The Wedding: A Family's Coming Out Story (25 page)

            I
explained to Doug the bizarre coincidence that led this long-lost relative to
find me. He listened, mouth wide open, catching flies. I’d almost finished the
story when the phone rang again. We both stared at it as if an alien spacecraft
had landed in the living room. Finally I answered, and sure enough, it was the
long-lost relative.

            This
time his tone was different. No attempts at warm familial bonding. He had
something to say, and he delivered it with hushed import, like a state secret
to a foreign agent. “I talked to Rudolph. He said you were a…
homosexual. A
shame to the family.
” What was more surprising? Uncle Rudolph contradicting
his warm response to my father, or having this total stranger reveal it to me?
Before I could think twice, he dropped the real bombshell.

            “There’s
something I have to tell you.”

            For
God’s sake, what next?

            “I,
too, am a homosexual.”

            Until
then, I’d pictured him with his flowing beard and
kipa
covering his
crown, sitting at the head of a huge table with the usual Hasidic brood of a
dozen or so offspring. So what would a Hasidic homosexual household look like?
My imagination reeled.

            Our
chat wasn’t over yet. He saved the best for last.

            “I’ve
been with the same man for ten years. And my first relationship was over twenty
years ago. With a black man.”

            A
relative I’d never met had just come out to me. Getting married was like
knocking over the first domino and watching the crazy quilt pattern of falling
tiles spill out in all directions. For a moment I asked myself, was this some
elaborate practical joke? As his tale continued, it was clear you couldn’t make
this stuff up. And even if I could tell you more details of his story (which,
to preserve his anonymity, I can’t), you wouldn’t believe me.

SHELDON   
Just over a week before
the ceremony, Uncle Rudolph came into my office. Typically, when he stops by,
it’s to say help and use my fax, copier, or stamp machine. This time her looked
sheepish, and said, “I want to talk to you. I hope you won’t be offended… My
wife-” Rudolph is married for the third time “-she’s sick and depressed,
doesn’t go out of the house. She can’t come to the wedding, and I don’t want to
go by myself.”

            I
reminded him, “I told you, we’ll love you just as much if you can’t make it.
Please don’t worry about it.” And I assumed that was the end of that.

DOUG   
Andrew and I hadn’t heard the
latest details on his Uncle Rudolph. Instead, we were wondering how the
youngest generation was being prepped for the upcoming event.

            Long
afterward, Bonnie’s husband, David, told me how they handled the subject of our
wedding with their children. “Our initial thoughts were that we would say
nothing unless they asked. Bonnie and I have always worked with the theory that
children ask what they need to know, and they are their own best gauge of what
information is necessary. That’s been our policy of talking about birds and
bees in general. We’d been waiting for our oldest to ask us some specifics. We
didn’t make an issue of it. Of course, they knew we were going to a wedding,
since they were walking down the aisle all dressed up. But it was quite a while
before we got a direct question. It was fairly close to the date of the
ceremony. Bonnie and I had decided to explain it this way: there are different
types of families; some families where there’s only one mommy, some with one
daddy, others where grandparents take care of their grandchildren, and some
with a man and a man, or with two women. And that, in fact, is how we presented
it to our oldest daughter. She asked if this was called a wedding, or a marriage,
and I said, ‘It doesn’t matter what you call it. Andrew and Doug call it a
wedding. Some people call it a commitment ceremony. What’s important is,
they’re starting a family.’
Family
was the key word in several respects.
Being there for the ceremony was a matter of family. Andrew is Bonnie’s family.
So he’s my family.

            We
don’t have to agree about everything. The rule is, if it’s for the family you
do it. That’s what family’s all about.”

ANDREW   
Exactly one week before
the wedding, Doug and I were scheduled for out
Turning Point
shoot.
Denise was set to arrive with the crew at noon. We were just about ready to go
when the phone rang. It was Doug’s brother, Jerry.

DOUG   
My parents’ plans to attend the
wedding were sidelined in July when health problems intervened. It became
increasingly doubtful that they would make it, and finally my father asked me,
with great regret, to take them off the guest list. The depth of my disappointment
caught me by surprise.

            When
I first proposed to Andrew and we started planning the wedding, I told him I
didn’t expect my parents would be able to make the trip. And in a way, that
felt OK at the time. I hadn’t seen then in a social situation since my college
graduation fifteen years before. And I feared that they’d be proverbial fishes
out of water, struggling with their own discomfort in a crowd of strangers.
Selfishly perhaps, I wanted my wedding to be a celebration, unsullied by
concern over my parents’ social limitations, three thousand miles away from
their home in a room of strangers. Or perhaps those feelings were an elaborate
self-deception. Maybe I feared they wouldn’t make the effort to come. And I
knew, given their respective health issues, it would be a significant effort.

            Then,
when both my mother and father showed enthusiastic interest in making the trip,
I realigned my image of the event. By the time my father called to put the
kibosh on their attendance, I almost couldn’t imagine having the wedding
without them. I’d talked a good game to everyone else, saying for months,
“Well, it looks like they’re coming! But you never know. They haven’t traveled
together on a plane in God knows how many years.” But deep down, I’d figured
once they made the decision to do it, they’d pull it off.

            When
he heard the bottom fall out of my voice, my father held out a glimmer of hope,
saying that if things changed, he’d call me as soon as possible. Of course, I
responded that we’d juggle hotel rooms and other specifics to include them.

            Now,
as Jerry called so close to the date, I thought perhaps the purpose was to give
me the news that they’d be at our wedding after all. As it was, the only family
I’d have present would be my sister, Lynn, my niece Michelle, Jerry, his wife,
Roslyn, and my nephew Natan.

            So
his call came as a sharp blow. Due to health problems within his branch of the
family, none of them would be able to attend, either. He apologized profusely,
and with obvious sincerity. And though the depth of his regret certainly eased
my pain a bit, I was devastated to realize that while Lynn and Michelle would
walk me down the aisle, not one member of my family would be present in the
hall. Of course, this was about more than my parents, brother, and his family
bowing out. As I noted before, the physical distance between my nuclear family
and the rest of our relatives had left me a wayward twig in the family tree.
Now I felt very much alone.

ANDREW   
Some of Doug’s sadness
over this news might have been alleviated if he invited some of his more
extended family. While I was aware that he had only met most of them a couple
of times in his life, I always thought he would at least invite the contingent
from Florida: Uncle George, Aunt Verona, his cousin Pookie, and her husband,
Tom.

DOUG   
My Aunt Verona and Uncle George
spent the winter in the same condo where my parents have an apartment. The unit
remains empty except when Andrew and I stay there a few weekends each winter.
The proximity of the two apartments allowed us to see each other over the last
few years, and during that period I’d grown very close to both of them. And
we’d also gotten to know my cousin Pookie and her family.

ANDREW   
I began to view them as
part of my extended family as well, and wanted them to be present at the
wedding. I think it would have been especially meaningful to Doug. I kept
telling him to get his aunt and uncle’s address in the Hamptons where they
spent the summer with their son, Barnet, and his family. But he procrastinated
until finally he told me, with a tone of regret, that he was not going to
invite any of his Florida relatives. WE never got into the exact reasons. He
gave several plausible explanations, but I still wonder if his hesitation was
driven by fear of what their responses may have been.

DOUG   
I did have additional concerns,
but not about their responses. Aunt Verona’s health had deteriorated, and just
as we mailed the invitations, I changed my mind and decided, with conflicting
emotions, not to invite them to the wedding, or even to tell them about it. I
knew Aunt Verona’s health would prevent her from attending, so I worried that
offering an invitation might sound like I was just begging for a gift. More
significantly, I worried that sending them an invitation could open up a bigger
can of family worms. How could I come out to the rest of my enormous extended
family – people I hardly knew, and had only met a handful of times in my life?
So rather than invite a select few, I chose instead to invite none.

            Further,
Sheldon, Roslyn, Andrew, and I had all bickered about the size of the guest
list on many occasions. We’d all heard Sheldon say a hundred times that he
wanted to restrict the scope of the affair. I knew it wasn’t primarily a
monetary concern for him, but I was also sensitive about the fact that he and
Roslyn were footing the vast majority of the bill.

            There
were lots of good reasons for not inviting the family I’d long been separated
from by time and distance. And yet somehow, none of them was a good excuse. And
with my brother’s phone call, I now felt the full weight of my decision.

            Thankfully,
the imminent video shoot didn’t give me time to dwell on the negative for long.
Once they all arrived, our apartment was a hive of activity, Denise and crew
buzzing about for the best spots for a shot. Like Sheldon, I hadn’t given
thought to anything I might say, or that they might ask. Preoccupied with the
fear of sounding canned, I hope spontaneity might make up for lack of
eloquence.

ANDREW   
After the interviews at
home, the crew followed us as we finished our wedding shopping. We’d purposely
waited an extra week to pick out some last key items, so they could tape the
interview and the shopping all in one day. Our first stop was the Judaica store
(not the same one we tried in July – this shop was on the street, so it was
less claustrophobic). Rebecca, the associate producer, went in to ask if a
television crew could shoot inside for a few minutes. She returned with an OK,
and I asked what she’d told them the shoot was for.

            “A
show on marriage,” she explained simply.

            True.
They hooked on our wireless mikes, and we walked to the storefront. We looked
in the window, not knowing if they’d started taping yet, when one of us, who
will remain nameless, got a little attack of nerves. Let’s just say the sound
man got his microphone tested like I’m sure he never had before.

DOUG   
I wasn’t the one who sprung a
gas leak. I swear.

ANDREW   
Whatever. We both looked
over at the crew, and I asked, “Are we rolling?”

            They
nodded yes, so we’d just have to move on. Faced with the task at hand, Doug and
I looked in the store window.

            “Are
we going to tell them it’s for two men?” Doug asked.

            “I’m
sure they’ll figure it out,” I stalled. Inspecting Doug’s forehead and upper
lip, I nudged, “Are we starting to sweat yet?”

DOUG   
We laughed and headed in. The
camera was behind us, but stayed at a discreet distance, and either the light
was off or low. They were relatively unobtrusive, for a television crew wedged
into a little Upper West Side shop. The salesman who approached us wore a
kipa
on his head, and had a trimmed beard.
Very Conservative, or mildly Orthodox,
I figured.

            “Can
I help you?”

            “Well,”
I answered, “we’re looking for a large tallis.” We’d decided we would use a
large prayer shawl, or tallis, for the tent of our
chuppah
. The first
one he showed us was too small, so I added the crucial detail. “It has to be
big enough to use for a
chuppah.

            “When’s
the day?” he asked, smiling.

            “Next
Sunday,” I answered.
Well, that was no big deal!