Happy Birthday Aileen

Today is a lovely woman's birthday - Aileen Larsen Nelson, my mother-in-law. She's been gone for 24 years and I only knew her for about seven years but I will be eternally grateful she and Winston brought my wonderful husband Riley into the world. He, like I, is the baby of his family - Randy, Rick and Riley - the three boys. He had a wonderful childhood. So did I. He treasures the gospel. So do I. He has a crazy streak. I am very quiet and shy. Heh heh. We have the same work ethic, sense of adventure and love of life. A match made in Logan. Or Brigham City.

My first memory of Aileen came several weeks after Riley and I started dating. It was the first weekend of October 1979. Riley and I were living in Logan, he in the downstairs apartment of a duplex, me upstairs. We met the first day I drove into the complex on Darwin Avenue in my red CJ5 Jeep with white pinstripes, two gas tanks and an 8-track player (I loved that jeep). We soon started hanging out a lot and he invited me to go stay at his house in Brigham City for the weekend. The weekend's activities would include going to his mission reunion and dinner Friday night, duck hunting Saturday (oh, joy) and going to general conference Sunday where he would translate conference talks into Tahitian. We pulled up in front of the Nelson house at 211 North 300 West in Brigham City that Friday afternoon. We went in and I met his mom: tiny woman, big smile, gray hair piled in a bun on her head and big ball hangy earrings. We chatted a bit, then Riley's dad got home and we met. He was probably dressed in a jumpsuit (his standard outfit), had gray hair and '50s style men's glasses - you know, the ones with the heavy black frames. They were both happy to meet me and I them.

Riley took off to talk tools or ducks or whatever with his dad. I was left with Aileen. I'm not sure how long we were downstairs before she said something like, "come upstairs and I'll show you some things ..." Those "things" were kept in a hope chest (her hope, I think) and were baby booties she'd made for Riley's future children and a temple apron for Riley's future wife. While I was a little shocked she was showing me these things the first time I met her, the wheels were already turning in my head that he just might be the one. Anyway, I ended up with them about ten months later. The bigger prize, of course, was Riley, but I got a pretty good deal in the end, apron, booties, mother- and father-in-law, the Nelson name, and now, at this point, 30 years of fun and happiness.

Thanks Aileen and Happy Birthday. I love you. I'm glad you didn't scare me off.