The Return – Sunday, September 09, 1945
We live these days in the long-awaited expectancy of the return of those we love. Some of them have already come back. Some of them, to our deep sorrow, do not walk this way again; our reunion with them will wait another time and place. But most of them are yet to come—and concerning them and concerning ourselves, there are some things we may well remember. Generally speaking, the longer people live together the more they think alike; and the longer they are apart the less alike they think.
The thoughts of those who have shared the same experiences are quickened by the same memories. But now we have coming back to us those who have seen things we have never seen, things which they would never want us to see, things which, God being willing, neither we nor they may ever be called upon to see again. In some measure this breaks the chain of association with those we love and cherish and await. Then, too, you who now come home, it may be that in your homesick loneliness and waiting you have charitably idealized us and have forgotten some of our small faults and have magnified some of our virtues. It may be that we shall see some changes in each other.
Time and experience cumulatively leave their marks upon all of us. We shall see broadened stature, and in some of you the faces of men that were boyish when you left. Some of you come home to sons and daughters whom you have never known. Many of you have missed part of the joy of watching your own children grow up. Some of you may, to begin with, feel as strangers in your own homes— but not so much so that the same virtues and loveable qualities which have always endeared you to us and made you part of us, will quickly make us one again. You are ours, and we are yours. Our own family and folk are not something we own or disown, by changing fortune or the whims of circumstance.
They are something of which we are part, and which are part of us, everlastingly, eternally so. And so, whatever the change, whatever the adjustments, be patient—all this is the price of war. All this is the inevitable result of months and years spent widely apart, and of unnatural thinking and living—but the changes we may see in each other will be minimized as our paths run together again, as our experiences become once more common experiences. Gratefully we welcome you home. Thanks to you for what you have done.
Thanks to you for what you have given. And may God bless you and keep you until, with forbearance, with wisdom, with intelligent consideration and the patience of understanding, we shall know again together the joy of living and working and walking into the years ahead.
“The Spoken Word,” heard over Radio Station K S L and the nationwide Columbia Broadcasting System, from the Tabernacle, Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Sunday, Sept. 9, 1945. Copyright 1945.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
September 09, 1945
Broadcast Number 0,838