is there a place for heavenly mother in mormon theology?

S U N S T O N E
blood under pressure, and he’d tell me my reading and condemn
me to another day in bed. Then one night, he took the
reading and took it again, and again.
“What?”
“It’s high.”
“How high?”
His answer cut through me.
“I’ll call the doctor.” When he hung up, he pulled my
overnight bag from the closet.
“I want a blessing.” I was scared.
My husband telephoned our neighbor, who hurried over
with oil and then stayed at the house with our sleeping toddler.
At the hospital, I underwent tests which suggested that
our daughter’s lungs were developed sufficiently to endure an
early birth. I was induced.
IHAD FIRST met Elena as she had eased into a chair across
from me, resting her cane across her lap. She appeared to
be in pain, though she said she was not. My clients were
still taking paper/pencil tests, so the evaluation rooms were
quiet as I began our interview.
Fresh out of BYU with an English degree, I had been hired as
a vocational evaluator by a non-profit rehabilitation organization
under fire for falling behind with its written reports. They
needed someone capable of writing fast. No one cared that I
knew nothing about disability or rehabilitation.
“Tell me about your accident,” I began. She tipped her head
and talked more to the table than to me. Her right hand held
her left as she told of the horrible sound the Jaws of Life had
made as its teeth bit down and pulled away the steel frame.
“Then the pain came,” she shrugged, “and I blacked out.”
Put into a medically induced coma, Elena had awakened
two weeks later. “Everything broke,” she said, making a
sweeping motion across her torso with her right hand. “You
see how I walk.” Based on the medical information provided
me, I’d say her survival was a miracle.
“I can work,” she said, “except for this arm.” Using her right
hand, Elena picked up her left arm and placed her left hand
atop mine. It felt like ice. “It’s no good,” she said. “I can’t type
or hold anything.”
“Your limitations aren’t what counts,” I said, offering up the
line I’d been taught. “Your abilities do.”
She spoke as though I hadn’t. “Are you Catholic?”
Taken aback, I responded, “In heritage.” I then explained
that I had been raised a Catholic but was now a practicing
member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. “I
consider myself a Catholic Mormon.”
“Then you know . . . .” She let the sentence hang. “Do you
have children?”
“Not yet.”
She exhaled heavily and, with her good hand, reached for
her purse. Fumbling, she extracted her wallet, opened it and
pointed at a photo of a chubby two-year-old. “This is my
Edmund.” I smiled and expected her to do the same, but she
did not. Instead she closed her eyes. “I cannot hold him.”
I felt myself breathe.
“My husband, he has to pick him up and put him on my
lap, but Edmund doesn’t want that. He wants me to stand up,
dance with him like before. He kicks me.” She opened her eyes
and gave me a look that was both hard and eerily questioning.
“He screams, ‘I hate you.’” Suddenly her words came sharp,
like claws, and I knew the subject had shifted. “I hate the boy
who did this to me. I cannot forgive him, no matter what Jesus
said.”
IT WAS A small hospital with only one birthing room, and
I didn’t get it. So, when the time came, I took the old-fashioned
Gurney ride from the labor room to the delivery room,
wheeled by two nurses, one chatty, one not. Once inside the
door, the chatty one waved
good-bye—and the other
panicked.
“You’re not leaving me?”
the nurse said.
“We have four other gals
in labor.”
“But I’ve never done this
before.”
I glanced at my husband.
He was watching the doctor
drape me.
“You were with me yesterday.”
“I watched!”
“You’ll be fine.” The
chatty nurse said as she exited.
The doctor took his place
near my feet. I couldn’t see
him, but I heard him say,
“Let’s meet this little girl.”
The nurse anaesthetist positioned
himself near my head.
The nurse spoke to me.
“I’ve only watched once.”
I patted her hand. “I
haven’t done this either,” I
said. “My first was a C-section,
but if I can do it, you
Suddenly her
words came
sharp, like
claws, and I
knew the
subject had
shifted. “I hate
the boy who
did this to me.
I cannot forgive
him, no matter
what Jesus said.”
can.” I couldn’t understand why she was afraid. I’d seen nurses
deliver babies on T.V. All she had to do was raise my upper
body, remind me to breathe, and yell at me to push.
The physician wasted no time ordering me to push, which I
did as best I could considering I was numb from the epidural.
Though I had expected the nurse to prop me up, she merely
stood by my side, making nervous little sounds. She didn’t
touch the Gurney, much less me. My pushing didn’t make
progress, and soon the doctor “threatened” that he might have
to use forceps.
“Help me raise up,” I pleaded. The nurse backed nervously
away. So, lying flat on my back, I tried to push harder still.
“Harder!” the doctor barked.
JULY 2004 PAGE 11