Story #211

When I came out to my parents, it was right after my marriage ended and I was sitting in a car 4,000 miles away, crying like a baby. As a 38-year-old man, I felt like a kid telling my parents the worst news ever… now they’d reject me for sure. My mom cried but quickly explained that she cried about the fact that she’d failed as a mom in not having recognized the obvious pain as I suffered in silence and how she didn’t see it. My dad (who is a macho Italian-American) said, a little perplexed, “Son, why are you crying? You are my son, and I love you unconditionally.”