(a personal five minute story)
On Sunday, June 22, 2003, our nephew Andrew York was lost in the Colorado River near Moab. We were deeply saddened and wanted to help. Some family members went immediately while others gathered in Provo and prayed. By evening there was no good news, Andrew was presumed to have drowned.
We searched and found the Yorks’ bishop and made sure he knew what had happened. On Monday we learned that Bishop Larsen and the entire stake presidency had gone to Moab early that morning to comfort and bless the family and parents, Devin and Nannette. I was impressed by the bishop and stake presidency’s love. I asked myself if I would have demonstrated such compassion as a bishop.
Many people came during the week. Technical rescue efforts continued with divers and boats. At home we prayed together each day for the family and those searching. Prayer did not remove my desire to act. Being an engineer and scientist, I began thinking about technologies to locate Andrew’s body. What if the accident could be re-created with an object having the size and weight of a child? A dozen releases might show statistically where the current was most likely to carry a body and help focus the divers’ search. Though uncertain, I was anxious to do something that might be helpful. Thinking through the problem was one way I could act. We left Friday morning and reached the motel around noon. Joan’s sister Anne told us that most of the family had just left for home. She showed us the way to the search headquarters at the Moab bridge. We signed in, then went upstream where we might be useful.
The experts told us that a body would typically surface in five or six days. We watched. We waited. We hoped. We prayed. Later that evening we returned to the motel for a break. The volunteer coordinator from the Yorks’ home ward had asked family and ward members to meet at eight o’clock for a family prayer at the point of entry, where Andrew fell into the river. Because the other brethren of the family had gone home, I had been asked to represent the family and offer a prayer and priesthood blessing upon the search effort. When we arrived at the motel, Devin’s father, Grandpa York, had just checked in. I told him of the gathering planned at the river and suggested that it would be more appropriate for him, as the patriarch of the family, to offer that prayer and blessing. He said it would be hard, but he would do it.
At eight o’clock, about a dozen humble and loving people gathered amidst the many footprints beside the river. We knelt together on the water-soaked ground. The sound of the river, which echoed from the towering canyon walls, surrounded us. Then Andrew’s grandfather prayed.
Brother York spoke to Heavenly Father with the humility and power of a loving, righteous father, grandfather, and patriarch. He spoke of the recent passing of his wife and of his love for her and for his family. He asked for comfort for Andrew’s parents and for all who would be touched by this temporary loss. He testified of Andrew’s continuing life in the spirit world and of the reality of our relationship with God. He asked for divine help for those engaged in the search. Then, by the power of the priesthood, he blessed the river that the body of Andrew York would come forth and be recovered.
As I listened, I felt patriarchal and priesthood power called down from heaven to bestow an act of mercy upon children whom God loves, living and dead. I had spent the week trying to explain what the river might do. Brother York did not explain the river; he appealed to God. I know what I believed then and what I believe now. I believe in God, in prophets and revelation, and in priesthood authority. As Brother York’s tears blended with the wet sand, I felt the love of a grieving grandfather and the love of ancestors blending for a lost child. I saw a man who knew that his family was intended to be forever. Andrew was not lost. He had stepped ahead, through a door into eternity.
The group parted. We felt confident that Saturday would be the day. While we ate, my son-in-law Brent and I devised a simple test that might help us understand the water near the point of entry. The next morning we bought a plastic jug, fishing line, and a fishing float. We reached the point of entry at about nine-thirty. We filled the jug with dirt and water until it was negatively buoyant, then tied it to the float with thirty feet of line and released it. The path surprised me. The jug moved slowly down the bank, dropping from one underwater step to another into deeper water. Then it traveled upstream ten or twenty feet, contrary to the direction of the surface current. It moved outward, circled, and stopped. A few minutes later the float disappeared. We assumed the jug had dropped into water deeper than the thirty-foot line. We repeated the experiment. It followed a similar path. Two trials were far from the dozen instrumented releases I had imagined, but they showed me how little the visible surface revealed about the river below.
Then word came that Andrew’s body had been found downstream and that the recovery effort had been called off. The body had been recovered at approximately ten o’clock that morning. With mixed emotions we helped notify family members and friends, then left the Moab area.
For me, engineering was a way to put work alongside my faith. I wrote then that the place beside the river would forever be sacred to me. Looking back, I understand better what I meant. Engineering gave me a way to think, to act, and to offer what I could. Prayer opened my heart to feel what I could not design or measure. The riverbank was sacred because that was where Andrew entered the river and was last seen. It was sacred because hearts were broken there. It was sacred because Andrew’s father had jumped into that dangerous river without hesitation, an act of sacrifice, trying to save his son. It was sacred because of the tears that moistened the sand, and because family (on both sides of the veil) knelt together on that same wet ground and pleaded with God. It was sacred because the surrounding sheer red-rock canyon walls echoed the sounds of the river and figuratively echoed the endless impressions of eternity.
It was sacred to me because I believe in the redeeming power of Jesus Christ—including the redemption of families. Andrew had not ceased to exist. A loving Father in Heaven had not abandoned those that knelt beside that river. I went to Moab wanting to do something. I returned grateful for everything I had felt and had witnessed others do.
The riverbank was sacred because a humble patriarch raised his hands to heaven, and the hand of God was felt.
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