FORGIVENESS...

Last September I gave a lesson in Relief society from President Ezra Taft Benson's opening address  in October General Conference 1989.  It was directed to the elderly of the Church--because he WAS one and felt he could candidly talk about the subject.  At the end of the lesson I challenged each of the sisters to choose some way from our class discussion to become more in tune with older people--in their families, neighborhood, or in any other areas of service.

I told the sisters that my oldest living sister was nearly 88 years old, and since studies show that oral histories die out and are forgotten within three generations, I was going to go visit her.

My parents were only 25 when Bette and her twin Beth were born in 1927.  They were 43 when I was born in 1945.  I was hoping maybe Bette could share with me what my mother and father were like as young parents during the early years of their marriage.

It took until March 2016 before I had some days off that weren't involved with either my work, my own family, or Primary work.  I called Bette and asked if she would be interested in having a visitor.  She graciously agreed to have me come during the days I had specified, arriving on a Sunday evening and  leaving the following Wednesday morning.

We had a good visit.  But I was disappointed in a way that everything she shared with me I had already heard in the Huggins Family folklore.  Except one experience that was the backstory for my mother's long-standing compassionate relationship with the young neighbor boy who had  been the one who pulled the trigger on the 22 caliber shotgun that killed my brother Harold when he was only nine years old.

My mother's steadfast concern for Eldon Mikesell was such a lasting testimony to her Christ-like behavior, I had just assumed she had had that stellar quality before the tragic accident that took the life of her only boy.  In fact at the end of last year when we were still studying the divine attributes of the Savior in our Relief society Visiting Teaching lessons, I used her relationship with that neighbor boy over the years as an illustration of what true caring and compassion are.

But Bette shared with me my mothers' struggle with forgiveness before she arrived to a point where she could let go of the anger, hurt, resentment and other feelings that must have flooded her mother's heart when she could see the boy next door who was still alive--and her boy was not!

I don't know what the time sequence was of this experience my mother had--shortly after Harold died or was it some weeks or months later?  Bette wasn't specific.  But she was VERY specific about the outcome of my mother's struggle to forgive an impetuous little boy for the part he had played in that sad event.

My mother was hysterical. Perhaps she was still somewhat in shock.  Heartbroken.  Worried about what the loss would mean to her husband.  Maybe it was the pure physical pain that overcame her when she thought of a boy who lived when her own boy had died.  What if?  What if?  "IF"was such a big word, she told me once as she shared some of her feelings following the tragic events of that day which had started out with such promise.

Her daughter was soon to be married.  Two weeks, in fact.  There was a lot to prepare for including a bridal shower which was going to be held in Lois' honor that evening.  Her future  groom's brother had come on leave from the Navy to celebrate with them.  The two very responsible brothers would take Harold and the  neighbor boy rabbit hunting to get the men out from underfoot for such a maidenly affair.  My father was on his railroad assignment to Green River, Wyoming.  My teenaged sister was going to take the youngest girls (that included me) to the movies during the bridal shower.  (In my mind it was the Walt Disney film "Bambi" which was still showing in movie theaters all over the country.  I could be wrong, as I am well aware a lot of my own memories are a collage of other people's stories and input about this sad time in the Huggins Family.)

In any event the hunting adventure had gone awry and one boy was taken to the hospital where he was pronounced dead from a gunshot wound.   My sister's fiancé Dale was the one who had to break the news to the family.

My mother's world unraveled.  My father had to be summoned from his duties at the Union Pacific Railroad.  He couldn't walk without help.  I was barely past two and a half years, so I have no idea what happened for sure that night  and during the following days of loss, funeral preparations, burial, etc.  But from having suffered the accidental death of my own ten year old boy, I know it had to be a nightmare of the worst kind.

At one point my mother was so distraught she left the house and began walking toward the "downtown" of Rawlins, Wyoming, where we lived.  I can only imagine the seething, roiling feelings which were a constant reminder that her boy was dead--and another boy, responsible for the actual pull of the trigger, was alive and living next door to her.

Bette told me that my mother related that as she walked along at a furious pace, the word "FORGIVENESS" popped up at the edge of the sidewalk--over and over and over.  FORGIVENESS.  FORGIVENESS.  FORGIVENESS.  Until she realized it was a message for her.  She HAD to forgive the accident.  She had to forgive the unintentional hurt.  She had to forgive Eldon.  He was just an eight year old boy with no premeditated plan to ruin her life in the split second it took for the gun to go off.

My mother walked home.  but before she got to our house, she stopped and rang the bell at the Mikesell's house two doors down.  When the door opened, she saw a scared little boy standing across the room waiting for the worst.  Instead, my mother simply said, "I forgive you."

I don't know if there was more that transpired:  perhaps a discussion with Eldon's parents, more words between my mother and Eldon who had been my brother's best friend, possibly an "I'm sorry!" from Eldon.  It doesn't matter.

What matters  is from that request to do as the Savior taught his disciples to do, "Forgive that ye may be forgiven..." my mother was able to make out of her son's future that was so sadly cut short, a monument to Christ's atoning forgiveness. An act of forgiveness that also brought with it peace and comfort for the long days and nights ahead, which by their very nature moved my mother away from the gaping hole grief had left in her life.  Forgiveness was the reason my mother was able to find strength to go on when it seemed she would  never ever be whole again.  Forgiveness kept her from being bitter and wallowing in the constant replay of horrific events that had changed her world--indeed had changed everyone's world.

And so on that late afternoon in Minnesota when the light was fading in Bette's front room as she finished the story I had never heard before, I suddenly understood that my mother's compassion had not come without a price.  Over the nearly forty years until her death, my mother's compassion and loving concern was legendary to all with whom she mingled.  But to a small boy whose life could have been forever scarred with guilt and sadness if my mother had not heeded that blatant injunction flashing along the sidewalk, her forgiveness was priceless.