Ten years ago today I was married and “sealed” to Angela for time and all eternity in the Draper LDS Temple. It wasn’t until several months later that I told her that not only did I not believe in an afterlife but that the thought of continuing to exist indefinitely after death horrified me.
It did not go well.
“Wait. Did you think this way when we were married for time AND ALL ETERNITY?”
“Well, um, yeah.”
This wasn’t some new development in my life, but the revelation was certainly new for her. While I appreciated and found important meaning in the language and rituals of Mormonism, for several years at this point I had no longer subscribed to a metaphysical reality behind them or in them having any traditional efficacy. Prayer, priesthood, and ritual were not incantations and powers to manipulate the world but were ways in which I could focus my life, express my love, and commit myself to that which I felt was most important.
“So you’re saying the thought of being with me forever horrifies you?”
“No, I’m saying that living forever horrifies me, but if I have to live that hell I’d want you to be there with me.”
I don’t want to live forever. When my end has come, I want it the credits to run their end and the curtains to close without a Marvel-esque post-credit scene teasing more to come.
“....”
“Angela, the reason why I wanted to be sealed to you in the temple was because I wanted to commit myself to relationship with you that I would want to continue forever.”
Ten years later that commitment is truer than ever. While I still do not believe that the ritual performed by my grandfather and namesake in the LDS temple has any efficacy in the traditional Mormon sense, it is the most important and meaningful ritual I have ever or will ever participate in. Over the last decade, it has become more than just a commitment. In the biblical or Spice Girls notion of two-becomes-one, my life--my very identity and existence--has become inseparably intertwined with her. I no longer have a memory of not being married to Angela. The stories and images of a life before her now either feel like that of someone else or of someone simply (to pull from Mormon language) waiting in a pre-Angela existence destined and preparing to become fully realized. She, along with the two amazing children we brought into our lives together, is a part of nearly every aspect of my existence. She is a part of all that I do and all that I am, my past, present, and future.
While the ritual performed ten years ago marked the beginning of our marriage, I no longer have a sense of a beginning with Angela. And as long as I am living, I have no sense of its end. It is eternal.
It’s not always been easy, and there will be fights, love, joy, sadness, pain, and bliss ahead, I look forward to more adventures with you, Angela. I love you so much.
