What's A Homosexual?

My parents believed in total frankness. They were generations ahead of their time. I asked Mom this question when I was about 10 and she said, "Let's look it up in the dictionary." So we did. It said that homosexuals were people who preferred to have sex with people of the same sex.

"But Mom...what do they, um, DO?"

"I don't know."

We're talking about the same woman who earned a master's degree in Public Health from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and didn't understand why she was being asked to evaluate saliva samples from prostitutes for the Florida State Board of Health.

We had several closeted gay members of our family and it Just Was Not Discussed until I attained the age of teenagerhood where I felt the need to enlighten the moronic adults of the facts of life. Everybody just shrugged and say, well, maybe they are, but it's none of our business.

A few minutes ago:

Madeleine: Can I watch anything I want on YouTube?

Me: As long as it doesn't have a lot of nasty cussing.

Madeleine: Whew! I was just watching two lesbians kissing.

Me: Okay.

Madeleine: Why do people do stuff like that?

Me: When I was kid and as a grown up, I wanted to hug and kiss and marry a boy. Some people want to hug and kiss and marry boys, some want to hug and kiss and marry girls. It doesn't have a thing to do with them being bad people. Don't ever let anybody tell you anything different!!!

And people should be allowed to marry anybody they want, but they can't in this stupid state. But if a boy wants to marry a boy, he should, and if a girl wants to marry a girl, she should be able to. Remember I showed you my friends -- a family with two girls who are married and have kids? And you know your uncle is gay.

Madeleine: Yeah, and he's really cool. Man does he give us great presents.

And off she goes.

He Lives In You

On Tuesday night, we attended a "Get To Know You" orientation at the new middle school that Madeleine will attend in the fall.

The place looked familiar. And for good reason. For the school opened its doors in the fall of 1970 and a surly, ponytailed child with glasses the size of Coke bottles, buck teeth and saddle oxfords entered the doors as a 6th grader.

Me.

Things have changed since 1970. It's ONLY for 6th graders. I like that. 6th grade is the year that children are transformed into tweenagers, and I like the idea that there won't be 7th and 8th grade boys around checking out the new crop.

The classes are now single gender. Again, two thumbs up!! Madeleine is not pleased, but I told her the boyz weren't behind barbed wire--she'll still see them at lunch and recess.

Also, the place has been redecorated and looks like a cruise ship. They offer so many electives and fun courses (tennis, anyone?) that I half expected them to announce free massages after recess. They're trying to pull in the prep school crowd--the crowd that has attended expensive private schools. Math and English have three levels. The top level of math primes students to start studying Algebra in the 7th grade. I couldn't have been more pleased about the last two years in public schools, and if this school is 1/2 as cool as it looks, I think I'll be just as pleased. Madeleine will go into Strings II automatically since she's already had 2 years of lessons. The spring field trip is to ORLANDO. I think we got to go to the state house once.

I was, naturally, awash in a wave of nostalgia. I showed the girls the brick column I ran into because I was so busy talking to some of the Popular Crowd that I wasn't watching where I was going. They were...unimpressed. The fact that Mom attended this school impressed them about as much as if I had said that Abraham Lincoln had attended this school. We are now the Ancients, of course. Relegated to wallet emptying and taxi services.

But in this transitory society of ours, I think that one day Madeleine will tell a friend that she started 6th grade at the school her Mom attended with pride.

As the Lion King says, "He Lives In You." Long after I have departed this earth, I hope that I have descendants alive who might tell a story I told, use a measuring cup that I used (I snagged mom's, who got it from her mom. It's tin). They might remember a favorite song that I liked. Daddy's song was "Fever" by Peggy Lee and Mom's song was "These Dreams" by Heart. I'll make sure the girls know this. Who knows, maybe they'll read this blog once I have it made into a book. I have mom's diary that she kept when I was an infant and it means the world to me. Maybe they'll listen to the Beatles since it was their dad's favorite band.

Mom's time on earth is slowly drawing to a close, but my parents live in me. They taught me how to laugh (I've often said you could film a sitcom simply by aiming a camera at our dinner table). They taught me to take hard blows simply because I watched. They never said We Told You So. They let us learn our own lessons.

I hope this doesn't sound unbearably cheesy. But sitting there in the cafeteria at my old middle school, I felt proud that I was able to pass on a family tradition. I could feel my ancestors around me, lifting me up as I go through my own crucible of fire. I vowed to pass their lessons and stories on to the next generation and add some of my own and I'm sure Roger has his own stories to tell.

He Lives In You.