baptisms for the dead, part 1

Another story from Growing up Mormon:

I was twelve years old, finally in young women’s and finally old enough to go to the Provo temple to do baptisms for the dead. I was almost giddy about the prospect of actually going inside the temple. I’d been looking forward to this for years. That primary song told me to look forward to it, after all.

I love to see the temple
I’m going there someday
To cov’nant with my father
To listen and to pray

For the temple is the house of God
A place of love and beauty.
I’ll prepare myself while I am young
It is my sacred duty.

I had no idea what it was like inside. I’d only seen the outside, the off white, roundish building with the orange-gold spire. Frankly, I thought this temple was a bit funny looking. Ugly, even, if I could call a temple ugly. I suspected I shouldn’t. My parents had been married in this temple, and I always wondered why they chose that one. It was the closest, I guess. But still, this was the temple I grew up seeing on the hill, lit up at night. And really, it didn’t matter what was on the outside. I was curious about the inside.

My parents kept mum about the whole thing. I saw them go off early in the morning, and come back before my school day began, with their little tote bags. I knew there were “temple clothes” inside those bags, but I never, ever saw them. They were sacred, my mom told me once when I asked. I wasn’t to see them.

Despite their secrecy, I knew a little about what went on inside the temples. There were baptisms for the dead, of course, in the basement, and something called endowments, and marriage sealings. Mom had said something about a cafeteria once, and a chapel. It seemed incongruent to have something so worldly as a cafeteria in a house of God, but then, I guess people gotta eat.

Now I was old enough to be let into the basement to do baptisms for the dead, and that felt special. It wasn’t the whole shebang, but it was something.

When my dad told me I’d have to get a special temple recommend, a “one time use” one, my excitement was dampened by nervousness about the interview. What kind of questions would the bishop’s councilor ask? Was I worthy? What would Heavenly Father see in my heart? I started feeling guilty.

For what? What should I be feeling guilty for? I searched my conscious, my memory. I lied that time when I was three, but that was erased when I was baptized anyway. Right, so I only have to think about what happened since I turned eight. Third grade. Okay, think. A couple lies. Never stole anything from the grocery store. Wasn’t always perfect to my siblings. Never cheated on a test at school. Um...Okay, I think I’m okay. But I still felt mildly guilty, and scared.

dreams

I've had a couple Mormon dreams lately.

In one, I was at the veil in the temple. Except there was no veil, the man representing god was just standing there. And he was a little creepy. I was trying to go through all the signs and tokens and names and kept screwing them up. Not on purpose, just because I couldn't remember them well. It didn't worry me, though. And in my dream, I didn't remember that I am actually apostate and should've just been messing with everybody for some laughs. Hey, it was a dream.

In another, I was lying in bed, sick. Some priesthood-holding man came into the room and started to put him hands on my head to give me a blessing. I most definitely did not want a blessing and I protested, asking "What are you doing?" in an appalled voice. He tried again to put his hands on me, and for some reason this was just the absolute worst thing that could possible happen (you know how dreams are). Short of physically moving out of the way, which I couldn't do because of my illness, I tried to think of the ways to get him to leave me the hell alone. I thought swearing might scare him off, so I started swearing up a storm, but it didn't seem to bother him. That's all I remember.

Why can't I just have dreams where I'm flying?

seeing grandpa again

My grandpa died a few years ago, when I was still a devout, believing Mormon. He'd had a rough life, what with being a Mormon alcoholic. Sometimes, I didn't see him for years at a time. There were even times I didn't know if he was still alive. But he'd always show up again, bringing gifts. I loved him; everyone loved him. We all just wished he'd stop drinking. Sometimes now I wonder how much of an alcoholic he really was. I could see my mom defining "alcoholic" as someone who got drunk sometimes. But thinking back, realizing he couldn't keep a job, got DUIs in the middle of the day, and called from jail now and then, I believe he really had a problem.

I now wonder how badly his problem was exacerbated by Mormonism. Not that Mormonism worsened his alcoholism, but that it made the guilt horrendous, and it strained his relations with his devout children even more. They saw his alcoholism not only as a physical challenge, but a spiritual one, too. For him, I imagine, managing to drink only one was an accomplishment. To my family, it was a failure. He could never please them.

The last few years of his life he settled in a town not too far away, so we got to see him more often. To everyone's happy astonishment, he "cleaned up" long enough to get a temple recommend again and visit the temple. Within months, he had died, alone in his bed.

I had seen him two months before he died, but his death was traumatic for me. He was my first grandparent to die, and he was my favorite, too. It took at least a couple days before the landlord realized he was dead, and a few more days before the death was not ruled a suicide. The autopsy showed he died slowly, in pain. It was not an open casket funeral, so I felt cheated of that last visit. As weird and disturbing as viewings can be, I believe they help with mourning.

I wanted so bad to see him again. I'd heard of a relative who reports she sees the spirits of the deceased at their funerals, every time. Everyone talked about it as her spiritual gift. At the funeral, I hoped that might work for me. I had faith that I could. I let myself think that maybe that thing I saw out of the corner of my eye was him, contacting us from the spiritual world. But really, I knew it was just the light, streaming in through the stained glass. I saw nothing, and was disappointed in my own lack of faith.

Soon after, I went to the temple. Surely, I thought, I could see him there. I mustered up all my faith, telling myself I knew I could see him. In the chapel, in the endowment room, in the celestial room, I thought about him, willing the heavens to open up and let me catch just a glimpse. Of course, I saw nothing. I lost him all over again.

weird

A friend of mine told me he didn't find Mormonism that weird. Even polygamy doesn't seem that weird, since exists in most of the world and in the Old Testament.

Then I told him about the secret handshakes and the temple robes.

He was speechless.

"If you think Mormonism isn't weird," I told him, "it's just because you haven't heard enough of it yet."