Choices & Panic

I thought of choices, Rick's choices and mine. What choices did I have? What should I do? How could I help? What would happen to my son? Questions. I could not shut my mind off and I had so many questions. Why? Why would he choose this? He had beautiful girls calling him all the time. He could have dated any girl in the school.

Then panic hit. How would he be treated at school? He would be ostracized. Would he become the victim of a hate crime and get beat up or killed? Every news story I had ever heard about the beating up or the killing of a gay person kept replaying in my brain. I became afraid for his life. I was terrified. What about AIDS? I needed to talk to him and change his mind.

What Now?

After he got up, I went into my bedroom and all the emotions just hit. My tears became giant uncontrollable hysterical sobs. I could hardly breathe. My heart hurt. Every fiber of my being was suffering from the most intense and agonizing physical pain. I never expected that heartbreak could cause so much physical pain. For the first time in my life, I understood what dying from a broken heart might feel like.

I felt as though I just lost my child. Lost from an eternal perspective. Lost because of my faith. My testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ is undeniable and is the very foundation of my life and the anchor upon which all my choices are predicated. I can't envision making a choice, including homosexuality, that would be contrary to what I believe is the way to return to God. Currently, my son's choice might preclude him from being a part of our eternal family. That realization is why his choice was so devastating to me, knowing that in the eternities he might not be with us. 

My whole life crashed down on me that day and I was devastated. I prayed to my father in heaven to  make all this go away. I just couldn't understand why he would say this. Did he understand the implications of his choice? The sadness was overwhelming. I had put my heart and soul into being a mom and I believed it would make a difference. Nothing I had done as a mom seemed to matter.

We had been having some struggles with one of our sons who was seventeen at the time had been out all night and this wasn't the first time. He wasn't keeping curfew and had stopped respecting the rules of our home. He was our fifth child and we weren't going to allow him to continue with his behavior. I approached him the next day and his was response was that he had something to tell me. This was something he had wanted to tell me for several years but he knew how badly it would hurt me so he had waited. Dread filled my soul and I wanted to stop this conversation but it was too late. I feared I knew exactly what he wanted to tell me but I prayed I was wrong. He snuggled up to me and grabbed my hand. Then my precious son told me was gay. He told me he knew he was different from the time he was a little boy. He was so young! I felt my heart break right then and there.

I needed to push rewind! Where was that button I could push for rewind? I just needed this to stop, right now! I wanted to start all over. He came home way past curfew but maybe I could ignore it, just this once.

The tears started to flow and he just wanted reassurance of my love. Of course I loved him! Nothing would ever change that. I begged him to take it back, but he couldn't. Knowing how much he loved me and had waiting so long to tell me, I believe if he felt he could unspeak those words he would have to stop my pain.

He was very concerned about me and wanted to know if I would be okay. After that, neither one of us spoke much, there didn't seem to be anything to say. He sat there snuggling with me, needing some physical affection to be reassured. He tried to console me. Basically we both wanted things to be different. I really wanted to go backwards and he desperately wanted unconditional love and understanding for something he was dealing with. I didn't know what the future would hold but I did know I loved my child.

My Six Gay Sons