And Then There Were Others

I've often heard people say that the mind instinctively (and subconsciously) identifies things that are familiar to it. For example, many times after a person purchases a particular new car he or she will begin identifying others with the same car whenever they see them, whereas before their new purchase these cars went unnoticed to them. Recently I've wondered whether this is what is happening to me. You see, as you entered the hospital and since your death it seems as though I've seen death everywhere, whereas my experiences with death before this had been almost non-existent.

Just two days before we admitted you to the hospital for the last time, I learned that the daughter of one of my coworkers had taken her own life. Then, three days after your own death, a missionary who had only weeks previous been transferred out of our ward (and one who was beloved by many in our unit, especially your sister Alexis), was killed in a car accident in her new area. A few short weeks later, Brittany's great grandmother whose condition had been deteriorating for months, passed away. Only a short time later, one of the less-active members of our ward (a man whom I had visited and blessed in the hospital only days before) also made the trip from this life to the next.

Seeing these deaths occur all around me so close to your own passing has caused me to pause and wonder "Why now?". For the first twenty-nine years of my life I had very few experiences with death. I had a friend in junior high school who took his own life, and I vaguely remember when my two grandmothers passed away. But other than these very few instances (spread over nearly three decades), I've never really had to deal with death before. Now, all of the sudden I seem to be surrounded by death. Everywhere I turn somebody else dies. Additionally, whenever television shows or movies talk about or depict death (something that I've found occurs very frequently and almost always in a way that treats the subject flippantly) I find myself cringing. How is it that I went so long without becoming acquainted with death? And why is it that it seems to be all around me now?

It's frustrating when people tell me that "death is just a part of life" and "everyone experiences it." While I know these things are true, the people telling me these things seem to feel that these facts will somehow ease my pain or make your death easier to accept. They do not. The concept of death or its absoluteness (the fact that it occurs and that no one can avoid it) is not what I struggle with . What I struggle with is your death. Why did God have to take you? There are other families out there who would barely blink if there child were lost. Some people even have such a void of love for their children that they end up abusing or neglecting them to the point where the government feels compelled to remove the children from their care. Why aren't these the people whose children God takes? Why does He instead take them from all families, seemingly irrespective of their level of love for their children? He must know how much it pains loving parents to lose their child (after all, He has experienced this Himself).

The conclusion I've arrived at is that on a grand scale, this would not be fair and would thus cause God to be unfair Himself. Think of it, what if God chose to take thru death only children of families where the parents didn't love (or actually abused) their children. The natural consequence of this would be that all of the faithful spirits for whom earth life is a mere detail (those who need no test of their faith, but only to receive a physical body) all of these choice spirits would be placed into unhealthy and dysfunctional families here on this earth...to parents that had no love for them. While this would have the effect of sparing loving families from the agony Brittany and I are now experiencing, it would be unfair to those valiant individuals (the children), especially considering the prominent importance of the family unit in God's overall plan. It would mean that those innocent children would forever be part of families where their parents have a reduced likelihood of reaching the Celestial Kingdom (not loving or actually abusing ones children has to exclude a person from the highest degree of glory). As such, although acting in this way may spare faithful parents the heartache of losing children to death, it would be patently unfair. Thus, God cannot do it.

The alternative is what we have been left with. God sends the valiant spirits to the families that He deems appropriate. Some of these families love their children so much that they end up suffering excruciatingly because of the loss of their child. To these the grief and agony seem unquenchable. In exchange, God seems to send to these parents an extra measure of the Holy Spirit, the gift of the ministering of angels, and miracles to sustain them along with precious friends and family to help support them. This is what your mother and I have experienced since your passing. At times it seems as though the sadness, grief and pain will consume us like an unquenchable fire. Yet, the Holy Spirit has been with us in ways that are too sacred to write here. We've experienced angels paving the way before us and we've experienced miracles. We've also been given family and friends who've been critical to sustaining us. We thank God for these, and pray that they will continue.

I find myself with a renewed thankfulness for the empty tomb. Never before has emptiness been so significant.

With Love,
Your Father