“Hope has the power to fill our lives with happiness. . . . Hope sustains us through despair. Hope teaches that there is reason to rejoice even when all seems dark around us." —Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf
Thirteen years ago, when I was 17, my mom and I were driving on I-15 in Utah, and we were in a terrible car accident. Only the two of us were in the car. On the other side of the freeway, a 16-year-old boy was driving a pickup truck when a tire blew out. He lost control of his vehicle, crossed the grassy median, came up on our side of the freeway, and hit us: immediately, unexpectedly, and head on.
A moment after we collided, I pushed away the airbags and felt the urgency to call my dad, right away. I had my phone in my pocket. I told my dad what had happened and where we were, and that I thought my mom was dead. My dad happened to be, or should I say the Lord prepared a plan for my dad to be, on a quick errand across the street at our bishop’s house when I called him.
My dad and our bishop were somehow able to make it to the scene of the accident before any of the first responders came. My dad raced out of the car right over to my mom.
And then came the sirens, ambulances, police, helicopters, life flight, the whole force. A paramedic came over to us, and truthfully stated that there was a fatality and that my mom was dead.
It seemed like life went into slow motion, everyone buzzing around us. My dad held my hands and through streaming tears said, “Lins, I don’t know how we are going to do this, but we can do it with the Lord.”