Falling Into Life: A Gay Exmormons Journey

Chapter Nineteen – Sandy Grackle: The Second Coming and Going of My Mother

The day I got back from my mom’s funeral, Rex, my partner, told me he had a premonition that his mom would die in two weeks…

I was shocked for several reasons; first, my man rarely has serious moments outside of his job. And secondly, he was shaken up about it. I asked him if he had ever experienced one of these premonitions previously and he said he did, two of them before this one. Both of those turned out exactly as he had pre-seen them.

Within two weeks to the *day*, his mom died. I said to him, “Listen, when you get the premonition about me, just smile and wave.” He was able to fly to Florida, and have the last days with her become so wonderful in that setting. She was in hospice, and he had time with her there before she died during the night. She had a stroke a decade earlier, and once that happened she became much healthier and a much nicer person, too. Her health stabilized during that decade as she was living in a small care home on the beach, a situation she loved dearly.

After her stroke, Rex had to take on all her business as she had not created a will of her own and it caused tremendous strain on him having to fight to be her legal guardian, and then take over her twenty-one rental properties and her land there. But, his last moments with her were peaceful and truly endearing. He read her the Wallace Stegner novels she loved and cared for her in her last moments.

This was not the case with my mom. My relatives told me that I *had* to go see her as she slowly faced her last weeks, and I pushed back in my mind realizing that the *last* thing on this earth I needed was my mom spewing angry words at me and then dropping dead. Deathbed chastisement? No thank you. I knew that at some point I might be able to remember the good times of our lives together, but it wasn’t happening, and the funeral did nothing to make me feel loved or accepted. If anything I felt even more removed and less accepted.

During the last year before my mom died, we did not speak at all, nor did she or my father reach out to me or my kids. My youngest child is now seven and has no idea who my dad is, he hasn’t initiated contact with him since he was born. It’s a funny thing when your parents bail on you and decide that *some* of their grandkids don’t deserve their time, effort, or love anymore. But Mormonism is all about conditional love, about discerning who is and who is not worthy of love. I was not worthy of God’s love, and obviously not worthy of my parent’s love either.

In that last year of my mom’s life, Rex and I bought a house together that would accommodate us and all of our six kids. (Think “Gaydy Bunch”, you know, the Brady’s…but gay!) I had reached out to my mom via email, and our last communication was her response stating that God did *not* approve of or accept my “lifestyle”. I wanted to tell her how excited I was I had met Rex, and our future plans. That was it. I never spoke to her again.

I wanted her to meet him, be happy for us, to know that my kids were healthy, happy, and being cared for. None of that mattered, none of it ever would. I had become her flotsam and jetsam, her sad mistake, and her biggest failure. She had taken time in previous years to write my Ex and I a card or two, but would not take a moment to say a kind word about my new reality. I could almost hear her saying, “You’ve made your bed, now lay in it.” It’s too bad, too, because I am so happy and I wanted to share it all with her.

We found the perfect abode for us and it fits everyone so wonderfully. Rex furnished it, and we all moved in. I was afraid that at any moment I’d wake up and it would all be a dream, and I’d be back lying and Mormon. I was ecstatic! By the time we moved in, most of the desperate housewives on the cul-de-sac knew we had been “straight” before we got together, and they came to our door with cookies and plunging tops stating that if there was *anything* we needed just to call. I imagined them telling their husbands that *they* would be the ones to change us back to straight men.

We must be referred to as the “Queers on the Corner”, which makes me laugh. The women *love* to stop and chit chat. They love me, in particular, I am the yard guy and so I’m outside a lot. For the first year we were there, the women spoke to us and the men did not. I’d always wave when they drove by, but it took a full year of us waving before one single man would even look our way, let alone wave back. But they finally did, and so I think we’ve been assimilated as much as we can into a “golf course community” with a Gestapo HOA. We’ve made wonderful friends with our neighbors across the street, and we absolutely love our home with its stunning Brazilian Cherry floors. I tell people our floors were named after a foreign porn film.

One of the best features of this corner lot home is its intriguing yard. It’s long and thin along the back, with huge side yards and it lends itself to creating gardens everywhere. We are flower freaks; Rex has fresh flowers inside our home all the time. I am a spoiled man. One of his first requirements as we moved in was for me to plan and plant the two-tiered garden just outside our family room windows visible from our open kitchen. We wanted a big, bloomy space with tons of unusual perennials. We cleared it, prepped it with more soil and manure and created a masterpiece! In the very first year our sunflowers grew to about fifteen feet tall with enormous blooms visible from our open family room and kitchen.

A few weeks after we planted it, which was just a week after my mom’s funeral, I was still hand watering it as we hadn’t set our automatic sprinklers yet. I noticed a robin’s nest on the lowest branch on the side maple tree. It was so Thomas Hardy-esque in its quaintness, I was a happy guy. A day later I saw that a grackle, a type of black bird that my mother absolutely loathed, had throw out that robin, push the eggs out and moved in. This is why my mom hated them; they are home-stealers and baby killers.

When my mom was alive, any time she saw a grackle, she’d stop what she was doing, she’d run outside with a broom in hand and go after them like the Robocop for the wild kingdom. She’d screech at them, she’d throw brooms at them, she’d go ape shit. She *hated* them with a passion.

As I was ruminating about my mom, that grackle flew down into the garden right in front of me, hopped right up to my feet and squawked at me. It was a female grackle I could see by the mottled feathers, and she was fearless. On the third day of this exercise, me watering and that bird squawking at me, I had an epiphany! My mom had been reincarnated! In karmic justice, she had been reincarnated into the body of the one animal on this planet she personally loathed more than any other.

MY MOM WAS A GRACKLE!

I laughed myself silly at the whole idea, and so I dubbed this little bitch of a bird Sandy Grackle: My mom reincarnate. Still pissed off at me. Still not accepting my lifestyle, and now she could squawk her death bed chastisements at my daily. She had found a way. Every single time I walked back there with the hose in hand to water, she’d fly down, hop up and let me have it. Sandy Grackle was on duty. But her good times wouldn’t last so long.

About a month later I was watering the pots on our back deck when I heard a rush of wings. It startled me it was so loud, I looked up and there was Sandy Grackle flying at top speed towards the house! I really thought she’d gone insane and was gonna commit suicide by edifice when suddenly, over the top of the pine tree came a huge brown hawk flying at top speed. It was gaining on Sandy Grackle as she approached to house. In a move of astounding grace, that grackle made a swooping 180 and flew right under the open talons of that hawk, and made a bee-line for cover under the pines on our side yard.

The hawk saw it escape underneath, made a streaking 180, gained speed, overtook that black bird and with talons outstretched slammed it into our side fence before it could get under those pine branches. As it hit the fence, it made a loud WHACK sound. Both birds fell to the ground, the hawk standing on top of the still breathing but badly mangled grackle.

The hawk looked up at me, straight into my eyes for a second or two, then it looked down at the struggling, disheveled, bloodied black bird and it crushed it to death. I heard the cracking sounds as I was standing only about twelve feet away on the deck. It was deliberate in the movement, it wasn’t an instant death, and it took about three seconds. The head of the grackle bent upward as those massive talons sheared its spine and crushed it.

I was absolutely stunned! Rex was sick on the couch that day, but all I could think to do was to summon him as quickly as possible, he had to *see this*! By the time Rex and I were back outside, it was still standing there on top of that grackle. It was looking around; it glanced up at us for a few seconds. Then it held the prey in its claws, took a few strong wing strokes and it lifted that dead bird right up and over our fence heading towards some open fields to eat it. The entire death sequence lasted only ten seconds, but it was *amazing*.

My mom was dead *again*! How many times was this woman gonna squawk at me and then die?

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