Vowing to Feel Again
1986: When Jean left, I vowed never to feel that pain again, and haven’t been intimate since. I embraced drag: the annual Miss Fire Island Pageant, my friend Raven’s weekly La Cage show, more. Leaving Manhattan, I still returned to compete in Fire Island (24 times and counting). After reconnecting last year, Raven came to see me, then drove me to the airport. I smoked. Raven admonished me to see a doctor. “Promise?” Instantly, after 38 years, I realized someone cared. Doctors found lung cancer. Raven’s insistent “Promise?” might well have saved my life. It certainly has revitalized my heart. — Michael Givler
My Sister’s Gift
Every evening, my father texts me updates about my nephew’s doings. Rion is his first and only grandchild, and I’ve read about his love for grapes as thoroughly as about his genius. “He is my star,” my father texted me once as I struggled to rise from bed for a meeting. I save each message. Last year, my father, Joseph, almost died. He turned 70 on New Year’s Day, a small freezing gathering that ended with Rion in his arms. I am grateful to my sister for many things, but mostly, I am grateful to her for giving him this. — Howard Meh-Buh
Daily Dignities
Jen walks into work, gold hair in pigtails, and I say: “Jen, I love your pigtails. You are so beautiful.” Later she tells me how a customer came in, ordered coffee and told her those pigtails looked good for yanking in the bedroom. She’s not that upset. Similar indignities happen every day. It’s I who wants to cry. How dare he? She doesn’t ask to be comforted; I hold her in my arms anyway. We keep working. She puts on my favorite song. I make her a sandwich. If someone were to ask, I’d say that this, this is womanhood. — Thea Talamhan
Her Pair of Old Converse
My daughter’s Converse sit by the front door. She forgot them seven years ago when she left small town life in Sedona to go live in the big city of Phoenix. When my husband and I moved to Las Vegas, I brought her Converse with us and put them back by the door. Should she need them, her shoes will be right where she left them, along with my open arms. A mother’s love stretches with the distance of a daughter’s decision to make her life elsewhere. The shoes might no longer fit, but they’ll always mark where home is. — Mesa Fama
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