Asking, Telling, Waiting

Today a two-day hearing begins on the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." I wish I could say I feel confident that it will be repealed because that is how it should be. Not only public opinion, but opinion within the military shows a majority favor the repeal yet I fear we are going to be held hostage, yet again, to the far right.

As a military spouse of 22 years and the mother of a son who is gay, I feel especially tied up in this issue. It's absolutely heart wrenching to know that there are thousands of spouses out there who cannot be public about their relationship with a service member. It's hard enough with a support system. To have to do it alone? I cannot imagine. To know that it is the policy of this country that my son is not fit to serve if he chose to? Infuriating, to put it mildly.

I try to remember what my son tells me when I start getting worked up, "Mom, It's just a matter of time. The old men who are controlling this issue are going to die and the next generation will make it right."

Maybe the right thing will happen today, maybe DADT will be repealed tomorrow. I'll watch and wait with guarded hope.

Not from Here but this is Home

I left for Parents Weekend 27 days ago and today I am home! What was supposed to be a fun, four day quick trip to Boston turned into a medical crisis and then a three week recovery at my sister's home in western Massachusetts.

Words fail me when I try to describe how kind and helpful my sister, her husband, my niece, nephew and our parents were over those three weeks. They ferried me around to endless doctors appointments and PT sessions in a heated pool, fed me one delicious meal after another, kept my spirits up and basically made me feel like they had been hoping I would show up unannounced and helpless. As much as I wanted to return home, it was difficult to leave.

Now I am home and it is wonderful! Mr Fresh Hell, Texas has the house perfectly clean, there is not one thing for me to do. Now I have to hook-up with my local doctors and get back into the rhythm of home. Then I have to find a job! Many adventures ahead of me and I'm so glad to be having them at home.

Little Littles

That's what we call babies who have just become mobile and verbal. Not quite toddlers, not quite babies anymore. Little littles.

Today at the Y I happen to see a mother trying to walk her LL past the pool. LL pointed longingly at the pool and said, "ooooooooooool." Her mother explained that pool time was tomorrow and today they were going to tumbling. Wasn't that exciting? Pool tomorrow and tumbling today? To which our Little Little plopped down, flicked off one of her shoes clearly getting ready to put on her swim gear and said the most perfect, sweetest, softest, "No. oooooooooooool."

Little Littles are some of my very favorite people. They tell it like it is in such a lovely way.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Get Me Started

Until a month ago, I was part of an active duty military family and had been for over two decades. Although we are a retired military family now (wow, that went fast!), I found this from an NY article to be completely unsurprising:

..a not-yet-released Pentagon survey of active-duty forces and their families shows that the majority do not care if gay men and women serve openly, which the policy forbids...

I have no idea what the average civilian believes the average military family member thinks about all day. When women were first being placed in combat positions, a lot of civilians assumed those of us married to men in the military were spending a lot of time fretting about infidelity (because, as every knows, infidelity can only happen on a military ship, base or in combat.) Lately it's been speculated that we've been worried about The Gays and the possibility that they would destroy unit cohesiveness; not to mention buy out all the MAC cosmetics at the Exchange. Holla, girlfriend, but do not hog all the glitter!

I can tell you what I often thought of, what my friends think of...we'd like to see our active duty loved one again; alive, whole and as we sent them off. Or at least just see them again because injuries can be managed but death is final. So, yes, that's it, we'd just to see them alive again.

There is no way they are going to make it for all (most) of the holidays, so we stopped thinking about that years ago. It would be so nice for them to see their baby born or have more time with the baby they gave birth too but that's often just not reality. We attend funerals on our spouses behalf, knowing they've got to grieve in brief times of true rest.

We also pay the bills, work for pay, raise our kids, keep the household going and maintain a marriage across time and combat. I challenge someone who truly believes that we are spending our time thinking about how The Gays are just going to ruin everything to do what we do for one year. Just one year, not one decade or two, then you get back to me with how much free time you had to think about that kind of nonsense.

I know my loved ones are the best and brightest. We want them to serve with the best and brightest as well. I wonder why it's okay to exclude someone because they are gay with the mountains of evidence of honorable service by those who served closeted. I do think about that.

Most of all, we think about seeing them alive. Please. Just one more time.

The Crawling of the Parent

Family and Friends Weekend was wonderful right up until I blew out my back. Rendered only able to crawl around our hotel room, the decision was made that my sainted sister would drive to Boston to get me while Mr FreshHellTexas flew home...someone has to pay for this party, yes?

That was a week ago yesterday. Like my distant ancestors before me, I have emerged from the warmth of the water (bathtub) to propelling myself around dry land (still not fully upright but certainly bi-pedial)

My sainted family as really stepped up to help. I'm staying with my sister and BIL plus my parents drive down each work day to ferry me around to doctors/pool. Highlights include the shot of morphine I was given revealing that I am allergic to morphine and being so high that I would forget to take my next dose and then fall apart because of the pain (this happened several times.)

Here's to walking upright and getting back to the Lone Star State!

The Running of the Parents

Tomorrow we embark on a first; Family and Friends Weekend at New Nest University. Both Mister and Junior vetoed this trip but I have one child and we're doing this, damn it!

We'll fly a total of five hours to reach the city NNU is in and check into our heartstoppingly expensive "economy" hotel room for the night. Friday morning marks the official beginning of FFW events or as I've come to think of it, The Running of the Parents. From the Dean's Breakfast to the spotlight lectures to the cruise around the harbor (we're skipping that), NNU is doing it's best to make sure that we parent's stay busy. The better to not notice our children counting down until Sunday night I suppose.

Truly, Bird has been very gracious about us coming up to invade his newfound privacy and freedom. Sure, I had to lay down the law (we're coming) and clarify expectations (pick a minimum of one activity a day to do with your parents and a swell attitude) but now I think he's looking forward to our visit (let me believe!)

Hate the judgement, Love the judge

It's interesting to me that when people say they are offended by homosexuality or the "gay lifestyle" that I'm supposed to just accept that as their opinion. We just need to agree to disagree, right? Love the sinner, hate the sin. And on and on and oppressively on.

You know that person you love so much? The one who your heart soars when you see them and you miss them on a molecular level when you are apart? Yeah, that one. Well, I think a part of them is filthy, against nature and offends God. You don't feel that way about that part of them? You're asking me who does it hurt? You want me to consider that when I set the person you love apart, I am hurting you too? Too bad. I'm going to vote to withhold a civil right that I enjoy from them based on that thing. Why? Because my religion tells me too. Or my gut. Or biology. Or the lamp in my living room that talks to me.

What if it's not the person you love but you. Yes, you. You offend me. No offense.

Oh, and you offend my higher power too. You are so repugnant to me that I'm forced to contact my representatives in government about curtailing your civil rights.

I hope that you'll still come to my birthday party and bring me a big present because I still like you. It's just that essential part of you that makes me want hurl.

Can't you feel that I love you while I file this petition to make sure I don't have to deal with seeing that part of you I hate? Do you see the divine in me as I shout at you about how you are not a part of God's plan?

Time and again I see people dismiss love. Love is easy, it's sunshine and roses. I don't find that to be true at all. My belief system tells me I have to love the judge and that is not easy to do at all. Not when the judgement is against my child, my very heart. It's not easy at all.

Forget your troubles...

even if just for a few minutes.

You are so precious and we need you here.

Thank you to everyone who commented on my post yesterday. It was a very nice reentry into blogging. I now have several posts I want to write in response to the comments but this one struck me as being especially urgent to address.

...to touch on another point about the suicides/hated issue. It is a sad day when someone takes a life, for whatever issues. But to blame it just on "bullying", I think is short-sighted...

Imagine spending six hours a day in total fear; fear of being taunted, teased and physically hurt. Imagine being young, small, powerless. Imagine your tormentors guessing your deepest secret.

Imagine being in church on Sunday in, literally, a sanctuary. Imagine being told that while God loves you, He also despises the part of you that the bullies do, that you have learned to despise in yourself. Imagine being told that all your future dreams of a family of your own are not in God's plan; that as alone as you feel right now is how alone you will always be.

Imagine that your parents, the people who love you the most, are putting a sign in your front yard that says you are not who they hoped you'd be. Imagine that hand that rocked you, held you, brushes your hair out of your eyes holding that sign proudly.

I do not question why some children find bullying to be fatal, my wonder is reserved for the fact that so many of them survive at all.

When someone is no longer here to speak for themselves, I believe the words they left behind. These children and young adults were tormented to death by bullies and by a society that does not accept them. We had to take our son out of school and home school him due to bullying. We have been where these families have been only it was not the end and there will never be a day in my life that I am not deeply, wholly thankful.

If you are person being bullied for your sexuality, there is help out there. There are people you've never met who love you just as you are and I am one of them. There are two links on the side of this page for you to use. If you are being bullied for any reason, call as well, it's okay. You are perfect as you are, you were born whole and complete. We need you here, please, stay.

Another life, not my own

One of my favorite things about the Internet is the ability to see the world through other people's eyes. I read a lot of blogs and most of them are by people I have very little in common with on the surface or sometimes even deep down. That different POV, in real time, is very compelling to me. It takes away the spin of media or the lag time of books.

One of the blogs I read is by a Mormon woman. She is an incredible writer and, like me, considers being a mom one of her main missions in life. We're on opposite sides of the mom spectrum with her kids being very small and mine at college. I cannot even begin to enumerate the things I've learned, myths dispelled and other gifts from her blog.

Before I go any further, one thing you should know about my one and only bird who recently flew the nest to make his own nest at college is that he is gay. Another thing you should know is that we believe that being gay is just as natural, normal and valid as being straight.

The blog I just mentioned addressed homosexuality today, specifically some things their leader has recently said. Nothing struck me as too untoward until I went and read the leaders remarks myself. It's too much to sort out my own thoughts right now so I'm just going to quote an editorial from the Oct 9 Salt Lake Tribune,

The religious right would have us believe that 13-year-old Asher Brown and 13-year-old Seth Walsh made a choice at 13 to be gay-a choice to be brutally bullied. It was easier for Asher to blow his brains out and Seth to hang himself than to choose to be straight.

The religious right needs to be held accountable for the climate of hate and fear and bullying they have encouraged. This what we're seeing for their efforts:dead children.

The issue I am wrestling most with right now is the continual chorus of the religious right that they are driven by love, that there is nothing hateful about their words and deeds. You don't get to tell children that they are not natural, a violation of of the word of God and other things that drive them to kill themselves and then hang onto your false belief that it's not hateful.

No, wait, it is a blog

Now that my nest is empty, empty nests have been on my mind a whole lot. There is so much out there for expecting parents, parents of babies and toddlers, then it starts fall off with the teen years. Now that I'm parenting a college student, I feel adrift. Am I doing this right? Is there a right way to do it (I expect not but I'd love the guide if there is)?

So, yes, this is a blog after all. For now.