“It’s my birthday and I’ll cry if I want to – cry if I want to – cry if I want to”. Yes, I know the real lyrics are “It’s my PARTY and I’ll cry if I want to …” If you have no idea what I am talking about – that’s proof I AM old!
Truthfully, if I cry today for turning another year older, it’s tears of JOY, GRATITUDE and APPRECIATION for life’s experiences.
At 51 years “young” I don’t feel much older than I did in high school, it’s only when I pass a mirror that I am reminded of my age. I decided to make a list of all the things I have been fortunate to experience throughout the past half-a-century as a reminder how precious life truly is ….
Born on ranch in Montana to the best family ever!
Rode horses everyday…. okay not everyday, but a lot
Met my future husband at age 8
My mother saw that I was kept busy so I didn’t have time to get into trouble; Dance, Piano, Guitar, Voice Lessons, Gymnastics and played in the Band – alto saxophone
Grew up with 6 living grandparents
Kept busy in High School: Senior Class President, Vice-President of Ski Club, Gymnastics team-Captain, Seminary Council, Choir Secretary – these roles landed me a Leadership Scholarship to BYU!
Skier – favorite resort: Alta
Loved the College life – BYU and BYU-Hawaii
Learned to Surf and Snorkel. (hate snorkeling – claustrophobic)
Married my secret High School crush – Scott Mackintosh
Mother of 7 AMAZING kids
Natural childbirth
One C-Section
Milked goats for 12 years
Community Service “Door Knocker” Award
4H Horsemanship Leader – 17 years
England and Scotland – Twice
I’m a Cruise-a-holic – 8 Cruises
Para-Sailing- Twice (hated it – scared to death of heights)
India – Twice (loved, loved, loved my experience in India and the priceless friendships made)
Dubai
Rode a Camel and an Elephant
Camping with my family – love roasting marshmellows around a camp fire
Worked for two AMAZING Speaker/Authors: Kevin Hall and Chad Hymas which led to meeting….
Inspiring people: Immaculée Ilibagiza, Emmanuel Kelly, Rolanda Watts, Sean Stevenson, Dave Winfield, Mark Sandborn, Bridget Cook, Rebecca Musser, Lisa Nichols, Allison Byrd, Thurl Bailey, Mark Eaton, Jason Hewlett and the master of words Arthur Watkins. ….and so many others through the National Speakers Association.
Wrote a book “My Husband Wears The Short Shorts In THIS Family!”
Met and conversed with the LDS Prophet Thomas S. Monson for 20 minutes – a highlight of my life!
and the BESTEST of all ….I am a GRANDMA!
I am truly indebted to God, my Heavenly Father, who has deeply blessed me, carried me through dark times when I wanted to give up, wiped away my tears when my heart was breaking, allowed me to experience and grow through trials and challenges and has not let a day go by that God didn’t tell me or show me how much He loves me. I see it in my children’s faces, in my husband’s hug, in the flowers, the birds and the many wonderful friends that contribute to who I am. I am a child of God, a wife, mother and friend, what more could a person ask for? I can’t think of a dang thing, except for perhaps a big piece of strawberry short cake. HaPpY Birthday to me!
It’s only been two weeks since I held my breath as my finger hovered over that publish button to “A Very REAL Matter: Same-Sex Attraction”. My stomach ached as I dug even deeper, to muster additional courage to share to Facebook and Twitter. Fear of how the public would react to my son’s vulnerability and to my motherly plea to the world to reinvest in kindness.
The response has been over-whelming. Our inboxes inundated with positive emails, messages and phone calls, along with a long stream of comments beneath the many social media shares. We thank you from the bottom of our heart for your kind and supportive messages, your openness, AND for sharing the video and post with others.
(If you have no idea what I am talking about, STOP and take a few minutes
The message we had hoped would shine through was validated with comments such as…
“Thank you so much for sharing this video. It touched our hearts, and we cried all the way through it. This is exactly our son’s story as well. We are learning everyday as a family. Thanks for your words and lessons. It has helped so much!!!”
“I agree that whether we agree or disagree with same-sex attractions, we can ALL be kinder and more compassionate about it.”
“Wow. I was deeply touched AND educated. Thank you to you and Sean for taking the time to open up about this subject. I needed the lesson on being less judgmental and more loving.”
A great number of the responses mirrored my son’s story having received an outpouring of love, empathy and compassion. Others experienced rejection, and still others live in fear of telling their parents, or sharing their secret with anyone.
Hundreds thanked us for helping them see things in a different perspective.
One father confessed, “I haven’t spoken to my gay son in four years.” He humbly added, “I can see I have been doing it wrong.” He committed to send his son a text that simply said, “I love you”.
Bullseye! That was our intention!
It’s rewarding to hear that hearts are healing, families reuniting and lives being saved. It’s a start.
Some people questioned the need to even have this discussion asking, “Why would anyone not accept a person just because of their sexual orientation?”
Another person confessed,“I was brought up to believe you only accept gays if they do not act upon their desires.”
I must confess…
I cried as I read the many heart-wrenching emails that claimed they had often gone to bed crying and pleading with God to please not let THIS be their challenge. Praying “Please take my eye sight, my hearing, my legs, ANYTHING in place of being gay.”
Heart wrenching.
The most common patterns I noticed within the mass of emails were…
1) The internal conflict between their natural feelings they did not choose, and their religious beliefs. Leaving them wondering, “Does God love me?”
2) The most difficult step seemed to be admitting to him or her self that number one, this was not going away, and number two, this was a real part of who they were.
Then REAL fear steps in…
“Who do I tell? Do I tell my parents? HOW do I tell my parents? How will they react?”
And the biggest fear of all – “What if they reject me?”
This leads to the next big dilemma…
Is it okay to date someone I am attracted to, or do I continue to date someone of the opposite sex to appear normal? Do I live a life of celibacy? Is it possible to meet someone of the opposite sex who will marry me?
Many emails (too many) contained confessions that ending their life seemed like the best and only option. And many shared they had already attempted to take their life. No one should feel ending their life is their only or best option. Never. Ever.
It was heartbreaking to read the many emails from parents and gay young men and women who expressed they had become disillusioned and angry with God and many claiming to be atheist.
I wish I had a magic wand to calm the hearts of those who live in fear of telling their parents or sharing their secret with anyone, fear of disappointment and of being rejected.
The happiest and most positive emails were from gay young men and women who believed in God and had loving family support.
The happiest expressed gratitude in having parents who loved them unconditionally. Just knowing their parents loved them seemed to make a huge difference.
My heart is full and I fight back the tears. I never imagined this is what I would learn and experience when I pushed that “publish”. But I am grateful. Grateful to know that hundreds and perhaps thousands now know they are not alone and they have a friend in me and my son. My inbox is filled with people who just want to fit in, to be understood and feel loved.
My plea to the world is to reinvest in kindness, compassion and charity. We all could do a little better don’t you think? I know I could.
Watch this short video… it’s a great intro to the blog post.
A Very Real Matter: Same-Sex Attraction
Life was meant to be enJOYed, not just endured.
What happens when someone in your family announces they have same-sex attraction?
Do you kick them out?
Do you love them unconditionally?
This is a sensitive subject, one that brings much controversy no matter your background.
The purpose of this video and post is to invite families, and society in general, to reinvest in kindness. When we look around at the amount of judgment and hatred in the world, the honest response is that we all could do better. It is my belief that we, the human race, are to LOVE one another, SERVE one another and do our very best to HELP one another with the challenges and trials that come our way.
It doesn’t matter where you live or what your religious beliefs are; if you are rich, poor, brown, black, white, pink or green – we all have the same basic needs. We all want to feel we belong, are loved and valued. God said, “Love one another as I have loved you.” He wasn’t just talking to your neighbor. He was talking to you and me and even those in our families that may make different choices than we would. Intolerance is why there is so much hate, war and bullying in this world. It needs to stop. Things need to change.
Gandhi said it best; “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”
It was January 9, 2012, when my 24-year-old son Sean, told his father Scott and I that he was gay, in the best way he knew how. Precisely at 11:11 pm, he sent us a private message saying;
“Hey so I’m not gonna beat around the bush too much, I’m just going to tell you something that I’m sure you already know or it has at least crossed your mind plenty of times. I’m gay. I’m sure this isn’t the best news a parent could hear, but I feel like it’s not right for me to Not talk to you about something very real to me. I want you to know I’m very much the same weird Sean. Ha! I love you and dad so much and you’re the best parents a kid could ask for. This is why it’s taken me so long to tell you, I’m fine with the pain it can bring me at times but, I just didn’t want to hurt you ’cause you don’t deserve it. Once again I love you very much, but I want to keep this brief ’cause I am sure you’d rather talk in person and I am 100 percent fine with that. I haven’t told anyone ever, I wanted you and dad to be the first to know.”
The sting of reading the words “I’m gay,” was masked by the last sentence: “I haven’t told anyone ever, I wanted you and dad to be the first to know” – to me that validated how awesome, amazing and considerate my son is! It also shed light on the fact that my son had closeted his most conflicted and torn feelings with lock and key – alone. That, I was not proud of.
Sean was correct in his assumption that this had “at least crossed my mind”. I had often wondered about my strikingly, good-looking son that only dated when the girls took the initiative and asked him out. It was a thought I kept very quiet, and secret, hardly daring to think it to myself. It was something I “hoped” was not true! But here it was in black and white – my son announcing that he was gay. His father, on the other-hand, had no clue. Scott was honestly completely blind-sided by the news. It shook him to his core. Not that he didn’t love Sean. He simply had not seen this coming and it wasn’t something he’d even slightly acknowledged.
Immediately upon reading Sean’s message, I called him asking to hurry home so we could talk, face-to-face. This was Sean’s final night before heading back to school in Hawaii. He was out visiting friends and saying his good-byes for another year. When he got home, he and I stayed up until 4am talking, crying and hugging before calling it a night and heading to the airport those few hours later. It was one of the most difficult things I’d ever done under the circumstances; giving him one last hug that would have to suffice for an entire year.
Going Through My Own Refiner’s Fire
As I look back on that very first conversation, I have to admit that I am not proud of everything I said. I said some things completely out of ignorance. I had never researched the subject – naively thinking that was a subject “other families” had to deal with — NOT me and my family.
First, I told Sean I loved him – and that my love would NEVER change. I felt very strongly that he needed to know of my unconditional love for him. But then I gave him a pep talk, “What are you going to do about it?” “You are a fighter Sean – you can fight this.” “Hang in there, this is your test, your challenge, and in the next life your feelings will match your body and all will be well.” As these phrases spilled off my lips, I honestly thought I was giving words of comfort, not knowing each phrase was a dagger in my son’s heart. The phrases weren’t new. He had grown up hearing them everywhere – and he had spent a lifetime trying to digest and understand why he felt the way he felt and what kind of life that meant for him.
What literally broke my heart that evening was looking at my 24-year-old son, and thinking my adorable little boy with the big smile had grown up dealing with this secret all alone – NO one to trust and talk to about it. I cried then, and I cry still now. Tears also come at the thought of thousands of kids and teens with same-sex attraction dealing with it ALONE, afraid to talk about their true feelings and contemplating suicide as the answer. Death is NOT the answer.
As I have listened to my son tell of what it was like growing up “fighting an inward battle” trying to “fit in” in a world that frowns upon gays; belonging to a religion that is family-centered and strongly believes marriage is between a man and a woman, and in a family that teaches the same. My heart breaks at the thought of my own flesh and blood growing up feeling like a misfit right in our home, in school, in society, and within the walls of our church. Growing up he never let on to the sadness and confusion going on inside. He was a happy, active, fun-loving little boy and teenager. We just didn’t know. Even his friends didn’t know. If an Oscar could be awarded, Sean would have won. He hid his feelings well.
The dagger in my heart are the piercing words of Sean telling of the years he contemplated ending his life so no one would ever know he was gay. It is my prayer and quest that NO ONE feels that way – Ever!
I am so thankful Sean never acted upon those dark feelings and is happy with the person he is, trying to live the best life he can, just like everyone else.
I have Googled, read, fasted and prayed to become more educated. One startling fact that I learned in my quest to gain knowledge and understanding is that teens and young adults with same-sex attraction have one of the highest rates of suicide attempts…..THAT is unacceptable! No one should go to bed at night thinking they are better off dead. Never. Ever. We need to be the change we wish to see in the world – LOVE one another, SERVE one another and HELP one another.
I have learned through the years that everyone is fighting some kind of battle. The gift this has given me is not to judge, to be more compassionate, kind and tolerant – and to treat all others the way I would want to be treated.
No matter where you stand on this sensitive subject, I pray that we may all respond with much more sensitivity and thoughtfulness in our families and in society when encountering same-sex attraction.
P.S. To my readers who are wondering about Sean’s father Scott’s reaction. Scott had deep-rooted feelings of Homophobia, so Sean had grown up hearing his father’s unkind perception of gays, making the “coming out” all that more difficult. Once that table had been turned and Scott knew it, he blew me away with his quick quest to learn all he could about the elephant in the room. What I will tell you is that in his own due time, Scott will share his personal refiner’s fire to accepting and loving his son. And it will be powerful and heartfelt.
P.P.S. In April of 2013, Sean graduated with honors from BYU-Hawaii with a degree in Social Work. He recently completed an internship at an Orphanage in Thailand and has been accepted into the Masters Program at the University of Hawaii. Sean is a happy, easy-going guy with a great sense of humor. He’s an Eagle Scout and has always been a leader amongst his peers. For example, Sean paid for his college education all by himself, without student loans! He graduated with honors, wisely debt-free, and teaching others how to do the same. Coming out has not changed Sean — it’s Scott and I that have changed. And for that, I thank my Heavenly Father. He blessed us with the gift of learning about something we thought only others needed to worry about. I love Sean today as much, if not more, than ever.
May God bless you in all of your experiences, discoveries and life lessons.
In the midst of my husband Scott Mackintosh‘s funny picture of him sporting those Daisy Duke style short shorts gone VIRAL, my good friend and New York Times, best selling author Bridget Cook, called to say she had been watching this funny little story take on a life of it’s own as it traveled around the world. Bridget and I collaborated on writing a short little book featuring “the story”, followed by ten life’s lessons in raising our seven children. Another friend came up with the name; “My Husband Wears The Short Shorts In THIS Family!”
And so it began …
Bridget interviewed Scott, our daughter Myley and me, probing for details to the story that the media had not yet shared. As she was busy creating the reenactment of the story of Scott cutting his jeans to make a point to our daughter, I dove into writing ten life lessons that I learned in raising our large family in this faced paced and somewhat chaotic world. I didn’t set out to write a specific number of lessons it just naturally happened, the lessons could go one into the hundreds. But wanting to keep the book short, I stopped at ten, with a bonus chapter written by our oldest son Tosh, sharing lessons he learned from his dad, who wears the short short in THIS family.
After weeks of constant writing, the book felt complete – for now! Scott and I have a joint book we are working on focusing on specific life lessons that WE learned from each of our seven children – in THAT book there will be SEVEN pretty awesome life lessons shared.
Every family is unique, but we all have a truck load of commonalities within our experiences as parents, families and people.
There is so much we can learn from each other and share with each other to help make this journey called life, more enjoyable and love-filled.
After several edits, tweaks and re-tweaking the book is finally FINISHED and on December 10th I uploaded the Ebook to Amazon! Yep! You can order it and read it right now! AND as we speak the book is being printed …available in paperback. This short-easy-to-read-and-promise-to-make-you-laugh-book is the perfect Christmas gift for your boss, a parent, spouse or of course the perfect gift to give yourself!
TODAY, December 11, 2013 KSL The Browser 5.0 invited Scott and I back onto the set of Scott’s very first interview about life after going viral – the book and all the crazy happenings since that dang unflattering picture went viral.
An unexpected surprise has been all the requests
for Scott to speak at everything from corporate to youth groups.
We have done a lot of speaking together which has been really fun because we both LOVE to tell stories – life’s lessons that have been pivotal in shaping who we are today.
We aren’t quite sure where all this is leading, it seems to have taken on a life of it’s own. We’ve decided to take it one day at a time and enjoy the journey.
“One day at a time” consists of; writing, speaking, blogging,
answering email requests and enjoying my little grand babies.
On a side-note; today was the birth of our first grand-daughter – the priceless miracle of life. I love being a grandmother now to three adorable little ones. Many life lessons still to learn.
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