Nothing and No One is Ever Lost (A Parable)

Perhaps the most important lesson we can learn is not only how to hear the Lord, but also to recognize that “all things testify of Christ.” This is apparently a mantra of mine, because it wasn’t very long ago when I noticed Sean reading on his Kindle during Sacrament meeting. In an angry whisper, I told him to put it away. I followed the order with, “I don’t think that book is teaching you about your Savior.” With a characteristic snarky face, followed by a gotcha smirk, he said, “But Mom, all things testify of Christ.” He won that round. 

Early 2021 was a really hard time for me. In February, Nathan moved to Lincoln, Nebraska. I was left to try to hold our family together while preparing to move them across the country.  I felt like I was losing everything that mattered to me. Our home would soon go on the market. But this was a drawn out process, so I had to go through the slow torture of remembering both memories and plans that I would soon lose altogether. And I was doing it without Nathan, who tried to come home monthly, but who was a visitor in our home, having already moved on. 

One day, in the early spring, I stopped to go stare at the beehives. I was aware that it was warming up and the bees should be venturing out. The beehives were completely inactive. It wasn’t really a jarring experience to realize that they were all dead. Of course they were. Wasn’t that the theme of the year? During one of Nathan’s short visits, I had him carry the empty hives into my kitchen. After he was gone, I began the sticky, dirty, time-consuming process of harvesting the honey. Most of the bees were piled in the bottom of the hive, but a few of them were stuck to the comb. I didn’t know what had killed them. Perhaps the Rexburg winter? It wasn’t the wasps this time. Wasps would have robbed the hive and carried off the bodies of the bees. 

The process of harvesting the honey was both sad and satisfying, It was nice to have a task other than cleaning and packing to take my attention. Every filtration made the honey clearer, cleaning out the imperfections. It was an immensely positive experience to place jars full of translucent, golden honey in front of the window and watch the sun light them up. But after days of the kitchen being a sticky mess, I was anxious to have the beehives out of the house, and so I placed them on the back patio, unsure what would happen to them when we moved. 

The next day, I looked out the window to see a thrilling and scary phenomenon. The hives were covered in bees. The entire porch was. Anyone who stepped out of my kitchen onto the back porch would have been surrounded by thousands of them, swirling around and swooping into and out of the open hives. I knew they were robbing them and I loved it. I figured that, perhaps, letting the bees rob those hives would help someone else's hives to survive. I also thought that, perhaps, if there were so many bees on my porch, we might just convince a scout to take up residence in one of my hives. So I donned the suit and put one of the hives together, leaving the other open, for easy access.

The bees continued to rob the hives, a little bit fewer each day. After a week or so, the bees could be counted in dozens, rather than thousands, I just left the hives where they were, killing the wasps that came near, but letting the bees take whatever they could from my poor, dead husks of hives.

Months passed. June came far too quickly and slowly. Our moving date was set for June 21st. We would pack the trucks on my 42nd birthday. I was, in my estimation, far too old to be starting over. It hurt. I had prayed over and over for Heavenly Father to help me, “sing as I walked.” As arrogant as the comparison is, I continually reflected on my pioneer ancestors and the number of times they had to abandon their homes. Yet, the children’s song says that they sang as they walked. I was disappointed that with the relatively small trials I was facing, I seemed unable to do it with a cheerful heart. I felt like I was mourning a life unlived, at least anywhere except my mind. I was mourning the pictures of my daughters in their wedding dresses that I intended to take with them sitting on the branch overhanging the river in our side yard. I had watched a group of retired ladies in my ward who spent their golden years going on outings and trips together. I was mourning the mounting list of friends I had made in Plano who I wanted to make my squad as our children grew and required less of our time. I was even mourning the peaceful, hillside cemetery I passed on the way to church, where I thought I’d quite like to be buried someday. I was mourning my forever home, as we had called it when we moved there and promised the children that our habit of moving every couple years was coming to an end. I was mourning smaller things. The loss of a calling that I loved. The sight of the temple from my backyard. The library. The kitchen shelves. The driveway puddles Nathan hated so much. Weekend trips to visit my family.

At the same time, I was mourning the loss of my young family that came with the long anticipated changes of my oldest graduating from high school, seminary, and receiving a mission call. I attended each of the rites of passage intended to honor him on my own, with my heart completely broken, feeling it was profoundly unfair that Nathan wasn’t with me to hold my hand while I cried. Every parent, if they’re very lucky, will experience the pain of this loss, but no one, I reasoned, should have to do it alone. 

On June 7th, fifty friends showed up at my house with tools and tractors, step stools, shovels and skid steers. They knew Nathan had been gone and our lawn mower was broken. They knew that I had not had the time or means to keep up my yard and they knew we were leaving in a couple weeks and would need to sell our house. They came without invitation or notice, to work in my yard. This was not the first and nowhere near the last experience like this, but it was agonizing. I knew I wasn’t saying goodbye to a community, but to a family who loved me as much as I did them. I went to bed with my heart ripped in pieces and woke up to celebrate my sweet Nathan’s birthday surrounded by so much love and feeling completely alone. 

It was two weeks before our move. 

I expected to spend another day wrapped in the monotony of my tasks, working to keep my mind from perseverating on the things that were bothering me. It’s always been my favorite technique for dealing with the unpleasant. My balm is time. I just have to avoid letting things grab hold of my heart long enough to heal. I started in the kitchen, and somewhere around midmorning, I glanced up to see something new happening on my porch. The hive I had set up was covered, on one side, with a blanket of bees. They weren’t swooping around the porch, like they had when robbing it. They were so close together that the hive was hardly visible beneath them. 

I went outside to take a closer look. The bees not only covered the side of the hive, they were also fanned out on the table, close to the entrance. The ones on the table stood upright, with their hindsides in the air, their wings beating quickly from their stationary bodies.

I’m no expert beekeeper. It’s always been Nate who studied them. I simply delighted in gleaning what I could when he would take the hives apart and show me the brood hatching or explain various behaviors. But I knew enough to know that this was a phenomenon called fanning. These bees had chosen a new home and positioned workers at the entrance to fan pheromones into the air, signaling to all their swarm where to come. It was amazing. We’d never caught bees before, only purchased them. 

Over the next couple days, I watched as the bees busied themselves in their new home. It wasn’t long before I could discern pollen on their legs, a sure sign that they were setting up to stay. I was busy too, preparing to leave. And at times I was absolutely overwhelmed. Nate would not be home until time to drive away. Sometimes the pressure got to me. Sometimes I handled it poorly. At those moments, I gave myself a time out. I would slip outside to the chair I had positioned right in front of the hive and watch the bees. 

Before there was time to blink, it was one week before our move. 

The bees were still robbing the open hive. Sometimes there would be hundreds of them on the frames, taking whatever was left. One evening I went out just before dusk. The frames of the open hive were covered with bees, thousands of them.

This struck me as very odd. Bees don’t like to be out at night. As twilight approaches, the activity in a hive will wind down slowly and it occurred to me that these bees should long since have decided to head for home. But they didn’t seem busy at all. Indeed, they seemed peaceful and at rest. The only explanation was that this was another swarm which, inexplicably, had moved into my open hive. Without wasting time, I went to find my bee suit. They weren’t going to like this. I put the hive together, with the bees inside, hoping they would stay. Over the next few days, I watched for pollen carriers and couldn’t believe my luck when they appeared. 

Luck. Is there any such thing? 

My world became even crazier in the following few days. There was so much to do. But there were still a few moments, stolen from the chaos, when I found solace in sitting on the deck watching those bees. And it was in those moments when the spirit found the chance to speak to my broken heart. This world is full of loss. Nothing gold can stay. We are fallen. The world is fallen and everything we love will become dust, destroyed and dead, like my spring beehives, with only sweet (and perhaps sticky) memories left behind. 

“It’s a lie,” the spirit spoke to me. Nothing is ever lost beyond HIS ability to heal. Nothing is ever taken away. If we have patience both with ourselves and with God’s plan everything will be restored beyond our capacity to understand. Even if the Yellowstone Super Volcano erupted tomorrow and Rexburg was utterly and instantly destroyed, it would, in time, be returned to me, perfect and whole through the incomprehensive power and grace of my eternal Savior. 

Perhaps it seems the most inconsequential of things. I started with two hives. They were taken from me. Heavenly Father gave them back in the very moment where I felt lost just so I could understand that nothing and no one is ever lost. 

I don’t mean to say that I will return to that life, living in my old house and experiencing all of the things I had imagined up in my mind. I mean that we are linked, one in the body of Christ. We are part of the family of God, connected forever and working toward the same goals. We will have these connections in this life and extending into eternity and all of it is part of one gigantic, joyful story.  The sealing ordinances were never meant to be limited to linking individual families. They are to seal us together with God’s entire family, an unbreakable connection to everyone we love, and a restoration of all things through the grace and power of Jesus Christ.

There is no end to glory;

There is no end to love;

There is no end to being;

There is no death above.

Graduation Wish

 Dear Ryan,

Do you remember junior high orientation? I drove you over to the school, but parents weren’t supposed to come in. I asked if you were scared. You said, “no.” I told you, “I am,” and you replied, “I know, Mom.” It’s a story we’ve repeated dozens of times, but there always seemed to be more ahead. I always knew I needed to let you do things on your own, but you have no idea what I’ve gone through waiting for you at home each time. From your first day of preschool, to sending you to interviews and doctor appointments for your mission, it’s been so hard. Do you want to know why? It’s never been because I worried about what you could do. It’s been because I worried whether the rest of the world would see what I see when I look at you. I wanted so much for them to recognize who you are and treat you the way you deserve.

I know I’ve been hard on you. There are plenty of times I was a horrible mother. It comes down to the same problem, but a different audience. I wanted you to see what I see when I look at you. You are destined to be great. I have to be careful with those words. The world has perverted their meaning. Celestial greatness is not measured by the quantity of effect one has on the world. It’s measured by one's ability to do good things with the resources he has been given. God has given you so much. He expects you to be a powerful force for good in this world and he sees you even more clearly than I do. But I see plenty. 

I’m so proud of you. I always have been, but now it’s just overwhelming. 

I want to give you great advice; another lecture about what Heavenly Father expects of you. But I find that I don’t have one left. Although I will always be here, at home, waiting to hear how things went, I find that my anxiety about whether or not you’ll be okay is abating. You’re going to be just fine. And the whole world is going to be better because of you. Despite all of my mistakes, you have clearly grown into the man Heavenly Father expects you to be. Now take all your extraordinary gifts...and do something nice for someone else.

Love Always,

Mom

A Broken Heart

The year two thousand and twenty was supposed to be another great one. I had so much planned. Ryan was entering his senior year. It hurt my heart to know that after this year, our family dynamic would change forever. I felt the urgency to give him more joy and memories to pad him against the difficulties that would inevitably come with adulthood. I planned to send him, Sean, Chloe and Nathan to Education week in Provo. I planned our great, last family vacation. I planned a senior year full of fun and family time. 

 

The pandemic was an unwelcome complication. It cancelled all my great plans. Additionally, Ryan had been doing fantastic in school. My relationship with him had never been stronger. He was funny, hard working, and devoted to the Lord. Cancelled school changed his behavior. Without strict structure he started failing his classes, staying up all night, sleeping all day, becoming defensive and irritable, and arguing with me constantly. These things made my life harder, but they couldn’t crack my optimism. I was certain the hard times would pass quickly, but nothing prepared me for Nathan being unfairly cheated out of his job. 

 

I’m not going to go into detail about this situation. Prayer and reflection have taught me that anger and the search for justice never bring joy. I could write about the unfairness and focus on all the reasons it was undeserved, but the inevitable outcome would be to stoke feelings that I know do not come from the Lord. I chose to let go of the anger, forgive those responsible, and accept the circumstances as the will of my loving, omniscient, Heavenly Father. 

 

I suppose in some ways, I am actually at fault. I was very comfortable in my life. I loved my home. I was surrounded by amazing friends. I adored the children's schools and teachers. We were taking the teeagers to the temple weekly with amazing friends and making enough money to do things for others that I never thought I’d be able to do. I loved my calling. I was blissfully happy in every aspect of my life and didn’t want anything to change. In these perfect circumstances, I began feeling the call to pray that I could become something better.

 

I’ve often heard people talk about praying for trials. I understood the reasoning behind those prayers. At a certain point my gratitude to the Lord for the beautiful life I was living became overpowering. I sorrowed that I could not do enough to show him how much I loved him and his gospel. I recognized, to a point, my own weaknesses and wanted more than anything to be better. I never did pray for trials. I did, however, pray that the Lord would give me every experience I needed to become who I was capable of being. I prayed for humility and patience. I prayed to be a better person, fully acknowledging that these traits were coaxed out in a refiner’s fire. I didn't want to suffer, but I did want to be much better as a person, even if that improvement required suffering. 

 

When Nate lost his job, it hurt. I would go through times of purposeful searching for answers contrasted by periods of mourning for the life I loved and the future I had envisioned for myself. I remember one day spending a few hours mapping each of the places Nate was interviewing for work and finding the nearest temples. I finally acknowledged that our weekly temple trips were not going to be happening any more after our move. It hurt. I was absolutely certain they had been a powerful source of protection for my kids. I tried to find a room to be alone and just cry, but Sean found me. He didn’t say a word. He just sat down next to me, put one arm around my shoulder and let me cry. 

 

In those first months, it was a roller coaster. I prayed to know the will of the Lord. I prayed for strength. I obsessively searched for jobs. I looked at houses and researched every single city that seemed like a remote possibility. I cleaned out closets and got rid of so many possessions that were cluttering our home. I fed the kids meals carefully prepared to use food storage items that would be difficult to move. I felt pain and purpose. After a while, it all seemed a bit routine. But my heart slowly started changing. 

 

As the months stretched and we still didn’t have an answer, I stopped working on the house. I found myself telling the kids to make their own dinner, or I bought pizza. One day Nate came home from an interview excited about a job and said, “Come on, let’s look at houses.” I really didn’t want to. I wanted to lay on my bed alone. Worse, I started to wonder if the Lord even cared where our family went. I didn’t wonder if he was there, just if he had any interest in this situation or our decisions. I had never felt like he wasn’t directing my footsteps before. Why wasn’t he answering me, as he always had before, unless this was simply of no consequence to him?    Shortly after that, Nate left for another interview. He was gone for three short days, but it felt like an eternity. I barely did anything during those days. I was broken. I didn’t care about anything. I didn’t even recognize myself. I knelt down to pray and asked God why I couldn’t feel like me. 

 

When I was a primary child and a young woman, various teachers had taught me the concept of sacrifice. They explained that before Jesus’ life the faithful were asked to sacrifice animals in similitude of him. But after the law of Moses was fulfilled, we were asked to give, “ a broken heart and a contrite spirit.” After reading these words, the teacher would inevitably explain that “a broken heart” was not what we were thinking. It didn’t mean the feeling we felt when someone we loved left us, or something devastating befell us. It meant that we were humble. It was during these very low days when I felt, not my world, but myself, crumbling around me that I started to wonder if the “broken heart” the Lord required might be exactly what it sounded like. 

 

I had prayed for humility, but what does that actually mean? I have long understood the concept that the atonement of Jesus Christ was necessary because it is actually impossible to understand what other people feel without having experienced their pain. Our Savior would not be qualified to judge or advocate unless he understood completely what we have experienced and why we made the choices we did. Likewise, we tend to judge everyone around us so quickly, thinking to ourselves, “If that happened to me…” and being certain how to end the sentence. But if fortune gives us a similar experience in our own lives, we usually find that what we thought we would think or do was completely wrong.

 

Perhaps a broken heart, then, can only be born of the powerlessness that leads to empathy. Perhaps being broken and having no power to lift oneself is the only way to learn that we must depend on the Lord. We are not good enough on our own. We have to rely on grace. In those few days, I came to understand that even as I bore powerful testimony of the grace of God, I had not had to depend on it. 

 

I found myself really wondering what it was that I had lost. I had simply been calling it “me.” I am happy, optimistic, faithful. I always have been. Where had it gone? My next question was where these qualities had come from in the first place. I have called them my “super power.” I forget bad things. I feel joy and gratitude all the time. I always feel led by the spirit. Because of these traits, I was sure I could handle trials even if I did not aspire to them. I was so angry, not at the circumstances nearly as much as how poorly I was handling them. 

 

The answer, of course, is that all super powers come from God. These are spiritual gifts and to one is given one, and to another is given another.  When I refer to feeling like myself, I’m actually talking about feeling the way I feel because of the gifts that I have always had from my Heavenly Father. It hurt my heart to realize that I was such a weak person that these qualities could not hold on through a small trial. 

 

Shortly before Nathan came home, I had an instructive experience. My phone rang. I glanced down at the caller id and immediately answered it, concerned about the friend on the other end. Why was this such an important moment? Because this particular person calls me from time to time, and I always groan when seeing her name on the caller id. She’s constantly negative. Nothing is ever joyful for her. I never want to talk to her because it’s never a happy conversation. But this time, on this day, I wanted to see if there was any way I could help her. I didn’t even hesitate to pick up. And that was the answer I needed. 

 

Heavenly Father answered my prayer to be a better person by stripping me of my spiritual gifts so I could empathize with someone who was blessed with different ones. He wanted me to recognize that these qualities I have are not mine alone. They are gifts from him. We all gain a little pride in the exercise of our gifts, which were given to us so we could more effectively serve other people. But sometimes, when we have been so blessed, we begin to think things that are easy for us ought to be as easy for everyone else. We do not recognize how privileged we are and how great our responsibility is. 

 

I think all my teachers were wrong, at least, for me. For me, a broken heart is indeed what it sounds like. A broken heart made me realize how much I need Him.

Laura Ingraham, Mitt Romney, and Everything That’s Wrong with American Politics

Adolf Hitler once said, “What good fortune for governments that the people do not think.” The implication is true for every tyranny throughout history. There’s a belief in the superiority of the state, a complete disdain for the people, and an assurance that self-government is a fantasy because people are incapable of using their own minds to engage their own will to act in their own best interest.

The great American experiment was something entirely different. It was a belief in humanity and an optimism that people, when given the chance to be great, will become it. Looking back at the history of this nation, I am left to wonder who in this argument is right. I know that sounds pessimistic and I’d like to consider myself an eternal believer in the good of my fellow human beings, but the patterns of history seem to reveal that people want to be ruled. Why else would we take the possibility of self-government, the first chance ever for it, and choose to manufacture a system of ruling elites?

I want you to take a minute and think of the person you most admire. It might be your gynecologist for his/her unfailing devotion to the care of the most vulnerable. It might be a farmer who you have seen work tirelessly for the good of family and community. It might be a mom who drives in your school carpool who volunteers every day to make local education better for your kids and hers. It could be your barber, grocer, or pastor. Now imagine what the world would be like if that person, the one who you love and admire, the one who understands your values and struggles, was your representative in Washington D.C.

This is what America was supposed to be. Local people, with real jobs, should be going off to represent their communities for a few short years. Then, when their turn is over, they are supposed to come home, return to their professions and friends while someone else takes on the burden of being your voice. Instead, we have created a group of career politicians who are so detached from what it means to be an American that they entrench themselves in corrupt business and twisted political deals in order to buy themselves a little more power, a few more years “representing” people who, in their minds, “do not think.”

Yesterday Mitt Romney, a senator representing Utah, voted against his party. In response, political pundit Laura Ingraham threatened to move to Utah and run against him. Both of these people are mucus-filled symptoms of the disease that is destroying our country. Romney was raised in Michigan and barely visited Utah before moving there because he knew it was his best chance to become a Senator. Whatever you think of his politics, he is not the representative the people of Utah deserve. He’s a politician who has never experienced the life that Utahans are fighting to preserve.

And Ms. Ingraham’s objection to him is clearly unrelated to the larger problem of our new kind of political oligarchy, because, rather than arguing that the people of Utah deserve a senator who is one of them, she suggests that she would be best equipped to represent a life she has never lived. The very idea allies itself with the philosophy that people are not capable of ruling themselves. According to these two, ordinary people need a group of entrenched political leeches for whom freedom doesn’t matter nearly as much as acquiescence to the swamp of lies, favors, and power-hungry rulers who devote their lives to showing that a representative is really a new king who doesn’t have any idea what you want. But that is okay, because he’s smarter than you anyway.

Personally, I’d much rather vote for my plumber.

If you’ve never been to El Paso

We moved to El Paso in 2009. My husband had just finished medical school in Chicago and he matched to a residency program there. I shopped at the now infamous Wal-Mart. My husband trained at the hospital where most of the victims were taken. We did not choose El Paso. There were several other programs we thought we would have preferred. I had never been there; my husband had only flown in for a brief interview among visits to many other cities. 

We were both surprised by the fact that you could see the Mexican communities in Juarez while driving down the freeway. The way the houses were laid out, the style and colors, everything spoke to there being a foreign country across the river. The great Rio Grande, was a little less great than we expected. We weren’t thrilled with the weather. Whenever it rained, the streets filled up with water. Despite being constantly ranked as among the safest cities of its size, people put bars on their windows as a decorating decision. Despite all of that, I wanted to share today how we fell in love with El Paso because of her people.

We had four small children at the time and chose a Spanish Immersion school for the ones that were old enough. Once enrolled, we received a form letter that stated, “because of limited English proficiency, we are recommending that your child attend…” We got a good laugh out of that. It is not an exaggeration to say that my children were the only blonde-haired, blue-eyed students in the entire school. I remember standing with the other parents waiting for the kids to be released. I struck up a conversation with another mom and when the children came out of the school and ran toward us, she commented, “Oh, I see yours.” It was pretty obvious.

Living in those circumstances, I can tell you that ethnicity simply wasn’t a thing. No one cared. My family and I were embraced whole-heartedly and with open arms. There were, however, definite cultural differences between what I knew and my new home city. Let me share a few.

When my children were invited to a birthday party, which are a big deal, I would show up with the invited child. The host was always very confused by that. They knew I had several children and why hadn’t I brought all of them? They were expecting the family! More than once I was sent home to get the others.

I once got into a fender bender where I was at fault. I gave the woman my number and insurance information and drove away. An hour later I received a call from her son. She was still sitting beside the road, not knowing what to do. He asked when I was going to take her to get her car fixed. They are a very interpersonal relationship kind of people.

Speaking of cars, I frequently had tradespeople show up at my door. They noticed I had a dent in my car or a rock chip in the windshield. Could they fix it? Business was always done with a promise and a handshake.

There was a couple that dropped their granddaughter off at the same bus stop I took my daughter to. We chatted each day. Once I mentioned that the icemaker in my refrigerator was leaking. My husband was working long hours and I wasn’t sure when he would be around to fix it. The couple followed me home after the school bus left. The grandpa fixed my ice maker, which involved going up into a crawl space in the ceiling. They acted like it was exactly how anyone would have handled the situation. I didn’t even know their names.

One of my favorite eccentricities was how every woman, including some who were younger than me, called me “mija” which is translated as “my daughter.” It seems very appropriate upon reflection, because the people of El Paso accepted my family as if we were their family. 

I made a lot of friends during my time in that beautiful city. Some were Hispanic, some were not. Many were in the military. I can suppose that some were not citizens, although I don’t know. They did not all have the same political opinions. I had friends on every side of the spectrum. But they seemed to understand that disagreeing with your neighbor did not mean that you shouldn’t serve them. They are a community kind of community and everyone serves everyone. They are a people full of love. They are a family. 

God doesn't orchestrate tragedy or hatred, but he does use them to lead us closer to him. If you have never been to El Paso, please use the recent tragedy there to learn from her people. Consider it, as I do, a privilege.

A Story I Didn't Write

I'm so busy these days that I rarely have time to read or write. I listen to a lot of audiobooks. But once in a while something comes into my heart that I cannot push aside until it has been written down. This is where most of my poetry comes from. Yesterday, as I was driving in my car trying to ponder on a lesson I was preparing for Relief Society, I got distracted thinking about some other things going on in my life. Good things. This story planted itself and I knew I needed to put it on paper. It's rather silly, but it is important to me, today. And maybe someday when I'm going through one of parenting's ubiquitous struggles, this will be a reminder I need to hear.

A Story I Didn't Write

It’s difficult to describe to anyone currently walking a telestial world what my life was like. Incivility, cruelty, depression, these were foreign concepts. I was constantly surrounded by my family. I suppose we were a family much like any other, if somewhat larger than you’re used to. We were a symphony of a million different instruments, each with its own character and sound. The cacophony was beautiful and each tone harmonized. Some were loud and some were soft. Some were staccato and others melted into the music like velvety chocolate. But our world wasn’t like yours. The music we made was never angry. Somehow, it always worked.

Perhaps it was our common goal. In a telestial world people are pushing a million different directions because they think they want a million different things. It’s as if every single instrument is playing a different melody and there really isn’t any musical quality to it at all. But in my world, we all wanted the same thing, and so our symphony, though diverse, rang up to heaven with a oneness that sang of cooperation, of family, of hope, of joy.

What you need to understand is that oneness is not sameness. I think most people have felt that the loneliest of places is often surrounded by people.  We yearn for connection and understanding, to find someone who laughs, weeps, and ignites when we do. In that sense, it really doesn’t matter how good and kind everyone around us is, to be kindred is something entirely different. And so my world was not so different from yours. Although everyone in my family sang the same tune as me, and I loved every single one of them for their own unique sparkle, I still found myself in a constant search for the ones whose hearts beat the same cadence as mine.

I found them.

Perhaps they found me. Maybe we were drawn together like drops of water on the same flower petal. Maybe we had always been together, pieces of a whole whose connection reached back farther than memory. Perhaps there was no finding involved, just a recognition from one soul to another. Whatever the case, if my home could be called heaven, it wasn’t because it was flawlessly beautiful, devoid of want and fear, or even peopled with those who honestly seek to help and serve everyone around them. It was because of my friends.

I don’t know how long our connection lasted. It must have been forever in a place where time was meaningless. We learned together, grew together, laughed together. They stretched my intellect and challenged all my capacities. They knew how to make me smile and could sense when I was afraid. Every step of progress we made was a team effort. We climbed on each other’s backs in a human pyramid to make it from one level to the next, and then those on top would reach down, lifting each dear friend until we all landed on a higher plane of understanding and existence.

No one was excluded from this group; it didn’t work like that in my world. There weren’t cliques or any sort of stratification of people. We just each found those around us who seemed to be pieces of the same whole, and while we loved everyone, not every cog fit together as perfectly as I did with my friends.

When the announcement that we had all been waiting for finally came, my friends and I added our voices to the deafening shouts of joy. We were finally ready. We’d reached the point in our eternal progression where we simply could go no further in the world we inhabited. We would fall to the telestial world. That might sound like a step backward from your perspective, but we knew it for what it was: a chance to become something more, something better. To someone observing a caterpillar, the quiet, dark solitude of a cocoon has to seem like a step backward from the warm sunlight, but the caterpillar builds his own prison, knowing he will emerge from it something much better than what he was when he entered.

Despite being constantly in the company of love and encouragement, the wait for our turn to fall seemed interminable. We discussed every possible trial and imagined what it would be like when we finally passed through the veil. In all this discussion, serious and full of levity, we never once worried about being apart. It didn’t matter that we would be potentially spread across an endless world, each drowning in a sea of people struggling to find their way. We didn’t know how or when we had found each other before, but we were certain that we could do it again. It would be a natural process, and we would learn it in a similar manner as we would breathing or walking. We had discussed every single possible trial in our eternity together, but never that. The concept was too foreign, too unthinkable, like being told you will wake up tomorrow and have forgotten how to blink.

Just when I had told myself, for the hundredth time, to stop listening for my call, it finally came. The voice spoke softly that it was time to go, igniting flutters of nerves and fires of anticipation uncomfortably inside my soul. Immediately I turned to my friends and shouted, “It’s time for us to go!”

But the voice came again, softly but firmly, “Not them, just yet. I’m sending you first.”

My heart fell, gripped by terror at a thought I’d never considered. Of course we would go together. We needed each other. How could we pass the test to come without the guidance, advice and encouragement we had always shared between us.

“No!” I shouted, choking back tears, “I just can’t do it alone. I’ll wander the Earth searching for them.”

The voice stayed silent and I felt his calm as he breathed out comfort and strength.

Then without warning, I started to fade. My mind went groggy and quiet.

But in desperation I tried one more time. I thought, “You taught us that we're interconnected. I’ve never been on my own.”

As all went black, I heard one more thought, “They’re coming, my daughter, but you must go first. You will be their mother."

What if the reason we feel instantly connected to a new child isn't because of biology, but because we recognize a soul we already knew and loved.