Going Home

Heber J. Grant, seventh president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is a man who knew sorrow.

He saw two sons, two wives, and a daughter die of various illnesses. He knew only his mother, as his father died nine days after young Heber was born. His mother too passed, leaving him to contemplate the eternities.

“How bitter must be the suffering and grief of those who see nothing beyond the grave except the beginning of eternal night and oblivion,” he said on one occasion. “For them that thus believe, death has its sting and the grave its victory. To them, even the glory of this earth is but the last flickering of a candle in unending blackness.

“But, to the man of faith, death is but the taking up again of the life he broke off when he came to this earth.

“I can never think of my loved ones, my dear mother and those who have passed away, as being in the grave. I rejoice in the associations they are enjoying and in the pleasure they are having in meeting with their loved ones on the other side.”

When President Grant died in 1945, Mom’s grandmother took her to Temple Square in Salt Lake City so, at nine years old, she could see the prophet. She remembered her grandmother telling her that while that was President Grant’s body lying in the coffin, his spirit, very much real, had returned to our Father in Heaven and was experiencing the pleasure of seeing his dear children, his wives, his parents, and to continue the life, as he said, broken off before he came to earth.

It is right and good to feel the sorrow we feel today. As Elder Russell M. Nelson said, “[W]e can’t fully appreciate joyful reunions later without tearful separations now. They only way to take sorrow out of death is to take love out of life.”

Last week, Sherri reminded us of a dream Dad had shortly before he died seventeen years ago.

He dreamed he was in heaven, waiting for Mom to come. When he finally saw her coming, he realized there was a river between she and he. He also recognized it as the same river he’d had to swim when he died, to get to his parents and brother waiting for him on the other side.

I can imagine his anxious feelings as he saw Mom approach that river, stooped, leaning on her walker, and the fear he must have felt when she walked into the raging water and disappeared under the surface.

But in his dream, she resurfaced and walked, without her walker, to the shore, and was once again restored to health and vigor, ready to join him in the new life they were to lead. And there were many others, I’m sure, there on the shore, welcoming her home.

Death, they say, is harder on the living. Harder on those left behind. But as we watch our loved ones pass on, we are not left comfortless.

President Grant said: “I can testify of my absolute knowledge that nothing short of the Spirit of the Lord ever could have brought the peace and comfort to me which I experienced at the time of [my son] Heber’s death. I am naturally affectionate by disposition. I loved my last and only living son with all my heart. I had [built] great hopes on what I expected him to accomplish. I expected to see him a missionary proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ, and I hoped that he might be a power for good upon the earth; and yet, notwithstanding all these aspirations that I had for my boy, I was able, because of the blessings of the Lord, to see him die without shedding a tear. No power on earth could have given to me this peace. It was of God. And I can never speak of it or write of it without feelings of gratitude filling my heart, far beyond any power with which I am endowed to express my feelings.”

I’m also reminded of the words of the Savior: “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: Not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” (John 14:27).

Let not our hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. I know our Momma has gone home.