gray, white, (fade to) black
— poetry from work in progress. dialogues a poems
gray, white, (fade to) black
a former friend of mine died
and everything surrounding her death
was shrouded in unanswered questions.
her death was tragic and horrible, an accident.
her kids are all grown but one, a little girl
from a surprise “late-bloom” pregnancy.
she and her high-school sweetheart husband
of 25+ years were suddenly new parents
of a beautiful baby girl.
they were the poster-couple in the “ex-Mo”
community, the “anti-example” of the
curse all church members are warned
about, foretelling of our lives
imploding and unraveling if we left the faith.
it’s not as nefarious as it sounds, i suppose.
when you leave the Mormon faith, you lose
your friends, many lose family and communal
support, so it’s no real leap to see how
that pressure could disassemble
someone’s life — or we could go with
my mother’s constant refrain:
“wickedness never was happiness.”
we were all shocked when they announced
their split. shocked and disappointed.
she and i had a falling out that left me mostly
uninformed about her life. i remained friends with
him and he met someone quick enough
and apparently, she had, too.
then, she was gone and
her secrets started eking out
like trapped ghosts.
she’d been active in the ex-Mo community, she was
passionate about the arts and musical theater.
she was a staunch supporter of
anti-discrimination because she
had a lot of friends in the LGBTQ community.
when i got the call that she’d been killed, i was
shocked at the news — but that shock was not nearly as
large as the tale of her new life-overhaul, which she
didn’t really announce, she just “ghosted” her old life.
she’d turned her back on the entire ex-Mo
community, her friends and uprooted her life
to live in an isolated southern Utah town with her
new husband, his huge house and his many “man toys.”
but the biggest shock — she’d been
rebaptized into Mormonism.
according to the few people close to her
she’d never been so happy.
i learned from her friends and ex that
her new husband had no tolerance
for who she was or who she’d become
after she left the LDS faith.
it all seemed too bizarre to take seriously.
but then another odd thread appeared,
unraveling the smiling photos of her on her
wedding day — a couple of weeks
prior to her death,
she’d gathered her older children and
told them — in specific terms — with detailed
instructions, her funeral wishes
should anything happen to her.
the ex-Mo community was abuzz with
conjecture and portent, as if she somehow
“knew” she would be killed in a motorcycle
accident while riding on the back of her new
husband’s motorcycle. killed — but he
“miraculously” walked away
from the crash, unscathed.
i don’t think there’s anything mystical about it.
she had to make that tradeoff — bartering beliefs,
true friendships, and her core self to be with a man who
some said “treated her like a queen,”
while others said “controlled her every move.”
the truth is, being raised Mormon as a female is
one giant, long primer for learning how to
barter, trade, and bow our heads.
it’s no surprise that spending your life as a
full-time mother and housewife won’t prepare you
for the job market or dating
pool at age 50-something and survival becomes
a very real challenge and threat, even today,
for women like her and so many others.
the black and white of it is you can’t
have shades of gray when you’re raised Mormon
and promised that happiness
is always — and only — found in faith,
family, and motherhood
and that lie killed her as much as
anything or anyone.
while many see the threads of her
life as some tragic tale of “black and white,”
(depending on which side of the pew you’re on)
the gray matter is everywhere
— she planned her own funeral because it was
the last bit of her soul she had control over.
she knew she was going to die, because
she’d already made the choice to.
it was just a matter of when.
gray — it isn’t nuances or being able to see
complexity within black and white. gray is still
black and white and the only thing
that changes the shade of gray is how much
of one or the other saturates
the threads of
a single life.
-For every Mormon girl who got the raw end of the
bait ’n’ switch-deal and thrown under the bus.
— j.a. carter-winward ©
From work in progress: dialogues & poems
COMING: JULY 24th, 2021
Preorder your copy HERE
