Katie Norton Life Sketch Part 2

Celebration of life services may be listened to on this page. This is part 2 picking up when Katie met Oak.

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In Spring 1992, our dad Oak was a sophomore at Utah state and was invited to serve on the student council for LDSSA, the Latter-Day Saint Student Association, for the next school year. Just before fall quarter started, all the organizations student leaders were invited to a special leadership workshop. At this workshop, our dad met Jenny Cardall, one of mom’s best friends growing up in Dayton, ID.

Weeks later, dad and one of his roommates had the idea to rent a movie and go hang out with some girls so dad called Jenny to see about coming over since she had an apartment of 6 girls and Vern and dad liked those odds.

Right after arriving, another girl showed up named Katie Henderson and they promptly had their first argument over which way a certain direction was. Dad was right, and she was further unhappy because she had recently broken up with a boyfriend and wanted nothing to do with boys. She wanted a girls night with one of her friends but some interlopers had showed up and spoiled it.

The movie was put on and she opted to sit on the floor in front of dad instead of sitting on the couch. As the movie went on, dad noticed that she fell asleep during the movie and he was unimpressed that anyone could fall asleep during the Pink Panther.

A few months later, they were walking opposite directions in front of the Institute building and both stopped and turned around and recognized that they knew each other from somewhere. It took a few minutes but then they tied it back to the night at Jenny Cardall’s.

Mom mentioned she went home and told her roommates she met someone named Oak and a couple of her roommates knew him from the prior year. Katie mentioned they weren’t members of the church and dad saw his opening.

He said, “oh cool, I happen to be the missionary VP on the LDSSA council. I should get your number and stop by some time and see if they might be interested in the church.”

Mom gave him her phone number and was a little put off that he was more interested in them than he was in her. She was just ignorant of his actual motives.

Dad soon called her up and asked her out, but made his first misstep. He and his roommates were going ice skating on a Friday night and when he asked if she could come, she said she would be coming back from Southern Utah on a school trip. Thinking she wouldn’t make it and knowing he needed someone to go with him, he said, “Oh OK, well do you think one of your roommates would want to go with me?”

Slightly stunned by the question, she said she thought she could find a way to get back in time and she did. Two months later they were engaged.

Dad had an old fashioned thought that he should ask her father for her hand in marriage. Mom was only 18 and dad was a 23 year old returned missionary. So one night he called her father Blair up and asked if he would consent to her hand in marriage. Blair’s immediate reply was, ‘NO!’

Dad replied, “OK, well I just thought I would ask,” and the call ended. Dad was not deterred.

Shortly after, there was a regular meeting for the LDSSA association. About 150 youth were part of the various committees and the guest speaker was a former Utah politician. Dad concocted a plan and after the speaker left, got up and said, “we’ve just heard a lot about being anxiously engaged in a good cause. I’d like to ask Kathlene Henderson if she would be anxiously engaged to me.” Dad’s friend and LDSSA president Tony Jewkes pulled out the dozen red roses dad had purchased which he took to her while waiting for her answer. She said yes and dad was quite relieved.

Two months later, they got married in the Logan temple with Katie’s dad trying to convince her not to go through with it the whole drive down from Idaho. Thankfully that effort failed. When mom and dad knew something was right, they just moved forward.

Dad’s relationship with Katie’s father did improve, particularly when he was able to use his accounting skills to help him save some money on his taxes, and over the years they had a very good relationship with each other, especially as mom’s parents saw the commitment dad had to the family through some serious struggles.

Mom’s goal in life was to be a mom. She didn’t care to finish college, instead just wanting to have a big family. She was the 10^th of 12 children and wanted a dozen kids. That quickly got revised after having going through 21 hours of labor for her first child- me.

As mom and dad discussed names, they settled on two possibilities. Either Aspen for a tree, or Savanna, because mom’s favorite movie was “Savanna Smiles” about a cute little girl that gets accidentally kidnapped and the kidnappers fall in love with this young child messing up all their ransom plans.

When I was born, they looked at me and said, “this isn’t an Aspen,” and Savanna stuck.

Their next child was miscarried and they named her Cherry.

Then Aspen was born, followed by Willow, Holly, and Oak the 4th.

Katie was an incredibly devoted mother. Even though dad was grateful he broke his odd teenage vow to never marry a girl from Idaho or live in Idaho (never say never), he did get his other desire to marry a farm girl who would be a hard worker. Sometimes she would exhaust dad (or maybe exasperate him) like at Christmas after everyone was finally asleep and assembly was completed and things arranged late at night or into the morning, she would insist they had to make the appropriate markings outside to show further evidence of a midnight visitor. Dad participated in that tradition only a couple times while mom wanted to make sure things were perfect and would be outside for a while.

As the children grew, Katie never wanted them to feel like they needed to live up to her legacy in school or win awards so she threw out her high school stuff to make sure they could be themselves.

One of Katie’s best qualities was her ability to compliment anyone, anywhere, and fearlessly become friends with them. She frequently surprised dad with things she would say to strangers to make their day. Oftentimes becoming quick friends with some burly tattooed guy or someone just down on her luck. She did this in the doctor’s office the day before she passed.

Katie was highly competitive. When dad started a co-ed soccer league 20 years ago, she joined and played and had a great time playing on the team for many years even while 6 months pregnant one season.

She loved word games and games like speed but could barely tolerate to sit still for the games dad and the rest of us enjoyed that required more strategy.

Mom’s competitive side also provided some hilarious experiences. During a game of Pictionary, she got so mad after losing a round that she threw her pencil through the air over dad’s head, striking a picture of Jesus and leaving a mark on his face. When she realized what she did her eyes went wide and we’ve laughed about it for years.

One of my favorite memories was when I was in high school. It was really late, like 11 or 12 o’clock at night and it had freshly snowed. For some reason, Mom and I decided to go outside and we played in the snow for over an hour. I don’t remember any particulars about what we did out there or what we talked about, but I remember it feeling like some golden moment outside of the constraints of mortal time and reality. It felt so healing and connecting.

In August of 2006, mom was 6 months pregnant with my brother Oak. She got on a simple spinning ride at Lagoon and while it was spinning around, something snapped in her head although we can’t remember if that was audible for her or just the way she described it. She further said it was like going to the top of a hill in a roller coaster and getting the adrenaline rush of being about to descend and then that feeling never went away. It was instant anxiety all over her body. What followed for the next 3.5 years was an unknown form of hell. Anxiety and depression were pretty severe and one of her prescriptions started causing body pain so she was given a fentanyl patch. Always preferring a minimal dose of medication, she cut the patch in half to reduce the dose which actually allowed the drug to seep out and in a matter of an hour or two, she took in a massive amount effectively overloading her pain receptors. From then on, only strong pain killers could touch her pain. She suffered addiction to her pills, and at times we thought we might lose her.

She did detox a couple times and continued with therapy until she found a chiropractor who discovered her neck was displaced and upon setting it straight helped almost miraculously tolet her feel and function much better.

It was shortly after this that Aspen’s condition started becoming serious. If you missed Aspen’s funeral last month, you can hear part 1 at AspenNorton.com. For the next several years, things with Aspen were really difficult, and Mom was worn thin by the events of life.

The past ten years were full of ups and downs in Mom’s health, including a series of ankle issues that impacted her mobility. This was really difficult for her, as she loved to be outside moving around. But while she was less able to join certain family activities, she always had a listening ear when we would go into her room and talk with her. Each of us had meaningful conversations with her over the years that have made us feel loved and valued.

For the last couple weeks, she had been having breathing problems and then started getting sharp pains in her back. She went to the doctor a week ago Tuesday where she was diagnosed with pneumonia and possible shingles. She got antibiotics and came home. It didn’t seem overly serious to us.

The next morning she was sleeping soundly when our dad left a plate of eggs on the bed for when she woke up and they were still there later when she was discovered to have passed away.

She had an extremely hard life, and after Aspen passed away, she just wanted to go home. She told me recently that the only reason she didn’t want to die was because she didn’t want to cause us more pain. But she was ready to pass on in so many ways. Although the timing of this has left a lot to be desired, I’m so happy she doesn’t have to be apart from Aspen anymore. And both Aspen and my mom deserve this rest more than anyone I know. I love them both and wish so badly I got to see them be free and healed on earth, but I can and will wait to see them be free and healed in Heaven.

Countless times over the years she said she wanted her headstone to read, “She was a real person.” She didn’t want to be fake with anyone. She will always be remembered as a loving and fun person who lived life to the fullest she could while enduring many trials. She can now rest and serve as one of two great guardian angels for our family.

Years ago when our grandma Henderson passed away, one of our cousins posted a beautiful poem on our family Facebook page. I copy and pasted it into my journal and wrote that I could think of distinct memories of my grandma for every line of the poem, and then wrote that I realized I had distinct memories of my mom from each line as well. It says:

“Your Mother is always with you. She’s the whisper of the leaves as you walk down the street. She’s the smell of certain foods you remember, flowers you pick, the fragrance of life itself. She’s the cool hand on your brow when you’re not feeling well. She’s your breath in the air on a cold winter’s day.She is the sound of the rain that lulls you to sleep, the colors of a rainbow; she is Christmas morning. Your mother lives inside your laughter. She’s the place you came from, your first home, and she’s the map you follow with every step you take. She’s your first love, your first friend, even your first enemy, but nothing on earth can separate you, not time, not space… not even death.”

I carry hope going into the future that my mom and Aspen will continue to be actively involved in our lives- in the big, significant moments, and in the smaller, quiet moments. And they will be their full, true, happy, healthy, empowered selves in those moments, which gives me so much peace and gratitude and hope. I pray all of us can feel that hope as we continue to move forward with their love and support.