He did. I swear. It was a phone call question posed in the same way he might ask if I wanted him to pick up anything from the market while he was out. “Hey, is that Pride thing this weekend?”. The difference was I didn’t know how to respond. “Uh…yeah.” No exactly eloquent, not that he minds, but I was taken by surprise. Completely floored.
The man is amazing. Truly. But our son’s revelation two years ago at age eighteen that he was gay took hubby by surprise. He said all the right things, “We love you no matter what. Nothing’s changed” etcetera but that doesn’t mean it’s been easy for him to accept. Where I knew for years and was waiting for our son to finally speak the words, my husband didn’t see or maybe didn’t want to see his son was different. He has no issue with homosexuality at all. His favorite aunt is a lesbian and has been with her wife for forty plus years. He grew up in and around Hollywood with a mother who adored her gay friends from the entertainment world and a sister who recently claimed she only has gay friends. He’s cool with it. Somehow, this was personal and harder to comprehend.
Strength of character tends to reveal itself when we’re faced with the unexpected. While he wondered if it was a phase, a temporary moment of identity crises, he’s come full circle. Never once did he make our son question who he was. He questioned himself. That to me is the biggest, most crucial difference and the reason I really fucking dig the guy. He knows his job as a parent and a good human is to accept and educate himself about what he doesn’t understand. His relationship with our son and our son’s sense of Pride means more to him than his desire to put his head in the sand. When we truly love, we learn to change. Not always gracefully but we try and eventually… we get there.
So my answer, once I could find my voice, was “No. We can’t go to the one in L.A. but we’re going to San Fran’s at the end of the month.” His reply was, “Okay. Then our son can come with us.”
Yes… I think I’ll keep him.
Please check out Andrew Q. Gordon’s & Debbie Mc Gowan’s blogs this week for the Round Table discussion regarding Pride for a chance to win some cool prizes and a Amazon gift card!
http://andrewqgordon.com/2014/06/02/gay-pride-month-virtual-roundtable/
http://deb248211.blogspot.com/2014/06/lgbt-pride-roundtable-discussion.html
**In other news, be sure to check back next week for a Matt & Aaron short to get you in the mood for the big release day, June 16, of Better Than Friends. 9 Days and counting!!!
Have a fabulous weekend! Lane xo