Thou hast slain the Jabberwock
Family heirloom surprises.
I’ve just come back from my hometown in Texas, and I’ve got marvelous news.
Since my mother’s death several years ago, I’ve been clearing up the wreckage of her past. This included a house full of hoard (we found 3 completely decomposed squirrel skellies while cleaning! Yay!), outstanding liens to many various persons (none of them interestingly nefarious), and muchas moolah owed to the IRS. My mom couldn’t really deal after my uncle, her brother, died, and then two weeks later, my Granny (mom’s mom) died too; it stands to reason of a broken heart. My granny and my uncle were buried in the same hole. Unlabeled. Mom refused to let me help when she was alive and she was so mangled by loss that she never even got their grave marked properly with their names.
So much of the wreckage of Mom’s past was caused by not dealing with anything for more than a decade. Her only coping skill was denial, and she utilized it to the fullest. Untangling the mess was not easy, but now, I can finally say that I have done it! The debts are all paid, the leins released, the names are being put on the unmarked graves, and I saved the farm! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
On my way back from the final business deal that allowed me to resolve everything once and for all, I stopped by my mom and stepdad’s cremation niche at the veteran’s cemetery. It was my first time seeing the niche marker since my mom’s interment back in April. I rather dramatically put my palm against the marker, and said “I did it, mom,” and had a little cry. The line from a YA book I finished reading the day before came back to me, words from a gruff mother, one who did not easily show affection, much like mine: “I knew you could.”
And then there were other developments…
When I was seven, my dad told me that my granny, my mom’s mom, was a lesbian. I was old enough to know what it meant, but obviously the 80s were not so kind to the LGBTQ+ population. At least my dad didn’t mean it as an insult, just matter of fact, but I still didn’t believe him. My dad was actually very gay positive, and never taught me any negative perceptions, but society sure did drill those points. He pointed out some “fitting” stereotypes, haircut, choice of clothing etc. I shrugged cause I didn’t know those were lesbian stereotypes until he told me they were.
One time in my early 20s, I asked my mom outright. “Mom, is granny gay? I mean, she did buy a Winnebago with her ‘best friend’ and the only place they ever really went was San Francisco. ”
And my mom answered emphatically, “No! Daddy was just the love of her life!!”
My step dad smirked, “Well…” and cocked his head at us with an skeptical grin.
I continued to offer evidence. “Plus there are all those rainbow magnets all over her fridge… Didn’t she get those in San Francisco?” As far back as I can remember, I played with the magnets on her refrigerator. Since she died, they’ve been rehomed to my fridge.
So my mom might have just been in denial.
After Granny passed, I would tell the story to people, lamenting that I would never know for sure if my grandmother was gay. I can be pretty oblivious myself though, and my gaydar is so bad that I once told my granny dilemma story to a gay friend of a friend, unaware that they were gay. My friends had a good laugh at me later. Their gay friend had said “Oh, honey. :( “
I mean, I guess it isn’t so important to know as the fact that I know my granny loved me very much, and I loved her. But the idea that she had to hide her sexuality and/or gender from the world and from her own family makes me feel very sad about it all, and I just would very much like some verification either way.
After Granny died, when I was doing my best to clean up her house because my mother found everything so impossibly overwhelming (part of said ‘wreckage of her past’ that she couldn’t deal with), I was looking through Granny’s dresser drawers, hoping to find old love letters. Instead I found a copy of “The Joy of Sex” and a decorative aluminum pin that read “Save water, shower with a friend!” It inspired a poem of mine anyway, but I would have rather found love letters.
Some of my Granny’s friends from her barbershop choir (Granny sang bass), were a lesbian couple who own a bed and breakfast together. When I would go to my Granny’s performances, they were always kind and fun to be around. It never occurred to me to contact them and ask— well, until it did. But then I was too nervous about the whole idea to go through with it.
Here’s where successful anxiety meds were influential. I’ve consequently been feeling much less anxious about everything, and while I was down visiting and wrapping up 5+ years of wrangling the farm from mismanagement, I finally realized, what the hell’s stopping me from asking? What’s the worst they could say? I would write as tactfully as possible! Yeah, I could just ask! I started scribbling down my thoughts.
“I was hoping y'all could answer a question for me that I will never otherwise know the answer to, but it is quite personal. Please don't take offense if this seems too forward of me to ask, but I would really love to know for sure. Was my granny gay or bisexual? She never discussed anything about her sexuality with us. I feel like asking y'all is my only chance to really know the truth, but if you feel that it would be a violation of her privacy to tell me, then I completely understand that too. I'm not trying to be nosey, I just want her know her as best as I can.”
I found their email address, and hit send!
Then I squeed in excitement for the next few hours cause it was possible that I was going to finally know and learn more about my granny! One of the things you realize once people have passed is that there will be no more new stories and memories. Not unless you can some how extract them from the living who knew the deceased. I checked my email every few minutes, even though I knew logically that my email would require a thoughtful response and would take some time to compose.
When I hadn’t heard back in a week, I started to assume that maybe it was a bad email, or just too weird a thing to ask. But then, on Oct 10, the day before World Coming Out day, I got my reply. I just happened to be wearing a rainbow tie-dye shirt that day too, so the universe aligned the signs.
I opened the email excitedly!!
Your Granny was a very intelligent and compassionate lady. She did love your granddad with all her heart. In that era, if you were gay, you would be sent to prison. Then later, it was put on the mental illness list and put in institutions. It was taken off the mental illness in 1973. Of course, it was still hated by most people. Your Granny was one of them that had to suppress it all. She got married like you're "suppose to". But had a beautiful relationship with your granddad. She was very hurt and sad. When we met, she just kinda took me in and became a super great friend. I was married at that time. I got divorced the next year, as I found a person (girl) and she knew that was gonna happen. I found out we could talk about anything. She was very helpful for me. She was like a second mom to me.
I was so overwhelmed I couldn’t reply back right away, but I bought turtle earrings to commemorate the day cause they always remind me of my granny, and this is kinda her coming out of her shell— or keeping her shell, but exposing her nature.
I replied the next day, which as it turns out was World Coming Out Day! I mostly just thanked her for her wonderful response and said how delighted I was to understand my granny better. I asked her if she would be willing to answer some more questions about my granny, but as of right now she has yet to respond. It’s probably pretty overwhelming, and she might be wondering if she’s betrayed my granny’s trust. I hope she doesn’t think so, cause I feel the lightness and pride of my granny’s spirit all around me.
I hope my granny’s friend will email me back soon, but even if she doesn’t this was a jackpot story memory, treasure for always. A skewed version of a line from the 90s movie Heathers keeps going through my head. Thinking about it in hindsight, that plot line in the movie was decidedly not LGBTQ+ positive, as it was about publicly ostracizing their classmates by setting them up to appear to be a gay couple. Instead those classmates end up dead, and at the funeral one of their mourning fathers shouts publicly about his love for his dead gay son. The scene is funny for it’s absurdity, but profoundly tragic at the same time, which is kind of the motif Heathers aims for, if you’ve never seen it. Delicious poison for our 90s teen angst. So anyway, I just wanna say: