David O. Mac Kay wrote:
At some time or other every human being faces what we call death. When I was but a boy, I sensed this deeply in the cry of a mother who sat by the side of a casket that contained her little boy. Several of us boys had been playing with firecrackers. . . . We did not know that one of our playmates had powder in his pocket. . . . Unfortunately, in a moment of thoughtlessness this young boy broke what we call a “lighter,” and while it still had sparks in it, he put it in his pocket where the powder lay, and an explosion occurred. His clothes were set on fire, which we, his associates, tried to extinguish as best we could; but he was very severely and fatality burned.
Two or three days later his playmates sat in the funeral services. I chanced to be near enough to the mother to hear President Charles F. Middleton say: “Don’t cry, Ann! Don’t cry! You will meet your boy again.” And then . . . a cry came from the mother’s soul in these words: “Oh, if only I knew!” That is all. I did not know its significance then. I could just respond to the cry. But since, I have read in that cry the answer to the longing of the human heart.
No parent can lay aside a child without longing, without wishing, that the child might come again, or that the parent might speak with the child again. . . . No husband can kneel at the side of a departed wife; no wife can kneel a the side of a departed husband; no child can part with a loving parent without being filled with an ardent desire to meet that loved one again somewhere in a better world where the pangs of parting are unknown. . . .
Living in posterity is not immortality . . . ; living in deeds, living in writings, living in monuments, living in the memory of friends is not immortality; neither is living in the lives of our children and our grandchildren to the latest generation . . . the immortality that Jesus had in mind when he said: “And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.” (John 11:26.) . . .
To sincere believers in Christianity, to all who accept Christ as their Savior, his resurrection is not a symbolism but a reality.
As Christ lived after death, so shall all men, each taking his place in the next world for which he has best fitted himself. . . .
“He is not here: but is risen.” (Luke 24:6) Because our redeemer lives, so shall we. ~The Gift of the Atonement (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2002) 81-82
