From the Relief Society Magazine, August 1957 –

All is Well

By Queenie Jenkins

The snow had stopped falling through the night and the brisk wind was busily tidying up the landscape outside the Sutherlands’ kitchen, where Matty was busy preparing breakfast; and in the bathroom, Kirk, her husband, was doing his best to warble “The Donkey Serenade” melodiously under the cold shower and not making a very great success of it.

As she listened to him, Matty mentally stamped her foot. How could he be so cheerful, she wondered, when she felt so down-hearted. This was their first Thanksgiving Day in America, and she had hoped they would spend it in their own quiet home. But Kirk had had it planned to the last detail before he told her. Yet, she might have expected it, she reminded herself, because back home in Australia, he had described Thanksgiving in America over and over to her.

Dreamily she thought back to the time when she had first met him. She had been a governess on an isolated sheep station where Kirk was the manager.

She had thought Australians were the tallest men, but they had nothing on Kirk. He stood six feet six inches in his socks. Tall, dark, and handsome described him perfectly. She had fallen in love at once.

On moonlight nights, when they went for walks, Kirk had told her all about the life back in the States. The only thing he hadn’t told her was the size of the families. She had imagined the ordinary Australian family. But it wasn’t that way at all. There were eight brothers and four sisters who were all married and had large families. Since she and Kirk were the only ones without a family, they were in constant demand to help out with this or that.

Then, too, she had been interested in the way he described his Church. From what she could make out, the entire family spent most of their lives in Church meetings. She was entranced as she listened to the way latter-day Saints loved their Church and all attended the meetings together. Then Kirk had said, “Oh, darling, you’ll love it, too. You couldn’t help it.” After a year of married life, Matty agreed with him wholeheartedly. Never, in all her life, had she experienced the feeling of belonging as she had among the saints.

Each time she met them she experienced the same warm glow. But, to get back to Thanksgiving – it seemed like the Church; it was a whole family affair. Kirk had informed her that the boys, meaning his brothers and himself, would be fixing the corral fence, and Matty felt as though, for all she would see of her husband, they might have been separated with one at the North Pole and one at the South Pole.

Now, as Kirk left the table and passed her chair, he kissed the back of her neck and murmured in her ear, “Know something, honey?”

“What?” asked Matty.

“Your husband loves you very much, Sister Sutherland,” and Matty felt the same old thrill as she listened to him.

“Kirk, couldn’t we …” she started, then stopped.

“Couldn’t we what, sweetheart? Come on, tell me what you started to say.”

“All right, I will.” Matty took a deep breath and then let it out in one long sentence. “Couldn’t we just forget the family for once and go away on our own somewhere?”

Kirk let her go as he gasped, “Forget the family? Not go to Thanksgiving dinner? Darling, you’re joking.”

“No, Kirk, I’m not. I’ve been wanting us to be alone and somehow we never get to be. Can’t you understand, dear?”

“Yes, perhaps I can at that.”

“Then you will? Forget them, I mean, just this once?”

“No, honey, we can’t do that. Look, let’s try to be sensible. Everything is prepared. everybody …”

“Oh, stop it!” cried Matty. “All right, we’ll go. Put them all before me. See if I care.” Matty burst into tears.

Kirk took her into his arms and said, “Darling, what’s gone wrong with our wonderful day?”

“That’s just it,” sobbed Matt. “It isn’t our day.”

“Well, listen, we’ll just go along and see how it goes, huh? Just to please Mother? You know, she loves you very much, and wants you every bit as much as she does me. She’s planned on this reunion on Thanksgiving all those years while I was over in Australia. We can’t let her down now, can we?”

“No, I guess not,” said Matty as she followed him out to the car.

When they arrived at Kirk’s home, his mother greeted her lovingly and said, “Oh, I’m so glad you’re here. Will you help with the twins? You have such a wonderful way with them, dear.”

Somehow, those few words warmed Matty’s heart, so that, after dinner when the children had left the table and the adult members of the family were sitting there quietly chatting, Matty said, “Mother, has anything been arranged about Christmas day? I mean, where we are to meet?”

“Why, no, dear, we were going to discuss that over dinner, but we didn’t get around to it.”

Matty found Kirk’s hand in hers as she said, “Then why don’t you all come over to our place and celebrate there?” She heard Kirk’s gasp, “Atta girl,” and then remembered nothing more until she found herself in bed, with the doctor son, Ralph, standing beside the bed, looking at her with a wise smile.

“Well, Matty, you gave us quite a scare. I’m going to talk to that lanky husband of yours in a minute, and – here comes Mother. I’ll see you later, Matty.”

Suddenly, Matty found herself in tears and was drawn into the older woman’s arms, while the latter spoke soothingly as she would to a child. “you are all right now.”

“But, what happened, Mother?”

“Well, dear, first, I guess we Sutherlands have been getting too much for you. Is that right?”

Matty drew away and asked wonderingly, “You knew?”

The older woman nodded, “Yes, dear, more than you think. I went through much the same experience. When I married, I had no idea what family life meant to the Latter-day Saints. Let me try to explain it to you, if you’re not too tired?”

Matty nodded and lay back on the pillows as Mother Sutherland continued.

“To Latter-day Saints, family life is very important. Each member is a unit, and all units blend together to make a perfect whole. There is a oneness in Latter-day Saint families that is not often found outside the church. all are bound together with divine love, the same love that bound the pioneers together and enabled them to make the trek to the Salt Lake Valley.

“This love enabled them to fulfill the promise of the Prophet Isaiah when he wrote in the Bible, ‘and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.’ And it isn’t only the families that are united in this way. Every family is a unit in the Church and all these units, closely bound together with one purpose, loving and serving one another, and our Heavenly father, make the Church into one glorious whole.

“And I think that someday soon, there’s going to be a new unit in your family, binding you and Kirk together into a firmer oneness. But now,” she paused, “listen.”

And softly, wafting upstairs, could be heard the blending of voices singing the last part of the hymn beloved by all Latter-day Saints, “All is well.”

Matty, with shining eyes, whispered, “I’m a lucky girl, to have such a wonderful mother and husband. I am grateful to my Heavenly Father for leading me here to you. Truly, all is well.”