I took a class this semester called Temporal Welfare in Families from an amazing professor, Dr. Craig Israelsen. He first taught us about perspective and then took the areas of temporal welfare listed under the Provident Living section of http://www.lds.org/ (education & literacy, physical health, emergency preparedness, employment, home production, financial stewardship, and social & emotional strength) and expanded our perspectives in ways I had never thought of before. He introduced us to some of his favorite authors - Viktor Frankl, Hugh Nibley and Wendell Berry - and tied their perspectives into each topic. For our "position paper" he asked us to choose one of the areas of provident living, incorporate some of the thoughts that were meaningful to us individually of the authors he introduced us to, apply it to our lives and share what we have learned from this experience. For me, it was very therapeutic.

ENDURING JOYFULLY:
PERSPECTIVES OF TEMPORAL WELFARE & EMOTIONAL STRENGTH
IN WIDOWHOOD

My perspective on much of what is important in life shifted suddenly and dramatically on October 30, 1998. On this day, my husband and I sat in a physician’s office as a diagnosis was pronounced and a time line given: Primary Amyloidosis (a very rare and incurable bone marrow disease) with two years to live. I petitioned the Lord mightily that we would be able to finish raising our children together and that prayer was graciously answered. My daughters and I were fortunate to have this amazing man in our lives for an additional 5½ years beyond the original anticipated two. But then reality hit: I was on my own with an entire future in front of me that was foreign to my last 30 years of marriage. In the forward to Viktor Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning, Harold S. Kushner summarizes Frankl’s philosophy: “Frankl saw three possible sources for meaning [in life]: in work (doing something significant), in love (caring for another person), and in courage during difficult times” (Frankl, p. x). Frankl’s perspectives on work, love and courage resonate with such a positive outlook and I realize they exemplify what has become most important to me since my husband’s passing especially as I think of my temporal welfare and emotional strength.
A new personal journey of faith began for me as a widow. My first year alone in the San Diego home that we raised our children in was filled with overwhelming emotions, increased responsibilities, college classes, and service in the San Diego Temple as an ordinance worker. The temple became my lifeline to eternity and place of peace and solace to my aching heart. I found myself vacillating between feeling the comfort of familiar surroundings and memories versus trying to move forward in life. Some of my previous perspectives paled in comparison and I longed to be engaged in something that would make a difference in the lives of others. It has been a work in progress as I returned to school at age 53, and I have changed and refined my major more than a few times, finally settling on a career in social work. Caring for my husband through his illness while simultaneously caring for my elderly mother for the past 20 years along with the example of a very attentive social worker in Boston has imprinted my heart with a desire to serve those who are vulnerable and cannot advocate for themselves.
As our daughters approached their college educations, we encouraged them to pursue advanced learning in something they were passionate about as well as something they could use to support themselves and contribute to the welfare of others. I have realized through the readings in class that what I thought were just my motherly desires for their happiness and well-being really had inspired underpinnings for them as well as for me now. In his essay “Zeal without Knowledge”, Nibley quotes Calder when he states that “the brain craves for information as the body craves for food” (p. 68). Since I began pursuing my college education two and one-half years ago as a nontraditional student, I have personally experienced a sense of enlightenment that comes with learning, and it is invigorating! Each class I have taken has stretched me beyond my comfort zone of current knowledge and opened my eyes to new perspectives. Nibley states that “our search for knowledge should be ceaseless” (p. 70). I think it is actually going to be hard to leave the university setting one day.
As each semester has unfolded, a vision has begun to emerge of what I can do to contribute to my family and society because of my education at this stage of my life. The Brigham Young University motto of “Enter to Learn, Go Forth to Serve” reminds me of my responsibility to take my education seriously in order to make a difference in the lives of others when I am formally done here. Wendell Berry states that “Education in the true sense, of course, is an enablement to serve….And if this education is to be used well, it is obvious that it must be used somewhere; it must be used where one lives, where one intends to continue to live; it must be brought home” (p. 52). Therefore, I am embracing not only this opportunity, but I have come to appreciate that I have been well educated through all of my life experiences. These experiences, coupled with my formal education, are preparing me well to once again “go forth and serve” in ways I can be of benefit to others. I look forward to that opportunity. Through these avenues, I hope I can be brought up to a “responsible maturity” and a “good [caretaker] of what [I] have been given” (Berry, p. 52). My passion for learning with a determination to serve will hopefully allow me the opportunity to give the very best of myself to the Lord and to others.
A significant perspective I have gained since becoming a widow (on this side of the veil at least) is that love knows no bounds in God’s expanse. Viktor Frankl came to know during his confinement and separation from his wife while in a concentration camp that “Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved . . . . Nothing could touch the strength of my love, my thoughts, and the image of my beloved” (Frankl, p. 38-9). I understand this perspective and feel of my husband’s love, concern and watchful care of our family in a way that I “just know.” I don’t dream of him, I haven’t had visions, I just know. There is a depth that transcends time and space and I am grateful for that. In that same spirit, I feel a depth of love that transcends the miles between me and my children and grandchildren since I have moved to Utah and returned to school. Our times together now are much more sweet and appreciated, focused on holding each other close and cheering each other onward. Our daughters and son-in-laws have been poignantly touched throughout the years of caring for my husband and in their feelings for me as their mother especially now that I am on my own again. I have felt their support and they have felt mine. If I do nothing else in this life but give them the nurture they and my grandchildren need to make it back “home”, I will feel successful.
I learned a new perspective on home production in our class: that it involves everything that pertains to the well-being of human beings. When done correctly, it becomes a wealth of storage for all family members to draw from for days and years to come. “It’s not just about getting things done, it’s about growing little human beings into well-adjusted human beings that are bigger and better versions of their parents” (Israelsen, SFL 472 class notes). Wendell Berry in describing our respect for the land states that the “management of a household” can be described as “economy” and, if it cared for correctly, it can replenish itself indefinitely (Berry, 1987, p. 134). If, like the land, in the management of our households we honor not only the author of the plan for families but our individual families themselves, they will have the power to reproduce the qualities that will enable them to endure forever.
A family farm is one that is properly cared for by its family. Furthermore, the term ‘family farm’ implies longevity in the connection between family and farm … and is not a farm that a family has bought on speculation and is only occupying and using until it can be profitably sold“(pp. 162-3). As I reflect on my family’s farm (home), I realize how much more multi-generational it is then I realized. Although long since grown and having raised a family of my own, my parents continue to teach me. I honor the father who gave me my first love of the outdoors and my mother who taught me by her example love of family and just about everything else I value in life. Even up to her passing this last summer, I marveled at how connected our family was in caring for her. Through her compromised physical state in life for many years, my brothers, children and nieces (her children and grandchildren) also had the opportunity to learn to serve across the generations. I’ve seen that lesson in compassion and loyalty stick already with how my children now are concerned for me with their father’s death and with his mother (their other grandmother) as she begins to need them more. I wonder who really needs who more. I’ve also learned a new definition in this class that “lengthen your stride” attributed to President Spencer W. Kimball doesn’t mean do more or move faster. It means to move so that the weakest among you can keep up (Israelsen, SFL 472 class notes). I don’t know why I never got that before. Maybe that’s why children love their grandparents so much. I take comfort in knowing that I get a second chance as a grandma to “grow” my grandchildren and give to them unabashedly all the important nonmaterial things I might have missed the first time around. With every generation working together, maybe then our extended and eternal family can continue producing and storing so that there will always be enough to nourish us and keep us knit together in love.
In his essay titled “Men and Women in Search of Common Ground”, Wendell Berry states that “when our spouse or child, friend or neighbor is in need or in trouble, we do not deal with them by means of a computer, for we know that, with them, we must not think without feeling. We do not help them by sending a machine, for we know that, with them, a machine cannot represent us. We know that, when they need us, we must go and offer ourselves, body and mind, as we are. . . . It is only in these trying circumstances that human love is given its chance to have meaning …” (1987, p. 122). Dr. Israelsen spoke in class of his mother’s voice being a source of emotional strength to him even as an adult. He asked each of us to consider what we would like our voice to say to our children in their minds and hearts. I have thought of a few things I have learned in my family relationships through personal service that I hope in small measure speak to them softly and clearly of my eternal love for them.
I’ve learned that my grown children are just as busy as I was at their age; and I’ve learned that life doesn’t slow down when you are 55. I’ve learned that when my 22-year-old single daughter unexpectedly comes to visit me, she still likes to find me at home and not somewhere else. I’ve learned that I need to take advantage of the moments I have with my family because in the quantity there are flashes of quality, and always when I least expect it, a teaching moment occurs. I’ve learned that when a family member needs me that I can put this paper aside while I do my real “homework” of an eternal nature. I’ve learned that when any of my children or sons-in-law needs me, I will drop just about anything to be there for them. I’ve learned that I can still pass my college finals even when one of my daughters gives birth that week and another daughter adopts a baby three days later that same week. I’ve learned that nothing feels closer to heaven to me than holding and kissing my grandchildren. I’ve learned that I can almost relive the childhood moments of my daughters through their children. I’ve learned that I can hold an 18-month-old grandson for hours even after he has gone to sleep. I’ve learned that I can do homework in airports and on airplanes so I can make quick trips to San Diego to play with my grandchildren at the beach, watch them be baptized, or see them in their Halloween costumes.
As a family, we have learned that love truly is eternal; that a husband and father can still be felt even if he can’t be seen; that in his brief life, his love and example produced and stored a lifetime of memories and wise counsel for us to continue to draw strength from until we are reunited. I’ve personally learned that I can still “hear” his voice and “see” him smiling at me when I play with our grandchildren, when I “talk” to his picture at night, and even when I walk out of the BYU testing center after receiving an unexpected fabulous grade on a math midterm. I’ve learned that although he is unseen by our mortal eyes, he is still very much concerned with the welfare and the decisions each one of us makes and is “always near. . . . to comfort, to provide some form of merciful attention, [and] guidance in difficult times” (Holland, General Conference, October 2008).
Hugh Nibley wrote of “goods of the first intent . . . the best of all possible choices, in any combination the one thing to be chosen” (1989, p. 525). He further notes that “one test of the goods of the first intent is that you cannot get enough of them. . . . certain things of which we never tire, with which we never become bored. Those are the things of eternity” (p. 529). Yes, I think that is how I would describe this family of mine that I hope I can spend eternity with.
I have gained a new perspective on courage in the last 10 years. I have found reservoirs of strength I never knew I had as I have allowed the Savior to hold my hand and lead me to new experiences and expectations in life. I take comfort from the words of the Lord to Nephi when he said, “I will … be your light in the wilderness; and I will prepare the way before you … and ye shall know that it is by me that ye are led”(1 Ne 17:13). I have learned that a way is always prepared ahead of time. This was made blaringly clear to me during the time my husband and I spent in Boston where he underwent experimental medical treatment during the last 6 months of his life. Although I did not realize it at the time, Boston was as much for me as it was for him—learning to live on my own in a hotel room while my husband was gravely ill in a hospital, in a strange city where we knew no one and were separated by 3000 miles from family and friends. My mantra since then has become “if I can do Boston, I can do this.” It was a spiritually sanctifying time for me that provided a strong foundation for the courage I need as a widow.
The world has suddenly seemed much bigger to me these past few years. When my husband was living, it seemed that he was the one who went out to “slay the dragons” while I kept the home front running smoothly. While he was caught up on current events and the broader picture of the nation, I put into action our preparedness plan on a family level. We had become experts in the methods of dividing and conquering while working together. While studying the area of emergency preparedness in class, I often reflected back on a life-threatening experience I had just a few months earlier when I was caught in a severe blizzard in Spanish Fork canyon. This experience was partially the catalyst for taking this class as well as for reading The Unthinkable by Amanda Ripley (2008). In both cases, my vision of preparedness has been expanded well beyond the more conventional methods in my paradigm over the past 30 years as I was taught Nibley’s, Berry’s, and my professor’s perspective as well as understanding my “disaster personality” from The Unthinkable (p. 223). I have realized that temporal preparedness is broad and covers multiple aspects of my life. It is vitally important and just as much a “way of life” as the gospel is. In fact, it is the gospel. Although I may naively think it pertains only to my physical and temporal life, I also know that with the Lord, all things are spiritual. In the event of a disaster, whether personal or global in its scope, I will find myself knowing this truth as I struggle to put my life back together physically and temporally, emotionally and spiritually.
To lose my husband and then to leave my home and children has required more courage than I ever thought possible to possess. However, I have found that as long as I not only look but move forward with faith, I feel the Lord near and the heavens cheering me on. So after a great deal of fasting, prayer, and counsel, I made the decision to rent out our family home, load the moving van, and head towards a new Zion for me. This decision has had a significant impact upon my family but with the answer to move came the assurance that I was not leaving them, but “leading” them. I have pondered on that inspiration considerably and it’s far reaching effects as my children watch my example in courage with adversity. As I made preparations to come to Utah over a six-month period, I doubted my decision several times and was often consoled by the spirit that I had made the right choice so I continued to move forward, even though my acceptance letter to BYU didn’t come until two months before I was to leave. I was worried about being alone and where to live and Heavenly Father answered that prayer generously and unexpectedly by providing a home for me directly across the street from my cousin and his wife in Lindon, the only people I knew in Utah County. One of the biggest tests came as I continued to move forward with faith without renters for my home. They literally showed up the day we were loading the moving van after taking a wrong turn down my street. I was an answer to their prayers and they were an answer to mine. With all of these experiences confirming my faith and trust in God, I feel that I have been abundantly blessed, richly taught and very much watched over. Although there have been many tough and emotional days, I have felt wrapped in a protective blanket of peace throughout this entire experience and it is what has allowed me to move forward with courage and faith in Heavenly Father’s plan.
In the textbook, Strengthening Our Families, it states that “a severe test or trial that refines and purifies” can be “a metaphorical meaning of [a] crucible” (Carroll, J.S.; Robinson, W. D.; Marshall, E. S.; Callister, L. C.; Olsen, S. F.; Dyches, T. T.; and Mandleco, B., 2000, p. 278). President James E. Faust observed that “for some, the refiner’s fire causes a loss of belief and faith in God, but those with eternal perspective understand that such a refining is part of the perfection process” (Faust, J. E. as cited in Carroll et al., 2000, p. 278). The experiences in my life, most particularly since the summer of 1998, have very much been of this nature. Until that day comes when I can see as the prophets see, I am grateful to be one who has been blessed with enough faith to believe in their words and has been baptized and “visited with fire and with the Holy Ghost” (3 Nephi 12:2). It is the fire of the Holy Ghost that brings me through the refiner’s fires in my life, as I “gain earthly experience to progress toward perfection and ultimately realize [my] divine destiny as an heir of eternal life” (The Family: A Proclamation to the World, 1995, ¶ 3).
I always thought that the pattern of my life would be determined at my age; however, in reality, I don’t know what the future holds. Will I stay in Utah or move somewhere else? Will I marry again? I don’t know. I have found my almost three years of widowhood to be filled with a dichotomy of emotions. I had an amazing marriage. I still do. During the first two years, one side of me wanted to stay firmly planted in the past which alternately offered comfort or sadness in my familiar surroundings while another part of me desperately yearned to stop crying, stop hurting and move forward with courage and faith. It has been a journey much like a pioneer trek, filled with rocky ridges, river crossings and new vistas coming into view. I did not realize how much my adult children worried and were adversely affected by my emotional health and well-being until I embraced my new role with optimism, courage, and faith.
Life offers us opportunities to gain new perspectives with every new decade we live through. I am grateful for the perspectives I have gained in this time of my life as it pertains to work, love, and courage. With a rich cache of experiences from 30 years of marriage and raising my children, and now with new experiences as a widow, something tells me I’ve still only just begun to comprehend a vast wealth of new perspectives waiting to be discovered. This much I do know: that Heavenly Father is there watching over me as my journey of work, love, courage and faith continues.

Works Cited
Berry, W. (1987). Home economics. New York: North Point Press.
Carroll, J. S., Robinson, W. D., Marshall, E. S., Callister, L. C., Olsen, S.F., Dyches, T. T., & Mandleco, B. (2000). The family crucibles of illness, disability, death and other losses. In D. C. Dollahite (Ed.), Strengthening our families (pp. 278-292). Salt Lake City: Publishers Printing.
First Presidency and Council of Twelve Apostles (1995, November), The family: A proclamation to the world, Ensign, 25(11), 102.
Frankl, V. E. (2006). Man’s search for meaning. Massachusetts: Beacon Press.
Holland, J. R. (2008). The ministry of angels, Ensign, 38(11), 29-31.
Nibley, H. (1989). Approaching Zion. Utah: Deseret Book.
Ripley, A. (2008). The unthinkable. New York: Crown Publishers.