Category: transgender children

Look. Think. Love.

We are family. We are devotion. We are love. We are humanity.

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“The things that we love tell us what we are.”– Thomas Aquinas

Here We Are

Maine2015-1005 

Photo credit: dragonflyshots.com

Look at us. Here we are.

Look.  Then, please think. Don’t say.

I am reluctant to show you who we are. Yet, I must.

I read comments and words everywhere that are so hurtful. The words on the screen, and on the page, make me want to run away.

Some days that I wonder how I am supposed to live. Me, and I’m not the one in danger, I can’t seem to breathe sometimes.

You make me so scared.

You can’t mean what you say. Do you?

If you thought, felt and knew her you wouldn’t say anything.

If you could be in my head for one minute and sense the love and care I have for her then you would be silent.

You would think. You would try to begin to understand.

I loved a child for nineteen years but maybe that child didn’t even exist. That child is gone or never was. Gender has to mean nothing to me, yet it means everything to her.

I have two daughters.

Can you be quiet and think about that?

Think about personhood. Think about the quality of life of an individual and how much that matters to you. You are a person, aren’t you?

Think about her, my youngest daughter. She is equal. She is beautiful.

Think about family.

Can you think about us living, playing, eating and sleeping under the same roof for years and years? Can you think about the intimacy of us?

Yet, within that closeness there was an omission of truth. There was a simple and authentic truth about one of us that was somehow ignored. Yet we loved and still love.

If you could imagine this, then you’d know how beautiful this special loyalty we have to each other is. You would make no noise or disturbance. You would refrain from hurting us.

Please don’t make me run away. Don’t frighten me.

Don’t hate us. Love us all, or go away discreetly.

Mostly, consider her, beyond me. Please don’t make her afraid or anxious. Make little noise or disturbance for her. She is easily broken and vulnerable.

Maybe her power will grow and her strength will rise if you can just think and not say.

You can hold us up with your silence or cut all of us down with your words.

Please consider the possibilities.

Look at this. Here we are.

We are family. We are devotion. We are love. We are humanity.

See What Happens

Trust, when the colors fall on the page they will look like a feeling.

See What Happens
See What Happens

“Be brave enough to live life creatively, the creative place where no one has ever been.” -Alan Alda

If I’d only known that she’d have to go on to live life not only creatively but authentically.  She must be braver than anyone I’ve ever known!-  7/2015

This child was always one to take the lead and see what happened later.  We couldn’t keep up with them when they were a toddler.  Swirling around, causing commotion, a whirlwind of activity, they were that for sure.  Swift, impulsive, and almost dizzying, as a mother, this little one tired me!

When they were in the fifth grade, this child splattered paint on the page.  They wrote an artist statement expressing that they did this because they wanted to see what happened when they randomly threw paint down on paper.  They concluded in a paragraph explaining that the painting turned out to look like the great feeling they get when they ride on a roller coaster.

How do colors on a page look like a feeling?  Fifth graders know about those things.  Fifth graders with the wonder of my child most certainly know.

I think maybe I’ve forgotten what a feeling looks like on a page.  Maybe I haven’t forgotten.  However, I don’t want my child to forget how to do this!

This child leaves this weekend.

They are no longer familiar with splattering paint.  High school asked for more assembly, less creativity.  Late nights, long days, and tiring assignments needed organization that nearly broke their spirit!

Still, this one is one of the most original and creative people I know.  This is being said objectively, I assure you.

They were voted most artistic and received an unexpected superlative in their high school yearbook.  I know they may have forgotten that they are creative.  The superlative reminded them and me.  Oh, yes, that’s right!

 This beautiful person is an artist, for sure, but not in the way you are thinking.  They do not color with paint but with notes, sounds, rhythms, and breaths.  Still, they can really splatter color!  I can’t wait to see what happens!

Am I ready to let them go?  No, definitely not.  Not this expressive, imaginative, ingenious creature, I can’t be prepared to release this one.  They are visionary.  True, sincere, naïve, and too honest, yet surreal, and they cannot be ordinary.

Someone who wants to see what happens doesn’t really know what is happening.  I am scared for them.

I know I have to see what happens.  If you know me, help me trust that when the colors fall on the page, they will evoke the same feeling as riding a roller coaster, and that the colors are beautiful, safe, and pretty.

Thanks.