Faith is hard.

Tomorrow you will have been gone for 6 months.  Six excruciatingly painful months.  My sister, Lora told me that as she was attending the dedicatory session in the Boston temple that she felt you and the message she felt was that you wanted me to have joy.  Problem is Elijah, I've lost almost all of my faith.  It all seems like a fairy tale to me now.  It was so easy to believe when death came in an orderly fashion.  That's just how it works.  We're born; we grow old; we die.  It's easy to believe there's a life after because it all happens in order.  But now I'm struggling to believe.  My child died before me and that means I have to breathe every breath for the rest of my life without you. Where I had your form, now I have absolutely nothing but memories to remind me that you actually lived.  I realized I have no way of proving you ever existed except in records and in 100 years, no one will "know" you lived, they will either believe printed words or say it's just a made up story that you ever existed.  Thing is, I know you lived.  I know you were magnificent.  I know you had challenges.  I know you were a musician.  I have your music.  But I can't prove it was you singing or playing.  i can't prove it to anyone in the world.  People can give me counter arguments that it's someone else, that videos are staged.  On and on and on.  But....I KNOW.  Can I ever KNOW that you are still alive in the Spirit World?  My patriarchal blessing tells me to learn from the experiences of others. Problem is, it also tells me the spirit would warn me when my children were in danger.  To this day I wasn't warned about your danger.  As a mother I worried about your pain, I worried about the veriseal.  I worried when the doctor left the cancerous lymph node without trying another round of chemo the first time but instead pronounced you in remission.  I never felt comfortable about so many things with you boys, Was it the spirit talking or my own worries?  Now I wonder if I ever have felt the spirit in my life or is it just me wanting to believe in some magic?  Are all my beliefs just a way of satisfying myself that we're more than we are, or is it just a way to avoid the reality that we are born because our parents had sex and we die because our bodies give out and that's it?  Are the beliefs I've been taught just a modern mythology?  How can I know?  My patriarchal blessing also promised me that I'd be given "even hidden treasures of knowledge."  All I have is belief.  I have no knowledge at all.  I especially don't have "even hidden treasures of knowledge." I want to believe, I'm trying very hard to believe, but I'm left so incredibly alone.  Where I thought I had the spirit, there is none despite my repeated prayers.  I don't know that I can live by faith anymore.