letter to my grandfather

Dearest Grandpa,

I just watched a movie that I would have loved to discuss with you.
I do miss those post-Sunday meal debates you and I shared during my teens!
Mama and Grandma would hunker down in y'all's kitchen, neither of them quite believing the topics we had chosen!
My brothers were outside, young enough to not care about such things, old enough to know to get out of the house before they were assigned some chores - what a laugh!

One of the topics that came up several times involved issues around homosexuality.
Was homosexuality natural or was it a choice?
How did homosexuality fit in with Bible teachings?
Should homosexuals be allowed to marry?
Could homosexuals be just friends with people of the same sex?
Just what did homosexuality include? Transvestites, too?

I know Mama was the most surprised about our conversations.
You were still a traveling Southern Baptist minister when she was growing up.
As a preacher's first kid, she knew exactly what she was supposed to think, say, and do.
Clearly, as a former preacher's first grandkid, I was allowed - strike that, encouraged - to have differing opinions.
What was up with that?
(smile)

You've been gone for more than half my life now.
That's a real shame, it is.
I know you and my stepdad would have greatly enjoyed each other's company.
I still wish I could have told you goodbye in person instead of in a dream.
But I was in Okinawa and didn't even know you had been in the hospital until word came you'd died.
That was the early part of 1982.
I still remember the base chaplain calling me into his office - I didn't even attend the church on post.
But Mama had sent a cover letter to him, asking that he be there when I read the letter she'd written to me.
It's one of those crystallized moments in time, frozen forever in my memory.

Anywho, that's not the reason I'm writing after all this time, not at all.
As you know, my friends walk many paths, not necessarily the ones I trod, but certainly intersecting and sometimes even parallel.
I like that.
As you repeatedly told me, the only way to understand others is to talk to them.
I needed to break bread with people different from myself, and, in return, not only would I learn about them, but I'd learn more about myself.
And, as I know you know, I've taken that to heart, while in the Navy and beyond, and still try to keep my mind open at all times.
And so, some few months back, I discovered a new-to-me television channel that offered free movies and I've been taking advantage of it.
Some of the films, like "Misconceptions" and "Kiss The Bride", have a very diverse cast.
Others, like "Knife+heart" and "The Art Of Being Straight", are decidedly more narrowly focused.
No pun intended!
(smile)
As you have determined by now, the channel presents movies which include homosexuality, whether in cast or scope or some other context.
It's called HERE, as in "we're HERE, we're queer, get used to it".
I'm sure you're familiar with that bit of jingoism.
(smile)
So, remember how much I loved the Ellery Queen and Sherlock Holmes stories?
Well, tonight I've watched the second movie about this gay detective, Donald Strachey, the "most famous dick" in the town.
I knew you would get a kick out of that, being a Dick yourself.
(smile)
The first one I saw, "On The Other Hand, Death", had caught my attention with its zany title, but then kept me interested with a well-crafted story and strongly-drawn characters.
I had hoped there were more films with this character.
Tonight, I was pleased to find another!
That one had been in 2008, whereas the one I viewed tonight was made in 2005.
I don't think it mattered one whit to have seen them out of order.
"Shock To The System: A Donald Strachey Mystery" made sure I knew I was in for a treat -
and I most definitely was!
From the very first moments, when a mysterious young man hires the investigator, submitting a retainer but not yet giving him his quest... then the new client is found dead.
Was it an accidental overdose or a suicide attempt or was mayhem afoot?
Ding, ding, ding!
That third option!
As it turned out the young man was the poster boy for a local group that helped gays and lesbians deny their "self-identifying as homosexual" and "make the choice" to be heterosexual.
The director of the clinic and the poster boy had argued just before the death.
So, the detective went undercover - no, no pun intended - to find out if the business had anything to hide and what that might be.
To solve the case, then, Strachey had to pose as a gay man desiring salvation from the life he was currently living.
That brought up the question: when had he realized that he had made the change from heterosexual to gay in his own mental image?
After all, as the counselor at the center pointed out, no one is raised to be homosexual; every child is treated as heterosexual from infancy.
And so, all throughout the movie, the detective is struggling with that question, both for his undercover character and for himself.
And I realized, at the movie's end, how that question still echoed.
That's when I realized I would have liked to have one of our discussions about it.
I miss you, Grandpa.
your first granddaughter,
me