As I stepped over a bag and a fellow passenger’s legs to get to my seat on the plane, my phone rang. Excited to finally have service after many failed attempts to call home, I answered before taking my seat.
“Hello,” I said. “I can’t hear you very well; I’ve just boarded the plane.”
My wife skipped any salutation and got straight to the point.
“I’m so sorry, Love,” she said. “Jodi just died.”
Almost theatrically, the plane lights dimmed and the bells chimed to let plane passengers know it was time to get buckled for departure. I thanked my wife for getting in touch with me in a miraculously timely fashion. Then I sat down for what would be a reflective few hours where I thought about my sister and her life.
She was younger than me by five years, having battled for more than a decade against a genetically inherited disease that had slowly diminished her physical capacities.
Even as she fought through worsening physical conditions, some things remained unchanged. She was still constantly the funniest person in any room. She still had a smile that could brighten the darkest of days. And she still loved attending the temple as frequently as she was able.
At first, she was just a little slower than others in the temple. As her illness progressed, she needed assistance from others around her. Eventually, she needed a wheelchair and someone on either side of her to help accomplish her goal of continued worship in the temple.
My family and I were deeply moved by the efforts of her friends, neighbors and fellow ward members who took time out of their days to enable my sister to be in the temple. There, she found peace.
I had just finished covering a worldwide devotional for young adults in Mexico with Elder Ulisses Soares of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles when I took that call from my wife. His topics included teachings about looking to the Savior to receive His healing power.
“I have seen firsthand how focusing our life on the Savior brings strength to overcome difficulties, weaknesses and the pains of life, which are extremely difficult to bear without His help and healing power,” Elder Soares said.
I had no idea how much I would need those words when he spoke them in Mexico City.
My sister’s funeral was attended by many of those same friends, neighbors and ward members who helped her attend the temple. I was overcome with gratitude for their love of her, made manifest by their personal sacrifices to show how much she meant to them.
My sister’s condition was not her fault, not the fault of anyone. It was simply a circumstance of life and a part of mortality. And, as Elder Brook P. Hales, a General Authority Seventy, said at general conference in October 2024, “mortality works.”
In John 9:2-3, the Savior was asked about a man’s mortal condition and whether it was his fault or his parents’ that he was blind. The Savior’s answer is one that brought me peace at the passing of my sister.
“Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him,” the verses read.
In that case, the Savior helped the blind man see. In my sister’s case, the Savior’s healing has come in other ways to my family and to those who loved her.
While she was not healed in this life from physically crippling infirmities, we rejoice knowing that she will never face those same limitations again. Spiritually, she is not confined by that body. And in the Resurrection, her body will be made whole.
Without her sickness, I might not have sat with her, focused on every word while she struggled to speak words and sentences in her final months. Those times are now sacred memories for me, regardless of the actual words spoken in conversations.
But I am filled with happiness to know that God is a just and merciful God. And I’m grateful for His servants who teach us about the plan of happiness that helps us to push through the tough times knowing happier times are ahead.
Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf said in the October 2016 general conference, “All will be made right. All will be well.”
I hope that I can stay as focused on the Savior as much as my sister did, and I look forward to some future day when we get to talk and laugh together again.
