hardest things that has happened to me, but in the eternal perspective, I have not lost him at all. He is still a best friend that I will surely see again, and I know without a shadow of a doubt that I will be able to hug so him tightly and laugh with him again one day. I can't express how much I look forward to that day! 

I wish you the happiest of birthdays, Jonny Boy! Thank you for everything. I love you to the moon and back.

Love always, 

Your Heather :)

Grateful To Be Living

In this lovely month of November, I have the opportunity to find all the little things that I am so grateful for. I should think of these things a lot more often than just one month out of twelve, I know, but this month is the month of Thanksgiving, and I think about them tons more.
Lately, I have been having more "off" days than usual, where it is very difficult to find something to be grateful for that day. Well, I have realized that in all honestly, I am just so grateful to be alive.
This brings me to the point of this post, which is a story that I will never ever forget. In May of 2000, when I was five (almost six) years old, I was playing tag outside with my brother and sister. I came inside just huffing and puffing, which you would expect from a little kid running around outside, but this was much worse. My stomach hurt so bad that I was screaming and crying while I curled up in a ball on the floor. My mom took great care of me and figured I just had a stomach bug that would pass with time. I confirmed her logic by throwing up almost all day.
That night, she was sitting with me on the couch while I slept. She noticed that I was breathing weird. Scary weird. When I inhaled, rather than my abdomen expanding, it collapsed. When I exhaled, my abdomen expanded. This was very abnormal, and my face started to become pale.
This was when my poor mother, scared out of her mind, carried me to the car to take me to Primary Children's Medical Center. She kept an eye on me in the car, and came to the conclusion that there was no way that I would make it to Primary Children's alive. She rushed me to the Cottonwood Hospital. She got me in right away! They got me hooked up to oxygen and all sorts of different monitors, and stuck me with an IV. That IV was a whole different story. The nurse couldn't find the vain, so she just poked me and dug around in my arm until they found a vain. I still have a scar from that, and I'm sure my mom is still scarred from watching them do that to me. She told me later that she was just in tears as she watched me suffer.
They did X-rays on my chest and my sides. I felt so much better and awake after being hooked up to oxygen! The doctor came in with the X-rays and explained to my mom that I had pneumonia in both lungs and that he would prescribe me some medication to help, and that I would be able to return home that night.
My mom tells me that at first, she felt relieved, but then she had this feeling that there was something missing. Something was not right. She had no experience with anything medical (except for just being a mom), but something told her that this wasn't just pneumonia, this was a collapsed lung. Why the doctor did not catch this, we just do not know, and to this day it still baffles me! She told the doctor that she felt there was something missing and that this X-ray looked like a collapsed lung. He was very doubtful. She being a patient's mother, and he being the doctor, it was understandable. She told him to take me off the oxygen and everything else I was hooked up to and see if I would do okay. About ten seconds after he took me off of everything, the systems all started beeping and my oxygen level dropped down significantly. He decided that maybe she was indeed correct, and he called in two men to take me to the ambulance to quickly transport me to Primary Children's Medical Center. The two men were very nice, and I liked them a lot! Except, one of them wouldn't let me sleep. I kept closing my eyes, and he would shout at me (kindly, but loud enough to keep me awake) saying, "Stay with me, Heather. You can't sleep right now, you've got to stay awake." I was so angry at him for not letting me sleep. I was so tired! My eye lids felt as if they weighed 200 pounds, my vision and hearing was blurring, I just really needed to sleep! Little did I know that I was so tired because I was dying.
Getting to Primary Children's was all a blur (literally), and I hardly remember getting into a room and getting hooked up on things. My poor mom could tell you everything in much greater detail, but I can not. The doctors at Primary Children's concluded that I had a collapsed lung, also known as a "pneumothorax" which is a collection of free air in the chest outside the lung that causes the lung to collapse.

This hospital provided both me and my mother a lot more security, knowing that they had me taken care of, instead of that other bone-head doctor who told me I could just go home. If my mom hadn't listened to that little voice telling her not to take me home, I would not be alive today. My mom went to classes for parents with children with asthma. I was given a device called a Peak Flow Meter that measured how well my lungs were working. I used that for at least three years after this. It was a miracle that I only had to stay in the hospital for one week. Even though, there were so many times when I would rip out my oxygen tubes from my nose because it made my throat dry, and the fact that I would get so bored that I would brush my teeth at least five times a day, I still remember every visitor that came to see me and every gift that I received. I still remember making paper flowers with the nurses, and I still remember being so thirsty all the time and drinking tons of water. So much water that they had my IV removed, but I still carried around the IV pole because I wanted to be just like Madeline in the 1998 movie "Madeline".

Madeline in the hospital

(Sorry for the poor quality)

When I was out of the hospital, I went to the store with my mom and dad and got a Kelly doll that had a hospital bed and if you got her face wet with warm water, she would get the chicken pox. I loved her cause she got sick just like me! :) I remember everyone being so happy that I was out of the hospital and they were so excited, but I did not understand why. As far as I knew, I didn't feel good so just stayed at a hospital for a few nights so I could get better. I didn't know at the time that I came very close to dying a few times in that week.

I am so grateful to be alive today, and to be present in so many people's lives today. I believe that this experience happened for a reason, and that I lived for a reason. I believe that I still had so much learning to do. I believe that so many people needed me, and I needed every single one of the people in my life to be in my life. I know that I was given this life to live it, and I will be forever grateful to my Heavenly Father for giving me a chance in this life. I will be forever grateful to my mother for listening to The Spirit, and to the doctors that saved my life.

Whatever you do, don't take this life for granted. There is a reason you are here. People need you, and you need them. Sure, life is flipping HARD, but it is nothing that you can't handle. Every one of us has a divine purpose in this life. You were given this life to do good in the world and to make a difference in people's lives. You were given this life for a reason. Figure out that reason, and live it.

Find something to be grateful for.

Happy November!