Pride and Grief Collide
In 2007, when I was 19, my Bisabuela (great-grandmother) passed away. She was a venerable matriarch; relatives from as far away as her native Ecuador flew to southern Ohio to celebrate her life. It was the single largest funeral I have ever attended.
As it happened, this was shortly after I got my first buzz cut. I loved it. It gave me an early taste of what I later know as “gender euphoria” — the feeling you get when you look, feel, or are accepted as the gender you identify with on the inside. A feeling I would later associate with being called Sy instead of my feminine birthname, with being called by they/them or he/him pronouns, with taking testosterone, lifting weights, and showing off my flat post-op chest. But back then, all I knew was that I loved having a hairstyle that marked me as gender-nonconforming.
After Bisabuela’s funeral, my Abuelita (grandmother) took me aside to talk with me in private. She looked more nervous than I had ever seen her.
“I noticed you cut your hair,” she said, “and my understanding is that a woman with that kind of haircut is on the man’s side of a lesbian relationship. Is that true?”
I chuckled. “Don’t worry,” I told her. “These days, a lot of straight women have hair this short. It doesn’t mean the same thing it used to.” I added, “I’m attracted to men.” All of this is true, but it wasn’t the complete truth. I didn’t tell her that I was also attracted to women. I didn’t tell her that I had been questioning my gender identity for years at that point, and might not even be a woman myself.
Abuelita was visibly very relieved. “I’ve never been very interested in politics,” she said. She explained that despite living in the DC area during the tumultuous 60s, she never even noticed the civil rights protests taking place in her own community. Too busy parenting four children and managing her own mental health issues, which run in my family. “But if I were ever going to be an activist,” she concluded, “I’ve decided my issue would be the fight against gay marriage.”
I… didn’t know what to say. I think I nodded and made an excuse to go find the room with the food. I remember thinking, really? that’s your one issue? It seemed so… petty. So irrelevant to her personal life. But it made sense. Abuelita’s Catholic religion had been her source of strength and comfort through many terrible experiences, and the position of the Catholic church on queer issues is clear. I knew that if I ever did come out, I could count on Abuelita’s love, but not her support.
That is simply a fact that many of us live with. Supportive family members are still more of an exception than the rule for queer people of all ages, although this is slowly changing. My own parents bucked the trend; my father, Abuelita’s eldest son, regularly voices his support for the LGBT community. My mother took the time and energy to educate relatives on my behalf when I was in the earliest stages of my transition. And my relatives, even the most conservative, have done surprisingly well in processing my queerness. Treated my partners with respect. Used my new name and pronouns without complaint. Asked questions where they’ve been confused, and listened to understand. I feel incredibly lucky.
But Abuelita…
She’s still alive, as of this writing, as is my Abuelito. She recently celebrated her 90th birthday. A few years ago, I sent out a mass email to the family announcing my transition. I included an addendum to my aunt, who has been caring for the two of them in her home since they lost their independence, asking her to use her judgment about how much of this information to convey to them. I accepted that they may never understand, and only needed them to know that I love them.
When I visited a few months later, Abuelita recognized me, and knew to call me Sy, but still believed I was a woman. From what my aunt has said, that is all she will ever know, and by the way, that she may not be with us much longer. She is decidedly in decline, and every few weeks an email is sent out updating the family on her steadily decaying body and mind. At this point, it could be days, or months, but I am guessing probably not years.
A few nights ago, I lay in bed fighting off the chronic insomnia that runs in our family. I imagined myself leaving my body, and flying across several state lines to my Abuelita’s bedside. I imagined sitting with her, imagined that she knew I was there, imagined that she saw me fully and without fear. I remembered being a child, sitting on the stool in the kitchen while she prepared dinner, talking about whatever was on my mind. I remembered her listening, deeply and attentively, like no adult had ever listened to me before. I remembered her compassion, and her understanding.
I remembered her unending curiosity about what the young people are into these days. Once when I was a teenager, she confided in me that she always loved hearing rap music, but was nervous because she didn’t understand the lyrics, and had heard that they are often obscene. I played her Will Smith’s Willenium, and assured her that it was clean. She asked me what other music I enjoyed; I played her System of a Down and Linkin Park, and she told me she preferred System of a Down. She asked me about these young people who wear all black and always look sad, so I explained goth culture as well as I could. I took her to Hot Topic and watched her stand in the middle of the store, a matronly Catholic grandmother in a pastel dress, looking incongruous but appreciative. I have heard that Abuelita always loved teenagers, but wasn’t fond of small children. I heard that was why she quit smoking decades ago: she wanted to live to see her grandchildren as teenagers.
Abuelita, you did it. You saw us all grow into beautiful, smart, creative, compassionate adults. And you helped us do it. I will never forget everything you’ve taught me. I will also never forget that day when you told me where you stand on the fight for queer liberation: on the other side from me. I don’t want to fight with you. I will always want to be on your side. That is why I have not tried to make you understand. I don’t need you to. At this point, all I need is to know that you love me. And you have never allowed me to doubt it, not for a moment.
But I can’t say that I have not grieved for the gulf between us. I have mourned for the part of myself I had to hide for so long, and still hide strategically sometimes, because of the beliefs you share with so much of the world. I wish I had had the strength and confidence to come out younger, when you were healthier. Perhaps I could have explained it to you as easily as I explained that goths aren’t actually sad all the time, and that some of the happiest people I knew were goths. I wish I could share my pride with you.
I don’t know what, if anything, waits for us after death. But there is something I believe. I believe that when we die, everything that has ever kept us separate from the rest of the world is destroyed. All the walls we must build up between us and the things that threaten us in life — vulnerability, change, uncertainty, violence, fear — there is no more need for those walls once our bodies die. Everything that keeps us from loving fully and completely, without shame or judgment, dies with us. When you die, I believe that if anything remains of you, it will be free to love in a way that was never possible before.
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
-Rumi
