Post-Script

“Was there ever a man who truly loved a woman, or a woman who truly loved a man, who did not pray that their relationship might continue beyond the grave? Has a child ever been buried by parents who did not long for the assurance that their loved one would again be theirs in a world to come? Can anyone believing in eternal life doubt that the God of heaven would grant his sons and daughters that most precious attribute of life, the love that finds its most meaningful expression in family relationships? No, reason demands that the family relationship shall continue after death. The human heart longs for it, and the God of heaven has revealed a way whereby it may be secured. The sacred ordinances of the house of the Lord provide for it.”
-Gordon B. Hinckley

As a teenager, I fell in love with the hymn, “O My Father” because of the line, “But oft times a secret something whispers, ‘You’re a stranger here’ and I felt that I had wandered from a more exalted sphere.” There is something so amazing about that statement. I often felt that longing for something greater, but had never had the words to explain it.

I remember a particular friend in high school who had adopted environmentalism as a sort of pseudo religion. Even then, I recognized that this was a manifestation of searching for something greater within ourselves. But, it seemed like such a contradiction. I think there is something very righteous and inherently spiritual about respect for the environment. But I think that it comes from the Earth’s purpose in God’s plan for his children and its status as his creation.

It seemed so strange to me that someone who was too intelligent to believe in God could be so fixated on saving the planet. After all, if mankind was the creation of a series of genetic mistakes, then the Earth itself is just another rock in the sky. Eventually, the sun is going to burn out and everything on this planet will die. But what does it matter? Why are people who don’t believe in the divinity of humans concerned about future generations at all? How is a person any different from a grain of sand? Why try to live morally, at all? Morality isn’t part of biology. Without God, it must be a human creation. And humans don’t matter. Science teaches survival of the fittest, so why did people who embraced those teachings so wholeheartedly work so hard to help the disabled and downtrodden? The whole thing perplexed me.

I concluded that the whispering that told us we were children of God hadn’t been instilled into me by my religious beliefs. It is natural. Everyone feels it. People grab a hold of morals, environmentalism, political prowess, charity and a hundred other causes to try and create uniformity between their actions and that whispering of divinity because they are absolutely unwilling to accept what their hearts already know.

Recently, this whole idea took a new direction for me. It came from the silliest of sources. My little Sean has become completely obsessed with Superman. I’ve been renting him the moves just to watch his little face light up and the way he jumps into the air and shouts whenever the hero saves someone. It occurred to me, during the 326th viewing of one of these silly shows, that the ongoing theme of father to son kept creeping in. I watched the movie makers’ interpretation of Krypton. They had tried to create a completely alien world. Culture, politics, technology, architecture, and fashion carefully avoided anything that could be familiar to the audience. But there was still the traditional family.

I started thinking of other media. I considered what I know of various fantasy and science fiction movies and books. I was amazed to find that no matter what the writers changed, they always included families. Sometimes the families had different traditions and attitudes toward each other, but they were families still the same. In fact, I couldn’t think of a single story where a human mind had managed to eliminate families from their imagined worlds. Actually, there were usually very strong messages about the importance of families and bonds between generations.

I suddenly saw the similarity between that principle and the “secret something” spoken of in my favorite hymn. Perhaps it’s the holy ghost, perhaps it’s just that we know something of our former home, despite the veil, but I believe the human heart also knows how absolutely crucial and natural the family is, in the same way we know that we are children of God. It’s not an institution of society that we are culturally forced into, but a natural part of humanity that we all yearn for.

This being the case, the desecration of the family is even more of a tragedy. People are managing to replace spirituality with causes and they have begun to replace family with a hundred other permutations that may fulfill the need, but lack the divine nature of an eternal union. I cannot describe what I felt when I realized that the imaginations of amazing writers had not managed to destroy the family, but that we were slowly doing it ourselves with pride and selfishness.

Perhaps it’s delusions of grandeur, but the whole thing makes me very happy to be exactly where I am. I remember my mom saying once that she hoped she was dead before the horrors of the last days consumed the world. I replied, in my typical fashion, that I wanted to be on the front lines, fighting in Zion’s army. Well, the irony is that she was, then, where I am now: in the heat of the battle. Satan is waging a war to destroy us and mothers are on the front lines of the defense.

I have made hundreds of mistakes in my life. I pray every night, sometimes in tears, that Heavenly Father will make me into the mother that my perfect children deserve. But I am certain I have done a few things right. I am certain because the proof is in the sweet fruit of my labor. I have three beautiful, imaginative, intelligent and thoughtful children. I don’t deserve them. I often wonder if the Lord will come in collection of my debt because there is surely no way to make my scale of worthiness to blessings balance. But there is not a major regret in my life.

The girl I was ten years ago would be very surprised. She was afraid to change and didn’t want to grow up. I no longer look back with regret for the changes that come naturally in life or a wish for a chance to return the days when my self concept was different. It is wonderful to be an adult. It is wonderful to be a wife. And there is absolutely nothing in life that can duplicate or match the absolute, lasting joy of being a mother. Instead of wondering what happened to the passionate girl who wanted to change the world, I look ahead to the future with anticipation. I have many years of cleaning yogurt off walls to come and I will cherish every moment of them. I hope someone will find comfort in the story of how I went from being smart to being happy.