the roots.

It had always been a practical joke for me: anyone can graduate if I can. After I'd sat through two hours of very impressive stories about this years graduating class, I was truly proud of this generation. Soccer teams standing behind a fellow player, hundreds of thousands of dollars in scholarships, record breaking service hours to the local community, and above all, they were all heading into a very uncertain economy and future with a determination to succeed. At least at this school, it seemed like they were taking this recession and spitting it back into the universe and refusing to let it get them down. Some students were going onto Harvard and other Ivy league, but I was mostly proud of my little Christopher. I wont take the time to embarrass him here, but I was so proud of all of the efforts he had made during his time in high school, eagles scouts, state culinary arts first place winner, sterling scholar, national honor society, and being a loving and fair brother amidst all of our family chaos.

Then, Eddy came home. He looked like Eddy, he sounded like Eddy, he even remained laid back and fun loving, but he had all of the experience of ten years of responsibility and understanding. He was still Eddy, only better. (I didn't think that was possible, but apparently is it). Something that struck me on a more personal level was hearing his placement during things like the announcement of the Lisbon, Portugal temple. His perspective on something so grandeur as the construction of a new temple on a country who had had the gospel for so long. The most tender moment I had with Eddy was when he was in a completely different room. I picked up his sketch journal from his mission, lost of beautiful portraits of places he had quickly drawn to remember what it had felt like to be there amongst so much cultured beauty. Portuguese stair wells and buildings, fountains and statues, even missionaries drawn into different settings. But one was something that truly made me smile, a small insignifigant phonograph with horn scribbled into the corner of one of the pages. he made a little note that spoke of a woman and how he wanted to remember her and how this sketch would remind himself of that investigator, and how that investigator had reminded him of me.

I choked up. It was so tender. Thousands of miles away and I got to read about how he thought of the kindness of this woman and that was what I was to him. A loving cousin, thousands of miles away but still on his thoughts. It was enough to brag about: He thought of me, enough to write about me.

I always wish after time passes that I had thought to write down the way someone made me feel or the way they served me. So Eddy will be in this blog, so he might know how grateful I am that I was thought of when there was so much else to think about.