On Sunday, Daniel invited his uncle and aunt, Tita [aunt] Eden and her husband Nelson, their sons and daughters and their children to our house for the afternoon. We had a dozen kids under the age of 13 here and I have to say they were the best behaved children I’ve seen in years When Eden spoke, the child would stop in their tracks and mind their grandmother. No talk back, no sass, no disrespect.
They are also very devout Catholics. I gave them all extra bonus points for not giving us that “I’ll be nice to you pervs, but you know you are going to hell” look. When they all left, Daniel gave them all hugs, and I gave them all adult hand shakes.
At the end of the party, even though I was as exhausted as our dogs who had been overworked by the three and four-year olds, I decided to sing them some songs from HOMER. The kids who were downstairs watching TRANSFORMERS, paused it and came up to listen. I was thrilled to see that they all were with me with every song, from age three to seventy-something.
This part of our extended family has always been nice to me, but I don’t think they knew who I was or what I did until Sunday. I felt that Daniel and I had risen in status in their eyes after I stopped singing. Those of us in big cities forget that acceptance of gays and lesbians still is not universal, by any stretch. So every little victory is worthy of celebration.
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I checked in with my mother yesterday who is supercharged after moving into their new home last month. My dad was off at the clinic dealing with a malady that I had to deal with last year. Sigh, aren’t genetics fun?
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