Okay world, I'm at work, stop trying to make me cry
It's only 8 AM and I already teared up twice today.
Storycorps (a wonderful group that archives family and personal stories from around the country) plays a story every Friday morning on NPR. This was the second one that made me cry. “You feel like being gay is like a virus.”, about a mother and son. The mother sent her gay teenage son to conversion therapy, and this story was about how they got beyond that in their relationship and the mother came to understand and accept her son. I wish I could find a link to the first story that did -- it was told by a mother whose son died of AIDS back when many thought being gay was something to be ashamed of and no one understood HIV/AIDS. Right after his death, she went to buy a card for him (his birthday was right after he died), and she started crying in the store. The clerk came to ask her what was wrong, and she found herself telling this stranger all about these "shameful" things. The clerk hugged her and told her it was okay to mourn him. (I need to change the first sentence of this post to "three" now...). Maybe my summary of the story doesn't sound like much, but at the time the mother had to hide that she was mourning and not talk about why her son had died, so that a stranger accepted it and her was a big thing.
Google's main page had a link to "#ProudToLove: Celebrate Pride with YouTube", so I checked that out. I couldn't even watch half the video without tearing up, so I had to stop.
It's a love-filled day! Progress is being made, even if some people have to be dragged along kicking and screaming. California finally, finally, finally is going to have same sex marriages. (It annoys me that we weren't the first state! We should have been!) DOMA is gone, so now there will be slightly more equality in the country.
It's been a good week for love. :)
Storycorps (a wonderful group that archives family and personal stories from around the country) plays a story every Friday morning on NPR. This was the second one that made me cry. “You feel like being gay is like a virus.”, about a mother and son. The mother sent her gay teenage son to conversion therapy, and this story was about how they got beyond that in their relationship and the mother came to understand and accept her son. I wish I could find a link to the first story that did -- it was told by a mother whose son died of AIDS back when many thought being gay was something to be ashamed of and no one understood HIV/AIDS. Right after his death, she went to buy a card for him (his birthday was right after he died), and she started crying in the store. The clerk came to ask her what was wrong, and she found herself telling this stranger all about these "shameful" things. The clerk hugged her and told her it was okay to mourn him. (I need to change the first sentence of this post to "three" now...). Maybe my summary of the story doesn't sound like much, but at the time the mother had to hide that she was mourning and not talk about why her son had died, so that a stranger accepted it and her was a big thing.
Google's main page had a link to "#ProudToLove: Celebrate Pride with YouTube", so I checked that out. I couldn't even watch half the video without tearing up, so I had to stop.
It's a love-filled day! Progress is being made, even if some people have to be dragged along kicking and screaming. California finally, finally, finally is going to have same sex marriages. (It annoys me that we weren't the first state! We should have been!) DOMA is gone, so now there will be slightly more equality in the country.
It's been a good week for love. :)