Nauvoo: The Prologue



 

The week following Wes's funeral was completely undramatic and super miserable. I went through the motions of life. But there was an unshakable depression of every feeling. I watched Spencer play with his first Star Wars happy meal. 

   

 

I watched Lucy jump off the diving board for the first time.  

     

 

I wanted to cry about it all but couldn't find relief even in tears.  The unfamiliar emptiness seemed to sap the joy out of all life's simple pleasures. I remember starting to worry that nothing would ever shake the dull, deep ache.

But my family had a trip planned the third week of July. It had been on the calendar for months. Wes and I had planned to go together. When his health took a rapid turn for the worse, I thought we wouldn't go at all. But then his funeral came and went, and the trip was still there, penned in my planner.

This wasn't just any trip. This was my favorite trip. One I'd made twice in high school with my dad and best girl friends, and one Wes and I had made together with a group of wonderful friends when Lucy was a baby. So it was one of the tenderest of tender mercies - another evidence of the Lord's perfect timing - that I ended up in Nauvoo so soon after his passing.

I'll post my snapshots and try to sum up a few of the memorable moments.  But I simply cannot (and probably should not) describe all of the specific, sweet, deep experiences that taught me, more than anything, and more than ever before, to trust that the Lord is faithful. "I will not leave you comfortless," He promised,  "I will come to you."

We left early in the morning to make the long, cross country drive.

Everyone slept as we wound our way through Weber Canyon.

But I couldn't sleep. Something about early morning in those hills held my attention. Something about the glowing peaks and the dark, shaded valleys.

"We live in the Shadowlands,"  a whispered thought reminded me, with gentle force and a rush of familiar, consuming feeling.  Tears of great relief streamed down my cheeks as my hurting heart was wrapped up in a sweet, tight bandage of Love and Truth..  I smiled through the tears, my first sincere smile in days, and silently nodded my understanding. Pain, loss, grief, longing:  all part of the deal.  All hard.  All heavy.  But all purposeful.  And none impenetrable.  

The pressing pain and dull depression returned after a few hours, of course. I knew they would.  But that early morning drive through the canyon taught me to expect relief.  To pray for it.  To wait for it.  To watch and listen for it. 

Sometimes the waiting lasts for minutes, sometimes for days, sometimes longer.  But it is never in vain.

Nauvoo was a wonderful, remarkable trip.  For me and the children.  Lucy and Spencer still rehearse the memories.  And I still lean on the lessons.