May 27, 2005
A Family's Journey
by Jeff Langstraat
I remember the day my mother asked me if I was gay. I didn't tell her the truth. I said, "I think so." It was a bad answer, giving her hope that I might be cured. We didn't speak of it again for three years. By that time, the silence around it had grown too much for me to bear. I wrote them a letter and sent a couple of books. After what seemed like the longest four days of my life, they called and said, "Thank you." There was no more talk of getting cured. They found a parental support group through their church, and even went to Pride with me. (Mom only said, "Oh, my" three times during the parade.)
Fast forward a few years. My aunt and her "friend" had come to visit us. (I was living with my parents while I did my Masters Degree.) We all pretty much had them pegged as a couple, but they said nothing so we didn't ask. We all assumed they were a couple, though.
It was confirmed several months later when I went to the Northwest to spend the New Year's Holiday with them. My aunt, obviously scared, told me they were a couple as we were driving to the airport to pick her partner up. The fear she sensed is kind of funny, as it was a fear similar to that I felt in telling her several years earlier.
When I was a teenager, my aunt, sister and I were watching some television show. Someone overtly gay came onto the screen and my aunt said something less than positive (it was surprising, looking back). I recalled that one statement in the rest of a life that would give me no reason to doubt her reaction, but coming out of the closet can lead you to focus on the more threatening aspects of the process. It remains a risky process. Ironically, the two safest people scared each of us.
When I returned to my parents' house after this trip (where I also got my tattoo-it's Tigger and it's on my left calf) they instantly asked me about my aunt and her partner. I had asked what my response was to be when I was out West. The first thing my mother did-the same woman who told me to search out a Christian counselor to help me out of being gay-was to call my aunt and tell her how happy she was for their relationship. Since then, my parents have taken vacations with my aunts to Boston, Europe and Hawaii...with a cruise on the horizon.
On the day Goodridge v. Department of Public Health was released, I called my aunt's partner and said "Turn on CNN!" She responded, "Did you do something?" (I can see a letter to the editor or local broadcast, but CNN? I'm not that big a troublemaker...yet.) "Just turn it on." They began making plans to come to Massachusetts, but Governor Romney (R-UT) insisted on enforcing a law that hadn't been enforced in years, a law that was a holdover from the anti-miscegenation days. It became obvious that marrying in Massachusetts wouldn't be an option for some time.
Then came San Francisco and Portland. My aunts were planning to fly out to each of the cities to marry while they also had business nearby. They missed each by about a week. When I called my parents on the day Multnomah County ceased issuing license, Dad got onto the phone and called his sister and her partner to tell them how sorry he was about what had happened. They told me later how touched they were by the sincere emotion in his voice. This was the man I feared would yank my financial support for college when I told him I was gay, the man who thanked me for sending him that letter.
I got a wedding announcement today. My aunt, the woman who I was afraid to tell I was gay and who was afraid to tell me-her openly gay activist nephew-that she was in a relationship with a woman, is marrying her partner of over a decade later this year. They're doing it in Canada. Even though this country won't recognize their marriage, my aunts will be legally wed.
Posted by in Domesticity, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, Kids, Marriage, Queer
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Say it loud, say it proud!
(most) every family has a story like this these days. it reminded me of my dear friend, who came out to all of us about 15 years ago. some were taken aback, some made themselves scarce, but most didn't blink! i mean, he was/is our friend, and who he chooses to love can never change that. it's an unconditional thing, you know? nice post.
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Comment by: ccw at May 31, 2005 03:24 PM
What a great post! Your parents sound like wonderful, loving people.
Congratulations to your aunts. We can only hope that one day their marriage will be recognized as legal in this country.
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Comment by: lorraine at June 1, 2005 06:52 PM
Jeff,
This is a lovely story. I have a very close lesbian friend who has a similar story--although the person who eventually came out after struggling to accept my friend's gayness was ... her mother! (Cracks me up.)
I've decided that I'm not marrying a man until my closest friend can legally marry her partner. Until then, I refuse to participate in a system of apartheid.
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Comment by: Jeff at June 1, 2005 07:09 PM
Well, Lorraine, you could send her ass off to Montreal, go along with her, and have a double wedding ;-)
I dunno if I'll ever marry, even if I do find "Mr. Good-Enough." Right now, I'd settle for someone staying the night and me not feeling like, "Would you wake up and leave already; I wanna play with the cat."
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Comment by: liza at June 2, 2005 12:58 AM
I read this story at Kos and cried.
It's awesome.
GO CANADA!
Although, if you ask me, if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't have married. I don't know, but it changed everything in our relationship. Actually, it changed *me* in our relationship.
I've been thinking about this for a while and Lorraine asked me some time ago to blog about it. Now I know how to go about it.
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Comment by: annie at May 28, 2005 01:23 PM