I try and call my parents at least every other day. Sometimes, I let a few extra days elapse, with or without reason. When I do eventually call them, my mom, who always answers the phone, will invariably work in the guilt within minutes. Her go-to line is that I must have forgotten I even have a mother.
But whether I call every day or once a week, the components of our conversation are similar: this and that. If I called anywhere in the vicinity of 6:00 PM, she would either ask what I will be having for dinner, or if I have had dinner already. I'll talk about work, ask about her day, about my dad; she'll talk about the trouble their lab retriever, Elliot, had gotten into. During one phone call, my mom spent five minutes recounting how Elliot ate an entire, unopened box of All-Bran cereal and spewed diarrhea all over the kitchen floor later than night. She didn't eat anything the next day but still pooped six times.
Mostly, though, it's small talk, chit-chatty type of stuff, and I think my mom just wants to know that I'm alive. These conversations last about 5 minutes.
When I called them last night, my dad picked up, which hardly ever happens. I was at a loss for things to say. See, my dad and I have a complicated relationship. Not in a bad way, but I think we just have trouble relating to each other on a day-to-day basis. He is interested in computers; I like Broadway. He loves playing ping pong with his church friends; I like brunch. He likes to garden and grow his own flowers to display in the house; I'm a homosexual. You'd think that that last one would be symbiotic or something and give us a starting point, but I guess I'm not that kind of homosexual, and he is just not that into small talk.
He said that mom was in the shower. I said oh. I asked how he was doing, and he said fine. Vice versa. I was on and off the phone in less than one minute.
Our everyday conversational skills may suck with each other, but I do know that if I had a problem, we could talk at length about it. And vice versa. If my computer went down, he would be the first person I'd call. In high school, he asked for my advice on how to approach the pastor of his church because of a perceived slight. When I was 19, he drove me to Coalinga for my mandated court appearance. It was a three-hour drive, and though I knew he was upset, had been furious with me for racing down Interstate 5 at 120 miles per hour, he never let it show during that trip. We talked about college, my upcoming roommate situation, the consequences of choices we make as adults. What could have been a platform for his diatribe on my irresponsibility turned into a rather pleasant trip if I didn't consider the license I had to turn over to the authorities that day.
So no small talk for us, but we can talk about issues at length. All except for the gay thing. For years, we couldn't talk about that without turning into two less than intelligible hulks of rage. In recent years, after what I think of as the Detente, we don't talk about "it" anymore, seemingly have made our peace. Sam comes with me when I visit. I come home to Sam nightly. There is nothing more to it than that, and after we reached the Detente a couple of years ago, I think our relationship has improved much. Conversations, less so, but the relationship, definitely.
He was in the hospital last summer for a triple bypass surgery. I knew he'd be fine afterwards. I don't know how I knew; I just did. In my relatively cushy life, the thought that my dad would be dead when I just turned 30 seemed so far-fetched, so impossible that I could barely give it a second thought.
But I did give it one thought, and on that first thought, I discovered, to much surprise and embarrassment, that should something happen and the surgery fail, I would have one regret--that he died knowing he had a gay son.
It didn't make any sense, and I still don't even know how to explain it, but the night before his surgery, I cried in the shower thinking that he might still have some lingering conflicts about me growing up different than how he expected, that the partner I brought home was decidedly different than any he could have imagined. The strange thing was that I had never had these thoughts before. I was not ashamed to be gay, have not been for a very long time. In all the fights he and I had ever had about it, I never once believed that he had any right to feel the anger, the disappointment and sadness he felt. The night before his surgery, I felt all those things for him.
Of course, as I predicted, he came out just fine, and now he says he feels better than ever. He and my mom go to the gym every day, modified their diet, became more aware of their physical well-being. I stashed away all those feelings I had that night somewhere deep inside so I wouldn't have to face the fact that I, at 30 and never before have felt any shame about my sexuality, for one moment, wished that I could be different.
While on the phone with him yesterday, we were awkward, fumbling toward a conversation. When we got ready to hang up, I told him to tell mom I said hello. He said OK, and to tell Sam they said hello too.
And we hung up. And I remembered how I felt last August, and all the confusion and the guilt. I thought about relaying his message to Sam, but then felt like maybe, at that exact moment, it might have been more for me.
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