Some Guys Are Normal

My Dad

Here's a little change from the normal topics on this blog--some personal stuff. I may have posted about this a while back, but I don't think I did, and I just found out some new information about the whole situation that made me very happy, so I thought I should write about it.

When I told my dad I was gay it didn't go over very well at all. After minutes of silence, he cried and didn't speak to me for about a week so he could gather his thoughts. I honestly have never been so emotionally hurt in my life. For days I felt like I had been punched in the chest.

After we finally spoke, the conversation was gentle and loving, but he made it clear that he wasn't ever going to accept my being gay. He suggested ex-gay ministries and church, and I agreed to keep conversation open about the topic. It wasn't perfect, but at least we were talking again.

One day a few months ago my dad told me that he had told one of his cousins (who he is very close to and has always looked up to) that I was gay, and this cousin told my dad that if it were his son, it wouldn't matter to him in the least. I was glad to hear not only that he told this person he respects so much that I was gay, but also that he would call me and tell me what his cousin had said. This conversation was the first real, meaningful break in the situation I had since I came out to him nearly 2 years earlier.

So, last night I hung out with my younger brother who brought up the story about my dad telling his cousin that I was gay. I told him I'd already heard the story, but he repeated it anyway. My little brother told me that my dad had actually talked to him about this conversation too (so it very obviously made an impact on my dad). But, my brother had a couple of pieces of the story that I had never heard. The first was funny--when asked what he would do if people made fun of me for being gay in front of him, my dad's cousin said he would "whip their ass." The second was the next big step for my dad in my mind--he told my younger brother that after talking to his cousin, he realized that he needed to look at things differently, and then he said that he was going to make it a point to change the way he has been dealing with me being gay.

Go dad.

posted by Brady @ 3:07 PM