And I couldn’t be happier!
I used to work 45+ hours a week. At the time, I had four kids ranging in age from 18-13. My boss, a prominent pediatrician, decided one summer to go on an uber long vacation, one month to Fiji to be exact. It was during this time that I finally deciding to put my children first.
I worked so often that I had begun to feel that I was neglecting them. They needed me emotionally. They needed me not to be tired after work and listen to them, or so I perceived.
So that hot summer in July, I vacated from work also and vowed to spend some quality time with my kids and sleep in as much as possible. During my time off, I cleaned my house in such a way that it would have made my neurotic and organized grandmother proud. I cooked meals that didn’t require being removed from a cardboard box and I started doing things with my children. I was prepared to spend my cherished week being the best mom I could possibly be.
Not that working 45+ hours a week to put food on the table and keeping a roof over their heads didn’t make me a good mom, I wanted to provide emotional support and as well as physical support. They were in their teenage years. Which as many know, is always the pits.
My two girls were the easiest to spend time with. The younger one, sweet, pretty and smart, enjoyed baking cookies, watching scary movies, and gathering her adolescent friends to the house to discuss important things in their lives. Things like which boys in their school were cute, who was a slut, and what teacher made them want to vomit. Despite their constant chit chatting and nail scratching chalkboard shrieks and giggles, I found my time with her to be comforting and familiar.
The eldest daughter, the beautiful, intellectual, militant, was more sinister and dark. Her young mind was still wounded by the perils of high school and was now being tormented by the media’s display of government inactivity amongst its people. Hunger, poverty, and political corruption had to be stopped. I cringed as she mercilessly showed me terrorist acts on the internet and the media’s propaganda to ruin the minds of our youth. She was a rebel with many causes. After talking with her, I had begun to wonder if the helicopter in the sky from a nearby naval base was following me to the local grocery store.
My youngest son, the handsome, cunning, jock, didn’t require much of my company. He just wanted someone to play Black Ops and Zombie Apocalypse with and to lend an ear about how great of a football player he was. He also taught me about football. Thanks to his patience and tenacity, I understand why the football players wear such tight pants, which I may add is a wonderful thing, and what a punt is.
But my oldest son, the wise artist, needed me more than I thought. He was 16, at the time, and stood about 5’9. Not much into sports but he had a muscular build, intellect, and a very handsome face. He was a thinker. I knew my time with him would require much talking and deep inspiring thoughts. Oddly, he approached me for conversation.
That day was no different than any other day. It was a bright Tuesday morning. I had awakened early and decided to watch some quality TV. The kids were still asleep. I fixed some coffee, eased into the couch, and flipped the television to Jerry Springer.
My oldest son came upstairs and sat beside me. He never spoke to me until a half hour into the show when some poor woman got dragged across the stage by her sister for sleeping with her husband.
“Mom?”, he said laying his head on my shoulder.
“Yes son”, I replied.
“No matter what we did or said, you would still love us. Right?’’.
“Of course I would”, I said uneasily as my mind began to race and immediately worry.
“Would you love me even if you didn’t like what I said or did?” he asked looking up earnestly at me.
As a parent, you keep your composure. Your emotions are on a plane fretting about which one is going to jump out the hatch first. Dealing with teenagers, usually Fear, Anger, and Sadness are one of the first to leap. Happy and Joy are in the back of the plane drinking lattes in a robe and watching a 24 hour marathon of Sex and the City. I truly did not know which one of the three would take the dive. Trying to keep my heightened sense of paranoia under control, I replied “Yes son”.
Removing his head from my shoulder he began to sob.
“Dear God, what’s wrong?” I asked while rubbing his back.
“Mom…..I’m gay”, he said in between sobs.
Rendered speechless, my mind began to fire in a thousand different directions. Is he joking? He can’t be joking, he’s crying. Is he serious? He has to be serious, he’s crying. In a broken voice I ask, “Are you sure?”.
It may not have been a good question to ask at the time, but I knew that kids his age like to experiment. Hell I did.
“Yeah mom. I’m sure”, he said while still sobbing.
“Since when?” I used to think that was a choice.
“Since I was little. I always liked boys”, he said wiping the tears from his eyes.
“How can that be?”, I thought. Ignoring my child’s presence, I stared off into space consumed by emotions and thoughts. My heart pounded with angst, sadness, and immediate guilt.
“Wouldn’t I have seen the red flags?” My impression back then of someone being gay was Rupaul or Liberace. Not a boy with many male friends who occasionally played pranks on each other or kicked a ball outside from time to time. Or maybe I saw them and ignored them. A mother’s love for her child can be deceivably blinding at times. Skeptical of my sudden quietness, he placed his hand on mine.
“Mom, do you still love me?”, he asked with reddened eyes and furrowed brows.
“More than life itself “, I started to cry. “Is it my fault”, I asked. Maybe I should have pushed for your father to be in your life more. He had never done anything for the children since they were born. Maybe, I should have encouraged you to take up sports in school. Maybe I should have been tougher with you. Maybe I should have acquired more male role models in your life like my brothers or my father. Maybe I should have taken him to church more often. The guilt and helplessness I felt seemed overpowering.
“No mom. It’s nothing you did. You taught me to be strong and follow my heart. You did a good job raising us. It’s just me. It’s who I am”, he said firmly.
Relieved and confused I hugged him tightly. We held each other that morning for what seemed like hours. It was at that moment that I realised, maybe I needed him more than I thought he needed me.
There are many things in life that we hope and wish our children to be. At some point as a parent, you have to realise that they have their own hopes and dreams. And why should I fix something that is not broken? He is strong, healthy, and smart. Whether if he was gay or not, I would still worry about him and his choices.
One of the perks of being a parent is the lifetime of worry nobody tells you about. If you ask my honest opinion, it saddens me to know sometimes that my beautiful boy will never have a wife. It saddens me that I will never meet the girl of his or MY dreams and orchestrate a $60,000 wedding. The funny thing about being a mother is that your children’s’ happiness always comes before yours. Even if you disagree about what makes them happy.
If you ask him today, he is proud of who he is. He is strong, wise, and happy. And the fear that I dreaded for my son has faded. But he’s who he is and I love him. And now that brave 16 year old boy is a 20 year old man attending college. How could I not love him, he’s my boy and that huge pill that I had to swallow 4 years ago goes down a bit easier as the years go by. I accept him for who he is.
That summer in July, my children taught me many things on that brief vacation. I learned that secrets and an occasionally scary movie were best when surrounded by good friends that you love and trust. I learned that the world is not perfect and if you don’t like it, then do something about it. I learned that football is actually entertaining and shooting zombies with an AK can be stress relieving. I also learned that love is love regardless of a person’s gender, race, or religion and there is nothing wrong with that.
But most important I learned that worrying never helped anybody. And whereas I doubted my abilities to do right by my children, I was doing it right the whole time. And even though, when it comes to my eldest son, his decision is still an adjustment for me.
There are times that I wish he didn’t dish so much about his current love interest. Every time we talk, I am bombarded about a young man he has met that has him smitten. I listen and do not judge. I have also managed to coax Happy and Joy to take a leap out the door of the plane sometimes as we converse.
I also realized it is during those shared moments with my son that I am grateful that he is confident and sure of himself, and that the vodka I bought is waiting for me cold in the fridge. No more surprises. I want to be prepared the next time I hear, “No matter what we did or said, you would still love us right?” I would then get up, proceed to pour myself a quick shot of Ciroc, sit back down, take a deep breath, look whomever straight in the eyes and say, “Always.”