To begin I just want to clear one thing up so that no one
here is thinking, “who on earth are these crazy people talking about?” To her
family and a few random friends, Lenae was always known as neither “Weed” which
seems like an ill-fitting name because she was neither scraggly nor unwanted
nor a pothead. Every kid in our family has a nickname and our given names were
only used if we were in big trouble. Here, in our older brother’s words is how
Lenae became Weed:
“On my grandpa’s farm, there used to be large patches of a
weed called common mallow. You’ve probably seen it growing in your lawn or
garden and cursed it. But as kids, we loved it. Just before the seed pods
ripen, they turn into sweet little round green buttons. We used to sit in the
weed patches and eat as many as we could find. We didn’t know that the weeds
were called mallow. To us, they were “goody weeds.” My little sister was
sweetest of all of us, so one day Grandpa started calling her his little goody
weed. The nickname stuck, and over time it changed to Weed. One thing that
didn’t change, though, was the fact that Weed was one of the sweetest, kindest
people you will ever meet.
Weed is the daughter of Paul and Bonnie Lillywhite and
number 4 in our family of 8 kids. The oldest was our sister, Lou, then came our
brother, Jay, then our sister, Ferf, then Weed, then yet another girl—me, Juge,
and finally our three “little” brothers, Moss, Supe and Bean. We moved from
Farmington, New Mexico to St. George when Weed was six.
Weed was just 18 months older than me and we shared a pretty
idyllic childhood.
We shared so much fun together and with our other siblings,
cousins and friends: playing with babies, Barbies and paper dolls, raising
kittens, making yarn dolls, wearing dress-ups made by mom, playing bury-in-the-blanket,
setting butterfly traps (which were always unsuccessful), hiding in forts under
our grapevines, running barefoot all summer—every summer, swinging on rope
swings made in our trees by Dad, swimming at Green Valley, making endless
buckets of mud to play in, and sliding on bags down the moss-covered gutters on
Main Street hill.
The summer before Weed was in 4th grade our family moved to
Pennsylvania for a year. It was a bit
like a year-long vacation for us kids. There we all loved playing in our
stream, perfected our cherry drops and other tricks on the branches of our
climbing trees (Weed was always braver and better at them than any of us). We
caught lighting bugs and played kick-the-can, king of the rock, and Annie I
over.
We moved back to sunny St. George the next summer. I was reading through my journal the other
night from that year, when Weed was 11 ½ and I had just turned 10. I wrote,
“last night I peed the bed.” Poor Weed. She and I shared a queen size bed at
the time. I totally remember I hadn’t done that in ages and was shocked. It
wasn’t too long ago that Weed and I were reminiscing about this ill-fated
event. I said, “Remember when I convinced you to help me put clean sheets on
the bed and hide the wet ones in our closet thinking we could sneak them into
the washer on wash day without Mom finding out?” As we laughed about it and how
mom was not pleased finding wet sheets in our closet, Weed said something like,
“I can’t believe I wet the bed when I was that old!” In her memory she was the
wet bandit. I laughed so hard and reminded her it was actually me who did the
wetting. She was just so nice she’d pretty much take the blame anytime there
was a question as to who was in the wrong.
During that time period we were busy playing spies,
runaways, drug dealers (that one was clearly my idea) and Indians (usually
subsisting on a diet of goody weeds through our adventures). We played horses,
skated, rode bikes, played basketball and jump rope, and all slept out in the
backyard. Weed had started drawing horses, and after perfecting that, moved on
to drawing people. I’m sure you’ve seen just how good she got at that. We loved
trips to the beach and Disneyland, Washington DC, Mount Rushmore, Colorado and
lots of fun around Southern Utah camping, hiking and picnicking as a family.
She had fun in middle school and high school, where she made
an amazing group of friends who are fun and kind women like her. She did
awesome academically, played sports, rocked it in her art classes and got
chased by lots of guys. Once in a while, when she’d had enough of hearing from
one of the guys on the phone, she’d pass it to me and I’d keep talking as if I
were her and no one was the wiser. We’d just cover the mouthpiece while we
busted up. Don’t worry Derek, that never happened with you.
Weed has always had an amazing smile, laugh, and sense of
humor! One of our cousins wrote, “I remember as a kid thinking, ‘how could
someone who is so very pretty be so goofy?!’” She is fun and funny. Ask anyone
who went to girls’ camp with her. She was just so pretty and then out of her
would come these thunderous burps that would put any guy’s attempt to shame.
She had a deal with a friend that if she could go two weeks without these
belches he’d take us both out to dinner. I got a filet minion out of Weed’s
hilarious talent/habit. One day after one of our mom’s delicious dinners Weed
stood up, rubbed her tummy, and announced accidentally, “I’m as full as a fool
can get!” She was miffed when we all busted up laughing, protesting that that
was not what she had meant to say. We all thought it was so cute and funny that
it became an often-used statement in our family and Weed laughed right along
with us. She made us laugh with her funny remakes of song lyrics, with her
crazy faces, and just with her infections laugh. She laughed when you laughed
and made everything more fun.
I think our childhood prepared Weed to be an amazing wife
and mother. She married Derek when she was 19 in the St. George Temple. Together they have lived in St. George,
Provo, Tooele and St. George again. A friend wrote in a letter “Derek gave a
talk in church once and referred to Lenae as his angel wife.” I love that he
called her that. Lenae loved spending time with him, helping him in any way she
could and is so proud of his many talents and accomplishments.
Derek and Weed have four amazing kids, Kaebri, Tasia, Zade,
and Trigg. They are each so unique and special. It took seven pregnancies, each
one extremely difficult, to bring their kids-here-on-earth into their family. I
think Weed loved making sacrifices for her kids because she loved them so much.
She spent hours and hours (mostly the wee hours of the night) sewing elaborate
Halloween costumes of the kids’ choosing. She made them all without patterns,
just using her creativity and sweet skills to create masterpieces. She made
every holiday fun and special for her family.
She loved spending time with her kids. When we talked on the phone she’d
be giggling as she jumped on the tramp with Trigg and I always knew that as
soon as her kids or Derek got home from school it was time to hang up because
she wanted to hear all about their days.
She may have yelled about Saturday’s work now and then, but mostly
because she just wanted to get it done so they could get out and do something
fun together. Weed loved taking the kids to the park or hiking or to roll
around in the mud at the river. Weed was the mom and aunt who always made all
the kids laugh with her tickles and silly teases—teases that made kids feel loved
and special and got them giggling like crazy.
Weed may have been pretty, but she was not prissy (except
maybe where spiders were concerned).
She was a hard worker, tackling every sort of job around her house from
building rock columns, including lugging around 80 pound sacks of cement, to
moving tons of dirt to get the yard ready for grass. Her purse, usually a
pretty tiny one, was packed with anything you could need from lip-gloss to a
knife, screwdriver or firearm. She was bold in standing up for things she
believed in strongly.
Weed had some pretty tough times with hospital stays for
herself and several of her kids, crazy hard pregnancies, three devastating
miscarriages, and some pretty severe hearing loss (which no one realized
existed until Derek figured it out shortly after they were married). It was
tough for her to go through surgeries and try to deal with hearing aids and to
have decreasing ability to hear her kids’ sweet voices. She had struggles that
she didn’t really talk about because she’d never want to burden others and was
a very private person.
I think because of those hard times and because of the very
nature of her soul, she was able to live the essence of the scriptures in
Mosiah 18 that tell us that we need to be: “willing to bear one another’s
burdens, mourn with those that mourn, and comfort those that stand in need of
comfort.”
Many people have expressed how much they appreciated her
ability to empathize. In each place she and Derek lived she made friends who
she was able to comfort and mourn with during their hard times. She was very
Christ-like in her ability to do that and I feel like in so doing she completed
the rest of that scripture: “to stand as witness of God at all times and in all
things and in all places that ye may be in, even until death, that ye may be
redeemed of God, and be numbered with those of the first resurrection, that ye
may have eternal life.”
Weed’s empathy extended beyond mourning and comforting
others. I think that scripture should also include “rejoice with those that
rejoice” which is sometimes the hardest to do of them all. Probably my very
favorite thing about Weed was her ability to do that. Anytime I told her about
something happy or exciting in my life she was even happier about it than I
was. I know she was like that with everyone around her. She truly found joy in
others’ happiness. Derek found a sign near her bedside lamp that said, “Those
who bring sunshine into the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves.” I
know she is feeling the sunshine she shared with all of us.
Weed loved doing things for people to celebrate them. Just
before our first baby was born, my husband and I moved back up north to Salt
Lake, which was pretty tough for me. For my birthday several months later I
decided I wanted to go camping and invited Weed’s family and Jay who all lived
up north too. We camped at Deseret Peak out past Tooele. Weed came with little
Kaebri and Tasia even though Derek wasn’t able to, packing up their tent and
all their gear. Not only did she come, but she made me a fancy version of my
favorite cake and brought a cooler full of ice cream packed with dry ice so I
could have cake and ice cream to celebrate my birthday. Camping with small kids
is seriously hard work. Yet here is Weed, bringing her two little ones, just to
help make my day special. She did that kind of thing for everyone. Just last year at Lou’s 40th birthday party
Weed showed up with the most gorgeous lemon layer cake and cupcakes, made with
real lemons and decorated with raspberries and mint leaves that she had spent
the entire day making. You’re lucky I wasn’t in charge of dessert that night,
Lou.
Probably the story from our childhood that Weed and I laugh
about the most was when we were about 7 and 8 years old. We had a friend over, but
she wasn’t playing the way we wanted and we were getting bugged. When she threw
our Fisher Price cash register across the room it was the final straw. We
shoved her down the hall and locked her in “the dungeon,” an old cellar with a
cement floor, ceiling and walls (that Jay slept in). My mom heard her yells and
came to her rescue, grounding Weed and I for the first and only time in our
lives. We were not allowed to play with friends for a whole week. We pretended
we felt punished but were really laughing behind mom’s back thinking it wasn’t
a punishment at all since we were best friends and preferred playing with each
other over other friends anyway. We always felt that way about our siblings.
They were our best friends. Since then,
things have changed and not changed. Weed remained my best friend. No matter
how lonely I was when I moved to a new place and had no friends, I knew I could
call Weed and tell her about it and laugh with her. I hope I was always there
for her too when she needed a friend. But
we have also added friends to our circles, friends who are like family and who
have been there for each of us when we needed them. Friends who will miss Weed
the way I will miss her.
When we would paint each other’s nails as kids I could never
understand why Weed’s nails were always dirty underneath even when mine weren’t
(didn’t we do all the same things?).
Surprisingly, as we grew up that never changed. She could wash a kitchen
full of dishes and still have dirt under her nails. We used to laugh and laugh
about it. When we went to help prepare her prettiness for the funeral Derek and
I noticed that there was dirt under her nails which just seemed so fitting and
made us both laugh. A lot has been said, and will be said, about Weed’s
perfections. She had her imperfections too and they helped us love her.
Sometimes it is our imperfections that make us perfect.
Weed’s world was Derek and their kids and she was their
world. On Monday I had the special experience of sitting in on a family home
evening with Derek and the kids as they worked on Lenae’s obituary, trying to
put into words who she was to them. It’s been difficult for all of us who loved
her (husband, children, family and friends) to find the words to describe her.
As I lay awake a few mornings ago, the words of Corinthians came into my mind
as the perfect descriptions of how she lived.
1 Corinthians 13
4. Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not;
charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
5. Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is
not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;
6. Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
7. Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all
things, endureth all things.
8. Charity never faileth.
Weed was charity. We miss her so much.
10. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which
is in part shall be done away.
12. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to
face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
We look forward to the day when we will again see her face
to face.
