Story of the Handkerchiefs

    I had joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1969 and a year later I was about to be married. I had gone to Brigham Young University where I met my husband to be, Ralph LaVar Huntzinger. We wanted to be married in the Manti Temple in San Pete County, Utah. My parents Ethelee Mae Knapp Hightower and my dad, Robert Fiske Hightower were not members of this church.
     I had struggled with the fact that my parents were not going to be able to come to the temple with us and that brought me great sadness. I really felt that was the way the Lord would have us be married. LaVar being very patient with me had always determined that he would be married in the temple. We had chosen the Manti temple together. Two weeks before we were to be married on June 19th, LaVar went home to California with his parents and I went none to Colorado with mine. One day my mom had been thinking and she said something like, "only Mormons can go through the temple, but they have to let non-Mormons in to see their children get married right?" I said, "No." "What?" She said emphatically. "No, they don't", I said more tenderly. There it was, I had been assuming that she knew and now I understood that she didn't. Oh, the profound regret that something else couldn't be worked out, but I couldn't figure out how to please my God without disappointing my precious mother, and vise-versa. She said something that showed her profound disappointment and went into her room and shut the door. She was in there what seemed to me a long time. I prayed for whatever the Lord would bless us with. I cried and cried, just so sad. Presently, she came out of her room very resolved and calm. She sat down with me and explained her plan. She laid out 2 identical handkerchiefs. They had come from her nightstand; they smelled like anything that came from that place that we were strictly forbidden to wander. Even as a child, that was somewhere I never did go adventuring. It was her private space and we always respected that. Her plan was that she would carry one handkerchief with her the day we were married and think of me and I would carry the other one on that day and think of her. She seemed very satisfied with this idea. I ventured an explanation to our choice and she stopped me and said very tenderly, that I had chosen what I thought was best and I should stick with it. She said it more eloquently but I have now forgotten just how. She also said that this was one of the most important days of my life and she wanted nothing to mar it in anyway.
  In the sealing room of the temple there was an empty chair, I looked at it many times and imagined her there. I didn't need the handkerchief to remind me of her of course but it did help to have something tangible. When Cecile Huntzinger, my mother-in-law brought the headpiece and veil, she had made for me, to the open house in Greeley, Colorado, my mother helped me put it on and began to cry. She quickly composed herself to go and have pictures taken.
   This story may have many lessons, but some that stood out to me at the time and does as I repeat it and means the most to me, is that the Lord will help us as we try and do the right thing. We can't always do the right thing and not hurt someone else. The love we feel for others can overcome our personal hurts. Because I was able to be married in the temple with my mother's blessing, the whole experience was sweet and tender, where as without her blessing I might have resented her, but because of her unselfish attitude I was free to wish she was there and feel great love for my wonderful, precious mother.