After returning home from a two year mission to the Germany Hamburg mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I moved with my young bride to Logan, Utah to attend Utah State University. One great blessing I enjoyed was living so close to my maternal grandparents, Grandma and Grandpa Frazier. They lived with my uncle in Hyde Park, just a few miles north. I had always loved visiting them as a child. Now, as an adult I was able to see them regularly and grew even closer. Grandpa had suffered a stroke leaving one side weakened, control of his hand limited. I don’t know if I have ever seen anyone with greater determination. He worked and struggled for hours to regain enough fine motor control of his hands and fingers to the point of being able to take up a favorite hobby: tying fishing flies. He tied beautiful flies and sold them to the corner gas station for a few extra dollars of spending money. I don’t know how much that gas station guy made from selling grandpa’s flies, but they sold quickly as soon as he put them out. I wish I had some of those flies now. Grandpa crossed the veil on April 27, 1983 at the age of 76. He had lived a humble, yet rich and full life. Mom told me he was mean and drank and smoked as a young man. Then one day grandma put her foot down. She told him if he didn’t quit smoking and take her to the temple she was leaving. He quit from one day to the next. Determination. The grandpa I knew was a man of faith, nothing like the stories mom told of his younger, wild days, like the time he got into trouble for riding his horse into the church dance, trying to impress a young lady he would later marry.
He told me some things that helped him change. Part of his conversion had to do with a faithful home teacher, who happened to be his Stake President. It seems the man owned quite a few cattle. Now Grandpa loved to ride horses and being up in the mountains. When his friend, who happened to be the Stake President and his Home Teacher invited him to assist with the Fall cattle round up, he was more than happy to help. The cattle had been grazing in the upper mountain pastures over the summer, and now had to be rounded up and brought to the lower valleys for the winter. There were a number of men working the round up. It just happened that Grandpa was assigned to ride with his friend/Home Teacher, the boss. They had been working all day, had almost all the cattle rounded up. As evening approached they realized there was one cow missing. It would be dark soon. They had searched for a long time in vain. Finally, his friend pulled up next to him and said something like “Doug, we’ve searched everywhere we can think of, and still haven’t found that cow. We sure don’t know where it is, but the Lord does. It’s time we asked him for help.” I don’t know which of them said the prayer, but sitting there in their saddles they acknowledged their limits and asked God for help. Would he please guide them so they could find the lost cow and help them get down off the mountain before dark. Grandpa told me he just let the reins loose and let his horse go without direction. It went directly to a thicket of trees where the missing cow was standing! He knew their prayers had been answered. He started going to church after that. Grandma laughed when she told me he came home from church in a panic shortly after returning. He told her he had been called as bishop! There was no way he could handle that...she called the Stake President and learned he was mistaken: he had been called as Ward Sunday School President, had misunderstood. She thought that was so funny how panicked he was, now so humble he didn’t think he could handle being bishop.
Several years after Grandpa’s passing I was visiting with Grandma at her apartment in Ogden, Utah. It was a high rise near the temple, where seniors could have as much or as little assistance as they needed. Newer, much more modern than their older home or my uncle’s home they had lived in before Grandpa died, I think she felt little guilty about living in this modern facility. As we sat there talking, she confided something in me I’ll never forget. She told me how she had started praying to die. She missed Geandpa so much, she just wanted to die so she could be with him. She had friends there, but the loneliness of being without him was overwhelming. What she told me next, she spoke most reverently. One evening while or shortly after her plea to the Lord Grandpa visited her. She said he appeared in front of her, then went into the bedroom and bath, sort of inspecting the place. He told her he approved of it. Now she must stop asking to die in her prayers. She still had work to do, lives to touch. It was not her time yet. When it was, he promised he would come for her. Then he was gone. Oh how she wished he could stay longer. But she understood it had been a special visitation in response to her prayers. She was at peace after that, happy with her new friends and the wonderful activities made available to them in the senior community, and of course, attending the Ogden temple.
Grandpa came to guide her through the veil on October 14, 1989. I had taken a job in Atlanta as a flight attendant for Delta Air Lines. I don’t remember why I wasn’t able or at least didn’t think I would be able to attend her funeral. I was broke and recently divorced, struggling to make it in a new career far from what had been home until 1988. All these years later I know I could have been given time off, even emergency pass travel if I had just requested it. I regret that I didn’t. I was too worried about making waves in my new job. If I had it to do over again, I would have been there. She had always been a spiritual guide in my life since I was old enough to understand. In a way, the memory of her confiding the sacred visitation she had with Grandpa still serves as a guide for me. I have no doubt, when the time comes, we will have a joyful reunion on the other side of the veil.
