Doin' The Hard Stuff

My week took a turn for the sorrowful on Tuesday evening when I received a call from my former yw partner about one of our girls. It seems that there was a fight between Mom and Dad about something and Mom had decided to leave the house with the kids. There are 6 children and as to which of them were home I'm unaware because 3 are teenagers and 3 are fairly young. I do know that my yw was home and she is 15. Anyway, the Dad decided to shoot and kill himself and was successful. It is unclear if the kids were outside or inside the home when this happened or what they saw and heard and I'm not about to ask. This news has been devastating to me because this family was struggling with activity and the kids dropping out of school and obviously problems in the home with the parents. Dad apparently has been struggling with depression on and off for some time now and finally hit the end. It took me until Wed night to get up the courage to text the yw. I know how impersonal that sounds, but this girl on a good day rarely talks much and the easiest and most effective way of communication has been through text. I basically asked if I could come and meet her to say good bye because they had immediately moved out and into a hotel and are in the process of packing up the house to move to AZ with relatives on Friday. So, all day today (and since I found out) I haven't been able to stop thinking about it and what I could get her and what I would possibly say. I finally decided on a really nice journal so she could have an outlet for her feelings and a way to look back and see that she slowly started getting over something so completely tragic and also some pictures of Christ to help remind her where her comfort can come from and a couple of fun things for the road. I said several prayers and wrote what I hope was a very nice note basically letting her know that someone was thinking about her and that she would be very missed and then I bore my testimony to her of the Savior. Then it was time to face her and say good bye. Her Mom had given me the wrong room number, but luckily Grandma and the younger kids were playing in the pool and I was able to get the correct room number and make my delivery. It was short and simple and ended with an embrace. Driving home a flood of questions and thoughts filled my mind. The image of the little ones playing in the pool without what seemed a care in the world. Did they fully understand that Daddy wasn't coming home and that their world was being turned upside down? When someone dies and you move out of your home that quickly do you pack up all of that persons belongings and haul them off to the good will, divvy them up between family members or pack them in a box and take them with you to be stored in a corner of a garage and a corner of your heart? What were the final words said? Is the Mom or the kids suffering from guilt over what they might have said? I just can't even fathom the range of emotions and the surreal nature of the entire situation. It has me in a funk that I can't get out of and I just keep looking around and wondering how the world keeps moving. How do we just keep going with all the mundane things of the world when people are truly suffering. I need reminders like this so that I can pull myself out of my own world enough to be able to mourn with those who mourn and weep with those who weep. I was looking at many pictures of the Savior today trying to find just the perfect one. While I was looking again at the picture where Christ is on a rock in a river with one child on his arm with the other extended out to lift another child up to safety it made me think about not only the Savior there to help lift us up, but we should be extending our hands out to those around us to lift each other not drag each other down. We are all in this existence together and we are all trying to get to the same place and we all struggle and we all need help at some point. The picture that I went with for the yw was a picture that I had never seen before, or never paid attention too. It is a black and white sketch by David Bowman titled "My Child." There is something about that picture that makes it hard to look away. The savior has about an 8 year old girl against his chest with is arm around her while kissing the top of her head. This picture perfectly captures the way I feel when I ponder the love the Savior has for me, Heather, and the love he has for this yw. The expression on the girls face also looks as if she feels completely safe and loved. What a blessing it is to know that there is a plan for each and every one of us even if it seems like the plan sucks. How comforting it is to know that he know each and every one of us, even though we don't deserve it, individually and loves us more than we can possibly comprehend. The true test is in what we do with the hand that was dealt us and if we can find a way to rise above. I pray that this is the kind of experience for this yw that strengthens her instead of destroying her or anyone else in the family.