HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANNE!

August 3, 2015

Today, if I was home in Utah, I would go out to my wildflower garden and cut the most beautiful, most colorful flowers in the garden.  I would put them in a "Pringles" can that had been wrapped with colored paper, put rocks in the bottom of the can to hold it firm, water them and take them to adorn a spot in Eden.

Anne was born August 3, 1976, in Ogden, Utah.  The umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck five times; each time there was a bearing down pain her heart would stop beating.  The urgency in the doctor's voice made me nervous. I was relieved when she was here and healthy.  I don't know if her birth was the reason I felt protective of her, but I seemed to be so from her earliest days.

Anne was three years old when we moved to Peterson.  She loved to play outside and would bring me wildflowers every day.  Many times the grasses in the field would hide her from my view; playing hide and seek was easy then.

There wasn't anything that didn't interest her; she wanted to try it all.  She knew if she wanted it badly enough she could do it.  She decided, in High School, that she wanted to be in the Jazz Band. She made it as the percussionist; she taught herself to play the bass guitar and played the drums in the parade. She was on the Seminary Council, and she was also on the ZCMI Teen Board.  She also loved to run, so she tried cross country, where she took the Region first place, and she also loved hurdles.  That was amazing to watch.

Anne's picture for Teen Board

Anne could do anything she set her mind to: she was a runner, a writer, a cook, a musician, a good friend to everyone she knew, but what she loved most of all was being a wife and mother.

Anne Petersen Creager 1976-2009

Life is not the same without her here.  She is missed every day. Her love of life made ours better and without her we would never have known the joy that she brought to this earth.

I love you Anne, Happy Birthday!

Roger wrote one of my favorite poems about Anne after she died.  I am adding it to this post:

Pumper Girls

Today, with my head in the palm of my hand,

Lying on the newly mowed lawn,

I listened for a message from Anne:

"Listen, Dad,"

She said softly:

"Stop brooding!

There is still bounce in those 

Three little girls' eyes.

They still climb on the swing set

And laugh.

'Look Grandpa, I'm a Pumper Girl!'

And one at a time they still rise

To the sun,

Hair flying like wondrous little

Egrets in a Florida marsh wind,

 Their feather plumes trying to be like those 

Of New York women.

"No more crying!"

She repeated.

"I'm the mother bird, and though I rose

Through the hurricane

Into the eye, where rest, peace,

And calm reign, I am not sad!

Surely I'll return to claim

The three little fledglings on the other side

Of the storm, when the Red of the rising

Sun will take us all to glory,

"Now, get up off the grass

And push those Pumper Girls!"

McCady, Maiya, MaLeah 2009