LIFE and DEATH . . . Great Teachers.

What can a person learn from life, a life, a long life or a short life?  Can we gain from a death?  What? My list goes on and on as I ponder the gravity and sacredness of each – a life and a death.  

“Trailing clouds of glory do they come ---from God, who is our home”.   Little Nathan Joseph Freeman arrived this week, under somewhat unusual circumstances, but trailing clouds of glory! 

How marvelous to behold and contemplate what is in a life… and we are thankful.

Also this week, here in Ukraine, there were two deaths that had a sobering effect on us.  Up close and personal, we are being blessed to understand more of the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. 

Big Max died. 

Max was a brilliant Ukrainian church member . . . and he was big.  He spoke beautiful British English and had better grammar and a larger vocabulary than most native English speakers.  Max was working with us in Donetsk on translating some projects.  He has had a hard life and has been struggling with the word of wisdom…overweight…divorced…alone…a convert of a few years…having a difficult time feeling good  about himself.  Elders close to us went to a lesson appointment with him in his apartment and found that he had overdosed on his medications.   They called 911. The missionaries helped the paramedics inject him with a fluid for counteracting the overdose.  The paramedics thought Max would be OK.  They  did not call for additional help… “besides, he’s too big to get into the ambulance”.   And everyone left. 

Here in Lughansk an 86 year old sister in the branch who had been ill for a long time passed away and those of us who could brave the bitter cold went to her apartment.

  There she lay on a linen-draped plank, prepared for burial.  She was dressed in white with a colorful embroidered cloth draped over her.  Coins had been placed over her eyelids to keep them closed.  The small group of friends and family stood around her and everyone in the room had an opportunity to give a parting tribute.  In her tiny front room was a large upright piano with a big metronome on top and stacks of music nearby.  Some commented on how important music was to her, how well she played, and her contribution to lives of others as a music teacher.  They told of her desire to receive her endowments in the temple but by the time the Kiev temple was completed, she was never healthy enough to attend.  “Now she can go to the temple”.

Tearfully, we sang a hymn in Russian, then walked down six flights of stairs and outside.  On the outside landing there was a small pine coffin open and waiting. Red fabric had been stapled around the outside of the box, staples and knots still visible; the inside was bare except for a white satin pillow at the head.  Three hired men carried her body down the stairs and laid her in the coffin.  It was -7⁰ F and I felt like she must be very cold.  A sister took the coins off from her eyes and flung them into the snow; then they covered her face.  The coffin and all the gathered friends were loaded into a van together and they left with her, to go to a memorial luncheon.

What can we learn from a life (lived well or even not so well)?  From a birth?   From A death?  . . . From Death?  As I said at the beginning, my list goes on and on, too long for this time and space, but it is led by things like, “gratitude for the plan, and the atonement, and the resurrection“;  “preparation to meet God”,  and “this life is the time to prepare”; “the worth of a soul” to God and the place of each one in His family eternally.