A Teacher's Tale.

Several years ago, a friend of mine who was working at my school went through a difficult time with her youngest son. It was a time when things weren't going so great with her husband either.

Her husband was a man's man type and her older son was a successful high school athlete. Her younger son was what we gay people affectionately refer to as a "flamer". In a less kind world the word "sissy" would have been applied. And I'm guessing that he experienced that indignity and a whole lot worse in his young life at the time.

Sometimes she'd ask me for my advice, and one time she asked if she could bring her son to our school to attend a field trip with our students. They lived in an adjoining county where he attended school. School for him was difficult. He stood up for himself when bullied and still found that he was the one who got suspended. His father, from what I understood of it, didn't "get" or accept who his youngest son was. He was neither supportive nor prepared to accept the implications of having a gay son. I don't know how any of this was expressed in the context of their family life. I do know that it contributed to the eventual break-up of my friend's marriage to him.

For his part, my friend's son had an amazing singing voice--Charlotte Church amazing. Once overheard singing on a metro, he was given a scholarship to the Washington Children's Opera by its director. But that's a whole other story.

So back to the field trip--The details were ironed out, and the day of the field trip came. He was a little older than the rest of the fourth graders with whom I was working, but they didn't seem to mind. Generally, the students at my school are far more tolerant and sophisticated about people and their differences. As I recall, he was rather timid at first, and by the end of the day had fit right in.

It was a trip to the Chesapeake Bay at a state park called Flag Ponds. The day involved beach combing for fossils, seining for a wonderful host of fish and other animals that were examined and return to the bay. There was a station with live animals. I think a raccoon, an owl, and a snake of some sort that year--all had been injured or abandoned as infants and brought to the rangers to heal and/or to raise. The park not only abuts a stretch of the Chesapeake Bay, but also covers an extensive wetlands area so students also got to dip net for salamanders with a ranger's careful supervision.

I think my friend wanted her son to see a gay adult man who was happy, successful and completely out without ever having to make that an issue. My interactions with him directly were brief and positive, and like a cat around a curious object, he spent much of his unguarded time watching me from the corner of his eyes. I knew that process all too well from much earlier in my life.

I remember coming away from that day thinking several things. One, he was adorable. How proud I would have been to have been his father. Two, he was full of turmoil, driven by desires and confusions and more than just a little bit of anger--a typical adolescent with an atypical orientation, a pronounced disposition, and a conflicted home life. Part of me wanted to embrace him, and part of me felt that he was just too volatile to take a chance on. He'd already accused his mother of abusing him in a fit of anger than ended up having unintended and real consequences for both of them.

As the next couple of years transpired, I remained supportive of his mom, interested and concerned for his life, and a giver of what advice I could. I remember chasing down information on SMYAL (Sexual Minority Youth Assistant League) as a resource for his mom. I had a friend who volunteered there at the time.

In the end, it all proved too much for my friend and she up and divorced his dad and then moved to Seattle to be close to a sister (I think). As she left, she confided that it was very painful for her, but that it was a matter of securing her own sanity, and that without that she wasn't any good to anyone else, least ways her younger son. For his part, he was left in the hands of his ill-prepared father. DNA has its obligations.

Over the many years since all of this took place, I have time and again thought about my friend and her son and wondered what became of them. On a whim, I did a Google search for her son this afternoon, and was pleasantly surprised to learn that he survived. Not only has he survived; he has carved (clipped) out a successful life for himself. First in Seattle and presently in NYC, he has become a stylist. For me, this was a very happy discovery complete with images.

I hope he is safe and happy and by all outward appearances this seems to be the case.