Family Life and Friendship Network

oh Brandon. You've said it exactly how it is. Your writing is so tender, thank you for sharing this.

If I might offer a thought or two,

It has only been one or two weeks since you were able to understand almost everything she answered, and that was at least a week longer than the rest of us. Her now crying with frustration and the sad apathetic expression are in some ways the hardest for me to see. I want so badly to help her communicate, she who has communicated so fluently throughout her life, and a part of me clings to her warmth and living nearness while another yearns for her spirit to be free from this wretched illness. I had a very sacred experience a few weeks ago, in which I felt a very strong impression that a part of Julie was already free and simply waiting for the final release. I heard Julie's voice in my mind, and as I prayerfully asked the Lord questions I learned some profound things that I had never considered. Also, not two months ago she and I had a real conversation, a very deep one, in which we talked about many things, one of which was her mother Susan. Julie at one point said simply, "I'm a good cook." I heartily agreed. She said, "I hope my mother knows. When I meet her, I want her to understand me." It occurred to me yesterday, that part of her trepidation in meeting her mother again lays in the fact that she lost her exactly at the age when tensions between moms and their daughters tend to be the highest, and just before the time when many mothers and daughters come to peace and close friendship with one another. I deeply hope and believe that when she does meet Susan again, they will understand one another perfectly and share a loving and healing embrace. I am certain that Susan is full of love and pride for all that Julie is, and has been right there waiting for her with open and loving arms to help bring her home.

I know that these words may bring you tears, and I don't know whether to apologize or not for that. But tears can be so cleansing and healthy, and natural in tender times as this even knowing as we do that she is going to be fine---though how greatly she will be missed here--- and I wanted you to know these things. Last Sunday we spoke about grief and the loss of loved ones and the example that President Hinckley set in helping us to see that it is ok to grieve and feel lonely even knowing as we do that they are in the arms of God. I remembered that it is only twice (that I know of) in the scriptures that we hear of Jesus weeping. One, when the Nephites could not speak because they loved him so much and wanted him to stay, even though they knew he must leave. Two, when those whom He loved dearly in this world, Mary and Martha, were distraught with grief over the passing of their brother. I do not doubt that Mary and Martha trusted that Lazarus was in a far better place, and yet their grief and faith moved Jesus to weeping. It was a long prayer in which he pleaded to the Father for the permission to resurrect Lazarus, one in which surely they must have weighed the difficult choice between his freedom from the pain of mortality, joy with God, and the blessing it would be to Mary, Martha, and billions of seeking souls throughout thousands of years to know that Christ through the priesthood could exercise the power of God and raise Lazarus from the dead. Even knowing as He knew, the great things in store for Lazarus beyond this world, Christ's compassion for us was such that He wept. And I believe there may even have needed to be some coaxing and reassurance for Lazarus in that world beyond this, that truly he was needed back for a time as surely he was likewise torn with a desire to stay in the arms of God, and a desire to comfort his sisters. When that moment does come, when Julie slips away from us, I know that you more than anyone will feel many things at once. The grief as well as the release, the longing as well as the joy, the despair as well as the knowledge that you will hold one another again in what will one day seem as a blink of an eye, but for now must seem like an eternity. He knows it all, and He will cradle you through it. As always, our family prays and thinks of yours without end.