Pride

Why do I celebrate LGBTQ Pride?

My uncle Tony and I were born into the same rural Southern Baptist household. We lived under the same roof during my childhood, and in my eyes he was magical. He could twirl a baton, throw it in the air soooooooooooo high and catch it behind his back. He didn't have any training of course...boys were not allowed to do those things back then. He listened to the most amazing music...very cutting edge and modern with lots of synth, not the easy listening, country, or talk radio I heard most of the time. He was an incredible dancer and he had an infectious laugh. He made mud pies with me when the weather was right, but his were always fancy. It didn't matter how fancy they were though, we still got into trouble for the mess we made together! ;)

My uncle had BIG dreams...bigger than anyone I ever knew. He was going to go to New York and become a professional dancer. He went to cosmetology school when I was a little girl, and he learned all the fancy braids and he'd spend hours practicing on my hair. I was tender headed, and hated to sit still, but he made me look so pretty, and he was so proud of the skills he was learning, so I'd grin and bear it...or at least bear it. Tony could cook like nobody's business, and every year he popped popcorn right on the stove so we could eat it while watching the Wizard of Oz.

When Tony came out as gay, many of the people he loved, and society at large rejected him, ridiculed him, and severed ties with him. They loved him before he admitted what had been true since he was a little boy, but suddenly, he was unworthy, unlovable, damned. The thing they refused to see is that his coming out didn't change anything about who he had always been. He was one of the most spiritual people I have ever known, despite how hard the church home he grew up in tried to shut the door in his face. He loved God, he loved music, and he loved me (and many others) with all of his heart and soul.

Tony never met a stranger. He was incredibly generous. He had a wicked sense of humor, and he would do anything to help the people he loved. He was both beautiful and flawed. He suffered from anxiety and depression, but he found a way to keep going no matter how roughly life treated him. He found the courage to be bold and brave, and to do many things that he set out to do. He set out to learn a lot of things simply for the thrill of the journey. He accepted others despite their quirks, and often because of them. He taught me so many things about the kind of person I want to be. My uncle Tony was like a brother to me. He was one of the few people I could be utterly myself with and never be judged.

Tony had a brain infection that led to an emergency surgery which left him debilitated for 8 years, so our last years together were often difficult times as my mom, my grandmother, and I cared for him. He passed away in 2016, not long after his birthday, which happens to be during Pride Month.

I miss him every day, and I celebrate Pride in his memory. I celebrate all the progress and greater acceptance that he never got to fully enjoy. I celebrate that little boys can to to twirling school and be in color guard, and try all of the things they enjoy. I celebrate that people who love each other can have a marriage and a family that is recognized by the law and entitles them to the legal benefit of taking care of one another. And I know that these victories are precarious and must be constantly protected and defended. I celebrate Pride for every person who just wants to live their lives loving, laughing, worshiping and learning without being turned away, and their families and friends who love them. I celebrate for Tony, and for my amazing, beautiful friends and family in the LGTBQ community. There's no way I can hide my P R I D E in you! <3

I'd like to believe...

It all started to really unravel a couple of years ago. My uncle/brother/friend was rushed to the hospital. For several days, my family gathered together to tell him we loved him, to tell old funny stories in the waiting room, and ultimately to see him off into the great beyond. I held my grandmother's portable oxygen machine for her so she could hold her baby's hand as he left this world. Four months later, my slightly smaller family gathered at the hospital to tell her goodbye as well. This time, there were fewer stories. She held me in her hospital bed and said my name over and over like a mantra for an hour. This time, I could not stay. Almost exactly one year later, I stood in a hospital once again and promised my mother-in-law that I would take care of her family, hoping that she already knew, because she probably couldn't hear me, and I hugged my husband, her only son, wishing I could somehow make things better, but knowing I could not. Last week we said goodbye to my husband's grandmother, who was a ray of sunshine to everyone she met. I'm writing this, probably not coincidentally, on the 11th anniversary of the death of my brother, Nathan. He was just 24.

In the past few years, new people came into our lives, and some of those really important people left, choosing to step out of our circle for reasons unknown. (Some of them were like family.)

I'd like to believe I'm going to be ok again, that all of us are going to be ok again, but I've come to realize that my definition of ok is just going to have change for now.