Last December, Shelley Davies of Centerville, Utah rallied the arts community her family had performed with for so many years to fill the Centerpoint Legacy Theater for a special event: her son’s coming home (and coming out) tour of his first album, “Not Standard.” Matthew Davies has spent the last several years as a performer in several national Broadway tours. While studying in New York, he was encouraged by his colleague, friend, and mentor, Patrick O’Neill, to cut an album. Matthew worked hard to gather some investors, and his mom sealed the deal by launching a cinnamon roll fundraiser. With the generous aid of North Salt Lake recording studio Funk Studios, the album came to life in April of 2023. December marked the moment it was time for Matthew to come to Utah to perform in front of the community that had raised, loved, and at times, shunned him.
Shelley sat among the packed house of 340 ticket holders, which included many of Matthew’s LGBTQ+ and New York friends, as well as choreographers and dancers he’d worked with over the years. She listened and laughed as her charming, dynamic son performed numbers that culminated as “a love letter to the LGBTQ+ community.” At times, she also cried as he described the depths of grief he’d experienced. “I can count on one hand the times (in my 70 years) I’ve felt unsafe or rejected, and this boy went through that for 20 years, every day in some form. And yet, he has broken through that cloud of grief to have so much joy in his life now. It was an eye-opening experience for me as his mother,” says Shelley.
In Matthew’s show, he touched on some of the pivotal life experiences he’s faced, including how he’d chosen to serve as a performing missionary (with a few other closeted missionaries) at Nauvoo rather than serve a traditional proselytizing mission. Matthew also touched on his experience attending BYU, where he performed alongside other closeted students. He was the Dance Captain for BYU’s Young Ambassadors program for two years. After graduating from BYU, he left for New York to pursue his dreams. This move gave him the freedom to grow into himself and ultimately led to him meeting his now fiancé, John, on the National Broadway tour of Cinderella.
When Matthew’s one-man show ended, Shelley basked in the euphoric feeling among the crowd’s standing-ovation, finding it hard to believe he’d survived as well as he did and found so much joy. She only wished more church leaders and families struggling to accept their kids had been there to witness the beauty of the event among this community. Most of all, she’d hoped more young queer kids could have been there to experience hope--including a teen in their community who had just recently taken his life, unable to bear the pressure anymore of being gay and ostracized, despite being a top student at his high school.
As the director of culture and engagement at the theater, Shelley was also asked to share her story onstage of being Matthew’s mother as the pre-show announcement for the evening. She shared one of her favorite quotes by her friend, Melinda Welch:
“I have been taught all my life to try to be like Jesus. Jesus loved and ministered to those who were not always understood or valued in society. I don’t know, but I like to imagine we were given a choice in the pre-existence to be hetero or homo or anything in between and those who do not follow the sexual majority of the straight 92% of us, are special angels sent here to earth to help ALL of us examine our own prejudices and more out of our ego drive tendencies into Christlike ones. The LBGTQ were willing to have a more difficult earthly path in an effort to guide us all into a more loving space. Why do some of us continue to add hurt to this path?”
Shelley also shared a recent conversation she’d had with Matt where she sat him down on the happy, yellow couch in their home, put her hands on his shoulders, and said, “I could not be more grateful for you. You have blessed my life and taught me about God’s love in ways only you could. I’m grateful for the ways you’ve enlarged my heart.” Shelley then added, “I want all of you in the audience to know this love exists for you in this world. I used to pray Matt would be healed. I didn’t know I was the one who needed to be healed. I’m not all the way healed, but because of Matthew, I see all the colors of the rainbow, and my heart has been enlightened and opened. Matt came exactly the way he was supposed to come. I want you all to know there is always a place at my table for any who want to come and sit there.”
Since his birth, Shelley felt the magnitude of Matt’s influence to come. The last of her seven children to be born, Matt’s delivery ended up in an emergency situation after which he scored a 1 out of 10 on the Apgar scale. When Shelley cried out on the delivery table, “Father, please let this baby live,” Hannah’s petition “For this child I have prayed” from the Bible came to her mind. Luckily, both mother and child survived, and Shelley says, “Having Matthew as part of my journey has been such a blessing since. He was supposed to come the way he was. Part of MY journey in this life is to love him, as he is, and be an ally and advocate for the LGBTQ community.” She also emphasized that everyone should be granted grace as they navigate understanding and hopefully eventually embracing not only those of the LGBTQ community, but all of God’s children. “Everyone’s journey is different and we need to allow them that grace. Hopefully, this evening will be a bridge between our communities.”
Matthew was the “happiest little boy,” a regular, giggling fixture on his 17-year-old sister’s hip who would take him all over high school. Family friends loved his white-blonde hair, big dimples, and big blue eyes and would come by their house just to play with him. He was also a born performer. Shelley remembers 5-year-old Matthew sliding down their long banister covered in ribbons and bows. When she asked what he was doing, Matthew replied, “I’m your best present, Mommy!” His theater-loving sisters had a blast teaching him to perform the lyric, “Look at me, I’m Sandra Dee” from Grease, and the acting bug stuck. Shelley and her late husband Bill (a former baseball player) signed Matthew up for sports but noticed he was more interested in the dandelions than the soccer ball on the field. He was drawn to theater, where he “stole everyone’s hearts” as Tiny Tim in A Christmas Carol and Jojo in Seussical. When thoughts would emerge that Matthew might be gay, Shelley said she would push them away, thinking, “That couldn’t be us.” Their family had been energetically intentional in immersing their family in the gospel.
When he was 12, Matthew came running home from a birthday party in tears and said, “Mom, why am I like this? Why do they make fun of me?” It broke Shelley’s heart. In the ninth grade, he came to his mom and said, “I think I need to tell you I like boys.” Shelley replied, “I think you’re confused,” and asked what he thought of girls. He replied he thought they were pretty and nice. Shelley sent him to counseling--counseling that frankly, in hindsight, was brutal. Matthew went through high school pretending to like girls, who seemed to love him (he always had a date to the dances). He’d try to have a girlfriend for a week here and there, but he never felt that spark that others talked about.
Shelley watched as her teen-magnet house with its sports court and theater/game room attracted a full house on the weekends. But many of those same kids she bought pizza for every weekend and taught in seminary would make fun of Matthew at school throughout the week. On a school Madrigals trip to New York, one of the mom chaperones started to advertise she thought Matthew was gay, and Shelley watched over the next five days as more ostracizing and hurt took place. Shelley wondered how the woman could do that, while in her heart knowing it was true, but still also thinking it was something that might be “cured.” This kind of hurt and ridicule led Matthew to not come out for another six years.
When Matthew graduated high school, this pain of being “othered” continued, as he had been excluded from a graduation trip that his close friends had planned. This infuriated Shelley, but on the morning of the friend trip, after a long night stewing, she found herself at Walmart at 5am, buying the group travel snacks which she placed on a doorstep along with an anonymous note wishing them a great trip. When she came home, Matthew asked how she could do that. Shelley responded she had to find a way to metabolize the anger she was feeling. She feels like she actually learned that from Matthew. Of her son, Shelley says, “I have watched him--the blessing of this child. He approaches everyone with open arms. When he’s betrayed or misjudged, he uses that formula to metabolize unkindness into understanding and love and grace. He has an amazing capacity for love and nonjudgment.” Back in high school, Matthew started a musical theater program for kids with special needs called Friend to Friend that his mom still runs to this day, and he sometimes choreographs for. Hundreds of these amazing children have benefitted from this weekly venture into the world of music and dance.
About two years after Matt left for New York, he sent a “very sweet letter” to his parents that said, “I have fought this too long; it’s important I become who I am. I am ready to live as an openly gay man and am asking for your support.” When Shelley asked her husband Bill if he’d gotten the email, he said, “Everything’s ok, dear – God is in charge and everything’s ok.” Shelley says it still took her many days to wrap her head about it, but found 1 Nephi 11 coming to mind, where Nephi says, “I know that God loveth his children, nevertheless I do not know meaning of all things.” Immediately, Shelley’s heart filled with how much her Heavenly Father and Jesus love Matt, just how he is.
Matt’s siblings (Brooke, Jaman –who passed away of the Swine flu at age 30, Krista, Megan, Jordan, and Taylor) and his nieces and nephews adore him and always have. Shelley also has a gay grandson, and she can’t help but think Matthew’s journey has somehow made this nephew’s path a little easier to navigate. Matt doesn’t participate in church but believes he’ll see his deceased brother and father (who died of pancreatic cancer two-and-a-half-years ago) again, and says he supports everyone’s right to their own spiritual journey. Shelley is thrilled Matthew plans to marry his “wonderful fiancé” next year.
When it comes to Shelley’s faith, she says, “I do not know the meaning of all things. I do have some have some thoughts about some things. I know in this life I may not see the complete picture, but I know how deeply and fiercely my boy is loved by our Savior and Heavenly Father, so I can reconcile that… A mother’s love comes the closest to how the Father loves. We would do anything to protect, love, save, and cherish our children.” She continues, “I think when we meet the Father and Savior and whoever else at the bar, we’ll be judged not on our accomplishments, wealth, job description, or callings, but on how we loved each other and how well we encircled others with that love. That will be the bar of judgment. If it is, Matt’s in really good shape.” Shelley believes true beauty is found in the way we treat others. “When Jesus said love everyone, there were no exceptions. At age 70, I only have one job left in this world – to love. And occasionally make a batch of gooey cinnamon rolls.”
