After we ate, the temple patron coordinator came over to let us know that they had reserved seats for us in the 3 p.m. endowment session, with our sealing ceremony to follow immediately afterward. As it turns out, waiting would be a theme carried over from our wedding day to our sealing day.
With time to kill, we browsed and loitered in the temple distribution centre (where I was pleasantly surprised to find a photo of a former roommate from my freshman year at BYU modeling one of the temple dresses), had some lunch and sat around on wooden benches outside the temple housing cafeteria. Steve even took a little nap.
Before the session, we met with an official who asked us a series of questions about our wedding and our relationship. He told us that they had been unable to reach Elder Hamilton, the area seventy who was supposed to officiate our sealing (his travel back from the States had been delayed) and that the only sealer available that day did not speak French. As a result, much like my parents at our wedding in Cameroon, Steve's parents would largely be unable to understand this ceremony. Fortunately, having been sealed themselves in that very temple just a few years before, they have a pretty deep understanding of the significance and substance of the ordinance. Steve, though, would have to follow along with a translation printed on a laminated piece of paper.
He and I both had heavy eyelids during the endowment session, which seemed to drag on a little more than usual because we were both so eager for what would happen afterward (settle down pervert, I'm talking about the sealing ceremony, but now that you mention it... JK JK!)
I entered the celestial room before Steve did and set myself down on a little settee facing a giant arrangement of beautiful, brilliant faux flowers. For those who don't know, the celestial room is a very sacred place within the temple, an elegant, peaceful and quiet room in which members can pray, meditate and discuss the gospel (in soft whispers, of course). Even on a so-so day, the celestial room offers a blissful calm and a comfort that I have only otherwise found on loooooong treks into nature. On that day, though, I felt a lightness and a euphoria I imagine could not be duplicated by the most potent of narcotics.
Steve came and joined me on the little couch and we sat gripping hands and staring into each others' eyes, grinning broadly, much as we had on the town hall bench on our wedding day. Joy issued from every pore, coating us in peace and happiness and quiet assurance of all the beauty our life together would hold. Contrary to the let's-get-the-show-on-the-road feeling I'd had on our wedding day, there in the celestial room, I wanted to sit exactly like that, feeling the reverence and love and righteous anticipation course between me and my husband for hours, for days, forever.
All too soon, an official came to get us and led us to the sealing room. A simple, unadorned altar with a padded top sat at the centre of the room, with padding around the base for us to kneel on, across from each other. A single row of chairs sat around the outside of the room, but just a few were occupied: the sealer, Steve's parents, another witness.
A memory flashed in my mind of being in the sealing room during the wedding of two very close friends a few years before. I'd looked around, noting that none of the groom's family were able to attend (entering the temple is restricted to members of the church who have faithfully prepared and live according to gospel standards, like not consuming alcohol). Given the nature of a sealing and the compelling reminder it evokes of the sacred importance of family, this is a heartbreaking reality for many church members on their wedding days. As the only member in my family, I had been overcome by a powerful ache and cried genuine tears of grief, knowing that on the day I was eventually sealed (if it ever came), I would not have my family in attendance either. I had done my best to prepare myself for that seemingly inevitable outcome as Steve and I planned our wedding and sealing in Calgary, trying to juggle the unavoidable hurt feelings that would engender among even the most understanding of excluded family members.
As my thoughts came back around to the present, I was glad to discover that I did not feel any of the pain and grief I had once anticipated. I suddenly realized, with a wave of incredible gratitude to my Father in Heaven that I was able to feel this way because of all the trials leading up to and during our wedding. Not being able to get married in Calgary necessitated a civil marriage in Cameroon, allowing my parents to be part of every activity on our actual wedding day. There were no sore feelings about not being able to be involved in any aspect of our wedding.
Of course, it also meant that I couldn't share the day with the rest of my family and friends, but because I felt the anger and sadness of not being able to share that moment with them on my the day of our civil ceremony, I had made it all the way to the acceptance stage before we got to Johannesburg. I wasn't carrying the emotional baggage of the active grieving process, and because of that, my experience of our sealing would not be diluted by sadness or stress or anxiety or the heavy sense of absence.
Though it would have undoubtedly been all the more incredible to have everyone I love in that sealing room with us, I felt nothing but pure joy and promise. I was able to genuinely appreciate the intimacy of the moment, focusing entirely on the eternal significance of that simple, sacred ordinance, and the incredible man I am beyond lucky to have as a permanent partner and constant companion.
As we kneeled across the altar and took each other by the hands, and I saw tears welling in Steve's eyes, a mirror of my own. We made holy covenants to each other and to God, and I saw pure, divine potential; my entire future; the realization of every hope and dream reflected in my husband's gaze. The officiator declared us sealed for time and all eternity and we kissed across the altar, the combination affecting a sort of miracle salve to justify and absolve every moment of the bitter, painful years of waiting and hoping and praying and stumbling and losing faith and finding my way back again.
The sealer led us to one side of the room and we stood, side by side, staring into the infinity mirrors, the symbolic representation of the eternal nature of our union. My smile broadened almost painfully as I thought about the peculiar fascination I'd had with three-way folding mirrors as a kid. I remember spending what was probably an inordinate amount of time peering into the never-ending repetition of my own face in the bathrooms of almost every home we ever lived in. I never consciously considered the representation of eternity, but maybe there was some stirring of recognition in my spirit that kept me going back to stare into that small infinity again and again.
I looked into the mirrors, saw the infinite replication of my husband's face and myself peripherally at his side, and thought that it might be the most magnificent thing I'd ever seen. I felt for the first time I could grasp even a shred of understanding of the immensity and sanctity and benediction of eternity. I was enveloped with profound, absolute conviction and gratitude, and confidence in the divine promise of the life and family we would build together.
What a beautiful, unspeakable blessing born of so much simple adversity!
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