When I came out to my mum, she ripped up my birth certificate and sent it to me.
I sat in my therapist’s office, holding the shreds, muttering, “I can’t believe how passive-aggressive my mom is being.” My therapist paused, looked at me and said, “I wonder. Is this more in the category of ‘aggressive-aggressive’?”
I was very new to therapy and, apparently, very new to the concept of passive-aggression.
Friends wondered if I’d underestimated my mom’s born-again Christian zeal when I made the decision to come out to her. But I knew she enthusiastically donned her cute QVC outfits and perfect face makeup for church every Sunday morning. And every Sunday night. And Wednesday night (for Bible study) and Thursday night (for choir practice). She had a lot of outfits from QVC and a lot of love for Jesus, plus a rigid obedience to the moral binaries she believed her faith demanded: sinful or not sinful, bad or good, heaven or hell.
Our relationship hadn’t been simple even before I came out. I was born after a failed tubal ligation, the last of five kids with almost as many different fathers, some of whom my grandmother described as “real first-class stinkers.” Mom had been raising kids for nearly four decades and needed an easygoing, cheerful child — but instead, she got me: a sensitive tomboy who insisted on going by “Kelli Sam” instead of Kelli Sue.
Mom could also be a mess of contradictions: She’d choose her husband of the week over her kids again and again but would also make us seven types of cookies ― including homemade fudge from scratch ― at Christmas.
Like many women of her generation, between bad husbands and limited choices, it didn’t seem like my mom had reaped many benefits of feminism. “We didn’t call it ‘me too,’” she told me with a shrug, “We just called it life.”
What did I think she was going to do? Paint her face in rainbow colours and march alongside the PFLAG parents, handing out free hugs at Pride?
But by my late 20s, I’d finally found my people in Philly’s queer community, love with my first serious girlfriend and purpose in my nursing job. I tried not to outright lie to my mom, but the gaping holes in our conversations where I might have communicated my fuller experience of attachment, belonging and meaning felt like an invisible hand pushing us apart.
I hoped that my revelation would bring us closer.
The benefits of following Jesus were readily apparent to my mom. She credited her church leaders’ prayers with delivering her from demons, including her more than a pack-a-day cigarette habit. I’d left the church many years previously with the tiniest bit of guilt but no regret, and though my own faith journey had gone down a different path, there was no question that hers gave her something valuable.
Still, as I held those tiny paper shreds, I couldn’t help but think of her sparkly WWJD brooches in different colours, each to match a different QVC ensemble. What would Jesus do if one of the disciples came out to him? Would he have stopped feeding the 5,000, quickly wiped his hands on his robe to remove the fish scales and loaf crumbs, and dramatically ripped up some piece of papyrus that documented his connection to that disciple? It was a bit hard to imagine.
It was also difficult to imagine what my mom had hoped to accomplish with her largely symbolic action. Destroying the government-certified evidence of our relationship (even if it is a notarised copy) doesn’t make someone not your offspring. I felt a sucker punch of rejection, but I also felt slightly skeptical; if she were going to disown me, I would be requesting additional documentation.
Her response was meant to communicate her feelings (or perhaps her beliefs) about gayness, but dramatically ripping up a birth certificate was just the kind of over-the-top spectacle that I could imagine a drag queen participating in onstage.
At the county clerk’s office, I handed over the scraps to get a replacement. The clerk looked at me, extended an expedited form without extra cost and said, “We get a lot of that. From, uh, people who look like you.”
Huh. My mom’s idea was not as unique as she might have thought.
After that stunning initial response, neither of us mentioned the coming out/birth certificate confetti exchange. Ever.
Instead, we just kept talking. We made short phone calls, very short holiday visits and polite conversation. She never asked about my dating life — likely fearing that acknowledging it would be like endorsing sin — but she’d ask about my pets and the deductible on my health insurance, and she once sent me a cat-shaped clock from QVC. The alarm sound was an escalating “meooooooow.”
We continued in that cautious semblance of a relationship for half a dozen years, and I began to believe that a genuine relationship with my mom was just a casualty of my journey toward being myself.
Then my 38-year-old partner, Heather, died after a long struggle with ovarian cancer. My mom might not have fully understood the depth of my grief, but she reached out with logistical support — a gift card for food delivery and another for groceries.
Later that same year, my mom’s husband at the time, a retired Army colonel she only ever called “The Colonel,” became terminally ill. I visited to help with his hospice intake and then prepared to return the week after he died.
“If you really want to come, let me buy your flight with miles,” she texted, “but promise you’re not coming because you feel obligated.”
My mom had a loving church community around her. All my siblings were Midwestern cheerful helpy-pants who grew up in a large family and were therefore excellent at taking turns. I didn’t feel obligated at all.
“I know you all are campaigning for induction into the Midwestern Conflict Avoidant Hall of Fame,” a concerned friend asked as she helped me pack, “but are you sure this a good idea?”
My therapist was more direct. “So, what’s your plan?′
I had no plan. And I was not, in fact, sure this was a good idea. But my mom had opened a door, so I walked through.
Once the initial chaos of post-death logistics and funeral planning was done, my mom’s house was heavy and silent. Each morning, I’d sit on my mom’s bed and watch as she applied her makeup, what she called “putting on my face.” I wanted to reassure her that everything would be OK, that she’d feel better really soon. But I knew that wasn’t true.
I thought of my friend Stacy, who sat next to me on our purple leopard-print couch in the weeks after Heather died. She rarely interrupted the silence unless I spoke first but would occasionally make a quiet suggestion. Did I want to maybe shower? Or even just change my socks? Would I feel slightly less nauseated if I ate something besides spray cheese directly from the can?
So I sat beside my mom on her overstuffed leather couch for 10 days, mostly in silence. We didn’t talk much. We didn’t need to.
When I was ready to return home, she hugged me so tightly I thought my eyes might pop right out of their sockets.
“I’m so grateful you knew what to do. I’m sorry you lost your wife.”
Until then, she’d only ever referred to Heather as my “friend.”
Wife wouldn’t have been the word I would have chosen, but I appreciated what that word cost her.
I made my mom a silly grief guide from a black-and-white speckled composition notebook. Inside, I pasted cartoons, photos of cute animals and dubiously helpful suggestions like, “Affirmations don’t have to be ambitious to be useful. ‘Just for today, I will get out of bed’ is a great start.”
Photo Courtesy of Kelli Dunham
Although my mom was much more conscientious about writing funeral attendance thank-you cards, the process for mourning a bossy burlesque diva and a retired Army colonel was more similar than you’d perhaps think. Something shifted between us.
When I was scheduled for a knee replacement a few years later, my mom offered to help.
I explained she didn’t need to come if she felt obligated. I had a loving queer community around me. All my friends were radical New York City helpy-pants who had come out into a culture of mutual aid. We were excellent at showing up.
I pictured my mom’s friends asking if this was a good idea. I imagined her pastor asking her ― more directly ― what exactly was the plan.
Did she have a plan? I opened the door. She walked through.
She arrived at my apartment armed with her sloppy joe recipe, two baking sheets she had brought as her carry-ons and, somehow, every ingredient for seven different types of Christmas cookies. Even though it was January and Brooklyn does have grocery stores.
Photo Courtesy Of Kelli Dunham
After surgery, my mom sat beside me on a black third-hand Ikea couch while my Brooklyn chosen family paraded through. She asked Bryn for the recipe for her green bean casserole and inquired where Felice had purchased her nifty snowperson socks. Were all my friends so engaged and so invested in changing the world?
She pointed at our clock, which was branded with our apartment’s informal moniker, “Queer Study Hall.”
“Does everyone’s house have a name?” she asked, somewhat rhetorically, looking amused.
After a while, she glanced around. “I get it,” she said. “This is your church.”
“Church” wasn’t the word I would have chosen, but I appreciated what that word cost her.
My mom hadn’t joined PFLAG, or asked if she could take all the grandkids to Drag Queen Story Hour at the library or even put up a “Love is love” yard sign, even though I believe QVC sells them now. Words like “wife” and “church” were symbols of willingness, and they felt like a miracle we could perhaps both believe in. But it was the quiet moments — her standing in my kitchen, my sitting on her couch — and vulnerability, not language, that helped us find each other.
My mom and I could have traipsed along in our cordial non-relationship forever if we hadn’t decided to accept the help the other offered, if we didn’t stay open to connection. Sometimes folks who seem like lost causes are surprisingly open to being found.
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