A letter to my cousin ...

My Dad's side of the family has been having a reunion every 2 or 3 years since the middle eighties. This summer they are having another reunion. I have decided not to go. My cousin in California, more-or-less the Patriarch at this time, has been gently talking to me about coming to the reunion.

This is my response to him:

I have -never- doubted your love and support. And it pains me to not be there. My Poppa knows my heart, [1 Samuel 16:7] and He knows I am pretty much who I have always been. And He knows that I love Him and I love my Brother, the One Who Loves me. It pains me that I am not able to give my family the opportunity to see me and know me spirit to spirit. But now is not the time. My children are not able to see my heart right now. And there are others, and we both know who they are, who wont ever see my heart or know my spirit. The latter, I am just sad for. Sad because the god they worship fits in a box they have defined. And my God, my Poppa, is bigger than any box they can imagine.

My children, though, I have decided not to push whatsoever. And it is hard. They are not ready to open their hearts and see with their Spirit that I am still their Dad, the Dad they have always known. I miss them terribly. I am very lonely for them.

Again, though, Poppa has provided. Poppa brought a young woman into my life who had been disowned by her parents. We became friends, then good friends. I told her once that I thought of her as a daughter. Within the month she started calling me "Momma." It was light and tongue-in-cheek at first, but Poppa knew our hearts and our needs. She is the Daughter-of-My-Heart, my Daughter-In-Love. We have gone through a lot together. I have told B and J of her because, no longer needing to keep my true self secret, I really don't like keeping any secrets and the subject of my Daughter-In-Love felt like a secret. But my adopted daughter takes nothing away from B or J. And I am Dad to them as I am Mom to her. Sue and Jodi met her when they met me as Shannon the first time. Someday I would like for her to come to the reunion, too, but it is in Poppa's hands. Oh! in the original picture that I sent you, she is to my right.

Again, thank you for your love and support and understanding.

The dance

It's not a good night. Just plain, not a good night.


- Forgiveness is the scent the Rose leaves on the heel that crushes it

But Never A Mom

Mother’s Day 2011

Dedicated to Poppa and a special young woman….

For a long time I have wanted to be a woman. In all those years, with all that longing, I never considered being a mom. In the early years, I thought about being a wife to a husband. But never a mom. As I came to understand myself better and understood that a woman could be a partner to another woman, I thought about being a wife. But never a mom. At my age I have been reluctant to be involved with another woman with a child at home. I could not see myself as a mom to another woman’s child. When I began my transition, when I began to live a real life, full time, all the time, I had simple visions of what my life as a woman would be. But in my visions, I was never a mom.

Very shortly after coming out and beginning to live a life true to myself, Poppa introduced me to a young woman who had lost her parents. We became friends. We drank a lot of Tully’s. I would encourage her, be a sounding board, and when she needed advice, I gave her the best advice I could give.

We grew closer over time. I found myself thinking of her as a daughter. And I told her so. Soon she was calling me momma. It seemed a little bit of a joke between us but it became a real connection very quickly.

Sometimes I feel that it takes a lot of nerve on my part, a lot of presumption, for me to claim to be a mom -- I am a woman untimely born. I did not think of being a mother or a mom growing up like most girls. But I have found myself loving this young woman as a daughter and parenting her as best I know how. If my spirit is in fact a woman’s spirit and I have been a parent to her, then I guess maybe I am a mom.

Poppa has given me with this young woman to love, to be the daughter of my heart. Only by His Grace am I a woman. And by His Grace, forever a mom.

No One Knows My Heart

The Crevasse

hanging near the end of my rope
in this dark place
an unseen crack in the world
heart-numbingly cold
fingers
and hands
and arms
and every muscle
aching with the effort to hold on
fatigued with the
cold
unfeeling
loneliness
that wraps it's fingers of ice
around my battered
unwanted
abandoned
dying heart
looking down into the consuming blackness
that promises to end the pain that hope brings
no whisper
of a ghost
of a vision
of rescue
to desperately grasp
and hold on for