Big Gay Closet

It’s very difficult to explain the sort of grief I felt when my mother called to tell me.  He was my cousin’s best friend, whom I hadn’t seen in years.  But I can still vividly remember fighting with him about who exactly would be playing the Little Mermaid in our games in kindergarten.

He never really came out to the community at large, but then again, neither have I.  Most people know about me, just as they knew about him, but if it’s never said, it’s easy to pretend that it’s not real.  But I know that he struggled with his sexuality, with his parents’ spirituality, and while I cannot and will not say that is why he struggled with drugs, I can say that I understand trying to escape to cope.

His boyfriend found him, and I’m told that they were happy, that he was trying to turn things around.  Some years ago, it was a scandal when someone who went to school with my mother brought his partner to his father’s funeral.  I hope there is no scandal here, that his boyfriend will be welcomed to grieve as any other family member, any friend would.

There’s something universal about mothers perusing awkward and often angry conversations with their children while in the car.  There’s something both twisted and thoughtful about the logic of opening up a conversation about who broke the lamp the night before or how that bottle of scotch disappeared from the liquor cabinet (or worse yet, the “birds and bees” talk) when hurtling down the road at speeds of up to sixty miles per hour with doors that lock automatically and a  belt designed to  keep one in one’s seat.  I’ve yet to meet anyone who hasn’t experienced this to varying degrees with one or both parents.

And that’s precisely when my mother backed me into that proverbial corner where one is forced to come out.  It was a conversation that I both dreaded and expected, and through the first two years of my relationship with my partner, I managed to avoid it, even with my mother’s suspicions running high after walking in on us snuggling one night (that, of course, combined with the bad influence of that woman’s college I insisted upon going to).  The conversation in itself was unremarkable and unfunny, and it was precipitated by my mentioning that my partner was also, oh so coincidentally, getting her MA at the same school in which i had enrolled for mine.

It couldn’t last forever, right?  My mother was disbelieving, especially as my five year-old son (irrefutable proof of  my heteronormativity, right?) was sitting in the back seat.  To this day, I think that’s the one element that prevents me from looking back at the situation and laughing.  I can laugh at the accusations that I was going to hell, at her utter disbelief, at her assertions that I needed to be locked away in an asylum, but I can’t laugh at the fact that she did all of that in front of him as she was driving me to take him swimming and especially after he patted my arm and assured me that sometimes she just got in moods like that.

Needless to say, I was in tears and near hysterics when we reached my cousin’s pool.  My parents, you see, were controlling enough to pull me out of school, to cut me off, to do some other…something.  The first thing I did was put floaties on my son.  The next thing I did was call my father in order that I might tell him before Mom got home.  That conversation was short and mostly silent on his end.

While that conversation happened over four years ago, I still relive it in some form every time I visit home.  No, it’s not pleasant, but it is by far the worst reaction to my coming out.  I’ll have to post about my grandmother another time…for a laugh.  And I’m thankful that I have a close support net of friends and family that didn’t and wouldn’t react that way to help me cope when it comes up yet again.   And if I’m going to hell…at least the hand basket is festively covered and well stocked with booze.

AK is an academic who collects shoes. She lives with her partner and their adorable cats.