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<\/a>The blessings of the temple mean so very, very much at such \u201cinflection points\u201d in our lives.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I maintain a blog for many reasons.<\/p>\n
One of them is purely personal: \u00a0It\u2019s a kind of journal for me, and, even more particularly, it\u2019s a way of remembering things, and especially of remembering people, whose memory I refuse to allow to be wholly lost.<\/p>\n
So, for instance, I\u2019m afraid that readers of this blog will have to put up with my regular yearly memorials to my brother and my parents.<\/p>\n
This week, though, marks the ninth anniversary of the birth of our first granddaughter. \u00a0She lived only four days. \u00a0She spent her entire brief mortal life in a hospital in Orlando, Florida.<\/p>\n
We knew her so very briefly that, to my shame and horror, I sometimes find myself forgetting to mention her when people ask about my grandchildren.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m determined that I will not<\/em> forget her.<\/p>\n Hence, among other things, this blog entry.<\/p>\n When we knew that Lena would die, being there in the maternity ward of that hospital was agonizing. \u00a0All around us were sounds of joy. \u00a0Happy grandparents. \u00a0Happy aunts and uncles. \u00a0And we had . . . nothing. \u00a0Worse<\/em> than nothing.<\/p>\n But there was something that my wife and I could do. \u00a0At my son\u2019s apartment, a room had been brightly decorated for Lena\u2019s arrival. \u00a0Bright colors. \u00a0Animals. \u00a0A mobile. \u00a0We hurried home and stripped the room down, returning the toys and the crib and everything else to the stores from which they had come \u2014 and which, in sympathy and kindness, were remarkably helpful. \u00a0We didn\u2019t want that room to mock our son and our daughter-in-law when they came bleakly home.<\/p>\n We had come to Florida to help when the baby arrived. \u00a0It had been a very difficult pregnancy, but the baby seemed healthy. \u00a0I had no sense, departing on the flight, that I would soon be presiding and speaking \u00a0at a small graveside funeral.<\/p>\n Here are the comments\u00a0that I read at Lena\u2019s funeral service in Miami. \u00a0I almost\u00a0never read talks, but at the funerals of my father, my mother, my brother, and my granddaughter, I saw no practical way to do anything else.<\/p>\n These are remarks that no father or grandfather, no parent, should ever need to give. It\u2019s wrong, unfair, for a member of an older generation to be required to speak at a funeral for someone of the younger generation. Still, I\u2019m grateful that Jeff and Ceci have asked me to speak. I hope that I can be a voice here for all of us, and that I can do it without breaking down.<\/span><\/p>\n Jeff and Ceci\u2019s experience over the past week has been as bitter as this life offers. And it pains us to see our children\u2014for we still think of them as our children\u2014go through anything like this.<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019m so sorry for what has happened; as I\u2019ve told both Jeff and Ceci several times, I would have done virtually anything to have spared them this experience. I\u2019m sure that\u2019s true for others here, as well.<\/span><\/p>\n We also lament the things that we will not have. I had not realized, until I knew that I wouldn\u2019t have the opportunity, how much I was looking forward to taking Lena to Disney World and to hearing her squeal with delight as she discovered Disney cartoons. There in Orlando, though, in the hospital\u2019s Walt Disney Pavilion, surrounded by Disney cartoon characters in the lobby, it hit me hard. Now, too, she\u2019ll never be able to dance with her grandfather, Andres. Her great grandmother and great aunt and grandmother won\u2019t be able to introduce her to Cuban cooking.<\/span><\/p>\n We can\u2019t begin to calculate our loss.<\/span><\/p>\n Still, there are things to be thankful for. I\u2019m grateful for Ceci\u2019s remarkable extended family\u2014for the astonishing way they\u2019ve supported her and Jeff, and not merely over these past two terrible weeks. A German friend sent us a very kind note the other day, and shared a German saying with us: \u201cGeteilte Freude ist doppelte Freude,\u201d she wrote, and \u201cgeteilter Schmerz halber Schmerz.\u201d \u201cShared joy is double joy; shared pain is half pain.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n There is much truth in this, and Debbie and I both feel that we\u2019ve come to know and love Ceci\u2019s family\u2014and even, in a way, to know and love Jeff and Ceci themselves\u2014much better through this horrible shared experience.<\/span><\/p>\n We didn\u2019t have the opportunity to get to know little Lena Alaia, but she\u2019s had a large and, we hope, a permanent effect on us. I happened across this saying last night: \u201cThere is no foot too small that it cannot leave an imprint on the world.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Lena certainly has.<\/span><\/p>\n We\u2019re also so very proud of Jeff and Ceci. We live in a world that seems increasingly self-centered, but they were willing to bring a child into their home, and to care and sacrifice and, yes, run risks for that child. We hope and pray that they won\u2019t become discouraged.<\/span><\/p>\n So very many things have gone wrong in this story. They\u2019ve hurt, and sometimes, honestly, they\u2019ve made us angry. But, in the end, only a few things really matter. Only a few things need to be clearly remembered.<\/span><\/p>\n The first, of course, is Lena Alaia herself. She was only briefly here, but she will always be a member of the family.<\/span><\/p>\n Latter-day Saints believe this to be literally true. When Jeff and Ceci went to the Orlando Temple three years ago, their marriage was sealed in that sacred building, by special priesthood authority, for time and all eternity, so that it will continue beyond death. But not only that: Because of the ordinance performed in that temple, any children who come into their family\u2014even, as in Lena\u2019s case, if it\u2019s only for a few hours or days\u2014will continue to be their sons or daughters forever.<\/span><\/p>\n And now I want to briefly mention some other comforting truths that need to be understood and remembered:<\/span><\/p>\n The Book of Mormon prophet Alma learned by revelation, and taught, that, when they die, \u201cthe spirits of those who are righteous are received into a state of happiness, which is called paradise, a state of rest, a state of peace, where they shall rest from all their troubles and from all care, and sorrow.\u201d (Alma 40:12)<\/span><\/p>\n That is where Lena now is. In the most important sense, she is not dead, though her earthly body is. She is not asleep. She is fully awake and alive. She is a conscious person. Yet her troubles and pains, if in fact she ever felt any, are now forever past. She has triumphed. In a very real sense, we here, in our pains and sorrows, have reason to envy her.<\/span><\/p>\n Her name is so very perfect: Lena Alaia. A ray of light. A torch in the darkness. Joyous. Sublime.<\/span><\/p>\n But those righteous spirits in paradise will someday receive their bodies back again, in the resurrection. As Alma put it, \u201cThe soul shall be restored to the body, and the body to the soul; yea, and every limb and joint shall be restored to its body; yea, even a hair of the head shall not be lost; but all things shall be restored to their proper and perfect frame. . . . And then shall the righteous shine forth in the kingdom of God.\u201d (Alma 40:23, 25)<\/span><\/p>\n And body and spirit, \u201cinseparably connected, receive a fullness of joy.\u201d (Doctrine and Covenants 93:33)<\/span><\/p>\n But what of a little child? What of a newborn like Lena?<\/span><\/p>\n We lament what we\u2019ve lost. But perhaps we\u2019re focused too much on our own pain. Perhaps, if the words of prophets and apostles and of those who have glimpsed the next world are true, we\u2019re like people living in a slum, sad that one of our friends has been taken away. We think of all the experiences that our friend won\u2019t have with us\u2014but our friend has been invited to live in the palace of the king. Our friend is living a life far better, in a place far more beautiful, than we can even begin to comprehend.<\/span><\/p>\n The Prophet Joseph Smith taught that \u201cThe Lord takes many away, even in infancy, that they may escape the envy of man, and the sorrows and evils of this present world; they were too pure, too lovely, to live on earth.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Still, the prophet Mormon wrote, \u201clittle children are alive in Christ, even from the foundation of the world.\u201d (Moroni 8:12)<\/span><\/p>\n Joseph Smith was given a powerful vision in January 1836 of the world of spirits. He learned a great deal from what he saw. Here is one of the things that he learned: \u201cI . . . beheld that all children who die before they arrive at the years of accountability are saved in the celestial kingdom of heaven.\u201d (Doctrine and Covenants 137:10)<\/span><\/p>\n He also taught that infants who die will rise in the resurrection as children. On one occasion, he pointed to the mother of such a child who had died and said to her, \u201cYou will have the joy, the pleasure, and satisfaction of nurturing this child, after its resurrection, until it reaches the full [adult] stature of its spirit.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Lena\u2019s defective and injured little earthly body will be perfect.<\/span><\/p>\n We love and miss Lena Alaia. We wish that she could have stayed with us. But she is safe now, beyond pain. And, if we live our lives as we should, we will see her again. We will come to know her as the wonderful person she is.<\/span><\/p>\n In that day, as John the Revelator testifies at the very end of the Bible, \u201cGod shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.\u201d (Revelation 21:4)<\/span><\/p>\n In the meantime, we can know something with certainty. Something that should be of enormous comfort: Lena didn\u2019t die alone. Not on this side. And not on the other side. Nobody ever dies alone. She was welcomed there, as a \u201cnewborn,\u201d by loving, caring relatives. I suspect that my father, mother, and brother were among them. And, there too, I believe, she has brought two families closer together.<\/span><\/p>\n These things are true. And they\u2019re wonderful. They don\u2019t remove the pain, or dull the ache of loss. They\u2019re not supposed to do that. But they give us hope.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n As I say, I expect that few will have any desire to read through this entry. \u00a0And that\u2019s fine. \u00a0They don\u2019t need to care. \u00a0We all have our own lives, our own pressing obligations and interests and, yes, our own griefs.<\/p>\n I post this, as much as anything, for myself.<\/p>\n And, in doing it, I\u2019m reminded of a story from the life of Muhammad, the founder of Islam, that has touched me since I first encountered it:<\/p>\n When, sometime between late 630 AD and early 632 AD, Muhammad realized that his infant son, Ibrahim \u2014 the only son he would ever have \u2014 would probably not survive, he was so shocked that he needed help to walk. \u00a0(He himself would die on 8 June AD 632.) \u00a0His hands shaking, he placed the baby in his lap. \u00a0\u201cIbrahim,\u201d he said to his son, \u201cwe cannot do a thing for you against the judgment of God.\u201d \u00a0And then he fell into silent sobbing. \u00a0As the child continued to sink, his mother and his aunt, who were watching, wailed in despair. \u00a0Some expected Muhammad to rebuke them, but he didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n Finally, Ibrahim\u2019s breathing stopped, and Muhammad knew that he was dead. \u00a0\u201cIbrahim,\u201d he said, again addressing his son, \u201cif it were not a certainty that the last of us will eventually join the first, we would have mourned you even more than we already do now.\u201d \u00a0Then, trying to comfort the two women (and, probably, himself), Muhammad assured them that Ibrahim would have his own nurse in the gardens of Paradise.<\/p>\n Muhammad and others carried Ibrahim\u2019s body to the nearby cemetery, where, after the Prophet had prayed, the tiny boy was lowered into a grave. \u00a0Muhammad himself filled the hole with sand, sprinkled some water upon his son\u2019s burial place, and then marked the grave with a stone. \u00a0\u201cTombstones,\u201d he remarked, half speaking to himself, \u201cdo neither good nor harm. \u00a0But they make the living feel a bit better.\u201d<\/p>\n At the time of Lena\u2019s death, I was still writing regular columns for the Deseret News<\/em>.\u00a0 Seventy-eight of them annually, to be exact.\u00a0 I literally wrote this one while sobbing \u2014 something that, since I\u2019m a fairly unemotional person of\u00a0 northern European extraction, really caught me by surprise:<\/p>\n Some are displeased with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a> over socio-political disputes, gender concerns and other perceived grievances. While I seldom if ever share their specific issues, I don\u2019t discount them. I know they can hurt.<\/p>\n However, compared with ultimate questions of life and death, they seem thin, even trivial. If the LDS Church\u2019s claims are true \u2014 which I believe \u2014 everything else is at most secondary.<\/p>\n I echo the apostle Peter\u2019s declaration, when some were offended by the Savior\u2019s teaching:<\/p>\n \u201cFrom that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away? Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God\u201d (see\u00a0John 6:66-69<\/a>).<\/p>\n On a wintry Utah night decades ago, President Harold B. Lee and a local church leader paused, gazing through snow and darkness toward the Manti Utah Temple, high on the hill above them. \u201cThat temple,\u201d the local man observed, \u201clighted as it is, is never more beautiful than in a storm or when there is a dense fog.\u201d President Lee made the application: \u201cNever is the gospel of Jesus Christ more important to you,\u201d he said, \u201cthan in a storm or when you are having great difficulty\u201d (see \u201cTeachings of the Presidents of the Church: Harold B. Lee<\/a>\u201c).<\/p>\n Mortality offers happiness and sweet satisfactions, but also deep disappointments, intimidating obstacles and \u2014 sometimes \u2014 almost unbearable sorrows that pierce like a knife.<\/p>\n Among the sharpest such sorrows is the loss of a child. When excited thoughts of baby clothes, crib, stroller, anticipated first books and a cheerfully waiting nursery are displaced by funeral preparations, those things remain \u2014 but now, they mock and wound. The world is suddenly desolate. Joy turns to ashes.<\/p>\n A passage from T. S. Eliot\u2019s \u201cJourney of the Magi\u201d comes to mind, however misapplied:<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026 Were we led all that way for<\/p>\n birth or death? There was a birth, certainly<\/p>\n We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,<\/p>\n But had thought they were different; this birth was<\/p>\n Hard and bitter agony for us, like death, our death.\u201d<\/p>\n But God be praised: The birth that the Magi came to honor was the birth that would end death. \u201cOne short sleep past,\u201d said John Donne, \u201cwe wake eternally, and death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.\u201d<\/p>\n Naturally, we grieve. Even knowing what he knew and what he would soon do, the Savior himself mourned the death of his friend Lazarus: \u201cJesus wept. Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him!\u201d (see\u00a0John 11:35-36<\/a>).<\/p>\n \u201cBut I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren,\u201d wrote the apostle Paul, \u201cconcerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope\u201d (see\u00a01 Thessalonians 4:13<\/a>).<\/p>\n \u201cThou shalt live together in love, insomuch that thou shalt weep for the loss of them that die, and more especially for those that have not hope of a glorious resurrection. And it shall come to pass that those that die in me shall not taste of death, for it shall be sweet unto them\u201d (Doctrine and Covenants 42:45-46<\/a>).<\/p>\n Surely death is sweet for tiny infants who scarcely draw breath in mortality. Surely they will enjoy a glorious resurrection. \u201cLittle children are alive in Christ,\u201d insisted the prophet Mormon, \u201ceven from the foundation of the world\u201d (see\u00a0Moroni 8:12<\/a>).<\/p>\n Decades ago, a simple sentence in an LDS Church magazine article deeply impressed me. Sad at parting from co-workers after intense days together at the Hill Cumorah Pageant, a volunteer\u00a0remarked that the pain<\/a>\u00a0was less acute because \u201cfriends in the gospel never meet for the last time.\u201d<\/p>\n That comment has remained with me ever since. I believed it then; I believe it now. And yes, I desperately want it to be true.<\/p>\n \u201cAll your losses will be made up to you in the resurrection,\u201d\u00a0testified Joseph Smith<\/a>\u00a0in a passage that I\u2019ve needed to cite too often in these columns, \u201cprovided you continue faithful. By the vision of the Almighty I have seen it.\u201d<\/p>\n Lena Alaia, our long hoped-for first grandchild, was born on June 13 and died on June 16. \u201cWe said hello at the same time we said goodbye,\u201d as the song\u00a0\u201cSmallest Wingless,\u201d by Craig Cardiff,\u00a0puts it.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve wrapped her in the blanket that we brought from Bethlehem for her crib, entrusting her to the Savior who was born there. He loved little children.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n