Page 37 - Berg_Mortuary_Bishops_Guide

BERG MORTUARY 37
The only true riches in existence are for you and me to secure for ourselves a holy resurrec-
tion (DBY, 372).

COMFORT IN THE HOUR OF DEATH

Teaching of Presidents of the Church: Heber J. Grant, (2011), 42-50

The peace and comfort of our Father in Heaven can be a healing influence for all who mourn
the death of loved ones.

FROM THE LIFE OF HEBERJ. GRANT

“In times of sickness or death.” wrote Lucy Grant Cannon, a daughter of President Heber J.
Grant, “father‘s fortitude has been remarkable. When his son [7-year-old Heber Stringham Grant]
was bedridden for over a year and during the last months of his life so often in very great pain,
father would sit by his cot for hours at a time and soothes him. He would be in his room and with
him as much as he could, and when he passed away father was resigned to his going although he
knew that as far as earthly posterity is concerned he would probably have no son to carry his name.
His great faith, which to us has seemed absolute, has been a strength and a stay to us all our lives.”

When President Grant spoke at the sorrow that comes at the death of loved ones, he spoke
with empathy born of personal experience, In addition to his son Heber six other immediate
family members preceded him in death. When he was nine days old, he lost his father. In l893,
his wife Lucy passed away at age 34 after a three-year struggle with a difficult illness. The death
of 5-year-old Daniel Wells Grant, his only other son, followed two years later. In l908, shortly
after President Grant and his wife Emily completed a mission in Europe, stomach cancer
claimed Emily’s life. One year later President Grant mourned the passing of his mother. In
l929, eleven years after he was set apart as President of the Church, his daughter Emily passed
away at age 33.

President Grant felt these losses keenly. During Lucy‘s illness, he wrote in his journal: “Lucy
feels that she cannot possibly get well and we have had some serious conversations today and
have both shed tears at our contemplated separation. I can‘t help fearing that her life is not
going to be spared.”

Despite the realization at such tears, President Grant found hope and peace as he relied on
the truths of the gospel. He said that he never attended a funeral of a faithful member of the
Church without thanking the Lord “for the gospel of Jesus Christ, and for the comfort and
consolation that it gives to us in the hour of sorrow and death,”3 He spoke of experiencing this
“ comfort and consolation” at the death of his son Heber “l know that when my last son passed