Dear Richard,

You’re the son of my grandmother’s sister, Aunt Lily. You’re my cousin and yet I hardly know anything about you except through intimations I heard as an adolescent: “Richard’s the black sheep. He lives with his friend.” I remember you at family weddings and funerals, always sitting with your mother, walking through the buffet line with her, not knowing that your friend was at home because “what would people think?”

Now I understand that he wasn’t just your friend. You lived with your lover, your partner of twenty-five years, and when he died last year, the event was a mere blip in our family circle, unnoticed, disregarded. Did anyone from our family go to your partner’s funeral? Was your mom there, your brother and sister-in-law, your nieces and nephews? Did you receive any sympathy cards from us? No. Your love wasn’t a real love because it was the “love that dare not speak its name”. The loving and caring devotion you shared with him as he slowly died from complications due to a gay bashing in Philadelphia a few years prior is misunderstood and unsubstantiated.

I don’t say this as an act of judgment. All I can do is write about what I see on the surface and make suppositions through observation and reflection about the roots that grow down deep, clinging to dirt for dear life. These people are who they are, but that’s no excuse for un-Christian behavior. The irony is that they think they’re doing the right thing as Christians by not acknowledging you and your life.

Behind the forced smiles and a few vague pleasantries, you are the ignominious one, but now I join that familial club with you. Our families never really ask too much about our lives, do they?. They’re scared of the truth, afraid of what they might hear. You’re not alone anymore. Even though nobody in the extended family talks about it, I know questions arise in hushed circles: “Why isn’t Timmie married? Why doesn’t he have a girlfriend? I guess he’s just a confirmed bachelor.”

A particular concern of my parents when I told them I was gay was they didn’t want anyone in the family to know for fear of embarrassment. But in the recesses of our family’s minds, or perhaps on the precipices of their thoughts, is the pernicious belief that I am one of ‘those’ and it’s always best not to talk about those things. Just ignore it and it’ll go away. But we don’t go away. We’re there as an ever present reminder of an alternative life that shouldn’t be seen as alternative, but rather just as it is: a precious life.

Here we live in a family filled with God-fearing Christians and yet nobody ever offered sincere regrets about your loss last year. It was untimely that your partner died just as my mom began her downward spiral from life towards death. That stole the fire from all the funerals last year. My mom was loved by hundreds of people, whereas I didn’t even know you had a partner until you told me your ‘friend’ had died. I had to put the puzzle pieces together and then my heart broke.

I remember that moment. I wanted to cry with you and tell you how sorry I was. My mom’s memorial service was over and people had shuffled out of the church to go to the gravesite for the burial. Family members remained, including Aunt Lily and you. You came up to my sisters and me and showed us a picture of your partner who had died two weeks prior. It was one of those picture cards that’s handed out at funerals in remembrance of the departed. Your partner was handsome, with a manicured moustache, a kind face that wore a demure smile. I forget which sister you gave the card to, but I remember as I walked out of the church seeing the it lying unwanted in a pew. I wish I had made an attempt to talk with you afterwards, but I was consumed by my own sorrow, and by the time I thought about it, you’d left.

I’m so very sorry for your partner’s death. I never sent you a sympathy card for your loss, never called you, and I’m sorry for that. I apologize. After my mom’s death I truly forgot, and that was wrong. He was the love of your life and it’s odious that our family decided to ignore this. It’s ignoble. I’m a bit angry right now, feeling a bit pugnacious. Their deeply-seeded beliefs put us queers on the fringe of acceptance and therefore the death of your partner gets swept under the rug; unspoken; forgotten.

But Richard, I have to take a balanced view, to look at life from both sides, and in that light you and I are also to blame for the reality of our relationships with our family. Why didn’t you just come out and say, “My partner died,” instead of just your friend? Why didn’t you bring him to birthday parties, to funerals, to weddings? It’s not that you had to shout from the mountaintop, “Here’s my boyfriend!” That didn’t need to be said. It could just be what it was without commentary. I’m guilty of this, too. It’s something I deal with a lot.

I can’t just put our families in the corner and say, “You’ve been bad and you stay there until you’re ready to apologize,” like an impious child that’s been scolded. I’m not the kind of person who delivers ultimatums (accept me or else!), especially to those who over the years have loved me and supported me, but now wrack themselves with how to live with a gay brother. It’s their religion and conditioned belief systems that prevent them right now from taking a step towards total acceptance. I have to come from a place of love and light and not sever all ties like some people do until their families accept them…or not. It’s not easy for them. It’s not easy for me, but I work at it day by day, and slowly, over the last few years, I’ve been distancing myself emotionally, living the life I truly want, and I think progress has been made.

By living a surreptitious life, by hinting about your ‘friend’ over the years, by coalescing your identity with your family’s shame and not asserting yourself, the pain you may feel now has partly been created by you. By going along with them and creating this cycle together, not wanting to embarrass them, you’re now alone with your sorrow, but even if you had been forthright, perhaps they would have shunned you and you’d still be left alone. Who knows? This isn’t about placing blame, it’s merely about trying to understand human relationships and how to live life fully and honestly in the moment and not running headfirst without consciousness towards our deaths with regrets.

It’s always better to be honest, even if we do hurt others sometimes. That’s inevitable. Life is filled with change and suffering, and the more we learn how to accept these moments as part of our paths, the better we can survive and transform ourselves and hopefully others through our honest relationships.

If Christ returned on the day of your partner’s funeral, he would have been there with you. Jesus got angry. He threw the moneychangers out of the synagogue. If he came back today he’d probably gather up all the Christians who create hatred in his name and chastise them with a mighty spiritual backhand.

If our family stepped back from themselves, listened to their hearts that are supposed to be imbued with the love of Christ, if they stopped listening to pulpit theology that comes from a place of divisiveness, of bias, of true fear of the “other” (anything that is not like themselves or fails to fall sequaciously into their belief system); if they indefatigably sought universal truths of love on their own without having someone else interpret it for them, I think they would have been there with Christ and you at the funeral. I wish I had known. I would have been there, too.

Every act of hatred and intolerance comes from the fear of death. It’s a theory I’ve been positing to myself for the past year, and when I think about why people act so shamefully, I truly believe it comes down to the fact that most, if not all, live in total dread of death, even though they’re supposed to find comfort through their religious beliefs. People want to be right so much that they’ll devastate you to prove a point.

One of my sisters (the most accepting one of me) told me she talked with you at one of the family functions where I wasn’t present. She told you I was gay. Your response: “I know.”

You knew, as did my other cousin on my mother’s side. I hadn’t seen her in fourteen years, but on my last trip to Santa Fe I had lunch with her and ended up spending the entire afternoon, well into the evening, reminiscing and drinking wine with her. It was a beautiful day and we’ve reconnected and don’t intend to let that connection break again. We talk on the phone every few weeks. She’s become a welcomed solace to my familial frustrations.

At a diner in the downtown Santa Fe plaza, over an enchilada and beer, I told her I was gay. She laughed and said, “I’ve known since you were ten years old!” So here you are, my gay cousin, and here is my other cousin who accepts me for who I am and wants to have a relationship with me. She’s the blood family I’ve been seeking for so long, and now we can be a part of each other’s lives.

With all that said, Richard, please know that I’m here. I know. I empathize.

Love,
Timmie
xox