Page 84 of Loving the Sinner
“Hm? Yeah. Just processing.” I say, shutting off the engine and stepping out of the car to grab our bags.
“Want to process with me?” He asks, studying my face.
“Yeah,” I look around and see a crowd of people, “but let’s get into the room first.”
Wes nods, then grabs his duffle bag and slings it over his shoulder. He takes my rolling case in the other hand and I put my backpack on, and he grabs my hand and we walk to the elevators inside and ride the three floors up to our room.
We settle our stuff on chairs, and then Wes sits on the bed and pats the spot next to him.
I settle down next to him and he pulls my feet onto his lap and, despite my protests that my feet are gross, takes off my shoes and socks and starts massaging my feet.
“Alright baby. Let’s process. Tell me what’s on your mind?” He asks.
“So, you know how we drove down Center Street and I pointed out the temple?”
He nods.
“When I saw it, I felt a little guilty, and I realized I haven’t felt guilty since moving to San Marcos, really.”
“Guilty about what?”
“Well, temples are like,superimportant in Mormon theology. When you’re twelve, you can get a temple recommend and go do baptisms for the dead.” Wes looks confused, so I explain, “It’s when you find people who have already died and haven’t been baptized and then you act as a proxy for them so they can be baptized and their soul is saved or whatever.” He nods his head, but I know it’s still confusing because even though I grew up doing it, I still don’t fully understand everything that goes into it.
“Anyway,” I continue, “when I decided to leave the church, I realized there are some things that I’ll never be able to do. Like getting endowed to wear garments, or be sealed to my future spouse.”
“What do those things mean?”
Whatdothey mean?
They mean different things for different people. An active member will feel differently about them than I do.
The temple ceremonies are kept secret “because they’re sacred” or at least, that’s what they want you to believe. So because I’ve never been in an endowment or sealing, I have no clue what they entail. I only know what goes into baptisms for the dead because I actually participated in those.
“All I know is an endowment means you make special promises, get a specific blessing, and then you wear garments for the rest of your life, because the garments have special symbols on them that represent the promises you make. People usually only get endowed to go on missions or because they’re getting married. Occasionally, someone will be endowed because they’re older and just want to be, but that’s kind of rare, I think. A sealing is usually a wedding. Itsealstwo people, or a family together so when someone dies, they’re still together after death. Instead of standing in front of people with a priest, you go to the temple to a special room and do the same things as a wedding, I guess? I don’t know. I’ve never been to one of those either because you have to be endowed to be able to go. In some cases, if a family adopts a child or their family converts later in life, they’ll be sealed when the kids are older.
“If I had married Packer or Brigham, we would have been sealed together on our wedding day, and then any kids we had would have been ‘born in the covenant’ so we wouldn’t have had to be sealed to them because they were born already sealed to us. Does that make sense?”
Wes looks at me like I’m speaking a totally different language, but nods slowly. “Kind of, I guess. So, when we get married, we won’t be together after we die?”
My heart flutters when he sayswhenwe get married. Notif.We haven’t discussed that far into the future, and I don’t want to dwell on that right now, so I put a mental pin in that topic of conversation.
“That’s why usual vows say ‘as long as you both shall live’ or ‘till death do you part.’ The verbiage in Mormonism says ‘for eternity’ and that’s what makes them different from anyone else. They promise you’ll be with your family forever, and who wouldn’t want that?”
It’s one of the things that kept me in longer than I would have been. When I thought I wanted kids and a husband, I wanted to be worthy of them for eternity, so I did what I was supposed to.
“Thinking about it now, it’s a really good manipulation tactic. That’s one thing my family will say aboutme. I won’t be with my hypothetical kids for eternity. I’m ruining my parent’s ‘eternal family.’”
“That’s so fucked up. I’m sorry you had to go through that.” He pauses, searching my face for something, though I’m not sure what. “Is that… something you still want? To be sealed to someone for eternity?”
I think about it for a second before I answer.
“I honestly don’t know what happens when we die,” I say carefully, “but I like to think that a true, pure love doesn’t end in death. That somehow our spirits will be connected forever.”
Wes puts his forehead on mine and stares so intensely into my eyes, I think he can see directly into my soul.
“Our lovewilllast forever, Elli. Somehow, out of eight point one billion people, we found each other. Somehow, your heart led you to my little corner of Texas and we ended up on the most awkward first blind date on earth. Our hearts have been intertwined since the minute I saw you walk out of your apartment. And even when our hearts stop beating, they’ll still be intertwined.”
My eyes fill with tears at his vow, and I believe him with my entire being. If he asked me to marry him right now, I would in a heartbeat because he’s right. Our hearts, our souls, they’re intertwined. He’s embedded himself so deeply into my very being that I don’t think I’d be able to get him out.
