MY TESTIMONY OF PLURAL MARRIAGE

 This was my response to a good question on FB about the viability of plural marriage vs standard marriage; and this testimony does not make me a plural marriagist:

My mother hated the whole concept of plural marriage and told all 8 children that we were not allowed to let our father re-marry if she went first.

I had told my wife for a decade we were married that I thought I would go early - to be exact, in my 33rd year.  In that year, our baby was taken by SIDS at just under 9 months.  After the funeral, I told my mother she had about six months before it was her turn to go, even though she was perfectly healthy.  Five months, three weeks later, she was gone from DVT and sitting in a car all day.

The night our kid passed from SIDS, I had a dream wherein he said goodbye and that we must not blame ourselves; it was his time to go.  By a miracle, we recorded the whole thing on tape.  There were three distinct parts to the dream, and the second involved Christmas traditions and then a sign from the other side meant to provide comfort specifically to his mother, my grieving and now pregnant wife.

As we wrapped up our Christmas meal 8 months and 20 days after his short life of 8 months and 20 days ended, I sat down on the couch with the phone to try and call a sibling or my dad who had a lonely day without his wife just one month after her funeral.

The phone rang before I could dial anyone; it was my father.  He was emotional and could hardly speak, but proceeded to tell me that I would not believe what had happened the night before.  I told him I was all ears.

He said my son and my mother had appeared to him at the foot of his bed as the room slowly went from pitch black to bright light.  He had been just laying there thinking when it happened.  I had seen him two weeks before and he had hardly eaten since the funeral and looked terrible.  I had taken  him to Dairy Queen and bought him a whole tray of food and we sat there for hours and talked until he had eaten it all.

Christmas Day, he was animated again and the depression was gone.  My profound depression was about to leave.  The year before, our baby boy had played the baby Jesus in the Ward Christmas play while his mom and dad played Mary and Joseph.  It was a magical year - and the current one sucked to high heaven.  Other than my wife and two oldest kids, all the people that really mattered to me were gone and I was only getting out of bed to do my duty to provide for our truncated family.  I felt like a zombie for months; all mechanical.  Just emotionally numb from head to toe.

I asked my dad what my mother and son looked like and  he said they both were in their prime adult stature (appeared to be about 25) standing about 18” off the ground.  Of course I asked him if my son said anything and he said no that he just stood behind Mother smiling, but that Mother was sent to correct her previous stance and then to give Dad counsel on how to spend his remaining years productively. 

Specifically, she said “I was wrong (about not allowing him to remarry).  It is different over here.”  If his future included the chance for love, he was to take advantage of it.

He did find love later and is sealed to two women.  Her first husband is a real louse, apparently.  Mydad is a good man and now, is a linear polygamist with an interesting situation to deal with on the other side.

The only reason I typed this out is because I do not want sacred things trifled with due to lack of understanding.  Is the whole polygamy thing abused by evil or misguided men?  Yes it sure can be and has been.

Is it a way to exalt a man and a woman who can actually pull it off in an affirming and positive manner, when most cannot make a far less messy and complicated singular marriage work?  Absolutely!  You now have my sacred witness.  Please be charitable with it, for your salvation may be at stake after all is said and done.  They (those who were commanded to practice polygamy) are not on trial; we are.  Trifle not with sacred things.