Our Four-Generation Photos

From the time she was little, our daughter wished for a daughter of her own, a wish that found fulfillment this spring. Along with that wish came her desire for a four-generation picture. She wanted to get her beloved Grammie (my mother, Anonna Hubbard), in a photo with me, herself, and her daughter.

When Macy was born in April, our daughter began planning for that picture she had always wanted, but she was living in Washington, my mother was living in northern Utah, and I was in Arizona, serving a full-time Mormon mission. The picture seemed unlikely.

Last month, a series of unexpected (and frequently unfortunate) events sent my husband and me to northern Utah on medical leave. He needed a procedure to correct an irregular heart rhythm. That gave me the opportunity to visit my 93-year-old mother, an opportunity I hadn't expected to have for another year.

Elder Aylworth had his heart procedure, but a series of unexpected complications kept us in the area for a week longer than we anticipated. That week became a huge blessing. 

Two days before we left on our Utah trip, my mother fell and broke her arm. Because it could not be immobilized (and, at 93, she was not a candidate for surgery), every motion was agonizing. A week later, and the day before my husband's surgery, my mother went on hospice. Again, it seemed unlikely that a four-generation picture would ever happen.

In a coincidence of timing that can only be considered providential, our son-in-law accepted a new job within 40 minutes' drive of where my mother was living. On Sunday, July 1, my daughter and her daughter arrived at my mother's apartment. Mom was in a hospital gown with her arm in a sling, but the four-generation pictures finally happened.

On that Sunday, my mother was clear and cogent. Blinded by macular degeneration, she couldn't see us, but she could hold the baby, touch her, comment on her long, strong fingers and long, thin toes, and share the wonder of new life with all of us. Only two days later, my mother was gone.

These last two pictures show our daughter crying happy tears, grateful for the small miracles that made her visit and these pictures possible, and my mother, enjoying holding her great-granddaughter.



I will forever be grateful to my daughter for the effort she made to arrive "on time," to my mother for hanging on the way she did, and to my sweet sister, who took these precious pictures. Our four-generation photos may not be ideal, but we will treasure them as we treasure the memories of this last four-generation visit.