The particulars of the funeral itself and what was said are pretty fuzzy. What I do remember is so many kind words were spoken about my mother by everyone who spoke. Happy memories and all the wonderful things my mother had done in her life were opened to everyone who was there, including all the horrible people who had neglected and mistreated my mom. My aunt Suzanne finished her eulogy and it was my turn to play the piano.

I walked up on the dais and sat down at the black baby grand piano. I remember my right leg, the one I use to control the sustain pedal on the piano wouldn’t quit shaking. My hands quickly followed suit. I didn’t have any excess energy to will my hands to stop their tremor, so I took a deep breath, put my hands on the keys, closed my eyes and began to play. The song didn’t come easily. For the first few bars, my fingers stumbled over the keys clumsily, but not long after I began playing, The Calm returned. The magical place I go to when I play the piano took over, and my fingers and hands felt nimble and relaxed. It was a sensation that someone else had taken over my body and was playing the song for me. I finished without incident.

I believe there were one or two more talks given, and then Christine made her way up to the pulpit to sing. Of all the moments in the funeral, this was the one I feared the most. I had kept my composure throughout the funeral thus far, but I knew as soon as the song started, I would crumble again. And I did. My burning eyes, that I didn’t think had any more tears behind them, began to well up, and choked sobs came from deep inside my body. At one point during the song, I looked up at Christine, our eyes locked and we exchanged words without speaking. The song was flawless, and even more beautiful than I could have imagined.

The funeral concluded, and it was time to head to the cemetery.

The plot was purchased in the city cemetery. I remember my mom always saying she would rather be tossed in the Great Salt Lake than to be buried there, but this was the most affordable plot, and my dad insisted he wanted her close, which I couldn’t fault him for. I had chosen the location of the plot. It was directly beneath a beautiful little tree that had just been planted. I knew when it grew up, it would be there to protect and watch over her.

Oddly enough, through everything I had been able to muster strength to do during this whole ordeal, I couldn’t get enough emotional fiber to be a pallbearer. I didn’t want any part of it. I didn’t want to carry my mom’s casket, not only from an emotional standpoint, but I literally didn’t think I had enough physical strength left. I remember my dad telling me that all I could do was all I could do and he would never think less of me for opting out of being a pallbearer.

We arrived at the cemetery for the dedication of the grave and the interment. It was bitterly cold outside, and there was still snow on the ground. Astroturf had been laid out over the snow that allowed a small path from the paved road inside the cemetery to the actual grave itself. The casket was put on wooden slats over the open grave.

Tradition has always been very important in my family. One tradition that has always been constant is my aunt Suzanne bringing intricate balloon bouquets that are let into the sky at every significant family event: weddings, graduations, and funerals. As I mentioned earlier in this story, my mom was a huge fan of The Beatles, so after the dedication of the grave, we were going to play her favorite Beatles song, “Yesterday” while releasing the balloons into the sky.

After the beautiful balloon release, it was over. The casket was lowered into the ground, and there was almost a sense of relief that the whole ordeal was over with. It was time to Move On With Life, whatever that meant.

People often ask me how I was able to get through losing my mom, that they didn’t think they’d be able to handle it when the time came for their moms to go. The fact is, I learned how strong I was. I learned how resilient the human brain is. It is able to ‘hibernate’ when necessary to shield the body from the shock of something that devastating. It’s a testament to the ability for human beings to be able to survive the many horrific events we all experience throughout our lives.

To close this chapter, I think it’s appropriate to share the final verse of “The Rose” as these are the words that still ring so true when I think of my mom and her life:

“When the night has been too lonely, and the road has been too long; and you think that love is only for the lucky and the strong; just remember, in the winter far beneath the bitter snows; lies the seed that with the sun’s love in the spring becomes The Rose.”

A few weeks passed and we finally received the results of the autopsy. The family was pretty sure it had ultimately been the asthma that had killed my mom, so we were absolutely shocked when we found out what had really happened. My mother passed away from a congenital heart condition called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

This condition is very tricky and elusive. With the hundreds, even thousands of tests my mom had on every part of her body over the years, the condition was never identified. We’ve since spent hours and days researching the condition, and discovered that as of the time my mom died, it’s a condition that won’t show up unless they are specifically looking for it. The only way to identify it is with an echocardiogram, and careful measures of the heart.

Beginning in adolescence, the walls of the heart begin to thicken, which, over time causes the atrial and ventricular chambers shrink, so the heart has to work that much harder to pump enough blood to the body. Since the heart is a muscle, the extra work the heart has to do causes it to enlarge further, and make the chambers smaller. It builds on itself until the heart can’t handle the strain and eventually stops.

When my dad spoke to the medical examiner, he said the condition explains a lot about what my mom was going through. The lack of oxygen to the body exacerbated her asthma, which in turn probably was a significant contributing factor to the anxiety attacks. He also put our minds at ease a bit letting us know there is no cure for the condition. It can sometimes be slowed with medication, but unless it’s caught early, the medicines don’t really do much. The only REAL cure would have been a heart transplant, and even then, cardiac transplant patients generally are only given ten good years with the new heart. Knowing all that just explained SO MUCH. Finally there was an answer to the hundreds of questions and the years of not knowing.

When the shock and initial grief had subsided after we buried my mom, I tried hard to get back to a normal routine. Before long, I decided it was time to try dating again. Dan broke up with me not long after my mom passed away, which stung a little, but was overshadowed by my mom’s death.

I began my new dating search online again. It was always a very passive way to meet someone, unlike the bars and things where people typically are only looking for a quick bang. I started chatting a lot on gay.com. Initially it was just weeding through the muck. Several bad dates, a couple hookups, but nothing I would ever consider becoming permanent.

But before long, Bill came along. In the looks department, he was very much my type. He was tall (almost 6’4”), with dark hair, piercing blue eyes, facial hair, body piercings…everything that turned my crank so to speak. He popped up in a private message and we began talking. We had a connection right away. We talked about music, movies, art, food, bad date horror stories, everything. Before long, he asked me out on a date. I was walking on clouds.

He told me to meet him at a local coffee shop in downtown Salt Lake City, and to dress nicely. When I walked in the door of the coffee shop, I spotted him immediately, and my heart skipped a beat. He was even more beautiful than his photos had been.

We hugged, and had a short conversation. He told me he was taking me to a sushi restaurant and then to the symphony. My already pounding heart began to beat even harder. No man had ever taken me on such a romantic date. I was so giddy and nervous I could barely speak. There was no way this guy would ever be interested in me.

We were running a bit late, so we decided to eat after the symphony. I sat through the symphony practically unable to take my eyes off him. Occasionally he would catch me looking and shoot me a huge grin.

After the symphony had ended, he took me to a sushi restaurant called Tokyo Boys. We sat and talked over dinner for a long time, and it was like having a conversation with an old friend. All the awkwardness and nerves had passed, and everything felt easy. Toward the end of dinner, he asked me if it would be okay if we went to a local dance club because he had a friend performing in a drag show. I’ve never been much into the club scene, but I wanted to spend more time with him so I agreed to go.

We arrived at the club and he bought me a drink. We went to where the performance was going to be and he stood behind me and put his arms around me and started kissing my neck. Before long, the drag show was the last thing on either of our minds.

The night drew to an end, and he drove me back to my car. Lots more making out, but nothing more than that. He asked me if I wanted to come home with him, but I politely declined. Anytime I had ever had sex on the first date, nothing ever came of the relationship. I wanted to hold off and see where this was going first.

And that was the beginning. We began going out two to three times a week and had such a great time every single date. Eventually, he asked me to be his boyfriend. I didn’t hesitate before saying yes.

The next few months were pretty great. He introduced me to scuba diving which was a big passion of his. He paid for me to get both my Open Water and Advanced Open Water certifications, and before long, we were going diving frequently.

After about six months, I began to get a sense of who this guy really was. The man I had fallen in love with (or at least THOUGHT I had at the time) was beginning to show a darker side. He invited me to a house party one night. Both of us got insanely drunk, which by that time was pretty much all we ever did on weekends. Before I knew what was happening, he pulled me into the bathroom and he started snorting lines of cocaine. I was HORRIFIED. What was worse, he was pressuring me to try it.

My entire life, I vowed I would never get involved in drugs. Too many of my family members had lost years of their lives doing every drug imaginable. My sister was in the middle of a divorce because her husband was hooked on cocaine. The last thing I wanted to do was become another link in that chain.

The more he pressured me, the more I resisted. Finally, he gave up the fight and went back to the party.

I believe that night was the beginning of the end.

Because I’m going to lay it all out and you’ll fully realize my sheer idiocy in the months to come, I guess I should try and explain my state of mind and heart during that period. I was still grasping at emotional straws, doing whatever I could to try and fill the void in my heart from losing my mom. I was in a really insecure place, and was willing to do whatever I could to keep from losing someone else. This was the case with Bill. I had no self esteem. I was constantly depressed. All I could do was hold on as tightly as I could. I was constantly terrified Bill was going to leave. I became completely subservient to him.

After the night of the party, the emotional abuse began. He had learned exactly where my weak spots were, and constantly did everything he could to exploit them. At first, it was very subtle. He would throw little emotional jabs here and there, but as time went on it began to escalate.

He had easily figured out, because I was completely transparent about it, that no matter what he did, I wasn’t going to walk away. Every month almost like clockwork, he would call me and give me the dreaded line “we need to talk.” These talks would always involve him telling me why he didn’t want to be in a relationship with me anymore, and kept telling me I was bad in bed, that I was too emotional, that I was too passive, that I was too unmotivated, that I was too, too, too. I could never measure up to all his expectations but damn, I sure tried. As I said, he knew damn well he could dangle our relationship in front of me to see how far he could push me because my feet were firmly planted.

He began spending hundreds of dollars every weekend on cocaine. Our weekends consisted of going to the bars on Friday and Saturday nights, getting completely wasted to the point of throwing up and passing out, then spending the rest of the time recovering from hangovers. I enabled him in his cocaine use because the only time he ever showed me true affection anymore is when he was high. There were times I even gave him money to buy the stuff just so he would be affectionate with me. I was literally buying love from him. I look back at that now and cringe at how wholly pathetic that was. I needed love and affection so badly, I was willing to go to any lengths to get it. The only upside to all this was despite how badly he tried to get me to get high with him, I never would. I thank God all the time that I had the fortitude to resist it.

Before long, Bill stopped snorting cocaine, and began using a needle to inject it into his veins. There were times I actually SHOT HIM UP (enter Mr. Pathetic again). I was in so deep in this relationship I couldn’t see, and frankly didn’t care, what it was doing to me. I think to some degree I was reveling in it. I had become such an emotional masochist, I think I actually became addicted to it.

About a year into our relationship, I was pushed to my lowest, most desperate, most pathetic ledge. One Friday night, we went to a party at a bar for a friend of his that had just graduated from college. As was our usual routine, we both drank until we could barely stand. As the bar was getting ready to close, everyone decided they wanted to go to the Belgian Waffle restaurant, which is a 24 hour joint that’s like Denny’s only it’s not a chain so the food is better.

*****WARNING*****WARNING*****WARNING*****WARNING****WARNING*****

What transpired in the next few hours has left me with a scar so deep; I don’t think it’ll ever fully go away. If you’re easily offended, you may want to skip the rest of this chapter. This is something I have shared with only a few of my closest friends, but since I have resolved to lay it all out in these pages, I will continue to do so here. I’m hoping in the end sharing it with all of you will be a catharsis.

If you’re familiar with “The Belge” as people refer to it, you’ll know that it’s right across the street from Hillcrest High School. When we arrived at the restaurant, instead of going inside, Bill grabbed my hand and pulled me across the street and down into the bleachers on the football field. He decided he wanted to have sex. I wasn’t having it. I just wanted to go to sleep.

I’ll try not to be too graphic about the details, but in a nutshell, I wasn’t given much of a choice in what happened next. Before I knew it, he was on top of me, holding me down. I struggled and told him to stop, but he kept going. He was pressing down on me with all of his weight and because I was so drunk, the pressure on my stomach caused me to vomit. He still wouldn’t let me up. I was literally choking on my own sick but all I could do was try to turn my head and spit all of it out. I learned that night what true fear and humiliation was. I was subjected to things I still can’t believe; it feels like some horrible nightmare that happened to someone else. He was still on top of me, but turned around so he was facing my feet and had his legs pinning my arms down and was nearly sitting on my neck. Before I knew what was going on, he had voided the contents of his bowels all over my face.

I retched and vomited again, trying so hard to keep from choking. I was screaming and crying and trying to push him off me. I eventually was able to move him long enough for me to get up. I was sobbing so hard I could barely catch my breath. I turned and vomited again.

He looked at me with blatant disgust and said “Jesus Christ, you’re fucking pathetic.”

I had no idea what to do. The only thing my body would let me do is run. But I didn’t run down the street from him, I ended up on the track at the bottom of the bleachers and just ran as fast as I could down the track because it was the only way my addled brain could cope.

After I physically couldn’t run anymore, I collapsed and lay my head on the ground. I heard him come up behind me and like a kick to the gut, he said, “How can I possibly love you when you don’t even love yourself? Look at you, you’re disgusting. Get up.”

He pulled me to my feet and dragged me up the bleachers to the sidewalk and we began walking. I was so tired and so horrified, I felt nothing. I kept my eyes down on the sidewalk. I knew if I looked at him, it was quite possible I would lose control and literally kill him. I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket, but for some reason I couldn’t get my brain to cooperate with my fingers. I couldn’t figure out how to push the buttons and make a call. He noticed me fumbling with my phone and said, “Who the hell do you think you’re calling?” I put the phone back in my pocket and we kept walking.

From the high school back to his apartment was about a five mile walk. We walked the entire stretch without speaking. I wanted to get out of there so bad but was too drunk to drive, and couldn’t think of anyone to call to come pick me up. It was nearly 4 a.m.

We arrived at his apartment and went inside. He pulled me into the bathroom and forced me into the shower. The hot water was a gift from God. It washed away the filth that was covering my face, in my hair, down my arms. I choked back sobs as best I could- I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of my grief and humiliation. I had to do something to break the tension or my head was going to explode, so I made a pathetic attempt at a joke. I said, “Haha, this is the first time I’ve ever been shitfaced!” He looked at me with that same look of disgust and said, “That little comment almost got you dumped and thrown out of my house.”

I felt completely trapped. My legs felt like cement and my heart was in the balls of my feet. I wanted to leave but there was nowhere to go. I felt so shamed, so humiliated, so hurt and so angry. We crawled into bed and I moved as close to the edge of the bed, facing away from him. To my complete horror and disgust, he tried to initiate sex again. I grabbed his hand and pushed it off me. At some point, sleep came.

The horror of that night sent me into a tailspin. I was getting drunk almost every night. I had so much fear coursing through my body all the time, I quite literally thought if I left him, he would kill me. If he was capable of raping me, he was certainly capable of hurting me or someone else I loved.

So I stayed with him. For SIX MORE MONTHS. The night in question was never mentioned. No discussion, no apology. It was as if it had never happened. But I relived it. Every. Single. Day.

The terrible irony is, in the end, he was the one who ended the relationship. He then had the gall to try and cultivate a friendship with me afterward. And because I was in such a state of emotional masochism, I tried that friendship. Before long, all we ever talked about were his sexual escapades and drug use. He bragged about having unprotected sex with someone he knew had HIV, and had also shared needles with the guy.

About a year after we broke up, he told me he had tested positive for the virus. I wasn’t sure how to feel. On one hand, I had compassion for him, but largely I felt Karma had paid him a little visit, and I have to admit I felt pretty smug.

Shortly after he told me he was positive, he began trying to control my life again. At that point, I had mustered enough self love to walk away for good. I haven’t spoken to him since. About four years ago, I drafted a long email to him and was very explicit in telling him exactly what I thought of him. I confronted him about not only the rape, but also how he had treated me the entire time we were together. I told him when that disease had finally killed him, I would show up to his funeral only to spit on his casket. I don’t wish him the best. I don’t want to be the bigger person. Where he is concerned, I’m quite happy not taking the high road. I prefer, instead, to take the lowest road possible and wish nothing but the same misery and hell he forced on me.

There’s now been enough distance and time from that horrible night, I’ve started to heal. It’s a very slow, very painful process. As humiliating as it is, it has helped me a lot to talk about it, which is why I needed to share it here.

Not long after Bill and I split, I met my savior. My Jeremy. The man who was and is the light in the horrible darkness I’ve experienced in my life. The man who has loved me unconditionally for almost nine years, despite the many mistakes I have made in our relationship. The man who has given so much of himself to help me heal and recover from the hell I had gone through. He is my soul mate, my best friend, my husband. The man I want to spend the rest of my life with. His heart is so good and so honest, just being with him takes my breath away.

When I met Jeremy, I was looking for anything but a new relationship. With everything I had been through with Bill, I couldn’t imagine myself ever giving my heart to someone ever again. I had resolutely made up my mind to remain single for the rest of my life, and I was completely comfortable with that. I had come to understand that the only person I could really trust was myself, and even that was surviving only on shaky ground.

One of the only good things to come out of my relationship with Bill was that I had somehow dug deep and found the courage to tell my family about my sexuality. My only regret is not doing it while my mom was still alive, but from discussions I’ve had with my dad and my aunt Suzanne since, she knew. My mom had such a scary intuition. It bordered on psychic at times.

It’s actually kind of funny how I came out to my dad. I was living with him and my brother at the time in a rental house just a few miles from where I grew up. Since I had moved back home and my mom had passed away, I had developed such a great relationship with my dad. He and I would spend evenings together with take-out food and movies. We sat down all the time and just had fantastic conversations. I really enjoyed spending time with my dad, and we started connecting in a way we never had when I was a kid.

One night, I was downstairs in my bedroom listening to music. Out of nowhere, I made up my mind to go tell my dad right then. I have no idea where the impulse came from. I hadn’t even been thinking about it that night.

I marched upstairs and found my dad in the family room watching TV. I just said, “Dad, I need to talk to you if you have some time.” He didn’t even look overly concerned about what I wanted to talk to him about. I asked if we could go up to his bedroom and talk, just in case my brother came home.

We went upstairs to his bedroom. He sat on the bed, I in the rocking chair across the room. He asked me what was up, and I took a deep breath and just blurted it out. “Dad, I’m gay.”

He didn’t look surprised at all. Without missing a beat he said, “I know.”

I was pretty taken aback. I mean, really, if you’ve ever met me, you know it’s not all that difficult to tell that I’m gay. I’m not queeny or effeminate, but it’s not a challenge to figure it out. At the time, though, I had absolutely no idea he knew. Before I could even ask him how he felt about it, he looked at me, his eyes filled with love.

“Michael (he’s the only one that still calls me that), you’re my son. I love you no matter what. Nothing you could do or say would ever change that. I can’t pretend I understand how you’re feeling, but the most important thing is that you’re happy. I’ve known you were gay for quite a long time, but I didn’t think it was my place to confront you with it. I knew you’d tell me when you were ready. You know my belief and faith in the church, and I still haven’t found a way to reconcile this with that, but someday I know I will.”

My eyes welled up with tears. If I had had any inkling this is what his reaction would be, I would have told him so many years sooner. I looked into his eyes and knew he meant every word. We talked for over an hour, and as the conversation was winding down, he smiled at me and said, “How about we go grab some KFC and rent a movie.”

Both of us started laughing and he came over and gave me a big hug. There was no awkwardness at all, just an immense sense of relief and unconditional love.

My dad asked me if it was okay if he talked to my brother and sister about what I had told him. I told him I had no problem with that.

Since then, both my brother and sister who are very active in the LDS church have been two of my biggest cheerleaders. My sister told me she had known I was gay since I was a teenager. She had made up her mind if I hadn’t come out by the time the month was out, she was going to pull me aside and force me out of the closet, which is just like her. She’s a fabulous spitfire, just like my mom.

One of the things that makes my eyes well up with tears even now is my dad, my sister and my brother all told their respective spouses on their first dates that I was gay, and if they (the spouses) had any issue with it, the relationship wouldn’t work.

I never take for granted how lucky I am that I have a family that supports me. I realize I am an exception to the rule. So many GLBT people, especially those who come from Christian backgrounds are shunned by their families, some even kicked out of their homes. I never fail to keep this in the forefront of my mind every single day.

So as I said, when I met Jeremy, I was only looking for friends- some nice gay people to form solid friendships with; people with good energy and who weren’t emotionally crippled like Bill was. I put an ad up on a gay singles website stating very clearly that at that point, I wasn’t looking for anything romantic, just some people to hang out with, which was the God-honest truth. On that website was a feature similar to the one on Facebook where you can “poke” someone, but on this site they called it a “wink”. One day, I received a “wink” from one of the most adorable men I’d ever seen. It was Jeremy. I promptly sent a “wink” back, and before long, we were exchanging emails. If any two people had more in common than Jeremy and me, I haven’t met them. From the most obscure, random movies, to favorite foods, to music…we even smoked the same cigarettes (not a good thing, I know, but it’s more to illustrate how much we had/have in common).

I had to firmly plant my feet in the ground, though, and not give in to the pitter-patter of my heart. The truth is, I hadn’t even met this guy, and I’d be damned if I was going to break down the wall I had built around my poor little heart. It took a lot of conscious effort to keep that wall up where Jeremy was concerned, because with each email I found myself liking him more and more, which scared the living crap out of me.

After exchanging emails and instant messages for a few weeks, we decided to meet. We had talked on the phone a few times and just the sound of his voice made me weak.

To illustrate just how gay I really am, Jeremy asked me to meet him on a certain night, however I had already made plans for that night to watch the season finale of the first season of American Idol with some friends from work. To this day, Jeremy has jokingly never let me live that down.

Jeremy and I exchanged text messages throughout the entire show, and when it was over (yay! Kelly Clarkson won!), he suggested we meet for a drink. I happily accepted. I had to drive a friend of mine to her apartment downtown, but since Jeremy and I both lived in the south end of the Salt Lake Valley, I agreed to pick him up in the parking lot of a grocery store near his house, and he’d come along while I took my friend home, then we’d go grab a beer. I felt the familiar butterflies that like to do jumping jacks inside my stomach whenever the mood strikes them. But I figured what the hell? I’m not going to meet him for a romantic liaison, or even a date, we’re just going to hang out and get to know each other.

As I pulled into the parking lot of the grocery store, I immediately spotted his little black coupe parked near the doors of the store. I pulled up next to him and I’ll never forget the absolutely gorgeous smile he threw me when he saw me. We both got out of our cars and my heart was about to pound out of my chest. He was the most beautiful man I had ever seen in my entire life. I thought to myself, thank God we’re only meeting as friends; no one that good looking would ever be interested in me!

Shawntelle, the friend I was driving home, got in the back seat and Jeremy into the passenger seat. From the get-go, we began talking…it really was like we had known each other all our lives. There were no awkward silences, no fishing for things to say. The words flowed so easily. Now, one thing that made this a lot easier, and if you’ve ever met Jeremy in person you know this, he is a self-professed chatterbox. In the nine years I have known Jeremy, I don’t think he’s ever been at a loss for words, which I find absolutely adorable.

By the time we arrived at Shawntelle’s apartment, she had fallen asleep in the back seat. I woke her up, said goodbye and Jeremy and I drove off, looking for someplace relatively quiet where we could get a beer and have a few smokes. Neither of us were into the bar scene, so we decided to go to a place downtown called Anchors Away, which was a very laid-back restaurant/bar/pub thingie, where they allowed smoking. Alas, when we pulled up, it had been closed. We had been driving around for over an hour looking for somewhere to go, and not finding anywhere. Honestly, I barely noticed we had been driving that long. I was too engaged in the conversation we were having. Eventually, we ended up in the parking lot of Target. There was a small strip of grass and trees and we decided to get out of the car and have a cigarette. We sat down on the grass and kept talking. Before I knew what had happened, we looked at the clock and it was nearly 5 a.m. We had been talking for over eight hours. Hours had flown like minutes, and I knew then and there that this was the man I was going to go the long haul with. I knew it more surely than I’ve ever known anything else in my life. Jeremy was going to be my rock and my redemption, and the more I learned about the challenges he had been through in his life, the more I respected, admired and adored him.

Jeremy never ceases to amaze me. Sometimes I look at him in complete and utter awe just knowing the challenges he has had to overcome. I’m going to detail a little bit of Jeremy’s past. I’m going to keep it brief, as Jeremy’s story would merit its own book.

Jeremy grew up in the Salt Lake valley, but was not born into an LDS family. Jeremy’s mom was raised Catholic, and his dad was raised Mormon, but shortly after his parents got married, they both decided that neither Catholicism nor Mormonism fit into their belief structure. They began researching other denominations and decided the Unitarian Church afforded them the option to be more liberal in their spiritual beliefs. So consequently, Jeremy was raised in an environment that fostered a sense of being able to find oneself, and if/when it came time to decide about God, Jeremy’s parents left it up to their children to make up their own minds.

Jeremy’s first encounter with Mormonism wasn’t a great one. He had a very good friend as a kid who he used to spend most of his time with. One day, he went over to this friend’s house and was introduced to the friend’s mother. The mother asked Jeremy what ward he was in, and when Jeremy replied that he wasn’t Mormon, the woman quite literally chased him out of her house and across the lawn, and told him her son was no longer allowed to associate with him.

From that incident, Jeremy always assumed that all Mormons behaved this way, so early on, he completely rejected the idea of becoming Mormon.

As he grew up, Jeremy was always a bit of a misfit. He had a difficult time at school because he was labeled the “fat kid.” As expected, this cut into his self-esteem very deeply.

Through his adolescence, Jeremy began experimenting with drugs. When he was sixteen, he got a job working at Burger King. He was still really self-conscious about his weight at that time, and trying to juggle high school and work at the same time was making him really depressed. Then his manager at Burger King introduced him to meth. She told him if he snorted it, he’d have enough energy to work, study and go to school.

It wasn’t long before he became addicted to methamphetamine. He loved the high, but most of all loved the weight loss. It gave him confidence and energy. Before long, snorting it turned to using a needle to inject it into his veins. He began learning how to cook it as well.

Jeremy was a meth junkie for over seven years. His parents kicked him out of the house, and he lived on the streets for over a year, and even turned to prostitution to feed his addiction. His parents said the only support they would give him is if he decided to enter a rehab facility.

It is said that most addicts have to hit their “rock bottom” in order to climb out of the hell of addiction. This is exactly what happened to Jeremy. He was involved in a drug deal that went bad. He was jumped in an alley and beaten nearly to death by four guys. With nowhere else to turn, he stole a bicycle and pedaled his way to his best friend Laura’s house. She answered the door to find Jeremy beaten, bruised and bleeding, with tears running down his cheeks and the only thing he could say was that he needed to get out of his life or he would die.

He and Laura began calling rehab facilities both inside and outside Utah. Another friend of Jeremy’s had gotten sober from her meth addiction at a facility in Salt Lake called Odyssey House. Because he had seen what the place had been able to do for her, he decided to seek help there.

Jeremy was admitted inpatient to Odyssey House and spent thirteen months there trying to kick the habit. After thirteen months, he left Odyssey House clean and sober. His parents helped him get an apartment and a car, and he began his new life.

Not long after he left rehab, he enrolled at the University of Phoenix and began his bachelor’s degree in Human Services. He had decided he wanted to become a drug and alcohol counselor so he could help other people the way Odyssey House had helped him. Jeremy worked so hard at school and four years later graduated cum laude from the University of Phoenix.

He has since returned to school and received his master’s degree in business. Although his career path changed, he has been able to raise over ten thousand dollars in grants for Odyssey house, and was recently considered to join the Odyssey house board of directors. He has now been clean and sober for going on twelve years.

The way Jeremy took charge and reclaimed his own life has always been such an inspiration to me. As I said, there are times when I look at him in awe. He is my hero. I often wonder what I did to deserve him. If angels exist on earth, he is one of them.

Obviously, my initial resistance to entering another relationship faded very quickly the more Jeremy and I spent time together. Before I knew what was happening, I realized I was irrevocably in love with him. It scared the crap out of me, but at the same time, my intuition told me this was the man I was going to spend the rest of my life with.

After a year of being together, we decided it was time to think about moving in together. At the time, we were both living with roommates in different houses. When Jeremy’s mom heard that he and I were looking for a place to rent, she called Jeremy and told him if we wanted to buy a house, she would pay the down payment and closing costs for us. I will never forget Jeremy’s face. His eyes welled up with tears.

After quite a long time immersing ourselves in the real estate market, we eventually found a beautiful little house in the Sugarhouse area of Salt Lake City.

The first year of living together was an incredibly challenging one. Our relationship faced a lot of problems neither one of us anticipated. About six months after we bought the house, I began to experience crippling panic attacks very similar to the ones my mom used to get. I began acting out in ways I never thought I was capable of.

During that first year, there were several times when we weren’t sure our relationship was going to survive. We had become strangers living in the same house together. But neither of us was willing to give up. We spent time in couples therapy, and eventually got to a new place; a more honest place. Our relationship blossomed like it never had before.

I heard a very wise saying once, and damned if I can remember where, but it has always stuck with me: “True love means falling in love with the same person over and over again in and endless cycle through life.” This has proved to be so accurate in my relationship with Jeremy. I have fallen in love with him countless times. As with any relationships, we have our challenges and obstacles, but we have always stood strong and weathered the storm together.

Not surprisingly, since my release from the abusive relationship I had with Bill, I have had a lot of issues with trust, intimacy and communication. It has taken years of therapy and backbreaking work to get to a point where I could really trust that Jeremy wouldn’t hurt me, despite absolutely no evidence that he ever would. To this day, I struggle with feelings of low self-esteem, uncertainty about my worth as a human being, and loving myself. So much of this stemmed from my relationship with Bill. I had the most difficult time opening my heart to Jeremy and fully letting him in. But things continue to move forward, and we walk hand in hand through the challenges together.

Christmas morning, 2004, Jeremy got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. Obviously, in the state of Utah, we couldn’t be legally married, but he knew how badly I wanted to have a wedding, and both of us knew we wanted to spend our lives together.

It wasn’t until after the proposal that I found out that Jeremy had gone to my dad and actually asked for my hand in marriage. My dad was somewhat taken aback, but said there was no one else in the world he, my dad, would want to see me with. He has always looked at Jeremy as his own son.

We were married September 10, 2005 at the First Unitarian Church in Salt Lake City. The ceremony was small but absolutely beautiful. My entire family showed up to support me. My dad and his wife were in the front row. My nephew, Isaac, only about a year old at the time was the ring bearer. Since he couldn’t walk yet, my sister pulled him down the aisle in a Red Flyer wagon, with the rings being in a tiny red wagon tied to the back of the Red Flyer. The small wagon had come as an accessory to one of my mom’s dolls, which seemed so appropriate and fitting. It was a tribute to her since she couldn’t be there. This was one event though that I felt her presence there so strongly, and I know without a doubt that she would have loved Jeremy just as much as she ever loved me.

I couldn’t have asked for more from our wedding. We’ve been told by so many people that it was the most beautiful and emotional wedding ceremony they have ever attended. There wasn’t a dry eye in the entire house.

I was so moved and proud that my family attended and participated in the ceremony. I could never have asked for more than they gave. My dad has since admitted that he struggled a lot with the idea that I was getting married to a man. The night before the wedding, he had a meeting with his bishop, and told him the emotional bind he was in; that he couldn’t seem to find a middle ground between his love for me and his religious beliefs. The bishop just smiled at him and said, “Go to the wedding. Just be there for your son and love him unconditionally. Follow what’s in your heart. The most important thing is your love for your son. Let that guide you.” And my dad has always done that. Obviously over the years, my dad and I haven’t seen eye to eye on a lot of things, but despite our disagreements, he has never faltered in his love and support for me and Jeremy. For that, I have nothing but the utmost respect and love for him. The world needs more men like him.

In June of 2008, on the first day it was legal in the state of California before the Prop 8 debacle, Jeremy and I were married at a small Vegas-style wedding chapel in Los Angeles. It was the complete opposite of our wedding in Utah. We were married in shorts and t-shirts, and the staff photographer served as our witness. It was one of the most beautiful and significant days of my entire life.

Shortly after our wedding in California, Proposition 8 was introduced and rabidly supported by the Mormons. This event was to be the beginning of the end of my relationship and affiliation with the LDS church. It was the proverbial straw. It’s what triggered something in my brain that started me on a track that would bring me to a place of peace and freedom I had never experienced before in my life.

It wasn’t until about five years ago that I really began to explore my own spirituality again. Since I stopped going to church, I hadn’t given the matter much thought. But I could feel myself start to ache for something. Not everyone does, but I had this need to figure out what my feelings were about God.

I started reading a lot of books on religion and spirituality. I’ve always had a keen interest in finding out what other religions throughout the world believe, and as an adult I realized I could actually explore these things in earnest without repercussion. I didn’t know then whether I was Christian, Pagan, Agnostic, Buddhist or somewhere among all of them. I felt like Godlylocks and the Three Prayers.

I began to study Wicca. I had always been interested in the concept of witches in the context of the actual pagan religion. Like a lot of other teenagers, I dabbled in it back when I was around fourteen, but of course that was really all it was. As an adult, though, I became voracious. I bought a ton of books and tools that I would need to begin practicing. I realized quickly, however, that I was having a difficult time getting started and understanding all of what was involved. Keeping true with my pattern of many things in my life, I eventually became frustrated and gave up.

I concentrated then on other Christian religions. Christianity felt familiar to me. I was really fascinated with Catholicism; I loved the ritual and pageantry. Obviously, though, the Catholic church is almost more rabidly against homosexuality than the Mormon church is.

Then I found the Episcopal church. I loved that they incorporated all the pageantry of the Catholic church, but were much more open-minded and accepting of alternative lifestyles. I attended a couple of services, but being that there aren’t any Episcopalian churches anywhere near my home, it became difficult to attend.

Ultimately, though, I kind of found my own brand of spirituality. I do consider myself Christian, but I don’t limit myself to a particular box or label. There are so many aspects of different religions that make sense to me. The teachings of Buddhism, Wicca, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc. all have parts that make a lot of sense to me. Religion itself isn’t overly important to me; spirituality however is. To me, everyone has to choose their own spiritual path; even if you end up an atheist. It’s not up to anyone else to force their beliefs on another person or group of people, as so many religions do. I’m happy to tell people WHAT I believe, but I would never be so presumptuous to try and force my spiritual belief structure on anyone else.

About two years ago, I began researching things about the Mormon church. I’m actually quite surprised I didn’t begin my search earlier in life. It began as most modern research does, on the internet. I had always been curious about the LDS temple ceremonies, since they were kept such a secret. A quick search on Google yielded thousands of results. One of the top search results I saw was exmormon.org. I began exploring the site and immediately found all the information I was looking for all in one neat, tidy, uncomplicated website that was so easy to navigate. I literally spent days reading through the site; personal exit stories, the archived message board posts, everything I could get my hands on.

After about two weeks of constant reading, I decided to take a stab at the RfM message boards. I lurked for about two days, and then decided to make my first post. I never did formally introduce myself to the board until much later, but I have to admit, I was quite intimidated by a lot of the posts I saw. But then, the more I read and the more I posted, I quickly realized how much in common I had with a lot of the posters on the board. Their experiences paralleled mine in so many aspects. Before long, I began to feel a sense of community I had never once felt by going to church. This was a place I felt accepted and understood.

The RfM board has since become a second home to me. I have made so many new friends and have been given a lifetime of information about the church I thought I had been so educated in, all in just two short years.

For a long time, though, I didn’t tell anyone on the board that I hadn’t officially resigned from the LDS church. Deep down, I was scared to death to actually even type up a resignation letter. I realized before long that I was still completely indoctrinated in the Mormon church in so many ways. I painfully recognized that a lot of the things I thought I had been able to let go of I was still clinging to. It took a lot of soul-searching and pain to really let go of it. I realized for the first time, when it came down to what I REALLY believed in, I had to stand on my own for the first time in my life.

There was a grieving process to it that I hadn’t anticipated. Letting go of a religion you’ve been in most of your entire life is much more painful than some people might think. There are so many years of pain, resentment, anger and frustration that all need to be worked through before someone can fully “recover”. And the truth is, I will probably spend the better part of the rest of my life trying to put the pieces back together. The most important thing though is that I have a solid support system of people who are going through such similar things. I have a place I can come to and rant, rave, laugh, cry, rage, rejoice, learn, commiserate, and revel in the sense of family and community I feel.

Back in September of 2010, I finally mustered up the courage to write my letter of resignation from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I knew full well most of it wouldn’t get read or even acknowledged, but it was like a really productive therapy session, much like writing this memoir has been. It was so freeing to finally get it all out on virtual paper, and see the words instead of just thinking them. But something still held me back from sending it. As silly as it sounds, it seemed like such a hassle to have the letter notarized and sent via certified mail and all the other headaches that came along with it. Luckily, though, just recently the option to resign via email surfaced.

I emailed my letter of resignation on January 17, 2011. I received my initial response from the office of Greg Dodge on January 25, 2011. Because I am my mother’s son and have a really hard time believing in coincidence, I got chills all over my body when I received the letter and it was dated January 24, 2011, the ten year anniversary of my mom’s death. She was set free from her chains that day ten years earlier and it seems so appropriate that I was set free from my own chains on the same day ten years later. When I think about it, the only word that pops into my mind is ‘kismet’: Meant To Be.

EPILOGUE

I am, as they say, a work in progress. I still struggle with a lot of ghosts of my past, as do all of us. For the first time in my life, however, I can honestly say I am in a really good place. Things seem to be moving on course exactly the way they should be.

It has been really a really harrowing experience taking the time to sit and commit the angels and demons of my past to black and white reality, then sharing them with people I consider family. I have had to lay down the armor I have held so tightly against myself for so many years and really just let go. It’s been scary and painful, but it’s like cleaning out an infected wound. It hurts like hell at the beginning, but now that all the dirt is out, it’s a lot easier for the body to heal itself.

I’m grateful that I have come out of the horrible experiences I’ve had in my past as unscathed as I have. So many times I don’t feel very strong, but when I look back at the horrors I’ve gone through, I realize I most certainly AM a creature of strength, and I really do have a lot to give.

I’m looking forward to the next chapter in my life. Stay tuned!