Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Oh Ellie, how to start? I keep thinking about the temple. I guess I'll start there.I put my temple clothes and my garments in a bag and buried the bag in the back of my closet when I was young, just out of college. I've carried it to every new apartment and house since, never sure what to do with it. It's in the back of Dad's and my closet right now. I wonder if you've ever seen it. You used to crawl into our closet all the time when you and your brothers played hide-and-seek.Sometimes, rarely, maybe four times in twenty years, I've taken the bag out and touched the white fabric—the cotton, the silk, the lace. I can remember then, so clearly, how the garments felt when I used to wear them. Every time I've done this, I've cried.For a long time, your dad didn't know I had the bag, but he found me crying over it once. We had a terrible fight that day.He's never understood that part of me. He doubts that I can be settled in the choices I have made, how I can have married him, had you kids and raised you like I have, but still feel conflict, regret, sorrow about religion—religion being the dirtiest word he can think of. He has always been afraid of faith. Afraid of me, really. That I would snap back to some puritanical position toward life, that I'd wake up and say I want to be a practicing Latter-day Saint again.Faith is something he's never felt, and so he mistrusts it in all its forms, even the barely living form I still carry around. The time he found me with the bag was a long time ago, before you were born. That was the last fight we ever had about the issue. I think we both sensed the danger—it was a truly ugly fight, I am sorry to say—and we have silently, since then, acknowledged it as untouchable territory, something we cannot talk about. It's one of the reasons I never talk about it with you.In fact, Ellie, it's funny how I would never say any of this to you but here I am writing it. Not that funny because I've always been more comfortable writing things down than saying them, especially hard things. It used to perplex your dad when we were dating, the way I wouldn't have it out with him in the moment but would turn up a day or two later with a letter about whatever it is we were disagreeing about. I'm still that way. I wonder if I will actually give you this letter. I'll have to decide later. Maybe I'll read it over in a year or two and laugh to think I ever felt the need.I'm not surprised that I'm writing this letter to you and not your brothers. There are things about me I want you to know, things about life that I want to tell you. Things I want to warn you about or spare you from. I have never worried for your three brothers the way I worry for you—because you are a girl in the world, because you're my girl. You are on the edge of so much, the end of high school, all that comes next. I look at your sweet teenage face, and I see the future, and I have such feelings. Fear and hope, all mixed together.There's so much to explain—I'm in the sunroom, my usual spot in the corner chair. You're still at school, and I have hours until you'll be home, and I'm just staring out the window, watching the ropes of the willow tree moving in the wind.The other day you were out here with your friend Amanda after school. The two of you sitting on the rug, doing a school project. And I was in this very chair, writing something, but really just listening to you being your sweet, silly selves. Then something happened. It was the smallest thing really. You said, “We should cut out some pictures of plants and paste them around!” You looked so excited. You leaned toward the piled-up gardening magazines in the rack beside my chair. Amanda pursed her lips. “That'd be too busy,” she said. And you instantly wiped the eagerness from your face and nodded.It was nothing, really. Just a poster! But your face changed so suddenly, the excitement hid itself away so completely. And it was this tiny suppression of yourself, something I hadn't seen in quite this way in you before and have never seen in your brothers. You did it so readily. It left me cold.The older you get the more I worry you'll become practiced in that art, womanly art that it is. The more I fear you won't even show eagerness until you've looked for acceptance. I am so afraid of this for you. I want to warn you against these surrenders of the self. Surrenders the women in my family, me prime among them, have too easily made. They seem like such nothings at the time. But they grow and grow.If only it were as simple as some “be true to yourself” slogan. What is much harder is even knowing where your eagerness lies, and if it lies in several places, where to stand, how to protect the territory of yourself. How to know what really matters.I can't think that I really know how to help you, but Ellie, I wish I did! I wish I could! It's this that's making me think so strongly of my young self, facing my faith and trying to figure out my heart. The decisions I made surrounding that seem to me to be my most fundamental self-surrenders. I haven't been able to stop thinking about it, about you, since that afternoon.To tell you about them, I have to tell you about the temple. Of course, you know that's not where regular church services are, since you've been to a few of those. Never on ordinary Sundays, since that would have just killed your dad, but I'm sure you remember the services when some of your baby cousins were blessed.The temple is something else entirely. I think you mostly know about it from weddings. That's the reason we've never gone to any of your older cousins’ wedding ceremonies—they've all been in the temple, and you have to be an adult member of the Church who has been endowed to go.It's funny to think that there are words that have never needed explanation in my life, words like “temple” and “endowment” that are like the word “fork” or “bed” to me. But you're not LDS in any real sense. (Though I can't help but think it's in you in some ghostly form. The way you're so hard on yourself, or even the way you play piano, all those moving thirds and fifths you improvise. Do you even know those are hymn chords, that you learned those note progressions from me?)So let me explain. The real heart of the temple is the endowment ceremony, which is basically the ceremony in which you commit to the faith as an adult and in which, in response to your covenanting, you are endowed with knowledge. It's this rite of passage, this big thing that is supposed to deepen your understanding and offer new realms of peace and guidance, and it's also something with this very physical change associated with it—the garments. You put them on when you go to the temple for your first time.Garments were everywhere when I was growing up. All the adults I knew wore them. They're underclothing, tops and bottoms. For men, it's basically like wearing a white undershirt and extra-long white boxers. For women, it's a little stranger. The tops are like camisoles with cap sleeves. There are various necklines: scoop, princess, square. And the bottoms are like drapey white biker shorts. You wear them under everything, the closest thing to your skin. Your bra goes on top of the garments. (How ridiculous this all seems to explain, but you have to know to understand.) You can take the garments off to swim or work out, and, of course, to shower and all that. But otherwise, you're supposed to wear them all the time.All your aunts and uncles on my side wear them. You probably haven't noticed, but that's just because you don't know what to look for. For me, I can always tell if someone is wearing them because of the lines they create under your clothing, a scoop near the neck, lines under pants just above the knee. After I stopped wearing mine, I tried to wear thick clothing around my family whenever I visited, hoping they wouldn't notice. Of course they did, though. There were enough occasions when my skirt was a hair too short and they should have seen garments when I sat but didn't, when I bent over and my skin showed instead of my garments.You know of about me from college. And about me and in The of me and the temple is in and around all those other and what me most after all these is how it's been not to tell it. I've that from the and made them and it. I've been so that I don't even think of it first time the temple up was just before I left for college. The of my back me if I'd about the temple. I was go the temple when just out of high school, right before but women don't go the temple that They until and on a that's changed to but that was the when I was or until which at I but which is a little later. if of those for them, go when they feel in I was young, I always felt for the women who didn't have a them, who just did it one big one ever it was but I felt it—the of up the of the I laugh at this as if were But back it what for what I'm is that for the to that me to the temple felt like a I left I wonder if he that what to me in would and to me to the Church to protect me. But I didn't really think that at the time. The that I would would have been to in fact, have gone to the temple then, at if it hadn't been for the garments. I didn't want to wear them. I had never in my life and even I was to put off the of the for the of that's in part what it down I didn't want to have to my funny to my new It like I to turn into a in so I didn't my saying I didn't want to wear but I did say I didn't feel a to go to the temple at the time, so happened. I to to get away from to something and and I I made of new all these of thinking about things. that time, I did a of about my various of never out to other than my LDS And only from the position of being a my to didn't or didn't around. is actually your that I for its and also the of it The words the Church in much more say I but in I was it There were things I that my and my on that to about about and the on and I in my about it after and I felt the of But there I a Latter-day I really think I was to up and become a a What was the was so a that it didn't even to me was something else something that would be to out, that I would seem But to be I have to say there was It just that I was the of or the toward of my in were of faith in and would have been of me if I had ever about it with them. I get all up just thinking about But it was too for that most of the time. I never to talk about my faith with them There was too much to explain. And what was at the heart of it always much too never felt comfortable with the of the the of They like to my I know the Church is I know is a true that a times a The LDS Church is a church of and We have Just regular who get up in church after and but much more and And something about of it. But instead of that I've always into or very I still it to talk about faith of any and on some some is. there I and up into a real about the thing when something happened. That something was your We toward the end of my and he into my life like a know all of it because it's your It's But to me back it was like into something I'd only ever read about. of course, you know your dad is and and and and funny and Ellie, in this letter I you will above all know that I your dad and all of you I don't my You are my is a there we and as time he was in doing a little more than And I with it. The this me seem funny to you, but it was a for me. of my faith had always been because I was in if not always in and that was of my I say whatever I as long as knew where I really It was part of my The thing that made me want to get made me want to be a more to And for one a I was a real in LDS is the of is in I as I that of it not have a to you. me be It and who is to have it. And even we hadn't of we were things. would have all that over a little that was and I say about it to my LDS They would have understood it was so but they never would have looked at me the there I and And your dad and I sure these about our physical are to you. I'm But it here we You can if you have up with him a the both of and and for until we were and I about him and Of course, you know we back my and I will to but was afraid and I felt like I had seen had seen what it be like to be the had felt that and I the who was I back felt like it was time for me to to say and for stop do you think you're is who you Your the to get to out in the and you think little you is in any position to tell them they for You think you're to it all to that I was that I that the had me before I'd gone and But I will say that was only the of my to go the temple, not the heart of it. the heart of it was a spot of faith I've never really been able to your dad and I I had to a That's a And that year I felt that spot of faith grow and I back and feel it like the of the the day a before I back to school for my dad has always the of LDS I see what he's are a little toward white But I've never been able to them so I up on that too much to it. And the temple that first day not have been more to remember with my up toward the temple, all the on the a the where little me was still to put on my white temple and for the endowment ceremony, that the are but these were and The in the were I can't But that It was The I'd out had and a high I looked at there in the the off me in my temple and I I had never looked more Of course, you know that I am and that to me more than it But it truly to me, and it's only a I have when I have a of endowment ceremony was words and to up and sitting down at times to show my and my word I but that won't much to you. It but two I to and He to me in But it's more than You also to your and they to you. It's a of I'm still surprised the as it have to an and I felt such such as if I at last every of LDS know that not a in the looked down on me for my or as it have left the temple that day wearing an adult Latter-day Saint I left as if I had the of up and to them for as long as I as if I them with words of any the I but it a a It was the garments. I was too of my of me that I was used to were my at all with with where the tops into the bottoms. It was the of our little house in the way the where my bra my It was the of my I'd the and the would be out, but I hadn't that so of my would have that were too or that so would be a little too the when I leaned or my I hadn't that so of my in fact, not quite the of the garments. I around and And I back to I would get used to garments That it was a little something like the you had when you your the way your felt and for a and you and remember that But I of them. I looked at every girl I and her or The was of my of them. And in the when it was that someone my I my and my showed a little too much or of the I changed at the I was and of my all in even with the of about the I felt a I hadn't felt I had for a but was just a new temple in a short from school, and all that year I to the temple every in the temple, wearing my like I with until I had you the I have ever year was also when more of the you know Your dad had and to for first after my but when I was a he was back in for school. We to see other at first just But I hadn't seen him in a year and a and I felt an like I remember the first time he touched me It was just on my but I felt it like a my a of and All I was you all those our of the and our how hard we for so much more than How it was to And every of that is true and I'm afraid this letter you'll get the That's one reason I not give it to you. I want you to know I your dad every of the that I in with him, that I have him every day since and still I the of this or one of the is for me to tell you that it would be if were always if one didn't with a or so of other I him about garments and about to go the temple, how it was a but I remember the we sat on that just a few from my It was a and very and even it was a the day it was at just the He so toward me, and and he put on top of mine, the me at I actually remember and writing in my is so so He seems to all the of I remember that all these later because I back to that a of times and it. I later how I have that. Your dad is so so that part is But he not all the of I had felt as if I were I was the of some of but I just to every moment with him, and I didn't think about what I was doing as I the of the of what a terrible that but I it because that's the they the temple The is to the of the to your time and to the words that to you, but just know they a of and But there is a very to the of It's the only that And there I it but with much We were still in territory, and I was still wearing my to being my LDS and who what I'm doing with this but I him too much to do I actually that he after of one day I just knew something was up. Your dad had been and all me the way you would an an edge of in that I him and what was After a long he he ever a girl. And that was that. I out of and a back to my I had I would I all the day and the day after that. But I was also in a way. It was time to back up and with my Latter-day Saint your dad showed up on my He didn't know what he He me. He didn't It was quite a of course, you know we back was still about But had He put on top of and to me talk about the temple He was trying to put me into life, and he he have that of in it. He that I felt about what we were in the in any He didn't want a even he me. And for me part of the was that he was so sure I was trying to with I was so to it seem funny that we were these kids thinking and about our in these all of that. But and I were always like to to my faith. He it, me, but me, me. Your dad I really and And I more and more of my my We for the It was so that the time it over the felt But I cannot how I I'd made And I'd them. I to wearing my garments. For a short time, I even to the temple even I was in of my I my life was and that some were and that being a was just being a in the was too much to too to was also that I it as a Latter-day even if we up. What instead of your dad, I married some I to wake up at with three kids and tell him I I that But I also the of of never to the temple of up the sweet, peace I felt there.I am sure you will wonder if it really had to be so and in or And I can only you that you don't the It in fact, and in or I I have in it, but it would have been a There is very little in the Church for the I did my to to that territory, until I just so I off my garments and put away my temple which really away the Church and that part of Your dad he to do with it had to be my But not too long after I did, we had you the since I still feel of whenever I up in and as they so if I am I never know what to even The always my heart. There is such in that I have seen over too when I've that stopped to the temple before I stopped to of that But on my last to the temple, just as I was I was with my and go I carried my temple bag changed into my temple and in on the end of the temple ceremony, you a a but to the and and a Latter-day always After you the which is always the in the You can there and think and for as long as you That the last I would ever be in a temple, I the and the and I sat in a corner of the for an I know the word is but it was the of crying you can't the that in your and your am still not sure if I so long and so hard because I knew I was up something that I have been up or because I was a that was and for the I do know, Ellie, that I want you to be very I don't take back what happened. I you all so I But I wish I had been more I wish I had been with I wish I had my to a I wish had my more I wish I had of for this letter how that how we are to all of Ellie, I have always to my with someone and never I never the of my Latter-day and I never at in the of your I wish I with you. I see that this be a letter. much to give to a in a year or be from school any What am I to do with this I'll it away for I Maybe in the Maybe you're enough like your dad that you'll never to in the way I needed all I will do is you more all I will do is for you in that way I
Author: Charity Shumway
Language: English
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4414283610
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