I sat in the car in the parking lot, waiting for the hour of visitation. I called Daughter #1 to pass the time and catch up with her week. She was on spring break and her voice was light and happy and well rested. It did this mama’s heart good. I listened carefully…enjoying every moment I got to hear her voice. It’s hard being so far away from her. When she had shared her latest exploits, it was my turn. I told her I was preparing to do a good human thing. A Pastor friend of mine shared a post asking for community support for a woman I did not know. I rang off and headed inside.

A woman was sitting inside the funeral home…shell-shocked, red-rimmed eyes, with a stare I immediately recognized as profound grief. I’ve never met this lady, but I know her mama’s heart. She was sitting in a room with her son. Another woman sat silently on the other side of her. Her daughter was laying in what looks like a homemade casket that was painted grey and there was a massive spray of funeral flowers on top. 

While I stood in line, I looked at a large array of photos carefully attached to a foam core board. A display of this life cut short. I saw photos of the little boy she was while growing up. A serious, sensitive face with deep, soulful eyes. My eyes roamed over her life as she became who she was meant to be so that her outside matched her inside. These photos were profoundly different. Smiling eyes, rolling laughter, silly shenanigans. Her long, soft hair was the color of amber honey. 

These smiles were deceiving. She was happy to be who she was, but…like so many in the LGBTQ+ community, she was soundly ostracized for her expression of self. Junior High and High School were scarred with relentless bullying till the once happy and bubbly girl retreated and became socially isolated. I don’t know the details of her passing, but I can read between the lines.

Why did I come here? Because, when my youngest child was growing up, we went through the same things. While she isn’t trans, she is non-binary and that made her different. And different is a target. I came to show this bereft mama bear that she wasn’t alone…that her daughter’s life meant something to the world. The world just wasn’t ready for her. Not here, anyway. Not in WV.

The local political commercials are chock full of hateful anti-trans rhetoric. Grown-assed adults standing up there in front of the camera spewing fear, hate, and anger all over these humans who are only trying to be left alone to live their lives and do the best they can to figure it all out. What must it be like to KNOW you aren’t wanted? That you are reviled and thought of as less than human? What must that do the adolescent and young adult psyche? It chaps me to no end.

Why can’t those who profess to be Christian just love like Jesus loves? I read a meme about Jimmy Carter yesterday… “Jimmy Carter is an elegant reminder that Christianity is a practice, not a declaration.” If you love Jesus, act like Him. Show some compassion. Hug a stranger in their grief. And if you hear of a member of the LGBTQ+ community that has passed away in their prime, don’t be afraid to go to the visitation and hug their mama. You DON’T have to agree with the person’s life choices to be a kind and compassionate human. We as a people are so busy judging others, we’re forgetting the most important lesson Jesus left us with. 

“If you love me, keep my commandments.” 

Yet Jesus also said, “I give you a new commandment: love one another. Just as I have loved you, you must also love one another.”

Be a good human.

💔

”My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command.“

John 15:12-14 NIV