Photo courtesy of Shanell
When I found out we were a polygamist family I think I was about 7 years old when the concept sunk in! I didn’t quite know who this Daniel guy was that punished us, and sometimes slept over at our house, but I knew somehow he was an authority in our lives! I learned very quickly that we walked on eggshells around him!
This is actually where I got my first practice in watching and analyzing human behavior… anyways, I remember attending Daniels family meetings, seeing him sleep over at our house, and knowing he was someone important in the order!
So at one of these extended family gatherings, I was hanging out with my cousins and friends, who were all about my same age. It was about 8 of us kids talking, and one of the boys says
“did you know that Daniel is all of our dads?!”
I immediately blurted out
“NO, he is not! He just helps our moms have babies….”
I caught eye contact with Daniel right as I was finishing my sentence… the look on his face I knew I had said wrong, and was worried, will this comment warrant me a beating?
But Daniel smiled …. I was so confused… where was my beating? Maybe he was gonna wait till he wasn’t busy! I was so cautious with all my next interactions, keeping an eye on Daniels whereabouts at the gathering… I remember this event so clearly because it stood out how afraid I was for Daniels hand to come out of the corner of somewhere across my face, and I kept replaying the situation in my mind trying to understand what I did wrong! What was so wrong about what I had said? Daniel did come to our house, and he did help our moms have babies, but he was not our dad…. at least, he was not like the dads I saw on TV who loved their kids.
Daniel never said a word to me about the incident at the party/gathering, but the next time he spent the night at our house he told me to stay behind after sending all the other kids to bed following the family prayer!
I don’t recall if this was the same night of the gathering or within a week, I just know it was long enough after, that panic mode settled in again, as usual, racking my brain trying to find out what I would be getting in trouble for…. I didn’t remember the comment at the family gathering, and I was taking inventory of everything I did to figure out what I could be in trouble for! -which I had to do often when I was in trouble-
Daniel proceeded to ask me if I knew who he was… skeptical of where this was going I replied with my Sunday school answer, stating he was the number 15th man in the order… see I understood I was in the order, didn’t exactly know what the order was, but I knew that’s what church was, I knew it was a group of sorts, and everyone I knew and trusted was in it, and I didn’t trust outsiders… oh and I knew somehow we as a group were better than everyone else! #happiestplaceonearth
Anyways, Daniel smiled, why was he being weird, what does a smile mean? -my little girl brain wondered!- He then addressed the conversation I had with my cousins and friends, and turned out they were all my half-siblings after all! #mindblown
I was informed that Daniel is, in fact my dad, but I could not call him dad. I also could not tell anyone he helped my mom have babies… and that if anyone asked, I would say Micheal Foster was my dad. But when I asked who micheal foster was, he informed me it was a name my mom picked to pretend to be my dad so that no one knew Daniel was my dad, because it would get him in a lot of trouble! #crushingmylittlegirldreams
“so you mean to say there is no Micheal Foster that’s going to come rescue me, my siblings, and mom?”
Is what I wanted to ask, but instead I nodded and took to heart every teaching he taught me about lying to protect the order #protecttheorderatallcosts
So there I was laying up at night trying to understand the concept of polygamy and how Daniel was the dad to all my closest friends … and which of my friends were really siblings, how many siblings did I have? Was I related to everyone at church … yes my little mind was #mindblown … you’d think being raised in polygamy it would have always been a normal concept for me, but nope it was always weird… it never felt right!
