{"id":110735,"date":"2025-06-13T19:24:18","date_gmt":"2025-06-14T01:24:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=110735"},"modified":"2025-06-13T19:24:18","modified_gmt":"2025-06-14T01:24:18","slug":"she-would-have-been-eleven-years-old-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2025\/06\/she-would-have-been-eleven-years-old-today.html","title":{"rendered":"She would have been eleven years old today"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Manti<\/a>
The Manti Utah Temple was dedicated in 1888. It\u2019s always been one of my favorites. (Image from LDS.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For quite a number of years, I wrote a regular weekly column for the Deseret News<\/em>. \u00a0(Every other week, I also co-wrote another, separate, column for the Deseret News<\/em> with my late, lamented friend Bill Hamblin.)<\/p>\n

I published this particular column in the News<\/em> very nearly eleven years ago. \u00a0Under the circumstances, it was all that I could do.<\/p>\n

Our firstborn grandchild would have been eleven today. \u00a0I can\u2019t help but think of all of the experiences with her that we haven\u2019t had. \u00a0Here is the brief column that appeared back in 2014:<\/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.<\/span><\/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.<\/span><\/p>\n

I echo the apostle Peter\u2019s declaration, when some were offended by the Savior\u2019s teaching:<\/span><\/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>).<\/span><\/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).<\/span><\/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.<\/span><\/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.<\/span><\/p>\n

A passage from T. S. Eliot\u2019s \u201cJourney of the Magi\u201d comes to mind, however misapplied:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201d . . . 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<\/span><\/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>).<\/span><\/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>).<\/span><\/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>).<\/span><\/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>).<\/span><\/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<\/span><\/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.<\/span><\/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<\/span><\/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 \u00a0(From Craig Cardiff\u2019s heartbreaking song \u201cSmallest Wingless.\u201d<\/a>)\u00a0<\/span><\/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.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I still remember a trio of letters to the editor that were written in response to this particular column. \u00a0I had a few atheists or, anyway, a few critics of the Church of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who always liked to comment on what I wrote in my columns. \u00a0Often (though not always), what I wrote had an apologetic flavor, and they felt an urgent need to do combat with me.<\/p>\n

Almost as soon as this column appeared, one of them leapt into action. \u00a0Belief in a life after death, he declared, was a pathetic psychological crutch for people with weak minds. \u00a0It was irrational, there was no evidence for it, and we should face the cold facts of purposelessness and oblivion. \u00a0Or, anyway, something along those lines.<\/p>\n

Thereupon, another of the usual critics responded, suggesting that, since I had just lost a granddaughter, it would be appropriate and kind for the critics to hold off on such attacks, for at least a decent interval. \u00a0The first commenter replied, saying that he was sorry, that he had not read to the conclusion of my column (where I explicitly mentioned our granddaughter\u2019s death).<\/p>\n

I appreciated the decency of the one letter-writer, and I appreciated the eventual decency of the other. \u00a0But the exchange confirmed what I had long sensed, which was that the replies of at least some of these critics were likely just reflexive. \u00a0Often, they didn\u2019t really engage my arguments. \u00a0They simply ignored them and asserted their unbelieving positions. \u00a0I had suspected, but now I knew for a fact, that, in at least a few instances, they hadn\u2019t even troubled to read what I had written.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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