The Wedding: A Family's Coming Out Story (13 page)

All of which is to say that although a
“commitment ceremony” in the east end Gay Village may be acceptable and not
uncommon, I personally had never heard of any in the West End, especially with
a religious content, and I am just not the type of person to want to be the
first.

ROSLYN
   
I
always put my concern for my child above my concern for the community. But by
the fall, when I began to tell friends of our plans for the ceremony, it became
harder to withstand the public reaction.

One exchange was typical. Sheldon and I were
having dinner with two close friends. Let’s call them Carol and Ben. While we
leafed through our salads, Carol asked me, “How are the plans coming?”

“They’re coming very nicely,” I responded. I
suppose I betrayed a little excitement, even though I was very conscious of
Sheldon sitting across the table from me. I knew that a great display of
enthusiasm on my part would send him further back into his shell. Rather than
retreating, Sheldon took the offensive:

“I don’t know, something’s not right about it.
It doesn’t have to...” He searched for the right words. “I don’t see why it has
to be on this scale.”

Then, on Sheldon’s cue, Carol pounced. “You
know, Roslyn, people are talking about this.” She surveyed my reaction, for
signs of the first squirm. “And they’re saying what Sheldon’s saying. There’s
nothing wrong with them having a small affair in New York. But why does it have
to be here?” Before I could answer, she added, “It’s not
done
, you
know.” The intonation of that last phrase served as notice that she wasn’t
interested in asking me anything. She was merely castigating me.

Both Ben and Carol continued to dish out a
subtle, but effective critique over the next two courses.

Ben: This is really radical. In our community,
it’s never taken place.

Carol: It’s not necessary, why does it have to
be?

Sheldon: You encourage Andrew, why do you always
encourage him to do these things?

Mostly, I sat quiet, but occasionally I ventured
a defense I was fairly certain would fall on deaf ears. “I didn’t
encourage
him. I’m
supporting
him. This is a very important thing in his life.”

As they ganged up again, I listened with one
ear, stared blankly at Sheldon and my friends, and thought to myself:
Since
this is important to Andrew, I don’t care how other people are going to feel
about it. I can’t be responsible for their worries, their prejudices. This is
our child. And I’m so angry with all of you. And Ben, Carol, how can you tell
us what’s best for our kid? How dare you take it upon yourselves to tell me
where I should have this, and how many people should attend? And would you ever
have presumed to give me this kind of advice if my son had, more conveniently
for you, fallen in love with a woman instead of a man?

Of course, I held all this in. After they
quieted down, and my own anger subsided enough to allow me to remain composed,
I tried to educate the table.

“I’m sure you know,” I ventured, “that gay
people have always needed to conceal their relationships. And that’s why
there’s historically been so much promiscuity in the gay community. Liaisons,
quickies in out-of-the way spots, were the norm because they had to hide, and
so they couldn’t have regular relationships, the sort we all take for granted.
I’m sure none of you think promiscuity is a good thing, right? Especially in
this day and age! And isn’t it wonderful that we can be part of changing that,
in celebrating their committed relationship? Won’t the ceremony be so much more
meaningful, so much more joyous, if it’s held together with friends, family,
and community?”

“Yes,” Carol considered for a moment, exchanged
glances with Ben and Sheldon, “but...” and they resumed the barrage of
negativity I’d been subjected to since the salad first arrived.

Only minutes before, I had sat down at dinner
with my husband and two good friends. Now I was under attack by strangers.
Dinner had turned into a shooting match, and I was outgunned, three to one.
After the dinner plates were taken, and I set my napkin back on my lap, I
wanted to cry. My friends and my husband had shunted me off to the other end of
the table - the deep end, so to speak. And they’d done it as a unified group.
Until tonight, the “community” concerns that Sheldon had long reported had been
a series of volleys in a battle fought just out of my range of sight. Now the
war was being waged in full view, and the cannons were tilted straight at me.

Then, when I thought the conversation was over
at last, Sheldon piped up, pointing out the painfully obvious, “You see Roslyn,
I told you people would have problems with this...”

I
cut him off. “
People
will get used to it.”

SHELDON   
Before, when it was just
something Roslyn, or Andrew and Doug would bring up, I didn’t focus on their
plans, perhaps in the hope it would just go away. As the controversy became a
more common topic of conversation, I slowly came to grips with the strong
possibility that something was actually going to
happen
.

Once the reality started to sink in, though, I
tried to make my position known. It was never my attitude that they should do
what they want, and if I’m not comfortable, I’m not going to be there. Or even
that I would go, but not host it. My stance was that we needed to talk about
compromise.

I asked Roslyn repeatedly, “Why can’t we have
something smaller?”

But she was so gung ho, she couldn’t hear me.

“What, are you ashamed? Is that why you want a
small ceremony?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“To heck with what other people think, we have
to do what we feel is right, and if we’re proud of our children, this is what
they want, and they’re going to get it. And I don’t give a damn what anybody
else thinks about it.”

Now that’s all very noble, and even true to some
extent. But neither Roslyn, nor Andrew or Doug could recognize how I was
struggling with this. I needed sympathy, and got none. Roslyn was so sensitive
to my misgivings; it was as if I was attacking her and our child. And her
motivations, I believe, were broader in scope than mine, extending well beyond
our own .family. If I had to simply characterize my own motivations, I would
say “I have a son. He has a situation. I have to keep my relationship with my
son as good as possible, and honor his position. I’ll face the facts, and do
whatever, in the end, is necessary.” However, if I were to encapsulate Roslyn’s
motivations, I felt she’d say “Yes, that’s all true, but we can do GOOD at the
same time.”

While there’s nothing wrong with wanting to do
good, that was entirely outside the scope of my motivation.

Then, one day in September, Roslyn suggested we
try seeing a Rabbi. Together, as a family. It would be the first time the four
of us, Roslyn and myself, Andrew and Doug, would sit down together and discuss
what was happening since Andrew had first called with the news almost nine
months before.

ROSLYN
   
Sheldon
and I had traveled a full circle. Initially, he experienced all the isolation,
and felt like the victim. On one hand, he insisted I couldn’t hear the depth of
his uneasiness. But I also found him anxious to dodge a conversation.

Alone, at home, I tried various approaches.

“We’re sitting here; you seem to try to avoid
the discussion. When there’s a topic that isn’t pleasant, you change the
subject.”

“Not now.”

“When?”

“Later.”

“When later?”

“Later.”

We got so used to this perfectly circular discourse;
we could do it in our sleep.

So I took to initiating conversations when he’d
have the hardest time escaping from me - when we were in the car. Preferably on
a long trip.

We were driving to Toronto, to see our daughter
Bonnie, her husband David, and the kids. It’s five hours, door to door.

“Can we talk about the plans for the ceremony?”

“Not for five hours. One hour, OK. Five, no
way.”

I pressed him again on what he planned to do if
the boys stuck with their intention of a large ceremony, here in town.

After a number of questions along the lines of,
“Why is it necessary?” he offered a sentiment he’d expressed before. “I’ll be
there, no matter what you do.” Though I was comforted knowing that he would
stand by those words, I also knew it couldn’t work out that way.

“You can be there, sure. But you can’t
just
‘be there’, because everyone will be very uncomfortable. It’ll just.be a
disaster. I don’t want to go through all the planning, all the work, and then see
Andrew and Doug have that kind of wedding, if all you’re going to do is just
show up. We both have to be comfortable with it, we both have to realize that
it’s
right
. Until we know that, we can’t do it. It would be a
catastrophe.”

I could tell Sheldon what he needed to feel, but
for the life of me, I couldn’t put myself inside his head and help him travel
the distance from where he was to where I wanted us to go.

Later, as most of our friends and family lined
up behind Sheldon, I felt I was being victimized, like people didn’t understand
me. Everyone made it sound like it was so easy for me. Some of what people were
saying about me came to my face, and other conversations made their way back to
me in subtler, sneakier ways.

“Roslyn knows all about it, she’s been working
in the field for a long time.”

“She’s a
professional
. But look at her
poor husband...”

“Look what she’s putting him through.”

“This isn’t the least bit easy for me,” I’d say,
to anyone who’d listen. “Just because I’m a professional, that doesn’t mean I
don’t have feelings, fears, qualms. I still have to deal with so many issues
that I haven’t figured out for myself.”

No one was listening. Not my friends, not my
husband.

The end result: I was isolated.

And I started to get bitter. I’d tried the best
I knew how to support Sheldon when he felt alone. Now I felt he was undermining
me at every opportunity. When we were out with Carol and Ben, and on
innumerable other occasions, he could have stood up for me. When we’d hear the
umpteenth variation on the thinly veiled personal misgiving, passed off as civic
duty, i.e., “
People
are going to be very uncomfortable with this,”
Sheldon could have said, “Maybe they will. But we’re working on that.”

Instead, he continually let me look like the bad
guy.

And his response was always just this side of
accusatory. “See, Roslyn, I told you. I said they were saying this.”

For a time, I turned to Andrew for solace. Since
I assumed he’d sympathize with my plight, I’d call long distance for moral
support. Then, one day, when I phoned to commiserate, Andrew shut me out.

“I don’t want to hear any more,” was his cold
statement of fact. And as harsh as that was, I understood without his
explaining any further. He felt it was his doing, that his plans were causing
me this pain. And he had begun this endeavor with hopes of creating a unique
occasion, a celebration of love filled with joy. How could he stay focused on
that goal, if he had to grapple with every angst ridden argument I’d had to
hear, sifted through the filter of my own pain and anger?

What would I tell a parent in my position?
I
asked myself.

For the life of me, I had no idea.

At this time, September, 1995, the parents group
had a home in a Conservative Synagogue, Share Beth Shalom, which had as its
Rabbi a young dynamic leader Rabbi Barry Berman. Our previous Synagogue had
made it clear that we were unwelcome in their midst once our old patron, Rabbi
Wasser, had left their congregation.

Rabbi Barry Berman had come to our
psychoeducational group as a guest. He talked about how the Conservative,
Reform and Reconstructionist movements of Judaism were working to come to terms
with homosexuality. He made it clear that his synagogue was looking for ways to
make gay families more welcome.

I asked him if he would meet with Sheldon,
Andrew, Doug and I when the boys came up for Rosh Hashanah, in three weeks. He
looked down, considered the request for an instant, and replied, “I’m glad to
be whatever help I can, but obviously you know I’m not a therapist. You’re the
therapist. I’m happy to sit down with all of you though.”

My expectations for the meeting were cautiously
optimistic. Once Sheldon, Andrew and Doug all agreed to attend, I coasted along
with Sheldon, not making waves, awaiting this new forum. I hoped the Rabbi would
ask us all to hear each other, and since I knew of his pro-gay stance, I
imagined he would bestow validity on Andrew and Doug’s wishes. Ultimately, I
hoped he would ask Sheldon and I to be the best parents we could be.

The Rabbi extended a genuinely warm welcome for
the parents group, opening his doors to us, offering coffee and empathy.