As a TBM, I always imagined my daughter's special day -- her wedding day -- to be a spiritual and happy event, a celebration. I remember sitting in the temple where I envisioned the day I would be my daughter's escort just prior to her temple wedding.
That's what I always planned for her. It's what I taught her. Then, how can I complain about the path she has chosen? I taught her that anything short of a temple wedding was second best. She believed me.
She told me yesterday she is unofficially engaged. They will be married in the temple, sometime this fall. My father will perform the sealing and all of my TBM siblings will be there. Of course, I won't be there. The Mormon god has declared me "unworthy."
She told me that she has "issues" with "the church" but, regardless of its troubling history and doctrines, she can't let go of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. It's "such a beautiful doctrine." Didn't I once say the same thing ...?
I don't have any right to complain about the choice my daughter has made. I will be supportive and loving and will not do or say anything to ruin her special day. I'll let "the church" do that.
But in the meantime, while I've adopted a somewhat philosophical attitude toward the institution of marriage, and an even more cynical view of Mormon weddings, I can't help but contemplate how different my daughter's special day will be from how I envisioned it for her. And for me.
I won't be her escort for her first time through the weirdness of washing, annointing, and the endowment when she covenants everything she has or may ever have "to the building up of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and for the establishment of the Kingdom of Zion ..."
Thank gawd. I think I'd throw up watching my beautiful daughter covenant to give up her life to the least deserving organization imaginable.
I won't be there when she puts on her white dress.
I won't hear the words of counsel my father will give to her and to her new husband.
My father and mother will be there. My back-stabbing sister will be there. My BIL who secretly looks at porn will be there. My brother who is already fighting over "his portion" of my parents' estate will be there. My Prozac-taking brother and his closet-lesbian wife will be there. My daughter's future FIL, who secretly (he thinks) chews tobacco, will be there.
While all those "worthy" people are sharing in my daughter's special moment, I will be unworthily waiting somewhere in a coffee shop until they're ready to take pictures. The price of my integrity may be steep, but it is worth it. F*** those two-faced NOMs.
If you combined all of my parents' and siblings' love and sacrifice for my daughter, it would be a tiny drop to my ocean.
What a f***ed up silly god.
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