As a baby, she was absolutely beautiful. Cuddly, kind, curious… beautiful. Wherever we’d go, strangers would gaze at her big blue eyes and say, “What a beautiful little girl!” Even when I dressed her in blue people would say this, and when I would tell them she was a boy, they would say something like, “But she’s just too cute to be a boy.”

She has always been a very loving person. When her younger sister was born, every time she cried, my older girl would softly stroke her head and cry with her. Even in those sleep deprived days it pleased my heart to see her love her new sister like that. The whole time she was growing up I would always say she was “my Tenderheart”.

As she grew older, her dad and I encouraged her interests as best we could. We played Pokemon with the girls when that was “the thing”. We went to every soccer game the year she played, but didn’t second guess her when she said she didn’t want to continue. She wasn’t really into sports.  She would come to Girl Scout meetings with her sister once in a while, but she never wanted to join the Boy Scouts when we’d ask. When she joined the band in middle school, and began to love music, we encouraged that, and were very proud to see how hard she worked. For her 16^th birthday her dad and I bought her a cherry red bass guitar. She was physically attractive, and had plenty of friends, but never dated.

If ever there was a sweeter soul than my child, I would be astonished. But as early as six years old she started building up walls. Her smile slowly faded, and began to feel a bit forced when we did get one out of her. We had a growing sense that something wasn’t right, but no matter how we’d try to approach it, we couldn’t get to what, or why. There would be bloody tissues in the bathroom trash, but despite the prescriptions for nasal sprays and allergy pills, she’d get frequent nosebleeds. Sometimes she’d get sick to her stomach, too. As she got into her teens, she would have sudden violent vomiting spells. Violent, and getting worse and more frequent all the time.

At the beginning of this year the vomiting spells were so bad, the emotional distance so forced, I truly felt like we were going to lose her soon. I found myself praying (Screaming really, in my heart) “Please, Papa. Please. Whatever it is, give him the strength to tell us. Tell him we’ll love him no matter what. Then, Papa, give me eyes to see him as you do.”

You see, my daughter was born with a beautiful heart, a kind soul, and the body of a boy. Later in my medical career, I would learn about Gender Identity Disorder briefly. I would come to understand that physical gender is determined on a cellular level, and just like a congenital heart defect or other chromosomal birth defect, has really nothing at all to do with the spirit of the person who lives in that body. Pretty straight-forward stuff, scientifically speaking. But on the day my sweet girl was born I hadn’t learned those things yet, so I believed my eyes and the doctor who explained that sometimes ultrasounds can be read wrong.

My husband and I raised our children, all the time thinking that our daughter was a boy. Now, I could go back through the last twenty years and give example over example of things that should have given us some clues. And yes, we did pick up on some of them. “He” is a kind, loving, awesome person, and we wondered why girls didn’t “snap him up”. “He” had certain “effeminate” qualities to “his” personality. At the same time, we’ve never been hateful people. My husband has spoken of gay friends before. We gave one of our daughter’s (very openly) bisexual friends a ride home from school for a year or so, openly discussing whatever might come up without judgment or hate. We felt like we’d done a pretty good job of showing the kids that they really could tell us anything. From there, all we could do is keep telling them that.

But other people’s children had intervened. I won’t talk about specific bullying my daughter went through. Those are her hurts- I love her too much to betray her confidence, and I’m sure I don’t know the half of it. I will say this: The words and actions of people around her growing up frightened my daughter into believing that she was an abomination to God. A God she had been reconciled to by baptism. Without ever having dated, my child was made to feel like a sexual deviant that had to hide who she was from the world. My child didn’t suffer from nosebleeds. She suffered from so much self loathing that she had been trying to take her own life.

Earlier this year, not long after my screaming prayer, our daughter did finally have the courage to tell us who she is. And we finally got the chance to tell her that she is our daughter, that we really do love her for who she is, and that we will be by her side to help her through all that she’s going through. When I asked her why she hadn’t told us, she quoted a number from her research: “75% of transgender people are kicked out of their home and basically banished by their entire family when they come out.” I wanted to be sick. The idea that someone would do that to their child is horrible. The idea that my child once believed it could happen to her is unspeakable heartbreak for me.

Today is National Coming Out Day. I know the statistics aren’t pretty, and I know that some parents won’t respond well at first, if at all. I cannot begin to understand a parent that would turn their back on their child. But I do know this. Every tear that my daughter has cried, every drop of blood she has shed, every single fragment of a moment that she has suffered, I would have spared her if I could have. If she had told me as a child I would have believed her, I would have researched, and I would have helped her correct things a long time ago. And although we both know as adults that we can’t change it now, it’ll always be a painful regret of my life. I imagine even more so for her.

So if you are holding yourself back, afraid that the ones you love won’t accept you, I send my love and this advice: Be who you are. Tell them. If they are shocked, they’ll calm down. If they are offended, they’ll have to learn. If they kick you out, find a place where you can be loved for who you are. Those places do exist. But more than that, what if they don’t? What if you tell them, and they stay? What if they open their arms, and their hearts, and say, “I still love you.”?

May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace. Amen.

May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection,starvation and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain into joy. Amen.

May God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done. Amen.

And the Blessing of God, who Creates, Redeems and Sanctifies, be upon you and all you love and pray for this day, and forever more. Amen.

Zachy: Can I have 10?

Me: Yes, but you have to have them two at a time. (We do this sometimes. He never gets past a plate or two.)

*Daddy brings a plate of three*

Zachy: There’s three!

Daddy: Yeah, an extra one because you’re special.

Zachy: But, two and two and two and two and two is 10. Three and three and three and three is 12!

Mommy and Daddy: ……

Zachy: Ok. I can have 12.

Summary: One week in a transitional pre-K class, and he can essentially multiply in his head o.O

Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? ‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops. Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you? Don’t you take it awful hard ‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines Diggin’ in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/maya_angelou/poems/482

K~ “Hey, I know this song, I think. Do you know this song?”

Me~ “Yeah…”

K~ “I thought so. It sounds familiar, like something you and Dad might have listened to when I was little.”

Me~ “Yeah, I guess it would have been that long ago.”

K~ “What’s it called?”

Me~ “Hold on…. Oh, yeah. It’s called Freak On A Leash, by a band called Korn… with a K….? Wow. I didn’t realize you didn’t know about them. I figured you would have at least run across them as a ska influence when you were researching Sublime for your TOK project.”

….. Discussing with my grown daughter the music that convinced my mother I was going to hell, which for her is a happy childhood memory, in relation to music theory for her International Bacclaureate studies… Because my life is bad-ass like that.

Eighteen years ago today

I went to a wedding and caught the bouquet

Before that evening would come to an end

I would meet a good man who’d become my best friend

All these years later I have few regrets

The farther we go the better it gets

I am thankful for you in so many ways

On the best and the worst and the rare normal days

I’ve been loving you now more than half of my life

I thank God for the honor of being your wife

~~Happy Anniversary my Beloved.

Now, I hurt beyond description. My muscles have become so fatigued from spasm that my hands tremble and I have the occasional large motor twitch. I’m reminded at this point to be thankful I do not also bear this level of non-control more often, and say a prayer for my friends who suffer Parkinson’s, Tourette’s and other evil forms of discombobulation.

So, in honor of loving my family despite what pain may come, and to acknowledge those who do the same, I dedicate this with love: