Mourning Before Comfort

On the Rituals, Proximity and Grace of Grief

Two hundred years ago the restored gospel was swaddled in a cradle of grief. Alvin, Thadeus and Louisa, Joseph Murdock, Don Carlos, and Thomas are the names of the children that Emma and Joseph Smith lost in infancy. Most did not live a full day. The sorrow for these children, for the death of Alvin, Joseph’s older brother, and countless coreligionists …