Gospel Story Finder

When I went with my father to the Buenos Aires Argentina Temple, I got to see many beautiful places and many sacred rooms inside. It was an open house, so for a few days many people could see the temple. Soon I will be old enough to enter the temple and do baptisms for the dead. I love Jesus Christ and my family.
Guido R., age 10, Argentina

Can you read this: They are reformed Egyptian characters. When Joseph Smith examined the gold plates, he saw characters like these written on them. Because Joseph could not read such writing, Heavenly Father helped him to translate it. The Book of Mormon has now been translated into over seventy languages to help make the gospel available to “every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people” (D&C 133:37).

Can you see the relationship between priesthood keys and blessings? As you engage in this work, I think you will find that the Lord is in its details. An experience demonstrates this. I recently learned of a mother who regularly escorted her children to the temple to perform proxy baptisms. On this particular day, as this family completed their baptisms and were leaving the temple, a man entered the baptistry area with a large batch of his own family names. Realizing there was no one remaining in the baptistry to assist with these family names, a temple worker caught the departing family and asked the children if they would consider reentering and changing once again to assist with these baptisms. They willingly agreed and went back in. As the children were baptized, their mother, listening, began to recognize the names and soon, to the amazement of all, realized the man’s batch of family names were deceased ancestors of her family as well. A sweet, tender mercy for them.

“Thy people shall be my people” (Ruth 1:16).
“Before my mission, I studied geology,” says Anthony Clah of Shiprock. “I thought, ‘I can learn where gold is formed, find it, then retire.’” He smiles. “But my priorities changed. At the end of my mission, I felt impressed that I should spend my life helping as many young people as possible. I thought, ‘Coaching and teaching is the best way for me to do that.’ So I decided to pursue a degree in physical education, and that came with a coaching certificate.”
He soon met and married his wife, Alohilani, who is from Hawaii. After three years in Shiprock, Anthony was hired as an assistant strength and conditioning coach at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. Then it was on to a similar position at BYU–Hawaii, much to Alohilani’s delight.
“While we were there,” Anthony says, “I learned about the ‘aloha spirit.’ I had never seen anything like it before. I knew that God had brought us there, particularly me, so I could learn what it means to have a loving spirit.” The family also enjoyed living near the temple, attending regularly.
After a few years, however, Anthony felt prompted to move again, not to become a trainer in the National Football League, although he had received such an offer, but to return to the reservation.
“But Hawaii was my home,” Alohilani says, “and he knew I would want to stay.” The family fasted and prayed. Then Anthony and Alohilani went to the temple. “I kept remembering something I had recorded in my journal—a dream where I was standing in front of a group of Native American children, teaching,” Alohilani says. “I knew we needed to be with Anthony’s people.”
Today, the Clah family is, in a way, refining human gold. “We’ve brought the aloha spirit from the islands to the reservation,” Anthony says.
The Clahs often host kids who are struggling. As a high school football coach, Anthony helps draw out the best in student athletes—three have now gone on to play in college. Three of the Clah children are on missions, and the younger ones are building friendships and strengthening the Church where they live. And Alohilani is teaching Native American children.

I am so happy that my parents finally renewed my subscription to the Church magazines. I love the New Era because for a while I had to take an early school class that interfered with seminary. It wasn’t always easy to choose the right without that certain spirit seminary leaves on my day. So I kept a few issues of the New Era with me, and they helped me make it through. Thanks so much.
Krysta BiggsScappoose, Oregon (via e-mail)

However, because my family has been staunch Anglicans, I hid my new identity of being a member of the Church until I read a scripture in Romans 1:16, which says that “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ”. This scripture gave me a sense of direction, and I said to myself that I need not to be ashamed of the gospel if I have joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I started changing everything on my social media accounts to say that I am a member of the Church. Even though people contacted me about what they were seeing on the accounts, I proudly replied to each one that I have joined the Lord’s church and that I love it and I know that it is true.

5. For younger children, tell of good examples you have seen in your ward/branch among the children. Or use the story of George and how he was a good example, even at age five: The happy, sunshine child of the neighborhood, George wanted more than anything to be a missionary. He took flowers to shut-ins, ran errands, visited the lonely, raked leaves, and always said hello to everyone on his street as he passed their homes. One day his parents learned what a powerful missionary he was. A neighbor came to see them and said that he and his family wanted to know more about the things that made George such a happy, helpful boy.

Lowji Discovers America*, by Candace Fleming. Nine-year-old Lowji used to live in the big city of Bombay in India. When his family moves to the United States, Lowji learns how to adapt to a different culture and make new friends.

For a time, members traveled to the DDR (the former German Democratic Republic) to receive patriarchal blessings; since both nations were governed by Communist regimes, some travel between them was permitted. But when Brother Calvin McOmber visited Czechoslovakia in 1979, he gave Jirí the exciting news that he (Brother McOmber) had been authorized to give patriarchal blessings to the Saints in Czechoslovakia!

“I had been pondering this possibility during that year,” says Brother Snederfler, “and had prayed to know how to write about this to Brother McOmber so the secret police wouldn’t be able to read it in my letter. Finally, I had decided just to wait and talk to him about it when he came. And here he was giving me the news that he was now our patriarch! Righteous ideas are carried by the Holy Ghost from heart to heart—and do not need to be written or spoken.”

After the meeting two young ladies approached me.
“Are you already meeting with the missionaries?” they asked.
“No.”
“Could we teach you about the gospel?”
“Of course,” I said. “That would make me very happy.”
At one of our discussions they began telling me about three kingdoms. I stopped them and said, “May I tell you what my grandmother told me when I was little?” Now it was their turn to be surprised. The more we talked, the more I wanted to learn. On August 15, my missionaries asked if I would like to be baptized.
“Yes.” That was already my desire.

President Spencer W. Kimball read the Bible when he was fourteen years old—all 66 books and 1,519 pages. “If I could do it by coal-oil light,” he said, “you can do it by electric light” (The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, ed. Edward L. Kimball, Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1982, p. 131).
President Kimball was a very special teacher for all of us. He didn’t have a car or a bicycle, but he did have nine cows to milk every morning and night.
He said, “I thought, ‘What a waste of time, to sit on a three-legged stool. Maybe there is something else I could do while I am milking.’” He placed a copy of the Articles of Faith on the ground beside him and went through them, over and over, until he had memorized them. Then he repeated the Ten Commandments over and over until he learned them. He memorized important scriptures that would help him on his mission—all while he milked the cows. He didn’t have time to waste; he had things to do with his life (see The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, p. 131).

The Patchwork Quilt There was a little bit of every family member in Grandma’s masterpiece, and even the boys cut squares for it when she got sick.Valerie Flournoy4–8 years

Janick doesn’t like to sing just at home or at church. One of his favorite Primary activities was when the children from his ward went to a rest home and sang to the people there. “It felt good,” he said. And that’s a feeling Janick often gets as he tries to do what’s right.

As these Swahili-speaking refugees began coming to church, we needed missionaries who could speak both Swahili and English. The missionaries in the ward began learning Swahili, but with no native speakers, the learning was slow. In March 2019, mission leaders of the Washington Spokane Mission went to pick up new missionaries from the airport. When the mission president and his wife greeted Elder Noel Cohen, they remarked that his mission recommendation said he spoke Swahili. “How well do you speak Swahili, Elder?” they asked.
Elder Cohen replied that Swahili was his native tongue. He had immigrated to the United States from Kenya the year prior. Elder Cohen then spent his entire mission in our ward, and he and his many faithful companions worked tirelessly to love and invite many of these wonderful refugees and immigrants to learn about the restored gospel. Grateful for the help of ward members, Elder Cohen said, “We did a lot of the teaching, but the members did a lot of the fellowshipping.” (Learn more about Elder Cohen’s experience on page 25.)

My introduction is something said in my presence by one of these valiant missionaries. “As I look back on my life,” he said, “I can hardly imagine a barefoot surfer from Hawaii completing his third mission. But when I felt the warm embrace of the Savior, I wanted to serve Him, and I changed.” Yes he did!
Stanley Y. Q. Ho told me that until he was 30 years old he did nothing but “hang around the beaches at Waikiki.” Then he found the gospel, he married a Latter-day Saint girl, and he changed. Since then he has fulfilled many callings, including bishop and stake president. Now, Elder Ho and his beloved Momi, who is responsible for so many of the changes in his life, have served three full-time missions.

Between 1856 and 1860 there were 10 handcart companies. Eight of these companies made the journey to Utah with little trouble, often traveling faster than wagon trains. Two of the most well-known groups, the Willie and Martin companies, became stranded in early snowstorms. The suffering of these two companies was severe, and of the 1,076 pioneers in these companies who left Iowa City in July 1856, at least 212 died along the trail.
When Brigham Young learned about the two stranded handcart companies, he stood at the podium in general conference and made an impassioned plea for horses, mules, wagons, and men to bring the stranded Saints to Zion. What started with 16 eventually grew to 200 wagons. The rescuers left Salt Lake on October 7 and reached the Willie Company on October 21 and the Martin Company on October 28. The Saints in these two companies had suffered agony, deprivation, and death. Nearly all the survivors were starving and suffering from the extreme cold. The rescued Saints of the Willie Company finally arrived in the Salt Lake Valley on November 9, and those of the Martin Company on November 30.

One afternoon, I had a math quiz. I had studied for it, but I had forgotten to ask Heavenly Father to help me do my best. I was nervous and wanted to have more than a silent prayer at my desk before I took the test. I asked the teacher if I could go to the rest room. Then I left class and said a prayer. When I got back to the classroom, I felt very calm.
The next day, the teacher gave our quizzes back, and I had done well. I know that prayer helps. When we do our best and then ask for His help, the Lord blesses us.
Francisco Javier Loaiza Vergara, age 10Puerto Varas, Chile

Now, my Christlike friend Betty was just the opposite. She encountered many of the same difficulties as did William, but because she felt God’s love, she suffered tribulation in the Savior’s name, partook of His divine nature, and thus gained a deeper faith in and a love for God, along with the strength to handle whatever might come.
Her love for others increased. She seemed to even forgive others in advance. She learned how to cause them to feel her love. She learned that love shared is love multiplied.
Finally, she learned to love herself more, being more kind, gentle, and long-suffering. She stopped her struggle for self-esteem and started loving herself the way God loved her. Her image of herself became His image of her.

When I was a sophomore in high school, I was very small for my age. I was 5?2? and weighed 105 pounds. When you’re 5?2? and 105, not many coaches want you playing basketball, unless you have exceptional talent, which I didn’t. You also don’t make a very good linebacker for the football team.
I was sitting in the gym one day watching the basketball tryouts, when the wrestling coach walked by and said, “We need a few tough guys your size who can wrestle for us.”
I thought to myself, “Obviously I look pretty tough to the coach, so I’ll give this wrestling a try.” I told him I would do it.
My first problem was finding the wrestling room. After some searching, I found it was three stories under the basketball court in an unventilated, very dimly lit cubicle.
As I entered the room, I found the first thing you need to overcome in wrestling is the odor produced by 50 young men sweating in a room with no air circulation.
I found the coach. Instead of being polite and friendly as he had been the day before, he seemed grouchy and mean. He pointed to a kid across the room and said, “Wrestle him.”
I looked at the kid and thought to myself, “This will be a snap.” He was shorter than I was and looked as if he had missed a few meals. I turned to the coach to say he had made a mistake and surely there was someone else I could wrestle. As I did this, the kid grabbed me and for the next three hours gave me a wrestling lesson I’ll never forget. He rubbed my face in the mat and twisted me into positions I didn’t think possible. Finally, after three hours of mat work, I thought we were done. Not quite. Up to the halls we went, where the coach led us in wind sprints and jogging. Finally, four hours after practice began, we were finished. I sat on the bench in the locker room totally exhausted.
The coach called me into his office. He said, “How much do you weigh?”
I replied, “About 105.”
He said, “You’ll be wrestling 98 in three days.”
That was 7 percent of my body weight. “I’ll have to go without eating,” I protested.
He said, “I know.” So to my surprise, a wrestler not only had to work out for four hours, he couldn’t eat after the workout. I made weight at 98 pounds and put up with this difficult schedule for three weeks. Finally I had had enough.
I went home and told my dad that I was going to quit. I thought he would be elated after seeing how much I had suffered. Instead he said, “I never took you for a quitter. I always thought when you started something, you finished it.”
Well, if he was going to say that, I certainly would not quit now. I said, “I guess wrestling is not so bad after all.”
I stuck it out. For four long months I stuck it out. It was never easy. In fact, it was the most difficult thing I had ever done. It wasn’t glamorous. The basketball team got all the recognition. They got the nice locker room and all the new facilities, and the entire school showed up to their games. The school had to assign four members of the pep club to go to wrestling matches. No, it wasn’t glamorous. But much to my surprise, at the end of the difficult season, I had a feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction that I had never felt before. The most difficult thing I had done in my life turned out to be the most rewarding.

It was about 4:00 P.M. on a cheerless February day in 1977, and I was sitting in my office at the university, preparing for a night class, when the phone rang.
“Dad?” the voice came. “Mom said to call and tell you she’s taking John to the hospital.”
“Hospital?” I asked. “What for?”
It was Kathryn, and she sounded rather nervous.
“Well … you understand … I was coming home in the car, and he wanted me to give him a ride on the fender.”
“Oh no,” I groaned. “How many times have I warned you about …”
“But it was only about half a block,” she said, “and I was going really slow. He didn’t even get hurt until I stopped, and I told him I didn’t want him to get on to begin with.”
“Okay, that doesn’t matter. Just tell me what happened. How bad is it?”
“Not very bad. I mean, I don’t think so. He just sort of jumped off, and then fell over backward and hit his head.”
My anxiety had suddenly mounted. “Well, what’s his condition? Is he really hurt? Is he in a lot of pain, or what?”
“No,” she replied, “he’s just been acting kind of strange. He can’t remember things, and the fingers on his left hand keep curling in like he’s trying to scratch something.”
Moments later I had phoned the hospital emergency room and was talking to my wife, Sharon. “He’s not in much pain,” she informed me, “and his memory’s pretty well returned. They just want to keep him under observation for a while and maybe take some X-rays to make sure his skull isn’t fractured.”
“All right,” I replied and felt better. “I have to prepare for my night class, but call me if he gets any worse and I’ll come immediately.”
Darkness had settled in a faint wintry drizzle, and I was halfway through a three-hour class session when my son Tony, a member of the janitorial crew, appeared in the doorway. Just behind him was our good friend and neighbor Dr. Evan Memmott, head of the college audio-visual department. Both of them appeared very solemn. I will never forget, in fact, the expression of tragedy on Evan’s rugged, empathic countenance. He seemed to be on the verge of tears, and in that instant I concluded that my son had died.
What occurred during the next few minutes is blurry; I was standing there in the hall, looking into their eyes, hearing the urgent agony of my own voice as though it were spoken by someone else. “What is it? What’s happened?” My thoughts mingled in relief and anxiety over the reply. Johnny was alive, but he was definitely getting worse and was having convulsions.
He was sitting on the edge of a hospital bed as we arrived, and was surrounded by his mother; Dr. Grant Way, our pediatrician; and two or three nurses. Johnny’s face was sallow, tinged with grayish green, his hair was a mess, and he looked terribly frail and vulnerable. They were holding a crescent-shaped pan under his chin, and there was blood in it. My stomach clenched.
“Johnny,” I said quietly and placed my hand on his shoulder with great care. “Are you all right?”
He actually smiled a little, spit futilely into the pan, and someone wiped his lips with a tissue. “I’m not feeling too well,” he managed. “I’d better lie back down.” Pretty courageous, I thought, especially for a kid of 13.
“All right.” I helped lower him to the pillow. “Do you want us to administer to you?”
He closed his eyes, breathing through his mouth. “Yes … I guess … only don’t press too hard.” I glanced at Evan, and we laughed a little. “No, we’d try not to press too hard.”
Later, conferring with Dr. Way in the hall, I learned that John had landed on the back of his head but had sustained a fracture on top, right down the middle, and that he might be suffering from subcranial bleeding, perhaps even a blood clot. Dr. Way glanced toward the bed and its occupant. “He is looking better now, though, isn’t he?” I nodded a bit dubiously, still offering silent prayers in hopes of building up some kind of reserve help.
They kept him there for the next 48 hours, but despite the excellent care, his mother stayed with him during the days, and his father stayed during the nights. At 6:00 A.M. on the morning of his scheduled departure, having made “steady improvement,” he suddenly developed intense pains. “I have a terrible pain in my head,” he moaned. “It feels like somebody’s cut right down the middle of it.”
The nurses had been making their rounds every 30 minutes at first, now every hour, observing him carefully, shining a light in his eyes to see if the pupils were properly dilated, but I didn’t wait. His description of the pain greatly disturbed me, and even as I left the room, he was tossing about, clasping his head and moaning. I returned moments later, having received approval to give him another mild pain-killer. A nurse would be there soon.
Soon, however, was too long. John made no response as I entered the room. “Johnny!” I said, “are you all right?” I bent over him, frowning, clasping his shoulder. “John? Can you hear me?” But his eyes were glazed, losing their color, and a tiny bubble was forming between his lips. He was turning gray again—receding, shriveling before my eyes. Dying! Absolutely incredible … absolutely true. Johnny!
I ran for the door. “Get the doctor in residence, quick!” I shouted. “He’s in a coma, and he’s fading fast!” A young nurse swished into the room—checked his pulse, his eyes, did other things (I don’t know what), and left, crying. Crying! Undoubtedly she had been trained not to display such emotion, but sometimes emotions take precedence regardless of the circumstances.
I’m not certain of the following sequence, but a call was placed immediately to Dr. Way, and I phoned Sharon moments later. She took the news with what can only be described as beautiful fortitude and asked one question: “Is there someone there who can help you administer to him?”
“I’ll find somebody,” I replied, asking her to phone family and friends and request their prayers.
I have never known doctors to arrive with such speed. Within the first two or three minutes a young intern, Ed Parker—a bearer of the priesthood—appeared, and somehow, before we even had time to perform the administration, Dr. Way was there as well. I don’t recall what I said during that blessing, but I do know that I made some strong, unqualified commitments to the Father of our spirits if only he would spare my son, his son. I do know that despite my failings, I have been a better man since. I do know that almost immediately after our administration, the light returned to John’s eyes, that he emerged from the depths of his coma, speaking a little, communicating all that was required to neurosurgeon J. H. Hauser, who had also arrived with remarkable swiftness.
Shortly thereafter, Dr. Hauser explained that a large hematoma (blood clot) was exerting pressure on John’s brain and that it might still be growing. “We have two options,” he said, “One is to use drugs. That may help eliminate the clot, but we can’t really be certain of their effectiveness or the speed with which they will act. The other is to bore some holes in his head and remove the clot directly.”
“Please do exactly what you would do if he were your own son,” I said, and moments later Johnny was on his way to the operating room for surgery that was to last almost two hours.
“We’ll do our best,” they had said. That was all they said—no promises.
By now we had formed quite a congregation—his mother, Grandfather Allred (who spontaneously offered perhaps the simplest, most fervent and beautiful prayer I have ever heard), various medical personnel, several of our own children, and our neighbors the Memmotts—true Good Samaritans. We sat there together in the main waiting room, conversing quietly, and young Mike Memmott, one of John’s best friends, was blinking back tears. That fall in the road three days earlier had momentarily knocked John unconscious and left his head bleeding rather profusely. Bending over him in great anxiety, Mike had called John’s name, then actually picked him up and carried him into our home.
During the half hour that followed, we phoned our oldest son, Mark, then at the Language Training Mission in Provo, Utah, in preparation for his departure to Hamburg, Germany. We also phoned the Ogden Temple to place John’s name on the prayer roll and learned that someone else had done the same thing at the Salt Lake Temple. Shortly thereafter we received a call from the receptionist at the Language Training Mission in Provo. “President Pinegar took the liberty of placing your son’s name on the rolls at the temple here,” she said. “We hope you don’t have anything against it.” Of course we didn’t have anything against it.
It was such an incredible interplay of feelings! Such a sense of spirituality, of belonging, of family—not only our immediate kin, but all those others, virtually everyone we talked to, in fact! Friends of our daughters were now there also, and various acquaintances passing through the hospital had stopped to talk to us, offering words of concern and consolation. It seemed as though everyone knew our young son personally and truly loved him.
And yet, despite all those things—love, comfort, faith, buoyant warmth—there was the lingering feeling of fear, which was just as pervasive as the smell of antiseptic, the kind of fear that seems to shrivel one’s innards a little. At one point I encountered a doctor friend on the elevator and explained briefly our son’s condition. “That’s too bad,” he said. “The same thing happened to the Jones boy last week, the very same kind of accident. He never lived through the operation.”
Somehow that observation didn’t help to make me feel any better, nor had our son Mark’s earlier response to our phone call. “I always thought John was too good for us to keep him very long,” he had said. Pacing the hall outside the operating room, I glanced at the forbidding green doors marked “Surgery—Unauthorized Personnel Not Permitted” and thought about that other boy, the one who hadn’t lived. I had met his father, and I knew in part his family’s grief, for at one point I had supposed that my own son was dead. At another, I had literally seen the life fade, and who really knew the outcome even now? No assurance of anything, only those final words: “We’ll do our best.”
Leaning against the tiled wall with one hand, I rested my head on my out-stretched arm. “Father in Heaven,” I asked, “why did that other son have to die? Why did his loved ones have to endure all that pain and sorrow?” I knew full well, of course, that answers are rarely given to such questions. “Is it right,” I inquired, “for me to ask that my own son be spared under the circumstances?” I remembered the blessing, my commitment to rededicate my life if only John could be spared. But who am I, the thought came, to be setting up conditions for the Lord? I should be constantly striving to live a better life regardless of the circumstances.
There was no one in the hall. I closed my eyes and continued. “Father,” I said, “I have no right to bargain or to establish terms. Thy will be done in all things.” Pausing, I struggled for some small particle of wisdom. “On the other hand, if we’re allowed to keep him, well, I can guarantee you this: it will certainly be great motivation.”
The surgery was pronounced a success, and I remember walking with my arm around Sharon out into the sunlit parking lot of that winter morning; we were trying to reassemble ourselves emotionally, breathing deeply the air of mortality, offering our thanks. The morning was very pure and bright, almost transparent.
I remember the night that followed—Johnny in the intensive care unit, head wrapped in white bandages like a swami, taking intravenous fluid, moaning occasionally, causing my heart to fibrillate slightly each time it happened. The following afternoon, having improved rapidly, he was returned to the pediatrics ward.
I remained in the hospital each night, Sharon taking the days so that I could continue my classes at the college nearby. And Johnny rapidly grew better, startling everyone—doctors included—with the rapid rate of his recovery. Periodically, however, there were the low points—the time, for example, I was lying with a blanket and pillow on the floor of his private room, and awoke to hear him crying. He was standing in the bathroom and didn’t quite know where he was. “What’s the matter, John?” I called.
“I don’t know,” he lamented, “I don’t know!” Guiding him back to his bed, I hoisted him into it.
“Are you having pain?” I asked.
“Do you need me to call the nurse?”
“No,” he sighed and turned his head away from me for a moment. “It’s just that I’m still getting headaches, and I keep thinking about those holes and not having any hair. “It’s just that … well, for a minute, I didn’t know where you were, and I couldn’t cope with it.
I paused, and then laid my hand on his brow with utmost care. “I understand, buddy. Just let your old dad cope with it for you, okay? Everything’s going to be all right, just great, in fact, and we’ll have you home before you know it. Your hair will grow back in no time.”
He had turned to face me now, and I could see his eyes, big and brown with luminous depths in his pale face. “Not like yours,” he smiled. All my own hair had fallen out a few years earlier.
“No,” I grinned. “Mine will have to wait the resurrection. But then, John, do you know what kind of hairstyle I’ll have?”
“What kind?”
“I’m going to have hair that is curly, thick, and bushy.”
“That’ll be great!” He began to laugh, but it hurt his head.
We remained together in the darkness with only a pale blue light from the parking lot shining dimly through the window, and I continued to look at him, marveling at the number of friends and relatives who had drawn even nearer as a result of our experience, the number of people, some of them total strangers to me, who cared and truly loved that boy.
“Remember a long long time ago when you were just a little boy?” I mused. “Well, you couldn’t, of course, because you were only about 18 months old, but it was the night after Robby was born in the old Dee Hospital on 24th Street. Anyway, you and I were the only ones home, and I guess it was about midnight or later. I came into your room to see if you were covered up, if everything was okay. The light from the hall was shining on your face a little, and there you were, wide awake, just looking up at me and smiling—like right now. So I sat down on the edge of our old rocker, and we looked at each other. That’s all we did. We were all alone, just looking at each other through the bars of that crib—looking into each other—for maybe 15 minutes. And you know something?” I paused. “That was one of the finest experiences your old dad has ever had.”
He looked thoughtful, frowned a little, but it was a pleasurable frown somehow. “I can’t exactly remember,” he said slowly, “but, well, I sort of do in a way, like I can still feel it.”
My hand was on his wrist now, and I could feel the life there, pulsing, pulsing, pulsing, all very steadily. Yes, strong and steady now, and it seemed as if we were going to keep him. It looked as if he would go on to become a doctor as he had planned, perhaps even a surgeon. It appeared that he would fulfill some special calling here on earth, for there had always been a special spirit about him, and at times he seemed to move along in something like a state of grace.
“John the beloved,” I said.
He peered at me inquisitively, not really comprehending.
“What?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I replied. “Just rest now. Try to get some sleep.” It was the secret name I had given him that night long ago, the name reserved for very special occasions.