For many years I have lived with a desire to heal my heart from the holes created by the absence of my dad. I don’t know why it matters that he wasn’t there, because I don’t even really know much about him. I would recognize his voice if I heard it, but I don’t know how tall he was, how he walked, or what his laugh sounded like. And yet, there has been a deep emptiness inside of my heart that bubbles to the surface periodically. A deep well of grief that sometimes feels inpenatrable.
Before Christmas I wanted a gift from my husband. It wasn’t the chance to fix my ring, or a new book or journal. It wasn’t a pile of clothes or new shoes. It was the gift of life.
Over the past two years I have been working on the temple work for my Dad’s family. It started with doing the endowment and initiatory for my Grandma Alvernia. Even now as I record my experiences, my brain is tingling with the happiness that has come, knowing that she has the opportunity to progress in the light of our Heavenly Father. As I performed her initiatory I was in a rush from being late, as usual. Her spirit was penatrable. I could feel her close to me.
The well spring of emotion that has often filled my heart with sadness provided me with the depth to feel great joy. As I proceeded through the endowment, I could sense her just above my right shoulder. I didn’t want to look, because I knew I wouldn’t see what my spirit felt. And yet, I know that she was there, soaking in the promised blessings of the great Atonement.
On December 18, 2013 we took the names of my dad, his parents and a host of other relatives to the temple to seal them as families in the house of the Lord. Anxious and filled with the spirit, we sat in the couch just outside of the sealing room, waiting for the officiator. For years I have struggled with doubts and pain as I have digested the pain that my dad experienced and caused. I have hoped that in his death he would find some peace to the pain he experienced in mortality, and desire to find the light which could heal his wounds. I have found forgiveness. I have found hope for him.
And so we waited. There were beautiful landscape paintings that hung in our immediate view. Great rolling hills in the abundance of summer’s harvest. The walls were white, the lights were white. All around were reminders of whose house I was sitting. The sealer took our cards, my little stack of endowments and sealing, bound by elastics, edges worn with care. We sat on the west side of the room, in the front row. I looked up to see the breathtaking chandelier. The light reflecting from above scattered through the crystals into a thousand colors- teal, lime, magenta, pink, blue. The colors are amazing! I see across from me the ancestral link of the great mirrors. Generations before me, and generations to come, and I am the only one who can LIVE in this moment, to save the souls of those who have gone before me. And provide the needed ordinances that can reach through time and space to protect the hearts of a posterity still living today, whom I don’t know.
My heart swells to overflowing with an immediate sense of love, to bursting. Not only from my Heavenly Father to myself, but for my family who is surrounding me in spirit that I cannot see. I stifle the joy because I do not want to weep before the ordinances are even performed. My shoes, my hands, tissues in my pocket, officiator has a cool accent…. anything to prevent me from loosing it.
It is our turn to go to the altar. Me on the west, Jonny on the east. Embraced in the symbols of the highest order of marriage we officiate in the sealing of my grandma Alvernia to her husband Charles, and then again to my grandpa Michael Rizzo of Italy. The sweetest sound of the evening was when we helped seal my dad to his parents, Alvernia Elizabeth Scheidell to Michael Rizzo. It was in that moment that my heart burst with emotion.
It started as a trickle, and ended with a flood of tears of joy as I celebrated the years of turmoil and pain, coming to a close. At last, my dad is not alone.
The sealer, after the session asked what was wrong, I explained that we had just completed my dad’s sealing work. He understood the joy. He didn’t know of my journey to that point, and the reservoir of grace provided specifically to me by the Savior’s Atonement.
