Everything you always wanted to know, but were afraid to ask

Getting ready for the big balloon release at the cemetery after Mom's funeral

I think death stinks! Do I just have a bad attitude?

Thomas S. Monson: Frequently death comes as an intruder. It is an enemy that suddenly appears in the midst of life’s feast, putting out its lights and gaiety. Death lays its heavy hand upon those dear to us and at times leaves us baffled and wondering. In certain situations, as in great suffering and illness, death comes as an angel of mercy. But for the most part, we think of it as the enemy of human happiness. ("May We So Live")

Do you know how awful it is to lose someone you love?

Joseph B. Wirthlin: When President Hinckley spoke at Sister Wirthlin’s funeral, he said that it is a devastating, consuming thing to lose someone you love. It gnaws at your soul. He was right. ("Sunday Will Come")

Where exactly is heaven?

Brigham Young: Where is the spirit world? It is right here. Do the good and evil spirits go together? Yes they do. Do they go to the sun or some other planet? No. Do they go beyond the organized boundaries of this earth? No they do not. They are brought forth on this earth for the express purpose of inhabiting it to all eternity.

Umm, President Young, You are really good at answering a question with a question. I think I'm the one who is supposed to be asking the questions here!

But how does this "heaven on earth" thing work? Is it like a different dimension?

Parley P Pratt: The spirit world is here on the very planet where we were born, or, in other words, the earth and other planets of a like sphere have their inward or spiritual spheres and well as their outward, or temporal. The one is peopled by temporal tabernacles and the other by spirits. A veil is drawn between the one sphere and the other whereby all the objects in the spiritual sphere are rendered invisible to those in the temporal.

So those who have died are right here, nearby?

Ezra Taft Benson: Sometimes the veil between this life and the life beyond becomes very thin. Our loved ones who have passed on are not far from us. (Conference Report, Apr. 1971, 18)

Joseph F. Smith: I believe we move and have our beings in the presence of Heavenly messengers and of Heavenly beings. We are not separate from them and therefore I claim that we live in their presence. They see us. They are solicitous for our welfare. They love us now more than ever.

Do those who have died know what is happening in our lives?

Joseph F. Smith: They see the dangers that beset us; they can comprehend, better than before, the weaknesses that are liable to mislead us into dark and forbidden paths. They see the temptations and evils that beset us in life, and the pronesness of mortal beings to yield to temptation and wrong doing; hence their solicitude for us and their love for us and their desire for our well being must be greater than that which we feel for ourselves.”

But can they really do anything to help us?

Joseph F. Smith: When messengers are sent to minister to the inhabitants of this earth, they are not strangers, but from the ranks of our kindred and friends. In like manner, our mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and friends who have passed away from this earth having been faithful and worthy to enjoy these rights and privileges, may have a mission given to them to visit their relatives and friends upon the earth again, bringing from the divine presence messages of love, warning or of reproof and instruction to those whom they had learned to love in the flesh.

Why does God allow someone to die when we really need them here?

Neal A. Maxwell: On the other side of the veil there are perhaps seventy billion people. They need the same gospel and releases occur here to aid the Lord’s work there. Each release of a mortal life here is also a call to new labors. A mortal life may need to be shortened by twenty years as we might view it. But if so, it may be done for special services to be rendered by that individual in the Spirit World. Those services will benefit thousands of neighbors. Therefore, though we miss the departed righteous so much here, hundreds may feel their touch there. One day those hundreds will thank the bereaved for gracefully foregoing the extended association with choice individuals here in order that they can help hundred there. In God’s ecology, talent and love are never wasted. Those who have true hope understand this.

Okay, I'm really trying to have "true hope." So, what can I learn from death?

Merrill J Bateman: Death teaches that we do not experience a fulness of joy in mortality and that everlasting joy can be achieved only with the assistance of the Master (see D & C 93:33-34). Just as the lame man at the pool of Bethesda needed someone stronger than himself to be healed (see John 5:1–9), so we are dependent on the miracles of Christ’s Atonement if our souls are to be made whole from grief, sorrow, and sin. If grieving parents and loved ones have faith in the Savior and His plan, death’s sting is softened as Jesus bears the believers’ grief and comforts them through the Holy Spirit. Through Christ, broken hearts are mended and peace replaces anxiety and sorrow. ("Power to Heal")

“I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left and my spirit shall be in your hearts. And mine angels round about you to bear you up.”

D & C 84:88

I know the name of at least one of those angels. I call her Mom.