Reflecting on Momronhood

When my parents joined the Mormon church they were so excited about the church they rushed to my grandparent’s house and asked them if they would take the lessons to learn how to become good little Mormons. My grandmother protested. “Don’t ever ask us again.” She would shout. “I want nothing to do with that religion, it’s the devils work.” My grandmother was already afraid of God and she did not want to be introduced to a religion that believed in a much more demanding God, especially a God from a different planet. My mother continued to ask her mother to please consider it, but my grandmother protested and asked my mother to respect her wishes. Funny, my mother never did respect her wishes. When my grandparents died, my mother rushed to the church and had them baptized as a Mormons-against their dying wishes.

Mormons took the records of dead people and then would baptize the dead and put them on the church roster. They do this often against a dead persons will. Well I can tell ya my grandparents had no desire to be Mormons, but their own daughter did it anyhow. Mormons I suspect like to yell, “Look how many Mormons we have.” Only problem was, many of them were already dead when they were declared Mormon.

I thought it was wrong. How could you take a dead person and then baptize them? The Mormons baptized the Jews who died in the concentration camps and then baptized Hitler to boot. I call this adding a little salt to the Jewish wound. I would ask my fellow Mormons if they could legally do that. They told me it was Gods Law and that when the end of the world came, only Mormons would survive. They explained that those who died, would rise from the grave and walk, therefore, they had to baptize everyone to be Mormons, even the dead. If Mormons did not track down and baptize the dead, then they would suffer the consequences along with the dead person. That was a spooky thought for me, thinking that my grandmother would rise from her grave, skin falling off of her and walk around. She’d probably go right up to my mother and smack her for baptizing her in the first damned place!

I knew that I did not want to be a Mormon. I was only nine and knew what I did and did not want. I felt doomed having to live a life waiting for the second coming of Christ and then have to hang out in some cemetery so I could walk with the rest of the dead Mormons. I would have dreams that involved dead people chasing after us, just like Night of the Living Dead, only it was Night of The Living Mormons.

Please someone wake me up! I would tell my mother that I was having bad dreams that dead Mormons were stalking us and that it made me feel crazy in my head. She refused to listen. “You’re too young to know what God wants from you, and you’re too young to know what crazy is.” I never felt I was too young to know what crazy was, after all, I was raised by a crazy family. I knew exactly what crazy was.

Because the Mormons thought they were the only true church and had to be exclusive. The all night poker parties my parents used to have were replaced by canning and baking bread. Most of the friends we had were being exchanged for Mormons. Nearly everything we did as children was being traded in for activities that the Mormons provided. I would begin to miss my old friends, and my old life. The brain washing had begun.

Three months after my parents started going to church and taking the Mormon lessons, we were baptized. I did not want to be baptized, but my parents not only demanded it, they used guilt. Each time I said I don’t want to be baptized, a herd of Mormons would appear at the door telling me that my parents and God had a plan for me, and if I was to make it to heaven, and see my parents, I would need to be baptized or pay the consequences in the after life. “You can be baptized now, or baptized when you’re dead,” I rushed into the bathroom at the church, put on the silly grown, plugged my nose and was submerged in a fountain that looked like a large bathtub. I was a Mormon and was baptized by guilt.

Now speaking of being dunked....my parents forced me to go to the Mormon temple and be baptized for the dead when I was fifteen. For weeks, I would have nightmares about this event. I told my parents that the temple gave me the creeps and that I did not feel right being baptized for dead people against their will. I told them that since I was nine years old that whole baptizing dead people scared the crap out of me and I would rather not do it.

My mother would run to the Bishop and scream,” What do I do wrong, how did I fail as a mother?” The Bishop would remind me that I was a big disappointment to my family. I still refused to go. Finally, my mother would get one of her many illnesses and tell me, “It’s your fault I am sick, if you would only go get baptized for the dead.” I would argue stating, “No it’s not my fault you are sick because you’re not sick. You never are sick, you just make it up. You’re a @%$&*%@ hypochondriac just like your mother!”

That got me a month restriction and a trip to the temple as my punishment. They packed us like sardines on a big Greyhound bus and shipped a large group of teens to the Temple. I walked in the temple and a chill ran down my spine. I thought at first I could run away and escape, but the temple was filled with all these people dressed in weird costumes and I felt paralyzed in fear. I thought if there really were aliens out there like from Kolob or something and they would swoop down and save me. But the aliens never showed up, and none of my hero’s appeared in my daydreams either. There was no turning back and I was forced to participate in this ritual.

After I was dunked fifteen times the ritual was completed and I was responsible of baptizing fifteen dead people against their will. What if they were to rise from the dead and kick my ass? I felt like I had received the worse punishment ever. I would dream nightly of these fifteen people yelling at me. They would start to chase me, and I barely could escape. Thank goodness their skin was falling off because it slowed them down from capturing me and torturing me.

To this day my mother reminds me that if I die before she does, she will have me baptized and I will be saved once again. She also reminds me even though I had myself excommunicated, I will be left on the church records and since Mormon God can read, I will be directed to one of their magical kingdoms.... oh what fun!