Over the past few months, I’ve been thinking a lot about my mom. My mom is 88 years old and her whole life she has had the most amazing memory. She would look at a picture and say, “Oh yes, I got that polka-dotted dress at J.L. Hudsons in 1934 for $7.85 and I wore it to three parties.” I mean it was CRAZY what she could remember.

This year she cannot. The memory is gone. The short-term memory left last year and this year the long-term memory is fading away quickly. She has wanted to write her life history for the last several years but just seemed unable to do it.

I had decided I didn’t care. My mom was a homemaker her whole life and if she didn’t really want to write her history, that was OK. I was wrong. I admit that now.

This past week I’ve been recuperating from surgery and I thought if I had to sit around, that I may as well just type up a quick history for my mom. I knew that it would make her immensely happy. And I just felt like this window of opportunity was closing quickly.

And so I began. And I wrote. And I began to tell my mother’s story.

My mother’s life is a story of the decades. She was born in Alabama and lived there in the 1920’s during the bootleg era when her dog was killed to keep him quiet. She grew up during the Depression in extreme poverty and moved 43 times between Detroit, Michigan and the South by the time she had graduated from high school just to survive. She was homemaker during the 50’s—those high-pressure “Pearls and Heels, Ladies” days and had her five children. She struggled with two children who got swept away in the rebellion of the 60’s. She went back to college and graduated in the early 70’s as she finished raising her children.In the 80’s she enjoyed prosperous times and camped and traveled all over the world with my dad. They also served 3 missions. In the 90’s her life slowed to a quiet retirement pace. And in the new millennium, she lost her husband and moved to a retirement center to enjoy looking at her photos of her 5 children, 17 grandchildren, and 18 great-grandchildren.

I was so wrong. As I’ve written my mother’s story, the agonizing details of the hardships she endured have burned deep into my heart. Her unwavering faithfulness has given strength and courage to my own. Her constant commitment to being the best wife and mother she knew how has have given dignity to her life and the lives of her posterity.

My mother has been true and faithful her whole life. And I have found that in this week of writing and reading her story, my heart has turned to her. It has turned to her in love, in forgiveness, in deep respect.

I’ve known my mother my whole life. But it is only now that my heart has truly been turned to her and to all those who preceded her. I understand now why this verse is discussed in all four of the standard works.

That heart turning to our fathers and their hearts turning to us is about love. It’s about love and forgiveness and understanding and respect. In short, it is everything that we are as a family. It is everything that we are as brothers and sisters in our Heavenly Father’s family. It is the heart that is at the center of His eternal family and our own.

Thank you Mom. I understand now.