REMEMBERING SHARON

We would like to express our sincere thanks to everyone who has been so thoughtful, gracious and attentive since the passing of Sharon. We were so pleased by the number of you who took time from your busy lives to attend her viewing and funeral it was indeed a beautiful tribute to her outstanding life. We have been overwhelmed by the number of cards, calls and emails. We are so thankful at this time for all of you and your support as we transition to the next phase of our lives. Yes, we are sad and we will miss her, but we are happy that she is out of pain and in a far better place catching up I'm sure with family and friends. Our challenge is to live our lives to be worthy of her. To that end, "WE CONTINUE TO MOVE FORWARD WITH FAITH."
For those of you who were not at the funeral, we thought you might enjoy reading the tributes to Sharon given by her children. We will do that over the next couple of weeks.
The first will be the talk given by Greg.

Mom’s Funeral Talk

GM brothers and sisters.
I am grateful that my father and siblings have granted me the great honor of eulogizing mom – a clear recognition that I am my mother’s favorite.
I am grateful for the beautiful picture of my mom that graces her casket. When I saw it I said “That’s my mom!” So much energy, so much life and her radiance, the pure light that emanates from her, was always her greatest quality. That light is the light of Christ, it is the spark of fun, it is the flame of love. She brought this light to everything she did with the spaunk of a cougarette and the creativity of a theater and art major. It was a contagious enthusiasm – highly infectious and quickly spread. “And the light which shineth, which giveth you light, . . . fills the immensity of space” It’s no wonder that she loved the Wizard of Oz. She helped us see that for every gray scale Kansas in our lives just beyond the rainbow were Technicolor possibilities.
There is so much to express about my mother - most of which words can not tell and only the heart can comprehend. I would like to focus on her greatest passions family, fun and faith. So intertwined are these three to her that they are inseparable in a narrative of who my mom is.
My mother loved the family she was born into. She had two brothers that she adored all her life and a sister she always sought to understand. Her father provided her with a foundation of unwavering faith and her mother with an example of compassion and service. As she began her own family she brought with her this priceless dowry.
Mom was a tremendous helpmeet and the perfect complement to my father. She was never uncomfortable in any circumstance, whether it be in the presence of Presidents or the world’s poor. My father found himself in many leadership positions throughout their married life. Dad may have been in the front but it was mom that pulled the oars.
Mom is incredibly committed to her children. I felt that Elder Nelson in April conference rightly summarized her parenting philosophy. He said “Do not control your children. Instead, listen to them, help them to learn the gospel, inspire them and lead them toward eternal life. You are God’s agents in the care of children he has entrusted to you. Let His divine influence remain in your hearts as you teach and persuade.” My mom raised some of the best people I know. She did not shield us from life’s numerous challenges – she had every confidence that we would meet them and beat them. She wrote songs that she would regularly sing to us. Hendrickson’s never say can’t, for can’t is not our word, can’t is simply absurd” or “I make a difference, I make a difference, I am the one, I am the key.” To remind me of my potential she would often sing to me “Any little boy can be President.” I believed it of myself and so did she.
She had an active commitment to being a part of the lives of her grandchildren. She sought every opportunity to spend time with them when they were around. When she called, my children would eagerly wait for their time to talk to Nana on the phone. She attended births and blessings and baptisms. In the summers there was Nana Camp, where Nana conducted a multi-day sleepover extravaganza – complete with regalia, activities and grandmotherly teaching and expressions of love. After a grandchild turned 8 they attended general conference in Salt Lake with Nana and Paga. Nana knew the power of being in the presence of a prophet of God and wanted each of her grandchildren to feel and experience that power. My children regularly get out their conference binders nana made for their conference trips and recall with fondness this great coming of age experience.
Mom is a monkey – that’s our family mascot. Monkeys are nimble, work together, and always seem to be having good time – that’s us. She and my father’s direct progeny include a troop of 22 monkeys, including 6 children and 14 grandchildren. She will stand in the eternities as a mother to Hendrickson monkeys greater than the sands of the sea and vaster than the stars of the sky. Are you ready for that! In our last few days together we read from the Fabric of the Cosmos about the immensity of the universe, and the possibility of universes upon universes and we marveled at the endless nature of the promise of posterity the matched that grandeur. And for mom endless posterity means joy without end.
Mom exemplified our family motto “Bound with Honor.” Mom and I are big fans of the Bard. To give her greater courage while she was going through her transplant at the City of Hope we watched Henry the V together –we especially love Henry’s speech before the Saint Crispin Day battle.
By Jove, I am not covetous for goldNor care I who doth feed upon my cost;It yerns me not if men my garments wear;Such outward things dwell not in my desires.But if it be a sin to covet honour,I am the most offending soul alive.
Mom did not seek the honor of men but the honor of God. She trusted the Lord when he said “I, the Lord, delight to honor those who cserve me in righteousness and in truth unto the end. 6 Great shall be their reward and eternal shall be their glory. . . . and by my power will I make known unto them the secrets of my will—yea, even those things which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor yet entered into the heart of man.” She kept her covenants, and encouraged those in covenant relationships with her to do the same. She made sure that clothing, totes, jewelry, and other sundries she gave to children and grandchildren bear the reminder that we are bound with eternal ties which now require only our lives honorable action to be realized.
Mom had a deep need to express the truths she understood. The challenge was, that the truths she knows best are those of the heart, which must be conveyed to the heart to be comprehended. While tremendously talented in conveying truth with creativity and power as a speaker (as can be attested to by any of her 7 years of seminary students – of which I am one) she longed to be able to express those same truths with the same creativity and power in writing. She took semesters of writing classes while I was in high school and spent hundreds of hours working on a book manuscript. Condensed, all her efforts were published as a short article in the Ensign. A rich and powerful piece about how one comprehends in times of pain and sorrow that the lives we live here frame our eternal possibilities.
I love my mom. She is my mentor, my friend and my cheerleader. I believe that I have done nothing so important in my life than to stand with others at my mom’s bed side and exercise the priesthood on her behalf. I have known few joys greater then to sit for hours by her bedside over the past year – just she and I – talking of things great and small. We read books of grand adventures in foreign lands and the simple life on a farm. She did her best to pass along what she learned at the BMW driving school and what she learned in the temple. We talked of our love and friendship and faith.
I am my mother’s son. I share in her passions, her talents and her faith, but she bought me with more than my birth. There were times when a boy, desperate and alone had lost his way. She searched for me and, in loving agony of spirit, found me and saved me. When I try to grasp the depths of the atonement of Jesus Christ I can only begin to comprehend it in the personage of my mom and her unremitting, unconditional love, devotion and service. She, more than any other, has represented the hands of the Lord in my life.
I can say, as John Quincy Adams did of his mom, “My mother was a minister of blessing to all human beings within her sphere of action. . . . She had no feelings but of kindness and beneficence. Yet her mind was as firm as her temper was mild and gentle. She. . . has been to me more than a mother. She has been a spirit from above watching over me for good, and contributing by mere consciousness of her existence, to the comfort of my life. . . . Never have I known another human being, the perpetual object of whose life, was so unremittingly to do good.”
My mother – I love you. Your physical presence will be greatly missed. Mother – Good night, good night, parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it is morrow. That glorious morrow of eternal reunion. Which I hope I am worthy of, in the name of Jesus Christ Amen.