How does one deal with this? We are devastated when an older member of the family dies, but a 12-year-old? Devastated doesn't even come close. But there are positive aspects to dealing with death, strange as it may seem. These aspects linger with me now, as we move on in life without her. It would be easy to wallow in our sadness, live in the past when she was alive, surround ourselves with her pictures and memories, and maybe not even get out of bed in the morning. But we have responsibilities apart from our grief, and we cannot give in to these impulses.

Grieving, Serving and Being Served

First, there is the element of grieving itself. It's OK to grieve, and it's actually part of the healing process. I send more sympathy cards now to other people who have deaths in their families, because I have learned that people actually do read these cards. I read every one of mine, over and over, especially when there were personal notes written.

The next sympathy card you send, please scribble a little something extra on it. It doesn't have to be a literary masterpiece. Just a short comment from your heart.

Then there is the element of serving. I have always prided myself on being there to serve others when required, but allowing oneself to be served is another story. Serving costs a person time and money, and doing it makes you feel better. Being served forces a person to admit a lack of self-sufficiency, and in accepting that we realize we need other people in our lives. If we ever thought we were an island, now we know we are not.

With this death, our daughter's house was full of people all the time, and eventually they all became hungry. Other people brought buckets of chicken and cases of soda, and we were so grateful for that.

I never understood the concept of taking food to a grieving household before, but I certainly do now. And when there is a death in our neighborhood, I take food. The family may not experience hunger, but the guests do, and bringing food alleviates the need for the family to feed the guests.

Explaining the Hope

We had to explain to several family members what we thought was the fate of our granddaughter. Did we think she was in heaven? Did we think she was an angel? One opinion presented to me was that God took young girls from this earth to serve as babysitters for babies who had died as infants. That didn't sound much like a "heavenly" future to me.

I was surprised I could actually explain our hope for life after death to these people, and back it up with scriptures. I had learned more through the years than I realized.

And family members will rise to the occasion. Two of our children sat down and paid all the bills for our grieving daughter without being asked. I think it was months before she realized this had been done. Other family members wrote poems, sent flowers, visited, called, sent cards and money. There was an outpouring of concern for our daughter and what she was enduring from people we didn't expect to be that concerned for her tragedy.

A large corporation stepped forward and paid all the funeral expenses, bought the burial plot and paid for the headstone of our daughter's choice. This was unsolicited and unpublicized.

At the graveside services, over three hundred people, most of them not of our faith, heard the good news of the gospel of Christ expounded by one of God's ministers. A strange hush fell over the crowd, and people strained to hear the hope of the dead explained. Afterwards, there were phone calls wanting more information about what we believed.

In the aftermath of this experience, I went through the newspapers and, whenever there was a death of a child, I would send a few bucks for pizza and pop and a letter explaining our experience and the hope that with time, they would adjust to this terrible tragedy. They would never get over it, but they would learn to live with it. I got dozens of letters in reply thanking me for the encouragement and the hope that I was right.

Death Is Temporary

We know that death is not permanent. We will see our granddaughter again, and when we do, life will be better.

We'll be able to share with all who have died the joy of reunion, and the realization that death, as we know it in this world, will be part of our history, and no longer a blight on our present. UN