Kellie and Shellie - Mom's Little AngelsI would like to tell you about something that may help you to
know me a little better, therefore I have chosen something that is very personal, but that I hope will give you a little insight in to my feelings about the Lords plan for us, and life as I try to live it.
Actually I have chosen 2 experiences that have strengthened my testimony and re-affirmed to me the principals of the Lords plan of salvation ...of the pre-existence and life hereafter. It has also given me a better understanding of the relationships of family in the eternal context.
When a family or person is living close to the Lord, the Lord promises you will qualify for certain Blessings. Through these blessings we are sometimes given a g1imps beyond the veil, into the next world.
The first experience was just such a Blessing. About 2 years ago (1980), tragedy struck in the home of our oldest son. Their tiny daughter was called home to our father in heaven. I had stopped to visit with them in Kemmerer Wyoming, as I drove to Idaho and had played with and cuddled Shelly for the last time. She astonished me as she recited the Alphabet and counted to 100. She was just two and six months old.
In fact the whole week before she was taken seemed like a master hand was guiding her and engineering circumstances to ready her to leave us.
Kathy said she had become some what anxious that her mother would know she loved her. She had come repeatedly to her knee, looked up and stated that I love you Mommy. The Pennys store was having their annual picture taking event. In a small community this is a special time of year. Kathy had taken Shelly and Jim to get their picture taken that morning.
Our daughter in law, who was with in a month of delivering her third child, had cleaned out the ashes from their wood burning stove in the basement of their house, just after lunch.
The question ...what to do with the ashes confronted her? The garbage collector had not collected the trash already stacked in the alley. Not wanting to stack more up, Kathy decided to keep the ashes in the house. The stove had not been lit for about three days and so the ashes should have been dead. Thinking they were indeed dead, she placed them in a box and placed the box on a rack of wood where the children would not be able to get into them,
It was time for the children to nap. Shelly went to her bed and snuggled down. She was two and 1/2 so still needed the rest. Jim her brother was older and did not want to lie down. He ask Kathy if they could bake some cookies like their neighbor had made. Kathy and Jim went into the back yard and visiting with the neighbor over the back fence ...got the recipe.
They reentered the house to find smoke issuing from the basement. Frantically Kathy checked the baby who had not stirred from the position she had gone to sleep in. She could see this was an emergency, ...so grabbing the baby up, she ran with her to the hospital several blocks away and up hill. They were not able to revive Shelly.
She was affiliated by carbon monoxide poisoning and had gone within minutes, as the room filled with smoke. One can imagine the trauma it brought to the little family. Kathy was in the eight month , expecting their third child so our greatest concern in those early hours was for her welfare and that of her unborn child.
On the first night after the accident, the heavens were opened and comfort came from a most unexpected source. One of the ward members, a friend was inspired to write a poem and deliver it to this young couple who were trying to understand why tragedy had struck their home.
Well ...when I received the news of the accident, I was in Idaho where we had just hospitalized my father who was in the last stages of cancer. I had been there several days and we had just convinced Daddy that he needed to be in the hospital. As it worked out, that was a blessing in disguise, as I could not have left with things at six and sevens for my parents. As it worked out he was safe in the hospital bed when the call came.
Before I read the poem let me ask you. Have you ever wondered, if you were to
lose a loved one, just who in your family would be there to greet that one as they stepped through the veil to the next world?
As I made the long drive to Wyoming, this was one of the things that my mind dwelt on. We had done work, that is, had them sealed as a family unit, for many of my ancestors and there were various ones on my husbands side who would logically be there. His mother who had died in the forties, was the one who was most logical. However ...there was is no way for me to know, ... but interesting to speculate.
I think the hardest thing I had done in my life up to this point, was to get my self out of the car and face those two young people in this time of their grief. When I interred the house, I found them astonishingly composed. After the initial greetings they told me something miraculous had happened. And gave me the poem to read ...Keep in mind that they were expecting their 3rd child in about a months time. This child that Kathy was waiting to be born, was the one who received Shelly into the arms of the family there and who Michelle admonished to help her parents understand why she was taken when she was.
MOMMY S LITTLE ANGEL
Kellie and Shelly
Mommys Little Angels
Shelly will remain as ageless
as the stars, the sun, the moon
And to Heavenly Fathers council
Michelle will be our family jewel.
God sent our tiny child on a mission,
a mission that only Michelle can fill,
Shell be the sweetest, littlest angel
living in the heights of glory ...til;
When one day she comes upon a spirit,
that knows and calls her Sister Dear
The spirit, Kellie asks about their family
knowing they await her arrival there.
Michelle tells ... she loves her family,
... how they are righteous, kind & true.
Says, tell them that I will miss them,
heres something I am assigned to do.
Tell my family dear ...to remember,
the twinkle in my baby blue eyes.
My golden curly locks of fair hair,
that I got from my fathers side.
Tell them that I still love them,
more than they will ever know.
and to think of me as happy here!
tell them not too long to mourn.
And now dear sister spirit. Its time,
for you to go through birth to earth.
To be born to our Humphries family
which the Lord has given us by birth.
I know youll fill their emptiness,
please remember what to you Ive said.
And even ...if you cant tell them,
give them happiness in my stead!
And then ...before you all know it,
In heaven again well be together,
dont fear, ...you all will join me,
til our family is here all together
Tell them, there really is life eternal,
Dad and Mom taught us that all along.
So ...go down, telling our family there,
sending LOVE to all, singing my angel song.
On the day of the funeral, the family met in private to have family prayer circle around with Michelle, before the casket was taken to the Chapel. Were still very concerned about Kathy and her unborn child as she had dashed with Shelly all of the way to the hospital.
However as the funeral progressed, it seemed as though Kathy was unbelievably tranquil, to those of us who were being watchful. After every thing was over, Kathy told us that during the time we were having family prayer, Michelle had come and stood by her knee and had said to her I love you mommy. A tranquility had settled over her at that time that carried her through that day and through many trying times after that.
The Lord deals out sorrow in this life but the support he gives us to get through, is really unbelievable until you have been there
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