50 Years in Polygamy: Big Secrets and Little White Lies Read online

  *****

  While cameras snapped photos of our large polygamous family all dressed up for Alan and Stacie’s wedding, my head was full of mixed emotions. My stomach swirled. How on earth could I live with my resentment of the lifestyle that was smothering all of us?

  I loved Diane—I would always love her. I just didn’t love her in my husband’s heart, face, arms, and life. This lifestyle was so much more tolerable when he and I were fighting all the time, when I had a strong religious reason to numb myself and oblivious to anything going on around me. None of that meant diddly-squat to me, because being an unconscious zombie was so much easier.

  No wonder the God of polygamy requires women have a zillion church duties and children to wear them down. It keeps them too busy, tired, and depressed to care when, where, or whom His righteous sons are busy serv(ic)ing to help build God’s kingdom.

  *****

  For years, excruciating menstrual periods with excessive bleeding held me prisoner in my house every month. Those six long days were not at all conducive to my sanity. My tired, worn-out uterus that had served its wondrous purpose seven times had to go.

  My doctor warned, “If you try to have another child, there’s a good chance your uterus will come out with the baby, and both you and your baby might not make it.”

  Even though I believed I shouldn’t and wouldn’t have any more children, the drastic and “evil” decision to destroy my body’s ability to procreate was so final, and considered damning by some. Many Fundamentalist men and women believed a righteous woman would choose to risk death in childbirth rather than stop having children for any reason.

  Again Dad gave me his uncensored advice. “I can’t and won’t teach this to our people, and I may have hell to pay for these comments, but it is my personal belief God is very displeased with so many men and women who have more children than they can physically, financially, and spiritually care for. I don’t believe, as many do, that when John Taylor told the brethren to make sure not one year passed by without a child born under the covenant, that he meant every woman should have to give birth to a child every year.

  My father went on,

  “The same goes for plural wives. A man should never marry more women than he can provide for. It’s a dreadful injustice to women and children, and more so to God! Well, I’d better get off my tangent and get back where I was before. When Eleanor had her last baby, her uterus came clear out with the baby. It’s a miracle they both lived! Listen, my darling. You and your husband have to make this decision, but it is in my heart to tell you to take good care of the beautiful children you’ve already got. If you were to die, you wouldn’t be here to raise them. I feel assured you’ve completed your calling when it comes to having children.”

  No more periods! Finally I’d be free of pain, discomfort, accidents, and embarrassment. I wanted to sing and dance all over town. Along with the physical gift of a hysterectomy, Mark and l could enjoy sex without worrying about an unwanted pregnancy. And there was no better time than while Mark and I were falling in love.

  Though I felt sorry for Diane because she’d still have to worry about getting pregnant, since she too didn’t want to, I took tranquil relief in her plight.

  “You are terrible, Sophia,” my guilty conscious yelled at me. But I couldn’t even wallow in that pleasure without being concerned about Diane's feelings!

  “Leave me alone, at least this time!” I bribed my soul. “I’ll be a better sister-wife with another issue.”

  With the smidgen of remaining testimony crumbling apart from the soles of my feet to the tip of my head, I still prayed that Dad, Mark, and I were making the right decision.

  In the middle of November 1990, I had the hysterectomy and some repair surgery. I had one problem after another. Mom was sure that during my reconstructive surgery, the doctor damaged my ureter. When I walked, the pain was horrendous. Each new attempt to urinate on my own ended with me having to be re-catheterized.

  “To be ‘cathed’ usually makes someone a little uncomfortable,” Mom told me.

  But for me the pain was so excruciating I’d go into cold sweats and nearly black out. To stay sane while I forced myself to hold still all the time, I read, sewed, watched television, wrote, and wished I had more visitors.

  More horrifying than anything, I was sure the God of my upbringing was punishing me for permanently getting rid of my ability to reproduce, and for relishing the idea I had “one up” on Diane.

  I was infuriated with family, friends, and relatives to whom I’d been a “sucker” (helped), as Mark had said so many times before. Miss Do-it-all, Helpful, Rescuer, and Giver had been at everyone’s beck and call whenever they wanted or needed me, yet not one of those people was there for me during my recovery from surgery. My total care was left to my kids, my mother, and Mark, when he was home.

  I was also frustrated with Diane. Rather than help my children and me like I’d helped her when she was down for so many months, she took off to Oregon for Thanksgiving.

  Nonetheless, I was full of gratitude for holiday time with just Mark and our kids. He was amazing. With the kids’ help, he cleaned the whole house, cooked a perfectly delectable, full holiday meal, set the table with flowers in the center, and then cleaned up the food and dishes afterward.

  *****

  In my nightmare, one of those hideously distorted, evil imps I’d heard about all my life came to get me. He closed in on me. With his outstretched, deformed, purple fingers he zapped my chest and electrocuted me. I began to suffocate and drop to the floor. “You have sealed your doom in everlasting misery!” I heard his guttural groan. “Forevermore you shall dwell in the pits of hellfire and brimstone, never to be united with . . .”

  Mark’s face was right next to mine. “Sophia, wake up!” He tugged on my arm. I screamed for a few more seconds while the revolting monster yanked me backward and threw me off a cliff into purgatory. HELP!” I screamed and cried all the way down.

  “Sophia, you’re all right! You’re here with me!” Mark held onto my flailing arms and legs. “I’ve got you. I’m here, Sophia. You’ll be okay.”

  “No, I won’t! I am going to go to hell, Mark. Now I know I am!” I cried out. “I was supposed to have that severely disabled little girl we thought we might have. I should have sacrificed my freedom and my life to give birth to her, and to raise her. I forced her into a family where she won’t thrive!”

  “It’s just not true,” Mark insisted. He wiped the tears from my eyes with the sheet and snuggled with me. “You know it’s not true. You and I, and even God, knows bringing her into our life would not have been fair or good for her.”

  “But, maybe—”

  “There are no maybes about it, Sophia! God knows we made the right choices. Your dad was right when he told us we’ve already done our part—we’ve already got more children than we can do justice to. It’s all those insidious tapes playing a billion times in your mind, telling you to feel guilty and bad. They are all lies! It’s all a bunch of lies! The God you and I are learning about wouldn’t damn you to hell for choosing to take care of the blessings you already have.”

  In Mark’s arms I felt secure. I wanted to believe everything he claimed was the absolute truth. In peace, we drifted off to sleep.

  Then, I was flying across the vast cornflower blue sky—this time with Mark and our children. We were touring the Salt Lake Valley, Superman style; clear from the Rocky Mountains to the Oquirrh Mountains. The Corner Canyons of Draper, to Butterfield Canyon, in Herriman, clear to the capitol building were visible from our height. The wind blew in our eyes, forcing out droplets of water and splashing them back across our temples. As we picked up speed, the swift currents of air stretched and contorted our cheeks and mouths. We laughed at each other’s geeky-looking faces and nearly tumbled down from the sky.

  But six weeks after the surgery, I still couldn’t pee on my own.

  Forever, it seemed, I wanted to ask God a mile-long list of questions
my dad could never satisfy. Most of them would be about His inequitable rules for women and men. Number one would be: why can men have more than one wife but women can’t have more than one husband? Two: why can’t women hold the priesthood and men have the babies? Three: if it’s true, in general, women are more spiritual than men, why can’t we be the leaders and have the final say in priesthood and family matters? And then there was question number four. It surely wasn’t the last one, but ever since I was a young tomboy trying to compete with all my brothers and the neighborhood boys, this one was another of my trials. “Okay, God.” I’d ask, “Why did you make it so guys can stand up to pee anytime and anywhere there’s no toilet, while women have to ditch the scene, hunt frantically for bushes or trees or some kind of a hideaway to cover their naked behinds?” If we are lucky enough to find a place where we are able to get our pants down in time, we are still apt to drizzle all over ourselves and our clothes!

  But after all of my recovery problems, I was more than ready to take back question number four! I decided my bladder problem was surely that “prankster” God’s continued, unfair, and cruel way of demanding my undivided attention.

  By Christmastime, I thought I’d gone totally bonkers staying home and down all the time. So I would endure a few hours of pain to walk around and purchase some small, inexpensive items for the kids’ socks.

  Long before they came up with the little motorized carts in shopping centers, I had Mark push me around ShopKo in a wheelchair. In the ladies restroom, of course, I dropped my pants to the floor, stood in front of the toilet, and twisted the little valve at the bottom of the full bag that was strapped to my right leg. I pointed the spout to the middle of the bowl and listened to the recognizable male-sounding stream of liquid pour into the bowl. Surely the lady sitting on the throne in the next stall was able to see my tennis shoes facing the toilet. “God, of every punishment you’ve ever given me—and for who knows what—this is one of the worst,” I bitterly complained.

  The woman took ten minutes to wash her hands. I knew she was waiting to give this pervert man a piece of her mind. I held out longer, and waited until she finally left.

  Sure enough, when I exited the bathroom, there she was. She stared at my shoes and did a double take of my face, and then my shoes again. Her jaw dropped to her chest, and her face turned yellow. I guess the woman had never seen, nor would she ever again see such a completely real-looking transvestite as I appeared to be.

  Every day, all day, I repeated, “Oh, Lord, I promise, promise, promise if you will let me pee normally again I will never again complain about your favoritism toward men—at least in that area of my anatomy! I promise, dear Lord. Amen.”

  After forty-six days of torture, and wondering if I’d be attached to that pee bag forever, God finally took pity on me. He must have felt He’d inflicted enough agony on me to make His point and gave in to my plea. My urologist finally prescribed a wonderful drug to make the swelling go down and made me stay flat on my back for three or four days so as not to irritate the tissues. And sure enough, my ureter was finally functioning again!

  I slugged the doctor on the shoulder after he said, “Congratulations, Sophia, you’ve set the record! You beat one of my previous patient’s inability to urinate by four days.”

  CHAPTER 36

  Work, College, and

  Mom’s Confessions

  1991

  When I enrolled Keith in the Head Start preschool program in September, it opened up a half day for me to pursue my college education. I had quit trying to fulfill my dreams. All of my life I believed that if I tried and failed the results would prove my stupidity. But my newfound friends were helping me realize that my dreams were worth pursuing and that I was smart enough to make them come true. If I didn’t try, I was failing myself. Two of my dear OA friends literally supported my jittery, nervous body and walked me into the Student Center at Salt Lake Community College (SLCC) to take entrance exams.

  I’d been out of school for twenty years. And since I was mentally absent so much of the time, I felt I hadn’t learned very much. Just like everyone else with lousy grades, the system pushed me through. Even though I knew a lot of the reasons, I still felt unintelligent. I was sure I would fail the math tests. Maybe, just maybe, I’d barely pass the language arts exams since, I loved to hang out and listen to intellectual, articulate people. As a kid, while I’d rub Mom’s feet after her hard days at the hospital, we’d take the vocabulary quizzes in the Reader’s Digest. I loved them.

  After hours of text anxiety, I was amazed with the test results. I had aced the language series and would get to register into an English 101 course. Not surprisingly, my math scores placed me in remedial classes. I had to learn all kinds of basic math before I could take any of the five required college math courses. No matter what, I swore I wouldn’t let my fear of failure stop me from trying to move forward.

  At the flourishing age of thirty-nine, with five children still living at home, and with funding from a Displaced Homemaker’s grant, I started my first few college courses. My life-long dream was still the same. I planned to become a certified elementary schoolteacher.

  In between my classes, I volunteered in Keith’s Head Start Class and my other children’s classroom whenever possible. One afternoon, Keith’s teacher told me, “I think you should apply to be a substitute Head Start teacher. You are really great with children.”

  There wasn’t nearly enough time in a day to accomplish all that needed to be done. How could I possibly fit in a job? But we could sure use the money, and it would give me a lot more experience. Wondering if I’d truly lost my mind, I applied for the job in November and turned it over to God—the nice one I was learning more about.

  I was called to sub across the Salt Lake Valley a few times. By January 1991 I was offered a full-time assistant teacher position at Millcreek Elementary School in Salt Lake. I moved my three, day classes to night, and took the job.

  Every day amid my progressive joy, I was still petrified about the ongoing lies I thought I’d have to tell to feel and keep safe among “the outsiders.”

  No matter to whom I talked—my college peers, instructors, the teachers I worked with in Head Start, and the parents—I was frantic about how to cover up my lifestyle. I’d come to hate lying and dishonesty with a passion. For years, I’d been hashing out, separating, and dissolving all the supposed necessary and completely unnecessary lies from my life. A lie was a lie no matter which way it was or wasn’t told, and neither was acceptable to me. However, by choosing to live and thrive in the midst of “outsiders,” I thought I had to protect my family and myself with deceit. As an embryonic “normal” adult, I felt I had to lie more than I did as a student for thirteen years in public schools.

  Working and associating with normal, every-day, monogamous people was incredibly fulfilling, and at the same time, completely terrifying and nerve-racking. The risk wasn’t only about losing out on friendships, as it had mostly been when others found out I was a polygamist kid. Now it was about having no value, or being judged as stupid, ineffective, a bad influence, or a derelict of a human being. It may have been my fear of not being hired, or possibly losing a job.

  I feared I’d forget what I told coworkers about my past eighteen years of on-and-off teaching experiences in our group schools. What would I tell them if they wondered why my husband didn’t come to staff Christmas dinners? How would I explain how and why I felt so inadequate and naive about appropriate, normal systems others were accustomed to living with on “the outside”? What would others think about how inept and scared I was when it came to normal social skills?

  All of my concerns jabbered incessantly in my head. It haunted me in my college classes, with my instructors, in study groups, with my Head Start students’ parents, and with other Head Start and public school staff where I worked. Yet each day seemed to convey more reward, gratitude, and peace. I was slowly feeling more comfortable and credible.

  I’d come to
respect and appreciate Phoebe, the head teacher I worked with. She was an incredible example. She helped fill my developing esteem with acceptance, adoration, approval, and love. And every day, on pins and needles, I wondered if she would treat me as well if she knew about my background and what I was really like. I decided I needed to protect my friendship and job no matter the stories I had to fabricate. I was finding, thank my higher power, there were hardly any to come up with.

  In the fall of 1991, I was offered an assistant job close to home. I had the privilege of teaching with Keith’s Head Start teacher, with whom I’d already worked in the Jordan School District.

  One day, the principal came all the way from her office to our Head Start classroom to insist I go to the auditorium to get my picture taken. “The photographer said there was someone in Head Start who didn’t want to pose for a picture,” she said.

  “It’s okay,” I replied. “Shawna took her picture with the kids. I’m just an assistant teacher, and I hate having my picture taken.”

  “No, it’s not okay!” the principal barked, pushing at my shoulders in the direction of the door. “Now get yourself down there! Can I trust you to go down on your own, or will I have to walk with you?”

  When the picture packets came back, I stashed mine inside my book bag with the intention to chuck it in the dumpster on my way to the parking lot. But I didn’t. Behind the steering wheel in my car, I decided to brave a peek. Chagrined about what I might see, it took me a few minutes to pull my photos from the package. These pictures of me, I was sure, like the few others I had seen, and the ones I hadn’t dared look at for most of my life, would prove again how unattractive I was, and remind me how much I used to look down on that person.