Bridger Pennington shares how his brother's chronic headaches prevented him from serving an LDS mission, leading to his suicide three days before Bridger's 16th birthday. Bridger describes a spiritual experience that affirmed his faith in being reunited with loved ones and the doctrine that families are forever.
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Leading up to my mission, though, what really got me going—I had some a few trials during high school. My middle brother was sophomore class president, junior class president, student body president at Alta High School, and he was the most popular kid I've ever met in my life. Like unreal, and popular in sense of like just kids loved him. Like doesn't the band kids, the choir kids, the football kids, the cheerleading like anybody? Like this kid, my brother had so many friends; was unreal. He goes on, so post high school, I just looked up to him like crazy. Yeah, I was like, I'm gonna be like that. You know all this stuff. He goes to college, SUU Presidential Ambassador Scholarship. Calls one night, he has a chronic headache that won't go away. This is 4 days in. My dad drives down, takes him to the hospital. They put an IV in him, give him some drugs. Doesn't quite go away, but it helps. To make a long story short, my brother had one constant headache for about 4 years. Never left. So we did family fasting and juice cleanses and just— we tried it. We went to 22 doctors across the country. Every type of doctor we could think of, we tried. And you were how old at this point? This is me. I'm 12 years old. 12, 13. Okay. So I'm in middle school, my brother and I'm, you know, the youngest. And so it's hard. My brother now moves back home. He can't go on a mission. He wanted to go on a mission. Wow. My brother, I mean, he was a very spiritual kid, um, was dying to go on a mission, put his papers in I think 2 or 3 times and had to pull his papers out because it just wasn't gonna happen. He couldn't hold a job. After 4 years, all of his friends went on missions, came home, were getting married, and he's just stuck at home. And he's a very ambitious kid. Yeah. Um, anyways, he ended up taking his own life. So that was 3 days before my 16th birthday. So my brother takes his own life. You know, the funeral. I remember having— I had actually a lot of spiritual experiences growing up. I had already received my patriarchal blessing, which was a huge spiritual experience for me. I'd already prayed. You know, I just, I think I had good leaders or parents around me that invited me to pray about the Book of Mormon, pray about Joseph Smith, pray about the current prophet. Like, I prayed about certain things and like felt like I had received at least pieces or full answers when I was 12, 13, 14, at an early age. So I had a decent testimony, I would say. I remember my brother died and I, I remember thinking, is this all true? Is families are forever? Yeah. The real thing, you know, the old saying. And I remember there was, I think the night after my brother took his own life, I remember kneeling at my bed and praying and asking God, is this whole thing real? And I remember a It felt like a pillar of light came out of heaven. I didn't see anything or hear anything, but it was like a glowing feeling all over my body that just took, took over. And not everyone gets that. Yeah. But I had this moment like a day after my brother died, like, you're going to see your brother again. This is true. Like, don't worry, families are forever.
