..walked into kitchen of TBM Grandmother in law during a family reunion at the "old homestead". TBM rellies were everywhere and a young couple with baby were just exiting the kitchen as I entered. MIL was speaking in a spooky hushed tone to another relative and everyone was nodding their heads in agreement as to how "special" the young husband was. I guess I looked sort of puzzled and then MIL told me that the wife had lost her husband while pregnant and this young man had married her shortly after the baby was born. While I was busy trying to process the idea that ANYONE would remarry in such short time after the death of a spouse (the baby was very young);it was clear these women were marveling over the blessedness, and specialness of a such a selfless sacrifice. I got the unmistaken impression that I was missing some bit of information. Having accepted the idea that this woman was not bereaved enough over the death of her first husband to marry this guy so soon in the first place, I could not understand why it would be so marvelous to comprehend that this guy wanted the woman badly enough to accept someone elses kid as part of the bargain in the second. Hmm...there was definitely something I didn't understand..and it sort of has always given me the creeps to recall the weird implications of the tone of voice and demeanor of my MIL in this whole conversation.


Then a few weeks ago the missing piece of the puzzle hit me between the eyes while reading a post here. I know these people were temple-going TBMers. Clearly the hushed tones and amazement of these gossiping women in the kitchen had to do with the fact that the woman had been sealed to her first husband and (she was also married in the temple to this new hubby) what a knight in shining armour and blessed soul he must be to not only raise a child who would spend eternity with another father, but would also forego his own kids to the first husband as well since his new wife was sealed to him!

Oh the special blessedness of the man!

Yikes.

out

But what a nasty, painful doctrine it is.

There was a lady in our ward who married her dying RM boyfriend while she was at BYU. (I think he was so bad he died just a day or two after the sealing).

Anyway, this gal (she was hot as all get out, too) married a guy who was attending med school - which is why they were way out here in the boondocks - and had three kids with him. I remember someone asked him once about being married to someone who was not only beholden to someone else in the hereafter, but, since the kids were hers, she and this dead guy would get them, too. He just shrugged it off, with a somewhat flippant reply to the effect of, "Well, I've got her for this life..."

Man, what a wierd bunch I used to worship with...