The Wedding: A Family's Coming Out Story (21 page)

ANDREW   
Similar to
the way I felt my father was focusing on trivial wedding details (such as the presence
of a videographer) in order to avoid dealing with more deep-seated feelings of
embarrassment and disappointment over my sexuality, I began to feel his
constant critiquing of the way I handled my finances was another way for him to
displace anger about this same issue.

            So I jumped right in covering many of the other
matters that I felt placed strain on our relationship. His response was genuine
and direct.

            “It’s not true. When you weren’t into sports, I wasn’t
disappointed. When I found out you were gay, I needed time to adjust, but I’ve
accepted it completely, without question.”

            This was a pivotal moment in my relationship with my
father. For me, the weight of guilt that I was carrying around had lifted. I
knew Dennis had helped my parents find common ground together. Now it seemed
there might be room there for me as well.

DOUG   
Only later would
Andrew explain to me the significance of his session with Sheldon. When Roslyn
and I joined them for the bigger family session, Andrew and I offered a compromise
that was intended to put guests at ease - and by extension, my parents, too.

            “We’re going to write up a program,” I told them.
“When everyone walks in, they’ll find one on their seat. It’ll give everything
a ‘label’ so there won’t be any confusion. We’ll call the walk down the aisle
simply ‘procession of family and friends.’ Hopefully that’ll clear up the
‘bridesmaid’ issue. The program will explain the religious rituals to non-Jews.
And where we deviate from tradition, it’ll explain the new aspects of the
ceremony to the older crowd.”

ROSLYN
   
This out to help
, I thought. I
glanced at Sheldon for a response.

SHELDON   
“How many
people are going to be under the
chuppah
?”

ANDREW   
Both of you.
Doug’s parents, if they make it. If they’re not there, his sister Lynn and
niece Michelle. The rabbi. Lorne and George. The
chuppah
holders -
Diane, Maxine, Debbie, and Anita. And us - me and Doug.

SHELDON   
“And all
those people will be walking down the aisle? Anybody else?”

ANDREW   
I went
through the list, name by name, as Doug and I had set it out.

ROSLYN
   
It sounded fine to me. Until he got to the end. I didn’t get the
picture when he looked at me and said, “Then you and Daddy.” But when he said,
“And I’ll walk down with Doug,” I saw what was going on, and how sad he was
about it.

            He didn’t think either his father or I could stand by
his side through this. In public.

            Sheldon and I had already discussed it privately. Days
before, I’d asked my husband, “Do you see us walking Andrew down the aisle?”
And he said without any hesitation, “Definitely.”

            Now I was devastated. I felt so terrible for Andrew.
It was agonizingly clear: he didn’t feel either our approval or our support.

            “Andrew…” MY tone pleaded for him to turn toward me.
Once he did, I continued, “We would like to walk you down the aisle. The two of
us have talked about it.” The room was utterly silent. It was apparent that I
had to say it again, for him to grasp how firm both Sheldon and I were in our
resolve, our support, and our love. “Daddy and I want to walk down with you,
together.”

            Andrew’s eyes were moist and wide. Otherwise his face
was a blank slate. He looked to his father, and then to me.

            Finally he asked - betraying a trace of surprise -
“You do?”

Marriage has long been recognized as one of the vital personal
rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.

           
Loving v. Virginia,
1967

SHELDON,
ROSLYN, ANDREW
AND
DOUG

May 1996-July 1996

SHELDON   
Besides all
the work we were doing to communicate with each other, there was something else
that helped ease us into the upcoming event. Because there were so many people
expected from out of town, the invitations were sent out a little earlier than
normal. With a ceremony scheduled for September 1, you might typically mail them
in July, but we did it in early June.

            At that particular moment, when the envelopes went in
the mailbox, I said,
That’s it. It’s too late now. They’re gone, for better
or worse.
The instant those invitations were dropped off, it was right on
the table. Everybody
knew
.

            And the fact that there was such a lengthy period of
time between the invitations being sent and the event itself was good not only
for me but for the guests themselves. They could talk to each other. They could
condition themselves as I had had to condition myself. They could see it on
paper, in black and white.

ROSLYN
   
It’s like we were coming out of the closet. We were saying to
everyone, “
This is what the reality is in our family. And we don’t have to
hide it anymore.”

            Hiding takes a lot of energy. It takes energy away
from relationships. And it’s stifling.

SHELDON   
That’s all true, but you could come out by putting and ad in the
paper, too. And I didn’t want this event to be equated with something like
that.

ROSLYN
   
We had handled the invitations with great care, with an eye toward
keeping everybody at ease. We were in our third meeting with Dennis, in May,
when we worked out the wording. There was one crucial point we had to resolve.

ANDREW   
What’s in a
name? Plenty.

            One month my mother was calling it a “wedding,” the
next month, a “commitment ceremony.” She had been a yo-yo when it came to
giving this event a title.

ROSLYN
   
But so was everybody else. There’s no language for this yet. Other
people would twist into linguistic pretzels trying to ask us a simple question.
“How’s the…
plans
going?” “What’s going on with your…
thing
?” So
what were we supposed to call this?

SHELDON   
Since my
professional background is in law, I think about marriage in legal terms. I
understand that it’ll make Andrew and Doug feel better when they walk down the
aisle, but I asked myself, and I asked Andrew and Doug as well,
will they be
any different after they walk down that aisle?

            From a legal point of view, the answer is no. So until
gay marriage is legally recognized, which I honestly imagine will be a long
time from today, I wish a new terminology could be created.

ROSLYN
   
Meanwhile we were aware that Andrew and Doug were calling it a
wedding.
So what were the invitations going to say?

            With Dennis moderating, I asked how the boys planned
on handling the wording. It wasn’t a surprise when Andrew recited, “Sheldon and
Roslyn Merling invite you to attend the wedding of their son Andrew Neil to
Douglas Alan, son of Fred and Estelle Wythe.”

            I was prepared with an answer. “Daddy and I have
discussed it, and our friends and family wouldn’t be comfortable with the word
wedding
.
We’d like it to say
commitment ceremony
.”

            Doug responded, “But if it’s our ceremony, and we’re
calling it a wedding, and it’s got every element of a wedding, wouldn’t
commitment
ceremony
be false advertising?”

            “I’m just telling you what we’re comfortable with,” I
answered. “Is there a way we can compromise?”

ANDREW   
“Can we do
two sets of invitations?”

ROSLYN
   
“I don’t see why not. Who would get the ones that said
wedding
?”

DOUG   
“Well, correct me
if I’m wrong, but the friends and family you’re concerned about are the older
generation, aren’t they? Over forty, or maybe fifty? Andrew’s cousins aren’t
the ones you’re worried about. Or our friends. So why don’t we make age the
determining factor?”

ROSLYN
   
And that’s how we did it, more or less. Everybody from the younger
crowd, including all of Andrew and Doug’s friends, got an invitation that said
“wedding,” and our set got the “commitment ceremony” invitations.

SHELDON   
Speaking of
the older set, the patriarch of the family, my Uncle Rudolph, is ninety-two
years old. He was eighty-eight at the time of the ceremony. He’s the only one
left from my father’s family; there were nine children. He was one of the
younger ones, so you can imagine the generation he grew up in. We felt we’d
better go and speak to him before the invitations went out. He took the news
with surprising good humor. He said, “Listen, we’re very proud of you to stand
behind your children. What do you think, just because I’m eighty-eight, I don’t
know what’s going on? I watch television. I see all about this.”

            Still, I knew he was the most religious of our family,
so I gave him an out: “Listen, I’ll understand perfectly well if you’re not
comfortable coming. I’ll love you just as much. Please don’t get nervous about
not being there. Do whatever you feel.”

            He didn’t answer whether he was coming or not, but
said, “You’re great parents.” For the time being, that was it.

            This was an ever bigger expression of support from him
than it might sound like. He’s a very shy guy who hardly expresses himself. So
it meant a lot.

ANDREW   
We were with
Dennis when my father conveyed my Uncle Rudolph’s wish, “Whatever makes him
happy… as long as he’s happy.” I was pleasantly surprised. He’s very old-world.
Uncle Rudolph is the brother of my late grandfather. Mt grandfather as known by
all us kids as “Zadie,” which is Yiddish for “Grandpa,” and my grandmother as
“Bubby,” Yiddish for “Grandma.” Zadie died in 1992. When he was alive, it was
assumed we wouldn’t tell him, or Bubby, that I was gay, presumably because they
wouldn’t even understand the concept. Or if they did, we figured they would be
intolerant of the notion. They both carried other prejudices that they were
very open about, so you might expect an antigay remark from them, though I’d
never actually heard one, other than the occasional “fairy” or “
faigeleh”
being
tossed out in casual conversation.

            I had always  wondered what his reaction might be
if we had told him I was gay. So when my uncle Rudolph responded so warmly, it
made me wonder if Zadie would have done the same. And now I weighed whether we
should tell Bubby. She was the only family member we hadn’t informed about the
wedding. She’s eighty-nine now, and she’s - as I call it at work - “pleasantly
demented.” In fact, she’s the happiest I’ve ever seen her. She’s still as
critical as when I was a kid, but now in a less mean-spirited kind of way.

            There were moments when I thought she might already
know. A couple of years before the wedding, before she became confused and
disoriented, and prior to living in a nursing home, she was sitting in my
parents’ backyard with my other grandmother. My mother’s mother already knew my
story. I was on the way to giving each of them a hug. Then as she saw Doug step
out onto the patio following me, Bubby called out real loud to Grandma, “Oh,
here comes the boyfriend!”

           
Did she say “boy friend” or “boyfriend?”
we all
wondered. Everybody giggled, but nobody came out and asked what she meant.

ROSLYN
   
I always thought it was Andrew who didn’t want his Bubby to know
he was gay. Anyway, I’m sure none of us wanted to be the one to tell her. And
now that she’s got a tenuous grip on reality, it doesn’t make much sense to do
it any longer. As for my mother, I had told her back in 1992. You’d think my
work with parents of gays would help me in times like this, but sometimes it
worked the other way around. After you’ve heard a couple dozen parents say,
“I’m afraid to tell Grandma - what if she has a heart attack from the shock?”
you almost believe the news could kill. I didn’t have any nitro tablets, or
even smelling salts, handy. But I did have a great big lump in my throat. Once
I said it, she answered right away, “I thought something was different, because
he always comes to Montreal with Doug. I’m still shocked, though. I can’t believe
it. I can’t believe Andrew’s like that.”

            “You understand he has an attraction to a man?”

            “Yes, I know, I watch television. I know they like the
same sex.”

            “That’s right.”

            “I like Doug, but… well, I’m shocked.” That was all
she said.

            About a week later we came back to the topic. My
mother said, “I’ve been very sad, because every time I think about Andrew not
marrying a girl… oh, I even cry.”

            “If you feel sad, imagine how I must feel.”

            “I know it must be awful,” she said.

            “Not awful. Difficult. We’re used to the idea. You’ll
get used to it, too. With time.”

            A year later, I was doing another workshop at Yachdav
with Mark, when he suggested, “You should bring your mother.” The group is open
to parents and extended families as well, so I figured, why not? I explained
what the group was about, and she agreed to come.

            We had sixty people that night, so we broke up into
smaller subgroups. I put her in a group with another grandmother. After an hour
or so all sixty  came together again to discuss what happened. One of the
lesbians from my mother’s group came over and said, “Your mother is the cutest,
she is too much. I just love her.”

           
Oh, boy.
“What happened?”

            As she told it, the other grandmother was very upset
about her grandson’s sexuality, but had never expressed it to her daughter, or
anyone in the family, grandson included. Tonight she took this opportunity to
say out loud just how hard it was for her, after keeping it inside for so long.
And my mother countered, “You know, my daughter did the best thing. She gave me
books to read. I read them all, because at first I didn’t understand. But then
I did. And I think you should do that too. Because that’s really the best way
to learn about homos.”

           
Homos
. Exactly which book did she read that one
in?

            Anyway, it turns out she was a great help with the
other grandmother.

            When I told her in March that Andrew was getting
married, she said, “Oh my God, what do you mean?”

            “They’re really going to have a wedding.”

            “Oh… I’m so happy for Andrew. And I like Doug so much…
but it makes me want to cry.” And she did. “I always dreamed he’d marry a
beautiful girl.”

            “He’s marrying a beautiful boy,” I told her.

            “I know,” she said, while I supplied her the next
tissue.

            I tried to warm her up. “It’s going to be a beautiful
wedding, just like the girls’.”

            This elicited a curious response. “Do you think I have
to wear one of my long dresses?”

            “She had two long dresses, from my two daughters’
weddings. “Of course you do.”

            And she tossed back, “My short black cocktail dress is
good enough for this one.”

            Hurt, I shot out, “No, it isn’t. Why is it good enough
for this one? It’s going to be the same type of wedding. It’s formal. The men
are wearing tuxedos.”

            Her previous reactions were more expected. Now she was
as much as saying,
This isn’t as important, it’s not a real wedding.
So
I followed coolly with, “It’s your decision.” After some thought, I realized
that I’d broadsided her with this news. The rest of us had had time to adjust.
And we were still adjusting, really. She’d never had any chance to take it in.
So I added, “It’s OK, wear whatever you’re comfortable with, but I want you to
know, I’m wearing a long dress.”