[HeartStrongList] The Preacher's Son

[marcadams at heartstrong.org]

The Preacher’s Son



Today my biological father died.

This is not a eulogy.

It wasn’t a shock.  I learned he had been diagnosed with multiple myeloma
back in October.  This is the same blood cancer that Geraldine Ferraro has
battled for many years.  Unlike Geraldine, my father was diagnosed when he
was already in the final stages.  The doctor gave him prescriptions for
pain medicine and told him to go home and enjoy the rest of his 90 days or
so.

This blood cancer attacks the bones and several internal organs causing
immense pain and even frequent, irreparable bone breakage.

In addition to refusing hospice care for him, my biological mother refused
to fill his prescriptions for pain medicine.  Her reasoning?  She feared
he would become addicted to the pain medication and drug addiction is a
sin.  Oh, and the hospice care refusal?  “Don’t only people with AIDS need
hospice care?”

So day after day, since October 7, my biological father allowed my mother
to refuse him pain medicine.  As his condition gradually grew worse, they
slipped deeper into denial.  After all, if you believe that ‘God is in
control’, as they do, you can rationalize refusing personal responsibility
to human suffering: your own or someone else’s.

About the same time another extended family member informed them that they
were in contact with me.  My parent’s informed this person that they had
been praying for me to be delivered from homosexuality every day since I
had come out to them, but that “it was okay for me to call them.”

As I had seen three years ago when my grandmother passed away, absolutely
not one thing in their lives had changed.  Like my former minister Jerry
Falwell, my father was ready to “be with the Lord” with a “clear
conscience” that he had lived his life in the way that “Christ had
commanded.”

While there is always sadness of some sort when anyone passes away, it’s
hard to muster much emotion over someone I didn’t know, who didn’t know
me, didn’t want to know me and someone who chose his religion over his own
son.  As I have since 1992, I feel sadness and pity that someone spent
their very brief life on this beautiful planet without once understanding
or perhaps even experiencing the true beauty of love and life.

For those of us who have grown up in these types of homes, this sadness
and pity is almost all there is to grasp.  I have used those feelings to
keep me reminded of the brevity of life and the importance of experiencing
all it has to offer.

When I came out, my father told me that all homosexuals get AIDS.  To him
and many people like him it wasn’t a matter of contracting HIV, it was
just something that would happen since all sickness is a result of sin. 
Kind of ironic that his life ended because of a blood cancer, don’t you
think?

It’s hard to even think about eulogizing a man who allowed an adult
neighbor to rape my underage sister.  It’s hard to think about eulogizing
a man who, till the day he died, chose silence over justice and who chose
to blame my sister instead of drawing public attention to the crime.

Many people read my books and assume that they know everything about my
life.  While I have certainly opened my kimono to the world in my writing,
there are many things that I have not shared.  I have saved some things
because of the darkness of the subject matter.

This is not a eulogy.

It is a reminder that life is brief.  It can be filled with extreme
happiness, joy, peace and love.  For some, like my biological parents, it
seems it is nothing more than a painful journey of do’s and don’ts that
must be survived instead of an exhilarating ride to be relished and
cherished.

I know what you’re thinking and you’re right.  It is sad.  And that’s the
sadness I feel about my father’s death.

And maybe that’s what I can do with my time left, help other people find
that extreme happiness, joy, peace and love in life so no one has to feel
sad for them when they’ve completed this fantastic gift called life.