Too soon comes the end of summer...
My son Philip will report to the LDS mission training center on 8 September 2010 to serve a two year full time mission in San Bernardino California. I will miss him. Many people have told me it will be more difficult than I think to be parted from him for two years, with only email contact and two phone calls per year. I'm sure they are right. It will be difficult... but... Most people I know haven't experienced the death of a child. I know three other women personally who've lost a daughter, as I have lost one to death in childhood. My mother would have made four, but she is gone now. Knowing your child is parted from you for the duration of mortal existence is painful. There is hope, of course, through the atoning sacrifice of Christ, but death still retains her sting to a degree difficult to bear. On 9 September it will have been twenty years since my husband carried the small casket in his arms from the country church in Harwood, Texas to the cemetery in the field beyon...
