Only A Shell

        I remember waking up Monday morning and truly wondering what had happened. I felt like a zombie. I wanted to do nothing more than lay in my bed, cry, and hold who I had left tight. But even that first day after reality hit & life continued to go on in some way, even though I had no desire to do any of it. I remember shortly after waking up, we received a call from the mortuary letting us know we needed an obituary submitted by 4:00 that afternoon. We had to start planning a funeral whether we wanted to or not. I remember talking to Jordan trying to make plans, and we both kept saying over & over again "funerals aren't meant for babies". Unless you've planned a funeral for a baby/child you won't understand just how hard it is.
      As we started to plan, nothing felt right. Nothing seem to fit my boy. And to be honest I hated everything about it, but really who would love something or feel right about anything that had to do with planning a funeral and burial for their sweet baby. At the same time, I wanted everything perfect because I knew it was one of the very last things I got to do for my baby boy. I knew that this service had to sum up his 6 months of life and who it was. Tytan was perfect, and that is why planning a service was so hard because I knew it had to be nothing more than PERFECT.
      The night Tytan passed in my mind I knew he was gone, but in my heart I felt like my baby boy was still there. I could feel him so close the entire 6 hours we spent with his body. It felt like it did at home when I was able to treat my baby "normal". I could rock him, bath him, and walk with him. He was this perfect sleeping baby that I just wanted to bundle up and take home.
    Mike, the mortician, called and asked us to come meet with them Tuesday, so we could pick out the casket and other funeral things. He also told us he would have Tytan's body prepared, so we could see him if we would like. Of course we wanted to see him. In my mind I was excited. I couldn't wait. It had been less than 48 hours since he passed, but my arms and heart ached to hold him. When we got to the mortuary I wasn't prepared for what was about to happen. In my mind, I thought I would feel the same way I did on the night he passed.
    I was so wrong. As he wheeled my baby out on a table that was clearly made for an adult body I couldn't help but think this isn't right. This isn't suppose to happen. Death isn't for babies. Tytan was dressed in the same Superman outfit and wrapped in his baby blue sport blanket that we handed him over in, but this time there was something different. What was it? It was no longer my baby. Yes, it was my sweet baby's body, but his spirit was gone. It was now nothing more than a perfect tabernacle that kept his spirit for the past 6 months, but now his spirit had returned home to his Heavenly Home. I was devastated by the feeling I got when I first seen him because in my mind I was thinking I was coming to see "my baby". I asked Mike if I could hold him. I was secretly hoping that holding him would change the feelings I had felt, but it didn't. In fact, it did the exact opposite. As he placed his precious body in my arms, the Holy Ghost confirmed to me it was now only his physical shell. It was a completely different feeling. He even looked different. I had never witnessed these feelings before & will never forget them either. As I held my sweet little baby boy's body I couldn't help but think how heavy his small little 10-11 lbs. swollen body felt.
     I held Tytan for about an hour before we left. As I went home, I couldn't shake those feelings I felt. I was bothered. I felt so uneasy. I knew what happened after we die. I knew what happened to infants who passed before the age of accountability. I had been LDS all my life and been taught these principles for 22 years. That night as I was on the computer making Tytan's video, I started to search & study different "plan of salvation" and "our spirits after death" talks online.
I found a talk from Wilford Woodruff that brought me so much peace and comfort. He are some pieces of it that I personally found helpful.

A great many [people] believe when a man dies that is the end of him, that there is no hereafter. Can any sensible man believe that the God of heaven has created two or three hundred thousand million spirits, and given them tabernacles [physical bodies], merely to come and live upon the earth and then to pass away into oblivion or to be annihilated? It seems to me that no reflecting man can entertain such belief. It is contrary to common sense and to serious reflection.¹⁰

When mourning the loss of our departed friends, I cannot help but think that in every death there is a birth; the spirit leaves the body dead to us, and passes to the other side of the veil alive to that great and noble company that are also working for the accomplishment of the purposes of God, in the redemption and salvation of a fallen world.¹¹

There is rejoicing when the spirit of a Saint of the Living God enters into the spirit world and meets with the Saints who have gone before.

Some labor this side of the veil, others on the other side of the veil. If we tarry here we expect to labor in the cause of salvation, and if we go hence we expect to continue our work until the coming of the Son of Man.¹³

As I read that, it may me aware of the joyous reunion that took place when Tytan's spirit entered the Heavens. I think that first night why I felt the way I did because Tytan was so close to us. He stayed with us and wrapped his arms around us all until we left that night. After that night, he went to work. He went to do the Lord's work on the other side of the veil and live his life in Heaven. Of course, Tytan spirit is still close to us and helps us often, but we have never felt our '"Tytan" the way we did that night since.

There is no infant or child that has died before arriving at the years of accountability, but what is redeemed, and is therefore entirely beyond the torments of hell. … I will defy any man to find in any of the records of divine truth any ordinance instituted for the salvation of little innocent children; it would be unnecessary on the face of it, and the only thing that can be found is where Jesus took the little ones in his arms and blessed them, which is and would be perfectly right to do according to the order of God. But the sprinkling of infants or the doctrine that infants go to hell under any circumstances, is a doctrine ordained of man and not of God, and is therefore of no avail and entirely wrong and displeasing in the sight of God. So much about the infants. … They are redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ.²¹

Children are innocent before the Lord; as to their death and the cause thereof, that is in the hands of God, and we should not complain of the Lord or his dispensations any more than Job did. … There is this consolation connected with the matter—they are innocent, they are not in transgression. They have paid the law of death which God passed on Adam and all his posterity; but when their spirits left their bodies and got into the spirit world their trouble and affliction were over. … They will come forth out of their graves in the morning of the resurrection, … clothed with glory, immortality and eternal life, in eternal beauty and bloom, and they will be given into the hands of their parents, and they will receive them in the family organization of the celestial world, and their parents will have them for ever. They will live as long as their God lives. This, to Latter-day Saints, who believe in the resurrection, should be a source of comfort and consolation.

… The question may arise with me and with you—“Why has the Lord taken away my children?” But that is not for me to tell, because I do not know; it is in the hands of the Lord, and it has been so from the creation of the world all the way down. Children are taken away in their infancy, and they go to the spirit world. They come here and fulfil the object of their coming, that is, they tabernacle in the flesh. They come to receive a probation and an inheritance on the earth; they obtain a body, or tabernacle, and that tabernacle will be preserved for them, and in the morning of the resurrection the spirits and bodies will be reunited, and as here we find children of various ages in a family, from the infant at the mother’s breast to manhood, so will it be in the family organization in the celestial world. Our children will be restored to us as they are laid down if we, their parents, keep the faith and prove ourselves worthy to obtain eternal life; and if we do not so prove ourselves our children will still be preserved, and will inherit celestial glory. This is my view in regard to all infants who die, whether they are born to Jew or Gentile, righteous or wicked. They come from their eternal father and their eternal mother unto whom they were born in the eternal world, and they will be restored to their eternal parentage; and all parents who have received children here according to the order of God and the holy priesthood, no matter in what age they may have lived, will claim those children in the morning of the resurrection, and they will be given unto them and they will grace their family organizations in the celestial world. …

… I will say to our mourning friends, your children are taken away and you cannot help it, we cannot any of us help it; there is no censure to be given to parents when they do the best they can. A mother should not be censured because she cannot save her sick child, and we have to leave these things in the hand of God. It will be but a little time until they will be restored to us. …

With regard to the growth, glory or exaltation of children in the life to come God has not revealed anything on that subject to me, either about your children, mine or anybody else’s, any further than we know they are saved. And I feel that we have to put our trust in the Lord in these afflictions, we have to lean upon his arm and to look to him for comfort and consolation. We do not mourn under these afflictions as those who have no hope; we do not mourn the loss of our children as though we were never going to see them again, because we know better. The Lord has taught us better, and so has the gospel; the revelations of Jesus Christ have shown us that they will be restored to us in the resurrection of the just. …

One of the hardest parts of the entire process was the thoughts of burying my baby boy in the ground. It was honestly too much for me to even think about and still is. My poor husband and parents had to pick out his burial plot, but it was too much for me too handle. I just wanted to keep that sweet little body of my baby's with me forever. The thoughts of laying him in the cold ground made my skin crawl. I can't begin to tell you how grateful I am for the knowledge of the gospel. It is the only way we survive, the only way we cope, and the only way we push through another day. Can you imagine if you thought that death was the end? If 6 months, or 6 days, or 6 years was all you ever got with your loved ones? Can you imagine if you had to not only lay their bodies, but their spirits to rest as well? The thoughts of it are unbearable for me. I know without a doubt this isn't the end. Tytan didn't just live for 6 months. Yes he was only on Earth for 6 months, but he still lives. He lives on the other side of the veil and is doing a great and marvelous work there. I know Tytan's spirit was separated from his physical shell after death. This is all possible because of our Savior Jesus Christ. He made this possible for you and for me! I will forever be grateful for these sacrifices he made for me and my family. I look so forward to the day when I can personally thank him for allowing me to not only have my sweet Tytan for 6 months, but for all eternity!