My father was an “inactive” Mormon. This means that he was baptized a Mormon, but stopped going to church sometime during his life… Sometime after he married my mom in the Mesa, Arizona Temple.
I remember him going to church with our family when I was young.
When I was a child, I remember sitting by him in a sacrament meeting, passing the little sacrament cups down the row for the deacons to collect. We used to take the little paper cup of water, pass the tray, and then pass our used cup to the person next to you, so that at the end of the row the last person would have a stack of little paper cups.
He dropped us off at church some days. Or he would pull up to the entrance and tell us to go ahead, while he parked the car. Not sure if he ever came in. I don’t recall if he had a church calling. My mom was always busy serving in the primary, young women’s program, and relief society. We had many ward dinners at our home. And I remember serving — pouring water and waiting on the tables.
My dad didn’t go at all by the time I was a teenager. He stayed home, sitting in his chair in his bedroom, watching a golf tournament on tv, eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He didn’t say much about it, but seemed content. He wasn’t an anti-Mormon at all and he wasn’t negative about us going. I was pretty much oblivious to the fact that he wasn’t committed.
My dad used to say, in a humorous way, when we were headed to a church activity — “you off to churchy-le-femme?” Thinking about that now, I guess he was correct — it was church for the females in our home. My mom, sisters, and me– le femmes.
My parents eventually divorced. But it wasn’t over the fact that my dad wasn’t actively involved in our religion. Messy. And sad all around. He died at the age of 80, still not committed to the gospel. But all three daughters have married, in the temple, with church-going, faith believing husbands, and five kids each, all believers.
