10th Day of Christmas Memories

Christmas of 2000 is remembered for its sadness.

In July of 2000, Josh and I moved from Tremonton, Utah to Chubbuck, Idaho for work. Mowin' Ranger was expanding and had purchased a business in Pocatello; we moved in order to manage that extension. We were the only ones who worked out at the Idaho business--Josh did all the fertilizing, I did all the office work, and we worked together on tree trimming. We rented out our home in Tremonton, and we began renting an apartment in Chubbuck. Ammon was born in January, and he was just 6 months old when we moved. I took him to work with me during the day, and it worked well for us to run the business that way.

We both got second jobs that fall, since fertilizing lawns stops in the wintertime when snow covers the grass. Josh worked a night job at a gas station, and I worked in the evenings as a typist at the Idaho State Journal. When I worked at ISJ, Josh would stay home with Ammon, and then I'd come home from work and he'd leave for Forde Johnson while I stayed with Ammon. I didn't like our life schedule, but I felt like we did what had to be done. It was hard for Josh, too, and he felt financially stressed. In October, there was a job opening in Salmon for a golf course superintendent. His Uncle John works as a sales rep for products in the turf industry, and he discovered the job opening and told Josh about it. Josh didn't know the first thing about golf--but he did have experience with growing and maintaining grass and working on equipment. We decided to apply for the job. In November he had an interview in Salmon for the job. Because he was raised in Salmon, he knew several of the people on the golf board and he felt like he had a good interview with them. In December, Josh and I had a huge fight over money (or the lack of it) and we didn't get along for weeks. The argument put such a damper on the Christmas season.

During that same month, his grandparents came down to Blackfoot to visit his Uncle John and Aunt Linette and to stay for a few days with them. His Grandpa Rex had had cancer many years earlier, and he'd had chemotherapy and radiation to rid the cancer. Over time, though, his body developed some terrible side effects from the treatments, and when he and Grandma Beth came to Blackfoot, he was very sick and in a lot of pain.

Josh and I decided we would take Ammon to Salmon to spend Christmas. It was our first Christmas as parents, and we were excited to celebrate the holiday with our son for the first time!

We left two days before the holiday, and on our way to Salmon, we stopped in Blackfoot to visit his grandparents and Aunt & Uncle. We arrived as they were making preparations to take Grandpa to the hospital. Josh helped his Uncle John carry Grandpa to their van--he was so weak from all the pain in his body that he was having difficulty standing up. Josh said he was barely squeezing his grandpa in order to carry him, and his Grandpa was wincing and saying "not so tight". Josh felt so terrible that his Grandpa was in such pain. I was helping Grandma inside get dressed and ready because she couldn't concentrate on what was happening. John and Linette drove them to the hospital, and Josh and I continued on our way to Salmon. Little did we know that was the last time we would ever see Grandpa Rex alive.

It was strange for me to be in Salmon over Christmas...it was the first time that I hadn't spent Christmas with my own family. On Christmas Eve, after Ammon and Josh's brothers went to bed, I worked on setting up a car track for him, and assembling a child's toy. I remember Edward was setting up something, too. Josh and I, and Edward and Kathy were the only ones in the living room. I was talking and laughing, trying to keep the spirits up in the house, because everyone seemed so depressed.

The next morning, after all the presents were opened,  Edward and Kathy broke the news to Josh and his younger brothers that Grandpa Rex had died the night before. They had decided to wait to tell the children so that their (our) Christmas morning wouldn't feel marked with sadness. It was then that I understood why the house felt so sad the night before as I was laying out my son's gifts.

Josh loved his Grandfather so much, and it was difficult to know that he was gone. Josh kept reliving the image of carrying his sick Grandpa to the van, and seeing him wince in pain. It broke his heart over and over again, seeing him that way. I was so grateful that we had stopped in Blackfoot, grateful that we had seen his grandparents, grrateful that we told Grandpa that we loved him. Grandpa James Rex Tolman's funeral was on December 28. It was one of only a handful of times I've ever seen Josh cry. It was sad to lay his body to rest in the cold, hard, bleak and frozen ground.

We spent New Year's with my family in Tremonton, which also felt strange; that was one of the few times we've ever done that in our married life because we usually celebrate it with the Tolman's in Salmon. In January, we were notified that Josh did, indeed, get the golf course superintendent job in Salmon. Although we were excited for our future, we also felt sad that we wouldn't be living by his Grandpa now. One of the reasons Josh wanted to move back to Salmon was so that he could help out on the family ranch, and so that he could be closer to his aging grandparents. We also felt sorrow that Ammon would never get to know his great-grandfather, who is the namesake of his middle name "Rex". At the end of January, we moved from Chubbuck, Idaho to Salmon--which is where we remain today!