On June 30, 2011, Brandon and Amber were sealed in the Salt Lake Temple.
I arrived on Saturday, June 25, to attend Amber's endowment session in the Draper Temple. I then spent the week staying in their basement apartment in Holladay.
On the morning of June 30th, Brandon and I awoke to a cell phone alarm going off. He realized he had Amber's phone in his pants pocket. It was 6:30 a.m. We had not planned to get up so early but it was the wedding day and neither of us was going back to sleep. Brandon crawled into bed with me and we spent some time chatting. I told him how proud I was of him, how he had done all the right things, how I loved him. I was excited for the sealing. I was also excited to feel my dad in the temple. I knew he would be there on this special day.
As we entered the sealing room in the Salt Lake Temple, we sat down. At the front of the sealing room are 3 chairs. The middle chair is for the sealer. The chairs on each side are for the witnesses...the men who witness the marriage. Usually the bride and the groom each choose their witness. Amber, of course, chose her father. Brandon would have chosen my dad if he was still alive. Because he was not able to be there, he chose his adopted dad, Skip Morgan. Skip has been a father to my children since their dad left. When Brandon returned from his mission, Skip invited him to move in with their family since we had moved four hours away from the town he had grown up in. Brandon did that. I knew Skip and his wife Jen loved him and treated him as their own.
Skip has multiple sclerosis. He often uses a wheel chair. He entered the sealing room in the wheelchair and stayed in it for the sealing ceremony.
As the ceremony began, I looked at the two witness chairs. Greg Adamson, Amber's father, was in one. Skip was in his wheelchair leaving the other witness chair empty. I knew at that very moment that my dad was sitting in that empty witness chair. I did not see him, but I could feel him.
It was a very emotional time for me. The ceremony was beautiful. Brandon and Amber are now sealed together for time and all eternity. The day was everything I hoped it would be for them. I was so grateful, that even though my dad has passed beyond the veil, the temple knows no boundaries. He was there to enjoy this wonderful time with all of us.
