Latter-day Saint Voices

You’ve Made Your Grandmother Happy

By Shirley Ann Slade Brown, Arizona, USA

My grandmother’s cousin had no idea how much her gift and message meant to me.

Wedding photograph of author’s grandmother

Growing up with parents who are deaf, I was keenly aware that my family was different. When I was young, there was no one to interpret for my parents at Church meetings or activities, so we didn’t attend often.

I always felt like an outsider looking in, wanting what others in my ward had—a family who prayed and studied together.

Near the end of my senior year in high school, however, we became more active in the Church. My parents were sealed in the Mesa Arizona Temple, and two of my four siblings and I were sealed to them.

Five years later, I was preparing to be endowed and married in the temple. The night before my temple sealing, my brother and his wife attended the temple to perform proxy work for my mother’s parents in preparation for their sealing the next day. My mother was a convert of almost 20 years at the time, and she was eager to begin her family’s history and temple work.

The next day, our grandparents were sealed to each other, my brother and his wife again standing as proxy. It was my wedding day, yes, but it held extra significance for me. My grandparents, whom I had never met, were sharing this special day with me.

A few days later, as my husband and I opened wedding gifts, we opened one very special gift from my grandmother’s first cousin. She was a religious woman who had been close to my grandmother. The gift was a picture of my grandmother on her own wedding day. An accompanying card said, “Your grandmother is so happy with you and is looking down upon you.”

This cousin had no idea how much her message meant to me. Nor did she know of the temple work that had recently been performed for my grandmother. I knew in my heart at that moment that my grandmother was pleased with me and happy that our family had started on the important journey of family history and temple work.

We were a forever family now, on the path of gathering our ancestors and led by my mother in blessing our family on the other side of the veil.