Edited on Wed Jul-20-11 03:18 AM by Snoutport
My dear small-town Aunt just passed. She was a lovely lady. She was the town librarian until she retired so she was well known and well respected and she was a very Christian woman. She was very active in her church and was one of the woman who always made sure, after an accident or a tragedy, that someone from the church showed up with a hot casserole and some hot cinnamon rolls. She was there for everyone in her family, she was there for everyone in her church. She was...wonderful. (Though, I will admit...not a very good cook. Sometimes those cinnamon rolls were as hard as hockey pucks...but the gesture was one of pure goodness).
Her only drawback in this tight-knit small town, was that her youngest son was gay. Not just gay, but super gay. We gays don't talk about it much, keeping up a united front, you know...but, yes, even we admit that some guys are not just gay... some are super gay. They can't hide it no matter how hard they try. They flit when they mean to run, the flap when they mean to wave and they giggle when they mean to laugh, HA HA HA like a barrel chested man. So, yeah, my very religious aunt had a super gay son and there was no hiding it. My poor super gay cousin grew up in one of the country's most religious towns and man-oh-man did he have the emotional scars to prove it.
He lived far away most of my life but he is a great older cousin. I came out to him young (it was the early 80s) in a letter (he lived in decadent West Hollywood!). A few days later I got a small packet in the mail. He sent a supportive letter, a birthday card with a smutty man on the cover (my heavens! he's naked for MY birthday!!) and every single piece of literature that had been printed on this new AIDS thing and some condoms. He wrote several pages just making sure that I understood that I had to have safe sex. He also told me that he had told his parents. I was horrified! My aunt and uncle just lived up the street and now my fate was in their hands!
They invited me down for lunch. They were quiet and prim and reserved and super supportive. They just wanted me to know that there were people in the family who didn't give a dang if I was gay or not. I was just super to them! (But not super gay...I was a macho young buck driving a farm truck and throwing 150 lb bales of hay all day).
And so this dear religious woman accepted the people God put in her life. She loved them and treated them well. When my mom was hurt my aunt was there with a pot of chicken and dumplings. Every time my dad was sick there was a batch of hockey pucks. Errrr...I mean cinnamon rolls. She never failed to be there for her family and church members.
As a widow in her mid 80s she realized she needed some help. She had three children. Two who lived nearby with grown children, and the gay son living the single life at the beach. Who invited her in? The gay son. He made room for her and they bounced between his house and hers. When the cancer hit he sold his house and moved to her home to be with her. He cared for her for several years. Got her to chemo, got her to church, took her to see her church friends, delivered God knows how many casseroles and cinnamon rolls with her.
And even though the religious people in her life did not approve of homosexuality they saw her gay son give up his gay life to return home and do what her other kids weren't willing to do. They saw him honor his mother with great care for several years.
And she passed. And the funeral was packed. And a sweet woman has moved on to her next adventure.
My mom and I weren't able to see my cousin in the week after so I invited him over for dinner the other night. He is a little lost and confused. Hurting. Lonely. Alone at 63. And I asked him if he had been inundated with casseroles and baked goods after my aunt passed. And he got this sad, small look on his face and in the deadest voice I've ever heard from him he squeaked out. "No. Nobody brought anything."
"I'm surprised," my mom said, "She was so active in the church and they took everybody food."
"Yes," he whispered. "I was surprised too."
It broke my heart. Here this guy had given up his whole life to help his mom. He had proved by his actions that even if he was super gay, he was as good a Christian as anyone at the church he took his mom to every week. And when the time came for the church to show just how Christian they are, they did. Even though every one of them probably owed my aunt a favor and a dozen baked dishes they repayed her kindness by snubbing her son. The gay guy didn't deserve a f**king macaroni and cheese in their eyes.
This has hurt him. The loss, the snub. He just bought a condo 1000 miles away sight-unseen he wants out of that place so bad.
I wish him Godspeed.
