They Did Not Fear Death

Yesterday my family had the opportunity to attend the funeral of a dear sister in our ward who passed away about a month before her 90^th birthday. Sister Gammon was a ray of sunshine in our ward, greeting everyone on Sunday with her big smile and warm welcome. As someone put it at the funeral, “You couldn’t wipe the smile from her face.” Her husband Bud passed away many years ago, and so she had been looking forward to reuniting with him for a long time. A couple of weeks ago she went into the hospital for the third of fourth time in recent months because she was having trouble breathing. A ward member who went in to give her a blessing happened to be there when she got the news that she had stage four lung cancer and had likely only days to live. This brother wasn’t sure what to expect when he entered to talk to her as most in her situation would be distraught and afraid. But he recounted to me how Sister Gammon was filled with joy and exclaimed to him, “I get to go home!” She expressed her excitement to return to her Heavenly Father and the Savior and to be finally again with Bud. She had no question about where she was headed when she died and had no fear of passing through the veil. Her faith in the Savior and the plan of salvation was firm.    

Her faith and trust in the Lord reminded me of the people of Ammon and their sons. Their king recounted their attitude about death: “And now, my brethren, if our brethren seek to destroy us, behold, we will hide away our swords, yea, even we will bury them deep in the earth, that they may be kept bright, as a testimony that we have never used them, at the last day; and if our brethren destroy us, behold, we shall go to our God and shall be saved.” They had perfect trust in the Lord’s plan that they had been taught by Ammon and his brethren, and they knew where they would go when they died so they did not fear death. One thousand of them were indeed killed by other Lamanites, and Mormon wrote, “We know that they are blessed, for they have gone to dwell with their God…. They would lie down and perish, and praised God even in the very act of perishing under the sword…. We have no reason to doubt but what they were saved” (Alma 24:16, 22-23, 26). That faith in the Lord’s plan was clearly passed on to their sons who fought with Helaman in the great war between the Nephites and the Lamanites. Helaman wrote this description of their attitude to Moroni: “Now they never had fought, yet they did not fear death; and they did think more upon the liberty of their fathers than they did upon their lives; yea, they had been taught by their mothers, that if they did not doubt, God would deliver them” (Alma 56:47). Like their parents, they did not fear death and they knew the Lord’s plan. They, along with Sister Gammon, had faith that death was not the end but rather a door back to their Father in Heaven.  

Of course, even that kind of faith doesn’t mean that there isn’t sorrow at death for those left behind. At the funeral, one sister quoted this statement from President Nelson in 1992: “The only way to take sorrow out of death is to take love out of life.” He further taught in that address: “Irrespective of age, we mourn for those loved and lost. Mourning is one of the deepest expressions of pure love. It is a natural response in complete accord with divine commandment: ‘Thou shalt live together in love, insomuch that thou shalt weep for the loss of them that die.’ (D&C 42:45.) Moreover, we can’t fully appreciate joyful reunions later without tearful separations now.” So, we still weep and mourn the loss of our loved ones, but we look forward with an eye of faith towards joyful reunions that are promised in the gospel of Jesus Christ.