This room is fully carpeted with two domed skylights and one removable window to the roof. When she was a teenager, unbeknownst to me, she would climb out this window and sit on the roof staring at the stars in the black night or contemplate the returning sun in the wee hours of the morning. My daughter's room used to be full of pictures from her favorite indie rock and roll women, and she had a poster-sized photo of her first Portland Girls Rock Camp Band covering one of the secret doors. These doors lead to the wooden framed, open, insulated space beneath our roof. And behind these doors my daughter has stashed her no longer needed mementos. On the wood paneled walls of her room are several ink drawings, no doubt done to pass some of her lonely, insomniac teenage hours.
My independent, college daughter's room is no longer simply my daughter's room.
We have rearranged and added a new lamp to this daughter's spare room, dresser drawers have been emptied, unworkable electronic gadgets recycled. When she comes home for a visit, I feel as though the house is complete. When she is gone, I sense the room's emptiness. I'm better now. I'm replacing my mother life with a new reborn life of my own. Doesn't every mother wade her way through the waters of change after releasing her child to womanhood? Doesn't every mother find ways to fill the nest once the baby birds have left? I admit I'm over sensitive about, over attached to my love for this amazing being.
My daughter's room creaks above and reverberates with sound.
Occasionally I will sit in the middle of this attic room and smell her presence, scan her memories, wonder what this daughter's growing-up years were really like, for mothers are usually the last to know the truth. At thirteen my daughter did share one of her larger truths with me and this was her “coming out” as a Lesbian. And for this larger truth I have loved her even more. Through these swiftly passing years I have come to see her courage...the courage it took to be her authentic teenage self in a world praising sameness and the courage it takes to be a Queer woman in a world praising more conservative categories.
In recent months hope for marriage equality has gushed forth like a fountain raining down on a just universe. President Obama, as the first sitting President to do so, completed his evolution and personally came out in support of Gay marriage. This followed the beautiful, heartfelt statements of Vice President Biden. This dear Catholic man pronounced “I have no problem with men marrying men and women marrying women.” He was swayed by love, by connection with a two father family and his observation of their children's love for their parents. Then a federal appeals court declared the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional. Finally, most relevant for my J.C. Penney employed daughter, JCP, who first faced criticism for having Ellen DeGeneres as their spokesperson, never backed down in their LGBTQ support. In fact, their response to a shopping boycott by a group calling themselves on Facebook, “The Million Moms” was to have a two mom family ad in their Mother's Day catalog. And when this ad was railed against, they came out with a two father family ad for Father's Day. “Can you love a company?” asked my husband who sent me the Father's Day ad. So there has been hope.
There have also been tears: this mother's tears are testaments to the challenges my beautiful daughter faces almost daily. “That's so Gay” and “Faggot,” plus other equally hurtful phrases wafted through the hallways of her supposedly liberal high school. A preacher in North Carolina stated recently that all Gays need to be rounded up and put behind a wire barrier. As a school district home teacher, I have often had Jehovah's Witness families who believe the Bible states same sex relationships are a sin. But the Bible also supports slavery and killing one's neighbor for working on the Sabbath. My tongue gets bitten often, for I must professionally stand back in these situations and remain silent. But what I wish conservative mothers could hear from me is that just as you love your daughter, I love mine. And just as you want no harm and only happiness to come to your daughter, so too do I.
My daughter's room will always be her room.
We assume we live in a heterosexual world. We assume the majority of Whites filling professional occupations means Whites are more capable than Blacks or Hispanics, Asians or Arabs. We assume there is a “right” way of thinking. I put myself in my daughter's shoes: I look at television, the movies, the newspapers, the magazines, the social media and I rarely find my daughter. There is an increase of Gay men on the cultural stage, but what about Gay women? When my daughter sends a picture of her and her girl friend to her grandmother, her grandmother states: “Thanks for the picture of you and your roommate.”
I have to remember that it is a slow process, this movement towards change and acceptance. Growing up in the 50's I did not see one Black person in the media or on my street. It takes time. But when rational scientists and leading scholars/psychologists verify my daughter simply is who I already know she is, then I wonder at the blatant bigotry of the human race.
This June three hundred Mormons (Mormons Building Bridges) march with LGBTQ in the Utah Pride Parade in Salt Lake City. A Catholic Nun, Sister Farley, is severely criticized by the Vatican for supporting Marriage Equality and stating that “love is love.” My tears flow freely, for I am a sensitive mother. I cry at the hurt and I cry at the joy. I remember standing with my sixteen year old daughter watching the New York Pride Parade and crying. For five hours 5th Avenue was filled with nothing but support and love for my daughter. And so I cried because at last I knew my courageous, authentic daughter didn't feel alone, and neither did I.
© 2012
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