Wendy

"Wendy Kimball Mack 1978~2011 & Maylee Wendy Mack 2011 Wendy Kimball Mack, 32, beloved wife, mother, daughter, sister and friend returned to her Father in Heaven on April 30, 2011. On May 2, 2011, Wendy was reunited with her beautiful newborn daughter, Maylee Wendy Mack in a Heavenly embrace.Wendy was born November 14, 1978 in Salt Lake City, Utah to Lee and Karen Kimball. She faithfully served an LDS mission to the Arizona Tucson Spanish speaking mission. On August 2, 2003 she married her loving husband Denny Mack in the Salt Lake LDS Temple. Wendy graduated from American Fork High School and received degrees from Snow College and Utah Valley University. She worked as a Registered Nurse at Primary Children's Hospital and Timpanogos Hospital. Wendy was most recently employed at Riverton Hospital as a Labor and Delivery nurse. She will be dearly missed by her husband, Denny Mack, children Dallin (6), Kenna (4) and Evan (2). Wendy was very close to her six siblings, Laura Baskett (Scott), Julie Dunkley (Sean), Nathan Kimball (Brooke), Brian Kimball (Suni), David Kimball (Marianne) and Danny Kimball (Heather). Wendy loved her abundantly large family that included numerous aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews. Wendy understood completely that people are most important and her spirit of service was her greatest passion. She loved being a wife, mother and a devoted disciple of Christ. Wendy's heart led her to a career in nursing and she affected many lives through her healing touch, compassionate spirit and contagious smile. As an angel on earth, Wendy was a shining inspiration who embraced a life full of gratitude and joy while radiating love to everyone who knew her. We know she is continuing her angelic mission as we all move forward. A funeral service will be held at 11:00 a.m. on Friday, May 6, 2011 at the Highland Utah Stake Building, 5335 West 11200 North, Highland, Utah. Wendy's family will meet with friends on Thursday evening, May 5 from 6:00 - 8:00 p.m. and on Friday morning, May 6 from 9:00 - 10:30 a.m. Burial service will be at the Highland Cemetery. Condolences to Denny and their family can be made at www.serenicare.com or www.dennyandwendy.blogspot.com"
Daily Herald Obituary for Wendy Mack

It was a fairly normal Saturday. We were still trying to unpack and get some of the main projects of the house done. The main one was the main floor bathroom vanity. We wanted the only bathroom on the main floor to be in working order and at least have one room unpacked and ready.

Later that evening, I picked up my mom at a gas station from her friend driving her home from the airport. She was “grandkid sick” and wanted to come to my house before going home. Dad and Haley met us at the house with pizza and drinks to our first “pizza-video” in our house. Due to several things of cleaning and such we got a late start. We searched Netflix for a while for a movie and finally just choose “Anger Management”. None of us were really into the movie, but were enjoying being together and occasionally laughing at the silliness of the movie. It was just a couple minutes before 11:00pm that my phone rang. I looked at the clock and thought “who would be calling so late?!” I had gotten a call earlier from someone in the ward to meet with a member of the bishopric, for what I could have only assumed was to receive a calling. I had done some calling around to a friend to see if I could figure out what I was being called to. I had thought maybe she was calling back with another suggestion, but why so late?

I jumped off the couch and tore through my purse to find it. I was panicking I was going to miss the call. I finally found it and it read “Laura Baskett”. I thought “HUH!?” I answered and just heard a sobbing on the other end. I had only heard Laura cry like that once. I knew something was wrong.

“hello?!”

“…shire sobbing…” I thought to myself “No, their happy! Everything is going so well with them, what could be so wrong to make her cry like this?”

“Heather- we just got a call from Denny. Wendy is in the hospital and he doesn’t think she is going to make it!”

“WHAT!? WAIT… WHAT HAPPENED?”

THIS IS NOT WHAT I WAS EXPECTING TO HEAR. By this time my family was yelling “WHATS WRONG?! WHAT’S GOING ON?!” And all I could to was wave at them to shush… because I couldn’t hear.

“Denny just called and said Wendy might not make it!”

I then looked at Dan, who was standing at the sink washing chocolate off his arm. I turned to him and thinking “I can’t believe I have to say this heart breaking news to my husband!” All I could manage to get out was “Your sister died.”

Danny said “WHAT?!” I repeated it and my family jumped off the couch and ran over to us. My mom immediately started crying.

“Laura, here is Danny” I then handed him the phone.

I then fell to the floor crying in my kitchen saying “I just talked to her yesterday! I just talked to her yesterday! This isn’t happeneing!” My mom came over and tried to hug me, but all I wanted was to be with my husband and find out what was going on.

I walked into the living room where he was hanging up with Laura and he was crying. He started to go upstairs to get his phone and I followed him. My parents followed us. As we got into our room and Dan was turning on his phone, Nate called Dan. He called to see if we knew what was going on. We told him what Laura said that she may not make it. He told us “No, she’s gone.” WHAT?! HOW COULD SHE DIE?! NO! THIS IS A MISTAKE! Then all I could think about was the baby. Wendy was 34 weeks pregnant with a little girl. Did she make it? What happened? Were they in a car accident? Nate said, they didn’t know he was on his way to the hospital. He couldn’t get much out of Denny because he was pretty out of it. So I thought “so was there an accident and he was involved too? Was he so delirious, that couldn’t tell the doctors what had happened? Dan asked if Brian knew and Nate said he would call him. Nate said he would keep us informed after he got there. Dan asked what we could do from here and he said “get ahold of Mom and Dad”

After he hung up, my phone rang again and it was Brooke, Nate’s wife.

“Hey, do you guys know what is going on?”

“Yeah. Laura called us. All we know is Wendy didn’t make it. What is going on?”

“I don’t know.”

She told me what Nate had said, she then asked if I knew who the kids were with. She then asked me to see if I could find a number to call Mom and Dad. Then we hung up.

Things are blurry in how everything happened, but we started scrambling to find something or some phone number somewhere to get ahold of Mom and Dad on their mission in Africa. How do you even call Africa?! They’re 6 hours ahead!

As, I was on the computer, Suni called me. She also wanted to make sure we knew what was going on. I told her what I knew. She told me that Brian was crying in the bathroom. I just said

“THIS ISN’T REAL! THIS CAN’T BE HAPPENING! THIS JUST ISN’T REAL!” I started crying.

Suni then started crying and said “I know!”

With Brian and Suni being the only other family outside of Utah, like us. I asked her “what do you do when you’re this far away?!”

We just cried and she said “pray”.

I asked her if they were going to jump in the car or what. Suni said they would wait for more information and then decide where to go from there. I knew that was what we needed to do, but all I wanted to do was throw my sleeping kids in the car and drive over then. But I knew we needed to wait too… That was the hardest part… waiting to hear… We didn’t want to be bothersome to so many, but we just held our phones in our hands praying news, any news would come.

Suni ended with the call with “Make sure you say a family prayer.”

When I got off, Dan was in our bathroom crying. I opened the door and shut it. It was only us in there. I hugged him tight and I said a prayer. We both cried through it.

We then came out and started thinking of ways to get ahold of Mom and Dad. I tried calling them on skype and left a voicemail. By this time it would about the time Dad would be waking up. I sent an email. I hadn’t even thought far enough ahead to what or how we would tell them, only that we needed to get them. I then had the thought of calling Uncle Stan, Dad’s brother, who was also in the Stake Presidency over there in Highland. He would surely know where to go to get numbers. Dan called him and broke the news. I later found out he went down to the hospital with the rest of the siblings. How I longed to be there with them, to hug everyone and cry with them. Being 500 miles away had never been so hard.

That night we were in and out of sleep all night. I would wake up to Dan crying in his sleep. In the morning, we decided it was best to go over since Mom and Dad would be coming home soon and we wanted to be there when they got to Salt Lake. Dan started calling down his work phone tree. After about 7 or 8 calls, he finally got a hold of someone and they said to just go and let them know later in the week how things were and if he would need more time off. His work amazes me. (Side note: When Dan eventually got back to work, his boss came up to him to make sure he was ok. He then said he was surprised he didn't take more time off! WHAT?! What boss says that!? How wonderful are they?)

Anyway, so my parents came Sunday around lunch time to pick up the kids so we could just concentrate on packing. Packing was difficult. We couldn't concentrate and were very frazzled. We finally picked up the kids and got on the road around 4pm. We were only an hour outside of Salt Lake when Julie texted me telling me Maylee had passed away. We were trying so hard to make it and see this precious baby.

Dan's parents got in on Monday night. Only the siblings and Denny and kids went to greet them at the airport. All of Tuesday was spent planning and making funeral arrangements. Thursday, I was blessed with the opportunity to help dress Wendy. It was amazing and I was so grateful and honored they let me be apart of that. Thursday night was the viewing. So many people came, some even waited for 3 hours to see her and family.

Friday was the funeral. It was amazing. All of Maylee's cousins sang "Families Can be Together Forever". I'm pretty sure not many people had a dry eye.

{All the cousins practicing their song}

{The tree that will be planted in Mom and Dad's yard. Hanging, are pictures of Wendy all over it. My sister-in-law, Brooke and I took on the task of gathering all the pictures we could find for the tree and the slide show video.}

{One of my favorites... Wendy saying "I love you" in sign language as she entered the MTC when she went on her mission. It's how I picture her now...}

{Denny, my brother-in-law (Wendy's husband), spoke at her funeral. He is amazing. His testimony was so powerful and struck to the core. He is a rock. This picture always makes me smile. Kenna, their daughter, was at her Dad's side during the last half of his talk. Denny got choked up at one point and sweet Kenna handed him a tissue. Talk about how precious. *I wish I could take credit for this picture, alas I cannot. I "borrowed" it from the photographer that was there*}

{Dallin, their son, 6 years old, was an pallbearer. It was so sweet and tender to help carry his mother and baby sister to the car and up the hill to their gravesite.}

{Evan, also their son, 2, was always right there wanting to help. He is a doll.}

{So many tender moments happened that week, along with many tender mercies. We are so blessed. What an amazing family I am so blessed to be apart of.}

{Dan, putting his boutonniere on her casket.}

{All the boutonniere's from all the pallbearers...}

{All the siblings and their spouses.}

{All the siblings with Mom and Dad}
Left to right: Brian, Dan, Dad, Mom, Julie, Laura, David & Nate

{One last goodbye before we left the grave-site}

{"God be with you until we meet again"}

{The evening after all the services... all the flowers that had been delivered and brought by. She touched so many lives and was well loved by so many.}

A couple weeks after the funeral and such, there was an event called "Running with Angels". All the local family went and ran the 5K in Wendy and Maylee's honor. They all wore orange in honor of them. Quoting Denny on why they have, "Some people have asked why the orange for Wendy, was it her favorite color or something. I often joke that Wendy never picked a favorite color because she didn’t want the other colors to feel bad, even our wedding was made up of all the spring colors and not just one or two. The orange actually comes from her incredible co-workers at Riverton Hospital. She absolutely loved working with them and being able to help bring babies into the world as a labor and delivery nurse. Wendy had found a pair of Crocs online that were bright orange that she would wear to work every time. The contrast of those with the royal blue scrubs that the IHC nurses would wear made her shoes stand out and became part of her personality at work. And, no, she was not a Boise State fan. After she died her co-workers got orange wristbands as a tribute to Wendy. I really think she would get a kick out of that and is smiling. After that, orange just became a natural thing for us as family and friends to feel connected to Wendy. I love seeing the bright orange on my friends and neighbors and family and knowing why they are running in it or wearing it. It makes me smile to think of the people that she has touched"

There is actually a "Croc Walk" on July 9 in Saratoga Springs, UT. You can go here. To find out more about it. It's a mile walk and if you register for the walk, for $13 you can get a pair of orange croc's. Croc's has generously donated 100 pairs for the event and ALL money goes to the Mack Memorial Fund.

I find myself often thinking about Wendy. I know she is needed else where for obviously more important tasks in the Spirit World. She touched us all, in a ways I am still learning. She will be truly missed and is eternally loved.