I was sometimes an unsympathetic older sister. I was the kind who painted my eight and nine-year-old brothers’ fingernails red after they’d gone to sleep. I hope they’ve forgiven me-especially for laughing so hard the morning after.
Despite all such adolescent romping, my parents worked very hard to help us feel unity in our family. They tolerated and even valued much of the sibling give-and-take in our home, but I always knew they wanted us to join together as a strong unit.
They made unending attempts at family home evening. Neither lavish desserts, nor parental cajoling, nor sibling taunting, nor any teaching approach ever got one of my brothers off the floor and into a chair, Book of Mormon in hand.
My parents, like so many wonderful parents, worked incessantly to put us in situations where unity could occur. Mom and Dad took us on weekly pilgrimages to see grandparents. They insisted we participate in family reunions. They scheduled extended family parties at our home, summer after summer.
I recall lots of hesitant family prayers and reluctant work parties. I also remember the hilarious family vacations, the silly made-up jokes, the popcorn on Sunday nights, and the retellings of triumph on the golf course or romance at the junior prom. In a thousand warm, funny, poignant, daily ways, our parents generated an environment in which unity could grow.
One of my earliest memorable lessons in family unity came when I was fourteen. I was very angry with my darling sister Alice for some long-forgotten reason. In the heat my anger, I called a friend and lambasted my sister. When I hung up, my father took me aside privately and clearly explained that were I upset, I needed to talk directly with Alice. Under no circumstances should I criticize her outside the family. Our family needed to be unified, my father explained, and in order to do that we owed each other loyalty.
On one occasion when I was deeply injured by the behavior of a co-worker, I told my mother. She rallied to my aid. She called my sister, who immediately called me. Mom also called my brother Stan, who drove 90 miles to bring me some flowers. That show of loyalty and love from family members deep cleaned what could have been a long-lasting injury. Family unity began to heal me almost before I had time to hurt.
Wilford Woodruff taught:
“If we will unite in one, acting in good faith, every man esteeming his brother as himself, regarding not what he possesses as his own, but the Lord’s, all carrying out these principles, the result is certain-it is the enjoyment of the Spirit of the Lord, it is the light of eternity, it is the abundance of all things of this earth; it is an opportunity to provide education for our children, amusement and interest for ourselves, a knowledge of the things of the kingdom of God, and all sciences which are embraced therein, and an advance in the work of the last days, preparatory to the redemption of the centre stake of Zion” (Journal of Discourses, vol. 17, p. 73).
My own life experience validates that although family life will not always be easy and although we live in homes that may be far from perfect, the unity that parents can build into a family does indeed bring enjoyment, knowledge, light, and comfort.
