November 9, 2025 • 58 mins
When tragedy strikes not once but twice, how do you keep your faith — and your loved ones — from falling apart?
In this deeply moving episode of Latter-Day Lights, Lawrence and Melissa Stone open up about the unimaginable loss of their children due to a driving accident and miscarriage. But from the heartbreak, take us through a journey of rebuilding faith, marriage, and hope through grief. From heartache to healing and Heaven's quiet reassurances, their story reveals how Christ’s light can transform sorrow into strength and love into lasting purpose.
Their message is a tender reminder that we all grieve differently — and that all paths to healing are valid. Lawrence & Melissa share how they were able to slowly overcome the pain through writing, service, and a shared commitment to their covenants. Along the road, they also share their best practices for supporting loved ones who are grieving.
The Stones' story teaches us how faith after loss can lead not only to peace, but to a deeper understanding of eternal families and God’s love that never fades. Join Lawrence and Melissa to discover how someone's darkest days became a testimony of light, love, and eternal hope.
*** Please SHARE Lawrence & Melissa's story and help us spread hope and light to others. ***
To WATCH this episode on YouTube, visit: https://youtu.be/3gfZCR9D-j8
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To READ Lawrence & Melissa's book, "Our Story[s]," visit: https://a.co/d/eImk7r8
To LEARN MORE about The Tears Foundation, visit: https://thetearsfoundation.org/
To READ Scott’s new book “Faith to Stay” for free, visit: https://www.faithtostay.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Scott Brandley (00:00):
Hey there, as a Latter Day Lights listener, I
want to give you a very specialgift today.
My brand new book, Faith toStay.
This book is filled withinspiring stories, powerful
discoveries, and even freshinsights to help strengthen your
faith during the storms oflife.
So if you're looking to beinspired, uplifted, and
(00:21):
spiritually recharged, justvisit faithtoy.com.
Now, let's get back to theshow.
Hey everyone, I'm ScottBrandley.
Alisha Coakley (00:31):
And I'm Alisha Coakley.
Every member of the church hasa story to share, one that can
instill faith, invite growth,and inspire others.
Scott Brandley (00:40):
On today's episode, we're going to hear how
one couple struggle with childloss is helping them to
strengthen their marriage whileinspiring others to share their
own stories.
Welcome to Latter Day Lights.
Lawrence and Melissa, welcometo the show.
(01:12):
Thank you.
We're happy to be here.
Alisha Coakley (01:14):
Yeah, thanks so much for reaching out.
I know uh um definitely yourstory is is one that is a lot
heavier.
Um, and I'm hoping that uh asyou share today, that we'll be
able to be sensitive to all ofthe things that you guys are
going through and have gonethrough.
Um but before we get into allof that, um, will you tell us a
(01:39):
little bit about yourselves?
Lawrence Stone (01:45):
Yeah, so uh Lawrence, I grew up here in
eastern Idaho.
We we currently live in Rigby.
I grew up in the St.
Anthony area.
And Melissa and I we met, we'llgo to school at BYU, Idaho.
We were both studying musicthere.
Uh today I currently work as alife coach for business
professionals, essentially, andI do business trainings for
(02:05):
companies, communicationtrainings, and helping improve
the work environment, things ofthat nature.
Melissa Stone (02:10):
And I am a homeschooling mom to our four
living children, uh, as well asa nail technician.
Alisha Coakley (02:18):
Oh, nice.
I have to ask, can I see him?
Are you one of the nailtechnicians that does everything
for everyone else and doesn'tgive herself enough time to do
her own?
Oh, it's so pretty.
Okay, I love it.
Melissa Stone (02:33):
We have an event thing too.
We had an event we went to lastweek, and so they got done last
week.
Alisha Coakley (02:38):
There you go.
Scott Brandley (02:41):
I would show you guys mine, but I don't want to
make you feel bad.
Alisha Coakley (02:44):
So that's probably a good idea.
We're already pretty jealous ofeverything else.
Fair enough.
Oh wow.
Well, awesome.
So now did you guys meet whenBYU Idaho was BYU Idaho or when
it was Rick's College?
Lawrence Stone (03:00):
Yeah, we met in 2007.
Well, we got married in 2008.
Alisha Coakley (03:04):
Yeah, seven.
We met in 2008.
Lawrence Stone (03:06):
We actually met at Walmart because you can find
anything at Walmart.
Alisha Coakley (03:09):
And so even a wife.
Lawrence Stone (03:12):
Even a wife, exactly.
Alisha Coakley (03:14):
Yep.
Well, guys, uh, we're gonna goahead and give you the floor.
Why don't you tell us whereyour story starts?
Lawrence Stone (03:24):
Yeah, so February 6, 2012, it's kind of
the beginning of the strugglethat we're sharing with people.
Uh I just started a new projectat work.
We'd been having some financialstruggles.
We graduated in a down economy,and our finances were finally
starting to catch up.
And this project was extra nicetoo because I was going to work
a little bit later in the day.
I always had to leave before mykids woke up.
(03:45):
And that was a littledisappointing to me.
And this day, we had our twokids, Ethne was two, uh, Edward
was eight months.
Yeah.
And they actually got to get upbefore we left, we got to do
family prayer, even a little bitof a snuggle session before I
went to work.
And then uh it was a greatfirst day for the new project I
was on.
And then Melissa was workingpart-time at a charter school
(04:07):
teaching music, and we both gotoff about the same time, and
Melissa went to pick up the kidsfrom my in-law's house.
Her mother was watching them.
And on the way home, she wasT-boned by a cement truck.
And Melissa and our daughter,Ethne, were taken by Lifight
(04:28):
helicopter to the hospital.
We were living in Utah at thetime, so Melissa went to the
University of Utah, and ourdaughter went to primary
children's.
And basically right after shearrived, Ethney passed away.
And our son Edward, he wastaken by ambulance, checked out
of the hospital the next daywith a few stitches in his head.
Almost like nothing happened tohim.
(04:48):
Just happy little guy.
And that's kind of where ourstory really begins.
Is dealing with the the tragedyof that child lost of losing
our daughter Ethne.
And then on top of that,Melissa had a lot of physical
recovery that she was dealingwith too.
Melissa Stone (05:06):
Um, I was in a coma for a couple days, and when
I woke up, I was intubated, anduh I couldn't remember what had
happened, and all I knew wasthat I couldn't move my head
because I had a collar on, I wasintubated, and I knew something
wasn't right.
And when I woke up, the firstthing that I asked was I wanted
(05:28):
to know were our kids okay.
And um, and Lawrence kepttelling me that Edward, our
baby, he was fine, he was happy,he'd even tell me who he was
with at the time, um, and thatEthne was safe.
And he didn't want to tell mewhat had happened until they
would act until they extivatedme because he wanted me to be
(05:49):
able to talk and express myselfand ask questions um in regards
to what had happened and be ableto get them answered.
Um and so it took it took alittle while, but it when he
told me she was safe, I knew.
I knew in my heart that thatshe was gone.
(06:09):
And it it really crushed mebecause I was the one driving
the car.
Lawrence Stone (06:16):
It was luckily we had some good nurses that
were good advocates for us andthey helped out a lot in the
process because the doctors keptwanting to wait in case she
needed to go back to surgery.
But the longer she was comingout of the coma, the less we
assumed that she was gonna needmore surgery, and the less they
thought she was gonna need moresurgery.
And finally the nurses juststood up for us and said, No, we
need to excavate her so thatway she can move on and and they
(06:38):
can have this conversation.
And so we're grateful for thatsupportive staff there.
But dealing with our grief wasa very interesting process.
And it was I I rememberedpreviously when I was in high
school, I had a a guy who was inmy ward actually, he was a year
(06:58):
younger than me, we wereteammates playing football
together, and he died in a caraccident.
And I remember a couple yearslater, my mom telling me that
everyone was watching what wouldhappen with his parents after
he died, because when you lose achild, it can either make or
break your marriage.
And I remember reflecting onthat that first night after the
accident and making thatdetermination that this is not
going to break my marriage.
(07:19):
And it was interesting becausebefore Ethne died, all I was
focused on was praying thatEthne would pull through.
And as soon as she died, mymindset shifted to, okay,
ethne's gone.
Now I need Melissa to pullthrough.
And all my efforts were on weneed to help Melissa with her
recovery, we need to helpMelissa with the mental strain
that this is gonna put on her,all the struggle that she's
(07:40):
gonna have to deal with.
And one of my big prioritieswas making sure that she
understood that I didn't blameher and that the people around
her didn't blame her for thisaccident because I knew that she
was going to be dealing with alot of that guilt.
And I found myself, for me,what helped me cope a lot with
that was journaling.
And that journaling helped mediscover quite a bit about
(08:01):
myself.
And I learned a lot about lifeafter death, about the spirit
world, about uh our eternalfamilies.
I tell people in the few monthsthat follow that, I learned
more about who I was as ahusband, a father, and a member
of my community than I had in myentire life combined as I was
journaling and reflecting andmeditating and praying.
But uh like I said, a lot ofthat focus also came to, and I'm
(08:24):
not someone who focuses onwho's good at focusing, but all
of a sudden I was like laserfocused on I gotta help Melissa
out.
Melissa Stone (08:32):
Um for me, the the physical recovery had to
come first.
I had to recover physicallybefore I could even consider the
emotional and the spiritualrecovery.
And I spent a year in physicaltherapy.
I was in the hospital for alittle over a week or for for
right now a week, and then wewent and stayed with my parents
(08:53):
for another week before we wentback to our own apartment.
And uh, and then I spent a yeardoing physical therapy because
I had a laundry list ofinjuries.
Essentially, the whole leftside of my body was kind of
crushed.
And uh once I kind of came tothe end of that year and I was
(09:16):
more or less physicallyrecovered, I started feeling all
the things and I started umlooking towards my spiritual
recovery.
Um now we did about six, I hadso many people tell me, you need
to do counseling, you need togo to counseling.
And so I did about six or somonths after the accident had
(09:38):
happened.
Lawrence Stone (09:40):
Was it?
Yeah, it was more like two orthree months.
Melissa Stone (09:42):
Um, I started trying to see a counselor, and
it was an LDS family servicescounselor.
Um, we got a referral from ourbishop, and it just wasn't a
good fit.
And if I had known then what Iknow now about finding a
counselor for traumatic events,I would have done things
completely differently.
I tried some other counseling,but I just never had a really
(10:03):
good fit.
Um, the one counseling that wedid that worked pretty well that
that kind of stuck, theUniversity of Utah puts on um
grief support groups for peopleexperiencing a myriad of
different things in their lives,including child loss.
And we attended a group there,and the man who was the
(10:25):
moderator for the group was hehad experienced the passing of
his teenage son.
And so having someone who had asimilar experience to ours, it
wasn't the same, but it wassimilar, um, helped a lot
because he could relate more andhe knew more of the right
things to say and more of theways that would help us.
Um and we were in a group withthree other women who had all
(10:48):
lost children.
Um, two of them had lost oldersons, and one had lost a
daughter on the exact same dayas us in a car accident.
Not the same kind of caraccident, but a car accident
nonetheless.
And they all hoped through thethe whole six weeks of this
group that their husbands wouldcome with them.
(11:08):
Every single one of themexpressed at some point, yeah, I
think my husband's gonna come.
I really want my husband tocome.
And none of their husbandscame.
But Lawrence was there with meevery single week, supportive
and learning and healing anddoing those things alongside me.
And that made such a differencefor me that he was there even
(11:30):
though he didn't want to be.
Lawrence Stone (11:31):
Yeah.
I mean, it was very clear whythose husbands didn't come.
I mean, especially as men, wedon't want to be emotional, and
especially in front of otherpeople.
And it was, you know, if itwasn't for the fact that I was
dedicated to helping Melissathrough her recovery and I knew
she needed it and I knew shewouldn't go unless I went, I
probably wouldn't have gone.
But after the first couple ofweeks of seeing these women talk
(11:53):
about how much they wishedtheir husbands would come too,
it became very evident and veryclear to me why I needed to keep
coming with her to thesethings, to these, to those
sessions.
And honestly, as much as Ididn't want to cry in front of
other people, it was a very safeenvironment.
I never felt belittled, I neverfelt like I wasn't safe.
And it was it was a really goodtherapeutic experience, even
(12:15):
for me, even though it wasn'twhat I wanted to do.
But we noticed as we were goingthrough our grief that we were
grieving very differently.
I definitely wasn't crying asmuch as Melissa, and she would
get frustrated, wondering, Am Ireally grieving?
Is you know, is Lawrence reallygrieving because he's not
crying?
And we had to learn that weneeded to grieve differently.
(12:36):
We needed support in differentways.
And part of that might bebecause it's a man and a woman,
part of it might be becauseMelissa was in the car and I
wasn't.
Part of my might be differentpersonality styles, but whatever
it was, we needed to grievedifferently and we needed
support in different ways, butwe both needed that.
And I I remember early on,right after the accident, this
(12:58):
idea of the this prompting cameto me that said, pay attention
to what's happening becauseyou're gonna need to tell others
about it.
You need you're gonna write abook about it at some point.
And so that was another reasonwhy journaling became so
important.
But it was especially importantthat because we were grieving
in different ways, becauseMelissa wasn't journaling and
(13:20):
that wasn't helping her.
She struggled with that becauseof the brain injury she
sustained during the accident.
But we still needed to keepthat line of communication very
open, and that would help us outgoing forward.
And I mean, right after theaccident, Melissa told me that
we're done having kids, that shewas terrified of the thought of
(13:43):
having to lose another childand having to go through that
again.
And for me, I knew that shealways wanted to be a mom.
We talked about having agood-sized family, and I knew at
some point she would come backand decide that she wanted to
have kids.
And I could tell when she toldme this, she was ready to put up
a fight about not having kids.
And I knew that that wasn't agood idea.
(14:06):
So I said, okay, at some pointyou're probably gonna change
your mind.
And when you're ready, whenyou're ready to talk, I'll be
ready to talk as well.
And eventually she came backand decided that she was ready
to talk.
And we basically expressed ourthoughts on why she didn't want
to have any more children, why Ididn't want to have more
(14:28):
children.
And at the end, I basicallyjust left it to her and said, I
think you're gonna change yourmind at some point.
And whenever you change yourmind, I'm gonna be ready for
you.
Melissa Stone (14:39):
And I changed my mind a little sooner than even I
expected to.
Um, and a little over a yearafter that accident, we uh
decided to have another baby.
And so I got pregnant a littleover a year after the accident
with our third.
Um, and we had a little boy,and he was born in December of
(15:01):
2013, and then complicationsarose, and he was born with a
birth defect that was alife-threatening birth defect.
He had to have multiplesurgeries to correct that, and
so here we are going throughthis.
And I remember at the time somany people were saying to us,
haven't you guys seen enough?
(15:22):
Haven't has isn't the Lord donewith you?
Um, and our our response was,guess not.
Um, and so we went through allof this with our son, and
through that whole experience,he was in the NICU for a couple
weeks, and then he had anothersurgery uh at of at about five
months old.
Um, I felt a little bit becauseafter losing ethne, I felt like
(15:46):
Lawrence carried me a lot.
And here we are, just shy oftwo years later, we have this
new baby.
He's got a life-threateningissue, and he's having to have
multiple surgeries, he's in theNICU.
I've just given birth.
All those hormones are all overthe place.
But to a certain extent, I feltlike I carried Lawrence a
little bit through thatexperience.
Um just because I was like, Igotta do what I gotta do, and I
(16:10):
gotta do what I have to do toget my baby home.
And um and so I learned a lotabout dealing with his specific
issues.
It was a bowel issue, and Ijust that year was was a little
bit of a wild ride.
Lawrence Stone (16:30):
He was born with something called Hirschsprung's
disease.
And essentially what it is isthe nerve endings in the colon
don't grow in all the way.
And so when the bowel getsthere, it can't detect it and it
can't push it through.
And so basically couldn'tproduce a bowel movement, and
they had to remove a section ofhis colon uh in order to get him
to function.
And so for the first basicallysix months of his life, he had a
(16:51):
colostomy bag.
And wow, and hopefully,hopefully not quite a lifetime
of bowel management issues, butcertainly for a number of years,
they're they're almostnon-existent now.
But especially for the firsteight, nine years of his life,
there was bowel managementissues, which kind of helped
solidify the fact that we werehomeschooling.
(17:11):
We were doing that even beforewe made that decision.
I think while Mules waspregnant with him, or maybe a
little bit after.
But it was, you know, a lot ofnot fun stuff to have to deal
with in that situation.
Melissa Stone (17:25):
Yeah.
Um, and then a couple yearslater, uh, we had another baby.
We had a little girl, which Iwas so excited to have another
little girl again, and she'sjust the girliest girl.
Everything was smooth sailingwith her.
And then when she was about 13,14 months old, we found out I
(17:46):
was expecting again.
And while this one hadn'treally been planned per se, we
were still very, very excited tobe adding to our family again.
This was going to be babynumber five, and we kind of
figured that this would be itfor our family.
Um, five was kind of where wehad said we we'd wanted to stop.
And when I was about 13, 14weeks along with this baby, I
(18:10):
had a dream that reallydisturbed me.
I had a dream that I'd gone infor, you know, that big
ultrasound where you get yourgender reveal and they look at
all the anatomy of the baby.
And it's a really excitingultrasound.
And I had a dream that we'dgone in for it and they couldn't
find the heartbeat of the baby.
And, you know, anyone who'sbeen pregnant knows, generally
(18:31):
speaking, the more pregnanciesyou have, the earlier you can
feel the baby move.
And I had felt him move.
And at about 18 weeks, justbefore I was supposed to have
that big ultrasound, I just keptgetting this super uneasy
feeling and I couldn't get thatdream out of my head.
And so I called my doctor'soffice and I said, Listen, I'm
(18:52):
really worried.
I think something's wrong.
Can I please come in?
And they really tried todissuade me from coming in, but
finally they were like, Okay,you can come in.
So I went in and I saw a doctorthat wasn't my regular doctor,
and he was not my favoriteperson in the world because he
wasn't very kind.
And he was very dismissive ofmy feelings, of the fact that I
told him I felt the baby move,but I haven't felt him move in a
(19:13):
few days.
And so he finally was like,Okay, well, we'll check things
out.
So he listened for theheartbeat, couldn't find it,
tried a pocket ultrasound.
I'd never seen one of thesebefore, but um, and couldn't see
a heartbeat through that.
So they gave me a fullultrasound, and that's when it
really confirmed that I had lostthis baby.
(19:34):
So I was around 18 weekspregnant with him, and I I was
done.
I was shattered, I was crushed,and it was it was really,
really difficult.
Lawrence Stone (19:54):
It it it really came down hard, obviously, and
and a lot of the progress thatMelissa had made, it was five
years essentially, five and ahalf years after we'd lost Ethne
when this happened, and it hadjust kind of all fallen apart.
With Ethne, she struggled withsaying prayers again.
And then when we lost Thomas,that came back almost worse than
(20:17):
it was before.
She struggled with going tochurch, struggled saying
prayers.
And there was again my job notwanting to lose her, not wanting
her to fall into thisdepression, not wanting her to
just drop out of everything,trying to help her along.
And it was a couple weeksbefore I could even get her to
say prayer with me again.
And even for the first fewweeks after that, I was the only
(20:39):
one who was allowed to sayprayer.
She refused.
And I still remember the firsttime after Thomas died when she
said that she was willing to sayprayer was like a huge relief.
But it was months after afterwe lost Thomas.
And we were fortunate when welost him that he actually so so
we lost him, and Melissa had togo in and deliver him because
(21:00):
her body didn't reject him, andso we actually she had to be
induced.
And he's he's on the records asa stillmorn because of that.
And we were able to take hishis little body and bury him
with Ethne.
He's actually buried on top ofEthney.
And so when we when we go tothe cemetery, we're able to
visit both of them right theretogether.
Melissa Stone (21:20):
Um so after losing Thomas, I looked at
Lawrence, I said, I'm done.
No chance of ever havinganother one.
We're good with the three we'vegot.
Um I'm not I'm not open to thisat all.
And he was more or less okay.
Yeah.
If that's what you want.
Lawrence Stone (21:38):
In our in our minds, we we we had decided that
after Thomas we were done, andso I was willing to accept that.
But I also, again, knew my wifeand knew that she might change
her mind.
And I said, if the moment doescome when you want to re-rethink
this, you want to talk aboutit, I'm open.
But if we never talk about itagain, if we never have any more
kids, I'm comfortable withthat.
Melissa Stone (22:02):
Um but you know, over time, the Lord works in
mysterious ways and he softensyour heart.
And uh a few years later, Ikind of started thinking that
maybe there was one more for ourfamily that we needed to
consider having another baby.
And so um in 2019.
Lawrence Stone (22:26):
Well, to yeah, 2018.
We uh yeah, in 2018, we werecoming up to Idaho to visit
family.
And I I struggled with comingback to Idaho regularly because
it seemed like every time I cameback to Idaho, it was for
somebody's funeral.
Those are the only thingsgetting us to come back to
(22:47):
Idaho.
And it was sad for me.
I remember going to a cousin'sfuneral, to a friend's funeral,
and then our friend's parents'funeral, and then all within
about two months, I think sixweeks every other week, I lost a
cousin, then a friend's parent,and then I had another friend
who passed away, and I ended upnot coming to his funeral
because I was just so drained oncoming back to Idaho for
funerals.
(23:07):
It was so depressing.
And we had we decided to have afamily reunion with my parents
and all my siblings and andtheir kids in in July.
And so I was excited to finallybe coming back to Idaho,
spending a week in Idaho and notcoming up for a funeral.
And then a week before we cameup, my uncle died, and we still
had to come up for a funeral.
(23:29):
Well, when we were up here, weuh the community I grew up in
does a big Pioneer Daycelebration.
And so that's why part of whywe came up was for that
celebration.
Wow.
And had a buddy, one of my bestfriends, had just moved back
from California to Idaho, andhe's having a cookout, and so we
stopped by to say hi for a fewminutes.
And I was fine with the factthat we're living in Utah,
(23:50):
accepted that that's where wewere going to be living forever.
And all of a sudden, I justfound myself getting jealous,
maybe, that he was back inIdaho, and I'd started feeling
this pull to come back to Idaho.
And my dad had left his job inthe tech industry to pursue a
passion in car restoration, andhe had a little used car lot on
the side, and and I decided, youknow, I want to come and help
(24:13):
him out because he's struggling.
And so I pitched it to Melissa.
I said, I want you to considerthe possibility of us moving
back, moving to Idaho, movingback to Idaho.
Melissa Stone (24:24):
And I laughed at him and told him Pat Chance.
Lawrence Stone (24:28):
Yeah.
I mean, her family's downthere, but what she actually
said is, you know, I've beenthinking we need a change in our
life, and maybe this is it.
And so we'd actually planned,my dad was working on a project
that he needed help with, and sowe planned on coming back a
month later so I could help mydad with this project.
And I said, when we come back,we're gonna think about do we
want to live in Idaho?
(24:48):
Maybe uh reach out to a realtorfriend and take a look at a
couple houses and consider thatpossibility.
And then two weeks later, I hada cousin who committed suicide,
and we were back in Idaho foranother funeral.
And I told him, Lys, I waslike, we're just going up and
back for the funeral.
We're not there to think aboutmoving back to Idaho.
(25:09):
Uh, we're still gonna be comingback in a couple more weeks to
help my dad with this project,and we'll we'll discuss it then.
Melissa Stone (25:17):
And when we were on the way home, kind of as we
crossed the Utah-Idaho border, Ijust had this overwhelming
feeling that we weren't headedhome, that Idaho was home, and
that we were meant to move backto Idaho.
So we did.
Um, and we moved back to Idahoin February of 2019.
Lawrence Stone (25:38):
And then in the lead up, we Melissa had come
back and said that she wasthinking about having another
child.
And I said, okay.
And she didn't say she wasready quite at that point, but I
told her that I was gonna set adeadline for her to make that
decision.
By the time I turned 36 is whenshe needed to be pregnant, if
(25:59):
she really wanted to have thatchild.
And that wasn't, I think westill had a couple years.
I can't remember how much timewe had left.
There was still plenty of timefor at least a year to think
about it.
But that gave her time toprocess it and figure it out.
And so in the meantime, weprepped our house, we sold it,
and we moved back to Idaho.
Melissa Stone (26:14):
And so uh end of 2019, I got pregnant with our
definite last baby.
He is it.
And in May of 2020, in all ofthe chaos that was COVID, uh, we
had our last baby up here inIdaho.
And he is such a light and ajoy in our lives.
And honestly, I don't know thatwe would have had him if we'd
(26:37):
moved, if we hadn't moved toIdaho just because of some other
things that were going on in myfamily in Utah and just the way
that I am, I would have gotswallowed up in some of those
other things and probablywouldn't, we probably wouldn't
have our last baby.
And so uh if not for anythingbut the fact that we had our
(26:57):
last baby because after we movedto Idaho, I'm grateful that we
made this move.
Lawrence Stone (27:03):
Um so living in Idaho, continuing to move
forward.
And I helped my dad out withhis business, helped him grow
his business, essentially 10xhis revenues up to uh after a
few years.
And I enjoyed working on cars,but I realized it wasn't
something I wanted to do everyday.
More of kind of a hobby thing.
(27:24):
And I realized really what Iwant to do is I'd help my dad
with his business, I'd helpedother businesses when we were
down in Utah, and I said Iwanted to do that more.
And so that's when I opened mycoaching business.
But really, part of that was isI just wanted to help people
out.
And I mentioned right afterEthne died, I had this thought
of pay attention to what'shappening because you're gonna
need to share it with people.
You need to write a book aboutit.
And Melissa and I have beentalking about writing this book
(27:46):
for 10 years, off and on.
And then finally, about threeand a half or so years ago, we
stopped making excuses and wedecided I stopped.
Melissa Stone (27:57):
I didn't.
Lawrence Stone (27:57):
She was still making excuses, but eventually
we worked her through thoseexcuses as well.
And we started writing uh ourbook called Our Stories.
And the if if you look at thetitle, you know the story is
spelled just regular story, butthen there's a parenthetical S
because what we realized when wewere dealing with our grief and
going through these losses iswe were both grieving very
(28:18):
differently, even though we weredealing with the same losses,
even though we were going on thesame timeline, if you will.
And we realized as weinteracted with other people who
were dealing with loss thatthey're all grieving in their
own ways.
They all need support in theirown ways.
And so we have, if you as youread through the book, you'll
hear parts of the story from myvoice, and then other parts of
(28:38):
the story from Melissa's voiceon how we needed help from each
other, how we were able tosupport each other, and what
were the things we were goingthrough.
And it was interesting becausepeople gifted us a lot of books
after we lost our children.
And almost all of those bookswere written from a female
perspective.
And I really struggled withconnecting with any of them
(28:59):
because I felt like they weren'treally calling out to me, they
weren't experiencing the samethings as me.
And that was one of the reasonswhy we thought this was so
important is to be able to sharethe both perspectives and how
both perspectives need to worktogether.
Because just looking at oneperspective, the other, the
other perspective isn't going toquite understand that.
(29:19):
And in the intro of the book,we talk about um being a help
meet for each other.
And as I was doing someresearch, I can't remember the
exact words, but the originalHebrew words help meet,
basically what they mean istheir opposites working
together.
And that men and women viewthings and see things and
interact with thingsdifferently.
(29:39):
But they need to do that inorder to help each other see
other perspectives, in order tohelp each other learn more and
progress more and do more.
And the Heavenly Father made usthat way so that we can have
those other perspectives, so wecan have those other
opportunities that as just a manI wouldn't be able to see, or
as just a woman, Melissawouldn't be able to see.
And that was what we wanted todo is we.
We want to help comfort thosewho need comfort and mourn with
(30:02):
those who are mourning bysharing our stories and letting
them know it's okay if you'regrieving a little bit
differently than your spouse orthan someone else who thinks you
should be grieving.
Especially when you're dealingwith child loss, you get a lot
of outside opinions of peoplewho think, oh, it's been a year,
you should be over it by now.
And it's just not that simple.
When you're dealing with achild loss, my my grandmother, I
(30:23):
think, put it the best way isyou never get over the loss of a
child.
You just learn how to cope withit better, how to deal with it
better, and you become stronger.
Although I will say I do seesome people lose child and they
just shut down.
Sometimes you have to face thepain.
Sometimes you have to workthrough things in order to
become stronger, in order to beable to do that.
(30:44):
But know that just becausesomeone else is grieving
differently than you doesn'tmean that your grief isn't
valid.
And I mean, that's why wereached out to you guys as we
for this opportunity to be ableto share our stories and help
other people recognize that aswell.
You know, focus on buildingyour marriage, focus on helping
other people recognize thatyou're going to see things and
(31:04):
view things and feel thingsdifferently, but you can still
support each other and help eachother out.
Melissa Stone (31:13):
Um I just I remember when I told Lawrence
that I was thinking about havinganother baby, and he said to
me, if you're going to do thiswith our last one with the with
our last one, um, he said, ifwe're going to have one more
child, one more baby, I need youto feel strong enough that if
(31:36):
the worst happens, you'll beable to pull yourself out of it
because I don't know if I havethe strength to pull you out of
it like I have.
And so in those years, afterlosing Thomas before getting
pregnant with Porter, I did alot of work, you know, doing the
primary answers, learning topray by myself again and
(32:00):
building my testimony andreading my scriptures and
listening more diligently toconference talks and all of the
things, you know, that we'retold over and over and over and
over to do, um, to reallystrengthen myself so that if it
did happen again, that I wouldbe ready.
Uh, so that as much as he wouldtry to pull me through if he
(32:25):
didn't feel strong enough to doit, that I could do it for
myself.
Lawrence Stone (32:30):
It was it was a legitimate fear because it took
a lot and drained a lot ofenergy out of me trying to help
her get back on track.
Because and I it's not that myfaith never waved wavered
either.
I was still having to deal withmy grief and work on keeping my
faith as well.
And so it was it was verytaxing to be able to have to
(32:52):
help her out with that.
And because I mean she wouldfight me kicking and screaming
every step of the way.
But, you know, until shestarted getting stable ground,
um, yeah, it was I I wasn't sureif I could have done it a third
time.
And so I needed her to be surethat she at least could put more
(33:13):
effort in or could have alittle bit more stable ground,
better foundation on JesusChrist in order to endure it if
she had to.
Fortunately, never got to thatpoint, but I think she made a
lot of great strides by havingthat conversation.
She she realized a lot ofthings and was able to work on a
lot of things for herself.
Alisha Coakley (33:32):
Wow.
Oh man.
So that's our story.
So can I ask you guys kind ofyou talked about how your grief
was different?
What was really like the mostdifferent thing?
Like, what was the thing thatwas like, oh my gosh, how are
they doing that when I'm feelinglike this?
Scott Brandley (33:53):
And also what brought you together?
Alisha Coakley (33:55):
Yeah.
Lawrence Stone (33:56):
I think we got the gist of the question.
So the the biggest differencebetween the grief I know for me
is I I tend to try to hide itand internalize it.
And that's why journalingbecame so important to me and
writing stuff down.
Even uh Melissa's aunt createda blog for us to post on, and
that became very important tome.
But but meditation, uh, evengoing to the temple was was a
(34:19):
big deal for me.
That became very important.
And then one thing I think wasimportant for both of us was
finding ways to make sure wewere preserving their memories.
We do service projects everyyear around their birthdays.
We, like for Christmas, we'llactually take the presents we
would have purchased for them,and then we make sure we donate
them to an organization.
A lot of times it's a fostercare type organization that
(34:39):
we've donated them to.
But we try to find dikes ofservice.
We've we've done meals at theRonald McDonald House.
We've done, we've worked with alocal after-school program,
we've done a lot of serviceprojects to help keep their
memories alive.
And so that's something I thinkhas been important for most of
us.
But I I for me, I struggledwith showing a lot of emotion in
(35:00):
front of Melissa because I feltlike she needed me to be
strong, she needed me to bestable.
And so I would hide thatemotion quite a bit.
And that's again why journalingin that kind of private moment
became more important to me.
But Melissa made it needed moreof more interaction, which is
interesting because I'm moresocial than she is.
But she needed she needed thatinteraction to be able to talk
(35:22):
and process.
Melissa Stone (35:24):
And he was my primary sounding board, like I
said, because I didn't reallyfind like a counselor that I
jived with.
Um another thing that I feellike was really different
between the two of us was I feltreally stuck.
And I think part of that camefrom the fact that I had such a
long physical recovery.
And then, you know, I had tokind of find that emotional and
(35:49):
spiritual recovery aftereverything.
And so I felt stuck for areally long time, and it felt
kind of frustrating to me thatit felt like he was moving on
and growing and progressing inways that I wasn't when I felt
so stuck for so long, even afterwe had our third son, our
second son, our third baby.
(36:10):
Um, I just I felt really,really stuck.
Lawrence Stone (36:14):
Um Yeah, right right after the accident, the
bishop said, Whenever you guysare ready for calling, let us
know.
And I said, I'm ready today.
Give me a calling.
And they they had me teachingSunday school within a couple of
weeks.
Melissa, he finally came andsaid, Would you mind just making
the programs for church?
And even that was too much forher at the time.
Melissa Stone (36:39):
Um and like he said, sometimes it was it felt
like dragging, kicking, andscreaming to get me to church,
to um go to the temple.
Temple wasn't as hard aschurch, surprisingly.
Um it felt like after theaccident, there were things that
kept pulling us back to thetemple.
(36:59):
Um, his sister left on amission just a few months after
the accident happened, and so wewent to the temple with her.
He we had weddings to go to,um, and things just kept pulling
us back to the temple.
And so it felt like going tothe temple wasn't nearly as hard
as going to church was or evenpraying and doing those things
(37:21):
on my own were.
But I was also angry with God,and I don't know that Lawrence
ever experienced a lot of thatanger like I did until a little
later on.
Lawrence Stone (37:33):
Not to the same level at least.
Melissa Stone (37:37):
I mean, there was a point when you did kind of
start to question things.
Lawrence Stone (37:42):
Yeah.
Well, and and I think part ofit with my with my dealing with
grief too was I was so focusedon helping Melissa out that my
grief kind of got put on holduntil I think about a year and a
half or so later, when Ifinally felt like Melissa was
starting to get a little bitmore stable.
I was just, I think I wasdriving to work and the it was,
(38:06):
I was thinking to myself, it'sinteresting that through all
this and dealing with that lossof ethney, I've never really
questioned my testimony.
And then all of a sudden thenext thought was, well, should
you be questioning yourtestimony?
I mean, this is a pretty bigdeal.
And it was like all of a suddenin that moment, that's when I
started having doubts.
Because once Melissa had alittle bit more stable ground,
that's when I started grieving alittle bit harder and started
having more doubts.
(38:26):
And I remember wrestling withthat quite a bit.
And I wasn't questioning somuch whether or not the church
was true or whether or not Ibelieved in the gospel, but I
was questioning entirely God'sexistence.
Like for me, if God exists,then yeah, this is his church.
I'm good with that.
But it was really, does Godreally exist?
(38:48):
Why would God let somethinglike this happen to me?
And as I wrestled with that,one day I I was just, again, in
my car thinking about it andwrestling with it and praying
about it.
And and this prompting came tome.
And it was just a question.
It said, well, what would yourather believe?
Would you rather believe thatthis life is it, that you'll
(39:10):
never see Ethne again, you'llnever be with your family in the
eternities?
Or would you rather believethat there's life after this,
that you are sealed together asa family, that you'll get to be
with Melissa and your other kidsand be able to raise Ethney and
be with her again.
And when it was put in thatperspective, it was like a
no-brainer.
I was like, okay, no matterwhat, I'm going to choose to
believe this.
This is what I would ratherbelieve.
(39:32):
And I remember the scripturethat you don't get that
testimony until after the trialof your faith.
And I said, I'm just going tokeep moving forward, acting in
faith, believing, and eventuallyI'll get more stable answers.
But I have to go through thistrial of my faith first.
And it was interesting becauseI remember preparing for a
mission in my life, multiplepeople telling me, when you bear
(39:55):
your testimony, you have to sayI know, because I know it was
so much more powerful than Ibelieve.
And I felt like I wasdowngrading my faith at the same
time, even though I was excitedbecause I was like, okay, I'm
recommitting, but now my faithis less than what it was before
because I no longer can say thatI know.
Now I'm just saying I believe.
And I felt like it had beendowngraded.
And I remember it was the verynext general conference, Elder
(40:17):
Holland talking about a youngman coming to him and telling
him that he's not sure he knows,but that he can believe.
And Elder Holland talks aboutembracing that young man and how
great it was that he believedand how miracles happen from
believing.
And there's so many people whostart off with believing.
And I remember shortly afterthat reading in my scriptures
(40:38):
about how belief is one ofbelieving is one of the gifts of
the spirit.
And all of a sudden I realizedthat there is a lot more power
in that belief that I have andin believing than I ever
realized was possible.
And I no longer felt like myfaith was downgraded.
And it was it was a veryimportant moment for me to
understand how important justsaying I believe when those
(41:01):
doubts came about in my eternalgrowth and progression.
Melissa Stone (41:06):
And when Lawrence told me that he was having this
struggle, I'll be honest, itwas kind of refreshing for me
because I felt like I hadstruggled so much and I hadn't
seen him struggle.
And so knowing that that he wasalso struggling helped kind of
lift me up, helped buoy me up inthat yes, we were in this
together.
We were we were justexperiencing it differently.
(41:29):
And um just knowing that he hadreceived so much confirmation
um helped me kind of pullthrough and and and push on to.
Lawrence Stone (42:17):
Yeah, it was very much a tender mercy for us
for sure.
Alisha Coakley (42:21):
How long, Melissa, how long did this take
for you to kind of get to thepoint where you felt like like
your testimony was strong enoughand your your in your ability
to function in in a healthier,more whole way.
(42:46):
Like like how long do you thinkthat that kind of took you to
get through that to get to thatpoint?
Melissa Stone (42:52):
I mean, it took me honestly, probably a couple
years, even after we'd had ournext baby.
I still struggled spiritually.
Um that first year, I kind oflived in in a fog.
Like I didn't I couldn't getout and see people.
(43:13):
I struggled with going tochurch, like I mentioned before.
Um I struggled with prayer.
I because of the my braininjuries that I'd had, reading
scriptures was difficult,reading was difficult in
general.
Um but I did go to churchpretty faithfully almost every
week.
Um, and I went to the temple,and those things I think kind of
(43:37):
kept me going and kept me fromcompletely losing my testimony
and falling away.
Lawrence Stone (43:44):
I mean, some of those weeks she went just
because she couldn't take careof Edward by herself, and so she
had to go wherever I was going.
And so it was again, sometimesit was kicking and screaming,
and sometimes it was a littlebit more voluntary.
Melissa Stone (43:57):
Um, but I think round about the year mark, I
started kind of seeing thingsdifferently, and I kind of
started finding some because Iwas I was really angry with God,
like I mentioned, and I think Istarted finding some
(44:17):
forgiveness there for foreverything that had happened,
and finding some forgiveness formyself because I felt extremely
guilty because I was the onedriving the car.
And I found it was easy to findforgiveness for the other
driver, but it was reallydifficult to find forgiveness
(44:37):
for myself, and sometimes Istill struggle with that, and
it's been 13 and a half years.
But around about that yearmark, we actually moved out of
our apartment and bought ourfirst home.
And then they asked us to speakin our ward right around Easter
after we'd moved in.
And I think that's when Ifinally started like things
(45:01):
started clicking, like, oh, Ishould start reading my
scriptures again, I should startstudying conference talks
again, um, and some of theseother things that helped me find
my way back and and rebuild mytestimony after everything.
Scott Brandley (45:17):
Oh, I have a question.
Now that you've had some timefrom those tragedies in your
life, um, what brings you peaceand and how do you find joy in
the journey and in the future?
Lawrence Stone (45:38):
I mean, the biggest thing that helps bring
us joy and helps us find peaceis definitely spending time with
our family.
Like I mentioned, going throughthis has definitely made me a
better husband and a betterfather.
Uh, you know, it's it'sinteresting because we were so
focused, or I was, I, you know,I I recommitted to, okay, this
isn't gonna, this isn't gonnabreak our marriage, and we
(45:59):
really recommitted to eachother.
We we find that the time wehave together is tends to be
more quality.
We've we've had a lot offriends that have gone through
marital struggles, and and it'sinteresting as you look at the
statistics.
Usually people struggle aroundthe first year or two, and then
it's year seven, and then yearfourteen, and about every seven
years you see a spike indivorces happening.
(46:19):
And you hear people refer tothis as a seven-year itch, and
that's we've been together 17years now, and we just haven't
felt that because 13 years agowe had to go through this, and
and the commitment we've had toeach other.
I mean, that doesn't mean it'sbeen all sunshine and roses and
butterflies, but we've, youknow, it's we just haven't had
those same issues because we'velearned to hold on to each
(46:41):
other, and we find a lot of joyin being with our family, find a
lot of joy in going to thetemple even and and remembering
our children, you know,something we do.
We for Ethne Thomas' birthdayand for our anniversary, we go
to the temple and we do ceilingsbecause we think one of the
best ways that we can celebratetheir lives is by reuniting
(47:04):
other parents with theirchildren.
And so the temple is anotherplace where we find a lot of joy
and happiness and being able todo those ceilings especially is
a big deal for us.
And we talked about servingothers as you know, service
projects to remember them andand and help us stay focused on
them.
That's that's become a big dealfor us as well.
Melissa Stone (47:26):
And we find a lot of joy with our living
children.
They are so full of light andlife and joy, and uh, we talk to
them about Ethne and Thomas,and they know them, and they
they know why we serve and whywe have stayed in the church and
(47:47):
why we serve in the temple andwhy we value our family so much,
because of those covenants andthose promises that we've made
that you know tell us that wewill get to be with them again
and that we'll get to raisethem, and they'll be they're
that they're still part of ourfamily.
Alisha Coakley (48:05):
So you guys have had you've had other people
that you've been working withwho've gone through child loss,
correct?
Lawrence Stone (48:12):
So yeah.
It's interesting.
We haven't worked directly witha lot of couples face to face,
but Melissa had a serviceproject that she was doing for
for other families dealing withgrief that I think really helped
her out a lot.
Melissa Stone (48:26):
Um so shortly after losing ethne, my mom
actually had this idea that weshould make something that a
mother could bury with her childand also keep with her.
And so we started makingbracelets um to donate to
(48:48):
hospitals like primarychildren's and other hospitals
when a mother experiencespregnancy or child loss, so that
they have a bracelet that theycan wear and that they can bury
with their baby, or I I knowsome who have put them on like
urns with their baby's ashes.
Um, and so I started doingthat, and because of that, I
(49:13):
have connected with other womenwho um who have experienced
loss, and they've told me howmuch that means to them.
Um it's it's been interestingbecause in the ward I grew up
in, um, two other girls that Iwas friends with growing up have
(49:34):
also experienced child loss andpregnancy loss.
One lost her baby at like 36weeks, and another lost her son
to a complicated case of COVID,and it was just heartbreaking.
He was, I think, three yearsold.
And because I'm kind of aheadof them on this road, I've been
(49:55):
able to support them and connectwith them and guide them.
Um, some other ways that we'veconnected with others is that
we're part of an organizationcalled the Tears Foundation, and
they help to provide the bigthing they do is they help to
provide money to pay forfunerals when families
(50:18):
experience child and pregnancyloss.
And uh we got involved withthat organization here in Idaho,
and so we help with some of thefundraising efforts and and
some of the other things thatthey do to support families
through grief and child loss.
Lawrence Stone (50:38):
Yeah, I think for me, we haven't been as
focused on couples.
I think part of it's been hard,but that's writing this book
has kind of pushed us, and sowe're trying to find more
efforts to be able to do thattoo.
And that's one of the thingswe're hoping to be able to do
with this book is it gives us asegue to interact with more
people like that one-on-one.
Because we found ways tointeract them with them in like
(50:59):
groups and things of that natureand find ways of supporting
them even if we're not face toface.
But hopefully this gives us anopportunity to help us do more
one-on-one, more face-to-facetype stuff.
Alisha Coakley (51:10):
Now, what's the what's the name of your book?
Lawrence Stone (51:14):
It's Our Stories.
Except for the way we spellstories, it's story, and then
the the S is in parentheses.
So that way it's referring toour story of dealing with child
loss, but we each have our ownindividual stories in that
journey, is is how we titled it.
And we self-published throughAmazon.
So right now it's onlyavailable on Amazon, but you can
get it for Kindle or paperback.
Alisha Coakley (51:34):
Right.
So it's through Amazon.
Uh we'll go ahead and we canadd a link in the description.
So anyone who is interested inpurchasing, they can go ahead
and do that.
Um, and they can help tosupport you guys, but also to
support others who are goingthrough something similar.
Um, is there any other anyother things that listeners can
do to to help?
(51:56):
Anything that that you guyscould ask for?
Lawrence Stone (51:59):
Well, I mean, when when you know someone who's
dealing with lost, there's acouple things we always say you
can do to help that person.
The and we each kind of haveour own recommendations we make,
but I always tell people whenthey ask me, what do I do if I
know someone who's dealing withlost or grieving?
I say, for me, one of the bestthings, one of the most
important things that people didfor me is they were praying for
(52:19):
us and they told us they werepraying for us.
Because I found a lot ofstrength in knowing that so many
people there were hopeful forus and supporting us and
available for us.
And I know if you're someonewho's knows someone who's
dealing with grief, I know thatcan go a long way in in helping
helping them out.
Melissa Stone (52:39):
Um and I don't know, in in this social media
era that we live in, thoughts,thoughts and prayers get kind of
a bad rap and people getfrustrated and they want to do,
they want to take action, theywant to do something that feels
more tangible than just thoughtsand prayers.
And so the other thing that Irecommend is if you know someone
who's grieving, no matter whatit is they're grieving, it it
(53:04):
can be really overwhelming inyour mind to think of things.
Like a lot of people will go tosomeone and say, What can I do
to help?
And that can feel reallyoverwhelming and feel like just
one more thing on top ofeverything else that you're
going through.
And so if you want to help andserve and actually do something
more tangible, then you come upwith something that you are
capable of doing for them and goto them and say, I want to do
(53:28):
this for you.
And is it better to do it onthis day or this day?
Um, so like I want to bring youdinner, can I bring it to you
Tuesday or Thursday?
Um, things like that.
And just kind of takingsomething off of their plate for
them.
Lawrence Stone (53:45):
And as far as us, you mentioned obviously let
us pitch the book and weappreciate that.
But if there's anyone out therewho's who's dealing with grief
and they want to reach out andconnect with us, uh, you know,
we we would be more than willingto talk to them.
Or if there's we we've beeninvited recently, we were
invited to a uh like a couple'sweekend.
(54:06):
They they gave us one daynotice, so we weren't able to
go, unfortunately.
We're hoping to be able to setup something in the future.
But to be able to come and talkabout parenting and and grief,
and we've even been working on aon a devotional.
We've where we're close to BYU,Idaho.
We might even we've talkedabout going up there and talking
to some of the married couplesthat maybe are dealing with
miscarriages and are strugglingwith fertility and letting them
(54:29):
know, you know, becausevalidating their grief, because
a lot of times it's amazing howmany times we've run into people
who've had miscarriages andthey just don't feel like their
grief is valid because they youknow they weren't able to carry
the baby for a certain for Xnumber of weeks or whatever, and
you know, they're they're stillgrieving, they're still dealing
with that loss.
And so being able to connectwith them and and share our
(54:50):
stories and talk to them andanswer questions as best we can.
Melissa Stone (54:54):
Or even just listen.
Lawrence Stone (54:55):
Yeah, or even just listen.
That's something we're willingto do.
So we're if anyone's lookingfor anything like that, we'd be
happy to come and we just wewant to help as many people as
possible.
I was telling Melissa the otherday, I would love for 500,000
people to get a hold of ourbook.
Whether that means we sell500,000 copies or we sell one
(55:15):
copy and that person shares itwith 499,999 of their closest
friends, we just wanted to getit out there.
Alisha Coakley (55:23):
That's a wonderful goal.
I love it.
And I I love Melissa, what yousuggested where we can help make
the decision process easier forthose who are grieving by
giving them options and not justasking them a random open-ended
question, but just reallynarrowing it down and being
like, I can do this.
(55:43):
Do you need me to do this onthis day or this day?
You know, um, I think that's Ithink that's fantastic.
Scott Brandley (55:49):
So yeah, I think that that's a cool I suggestion
as well.
So thank you guys for sharingyour story with us today.
Um, do you have any finalthoughts you'd like to share
before we kind of wrap thingsup?
Lawrence Stone (56:04):
One other thing we might throw out there too is
if you know someone who'sdealing with a loss, especially
child loss, and you know theanniversary of their passing or
their birthday is coming up,reach out to them and let them
know that you're thinking aboutthem and their child.
One of the biggest things thatparents worry about when they're
when they lose their child isthat those children will be
forgotten.
And so knowing that youremember them is a really big
(56:27):
deal.
Like you might not think it'sthat big a deal, you might not
think it's that significant, butto those parents, that's a big
deal.
Alisha Coakley (56:36):
Awesome.
Oh man.
Well, thank you guys so muchfor coming on here today and for
sharing your story with us andsharing just the ways that you
guys have been able to not onlyfind light, but use your pain to
create light for others.
Um, I really hope that that themission and the purpose that
(56:56):
you guys have in this book andin helping um to give others
some guidance and some someadvice, direction, that you guys
will be able to continue to getall of the resources and the
people together that you need inorder to support that cause.
So thank you guys again forthat.
Um and thank you to ourlisteners for tuning in.
Um, we highly encourage youguys to do your five-second
(57:20):
missionary work.
Click share.
Make sure that this episodegets out to others because you
just don't know who's dealingwith what or who will have to do
with deal with things that aresimilar in the future, um, where
this could be really, reallyhelpful to them.
Scott Brandley (57:34):
Yeah.
Um, and if you have a storythat you'd like to share, um,
like Lawrence and Melissa, go tolatterdaylights.com or send us
an email at latterdaylights atgmail.com and we'll get you on
and let's share your experienceand your story so we can help
inspire each other in this crazyworld that we live in.
Alisha Coakley (57:55):
Absolutely.
All right, guys.
Well, thank you again, Melissaand Lawrence, for coming on here
today.
And um, everyone who'slistening, make sure you tune in
for another episode of Latterday Latterly Latter day Lights
next week.
We'll see you guys later.
Scott Brandley (58:12):
Take care.
Bye bye.
Hey there, as a Latter Day Lights listener, I
want to give you a very specialgift today.
My brand new book, Faith toStay.
This book is filled withinspiring stories, powerful
discoveries, and even freshinsights to help strengthen your
faith during the storms oflife.
So if you're looking to beinspired, uplifted, and
(00:21):
spiritually recharged, justvisit faithtoy.com.
Now, let's get back to theshow.
Hey everyone, I'm ScottBrandley.
Alisha Coakley (00:31):
And I'm Alisha Coakley.
Every member of the church hasa story to share, one that can
instill faith, invite growth,and inspire others.
Scott Brandley (00:40):
On today's episode, we're going to hear how
one couple struggle with childloss is helping them to
strengthen their marriage whileinspiring others to share their
own stories.
Welcome to Latter Day Lights.
Lawrence and Melissa, welcometo the show.
(01:12):
Thank you.
We're happy to be here.
Alisha Coakley (01:14):
Yeah, thanks so much for reaching out.
I know uh um definitely yourstory is is one that is a lot
heavier.
Um, and I'm hoping that uh asyou share today, that we'll be
able to be sensitive to all ofthe things that you guys are
going through and have gonethrough.
Um but before we get into allof that, um, will you tell us a
(01:39):
little bit about yourselves?
Lawrence Stone (01:45):
Yeah, so uh Lawrence, I grew up here in
eastern Idaho.
We we currently live in Rigby.
I grew up in the St.
Anthony area.
And Melissa and I we met, we'llgo to school at BYU, Idaho.
We were both studying musicthere.
Uh today I currently work as alife coach for business
professionals, essentially, andI do business trainings for
(02:05):
companies, communicationtrainings, and helping improve
the work environment, things ofthat nature.
Melissa Stone (02:10):
And I am a homeschooling mom to our four
living children, uh, as well asa nail technician.
Alisha Coakley (02:18):
Oh, nice.
I have to ask, can I see him?
Are you one of the nailtechnicians that does everything
for everyone else and doesn'tgive herself enough time to do
her own?
Oh, it's so pretty.
Okay, I love it.
Melissa Stone (02:33):
We have an event thing too.
We had an event we went to lastweek, and so they got done last
week.
Alisha Coakley (02:38):
There you go.
Scott Brandley (02:41):
I would show you guys mine, but I don't want to
make you feel bad.
Alisha Coakley (02:44):
So that's probably a good idea.
We're already pretty jealous ofeverything else.
Fair enough.
Oh wow.
Well, awesome.
So now did you guys meet whenBYU Idaho was BYU Idaho or when
it was Rick's College?
Lawrence Stone (03:00):
Yeah, we met in 2007.
Well, we got married in 2008.
Alisha Coakley (03:04):
Yeah, seven.
We met in 2008.
Lawrence Stone (03:06):
We actually met at Walmart because you can find
anything at Walmart.
Alisha Coakley (03:09):
And so even a wife.
Lawrence Stone (03:12):
Even a wife, exactly.
Alisha Coakley (03:14):
Yep.
Well, guys, uh, we're gonna goahead and give you the floor.
Why don't you tell us whereyour story starts?
Lawrence Stone (03:24):
Yeah, so February 6, 2012, it's kind of
the beginning of the strugglethat we're sharing with people.
Uh I just started a new projectat work.
We'd been having some financialstruggles.
We graduated in a down economy,and our finances were finally
starting to catch up.
And this project was extra nicetoo because I was going to work
a little bit later in the day.
I always had to leave before mykids woke up.
(03:45):
And that was a littledisappointing to me.
And this day, we had our twokids, Ethne was two, uh, Edward
was eight months.
Yeah.
And they actually got to get upbefore we left, we got to do
family prayer, even a little bitof a snuggle session before I
went to work.
And then uh it was a greatfirst day for the new project I
was on.
And then Melissa was workingpart-time at a charter school
(04:07):
teaching music, and we both gotoff about the same time, and
Melissa went to pick up the kidsfrom my in-law's house.
Her mother was watching them.
And on the way home, she wasT-boned by a cement truck.
And Melissa and our daughter,Ethne, were taken by Lifight
(04:28):
helicopter to the hospital.
We were living in Utah at thetime, so Melissa went to the
University of Utah, and ourdaughter went to primary
children's.
And basically right after shearrived, Ethney passed away.
And our son Edward, he wastaken by ambulance, checked out
of the hospital the next daywith a few stitches in his head.
Almost like nothing happened tohim.
(04:48):
Just happy little guy.
And that's kind of where ourstory really begins.
Is dealing with the the tragedyof that child lost of losing
our daughter Ethne.
And then on top of that,Melissa had a lot of physical
recovery that she was dealingwith too.
Melissa Stone (05:06):
Um, I was in a coma for a couple days, and when
I woke up, I was intubated, anduh I couldn't remember what had
happened, and all I knew wasthat I couldn't move my head
because I had a collar on, I wasintubated, and I knew something
wasn't right.
And when I woke up, the firstthing that I asked was I wanted
(05:28):
to know were our kids okay.
And um, and Lawrence kepttelling me that Edward, our
baby, he was fine, he was happy,he'd even tell me who he was
with at the time, um, and thatEthne was safe.
And he didn't want to tell mewhat had happened until they
would act until they extivatedme because he wanted me to be
(05:49):
able to talk and express myselfand ask questions um in regards
to what had happened and be ableto get them answered.
Um and so it took it took alittle while, but it when he
told me she was safe, I knew.
I knew in my heart that thatshe was gone.
(06:09):
And it it really crushed mebecause I was the one driving
the car.
Lawrence Stone (06:16):
It was luckily we had some good nurses that
were good advocates for us andthey helped out a lot in the
process because the doctors keptwanting to wait in case she
needed to go back to surgery.
But the longer she was comingout of the coma, the less we
assumed that she was gonna needmore surgery, and the less they
thought she was gonna need moresurgery.
And finally the nurses juststood up for us and said, No, we
need to excavate her so thatway she can move on and and they
(06:38):
can have this conversation.
And so we're grateful for thatsupportive staff there.
But dealing with our grief wasa very interesting process.
And it was I I rememberedpreviously when I was in high
school, I had a a guy who was inmy ward actually, he was a year
(06:58):
younger than me, we wereteammates playing football
together, and he died in a caraccident.
And I remember a couple yearslater, my mom telling me that
everyone was watching what wouldhappen with his parents after
he died, because when you lose achild, it can either make or
break your marriage.
And I remember reflecting onthat that first night after the
accident and making thatdetermination that this is not
going to break my marriage.
(07:19):
And it was interesting becausebefore Ethne died, all I was
focused on was praying thatEthne would pull through.
And as soon as she died, mymindset shifted to, okay,
ethne's gone.
Now I need Melissa to pullthrough.
And all my efforts were on weneed to help Melissa with her
recovery, we need to helpMelissa with the mental strain
that this is gonna put on her,all the struggle that she's
(07:40):
gonna have to deal with.
And one of my big prioritieswas making sure that she
understood that I didn't blameher and that the people around
her didn't blame her for thisaccident because I knew that she
was going to be dealing with alot of that guilt.
And I found myself, for me,what helped me cope a lot with
that was journaling.
And that journaling helped mediscover quite a bit about
(08:01):
myself.
And I learned a lot about lifeafter death, about the spirit
world, about uh our eternalfamilies.
I tell people in the few monthsthat follow that, I learned
more about who I was as ahusband, a father, and a member
of my community than I had in myentire life combined as I was
journaling and reflecting andmeditating and praying.
But uh like I said, a lot ofthat focus also came to, and I'm
(08:24):
not someone who focuses onwho's good at focusing, but all
of a sudden I was like laserfocused on I gotta help Melissa
out.
Melissa Stone (08:32):
Um for me, the the physical recovery had to
come first.
I had to recover physicallybefore I could even consider the
emotional and the spiritualrecovery.
And I spent a year in physicaltherapy.
I was in the hospital for alittle over a week or for for
right now a week, and then wewent and stayed with my parents
(08:53):
for another week before we wentback to our own apartment.
And uh, and then I spent a yeardoing physical therapy because
I had a laundry list ofinjuries.
Essentially, the whole leftside of my body was kind of
crushed.
And uh once I kind of came tothe end of that year and I was
(09:16):
more or less physicallyrecovered, I started feeling all
the things and I started umlooking towards my spiritual
recovery.
Um now we did about six, I hadso many people tell me, you need
to do counseling, you need togo to counseling.
And so I did about six or somonths after the accident had
(09:38):
happened.
Lawrence Stone (09:40):
Was it?
Yeah, it was more like two orthree months.
Melissa Stone (09:42):
Um, I started trying to see a counselor, and
it was an LDS family servicescounselor.
Um, we got a referral from ourbishop, and it just wasn't a
good fit.
And if I had known then what Iknow now about finding a
counselor for traumatic events,I would have done things
completely differently.
I tried some other counseling,but I just never had a really
(10:03):
good fit.
Um, the one counseling that wedid that worked pretty well that
that kind of stuck, theUniversity of Utah puts on um
grief support groups for peopleexperiencing a myriad of
different things in their lives,including child loss.
And we attended a group there,and the man who was the
(10:25):
moderator for the group was hehad experienced the passing of
his teenage son.
And so having someone who had asimilar experience to ours, it
wasn't the same, but it wassimilar, um, helped a lot
because he could relate more andhe knew more of the right
things to say and more of theways that would help us.
Um and we were in a group withthree other women who had all
(10:48):
lost children.
Um, two of them had lost oldersons, and one had lost a
daughter on the exact same dayas us in a car accident.
Not the same kind of caraccident, but a car accident
nonetheless.
And they all hoped through thethe whole six weeks of this
group that their husbands wouldcome with them.
(11:08):
Every single one of themexpressed at some point, yeah, I
think my husband's gonna come.
I really want my husband tocome.
And none of their husbandscame.
But Lawrence was there with meevery single week, supportive
and learning and healing anddoing those things alongside me.
And that made such a differencefor me that he was there even
(11:30):
though he didn't want to be.
Lawrence Stone (11:31):
Yeah.
I mean, it was very clear whythose husbands didn't come.
I mean, especially as men, wedon't want to be emotional, and
especially in front of otherpeople.
And it was, you know, if itwasn't for the fact that I was
dedicated to helping Melissathrough her recovery and I knew
she needed it and I knew shewouldn't go unless I went, I
probably wouldn't have gone.
But after the first couple ofweeks of seeing these women talk
(11:53):
about how much they wishedtheir husbands would come too,
it became very evident and veryclear to me why I needed to keep
coming with her to thesethings, to these, to those
sessions.
And honestly, as much as Ididn't want to cry in front of
other people, it was a very safeenvironment.
I never felt belittled, I neverfelt like I wasn't safe.
And it was it was a really goodtherapeutic experience, even
(12:15):
for me, even though it wasn'twhat I wanted to do.
But we noticed as we were goingthrough our grief that we were
grieving very differently.
I definitely wasn't crying asmuch as Melissa, and she would
get frustrated, wondering, Am Ireally grieving?
Is you know, is Lawrence reallygrieving because he's not
crying?
And we had to learn that weneeded to grieve differently.
(12:36):
We needed support in differentways.
And part of that might bebecause it's a man and a woman,
part of it might be becauseMelissa was in the car and I
wasn't.
Part of my might be differentpersonality styles, but whatever
it was, we needed to grievedifferently and we needed
support in different ways, butwe both needed that.
And I I remember early on,right after the accident, this
(12:58):
idea of the this prompting cameto me that said, pay attention
to what's happening becauseyou're gonna need to tell others
about it.
You need you're gonna write abook about it at some point.
And so that was another reasonwhy journaling became so
important.
But it was especially importantthat because we were grieving
in different ways, becauseMelissa wasn't journaling and
(13:20):
that wasn't helping her.
She struggled with that becauseof the brain injury she
sustained during the accident.
But we still needed to keepthat line of communication very
open, and that would help us outgoing forward.
And I mean, right after theaccident, Melissa told me that
we're done having kids, that shewas terrified of the thought of
(13:43):
having to lose another childand having to go through that
again.
And for me, I knew that shealways wanted to be a mom.
We talked about having agood-sized family, and I knew at
some point she would come backand decide that she wanted to
have kids.
And I could tell when she toldme this, she was ready to put up
a fight about not having kids.
And I knew that that wasn't agood idea.
(14:06):
So I said, okay, at some pointyou're probably gonna change
your mind.
And when you're ready, whenyou're ready to talk, I'll be
ready to talk as well.
And eventually she came backand decided that she was ready
to talk.
And we basically expressed ourthoughts on why she didn't want
to have any more children, why Ididn't want to have more
(14:28):
children.
And at the end, I basicallyjust left it to her and said, I
think you're gonna change yourmind at some point.
And whenever you change yourmind, I'm gonna be ready for
you.
Melissa Stone (14:39):
And I changed my mind a little sooner than even I
expected to.
Um, and a little over a yearafter that accident, we uh
decided to have another baby.
And so I got pregnant a littleover a year after the accident
with our third.
Um, and we had a little boy,and he was born in December of
(15:01):
2013, and then complicationsarose, and he was born with a
birth defect that was alife-threatening birth defect.
He had to have multiplesurgeries to correct that, and
so here we are going throughthis.
And I remember at the time somany people were saying to us,
haven't you guys seen enough?
(15:22):
Haven't has isn't the Lord donewith you?
Um, and our our response was,guess not.
Um, and so we went through allof this with our son, and
through that whole experience,he was in the NICU for a couple
weeks, and then he had anothersurgery uh at of at about five
months old.
Um, I felt a little bit becauseafter losing ethne, I felt like
(15:46):
Lawrence carried me a lot.
And here we are, just shy oftwo years later, we have this
new baby.
He's got a life-threateningissue, and he's having to have
multiple surgeries, he's in theNICU.
I've just given birth.
All those hormones are all overthe place.
But to a certain extent, I feltlike I carried Lawrence a
little bit through thatexperience.
Um just because I was like, Igotta do what I gotta do, and I
(16:10):
gotta do what I have to do toget my baby home.
And um and so I learned a lotabout dealing with his specific
issues.
It was a bowel issue, and Ijust that year was was a little
bit of a wild ride.
Lawrence Stone (16:30):
He was born with something called Hirschsprung's
disease.
And essentially what it is isthe nerve endings in the colon
don't grow in all the way.
And so when the bowel getsthere, it can't detect it and it
can't push it through.
And so basically couldn'tproduce a bowel movement, and
they had to remove a section ofhis colon uh in order to get him
to function.
And so for the first basicallysix months of his life, he had a
(16:51):
colostomy bag.
And wow, and hopefully,hopefully not quite a lifetime
of bowel management issues, butcertainly for a number of years,
they're they're almostnon-existent now.
But especially for the firsteight, nine years of his life,
there was bowel managementissues, which kind of helped
solidify the fact that we werehomeschooling.
(17:11):
We were doing that even beforewe made that decision.
I think while Mules waspregnant with him, or maybe a
little bit after.
But it was, you know, a lot ofnot fun stuff to have to deal
with in that situation.
Melissa Stone (17:25):
Yeah.
Um, and then a couple yearslater, uh, we had another baby.
We had a little girl, which Iwas so excited to have another
little girl again, and she'sjust the girliest girl.
Everything was smooth sailingwith her.
And then when she was about 13,14 months old, we found out I
(17:46):
was expecting again.
And while this one hadn'treally been planned per se, we
were still very, very excited tobe adding to our family again.
This was going to be babynumber five, and we kind of
figured that this would be itfor our family.
Um, five was kind of where wehad said we we'd wanted to stop.
And when I was about 13, 14weeks along with this baby, I
(18:10):
had a dream that reallydisturbed me.
I had a dream that I'd gone infor, you know, that big
ultrasound where you get yourgender reveal and they look at
all the anatomy of the baby.
And it's a really excitingultrasound.
And I had a dream that we'dgone in for it and they couldn't
find the heartbeat of the baby.
And, you know, anyone who'sbeen pregnant knows, generally
(18:31):
speaking, the more pregnanciesyou have, the earlier you can
feel the baby move.
And I had felt him move.
And at about 18 weeks, justbefore I was supposed to have
that big ultrasound, I just keptgetting this super uneasy
feeling and I couldn't get thatdream out of my head.
And so I called my doctor'soffice and I said, Listen, I'm
(18:52):
really worried.
I think something's wrong.
Can I please come in?
And they really tried todissuade me from coming in, but
finally they were like, Okay,you can come in.
So I went in and I saw a doctorthat wasn't my regular doctor,
and he was not my favoriteperson in the world because he
wasn't very kind.
And he was very dismissive ofmy feelings, of the fact that I
told him I felt the baby move,but I haven't felt him move in a
(19:13):
few days.
And so he finally was like,Okay, well, we'll check things
out.
So he listened for theheartbeat, couldn't find it,
tried a pocket ultrasound.
I'd never seen one of thesebefore, but um, and couldn't see
a heartbeat through that.
So they gave me a fullultrasound, and that's when it
really confirmed that I had lostthis baby.
(19:34):
So I was around 18 weekspregnant with him, and I I was
done.
I was shattered, I was crushed,and it was it was really,
really difficult.
Lawrence Stone (19:54):
It it it really came down hard, obviously, and
and a lot of the progress thatMelissa had made, it was five
years essentially, five and ahalf years after we'd lost Ethne
when this happened, and it hadjust kind of all fallen apart.
With Ethne, she struggled withsaying prayers again.
And then when we lost Thomas,that came back almost worse than
(20:17):
it was before.
She struggled with going tochurch, struggled saying
prayers.
And there was again my job notwanting to lose her, not wanting
her to fall into thisdepression, not wanting her to
just drop out of everything,trying to help her along.
And it was a couple weeksbefore I could even get her to
say prayer with me again.
And even for the first fewweeks after that, I was the only
(20:39):
one who was allowed to sayprayer.
She refused.
And I still remember the firsttime after Thomas died when she
said that she was willing to sayprayer was like a huge relief.
But it was months after afterwe lost Thomas.
And we were fortunate when welost him that he actually so so
we lost him, and Melissa had togo in and deliver him because
(21:00):
her body didn't reject him, andso we actually she had to be
induced.
And he's he's on the records asa stillmorn because of that.
And we were able to take hishis little body and bury him
with Ethne.
He's actually buried on top ofEthney.
And so when we when we go tothe cemetery, we're able to
visit both of them right theretogether.
Melissa Stone (21:20):
Um so after losing Thomas, I looked at
Lawrence, I said, I'm done.
No chance of ever havinganother one.
We're good with the three we'vegot.
Um I'm not I'm not open to thisat all.
And he was more or less okay.
Yeah.
If that's what you want.
Lawrence Stone (21:38):
In our in our minds, we we we had decided that
after Thomas we were done, andso I was willing to accept that.
But I also, again, knew my wifeand knew that she might change
her mind.
And I said, if the moment doescome when you want to re-rethink
this, you want to talk aboutit, I'm open.
But if we never talk about itagain, if we never have any more
kids, I'm comfortable withthat.
Melissa Stone (22:02):
Um but you know, over time, the Lord works in
mysterious ways and he softensyour heart.
And uh a few years later, Ikind of started thinking that
maybe there was one more for ourfamily that we needed to
consider having another baby.
And so um in 2019.
Lawrence Stone (22:26):
Well, to yeah, 2018.
We uh yeah, in 2018, we werecoming up to Idaho to visit
family.
And I I struggled with comingback to Idaho regularly because
it seemed like every time I cameback to Idaho, it was for
somebody's funeral.
Those are the only thingsgetting us to come back to
(22:47):
Idaho.
And it was sad for me.
I remember going to a cousin'sfuneral, to a friend's funeral,
and then our friend's parents'funeral, and then all within
about two months, I think sixweeks every other week, I lost a
cousin, then a friend's parent,and then I had another friend
who passed away, and I ended upnot coming to his funeral
because I was just so drained oncoming back to Idaho for
funerals.
(23:07):
It was so depressing.
And we had we decided to have afamily reunion with my parents
and all my siblings and andtheir kids in in July.
And so I was excited to finallybe coming back to Idaho,
spending a week in Idaho and notcoming up for a funeral.
And then a week before we cameup, my uncle died, and we still
had to come up for a funeral.
(23:29):
Well, when we were up here, weuh the community I grew up in
does a big Pioneer Daycelebration.
And so that's why part of whywe came up was for that
celebration.
Wow.
And had a buddy, one of my bestfriends, had just moved back
from California to Idaho, andhe's having a cookout, and so we
stopped by to say hi for a fewminutes.
And I was fine with the factthat we're living in Utah,
(23:50):
accepted that that's where wewere going to be living forever.
And all of a sudden, I justfound myself getting jealous,
maybe, that he was back inIdaho, and I'd started feeling
this pull to come back to Idaho.
And my dad had left his job inthe tech industry to pursue a
passion in car restoration, andhe had a little used car lot on
the side, and and I decided, youknow, I want to come and help
(24:13):
him out because he's struggling.
And so I pitched it to Melissa.
I said, I want you to considerthe possibility of us moving
back, moving to Idaho, movingback to Idaho.
Melissa Stone (24:24):
And I laughed at him and told him Pat Chance.
Lawrence Stone (24:28):
Yeah.
I mean, her family's downthere, but what she actually
said is, you know, I've beenthinking we need a change in our
life, and maybe this is it.
And so we'd actually planned,my dad was working on a project
that he needed help with, and sowe planned on coming back a
month later so I could help mydad with this project.
And I said, when we come back,we're gonna think about do we
want to live in Idaho?
(24:48):
Maybe uh reach out to a realtorfriend and take a look at a
couple houses and consider thatpossibility.
And then two weeks later, I hada cousin who committed suicide,
and we were back in Idaho foranother funeral.
And I told him, Lys, I waslike, we're just going up and
back for the funeral.
We're not there to think aboutmoving back to Idaho.
(25:09):
Uh, we're still gonna be comingback in a couple more weeks to
help my dad with this project,and we'll we'll discuss it then.
Melissa Stone (25:17):
And when we were on the way home, kind of as we
crossed the Utah-Idaho border, Ijust had this overwhelming
feeling that we weren't headedhome, that Idaho was home, and
that we were meant to move backto Idaho.
So we did.
Um, and we moved back to Idahoin February of 2019.
Lawrence Stone (25:38):
And then in the lead up, we Melissa had come
back and said that she wasthinking about having another
child.
And I said, okay.
And she didn't say she wasready quite at that point, but I
told her that I was gonna set adeadline for her to make that
decision.
By the time I turned 36 is whenshe needed to be pregnant, if
(25:59):
she really wanted to have thatchild.
And that wasn't, I think westill had a couple years.
I can't remember how much timewe had left.
There was still plenty of timefor at least a year to think
about it.
But that gave her time toprocess it and figure it out.
And so in the meantime, weprepped our house, we sold it,
and we moved back to Idaho.
Melissa Stone (26:14):
And so uh end of 2019, I got pregnant with our
definite last baby.
He is it.
And in May of 2020, in all ofthe chaos that was COVID, uh, we
had our last baby up here inIdaho.
And he is such a light and ajoy in our lives.
And honestly, I don't know thatwe would have had him if we'd
(26:37):
moved, if we hadn't moved toIdaho just because of some other
things that were going on in myfamily in Utah and just the way
that I am, I would have gotswallowed up in some of those
other things and probablywouldn't, we probably wouldn't
have our last baby.
And so uh if not for anythingbut the fact that we had our
(26:57):
last baby because after we movedto Idaho, I'm grateful that we
made this move.
Lawrence Stone (27:03):
Um so living in Idaho, continuing to move
forward.
And I helped my dad out withhis business, helped him grow
his business, essentially 10xhis revenues up to uh after a
few years.
And I enjoyed working on cars,but I realized it wasn't
something I wanted to do everyday.
More of kind of a hobby thing.
(27:24):
And I realized really what Iwant to do is I'd help my dad
with his business, I'd helpedother businesses when we were
down in Utah, and I said Iwanted to do that more.
And so that's when I opened mycoaching business.
But really, part of that was isI just wanted to help people
out.
And I mentioned right afterEthne died, I had this thought
of pay attention to what'shappening because you're gonna
need to share it with people.
You need to write a book aboutit.
And Melissa and I have beentalking about writing this book
(27:46):
for 10 years, off and on.
And then finally, about threeand a half or so years ago, we
stopped making excuses and wedecided I stopped.
Melissa Stone (27:57):
I didn't.
Lawrence Stone (27:57):
She was still making excuses, but eventually
we worked her through thoseexcuses as well.
And we started writing uh ourbook called Our Stories.
And the if if you look at thetitle, you know the story is
spelled just regular story, butthen there's a parenthetical S
because what we realized when wewere dealing with our grief and
going through these losses iswe were both grieving very
(28:18):
differently, even though we weredealing with the same losses,
even though we were going on thesame timeline, if you will.
And we realized as weinteracted with other people who
were dealing with loss thatthey're all grieving in their
own ways.
They all need support in theirown ways.
And so we have, if you as youread through the book, you'll
hear parts of the story from myvoice, and then other parts of
(28:38):
the story from Melissa's voiceon how we needed help from each
other, how we were able tosupport each other, and what
were the things we were goingthrough.
And it was interesting becausepeople gifted us a lot of books
after we lost our children.
And almost all of those bookswere written from a female
perspective.
And I really struggled withconnecting with any of them
(28:59):
because I felt like they weren'treally calling out to me, they
weren't experiencing the samethings as me.
And that was one of the reasonswhy we thought this was so
important is to be able to sharethe both perspectives and how
both perspectives need to worktogether.
Because just looking at oneperspective, the other, the
other perspective isn't going toquite understand that.
(29:19):
And in the intro of the book,we talk about um being a help
meet for each other.
And as I was doing someresearch, I can't remember the
exact words, but the originalHebrew words help meet,
basically what they mean istheir opposites working
together.
And that men and women viewthings and see things and
interact with thingsdifferently.
(29:39):
But they need to do that inorder to help each other see
other perspectives, in order tohelp each other learn more and
progress more and do more.
And the Heavenly Father made usthat way so that we can have
those other perspectives, so wecan have those other
opportunities that as just a manI wouldn't be able to see, or
as just a woman, Melissawouldn't be able to see.
And that was what we wanted todo is we.
We want to help comfort thosewho need comfort and mourn with
(30:02):
those who are mourning bysharing our stories and letting
them know it's okay if you'regrieving a little bit
differently than your spouse orthan someone else who thinks you
should be grieving.
Especially when you're dealingwith child loss, you get a lot
of outside opinions of peoplewho think, oh, it's been a year,
you should be over it by now.
And it's just not that simple.
When you're dealing with achild loss, my my grandmother, I
(30:23):
think, put it the best way isyou never get over the loss of a
child.
You just learn how to cope withit better, how to deal with it
better, and you become stronger.
Although I will say I do seesome people lose child and they
just shut down.
Sometimes you have to face thepain.
Sometimes you have to workthrough things in order to
become stronger, in order to beable to do that.
(30:44):
But know that just becausesomeone else is grieving
differently than you doesn'tmean that your grief isn't
valid.
And I mean, that's why wereached out to you guys as we
for this opportunity to be ableto share our stories and help
other people recognize that aswell.
You know, focus on buildingyour marriage, focus on helping
other people recognize thatyou're going to see things and
(31:04):
view things and feel thingsdifferently, but you can still
support each other and help eachother out.
Melissa Stone (31:13):
Um I just I remember when I told Lawrence
that I was thinking about havinganother baby, and he said to
me, if you're going to do thiswith our last one with the with
our last one, um, he said, ifwe're going to have one more
child, one more baby, I need youto feel strong enough that if
(31:36):
the worst happens, you'll beable to pull yourself out of it
because I don't know if I havethe strength to pull you out of
it like I have.
And so in those years, afterlosing Thomas before getting
pregnant with Porter, I did alot of work, you know, doing the
primary answers, learning topray by myself again and
(32:00):
building my testimony andreading my scriptures and
listening more diligently toconference talks and all of the
things, you know, that we'retold over and over and over and
over to do, um, to reallystrengthen myself so that if it
did happen again, that I wouldbe ready.
Uh, so that as much as he wouldtry to pull me through if he
(32:25):
didn't feel strong enough to doit, that I could do it for
myself.
Lawrence Stone (32:30):
It was it was a legitimate fear because it took
a lot and drained a lot ofenergy out of me trying to help
her get back on track.
Because and I it's not that myfaith never waved wavered
either.
I was still having to deal withmy grief and work on keeping my
faith as well.
And so it was it was verytaxing to be able to have to
(32:52):
help her out with that.
And because I mean she wouldfight me kicking and screaming
every step of the way.
But, you know, until shestarted getting stable ground,
um, yeah, it was I I wasn't sureif I could have done it a third
time.
And so I needed her to be surethat she at least could put more
(33:13):
effort in or could have alittle bit more stable ground,
better foundation on JesusChrist in order to endure it if
she had to.
Fortunately, never got to thatpoint, but I think she made a
lot of great strides by havingthat conversation.
She she realized a lot ofthings and was able to work on a
lot of things for herself.
Alisha Coakley (33:32):
Wow.
Oh man.
So that's our story.
So can I ask you guys kind ofyou talked about how your grief
was different?
What was really like the mostdifferent thing?
Like, what was the thing thatwas like, oh my gosh, how are
they doing that when I'm feelinglike this?
Scott Brandley (33:53):
And also what brought you together?
Alisha Coakley (33:55):
Yeah.
Lawrence Stone (33:56):
I think we got the gist of the question.
So the the biggest differencebetween the grief I know for me
is I I tend to try to hide itand internalize it.
And that's why journalingbecame so important to me and
writing stuff down.
Even uh Melissa's aunt createda blog for us to post on, and
that became very important tome.
But but meditation, uh, evengoing to the temple was was a
(34:19):
big deal for me.
That became very important.
And then one thing I think wasimportant for both of us was
finding ways to make sure wewere preserving their memories.
We do service projects everyyear around their birthdays.
We, like for Christmas, we'llactually take the presents we
would have purchased for them,and then we make sure we donate
them to an organization.
A lot of times it's a fostercare type organization that
(34:39):
we've donated them to.
But we try to find dikes ofservice.
We've we've done meals at theRonald McDonald House.
We've done, we've worked with alocal after-school program,
we've done a lot of serviceprojects to help keep their
memories alive.
And so that's something I thinkhas been important for most of
us.
But I I for me, I struggledwith showing a lot of emotion in
(35:00):
front of Melissa because I feltlike she needed me to be
strong, she needed me to bestable.
And so I would hide thatemotion quite a bit.
And that's again why journalingin that kind of private moment
became more important to me.
But Melissa made it needed moreof more interaction, which is
interesting because I'm moresocial than she is.
But she needed she needed thatinteraction to be able to talk
(35:22):
and process.
Melissa Stone (35:24):
And he was my primary sounding board, like I
said, because I didn't reallyfind like a counselor that I
jived with.
Um another thing that I feellike was really different
between the two of us was I feltreally stuck.
And I think part of that camefrom the fact that I had such a
long physical recovery.
And then, you know, I had tokind of find that emotional and
(35:49):
spiritual recovery aftereverything.
And so I felt stuck for areally long time, and it felt
kind of frustrating to me thatit felt like he was moving on
and growing and progressing inways that I wasn't when I felt
so stuck for so long, even afterwe had our third son, our
second son, our third baby.
(36:10):
Um, I just I felt really,really stuck.
Lawrence Stone (36:14):
Um Yeah, right right after the accident, the
bishop said, Whenever you guysare ready for calling, let us
know.
And I said, I'm ready today.
Give me a calling.
And they they had me teachingSunday school within a couple of
weeks.
Melissa, he finally came andsaid, Would you mind just making
the programs for church?
And even that was too much forher at the time.
Melissa Stone (36:39):
Um and like he said, sometimes it was it felt
like dragging, kicking, andscreaming to get me to church,
to um go to the temple.
Temple wasn't as hard aschurch, surprisingly.
Um it felt like after theaccident, there were things that
kept pulling us back to thetemple.
(36:59):
Um, his sister left on amission just a few months after
the accident happened, and so wewent to the temple with her.
He we had weddings to go to,um, and things just kept pulling
us back to the temple.
And so it felt like going tothe temple wasn't nearly as hard
as going to church was or evenpraying and doing those things
(37:21):
on my own were.
But I was also angry with God,and I don't know that Lawrence
ever experienced a lot of thatanger like I did until a little
later on.
Lawrence Stone (37:33):
Not to the same level at least.
Melissa Stone (37:37):
I mean, there was a point when you did kind of
start to question things.
Lawrence Stone (37:42):
Yeah.
Well, and and I think part ofit with my with my dealing with
grief too was I was so focusedon helping Melissa out that my
grief kind of got put on holduntil I think about a year and a
half or so later, when Ifinally felt like Melissa was
starting to get a little bitmore stable.
I was just, I think I wasdriving to work and the it was,
(38:06):
I was thinking to myself, it'sinteresting that through all
this and dealing with that lossof ethney, I've never really
questioned my testimony.
And then all of a sudden thenext thought was, well, should
you be questioning yourtestimony?
I mean, this is a pretty bigdeal.
And it was like all of a suddenin that moment, that's when I
started having doubts.
Because once Melissa had alittle bit more stable ground,
that's when I started grieving alittle bit harder and started
having more doubts.
(38:26):
And I remember wrestling withthat quite a bit.
And I wasn't questioning somuch whether or not the church
was true or whether or not Ibelieved in the gospel, but I
was questioning entirely God'sexistence.
Like for me, if God exists,then yeah, this is his church.
I'm good with that.
But it was really, does Godreally exist?
(38:48):
Why would God let somethinglike this happen to me?
And as I wrestled with that,one day I I was just, again, in
my car thinking about it andwrestling with it and praying
about it.
And and this prompting came tome.
And it was just a question.
It said, well, what would yourather believe?
Would you rather believe thatthis life is it, that you'll
(39:10):
never see Ethne again, you'llnever be with your family in the
eternities?
Or would you rather believethat there's life after this,
that you are sealed together asa family, that you'll get to be
with Melissa and your other kidsand be able to raise Ethney and
be with her again.
And when it was put in thatperspective, it was like a
no-brainer.
I was like, okay, no matterwhat, I'm going to choose to
believe this.
This is what I would ratherbelieve.
(39:32):
And I remember the scripturethat you don't get that
testimony until after the trialof your faith.
And I said, I'm just going tokeep moving forward, acting in
faith, believing, and eventuallyI'll get more stable answers.
But I have to go through thistrial of my faith first.
And it was interesting becauseI remember preparing for a
mission in my life, multiplepeople telling me, when you bear
(39:55):
your testimony, you have to sayI know, because I know it was
so much more powerful than Ibelieve.
And I felt like I wasdowngrading my faith at the same
time, even though I was excitedbecause I was like, okay, I'm
recommitting, but now my faithis less than what it was before
because I no longer can say thatI know.
Now I'm just saying I believe.
And I felt like it had beendowngraded.
And I remember it was the verynext general conference, Elder
(40:17):
Holland talking about a youngman coming to him and telling
him that he's not sure he knows,but that he can believe.
And Elder Holland talks aboutembracing that young man and how
great it was that he believedand how miracles happen from
believing.
And there's so many people whostart off with believing.
And I remember shortly afterthat reading in my scriptures
(40:38):
about how belief is one ofbelieving is one of the gifts of
the spirit.
And all of a sudden I realizedthat there is a lot more power
in that belief that I have andin believing than I ever
realized was possible.
And I no longer felt like myfaith was downgraded.
And it was it was a veryimportant moment for me to
understand how important justsaying I believe when those
(41:01):
doubts came about in my eternalgrowth and progression.
Melissa Stone (41:06):
And when Lawrence told me that he was having this
struggle, I'll be honest, itwas kind of refreshing for me
because I felt like I hadstruggled so much and I hadn't
seen him struggle.
And so knowing that that he wasalso struggling helped kind of
lift me up, helped buoy me up inthat yes, we were in this
together.
We were we were justexperiencing it differently.
(41:29):
And um just knowing that he hadreceived so much confirmation
um helped me kind of pullthrough and and and push on to.
Lawrence Stone (42:17):
Yeah, it was very much a tender mercy for us
for sure.
Alisha Coakley (42:21):
How long, Melissa, how long did this take
for you to kind of get to thepoint where you felt like like
your testimony was strong enoughand your your in your ability
to function in in a healthier,more whole way.
(42:46):
Like like how long do you thinkthat that kind of took you to
get through that to get to thatpoint?
Melissa Stone (42:52):
I mean, it took me honestly, probably a couple
years, even after we'd had ournext baby.
I still struggled spiritually.
Um that first year, I kind oflived in in a fog.
Like I didn't I couldn't getout and see people.
(43:13):
I struggled with going tochurch, like I mentioned before.
Um I struggled with prayer.
I because of the my braininjuries that I'd had, reading
scriptures was difficult,reading was difficult in
general.
Um but I did go to churchpretty faithfully almost every
week.
Um, and I went to the temple,and those things I think kind of
(43:37):
kept me going and kept me fromcompletely losing my testimony
and falling away.
Lawrence Stone (43:44):
I mean, some of those weeks she went just
because she couldn't take careof Edward by herself, and so she
had to go wherever I was going.
And so it was again, sometimesit was kicking and screaming,
and sometimes it was a littlebit more voluntary.
Melissa Stone (43:57):
Um, but I think round about the year mark, I
started kind of seeing thingsdifferently, and I kind of
started finding some because Iwas I was really angry with God,
like I mentioned, and I think Istarted finding some
(44:17):
forgiveness there for foreverything that had happened,
and finding some forgiveness formyself because I felt extremely
guilty because I was the onedriving the car.
And I found it was easy to findforgiveness for the other
driver, but it was reallydifficult to find forgiveness
(44:37):
for myself, and sometimes Istill struggle with that, and
it's been 13 and a half years.
But around about that yearmark, we actually moved out of
our apartment and bought ourfirst home.
And then they asked us to speakin our ward right around Easter
after we'd moved in.
And I think that's when Ifinally started like things
(45:01):
started clicking, like, oh, Ishould start reading my
scriptures again, I should startstudying conference talks
again, um, and some of theseother things that helped me find
my way back and and rebuild mytestimony after everything.
Scott Brandley (45:17):
Oh, I have a question.
Now that you've had some timefrom those tragedies in your
life, um, what brings you peaceand and how do you find joy in
the journey and in the future?
Lawrence Stone (45:38):
I mean, the biggest thing that helps bring
us joy and helps us find peaceis definitely spending time with
our family.
Like I mentioned, going throughthis has definitely made me a
better husband and a betterfather.
Uh, you know, it's it'sinteresting because we were so
focused, or I was, I, you know,I I recommitted to, okay, this
isn't gonna, this isn't gonnabreak our marriage, and we
(45:59):
really recommitted to eachother.
We we find that the time wehave together is tends to be
more quality.
We've we've had a lot offriends that have gone through
marital struggles, and and it'sinteresting as you look at the
statistics.
Usually people struggle aroundthe first year or two, and then
it's year seven, and then yearfourteen, and about every seven
years you see a spike indivorces happening.
(46:19):
And you hear people refer tothis as a seven-year itch, and
that's we've been together 17years now, and we just haven't
felt that because 13 years agowe had to go through this, and
and the commitment we've had toeach other.
I mean, that doesn't mean it'sbeen all sunshine and roses and
butterflies, but we've, youknow, it's we just haven't had
those same issues because we'velearned to hold on to each
(46:41):
other, and we find a lot of joyin being with our family, find a
lot of joy in going to thetemple even and and remembering
our children, you know,something we do.
We for Ethne Thomas' birthdayand for our anniversary, we go
to the temple and we do ceilingsbecause we think one of the
best ways that we can celebratetheir lives is by reuniting
(47:04):
other parents with theirchildren.
And so the temple is anotherplace where we find a lot of joy
and happiness and being able todo those ceilings especially is
a big deal for us.
And we talked about servingothers as you know, service
projects to remember them andand and help us stay focused on
them.
That's that's become a big dealfor us as well.
Melissa Stone (47:26):
And we find a lot of joy with our living
children.
They are so full of light andlife and joy, and uh, we talk to
them about Ethne and Thomas,and they know them, and they
they know why we serve and whywe have stayed in the church and
(47:47):
why we serve in the temple andwhy we value our family so much,
because of those covenants andthose promises that we've made
that you know tell us that wewill get to be with them again
and that we'll get to raisethem, and they'll be they're
that they're still part of ourfamily.
Alisha Coakley (48:05):
So you guys have had you've had other people
that you've been working withwho've gone through child loss,
correct?
Lawrence Stone (48:12):
So yeah.
It's interesting.
We haven't worked directly witha lot of couples face to face,
but Melissa had a serviceproject that she was doing for
for other families dealing withgrief that I think really helped
her out a lot.
Melissa Stone (48:26):
Um so shortly after losing ethne, my mom
actually had this idea that weshould make something that a
mother could bury with her childand also keep with her.
And so we started makingbracelets um to donate to
(48:48):
hospitals like primarychildren's and other hospitals
when a mother experiencespregnancy or child loss, so that
they have a bracelet that theycan wear and that they can bury
with their baby, or I I knowsome who have put them on like
urns with their baby's ashes.
Um, and so I started doingthat, and because of that, I
(49:13):
have connected with other womenwho um who have experienced
loss, and they've told me howmuch that means to them.
Um it's it's been interestingbecause in the ward I grew up
in, um, two other girls that Iwas friends with growing up have
(49:34):
also experienced child loss andpregnancy loss.
One lost her baby at like 36weeks, and another lost her son
to a complicated case of COVID,and it was just heartbreaking.
He was, I think, three yearsold.
And because I'm kind of aheadof them on this road, I've been
(49:55):
able to support them and connectwith them and guide them.
Um, some other ways that we'veconnected with others is that
we're part of an organizationcalled the Tears Foundation, and
they help to provide the bigthing they do is they help to
provide money to pay forfunerals when families
(50:18):
experience child and pregnancyloss.
And uh we got involved withthat organization here in Idaho,
and so we help with some of thefundraising efforts and and
some of the other things thatthey do to support families
through grief and child loss.
Lawrence Stone (50:38):
Yeah, I think for me, we haven't been as
focused on couples.
I think part of it's been hard,but that's writing this book
has kind of pushed us, and sowe're trying to find more
efforts to be able to do thattoo.
And that's one of the thingswe're hoping to be able to do
with this book is it gives us asegue to interact with more
people like that one-on-one.
Because we found ways tointeract them with them in like
(50:59):
groups and things of that natureand find ways of supporting
them even if we're not face toface.
But hopefully this gives us anopportunity to help us do more
one-on-one, more face-to-facetype stuff.
Alisha Coakley (51:10):
Now, what's the what's the name of your book?
Lawrence Stone (51:14):
It's Our Stories.
Except for the way we spellstories, it's story, and then
the the S is in parentheses.
So that way it's referring toour story of dealing with child
loss, but we each have our ownindividual stories in that
journey, is is how we titled it.
And we self-published throughAmazon.
So right now it's onlyavailable on Amazon, but you can
get it for Kindle or paperback.
Alisha Coakley (51:34):
Right.
So it's through Amazon.
Uh we'll go ahead and we canadd a link in the description.
So anyone who is interested inpurchasing, they can go ahead
and do that.
Um, and they can help tosupport you guys, but also to
support others who are goingthrough something similar.
Um, is there any other anyother things that listeners can
do to to help?
(51:56):
Anything that that you guyscould ask for?
Lawrence Stone (51:59):
Well, I mean, when when you know someone who's
dealing with lost, there's acouple things we always say you
can do to help that person.
The and we each kind of haveour own recommendations we make,
but I always tell people whenthey ask me, what do I do if I
know someone who's dealing withlost or grieving?
I say, for me, one of the bestthings, one of the most
important things that people didfor me is they were praying for
(52:19):
us and they told us they werepraying for us.
Because I found a lot ofstrength in knowing that so many
people there were hopeful forus and supporting us and
available for us.
And I know if you're someonewho's knows someone who's
dealing with grief, I know thatcan go a long way in in helping
helping them out.
Melissa Stone (52:39):
Um and I don't know, in in this social media
era that we live in, thoughts,thoughts and prayers get kind of
a bad rap and people getfrustrated and they want to do,
they want to take action, theywant to do something that feels
more tangible than just thoughtsand prayers.
And so the other thing that Irecommend is if you know someone
who's grieving, no matter whatit is they're grieving, it it
(53:04):
can be really overwhelming inyour mind to think of things.
Like a lot of people will go tosomeone and say, What can I do
to help?
And that can feel reallyoverwhelming and feel like just
one more thing on top ofeverything else that you're
going through.
And so if you want to help andserve and actually do something
more tangible, then you come upwith something that you are
capable of doing for them and goto them and say, I want to do
(53:28):
this for you.
And is it better to do it onthis day or this day?
Um, so like I want to bring youdinner, can I bring it to you
Tuesday or Thursday?
Um, things like that.
And just kind of takingsomething off of their plate for
them.
Lawrence Stone (53:45):
And as far as us, you mentioned obviously let
us pitch the book and weappreciate that.
But if there's anyone out therewho's who's dealing with grief
and they want to reach out andconnect with us, uh, you know,
we we would be more than willingto talk to them.
Or if there's we we've beeninvited recently, we were
invited to a uh like a couple'sweekend.
(54:06):
They they gave us one daynotice, so we weren't able to
go, unfortunately.
We're hoping to be able to setup something in the future.
But to be able to come and talkabout parenting and and grief,
and we've even been working on aon a devotional.
We've where we're close to BYU,Idaho.
We might even we've talkedabout going up there and talking
to some of the married couplesthat maybe are dealing with
miscarriages and are strugglingwith fertility and letting them
(54:29):
know, you know, becausevalidating their grief, because
a lot of times it's amazing howmany times we've run into people
who've had miscarriages andthey just don't feel like their
grief is valid because they youknow they weren't able to carry
the baby for a certain for Xnumber of weeks or whatever, and
you know, they're they're stillgrieving, they're still dealing
with that loss.
And so being able to connectwith them and and share our
(54:50):
stories and talk to them andanswer questions as best we can.
Melissa Stone (54:54):
Or even just listen.
Lawrence Stone (54:55):
Yeah, or even just listen.
That's something we're willingto do.
So we're if anyone's lookingfor anything like that, we'd be
happy to come and we just wewant to help as many people as
possible.
I was telling Melissa the otherday, I would love for 500,000
people to get a hold of ourbook.
Whether that means we sell500,000 copies or we sell one
(55:15):
copy and that person shares itwith 499,999 of their closest
friends, we just wanted to getit out there.
Alisha Coakley (55:23):
That's a wonderful goal.
I love it.
And I I love Melissa, what yousuggested where we can help make
the decision process easier forthose who are grieving by
giving them options and not justasking them a random open-ended
question, but just reallynarrowing it down and being
like, I can do this.
(55:43):
Do you need me to do this onthis day or this day?
You know, um, I think that's Ithink that's fantastic.
Scott Brandley (55:49):
So yeah, I think that that's a cool I suggestion
as well.
So thank you guys for sharingyour story with us today.
Um, do you have any finalthoughts you'd like to share
before we kind of wrap thingsup?
Lawrence Stone (56:04):
One other thing we might throw out there too is
if you know someone who'sdealing with a loss, especially
child loss, and you know theanniversary of their passing or
their birthday is coming up,reach out to them and let them
know that you're thinking aboutthem and their child.
One of the biggest things thatparents worry about when they're
when they lose their child isthat those children will be
forgotten.
And so knowing that youremember them is a really big
(56:27):
deal.
Like you might not think it'sthat big a deal, you might not
think it's that significant, butto those parents, that's a big
deal.
Alisha Coakley (56:36):
Awesome.
Oh man.
Well, thank you guys so muchfor coming on here today and for
sharing your story with us andsharing just the ways that you
guys have been able to not onlyfind light, but use your pain to
create light for others.
Um, I really hope that that themission and the purpose that
(56:56):
you guys have in this book andin helping um to give others
some guidance and some someadvice, direction, that you guys
will be able to continue to getall of the resources and the
people together that you need inorder to support that cause.
So thank you guys again forthat.
Um and thank you to ourlisteners for tuning in.
Um, we highly encourage youguys to do your five-second
(57:20):
missionary work.
Click share.
Make sure that this episodegets out to others because you
just don't know who's dealingwith what or who will have to do
with deal with things that aresimilar in the future, um, where
this could be really, reallyhelpful to them.
Scott Brandley (57:34):
Yeah.
Um, and if you have a storythat you'd like to share, um,
like Lawrence and Melissa, go tolatterdaylights.com or send us
an email at latterdaylights atgmail.com and we'll get you on
and let's share your experienceand your story so we can help
inspire each other in this crazyworld that we live in.
Alisha Coakley (57:55):
Absolutely.
All right, guys.
Well, thank you again, Melissaand Lawrence, for coming on here
today.
And um, everyone who'slistening, make sure you tune in
for another episode of Latterday Latterly Latter day Lights
next week.
We'll see you guys later.
Scott Brandley (58:12):
Take care.
Bye bye.
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