Today my mother and I had a breakthrough. No, my family and I had a breakthrough. I have had breakthroughs before and they have
never panned out, but for some reason I believe this one is real. You see, I have been writing Mom a letter… a
response to a letter she wrote me a couple months ago. I have been struggling to write this letter
for about three weeks now, and it has been on my mind relentlessly. I have had difficulty thinking about other
stuff because of the letter. So, after
about ten letters, each of which I just give up, because I don’t know how to or
what to say, I finally just stopped out of frustration. I wanted to call Mom to clear some things
verbally and in a way prep her for what I would say. Our conversation resolved the two minor issues
I had with her original letter.
We made an agreement that if she would be honest with me and
say what she really felt, I would be trustworthy to not rind her for it. You see in the past, I have taken my anger
towards the church out on her because I wanted her to differentiate herself
from them, but she never would. I would
take my anger I had for my father out towards her by saying “yall” when I
really meant Dad, because I wanted her to differentiate herself from him, but
she wouldn’t. I yearned for her to
validate my feelings and assure me that what the church or dad did was not her
feelings, but I didn’t get the type of reaction I wanted, she just remained
silent. Now when I look back on it, I
feel terrible. She really internalized
my anger to other things towards her.
She believed I was angry at her and my bitterness was taken as an
attack. So I hurt my mother, yeah I feel
great about that.
That isn’t to say that she has not hurt me – the hurt has
definitely been passed around. She has
nothing on my Dad though. Life has been
hard, but I am a strong person for it.
So it is what it is. I gave on my
relationship with my father years ago before I moved to Atlanta. One night when I was out with my friend
Brett, I came home around midnight. My
dad was sitting at the breakfast table crying and he asked me to come over he
had something he wanted to tell me. For
the next hour and a half he proceeded to tell me that I was killing Jesus with
my homosexuality. I am not entirely sure
what that meant, how I was killing a deity with my sexual orientation. Regardless, I had to sit there out of respect
for my father and listen to him denigrate me for a significant period of time
and keep my mouth shut. I let him say
whatever he wanted to say while just staring at him. At that point, I was so over his
gimmicks. I was so over his
bullying. Finally when he was finished,
I said to him that I listened to everything he had to say, and I also have
something to say. I said I want to
respond to him and will he listen. For
about 2-5 minutes he simply sat there, shaking, no response. Finally he stood up and started to walk away,
then turned and said “I don’t have to listen to you. I am standing for truth. There is no response to be made to truth and
I don’t have to listen to you, and I will not.”
That was the end of my relationship with my father. I just released him at that moment. He failed me miserably in that moment and I
couldn’t handle caring anymore. So for
the years since, I felt a need to write him a letter. I felt the need to respond for my own sanity,
because I needed closure. So I wrote a
letter, and I wrote another letter, and another one and another and another one. I wrote more letters than I could possibly
count. I would say that it was
therapeutic, but then again, I had to continually relive those feelings over
and over so they compounded on me. After
a while, it got to the point where I desperately wanted closure. I became obsessed with finishing this letter
and moving on with my life. I finally
simply gave up. It’s like that say, “let
go and let god” – at that moment I don’t remember if I believed in God (I go
back and forth on that). But it was that
same sentiment. I just had to let go, so
I did. Interestingly, in a matter of no
time, I had already forgiven him without even realizing it.
So this was a similar sentiment. Mom’s letter was not mean, she hadn’t done or
said anything mean to me lately, but I felt the need to respond to her
letter. I had become consumed by
it. The last time we talked, she said
something along the lines of “I love you but I hate that” and “I think a demon
has tricked you into thinking you are gay and it’s real to you, but it really
isn’t real”. How do you argue with
someone who thinks your reality isn’t real, except to you, but not really
because it’s not really real, it’s a demon, but you’re not demon possessed or
anything, you just believed a demon. Um,
ok Mom thanks. I got my Masters Degree
from Georgia Institute of Technology but a “demon” tricked me into thinking I’m
gay… and also tricked millions of people throughout history as well, and the
scientists who say its natural, and he still hasn’t been promoted or anything,
he’s still just a demon. Thanks Mom. How
do you respond to that? “Extreme
Cognitive Dissonance” is the only thing that comes to my mind.
Anyway, we spoke on the phone. She agreed to stop holding back and would
tell me her truth and I promised I would do everything I could to be sensitive
to not hurt her by anything I wanted to say.
I never once wanted to hurt her, I simply wanted her to see my pain and
empathize with it, but I was also letting my fear of rejection prevent me from
being real with her, so I was also at fault.
After that we talked about bridge building – it’s an inside
understanding. A prophet spoke over me
many years ago saying I would be a bridge builder, I would be the first to
cross them and on the other side it would be lonely because people would still
be afraid to cross the bridge. It’s all
true. I knew it when he said it, and I’m
living it. Mom responds well to
validation of her beliefs. She believes
in God speaking through people, God’s promises and prophesies, etc. So we talk about that for a little
while. She explained to me that in the
past when I would try to push her to consider my dilemma, it would be as if a
wall went up and she would instantly go into defense mode. She continued though that on her own terms,
she has walked in her mind to the edge of an abyss, looked down and asked God for
guidance. “If my belief on this subject
is wrong, please tell me, please show me. If my reading of the scriptures is
not accurate, please help me see the truth.”
For the first time, it sounds to me that mother is truly willing to
listen, to look at the possibility that there is a deeper truth she is not
recognizing. In her letter she even
acknowledged “My beliefs are meeting with your reality and it is causing us
both pain” – which was the first time she ever acknowledged that my reality is
real.
She agreed that she is now willing to hear information about
other interpretations of scripture, translation errors, and even science. So the breakthroughs here are enormous. Mom is willing to hear alternative viewpoints
on scripture and what science has to say about human sexuality, she
acknowledged that my reality is real, and she also made a very valid point to
me about my father. I told her about how
I think he hates gay people and I explained why, but what she reminded me were
that those things happened or were said before my Dads ego was beaten to a pulp
– before the church split, before most of our family friends turned their backs
on us, and before the economy crashed and his construction trade was no longer
in demand. And she is right – he is a different
person, his ego has taken a beating, he is very soft and humble these
days. He is very down to earth these
days. And I knew that, but I didn’t give
him that benefit. She told me not to
judge him on things that happened way in the past. I have changed, she has changed, Dad has
changed – we have all grown, we are all different people. So that’s a new perspective about him also.
All in all, I feel like a huge burden has been lifted off my
shoulders. I know the work is not done,
but there is much less to do than I thought and there is actually hope in my
heart that something good will come of age.
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