I'll Build you a Rainbow: Families are Forever...

Growing up in the Mormon Church I remember a film strip (yes, I am a child of the 70’s) and back then we had a ward (congregation) library that’s most technologically advanced piece of equipment was a film strip projector, a cassette tape player and a hand cranked xerox machine hooked to a tin full of printing fluid). The film strip was called “I’ll Build You a Rainbow/ Families are Forever”. This film touched me deeply, very deeply. It was a simple story of a boy about my age and his best friend, his mom. Since music has always been my strength (and my weakness), the haunting soundtrack (narration backed by music) was what affected me most and I found any and every excuse to watch it as often as I could:

(link to video at the end of this blog)

I'll build you a rainbow, way high up above,
Send down the sun beams, plums full of love,
Sprinkle down raindrops, teardrops of joy,
I'll be happy in spring time, watching over my boy.

Once there was a boy named Jaimie,
He had lots of great friends,
But his greatest friend was his mom,
Not in some sissy way or anything like that,
She just was different from all the other moms.
See while all the other moms were going to their
Fashion shows, and bridge parties,
She'll stay home and have long talks and bike rides with Jaimie.
And at one time she was even considered to be one of the best
Football players on the block.
One day Jaimie was called home from school
And as he was running home
He saw this great big ambulance parked infront of his house.
And as he entered down the hallway
He saw his dad talking to a doctor
His dad said"Jaimie, come in your mom wants to see you."
And as he opened the door he saw his mom laying there
And she turned her head and said
"Hey big Jay" even though he wasn't big.
But he had a big heart
She said"Jaimie, I'm leaving and I won't be coming back"
Jaimie says" Bu-but why mom... who'm I goin to play with
And who'm I goin to talk too... and how'm I goin to know
That your there mom?"
His mom says"Because Jaimie, families are forever"

I'll build you a rainbow,
Way high up above,
Send down the sun beams, (send down the sun beams)
Plums full of love,
Sprinkle down rain drops, (sprinkle down rain drops)
Tear drops of joy,
I'll be happy in spring time
Watching over my boy.

She closed her eyes and she was gone,
As the ambulance pulled away
Jaimie' dad broke down and started to cry.
As Jaimie felt his dad's tear drops on his cheek,
He started to cry too.
But as he looked up over the sky
Sure enough there was a great big rainbow over his house.
And he said"Dad, daddy it's alright
Because families are forever."

I'll build you rainbow, way high up above,
Send down the sun beams, (send down the sun beams)
Plums full of love,
Sprinkle down rain drops, (sprinkle down rain drops)
Tear drops of joy,
I'll be happy in spring time watching over my boy.
I'll be happy in heaven watching over my boy.
I love you mom.

I feared losing my mom from a very young age because of this film (and for the fact that my own mother had lost her biological mother when she was very young and then lost her step mother when I was 18), yet it was one that I watched as often as I could. In fact, as I was searching youtube to find a copy of the filmstrip, I stopped to watch it again. It seems strange to watch it now, forty years later. Funny how this one phrase stuck out to me as a gay man…”But his greatest friend was his mom, Not in some sissy way or anything like that”. Even then, as a young boy who didn’t understand why I felt different from the other boys, didn’t understand why I was a bit more in touch with my feelings, was being put down and taught that being any kind of “sissy” was wrong or broken.

The message was straight forward mormon doctrine, enjoy your time with your loved ones and live as you are told and you will see your family members again after death and all through eternity. Cause families are forever, right?? Obviously in the naivety of my youth, I took all of this very seriously and happily ever after-ish. This film also embedded into my soul, the idea that it was my responsibility if I wanted to see my loved ones again, after we die. If I didn’t somehow live up to what was expected of me by church leaders then God would somehow deny me this promise of seeing my loved ones again?

I realize now that this was one of my first memories of the church using guilt, programming and my extremely sensitive feelings as a tool to control and shape my life. To be a stalwart, life long, temple attending, tithe paying, mission going cog in the wheel that would help to continue this church’s rhetoric for generations to come. And at the time, and for the next 40 years, I was all in.

General Mormon doctrine teaches that only faithful, obedient, straight children of God will be able to return to heaven in one of the Mormon created levels of heaven they call kingdoms. The family unit is bound here on earth only through special, sacred, (secret) and frankly, very weird and frightening , temple ordinances. It was always a question on my mind how this would all come together after we all die. Would my Father and Mother be with their parents and their family they grew up with? Where would me and my siblings fit into that picture? What about my uncle Layne on my dads side and my aunt Annette on my moms, who were both certainly not living as a good Mormon should be living according to what I was being taught at church? Would they just not be there? Anytime I asked questions such as these, I was told that it didn’t matter and God would sort everything out. “No need to stress about it here on earth”……Well unless its you that is doing the sinning, then yes, its time to worry about it. (seeing any hypocrisy here yet?)

I was taught to look down on people such as my aunt and uncle who were drinking and smoking. These people were choosing sin, and it was my job to point that out and to show them the way. I was better than them, I had been chosen to be an elect son of God with a special, divine mission to help gather his kingdom in the last days. That is until I decided to live an authentic life and come out as a gay man at the age of 45. Thats when everything changed. Suddenly I became the child in my family that broke his covenants. The brother who “went against everything I ever knew to be true”. The child who ruined the eternal family thing for everyone else, because clearly now that I am gay I will certainly not be allowed into one of the kingdoms where the rest of my family will be.

It’s a bit serendipitous how this film about a rainbow was such a big part of my life as an 8 year old boy. Now, as a 50 year old, father of 3 amazing, beautiful kids, husband to an amazing man who makes me better each day, rainbows are still, ironically a symbol of how I belong. How I fit in. How I am accepted.

I wonder if the prophet of the Mormon church in 1978 realized when he gave his sign off on this little film strip, just how deeply it would cut into some of the church’s very best? At any rate, it did.

I still look for rainbows.

I still love this song.

I still believe in God.

But most of all, I now know, more than ever that I am beautiful.

I am exactly who I was meant to be.

I am NOT a mistake.

I am NOT broken.

This is me.