Pride Part 2

For a few years now, I've reposted my blog from 2018 about why I have celebrated pride for decades as an ally. This year, I want to post about celebrating as the parent of a member of the LGTBQ+ community.

My child was born into a home of love and tolerance for the community because we already loved many LGTBQ+ family members and friends. I took my kiddo to family friendly pride events, and made sure that they and all their friends knew that our house was a safe place to be themselves. When my own (grown) child came out, there was already a foundation laid for them to know that they would always be treasured by us. It was still hard. Change is hard for humans (even positive change) because we are creatures of habit and routine. Don't let that discourage you, whether you are a person who is comming out, or a person who loves someone who is. You and your loved ones will bumble through and it will be ok. As in all things, we need to handle each other and ourselves with grace and love. We can never expect anyone (including ourselves) to have every aspect of life figured out. The sooner we let that expectation go, the happier we will all be. Getting to know yourself never stops, so keep going! Don't be afraid to learn more about who you are and who everyone else is. We are here to make life more joyous together!!! Let's celebrate! Love ya'll. Happy Pride month! I'm so very proud of all of you!!!

Almost Happy to See You Again

For over a year I, like so many others have avoided being in close proximity to my family and friends. Many of them are in a high risk group for severe Covid complications and I was desperate to protect them and myself. I was so afraid of losing any of them, particularly after mourning the loss of 6 close family members in the past 4 years. When there is so much death surrounding you, it's hard not to cling harder to the people in your life. So we followed all the recommendations. We kept ourselves out of each other's homes, cars, and arms, despite the misery and awkwardness it caused.

Now we are on the cusp of a major turning point...vaccination! A good portion of my family and friends are partially vaccinated, as am I. The day is looming ever closer when we can hug each other again. I should be overcome with joy, right? And on an intellectual level, I am excited for that sweet day, but I have a confession to make: My emotions are a mess. Because of the deadly nature of this virus, the pure joy that I would normally feel when face to face with those I hold dear has become very complicated by other emotions that are now wrapped up with the joy. There is fear and dread in there. There is uncertainty about the possible variants and sadness over the loss of a year. It's all twisted together with my love and joy like a ball of tangled thread. I don't know what to expect to feel when I start being able to touch people and be close to them. I am not sure it will be the unbridled happiness I imagined a year ago when this began. I believe it will take some time to pull the ends of the threads and untangle the fear and dread and desire to protect my loved ones from the possible disaster that could be the result of my touch. I don't think I'm alone in this. I hope we can all cut ourselves and each other some slack if we don't feel the way we are "supposed" to or how we thought we would. This pandemic has wrapped up the most basic human need for connection in trauma. Let's be patient while we unwind it.

#100YEARS

In 2020, we will celebrate 100 years of women's right to vote in the United States of America. It took almost 100 years for activists and reformers to win this right, and it was not an easy battle. For nearly 100 years now, women have had a voice in our government and in society. We have been, at least on paper, afforded equal rights with men. And yet, every single woman I know has been dismissed many times in her life as "less". Women are often perceived as less believable, less capable, less worthy, and less essential than men. A woman's suffering is often perceived as less important than a man's career or successes. We are shamed, blamed, and dismissed around this country every day, in virtually every setting.

I submit to you that men and women can work together to change this. This is not a Democratic issue or a Republican issue. It is a human issue. In the days and years ahead, we need to cast our votes ONLY for candidates who fully support a society in which all men and all women are valued equally. We must put this as our number one requirement on any candidate, before other policies, not just by lip service, but by actions. Only then will candidates come forth who can be counted on to value all of us. If this issue, equal value of every citizen, is not at the forefront of our minds and reflected in our votes, we will remain a divided society for another 100 years. I believe that there are enough men of integrity, and enough women of courage to change this culture, and by the time we reach that 100th anniversary, we will be on our way to being a society where each human being is valued for their contributions and also expected to conduct themselves respectfully toward each other at all times, regardless of age, sex, race, or economic standing. We owe this to ourselves, and we owe it to our daughters, sisters, granddaughters, mothers, nieces and friends. Not another #100YEARS can go by. The time is now.

September 4th, a birthday

On this day, two of the most beautiful and influential women in my life were born.

The first one I knew was my Nanny. She was a complex woman who wrote everything down. She had notebooks full of to-do lists, funny sayings she wanted to remember, and even outlines for the things she wanted to talk to people on the phone about. She loved to read, and as a result, had one of the most extensive vocabularies around. She loved to be outside working in her garden or flower beds. She had a green thumb like no one else I ever knew. She loved the song "Earth Angel", and she had a wonderful sense of humor with a bit of a goofy streak. She worked very hard and planned her days so that she could take a little nap after lunch even though she was the youngest grandmother I ever knew. But most important, at least to me, she believed I was wonderful. She was my second mother, and one of my dearest friends, and we had our own special world between us. I miss singing happy birthday to her at the park, which was her favorite place to have a party. I miss picking a particularly obscure word and the two of us using it repeatedly throughout the day just for fun. I miss how she used to pinch the people she loved, and how my name sounded when she said it out loud...especially when I was purposefully aggravating her and she threw in my middle name...which incidentally was derived from her name, Linda. I know her love is with me still, but it's hard to be without her every day.

The second lady, who shared this birthday with my Nanny, was Joyce. She was the woman responsible for giving me such a wonderful husband. She had taught her son to be kind to women, and to be gentle and caring. She taught him that women were to be respected and revered, and she even taught him to put the toilet seat down! But more than that, she was a friend to me. She gave me a job for the summer, let me live in her house, and we drove to work together every day, without ever getting tired of each other. (Ok, if she got tired of me, she never said, so I'm just going to assume our feelings were mutual.) We had a lot of laughs, and a few good cries. She loved Tim and she loved me, and she didn't try to interfere with our relationship or with our choices, but always supported us and cheered us on. And when Bre came along, she was a very proud Mimi who always wanted to hear about what she was up to and have a laugh or tell funny stories about times before she was born. I lucked out in the mother-in-law lottery, and I have said so from day one.

The funny thing about these two women, is that they shared a birthday, they shared kids and grandkids, and in recent years, even shared a home. When my Nanny had to have radiation and chemo, Joyce kindly opened a room in her home to her, and they became closer than they'd ever been before even through years of shared family events. I know that time meant a lot to both of them.

So today, just for a moment, I'd think of them having a big old slice of "better than sex cake" together in heaven, along with my uncle Tony who adored them both. Happy Birthday Nanny and Joyce. I love you always.

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.

Almost

I stood in the aisle at Walgreens, staring at all the pink Mother's Day cards. Some were funny, some emotional, and others musical. I spotted the one with the sweet brown dog on the front and I almost touched it. She would have loved the goofy look on the dog's face. It probably said something funny on the inside. Sometimes I like to get the emotional cards, but this one was perfect. She would need cheering up after all that happened last year. But then...she saw me smile at the card. I know she did. And that is enough.

I love you, Nanny.