Happily Ever After

Not Just A Fairy Tale

Growing up, I bought into fairy tales. I believed it was possible to ride off happily into the sunset, never again to encounter challenge, stress, disappointment, or frustration. With a tumultuous childhood, I really wanted this to be true. However, as I aged, I learned the raw truth: We cannot avoid challenges, disappointment, heartbreak, and frustration.

I think you will agree I’d be lying if I said life is a weed-free, thorn-free, neat and tidy bed of roses, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred sixty-five days a year. Of course I’d be lying. Your experience, and mine too, easily dispels the myth.

There are times when life is going to suck BIG TIME!

For me, this is one of those times.

My mother, my best friend, passed away last week.  She was almost 100.

I knew this day would come, but when it did – BAM – the realization of not having even one more minute hit.

There are no fairy-tale magic wands that reverse death. If there were, I would not be dealing with the loss of my sweet mother. I would wave my wand and she would still be alive.  

Right now I am sad and I do feel lost.  But as God is my witness, I will be okay, sooner rather than later.

How do I know? Because Mom and I worked hard to be ready for this day. We worked hard to leave no room for the regret that comes from keeping secrets. From not authentically sharing our innermost thoughts and feelings with each other. No matter how hard it is to do. Like coming out to your mom.

I knew I was gay around age five. I cannot tell you how I knew so young. Yet it is not uncommon for some gay, bisexual, and transgender people to know at such an early age. As you can imagine, being gay was a secret I kept as long as possible. Growing up in the conservative South, I dared not tell anyone.

At age eighteen I could no longer deny who I was and I told my parents. And with my confession, the two people who were supposed to love me, like Jesus would, told me I was going to hell and had broken their hearts.  

Sadly, my parents’ Christian religious experience taught them to detest gay people. Yet at the same time, they had to make sense of contradictory messages such as “Thou shall not judge” and “Treat people as you want to be treated.” So when I confessed my big secret, they faced their worst nightmare, too.

For many years I stayed infuriated with and estranged from my family. But I realized if there was to be a reconciliation, I had to initiate it.  One day I reached out to Mom and we began talking. We spoke about small things at first: my dogs, job, and musical aspirations. Soon we were sharing on deeper levels: about tough relationship challenges, my being downsized, and eventually the subject of my being gay.

Through my candid sharing, Mom realized that much of what she had been taught to believe about LGBTQIA+ in the name of God was inaccurate and fear-based. Once she opened her heart, she realized I did not choose to be gay and I was not sinning against God.

When that opened-hearted realization hit, our conversations were free to flow into discussions about politics, religion, and racism. We read books like, Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy‘s Guide to the Constitution, The 1619 Project, and Waking Up White and Finding Myself in the Story of Race. We read Blow Out: Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth, and Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America. She and I read the same folks on Substack – Robert Hubbell, Joyce Vance, Heather Cox-Richardson, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Every night around 5 p.m. we discussed events of the day. We ended our conversations clean, without anything else to apologize for or to address. As a result of open sharing, we lived each day without regret. We created wonderful memories over the past thirty years.

Mom always ended our calls with, “I love you more.”

It will always be hard to imagine that is true, since I loved her more.

I appreciate how daunting it is to accept that each of us must face the pain of life by crossing the dark, foggy, creepy-crawly woods of the difficult-to-talk-about in our relationships.

My mom taught me that no matter how dark and ominous the woods of life seem from our current vantage point, no matter how scared we are to venture into the unknown of the vast possibilities of what can be our real-life fairy tale happily ever after, no matter how we have tried to create a satisfying life yet failed, we can succeed.

Happiness and fulfillment come from having clean relationships. Ones where we are authentic and say what we need to. Forgive what we must. Share with one another and hold one another’s heart safe. Be true to ourselves and with others. We may not always get the outcome Mom and I did. We may be rejected, but it’s our taking the first step to mend relationships that allows us to live without regret.

I know Mom would tell me, and you, to be brave! She would encourage us to tackle the hard things we face in life head-on. Edna Jean Hanna Cates would say, “You and I can absolutely take the small steps necessary, each and every day, to write a regret-free story of our happily ever after, which is not just a fairy tale.”