The Gifts he Gives Me

One upon a time I was married.

To a man.

For over a decade.

His name is David.

My story is not unique, not by a long shot, but for me every step is fresh with surprises as if no one has ever walked this path before.

I met David at a time in my life when I was headed down a dangerous path of filling my aching soul with all the wrong people and all the wrong vices. He appeared in my life with kindness, laughter, intelligence, a guitar slung across his back and long, long red hair framing his slender face.  And he was good and tender and smart. And he loved me.

And I loved him for loving me. So I hitched my wagon to his horse and believed with all my heart that the whisperings and secret longing of my heart would fade in marriage, and with the most perfect and precious gift of a baby. We were a sweet and odd little family, kooky and creative, committed to one another and our community. And the whispering and longing did fade – for a while.

Then one day, when Thing 1 was still scooting around in her footie pjs, David’s mother was diagnosed with very aggressive cancer. The very next day my cousin violently lost his life to drugs. And then my mother was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

And day after day the shadow of a terrifying realization descended on my precariously perched life. I could perish from this place having lived a half-life predicated on the well-protected lie that I was straight. I could die, at any moment, poof – not fully realized.

And then I met her. At church. That part of the story is for another time and place but suffice it to say that the shameful, hard truth is – the end and beginning do not line up neatly. And my little world rapidly came unravelled while a universe of undeniable truth unfurled within and before me.

Make no mistake about it, I worry daily, still, about the wake of pain left behind as I launched my little ship around the river bend of my truth. There really are no words to convey the enormity of making the decision to no longer live in seething self-loathing and poorly suppressed longing to love as I was created to love. The truth does not come without consequences. Not by a long shot.

There’s no adequate way for me to ever express the unending chasm of pain that opened in my soul when I looked into my husband’s and daughter’s eyes, both brimming with a new kind of tears, as I spoke the words that were first to break my child’s tender heart.

“Your father and I are getting a divorce.”

It has been over a decade since I uttered those words.  And even through his own grief, pain and anger, David has been a compassionate friend and constant co-parent.

He is a good father. A good man.

So that brings us to this past Christmas when my ex-husband invited me out for a drink saying he had small gift for me.

We met that late December evening at a funky little bar near our old home and ordered a couple of bourbons on the rocks. He slid a flat, Christmas wrapped package over to me and grinned a sideways grin.

Here’s David, in his own words.

I have a close friend who is gay. She also happens to be my ex-wife. We don’t hang out. We don’t even speak every day. But we’re both totally committed to being good parents to our daughter. And therein lies our bond. I have another friend who is gay. He was one of my favorite professors when I was in art school. Now that I’m an art professor myself I have the honor and privilege of counting him among my colleagues. He happens to be artist, activist, and art educator Larry Jens Anderson. In 2006, in response to the Boy Scouts of America’s stance on homosexuality, Anderson decided gays and lesbians needed their own merit badges. So he created some. And they’re FABULOUS. A set resides in the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia.

This holiday season my father was sick, and my daughter was out of the country. So on a scale of one to festive it was about a two. I wasn’t in a particularly gift giving mood. But due to a number of circumstances I found myself able to obtain a pair of these amazing merit badges, “Lesbian Marriage” and “Muff Diver” to be specific. And I knew who needed to have them.

“These. Are. Amazing!” I squealed and we laughed until we both cried! Okay, maybe it was just me that cried.

See, what is truly amazing is that we have maintained this connection and a commitment that transcends all that has transpired in 25 years that we have known one another. To my way of thinking, it is he who deserves vest full of merit badges for all the gifts he has given me. A chance at life when I was choosing death, the perfect life of our precious daughter, the unprecedented freedom to find my truth and an ongoing friendship laced with love and loyalty.

There will never be enough time on this planet for me to express my gratitude for the strength and forgiveness exhibited by my daughter’s father, my other partner, who can after all this time, share a stiff drink, a hearty laugh and compassion unparalleled. Those little badges represent far more in my life than their artist originally intended or could possible know.  They are evidence in my life of the extravagant gift of grace unmerited.