Life and Death and Life.

A girl I home teach died this morning. The announcement of her death was sudden and shocking over the pulpit in sacrament meeting, and it took a few minutes for me to realize that she was gone. The hardest part of it was I immediately sensed her death wasn't due to an accident or a sudden illness, and this heavy feeling was confirmed when a member of the bishopric confided later that she had indeed taken her own life.
(Edit--apparently she killed herself on Friday, not on Sunday morning as we were originally told. I'm not sure why they told us that initially: maybe I just misheard.)

And now the haunting questions: Was there anything I could have done? Was there something I missed? The last time I went to her house she mentioned how lonely she felt in the ward and how no one would sit next to her. I made a special effort to let her know how much we valued her friendship and seeing her in church, and after a comforting prayer, we left after we all felt better. I talked to some members of the Relief Society about her and then I left for England and returned to a hectic work and school schedule. Today, in fact, I had planned to give her a call to see how she was doing and to see when we could drop by again.

I don't know why she did it and I don't know if she left a note explaining her decision. I do know that I can't blame myself: we're all trying our best to get by in life and she had just reached her limit. I wrote in a note to her family today how grateful I am to have known her, how I enjoyed hearing her laugh, hearing about her boyfriend on a mission, and how she was simply a beautiful and good person. I'm comforted knowing that God is so merciful and loving, and that she can feel that love even more closely now.

I've wondered how it would have been this week to be mourning the loss of a family member. Emily could have easily died in that car accident on the way to Colorado and I would at this moment still be trying to deal with her sudden absence from my life. We can joke as she's been hobbling around on her crutches since it's such a strange and rare occurrence for anyone in our family to be in such a state, but if her van had gone over the cliff just further up the road, there wouldn't have been anything to laugh about. I've been granted countless beautiful, fun, and irreplaceable moments with my family that will stay firmly fixed in my memory for eternity, but the longing for both them and more of these moments would be hard to wait for if death stepped in. Even with the knowledge of an afterlife.

I was reminded of this last Saturday night during a talk by President Monson. As impressive and monumental it was to see him wiggle his ears (ladies, I really am sorry you missed that historic moment), what stayed with me that night was the story he told about the missionary that died of bone cancer. I sat in tears in the dark chapel as he talked, thinking about my friend Sam.

Sam died of lymphoma almost six years ago, quickly and unexpectedly after we had returned from our mission in Brazil. We first met in the MTC and became close friends there, continuing our friendship over the next two years in the same areas. The things he did as a missionary literally affected thousands of lives, and he was one of the best persons I have ever known. I remember one night, after a particularly hot and exhausting day, hearing him whisper a prayer as he knelt by his bed of how lucky he felt to have had that day with me and the people we met. He then prayed for every one of them as he quietly slapped at the mosquitoes that buzzed around his head.

Our friendship continued when we returned to BYU, but the cancer seemed to just appear one day. After painful bone marrow transfers and chemotherapy, things looked hopeful, but then I received an email saying he'd been transferred from the hospital to his home in Farmington since the doctors felt there was nothing more they could do for him. In his final email, Sam included these lines from a John Donne poem:

Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,

Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,

And soonest our best men with thee do go,

Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.

Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,

And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,

And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,

And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?

One short sleep past, we wake eternally,

And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

I'm reminded of Sam nearly every day since I pass his house on the way to work. I remember the overwhelming pain he tried to hide from his face and how I felt the morning he died. I had never lost anyone close to me before, and to see someone so young and overflowing with potential was a devastating blow. President Monson's story stirred these feelings within in me again, and I had to rush out when the session ended to finish crying in the privacy of my car.

My heart aches for Sam, but not entirely out of sadness: I simply picture what he's doing now with that same spirited attitude he had here, and my eyes can't help filling up with happy and thankful tears. I cried last Saturday because I'm grateful to know that he will live again. Everyone will. That sentence seems so strange to so many people in this world, but I simply know it's true.
I can't express how grateful I am to know that it's true.