An Early Christmas

While we were visiting Aaron’s mom yesterday, I looked up from what I was doing and was surprised to see an enormous package addressed to Natalie and me, and Aaron with a huge grin. Even though it was wrapped in Christmas paper, Aaron encouraged us to open it now so we could enjoy it during the holiday. He did not want to—and apparently could not—wait. The size of the package mystified me, as did Aaron’s enthusiasm, since we’d just had a discussion a few days before about what we were doing for Christmas gifts, and this didn’t coincide with that discussion.

At Aaron’s urging, we opened it.

I can’t really explain my first reaction because it seemed like several thoughts at once: excitement, surprise, awe. As we peeled away the corner of the paper and I could see what it was, I recognized it immediately, but a painted portrait of our family was beyond all imagination. It is beautiful. I am amazed at the detail, down to individual strands of hairs. This was painted from a photo taken at Merideth’s baby blessing, but what captures my attention is Merideth herself. In the photo, Merideth is laying down more in our arms, and it's hard to get a good view of her, so the artist used a combination of pictures to paint her more upright, which I love.

The artist, by the way lives in China, and the gift is actually from Aaron’s co-workers. The guy who trained Aaron for his job now works on the corresponding end in China. He knows of a talented artist there, so he arranged with Aaron’s boss to get the pictures, and another coworker who recently went to China brought it back, and then other co-workers stretched the canvas and had it framed. We are touched by their thoughtfulness and generosity.

A few nights ago Aaron posed the question, “Why do bad things happen to people?” It seems he always gets philosophical right before bedtime, but I am usually so sleepy I don’t do well following his discussions. I quickly gave the answers that came to my mind at the moment: some things are just results of natural events (e.g. illness, natural disasters, etc.), some things are the results of our own choices, and some things are to teach us and develop qualities we could not learn in other ways (see “That Your Burdens May Be Light” in the November Ensign). That’s about where our conversation ended, although I asked him what brought up the question—I thought it was in response to some news we had heard about some friends that night. But as we talked about the painting last night, he brought up the question again. When he had asked the question, he was specifically thinking about us, and now he shared his answer: we could not experience the amazing outpouring of love from other people and in turn learn how to better help and love others without this trial in our life.