My Father...part Three: On Words and Silence

When I think of the contrast of words and silence, I remember this certain day over a year ago. It was a warm day, when winter began to loosen its grip on the college campus where I am studying for a new career. It had been cold that morning, now I actually took off my jacket. In the courtyard between the music and art buildings, small leaf buds appeared early on neatly manicured bushes and sunlight fell warmly across the sundial in the center of the square. I sat on a bench and turned my face up to the light drinking in the warmth. It was my long day, with a class in the morning and one later in the afternoon; I always stayed and did my homework. I was done with the morning’s assignment, and there were still hours till my next class. I picked up my cell phone and called my dad.
I could hear birds singing, and heard nearby the buzzing of first tentative black and yellow fuzzed bees as they bumbled around the early green shoots in the flower beds. The phone began to ring in my ear as the connection kicked in. I did not know yet in that moment, how this lovely day would change in an instant, or why it would remain marked in my mind forever after. Moments later there was the click as he picked up on his end and I smiled as his light tenor voice spoke in my ear.
“Hello?”
“Hello Dad!”
“Hey there! How are you doing today? All going well, I trust?”
“Absolutely, Dad! Done with homework, waiting on my next class. How’s mom doing today?” I leaned back on the bench, relaxing into the routine of easy conversation. Mom was fine, her back was better. No, my homework was fun; I enjoy my studies so much. Their lawnmower needed a new wheel, and they don’t make ‘em that size any more. Yes, I have a paper to write this weekend, but it’s no problem, I know what I’m going to say in it already.

Our conversation wandered down familiar paths, the words comfortable and warm. Words have always come easily for my father and me. I remembered that the family story of our earliest “conversation” was his earnest attempt to teach me to say “doorknob” as my first word. (no one has ever understood WHY he wanted this to be my first word!) He evidently carried me around pointing at doorknobs for weeks, saying "Doorknob, doorknob..." as he held me in his arms. I was contrary from the very start –that summer, late in the evening while we were at the beach on vacation, he held me up and pointed at the soft white sphere glowing low in the sky and my first word turned out to be “moon”.

The shade spread across the little garden as I listened to his voice here in the present, lulled by it as though I was that little child again and not his forty-six-year-old adult daughter, sitting on a college campus for a second try at a degree. But as his words continued over the phone, I abruptly snapped upright on the wooden slats of the old bench. “Say that part again, Dad?”

“I said, didn’t you see that news report about the bill they’re attempting to pass in Washington about that whole gay marriage thing?” His tone had grown harsh and scornful. I felt my stomach clench. This was the moment that always destroyed the words between us; the dangerous words that I so carefully avoided at all costs. Here was the silence that lies behind out words -- the thing we do not speak of between each other. I tensed, with my eyes shut tight, lost in the darkness of his words. The harshest difference between us is here - me gay, and liberal and compassionate, him conservative, and paranoid and hating.
“No, Dad, I didn’t.” I kept my voice calm, still, normal. In my mind I was searching frantically for words, for a way to avoid the inevitable, as he spoke on.
“They’re trying again to push through some bill to legalize gay marriage. This country has gone so wrong!”

“Dad—“

“Gays are ruining America right before our very eyes, every day! I tell you, gays are why God has withdrawn His blessing from out nation! It's all their fault!” I felt the air go out of me as though an iron hard fist had slammed into my body. I doubled forward, trembling as the trip hammer suddenly lodged in my chest beat heavily. The sunlight became harsh, and the shadows went jagged and cold. Dad’s voice went on, somewhere on the other end of the cell phone that I clutched so desperately in my hand. All I could hear were the words repeating endlessly in my mind: Dad, I’m gay. Dad, don’t you understand? Your daughter is gay! Dad, how can you say such things? Your only child is gay!
Of course, I never said the words. I took refuge instead in the silence. This silence over the years has become all pervasive, capable of ambush, gone out of sight until the worst possible moment – and then it is there. It comes to me at night and steals my sleep. It dams the flow of my thoughts as I try to write. And sometimes the silence rises when I answer the phone, and hear my father’s voice. This silence is the opposite of our words. It is the fear I feel when I try to imagine saying the words to him. I fear the loss of his respect and approval. I fear the destruction of our life long relationship. Above all, I fear to lose the words “I love you,” that we have spoken countless times to each other all the years of my life. Because for all his love and gentleness and grace, this is his flaw - his love is conditional, his views totally driven by the conservative world he grew up in, his stubborness to never yield and never for a moment see any other view point. And at his age and with that native stubborness he has, the odds are profoundly against him living long enough for us to reconcile and heal, should I ever come Out or be Outed to him.
I remember the silence of that day. How the odd stillness gripped the garden, as I listened to his loving voice speak words of discrimination and bigotry. I remember the silence of the words I did not say then. I still cannot say them. Dad, I’m gay. Dad, God hasn’t forsaken our country or our world because of people like me. Dad, don’t you understand that your words, though deeply and sincerely spoken, cause pain and anger and agony? Is he afraid I wonder? Does he have his suspicions of my relationship with Dreamweaver and the six years she and I have been together? Does he hide his fear in hateful, harmful words, because he, too, does not dare ask a simple question?
Somehow, I changed the conversation, shooting the rapids of dangerous words into much safer, quieter topics. Somehow, I kept my voice mild, calm, uninterested in politics and abstract condemnation. I felt like screaming the words at him – “How can you say these horrible things and cause me so much pain?” Instead our conversation ended as it always did.
“Talk to you tomorrow, Dad. I love you.”
“I love you too. Your mom and I are proud of you. Oh, and tell Dreamweaver that we love her too, and hope school is going great for her also.”
“I’ll be sure and tell her, I promise! ‘Bye, Dad.”
“’Bye.”
I remember closing my eyes and leaning back on the bench, my cell phone snapped shut in my hands. I remember the day feeling cold, the sunlight thin and weak. I remember the silence around me as though the garden had simply stopped. And that I put my head in my hands and wept.