“Uggghhhh,” I groaned, irritated at the obnoxious ringtone I had yet to change. I grudgingly picked up my cell phone and peeked at the screen to see who it was.
“Nope,” I muttered, pushing aside a sliver of guilt for rejecting her call. I loved Mom, we talked all the time, but my head was hurting too bad to have one of our lengthy conversations.
I dropped the phone back on my nightstand and draped a heavy arm over my eyes. It had been a long Monday, complete with a house full of screaming kids, and I was beat. I had just laid down, desperate to get in a quick nap before needing to make dinner for everyone.
But the guilt didn’t subside like usual. For some reason, rejecting her call this time gnawed at me.
Maybe I should just call her back real quick, I thought.
Then again, I really was exhausted. Squeezing my eyes shut harder, I turned away from the ringing cell phone and pushed a pillow onto my ears.
She’ll understand, I reasoned, and besides, I just need about an hour, then I can give her my full attention.
Finally, the ringing stopped. I breathed in deeply and exhaled slowly, thankful for the silence. A few seconds later, however, Jon’s phone started ringing from our bathroom. He had just gotten home and was getting ready to jump in the shower.
“Hey, Pam,” he said politely.
Apparently, Mom really wanted to talk to one of us. I relaxed a little, thinking it was probably something dumb, like Dad forgetting the login to Netflix or Mom accidentally downloading another virus to her computer. My parents were your typical Boomers after all. They tried, but didn’t mesh well with technology, and since Jon (whose coworkers nicknamed “Google”) was such a big, techy know-it-all, they usually called on him for all things “nerd” related.
“Pam, slow down. I can’t understand you.” The panic in his voice sent chills down my spine. In our nearly thirteen years of marriage, I had never heard him sound scared, but the fear is his voice was unmistakable.
Despite the fact that my full attention was on their conversation, I couldn’t bring myself to get up. My heart hammered in my chest and stomach knotted with nausea. I should’ve answered! Why didn’t I answer? Something’s wrong. Something is really, really wrong. It must be Dad…
“What?” His strong voice cracked with emotion. It would’ve been barely noticeable to anyone else, but to me, I caught it right away. “Are you sure?” There it was again, the crack of emotion.
“Ok…ok….” He whispered softly, as if he didn’t have the strength to speak.
I tried desperately to calm myself down, rationalizing that whatever happened to Dad was somewhat expected. He’d been in such bad health for decades that we all had had multiple conversations about what to do if he experienced another heart attack or passed away. At almost seventy years old, he joked about having “one foot in the grave and one foot on a banana peel.” But even with the logic of what was likely happening, emotion took control.
He’s my dad, I thought to myself, my goofy, loving, slightly racist, but well-intentioned dad. The lump in my throat expanded so much I could barely swallow. I’m not ready to lose him, I’m not ready to say goodbye…
Jon opened the bathroom door to our room. “Hold on, let me get her,” he said gently, with more compassion than I knew he was capable of.
He walked in the room, but fear left me frozen in bed. I couldn’t open my eyes, couldn’t sit up, couldn’t ask what was wrong. I knew whatever I heard next would change my life. Everything inside warned me I wouldn’t want this call to be real. So, I just laid there, pretending to be oblivious to the world around me, and prayed for God to freeze time. I just needed a few more minutes to make a plan and better prepare myself from what I was only seconds away from being told.
But God didn’t freeze time, and I quickly learned He wouldn’t rewind it either.
There wouldn’t be any do-overs, any take backs, any changes in the storyline, no matter how much I begged, pleaded, and prayed. Instead, God let it play uninterrupted, and that call, along with the domino effect of events that happened over the next few years, would end up replaying in my head like a bad rerun.
Jon put his strong hand on my hip and gently shook me. With that ominous tone I didn’t recognize, the one I had never heard before and never wanted to hear again, he choked, “Alisha, you need to get up…Zach’s dead.”
Later that night, I curled into a ball in my bed, and painfully prayed to Heavenly Father. I had never doubted an afterlife before—for as long as I could remember, I simply believed, never questioning if life extended beyond death—but laying there, the darkness in the room as heavy as the grief in my soul, everything I “believed” shattered.
Without warning, the testimony I so easily trusted in for years was under duress, and believing wasn’t enough anymore—trusting wasn’t enough. I had to KNOW. I just had to.
The thought of my baby brother no longer existing was too much. Anguish and fear pounded inside my chest, beating me from the inside out. The physical pain of his loss was excruciating, but not knowing for sure whether Zach was truly gone—void of space and time and substance—or if he lived on, just in a different form, in a different place, was gut-wrenching. Unsurety bombarded me, relentlessly attacking my every thought.
I cried out, literally and figuratively, to Heavenly Father, and begged Him to let me know, somehow, some way, that Zach was still there. My prayer was unceasing, my requests repeated over and over, when a quiet thought whispered to me.
Be still…
Instantly, I understood. In order to hear an answer, I had to stop pleading. I had to sit in my prayer, to sit in my pain, and patiently wait for a response.
Although tears still fell, they slowed as I concentrated on grounding techniques I learned at the Saprea retreat years prior. I placed my hand on my heart and focused on the rise and fall of my chest. I paid attention to the way my blankets felt draped around my body. I listened intently to the gentle humming of my bedside fan.
And I waited.
I’m not sure how much time passed, but I was still awake when a loud, high-pitched buzzing—similar to a fly zizzing about—started in the distance and rushed towards me. The sensation of falling jolted through my body as the sound got closer.
At the same time, a small, blueish-white orb took shape in my mind, then quickly expanded outward, like the static from an old T.V. spreading across the screen as it turned on.
Blue and white hues swirled together like a gentle vertical tide, forming a heavily draped curtain. The buzzing softened into a harmonious humming that vibrated in my chest. I didn’t realize it at the time, but peace blanketed me, pushing the grief and anger so far away, I didn’t even remember having it at all.
As I watched the curtain with curiosity, a muscular hand peered through a slit in the middle, then gently wrapped fingers around one side of the fabric, and pulled it open about halfway.
It felt like an invisible magnet was pulling me towards the opening—not close enough to go through, but close enough to see beyond it.
Silhouettes of hundreds, maybe thousands of people, shined brightly, hurriedly bustling about. I tried to make out their features, but the glow that emanated from them was too bright.
It only lasted a few seconds before the curtain gently dropped back in place, and everything went dark.
Anguish rushed back into my chest, filling the brief reprieve I’d been given. Although the thought was small and happened quickly, it was profound and the message undeniable.
Zach still existed.
His life wasn’t over, it was just different now.
While that experience answered my immediate fear, it didn’t take away any of the pain.
Yet again, I found myself furious with my Creator. For months, I sat in bitterness and anger. My prayers—and there were many—were so filled with rage I often found myself balling my fists so tight, they’d leave imprints from my nails digging into my palms.
I tried everything to get rid of the anger. I read scriptures, attended church, gave 100% in my callings, worked in the temple, volunteered…nothing helped though. Not until a stranger reached out to me on Facebook.
I shared a post in a group I was part of and asked for advice. One lady sent a private message and offered to walk me through an exercise over the phone that might help.
I was desperate, so I agreed to give her a call the next day.
We spoke briefly about the power of visualization. And in case you’re wondering, no, it’s not just I’m-gonna-think-happy-thoughts-and-everything-will-magically-be-perfect.
True visualization involves getting so detailed in the thought that you experience it on all levels. You can hear, smell, feel, touch—even physically taste—the things in that specific thought. The real key is to include as much emotion as you can, though.
I know, it sounds weird, but for those who know what I’m talking about, it is POWERFUL!!!
The easiest way I can explain the difference between just “thinking happy thoughts” and true visualization is to compare a daydream to a memory. When we visualize, it feels more like a memory, like something we’ve already had happen, not something we hope to happen. (For those interested in more about this, I highly suggest grabbing the book from Leslie Householder called Hidden Treasures. You can download it FREE at rarefaith.org. It’s a fantastic starting point for understanding just how powerful our God made each and everyone of us.)
So, here I was, leaning back against my headboard with my eyes closed, preparing to do some visualization exercise with a stranger over the phone. I honestly didn’t think it was going to do much, but like I said, I was desperate and willing to try anything.
“I want you to find where you feel the anger and pain most in your body. Is it in your shoulders? Your head? Your stomach? Anytime you think of how horrible this is, what part of the body does that ache penetrate the deepest?” Her voice was soft, steady.
I struggled with getting the words out, the grief already building in my heart again, “My chest.”
“Ok, good. Now, I want you to picture a door on your chest. Take as long as you need, but make sure you have a clear picture of it.”
Without even trying, a set of French doors filled my mind. The trim was white, the panes of glass clean and clear, and the handles were long and curved, like fancy mustaches.
“Once you see them, I want you to look inside your chest, behind the doors, and picture a ball.” She quieted, patiently giving me time to follow her instructions.
The ball I imagined was a dark glass ball, small like a marble, that floated in the air. I don’t recall telling her when I had the picture, but somehow her timing was perfect, and she continued right on cue.
“Now, tell me…what’s the phrase that spends the most time invading your thoughts. Go ahead and say it out loud.”
A lump the size of a golf ball filled my throat and my heart pounded in my chest like a thousand horses fleeing from a hurricane. “Zach’s dead. My brother is dead.”
Compassion laced her voice, “Take that phrase, and all the emotion you’re feeling, and picture it going into the ball. Take all the thoughts you’ve had, all the worries, all the fears and the anger and the pain, and put all of it into that ball. Fill it up. Let your mind and body flood anything you’re holding onto into that ball.”
Again, without trying, I could see and feel this happening. With each thought, each emotion, each ounce of pain, the glass ball grew. Inside it, a storm swirled violently around and around. It got so big, I felt as if my chest might explode.
Hot, angry tears poured down my face. Noises only those who have felt the deepest of grief can understand escaped from my throat and lips. I cried harder than I had in months, and this sweet woman just sat quietly, waiting patiently for me to calm.
Minutes ticked by before I gained enough composure to speak. Finally, I apologized, and told her I was ready for the next steps.
“Ask your body if it’s ready to let go, and if it is, give your body permission to open the doors on your chest, and let the ball go through them.”
I nodded, and watched as the doors opened and the glass ball slowly floated outside of my chest and into darkness. I was mesmerized by it. The further it got, the smaller it became, until it returned to the size of the marble it started as.
Just as it shrunk to its original size, it slowly dropped down, down, down and into a set of hands. As it rested on the open palms, the ball disintegrated into soft puffs of vapors, and evaporated into the hands. The only thing that remained were red scars in the center of the palms.
I was so shocked at what I was seeing, especially because this hadn’t been part of the instruction, that I remember jolting backwards. As I did, the picture I saw in my mind zoomed out, until I saw the Savior, sitting on a twisted olive tree, with His elbows resting on his thighs, and His hands still out in cupping shape. He smiled sadly at me, but said nothing.
“Alisha, I want you to do me a favor now. I want you to look inside the doors. Is there anything left?”
For a moment, I forgot I was on the phone, that I was actually in my room, on my bed, and not standing between a set of French doors and the Savior.
I turned my gaze and looked inside.
Without warning, I felt the sensation of dropping to my knees as my eyes settled on the most beautiful little blonde boy. His chubby cheeks kissed with deep dimples, eyes full of light as he stood in a corner of the room.
Zach…
Instantly, I was transported from outside the doors, to inside, my arms tightly wrapped around my little brother.
Again, tears poured from me, an overwhelming sense of love mixed with my pain. I swallowed, then whispered, “My brother, I see my brother.”
“Alisha, I know this is hard, but I want you to ask him something.” She paused, then with all seriousness said, “Ask him if he’s ready to leave.”
Sobs erupted from my chest. I didn’t want to ask. I didn’t want to know the answer. And yet, I knew I had to.
I pulled back a little, putting enough space between me and my baby brother so I could look at his sweet face. I didn’t ask out loud, didn’t even ask the full sentence in my mind before Zach’s face lit up with that thousand watt smile of his.
He nodded his head excitedly, but didn’t move.
I nodded back, brought him in for one final bear hug, and then watched as he ran to the French doors. He stopped before stepping out, turned around, and waved goodbye.
The last thing I saw was Zach, running into the arms of the Savior and climbing on His lap as the doors closed.
For over two decades, I thought I knew what the atonement was. I thought I understood it fully.
I had always been taught that Jesus Christ came to this earth, not only to live a perfect life, but to die a perfect death, and to provide a perfect sacrifice. I was taught that the atonement was there for us so we could overcome sin. That the resurrection was vital in order to provide life after death for ALL. But until that moment, I never knew how to really use the atonement.
I realized in that moment, that it’s not just for sin. It’s not just for hardship. It’s for our own Gethsemane. It’s for all those bitter cups we’ve been asked to drink, the ones we shrink in front of when forced to partake.
Most importantly, I realized that using the atonement fully is our choice. It’s a gift that’s given to us, but it requires us to give something as well.
Christ won’t take our pains, hardships, or struggles from us. Don’t get me wrong. He could, He’s powerful enough to. But He didn’t live, die, and rise again to show off how powerful He is. He did it to show us how powerful WE are.
That day, I learned that I needed to stop begging God to take away the grief, the anger, the pain… and I needed to really give it to Him. The size and weight of my anguish was too big for me to keep inside, too heavy. But in the hands of the Savior, it was lighter than a wisp of vapor.
As difficult as it was to let all the bad go, it was even harder to trust the Savior by giving him the good I was bottling up. I loved my brother so much, I couldn’t imagine life without him. I didn’t want to. So I held on desperately to his memory, held on to the idea that he was too young, that I needed to still protect him somehow.
I had forgotten that Zach was Christ’s little brother, too. And that he would be safe and happy wrapped in the arms of the Savior until it was my turn to join them.
I know this post is a little different from my others so far. But I want you all to know that CHRIST LIVES!
And because He lives, those we lost, and those we will lose, will all live, too. It’s what this weekend is all about.
I know I still have a lot that I’m not ready to pass over to the Lord. I’m still selfishly holding on to my hopes, dreams, talents, and plans for the future, as well harboring some unresolved anger, addictions, and hardships that I think I can figure out myself, or maybe that I feel justified in holding onto. But He isn’t going anywhere. He’s still there, waiting patiently for us to trust Him, to ball up all the things in our hearts, and to let Him be the One Who carries it in His hands.
Maybe we can both loosen our grip a bit this weekend, and can open up space for healing, love, and peace inside our souls.
May you and yours have a beautifully blessed Easter. Til next time.
Thanks Alisha, I still had a lot to say to Billy Dean! It wasn’t the same way you said your goodbyes but it helped me still.
So hard when so much needed to be said.
I’m so sorry for you and your families loss. Zach passed away on what would have been Billy Deans 72nd birthday.
I am overwhelmed , I wish I could have something like this in my life also. I love you so much. I loved Zach too, my hurt goes on, but I know you’re right about christ love and life after death. Yes be still.