A story I wrote for Cora

So, while I was visiting my parents, I took on the project of organizing all the recipes my mother had printed out and stacked on top of the refrigerator.  Unbeknownst to me, she had printed out a short essay that I had written shortly after Cora was born (that followed some impressions I had that I felt were in answer to prayers), and it was among the stack of papers.  It was totally unexpected to stumble upon it, and reading it brought me to tears.  But the good kind of tears.  And I felt that it needed to be shared here.

This story assumes the understanding of some points of doctrine from my church that may be a little different for some, so if you have any questions feel free to ask.  Anyway, here it is:

We were sitting on the grass, not speaking really. It was almost my time to go, and very little could be said. We missed each other already, but neither of us wanted to cry. Me, because I was excited to go, and her, because she was excited for me. But inside she did want to cry and I knew it. She wasn’t going to get the experience I was going to, because she didn’t need it. In a way, I was jealous. Everyone was. She wasn’t going to have to have all the trials that the rest of us knew that we were going to. She didn’t need to, she just needed her body. But she was increasingly uncomfortable when people expressed to her that they were jealous.
“You should go, you know, you’re late,” she murmured. “Your mother is waiting anxiously for you.” Her voice was wistful, even sad, and I could tell something was wrong. I knew she was right, but I couldn’t just leave her in this state. I sort of knew what was wrong, but she never really spoke about it.
“You’re lucky, you know,” she said again, just as quietly. “You found out early who your parents were going to be. And they’re so excited to be getting you.” It was true that she didn’t know who her parents were going to be yet. She just knew that she wouldn’t be staying with them long. I wondered to myself what made it so some people knew early who their parents on Earth were going to be and some, like her, didn’t find out until right before they were supposed to leave.
“Your parents will be excited to be getting you!” I said indignantly. “At least, they’d better be!”
“But I’m not going to stay!” she said, seeming to shrink in on herself, but also seeming to finally be saying what had been bothering her. “I’m going to hurt them so much! How can I do that? How can they love me when they won’t even get to know me?”
“They will love you, even though you won’t stay long,” I said soothingly.
“Everyone here already knows you and loves you! So how can they not when they get there and get you?”
“But they won’t remember,” she said definitively. “It will be like we’ve never met. And even then, I don’t want to hurt my mother like that! I watch the others like me, the ones who come home quickly. I watch their families. I see their pain. I don’t want to cause that!”
“I’ll be your mother,” I said suddenly, quickly making up my mind.
“What?”
“I’ll be your mother,” I repeated. “I love you so much that I don’t want you to worry about that! So, I’m choosing to do it so it won’t be such a shock to your mother.”
“But I don’t want you to hurt!”
“I love you, don’t worry about it!” I said. “I would gladly do that for you! You need a body. I’ll give you one. It’s the best way I can think of to thank you for being my friend. And it won’t hurt as much because I volunteered to do it.”
“But you won’t remember,” she said.
“Then it’s your job to remind me, isn’t it?” She didn’t say anything. She just threw her arms around me and we collapsed into tearful laughter.
“Okay, we just need to tell Him.” Just then, my sister walked up. My big sister, who had also come home early.
“There you are!” she proclaimed, half joyfully and half sternly. “You need to go! You’re late! Mother’s waiting for you!”
“Okay, okay, I’m coming!”
“What were you two doing anyway?”
Cora, my dearest friend, said, bursting into a radiant smile, “Brittanie’s going to be my mother! She told me she would!”
“Oh good,” Bethany said with a grin of her own. “He was hoping you would. Let’s go tell Him quickly before you go.”
“But I’m late!” I protested.
“It’s okay,” Bethany said as we rushed away. “You won’t be long, and Mother’s not going anywhere. This is important.”