Month: November 2012

My
nine year old granddaughter told me yesterday that secrets can be good or
bad.  She went on to say that a secret
was good if you have just gotten a new puppy and want to surprise someone with
it.  When I asked her about when secrets
are bad she said, “Papa, you just feel bad inside with some secrets”.  As Lauren answered me, I recognized once
again, how early in life we are introduced to secrets and how they typically register
at the earliest of ages as “making you feel badly inside” and fill one with confusion,
disconnection and wonder about the truth.

Last
Saturday, the lay organist searched out the melodious tune of Amazing Grace on
the transportable electric keyboard organ in the gathering area at the small
town funeral home.  I was intrigued to
watch members of my extended family solemnly entering the memorial service in
remembrance of their recently deceased loved one, my aunt.    As I
witnessed their somber entrance, I was filled with fleeting remembrances of my
own of the stories that are part of my heritage in the Irish Catholic family I
grew up in.  Most of the stories I was
recalling have been figured out in time, realizing that secrets flourish in my
family’s history.

          My
cousin Mary spoke so eloquently at her mother’s funeral the other morning.  There is still confusion in the family about
her children and husband.  It seems that
after she was first married and had a child, she left her husband and child for
the man next door and his children.  No
one has ever breathed a word about this episode.  It’s treated more like she got confused one
night and entered the wrong house when she came home and no one ever had
courage enough to correct her error. 

There
is the secret about Cousin Bill who one day just disappeared from the family.  As a child I watched the eye brows raise in
the hush of the conversation about Bill. He was older and really cool and one
of my cousins who I enjoyed the most. 
Where did he go?  What could he have
done that resulted in such secrecy? Years later I learned that he was gay and
just disappeared because it seemed easier than to try and find acceptance
within the family.  

Or
Cousin Diane, whose children just disappeared one day, leaving all of the
others of us kids wondering if the same could happen to us, and nothing would
be said. 

To
add to the confusion and deceit there was Cousin Rogene, who after an extended
stay in California, returned home with triplets.  I was only ten and couldn’t understand how
that happened.  Only at her funeral some fifty
years later did I learn that the triplet’s father had secretly continued to
visit his lover, my cousin, on weekends when he could travel to Denver, leaving
behind his other wife and children in California.  It would have been nice to know that she
really hadn’t gone through life totally alone as a single mom. 

And
Amazing Grace played on.

As I
was overcome by emotions sitting in the memorial service as a result of the,
“bad feelings inside”, to quote my granddaughter Lauren, I found it difficult
to breath knowing my own story of secrecy related to my homosexuality and I
wondered how my deceit  would ever find a
place of acceptance and understanding within my family? No wonder my Cousin
Bill just disappeared one day.

On
Friday night before the funeral, I was visiting with my niece, who is my age
mate and who grew up with me more as my sister who lived next door. We were
recalling humorously, our learning in high school that one of our family had
been suspended from school because of the “m” word.  The only “m” word that she understood at that
point in her life was menstruation.   Did
this mean boys menstruated too?  This
secret confused her for a number of years; thinking that she didn’t want to get
caught having her period at school, for fear that she would get suspended like
our cousin.  She was in her late twenties
when she realized our Cousin William had been suspended for
getting caught masturbating at school.  Oh,
that
“M” word!  Needless to say, not only do
secrets make you feel bad inside, they can create situations of immense
confusion and major misunderstanding.

         It seems that sexual secrets
abound in our family.  My sister, who was
sixteen years my senior, recalled for me long after I was married that our
mother had bitterly handed her a brown paper bag as she prepared to leave her
wedding reception.  In the bag was a jar
of Vaseline and a douche bag.  Our
mother’s words to her on this significant occasion were, “Here, you will need
these!”  These were the only words ever
spoken to my sister about sex.  This
exchange of the brown paper bag constituted her sex education it seemed.   

In
the hours since this weekend’s family gathering, I’ve not only been aware of
“feeling badly” about the secrets I have created and allowed in my life, I’m
also aware of anger and sadness that comes up for me.  I know that there has been no spaciousness
within my life experience for fifty some years, regarding my sexuality. As I
realize this, I also recognize that I have been the one agreeing to and
perpetuating the secret concerning my sexuality.  As my granddaughter said to me yesterday,
some secrets are good, some bad.  Out of
fear and a sense of inadequacy within me to language my sexuality, I created
the secret in my life related to who I am. 

         Secrets, despite them
creating bad feelings and a sense of disconnection, isolation and separateness,
you’ve got to laugh.  Secrets revealed or
not can be quite humorous.

What
I recognize now is that living the secret is far more energy consuming than
living the truth.  Others do figure it
out, eventually.  The real price of
having a secret comes at the expense of the one living the secret.  After all, only my closest friends realized
the enjoyment I had shopping for my aunt’s funeral  for the perfect muted pattern scarf in purple,
pink and red to wear with my European cut pink shirt and skinny jeans.