A FATHER'S PRIDE

[December 22nd, 2004] Happy frigging holidays. This year, my present is that my dad knows I'm gay.

I've waited 22 years to say those words, but I didn't know how much it would hurt to actually get the chance.

I have a typically complicated love-hate relationship with my folks. They love me. I love them, and I hate them, especially my dad. OK, maybe hate's too strong a word. Let's just say I resent the stunts he has pulled as the father of my family. Most of it has to do with his uneven disposition, which somehow I've inherited.

That's why, despite the fact that I've written a column with the title of "Queer Window" for five years now, I've never gotten around to talking with my father about my sexual orientation. Considering that he has a gun collection in his closet and a hair-trigger temper, I figured this was a wise decision.

Now, Dad has to know I'm gay: I've never had a girlfriend; I'm a good dancer; I bought a house with a guy named Juan who comes to all our family parties. My mom is cool with it--she was my date for this year's Basic Rights Oregon dinner--but the g-word is never mentioned around my dad.

I always knew that someday, somewhere, someone would let "it" slip, and I've always wondered how my father would react when he could no longer deny the fact that his only son is a fag.

The whole drama started to unravel this summer, innocently enough, when Juan met with our family's insurance agent, a really cool guy named John, to discuss the financial entanglements that accompany a decade-long relationship.

Two weeks later, John met with my parents, and they talked mostly about buying motorcycles and motor homes. At the end of the conversation, John casually mentioned how much he liked Juan, and what a great relationship we had. If he had gay sons, John said to my folks, he would want them to turn out just like us.

After the insurance agent left, my father erupted into a rage, and he unleashed his fury on my mom. She got scared and left. When she returned the next morning, my father greeted her by saying, "I don't think you should leave. You have cancer."

It was weeks later before I heard about any of this. Actually, Juan found out first, when my mother told him the real reason she and my father would not be attending my birthday party.

Over the years, I've blamed myself for a lot of my family problems. I thought if I weren't gay or a mama's boy or whatever, everything would be easier.

But this time I finally realized that I don't have to take the blame anymore. It's not my fault that I'm gay, and it's most definitely not my problem if my dad can't handle it. He's going to have to learn how to handle it, if he wants to maintain any kind of relationship, no matter how distant, with me.

For several weeks after my birthday, I didn't hear from my dad, and it felt like he had decided I didn't exist. But slowly and surely, over the course of the past few months, we've begun to see each other again--once at a party to celebrate Mom kicking breast cancer, and then again at Thanksgiving. Two weeks ago, he even joined Mom, Juan and me at an unveiling of a mural that includes my mug--the first time he had come to one of my events since college graduation. We still haven't talked about "it," but at least we're back to sharing celebrations.

I guess it comforts me to know that holidays will always be about family--the families we're born into and the families we create--no matter how complicated they are.