Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Latter-day Saint
An inadequate note to a niece and two nephews

An inadequate note to a niece and two nephews

Last updated on: March 23, 2023 at 1:31 pm by Dan Peterson

0 Comments

An inadequate note to a niece and two nephews 2023-03-23T13:31:18-06:00 Dan Peterson

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Looking westward at sunset over the Mediterranean from Tel Aviv, just a few miles up the coast from where I’m currently sitting at just past sunset. (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

I just sent the note below to a niece and two nephews, the three children of my late brother and his now also-departed wife, and, indirectly perhaps, to their children and grandchildren. I thought that somebody else might also find a little value in it, or take some comfort from it.

I want to say how sorry we are about the passing of your mother, grandmother, and great grandmother. Words are inadequate. In a way, though, we have little else to offer. Most of what we say and do, most of what we usually think is important and worthwhile, shrinks dramatically in the face of losing a dearly loved person.

It’s difficult to think of her as gone; she was (at least, as seen from my fairly distant vantage point) so remarkably unchanged over the years, until (of course) her sudden and surprising recent health crisis. She seemed ageless.

It’s natural and appropriate to grieve over your loss. But I hope that you’ll soon be able to reflect, too, on what you were so fortunate to have had.

Both of my grandfathers died before I was born, so I never knew them. And then both of my grandmothers died when I was five.

My maternal grandmother had been living hundreds of miles away from us, in Utah, and I’m unaware of having any personal memories of her. What I do “remember,” I think, stems merely from photographs of her. Curiously, what seems to me one of my earliest memories altogether comes from the time of her funeral. The memory is very brief and vague: It involves only my being out in the sunlight on the lawn in front of the funeral home in St. George. Just that. A glimpse. I don’t even remember what I was doing.

Of my paternal grandmother, I recall only a voice—somewhat “breathy” and tremulous, as the voices of some very elderly people become, and with a thick Norwegian accent. For her last several years, she lived about thirty minutes away from my home in southern California. But is it really the voice of my grandmother that I’m remembering? I’m not sure. I think that it may actually be the voice of her younger sister, Christina, who ultimately lived to be 104 and who once visited us for a while in California when I was quite young. I still have distinct images from that visit in my mind; curiously, she gave me an upright figurine of a Royal Canadian mounted policeman, in a cardboard box with a transparent, clear plastic front. Presumably, she brought me that gift because she lived up in North Dakota, not too far from the border with Canada. I never removed it from the box, but it sat on a shelf in my bedroom for a long time. I wonder where it is now.

I never missed having grandparents. In a sense, I’d never really had any. As I grew up, though, and as I saw other kids my age going off to grandparents’ houses, taking vacations with Grandma and Grandpa, and the like, I sometimes idly wondered what it would have been like to have had that additional dimension in my personal life, in my family. My wife had grandparents in attendance at our wedding. My children, well into their thirties, still have a grandfather. He lives on his own and remains quite sharp in his ninety-seventh year. We visit with him frequently.

What I’m trying to suggest, at this difficult time, is that you and your children have been very fortunate to have had your mother with you as long as you did. The loss is the greater for you now precisely because she’s been actively present in your lives. As the pain begins to subside—and, although I know that there are moments when you think it impossible, it will subside—I hope that that very great blessing, of having had her with you and with your children for enough time that many of them will retain memories of her, will become more and more comforting to you. And I hope that it will inspire you to continue to try to make memories for your own children and grandchildren.

You three children are now the patriarchs and the matriarch of your families, at least in this line. The generation that raised you is gone, or is going. And you, too, will eventually recede into the past—as will I (probably much sooner). With this in mind, we should try to leave a positive legacy, not just of material things but, beyond those basic needs, of stories and experiences and eternal family ties. (The Restored Gospel is so precious at times like this!)

In the meantime, though, I want to share with you a poem written by the American author, educator, diplomat, and clergyman Henry Van Dyke (1852-1933);

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship, at my side,
spreads her white sails to the moving breeze and starts
for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength.
I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck
of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then, someone at my side says, “There, she is gone.”

Gone where?

Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast,
hull and spar as she was when she left my side.
And, she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me — not in her.

And, just at the moment when someone says, “There, she is gone,”
there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices
ready to take up the glad shout, “Here she comes!”

And that is dying.

I expect that my brother was there in the welcoming party when your mother (your grandmother, your great grandmother) arrived. In my mind, I see him happily exclaiming “Here she comes!”

The sadness on our side of the veil is equaled—actually, I believe, it is far surpassed—by the joy on the other side. The books are balanced. In fact, owing to divine grace, they’ll be far more than balanced—and in our favor. If we can at least try to keep that fact in our minds, it will, I think, help us to make a quiet peace, over time, with the temporary loss of those we’ve loved. Our reunion there won’t be temporary. It will be eternal.

Posted from Bat Yam, Israel

Previous Post

March 22, 2023

Down on the Coastal Plain

Next Post

March 23, 2023 The moving finger writes and, having writ, moves on

Recent Comments

0 | Leave a Comment

"DP: “But Mr. Sutherland worries about the fact that our time, when we can communicate ..."

Theodore Brandley

Learning more about a region of ..."

"Another class of memories are of individuals who previously lived. Some of these remembered individuals ..."

PlasmaMiasma

Accounts of Premortality?

"Sutherland's lecture sounds interesting. He seems to restate the Washington consensus that trade brings peace ..."

B. Wilson

Learning more about a region of ..."

"In a meeting today, I learned another important reason why accurate (or at least as ..."

the PROBLEM

From Serbia’s “White City,” Belgrade

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 March 2014 August 2013 February 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What did the Israelites have to gather twice as much of before Sabbath?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Manna Barley Fish Quail