I don't usually get to hang out with mom on Mother's Day, since she's all the way back in Indiana, but maybe I'll cycle over to the Arnold Arboretum for Lilac Sunday anyhow.  She will take her first trans-Atlantic trip this summer, by the way, and if I can persuade her to come back to New England on her return — if she is not swept off her feet by some Archduke in Austria — maybe we'll peep some leaves this fall. 

See:  I may be the black sheep, but I'm really not a bad son.  Sure, I've raised my share of Cain.  The teens were tough — all that big hair and smoking and drinking and dragging...


Even into my twenties I was no angel, off uncoverin— er, I mean discovering myself.  Still, I think it was to everyone's benefit that when I left home, I went as far as I could go, and didn't look back for about ten years.  And I'll bet my folks would agree.  In fact, they're the ones who suggested it.  I'm living proof that absence really does make the heart grow fonder.  And if it doesn't, then, well, that's OK, too. 

While in Europe during one of my extended absences I discovered that every gay guy has two moms (just like Heather!): a biological mom and a drag mom.  I don't mean that every gay man has an adopted mom who dresses in drag, although if so more power to ya!  I mean that all gay men have someone who looks and acts like a mom in certain ways (feeds you, does your laundry but makes you take out the garbage, has seen you naked) but wears higher heels, curses like a sailor right in front of you, may or may not have had sex with you at some point in some form, but anyway talks about sex in intricate detail more or less nonstop. 

I had a fabulous drag mom all those years abroad, although she wouldn't like to be thought of in exactly those terms.  She was a cougar before cougaring was cool, but once our comedy of errors played itself out, we settled into an incredibly rich and rewarding relationship that continues very much to this day, although she's back in England now...


So a big ol' ROWRRR! to you today, too, Jack!*

Life is funny.  It has a time and a place for everything.  But things are not always where you'd expect them to be.  My dad's illness presented an opportunity, as strange as it seems to say it that way, to reinvent relationships that would likely not have yielded up that opportunity under other circumstances. When my dad was healthy he was a handful.  When he was very sick he was incorrigible as well.  But in between there was a brief window when the reality of his own mortality hit but he thought he could bargain his way out of it by nicing it up.  That's when I slipped in.

I was 34 when he was diagnosed with cancer, old enough to see how I could help, and what it would mean if I did.  And frankly I can't imagine what my life would be like today if I hadn't grasped that.  Not just the regret I may have felt, but relationships that have become vital to me, and even gardening — something that gives me such pleasure and peace of mind — is something I took up back in Indiana while looking after my dad.

My mom and I went through the experience of caring for my dad together, day-by-day for half a year.  Her own battle with breast cancer just a couple of months after my dad's death also gave our relationship new life (again, strange as it may sound).  There was a moment when I thought I might lose both of my parents within a couple of months of each other, and I can tell you, it sobers you up quick.  You realize what's important. The intensity of that time allowed us to forgive and forget pettier problems from years long past and build something new based on experiences of mutual support and affirmation. 

Some of you may remember my Merchant Marine.  I've mentioned him a few times here before.  We've been seeing each other on and off for a little over a year and he dropped by this morning, his old adorable self.  There have been a couple of other men in my life that I have loved like him — where, so long as neither of you makes demands on the other, and each gives what he brings, everything is perfect.  It's true free-love, I guess you'd say.  Or maybe it's stolen.  At any rate, unlike in other kinds of relationships, in this one no one has to pay.
 
So he dropped by before meeting his brother to go to plant some mums on his mother's grave.  Back when he was 21 he lost his mom to pancreatic cancer.  It apparently progressed very quickly, from a surprise diagnosis to a painful death over the course of a very short few weeks.  He's 29 now, but of course the experience has made its indelible mark, a touch of sadness and loss you can't separate out from the rest of him.  It seems constitutional, this loss is by now so essential to his identity.

And that's not surprising, because that bond between mother and child is stronger than any other.  I don't mean to sound sentimental. It's a profound truth: we are tethered to this world by that cord.
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*Just to be perfectly 100% clear: Jack is short for Jacqueline, who is, in fact, a biological female.