Baby Shower Fun

Well this weekend Susanne and I were delighted be treated to a baby shower by our friends Bob and Nancy. They invited a circle of friends whom I'd met about 6 years ago when I participated in a group called Always Our Children at a local Catholic Church. Most of the people in the group were parents of gay children and came every month to talk about their experiences and feelings and to talk about ways to deal with the Church's attitude toward homosexuality. Although most were parents of gay children a few of us were gay adults and it was a wonderful forum to talk and process what we were all going through.

I came to treasure these wonderful people--they loved their children so tremendously and yet really needed to reconcile what they'd always learned about homosexuality with what was going on in their children's lives. They say that when a parent finds out their child is gay, they often go through stages of grief. They have suffered the death of the dreams they had always had for their kids and are terrified for their well-being, safety, and sometimes for their immortal souls. So these folks had some difficult things to deal with and I consider their kids exceptionally lucky that their parents worked through their feelings and have always embraced their kids even when it was hard to do so.

I got involved in the group because a gay friend who worked with me attended the group, and encouraged me to go too. I'd realized I was gay, but was really frustrated by my church who wanted me to be who God created me to be, but couldn't accept that that could mean being gay. I was angry at my church's discounting of who I was, and being able to share with these wonderful people helped me tremendously. (I've since left the Catholic Church and Su and I are members of a very affirming Lutheran Church now.

When I met Susanne my Always Our Children friends were thrilled. And yesterday to be surrounded by such genuine love while holding the hand of my beautiful, pregnant wife I felt so peaceful. We heard what was going on with all of their children--both their gay and straight children. They got us wonderful gifts of toys and clothes for our child and I guess I found myself wishing that all gay people could experience what we did yesterday. We'll see them all again at our baby's baptism and I know that the light they shared with us yesterday will be with us again then.

On a different note, I'd meant to blog about a funny thing from last week. We were on our flight to Minnesota and two 12 or 13 year old girls were in the seats across the aisle from us. They had a laptop computer and a word document open with a pretty large font. They SILENTLY had conversation the entire trip. One would type then turn the computer to the other and she would reply--in writing. They were both really fast and accurate typists by the way and we could easily see what they were writing. Stuff like

"Who do you think Rachel should go out with? Tom or Teddy? I see her more with Teddy because he likes to go out and do stuff and Tom is just too lazy I think. Do you want to get ice cream when we land? I luv the rocky road stuff."

It was hysterical. They even wrote LOL for Laughing out Loud which you'd think might make them actually laugh out loud, but it didn't. Yes, we are definitely looking forward to those 'tween years. Oh my gosh, I just LOLed. Out Loud. Really! ;-) -Monica