The Telling of Two Lives

The Telling of Two Lives LWP
sbrowder October 2007 Piece #2

It was impossible to say. For me, it was more impossible to hear. The speaker and the hearer would suffer after the telling and maybe for much longer than either would think would have been necessary. But that is the nature of suffering, it has to be endured or let go of with a deliberate act of will.

* * *
My son had been a fisherman - an expert fisherman. I had seen him drown a worm a time or two. Others had seen him fish, and they marveled, at not only his ability, but his innate sense of rhythm in the cast and his knowledge of fish.
He was twenty years old when I found an old photo of him in the act of fishing. It was a picture of an artist. He held his rod in one hand, so expertly placed. The cap in his other hand, dangled in a relaxed casualness. A slight smile drew his lips into a knowing look. He seemed to know that if a fish was there, its underwater days would soon be at an end. The fish would answer this fisherman’s lure like sacrificing itself to a god.
For me it was simply a picture pulled from a box. This blip of exposure, frozen in time, was my middle child. I wanted to breathe life into this flat snapshot of someone who I thought I knew. I wanted to see the familiar. I wanted to feel the intimate essence of the spirit of the boy who stood at the edge of brackish waters and brownish green marsh grass. I wanted to touch his tawny hair, teased by a slight breeze that played at his hairline

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revealing a high, intelligent, brow. I wanted to look into his eyes that I knew would not turn to me but followed the rod’s line to the surface of the water and into the depths of all things. I wanted to kiss his full lips that sealed a mouth full of a secret. I wanted to know this son, this expert fisherman. I did know this boy standing on this bank then, but in just a few years I would not know him at all. Never would I know him as he was in this photo. How cruel for this picture to hide his life. It mocked me. It fooled me into thinking that this expert fisherman was my son. But this picture was only the surface of him, not revealing the undercurrent of who he was.
He had been a reflective child, a day dreamer. He was quiet and somber, almost as one affected. I never once remember spanking him for anything. Redirecting and explaining things was enough. He seemed lost in his own world, and only held his finger like a bookmark, in places that were important to him.
All through his elementary school years his teachers had recommended him for special classes, but I fought them. He may have been disorganized and had some slight eye-hand processing problems but he had tested above average in IQ. He was indeed special, but not in the way teachers saw him.
He never wanted to play sports, but with a little nudging from his dad and some teasing from his older brother, he had played one season of baseball when he was eight. At ten, his grandmother had given him karate lessons. We had all been so proud but also terrified at the number of times he had gotten the worst of it in matches. He loved to build things, first with blocks then with his dad’s tools. But most of all, too soon to be out of my sight, he would sneak away to the nearest pond to fish. And always he would come home elated
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with his catch, begging me not to be angry.
As he got older he charmed the girls and the girls charmed him. He dated many, got
seriously smitten by one, got engaged, moved out, broke it off, and moved back. [Until this very day he would tell you he loved her and always would.]
I loved him more than my life. During those sweet remembered years of boyhood I had always been prepared for scraped knees, cuts and colds, ant bites and bullies - all the things a mother can fix. But life had a terrible way of building in an un-fixedness. There was no cure, no program, no priest, or band aid that could fix my son, my precious, delicate, expert fisherman - not even my love. If only I had known.
Pictures. Like a room in my mind, I was led to the tricky place called, “memory”. I could place my hand on the cool, round knob of the door and go into the room of “him”. There I was greeted by visions of all things, ”him”. With eyes closed and the picture in my hand, I was free from the outside world. We were safe. The time spent there was sweet, like the taste of water after a long journey. We could meet there, cuddle, laugh and remember our lives. But I could not stay in this room. It was false. I am his mother but what I did not know then, it was not the true him.
Pictures. I was comforted by this picture of his slim figure with rod and cap in hand. I saw him there on the marshy bank of still water. Held there in time I knew him - the son of my memories, the son of my forever.
Pictures. This was a picture of a fine young man.. This picture would be a reminder of my love for all things true. Like the color of his eyes, I would not have to choose to love him, it was love at first sight. The shape of love always remains - we fill it or empty it.

* * * *
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It was a day of awful rain and heavy traffic. I was driving my son to a friend’s house - a friend of his he wanted me to meet. My son was twenty six and had been planning to share a house with his friend. He told me I would like B-. He told me B- was about my son’s age, had a good job, and a friendly dog. I was happy to think that their plans seemed well thought out.
Secure in my thoughts, I was not prepared for what would become a pivotal moment in both our lives. Life can be so quiet and full of hope one moment and then only a moment later, at the end of one word and at the beginning of another, nothing is ever the same. All I ever knew stopped and was replaced by something I could not grasp at all.
“Mother, I am gay”. His sentences poured out without periods, like the raindrops pelting my windshield - “I’ve been wanting to tell you for a long time… I just never knew how… I was afraid… For all the reasons one person is terrified that he really is another person, in the same body, I was too scared to tell you… It’s not your fault, mom… This is not about you…it is who I am…I didn’t wake up one day and decide to be gay… I didn’t choose this mom…I love you… Please mom, don’t hate me…I love you… This is me, your son”.
“No!”, I screamed. “You are not gay! For God’s sake, you are my son. I would have known. Are you telling me you just became gay? Is this some lifestyle you are wanting to try? Who talked you into this? What can I do? How can I help you out of this? What will I tell your father? Do your brother and sister know about this?
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He slumped back in his seat. He was silent. Tears rolled down his thin face. He seemed impossibly sad. Then he became breathless as he his tears turned into sobs. His long fingers gripped the handle of the door. His face turned toward the window.
My screams turned into silent sobbing. I held back my pain. I wanted to be alone. I wanted time to stop. Someone had just died - someone had left me - the son of my heart. My knuckles were white as I gripped the steering wheel. I now knew I was driving my son to his lover.
This had to be an impossibility. Had my son just left on a ‘slow boat to China’. Had I failed to be at the dock to say good-bye? What would I have said? Would I have wished him luck? Nothing about being gay seemed to be lucky. But then what did I know about being gay - nothing , absolutely nothing. Differences always make everyone else feel so normal. My son had to be right - no one would choose exclusion.
“Do you still love me?” was his unspoken question. “Are you the boy in the picture?” was mine. The answer to both questions was “yes”. When we found our voices, we said so. When the rain had stopped and we were parked in B-’s driveway, we fell into each others arms and held on for life - the rest of our life. The familiar things merged into the new.
As I drove from my son and his lover that day, somehow change had brought us into focus, like it or not. We could fear it, rail against it, wail and wallow in it, but we could not stop it from coming. We had choices. We could be discontent or content, adjust our expectations and adapt, or be left behind. We chose to live in the now and hold on to what is true - the love of a mother for her son and a son’s love for his mother. We would
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not settle.
I would be lying if I said that growing does not hurt. But the truth is, as things change
they stay the same, because in the end - we are who we are. To be honest about who you are is the opposite of lying about who you are not.
Pictures. I have more than a picture, I have a promise, a promise to love the expert fisherman - my son, and his promise to love me - his mother.