Stories of Loss

[Covered wagon like those in which pioneers had to load everything they owned.]

Recently, my family went on a vacation to see pioneer sites.  People told stories of things pioneers lost like homes, children, fathers, mothers, freedom, and so much more.  Yet the people at the time viewed it all with such faith and peace.  How can one bury one's child along the prairie with no grave to visit, no flowers to leave, no child to hold, and only a memory to take with you?  I can't imagine it.  They lost everything they held dear and yet were able to continue to breathe.

[Joseph and Emma Smith's graves.]

I think over what people went through and wonder how they could find peace after what happened to them.  In Nauvoo, where we went, for instance, people like any one of us, living in a nice home with their family, were suddenly made to leave.  They got little to nothing from possible sale of their home.  Yet, when they left, they were not just peaceful but cheerful.  When they lost children, spouses, mothers, and fathers, they found a way to move on.  I think, or instance, of Emma Smith.  She endured home loss after home loss, child loss after child loss (burying five babies, six children in all), then the jailing and murder of her husband.  Yet she managed to move forward. 

[A typical Nauvoo home--they lived like the rest of us.]

These people were just normal people, living normal lives.  I've dealt with legal troubles.  It was nowhere near the scale that Emma did, with her husband being falsely accused and imprisoned repeatedly.  I've lost a baby, just one.  I never got cast out of my home.  I never had to bury my husband.  I have empathy for this woman, for these people because I've been through a fraction of what they endured. 

Yet they moved on.  They found joy again.  They found a way to heal, to move on.  And the source of that survival strategy, their healing, and that peace seems to be their faith in the Lord.  They trusted in the Lord and in the atonement.  They knew their families would be reunited again, that they would be together forever after all their pain was done.  I admire these people for their ability to go through what they went through with such peace and joy.  I know faith is the key to true healing.  Yet I'm still seeking that peace and joy.  Most of the time, I'm okay.  Most of the time, I feel the peace.  Yet full healing feels ever-elusive.  It still hurts.  I wonder if they felt the pain of all their loss.  I think so.  I look at a later picture of Emma's eyes and see an overwhelming sense of sadness, of pain, that isn't there in early photos. 

I know healing is possible.  I know those who have lost loved ones can find joy.  I know the Lord will heal us if we trust in him.  It's just not easy and not necessarily quick.  You, too, can find healing.