A daughter's memoir
Last night, I watched the “Coming Out” episode of the PBS series, “We’ll Meet Again.” In it, two elderly gay men recalled that single individual who made all the difference in their lives. My father had such a person in his grandmother, Frances Hall, whom he called Fanny. During the high summer temps in the Read More…
Should I tell my children? It is a question I’ve been asked by a number of gay men over the years who are closeted in straight marriages in repressive cultures and who don’t plan on leaving their wives. The conversations go something like this: What if my children find out from someone else, or after I Read More…
Today is Veterans Day, a U.S. official holiday observed annually on November 11th to honor veterans who served in the U.S. Armed Forces. Veterans like my father. Flipping through my dad’s old photo albums this past week, I found this snapshot of him taken in Cold Bay in the Aleutian Islands in 1943. During World Read More…
So, Dad, your great-granddaughter told me a story. That little girl who went to you so easily when she was only a year old, is all grown up and she’s lovely. She graduated from college and works professionally in DC now. You’d be so proud of her, and of her younger sister, too. She and Read More…
My mother had known for decades that Dad was gay. He told me so in 1975 when he came out to me. It would be another decade before I had the nerve to ask Mom why she stayed. She was someone who shied away from difficult questions. But at a family gathering sometime in the Read More…
Mom had been gone for two years. We lost my little sister in 1979. My remaining siblings were out of town. Today it was just Dad and me. It was June, 2008. He’d turned 90 that March. Even though I was by then middle-aged, and had long known my father was gay, I still clung Read More…
The AIDS Memorial on Instagram is a beautiful, valuable, and growing collection of stories of those loved and lost to the epidemic. It is self-described as such: Preserving the Legacy of the AIDS Epidemic. Stories of Love, Loss & Remembrance. Silence Equals Death. I was honored to contribute my father’s story below to the Memorial on Read More…
My father had just come out to me when this photo was taken. It was the summer of 1975 and I was a 24-year-old mother in an unhappy marriage. I can see a mix of emotions on my face. Confusion, probably. Stunned? Definitely. And an effort to smile. This would be my face to the Read More…
When I was 12 years old, my schoolteacher suggested I enter a writing competition. It was sponsored by the local branch of the American Legion. The prize was a $25 gift certificate, for Woolworth’s, I think. Academic achievement was a big deal in my family, especially for my father who doled out dimes for every Read More…
There must be others like me. Where are they? It took me more than three decades to even ask this question. The journey began on Father’s Day, 1975, when I asked my dad if he’d ever been unfaithful to Mom. He’d always been a shameless flirter. I was 24. He stunned me by answering a Read More…
