Read Online The Wedding: A Family's Coming Out Story by Doug Wythe, Andrew Merling, Roslyn Merling, Sheldon Merling - Free Book Online Page B
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on by a particularly opportunistic
bully, a boy who sat behind me in history. He threatened me day in, day out,
until I let him cheat on tests. To repay my spinelessness, he regularly drooled
onto small strips of notebook paper and surreptitiously placed them on my head
until I felt the nauseating drip of his spit on my scalp. This time, he’d done
something relatively minor, but it showed ... A mere slash of a pen on my
jacket. Unfortunately, it happened to be my only jacket.
On a cloudy, winter weekend afternoon, as I
walked with my parents, I asked my mother if I could have a new one. My father
was a few feet ahead, and my mother asked “What’s wrong with this jacket?” I
decided it was necessary to show her what , although I’d never tell how .
I slowed slightly, and turned my back to her as we continued down the street.
Once my mother saw the mark that ran down my back, she turned forward again,
and her head dropped, her eyes turned down, glued now to the sidewalk, and her
voice fell close to a whisper.
“Don’t tell Dad. He thinks the kids pick on
you.” Well, what could I say to that? He’s right? They do?
And that’s how the cycle of shame begins. I’m
humiliated, and I don’t want my parents to know what happened. My mother knows
anyway, and she’s afraid my father will find out, and he’ll be ashamed of me
too. And she’s right, he will be. So no one talks.
This pattern of noncommunication was hardly
unique to my ever-more-obvious sexual orientation. When I was born my mother
experienced severe depression. I believe that today it would be classified as
post-partum depression, though at the time, it carried a tremendous stigma,
much more than it might bear today. Whatever my family’s life was like before,
my birth turned everything upside-down. Not only was my mother now ill, my
father and mother were both, for their time, extremely old to be welcoming a
baby into their family. The year was 1960, and my father was forty-six, my
mother forty-three. My sister and brother were already sixteen and thirteen
years old, respectively.
My parents sent me away to live with relatives.
Clearly, no parent gives up a child, even temporarily, without a serious
reason. My father and mother sent me off with the best intentions, hoping to
give me a more stable beginning than could be offered at home. This difficult
decision was made under even more difficult circumstances. I believe they did
the most any parent can: they did the best they could with what they had. They
sent me to Toledo, Ohio, to live with an aunt and uncle. My parents had almost
no family on the West Coast, so my aunt and uncle were the closest relatives
even though they lived two thousand miles away. My parents had left New York
during the Depression, in the late thirties, leaving behind enormous families,
and settled in Los Angeles during the early forties. Our family never recovered
from this geographic separation, and perhaps the added strain of my mother’s
condition made it even harder, after I was born, for us to retain contact with
relations spread out across the eastern seaboard. In fact, until I was out of
college, I’d met only a handful of my enormous family, and only on one or two
occasions at most.
When I returned home from Ohio, aged seven, our
family appeared happy. This was my true home, yet somehow, I felt as much an
outsider as I had when I was sent to live in Toledo. Now that I was back, both
my parents doted on me, and I felt loved, but still, never quite at home. Not
that they didn’t try. My father all but made himself my private tutor,
constantly quizzing me with vocabulary flash cards, setting up math and
spelling games on magnetized boards all over the house, testing me on arcane
trivia. And my mother tended to me with embarrassing care.
Before long, though, my mother struggled with
depression again, and the family fell under a shroud of secrecy and shame
that’s never fully lifted. It’s ironic that this shroud
bully, a boy who sat behind me in history. He threatened me day in, day out,
until I let him cheat on tests. To repay my spinelessness, he regularly drooled
onto small strips of notebook paper and surreptitiously placed them on my head
until I felt the nauseating drip of his spit on my scalp. This time, he’d done
something relatively minor, but it showed ... A mere slash of a pen on my
jacket. Unfortunately, it happened to be my only jacket.
On a cloudy, winter weekend afternoon, as I
walked with my parents, I asked my mother if I could have a new one. My father
was a few feet ahead, and my mother asked “What’s wrong with this jacket?” I
decided it was necessary to show her what , although I’d never tell how .
I slowed slightly, and turned my back to her as we continued down the street.
Once my mother saw the mark that ran down my back, she turned forward again,
and her head dropped, her eyes turned down, glued now to the sidewalk, and her
voice fell close to a whisper.
“Don’t tell Dad. He thinks the kids pick on
you.” Well, what could I say to that? He’s right? They do?
And that’s how the cycle of shame begins. I’m
humiliated, and I don’t want my parents to know what happened. My mother knows
anyway, and she’s afraid my father will find out, and he’ll be ashamed of me
too. And she’s right, he will be. So no one talks.
This pattern of noncommunication was hardly
unique to my ever-more-obvious sexual orientation. When I was born my mother
experienced severe depression. I believe that today it would be classified as
post-partum depression, though at the time, it carried a tremendous stigma,
much more than it might bear today. Whatever my family’s life was like before,
my birth turned everything upside-down. Not only was my mother now ill, my
father and mother were both, for their time, extremely old to be welcoming a
baby into their family. The year was 1960, and my father was forty-six, my
mother forty-three. My sister and brother were already sixteen and thirteen
years old, respectively.
My parents sent me away to live with relatives.
Clearly, no parent gives up a child, even temporarily, without a serious
reason. My father and mother sent me off with the best intentions, hoping to
give me a more stable beginning than could be offered at home. This difficult
decision was made under even more difficult circumstances. I believe they did
the most any parent can: they did the best they could with what they had. They
sent me to Toledo, Ohio, to live with an aunt and uncle. My parents had almost
no family on the West Coast, so my aunt and uncle were the closest relatives
even though they lived two thousand miles away. My parents had left New York
during the Depression, in the late thirties, leaving behind enormous families,
and settled in Los Angeles during the early forties. Our family never recovered
from this geographic separation, and perhaps the added strain of my mother’s
condition made it even harder, after I was born, for us to retain contact with
relations spread out across the eastern seaboard. In fact, until I was out of
college, I’d met only a handful of my enormous family, and only on one or two
occasions at most.
When I returned home from Ohio, aged seven, our
family appeared happy. This was my true home, yet somehow, I felt as much an
outsider as I had when I was sent to live in Toledo. Now that I was back, both
my parents doted on me, and I felt loved, but still, never quite at home. Not
that they didn’t try. My father all but made himself my private tutor,
constantly quizzing me with vocabulary flash cards, setting up math and
spelling games on magnetized boards all over the house, testing me on arcane
trivia. And my mother tended to me with embarrassing care.
Before long, though, my mother struggled with
depression again, and the family fell under a shroud of secrecy and shame
that’s never fully lifted. It’s ironic that this shroud
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