A Mother Reflects
It's
all in how you look at it. True enough.
My
brother, who at the time was a New York City fireman, was injured
and temporarily the whites of his eyes were blood red while the
blue shone clearly as always.
"Oh,
Bill," I gasped, "your eyes look terrible."
He
smiled and said: "You should see them from this side."
Usually,
having a different vantage point from the obvious is what creates
understanding or, at least, commiseration.
Were
you to come to me to share my sorrow at the accidental death of
my teenaged son, I would join in your sorrow over my grief and
be grateful that you care enough to mourn with me -- oh, "but
you should see it from this side."
And,
if you were at a loss to know what to say, or to think, when my
youngest daughter, bright and beautiful and filled with promise
joined the ranks of the teenaged and pregnant, well, then, you
should feel at a loss "from this side."
The
car, the bike, the accident, the death. I can see it. I can grasp
how it could have happened. Finally, I can accept the tragedy.
But, I never saw it coming.
And,
too, the power of passion, youthful disregard for consequences,
moonlight and a place. I can grasp that and accept it, knowing
that all the sex education and free condoms in the world would
not have altered the circumstances of my granddaughter's conception.
But, I never saw it coming.
Because
of my vantage point, I learned the coping skills needed when something
comes out of the blue and knocks you flat. There are a hundred
self-help books on the shelves written by experts. But, self help
means that -- self help. I learned you pick yourself up, dust
yourself off and you keep on going.
What
about the things that don't come out of the blue but are there
all along? What about when my vantage point is no different from
yours -- like when a 30-year old daughter weeps against your cheeks
and says:
"Oh,
Mom, I'm gay."
It
was Thanksgiving four years ago. All the children, as well as
our wonderful granddaughter, Maggie, were with us home from their
far off homes for dinner in the traditional American way. For
some reason, Carol, our oldest daughter was irritable and quite
snappish with me. I was too tired to buy into it. It's always
a long hard day for Mom when the chickens come home to roost.
I brushed aside her attitude and went to bed.
John
wasn't asleep yet but remained quietly next to me as Carol ran
in and around the bed to my side.
"Oh,
Mom," she bawled. "I'm so sorry. I was yelling at you and you
didn't do anything. It's just that I have something to tell you,
something....." she sobbed and sobbed and crouched next to me,
leaning in to the recesses of my throat to murmur, "I'm gay."
I
lifted her face into the light shining though the door left open.
I saw her tear-stained face, mascara running in the grooves of
worry lines, while John never stirred beneath the drama unfolding.
"Oh,
Carol," I said, "what a burden you've been carrying, and all alone,
too."
She
took my hand and said: "Feel my heart, Mom, it's pounding right
out of my chest." Her blonde hair cascaded over her shoulders
as I placed my hand to her breast and felt a heart beating as
one would expect were the person facing battle or awaking from
a nightmare. Come to think of it, this would be both.
My
sensible response was literally handed to me a week or so before.
Writer Andrew Sullivan (Virtually Normal) was a guest on an afternoon
talk show and the topic was "coming out." Andrew was asked how
his parents took the announcement.
"Well,"
he said, "Mum took it in the typical British way. She said: 'Oh,
dear, let's have tea.'"
As
to his father,
"Well,
my father said he wished I had told him so I wouldn't have to
carry this burden alone."
How
sensitive, how loving, I thought at the time.
Carol
continued non-stop and most of all I learned how happy she was
and how well she fits in with a circle of friends whose main interests
center around sports, softball and women's basketball teams. She
told me of all the ways discovery came to her over the past 10
years. She had tried to play the role: plans for marriage, proposals
to consider, frequent dating and casual relationships. Nothing
ever seemed "right."
At
age two, a bathing suit top didn't seem "right." No amount of
bribery or persuasion could get her to wear suits like the other
toddlers. As a girl among brothers, I explained away her tendency
to play football instead of hopscotch. She was a Tom Boy. How
I wished that's all it was. I felt concern. Secret concern.
Carol
would not wear skirts or dresses to school although that was what
was worn in her second grade in the late sixties. She was teased
by the frilly dressed little girls -- so seriously, that she would
crouch under the back seats of the bus rather than face the taunts
of the prim misses who dismissed her for wearing pants. I cried
when I heard about this and the next day transferred all six children
to a parochial school -- ostensibly for religious reasons, but
really for the mandatory dress code: dresses or skirts for girls.
There
was never a question of her complying. She was responsible about
obeying rules. In the public school there was no dress code. But,
there was an unwritten social code and she suffered because of
it. Once at St. Louise, she changed after school, looking like
everyone else in play clothes.
Through
these years, she was a blue-ribbon winning swimmer and later a
lifeguard. With her summer tan, bright blue eyes, lovely, long,
sun-streaked blonde hair and comely figure, I became confident
my unspoken fears were groundless.
But,
when she came to me that night, I knew as I had always known,
her tendencies in all things had been from a male point of view.
Whether I see this from the inside or the outside, I don't understand
it Having had a close look at this phenomenon of homosexuality,
I can say confidently it is not a choice, it is not a seduction,
it is genetic.
Carol
puts it this way:
"Mom,
it's a fact, it's not a problem." She emphasizes how secure she
is in her life and adds: "Society doesn't get it; it is not about
sex it is about gender."
She
warmed my heart when she went on with her monologue and told of
the importance of her immortal soul and her not being willing
to jeopardize it by casually breaking commandments.
Again,
I refer to Andrew Sullivan who said in that same interview, his
homosexuality was not in conflict with his faith (also Catholic)
because "the church forbids sex outside of marriage," he said,
in truth. How simple he made it sound, almost humorous. But it
is complex and certainly not funny.
The
morning after Carol and I cried together, John came into the kitchen.
"Did
you hear that," I asked quietly.
"I
don't want to talk about it," he said.
"Well,
it is genetic, I'm sure," I said.
"All
the evidence isn't in yet," he countered. We never discussed it
again. And Carol never spoke to her Dad directly but continues
to be his buddy at Steeler games and for frequent rounds of golf.
She never fails to end these spectacular days on the course with
"I
should have turned pro."
They
laugh, but it's true.
She
and I encourage each other. Yet, I couldn't care less about batting
averages and football scores and she cares little for my passions.
We are who we are, whomever we are. What ever happened to "live
and let live." She's beautiful, gentle, talented, successful,
and, most of all, happy. She is as she always was before we knew.
There is no outward change other than perhaps the expression of
joy seen in her countenance.
Yet
there are those to whom she is an abomination, to use the word
fresh from the bible and always taken out of context by the gay
bashers. How insecure they must be to fear what someone else is
-- perhaps, they're thinking, it might rub off on them. And that
is the motivation behind the shunning at the least and the violence
at the most.
A
few weeks before Carol and I talked, Natalie Goldberg, a superb
motivational writer for writers, published "Writing Down to the
Bones." She held me captive for 275 pages and then wrote of a
lovely stroll on the beach where she and her girlfriend stopped,
embraced and kissed passionately in the moonlight." I threw the
book against the wall. I felt betrayed that she should share this
unfathomable moment. Natalie wrote pages later -- when my need
to finish the story got too great -- that she finally called her
father and told him she was a lesbian.
"I
wish you hadn't told me," he said after a long pause.
There
you have it: My vantage points. You see how I viewed homosexuality
from the outside. So now, when I say:
"You
should see it from this side," I'll add, "I wish she hadn't told
me."
Mrs.
Sullivan handled it best:
"Oh
dear, let's have a cup of tea."
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