A Childhood Memory

When I was young I had a pet hamster I named Huey after the character in the Calvin and Hobbes comics. Huey was a great friend. He would perch on my shoulder while I walked around the house, sit in my pocket with his head out the top, or play around in the stuffed animals on my bed while I laid there. He ran miniature gauntlets, including makeshift slides, and never failed to squeeze into the smallest spaces.

One day when I went to his cage I noticed the top was open and Huey was gone. This had happened a few times before, undoubtedly as a byproduct of his extensive training regimen. I had usually found him very quickly in my bedroom hiding in a corner somewhere, but on this occasion he was nowhere to be found. It didn't take long before my whole family was in on the search for Huey. We turned over the entire house, looking under furniture, in corners, even in the air return vents for the furnace. Over an hour of searching and still no luck. It appeared that Huey was lost forever; a twelve year old boy's friend was gone.

In the frantic search, and among all my anxiety, I am embarrassed to say that I had not once thought of prayer. It was my mother who did. It was she who gathered the family at the top of our stairs, right outside my bedroom door where we all knelt and prayed. I don't remember the words of the prayer or even who said them, but I do remember that we prayed.

We all went back to searching. I went downstairs to continue where I was searching before. Not five minutes later I heard a commotion from upstairs. After the prayer, my father had stayed near my room and had the thought to remove the bottom drawer from my dresser. There behind the dresser, which was pushed up against the wall sat Huey, with his little eyes glowing back at us in the dark, munching on a kernel of corn. I couldn't have been more happy or relieved.

This experienced touched me enough that while sitting in sacrament meeting on fast Sunday, I felt that I should share my testimony. I built up the courage to stand up, and began to speak. Immediately the tears began to flow and my small frame began to tremble. I doubt that the congregation understood even one word from the blubbering youth that stood before them, but I bore my testimony, felt the spirit and an extra measure of gratitude toward my Heavenly Father, and sat down.

Now, I am sure there were better moments to have remembered where the Lord blessed my life, but this is one of the most prominent in my memory from childhood. Had my mother not thought to pray, had my father not listened to the spirit, had I not had that experience and the desire to share it, I would not have felt the tender love of my Father in Heaven nor grown in my testimony of his hand in my life.

Too often people look for the big experiences in life that guide them toward what they should do and who they should be. We overlook the small consistencies of life's choices that add up to great futures. The consistency of a mother's thought to pray, the worthiness of a father who listens to the spirit. The sisters who drop what they are doing to help their distraught brother; these are the truly great acts in life that should not be overlooked, nor forgotten.

A few years later when Huey died, I cried quite a bit. My neighbor who was a carpenter created a tiny wooden casket for Huey and carved his name prominently into the top. The sides were fastened with pieces of a metal coat hanger wrapped around screws to make handles. My family stood around as a tear-stricken boy buried his little buddy deep in the dirt of an unfinished backyard landscaping project. When my parents installed a rock wall a few years later, they made sure not to disturb Huey's burial spot. It is a scene I can look back on now with fondness and laughter as I am sure it would look silly to any other person, but it is what I needed at the time and exemplifies what having a family means to me.