I met Todd at a party on Stansbury Island in the fall of 2008, if memory serves. We talked some, exchanged phone numbers. Some months later, we got together and walked to Liberty Park and he took some pictures of me to post on my various online profiles. Sunday, while I was stuck in a hotel room in Denver, I posted one of those pictures as my main profile picture on Facebook. And then today, he killed himself.
Angry? You bet I am. This does not need to happen. This is stupid. Pointless. A complete fucking waste. A WASTE!
This is a consequence of people taking their fucking stories and making them the fucking truth. Fuck your truth, and fuck you. And fuck the god who spoke to Spencer Kimball and Boyd Packer, and fuck both of them too.
And this is gossip because it’s only going to be read by people who can’t do anything about it.
And even if they did, they’d just find a way to justify their position, make me wrong, make themselves right, blame Todd for the things that they did to him.
This could just as easily have been me. I have every reason in the world to join Todd in discarding the physical. You know why I don’t? Me either. That’s choice for you. Being alive is a really unreasonable thing to do. I am an unreasonable person.
And I will be re-arranging my life in the immediate future so as to ensure that I don’t have undue amounts of time to myself. So don’t worry. Or do worry, but do something constructive with it.
My truth is that we all have to find truth for ourselves. 🙂 I'm glad to see your anger directed toward the illogical social construction that caused this boy to take his life. I'm sorry he didn't get the chance to write his own ending for himself. I can't imagine the cruelty he must have endured to have lost the will to prove them all wrong.
I am so very sorry for your loss. It is a stunning loss.
I knew Todd, I suspect quite independently of you (but I honestly don't recall). I now wish I had known him better. It may not have made a difference, but who knows?
It is impossible to remove from Todd his choices in the matter. Nobody "makes" or "causes" you to do anything. But I cannot argue that the stage set by those who cling to the tree of knowledge of good and evil and "the law" as justification is often not a fun one to play on.
It is a complete fucking waste. Both the world and the church has lost an unmeasurable treasure.
Please manage your well-being. You are so very much loved here, and the world has been impoverished enough this week.
I remember talking with Mom about how scared we were for you when you were a teenager. The suicide statistics in Utah are frightening. No, they're not. They're terrifying. The hatred, bigotry and abuse that you've had to face in your life is inexcusable, and really, disgusting.
I hope that the support of your family has helped you make it through the dark times I know you've had to face, and we will do anything we can to help you through those ahead.
I love you. Exactly as you were, as you are, and as you will be. Forever and ever with all of my heart. I love you.
I believe that I know somewhat how you feel. I was so angry/upset the day of the vigil that I went for a run when I got home and didn't stop till dawn. I definitely understand about nearly joining Todd, cause I almost took my own life a few years ago. What stopped me was my best friend. It wasn't God, or a church. It was a man who loved me, despite the fact that he knew I was the type of person he was afraid of being. You know… gay. He faced that fear and was my best friend. He faced the fact that I love him, and told me it was okay. I was able to believe him because he meant what he said, and he spoke truth. When I saw you at Todd's Vigil, I felt your pain. I felt something terrible from your past, and mine, that we share. I didn't want to leave you alone. But I didn't want to insist on staying, and give you the wrong idea about anything. I saw a friend in pain, and all I wanted was to hold you until it stops hurting. If I could hold all my friends, and comfort them, or even take their pain away, I would. Even if I had to suffer that pain myself. I could handle it if it were for someone else. For you.
Donovan's right – nobody makes you do anything. Your friend could have done what millions of people do every day. He could have said, "this is bullshit. I'm going to find some other religion that will accept me."
I'm sure being gay is no picnic. But neither was being black in the 50's. Neither is living as a slave, being treated as a human-shaped mule. Neither is living as a Mexican immigrant, working 80 hours a week doing backbreaking labor for substandard wages. Or being quadriplegic. When it comes to trials one must endure, living as a gay man in America in the 21st century is pretty low on the list.
So, yes. I'm blaming the victim. With all the people suffering through trials infinitely worse than the relatively posh life we enjoy in modern America, it's hard to blame a group of deluded old men for your friend's decision. If all it took to make your friend suicidal is a few patently absurd fairy tales, it seems to me he would have found a reason to kill himself no matter what situation he was born into.
Timmy, your compassion is…underwhelming. I would prefer you didn't invoke my name for such a cras assessment of the situation.
What Todd was dealing with is not cured by living a posh life in a great day and place. His struggle with feeling like he's wrong and broken and the problem is a universal one. When you believe in life after life, and have learned all your life to live for that better day to come in the great hereafter, and now feel that no matter how hard you've tried, you just CAN'T ever merit it, not because you've done "wrong" (face it, we all have), but because you ARE "wrong" deep down to the core – it's debilitating on a level that surpasses the richness of the physical setting.
His choice is still his choice, but compassion for his blight is in order. Recognizing its universality critical.
Some will choose to simply not believe or accept a God that could do that as a dodge for dealing with this. Others will get and keep really busy so they don't have to deal with it.
Some will get that if there is a God (and I know there is), His goodness surpasses our human pettiness infinitly. His grace is sufficient for those who will be meek and believing.
IF there is anything "wrong" with being gay (and I don't believe there is), He knows what needs healed, and when to heal it. And if that's the wrong question, He still knows the right answer for each of us, and He will for any of us that cast our burden on Him.
But I did enjoy your patently absurd fairy tale too. Good reminder of how unimportant our living circumstances are to our real quality of life.