There is life after Death

 When I was ten years old, my mom asked me to help her with spelling and grammar as she wrote her story to be published in a collection of short stories, called Links of Forever.  That book is one of my most treasured belongings.  It holds my mother's words about the event that shaped her and our family by extension.

The book is out of print, but can be found at used book stores.  

My mom asked me to write her story in full-book length.  She even loaned me all of her journals to read and catalogue.  I have a very rough draft that I am working on.  A writer's conference I attended likened writing the rough draft of the book to filling a sandbox with sand.  The sandbox is filled.  I am now working on forming the sand into amazing sandcastles.

It is hard to tell my mom's story and put aside the fear that I don't know that I can ever do it justice.  Here is my feeble attempt to sum it up for a blog post.

My mother grew up in Magna Utah.  My grandparents moved to Magna after their efforts at potato farming in Gordon, Nebraska failed.  While my grandparents were not religious themselves, they were not opposed to their children attending church.  Although not all churches were allowed, at least when my mother was young.  She was told that she could join any church she wanted.  Any church, that is, except for the Catholic Church or the "Mormon" church.  I am not sure what my grandfather had against Catholics, but I can guess about Mormons.

My mother joined the Baptist church in her early teens, but soon stopped attending as she felt something was missing.  Living in Magna, Utah, she had a fair share of friends that were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  They invited her to attend youth activities, road shows and church.  On the occasions she did, she felt something different.  When she was 16, she asked her father to be baptized.  By that time, her brother, 12 years her senior, had already joined the church and Grandpa's heart had softened some.  He gave permission.  The church is still standing in Magna where my mom was baptized.

At age 17, my mom had another question for Grandpa.  This one took some convincing.  She had fallen in love with a young man named Leonal Dale Webb.  His cousin lived in Magna and after he laid eyes on my mom, he made regular visits from Tabiona to court her.  My mom had to promise to finish high school with Dale telling Grandpa he would see to it that she did.  

Because my mom had not been a member of the church a full year, policy at the time required that Dale and Rena marry civilly. 

Dalene was born 9 months after they married.  The early 1960's abstinence was the only sure form of birth control.

The couple went through the temple and were sealed for time and all eternity after Dalene was born.  My mom became pregnant with baby #2 which she calls her temple gift from God.

Because my mom's labor with Dalene was so quick and she lived a good hour away from the closest hospital in Heber, my mom was induced with her second child.  Christine was only allowed to stay for 3 short days.  Her heart was not fully developed or had a flaw that took her home far too soon.

Five months later, after coming to Magna for a visit after Christmas, Mom, Dale and Dalene were headed home when a blizzard came on, quickly making the roads snow-packed and dangerous. They almost stopped in Heber to find a hotel, but money was tight and hindsight is 20/20.

Three times, gusts of wind blew their rear-wheel drive pick-up truck into the oncoming traffic lane.  The first two times, Dale was able to correct and get back to the right side of the road.  But the third time, they found themselves in the direct path of a lumber truck, ironically driven by Dale's boss.  

Car seats had not been invented and as far as seatbelts, only the driver had a seatbelt in the truck that Dale had purchased not many months before the accident.  Dalene was seated on my mom's lap and I believe is the reason my mom is alive.  Dalene was killed instantly.  My mom remembers gaining consciousness and looking down at Dalene and knowing she was already gone just before blacking out again.  

My mom had close to 100 fractures, a bruised heart and cuts and bruises, although no marks where her garments covered.  Her knees made indentations in the dashboard and her left arm that was holding Dalene was crushed.  She spent months in a body cast and several surgeries never fully recovering physically from the accident.

At first, the medical personnel considered my mom's injuries to be more life threatening than Dale's.  He appeared to have fared much better. But he died 18 hours later in the hospital having succumbed to brain injuries as his head had hit the gun rack.

My mom's journals record the heart-breaking days and weeks after the accident at age 19, widowed and having lost two children.  She mourned deeply and often did not want to continue living.  After she was released from the hospital, my grandparents took her home and cared for her, transporting her in her body cast back and form to the hospital for surgeries and to the doctor for medical follow-up visits.

At the same time, a woman named Shirley had seen an article in the newspaper about my mom's accident.  She looked her up in the phone book and contacted her.  Shirley had also been in a car accident and had lost her husband and young son,  Shirley was pregnant at the time and she and the baby she was carrying survived.  Shirley, who was also a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints invited my mom to go to the temple.  My mom had not been since she and Dale and Dalene had been sealed. 

Although Mom did not mention it in the book, Links of Forever,  I read about it in her journal and asked her about it.  She mentioned that she thought she had gone to the temple before the event that taught me this lesson occurred.

One night after my mom was grieving deeply, Dale, Dalene and Christine came to her in spirit form. Her daughters appeared to be in their twenties.  She recognized them immediately and knew them despite their young age when they died.  Her husband, she described as looking as he had on their wedding day with a lock of hair falling over his forehead.  They told her they missed her and would wait for her, but she had a mission yet to accomplish on the earth.  She interpreted this to mean that she was to do the temple work for her family which she has spent her lifetime ever since accomplishing.  I like to think that being my mom was a critical part of her mission,

I once asked my mom how she knew this wasn't a dream.  She replied, "Because I was awake."  I couldn't argue with that.  My mom is my hero.  She somehow managed to raise me and my siblings without being overly protective.  She is the sanest person I know.  And because of her experience, I knew that there was life after death and that the sting of the grave was fleeting and temporary.  

That lesson would be imperative to my keeping my sanity as I learned the next lesson:  Sometimes God's answer to a heartfelt prayer and fasting is, "No."