"I Am Always Remembering..."

A life-size dollhouse by artist Heather Benning, in Humboldt, Saskatchewan, Canada

"I want to go see this!"

I really do want to go see this life-size dollhouse... When saw these photos, it reminded me of Christmas 1972 when my little sister got a dollhouse. She didn't really think much of it, but I loved it. Probably one of my earliest OGTs! I loved playing with her dollhouse and I liked a lot of "boy things" too. Another thing I loved was model railroading. I had N-Gauge, HO-Gauge and of course Lionel trains and layouts when I was a boy, so the two came together quite quickly. By summer, I'd wired the dollhouse and electrified all the little lamps and light fixtures and it looked a lot like this life-sized dollhouse when I'd turn on its lights at night.

Yep, I was quite the young Thomas Edison in my youth. Always tinkering and building (or taking apart) something. Looking back I guess you could say I was a regular "Homotron," I was always going around "blowing fuses." That's a reference to a bad joke that made the rounds when I was at BEE (basic electricity and electronics) School in the Navy. It's funny how at this stage of life, you can see something random and suddenly it floods your mind with memories of things you haven't thought of in decades.

If Husband should ask me what I want for Christmas, you never know, I might surprise him and say, "Let's go see the dollhouse!"

"I am always remembering..."

"The Truth About Me..."

The year my sister got this, I was far more thrilled than she was

Christmastime always reminds me of my childhood and the things that influenced me and made me who I am. Toys I played with, films I watched and books I read all gave me escape from the unhappiness of realizing how different I was from other boys including my older brothers. I was a lonely child, even though my sister and I were only a year apart in age. My little sister was born in the midst of the women's liberation movement and although she had lots of girly toys, my mother didn't insist on her adhering to old gender stereotypes. She was happy enough letting me play with her toys if I let her play with my boy toys. The truth is I baked far more cakes and cookies in her Easy Bake Oven than she did. And as a result, I discovered that I liked cooking and baking. It was far more likely that I'd be the one in the kitchen helping our mother prepare meals. By the time I was 10, I could cook entire family meals with just a little help from my mother. No one in the family was surprised when I declared at 17, I wanted to be a pastry chef.

Yule Log I made for Christmas this year

Inside: chocolate sponge roll moistened with wild cherry brandy and filled with whipped cream

And of course, as a child it wasn't Christmas without the Rankin Bass stop motion Christmas specials.  My favorite character was the abominable snow monster, I could identify with him.  Like me, he was different, he was an outcast and in the end he redeemed himself and found acceptance... But even more significantly, I recognized early on that Rudolph's friend, Hermey the elf was a gay character. I think almost every gay kid realized this eventually.

Another thing about me that I now realize made me stand out as a weird kid was my love of old movies. Even before I was 10, I loved to watch old films from the 30s and 40s. I'd sit i front of the old black and white tv and cry at all the emotional points in the stories. I watched It's A Wonderful Life this weekend and it made me cry just like it did when I was a boy. I pretty much liked every genre of old films and I especially enjoyed British films. Just the other day, out of the blue, I remembered the intro of the J. Arthur Rank Organisation's films and how seeing them was a secret pleasure of mine as a boy... You've probably seen it, it's a muscular naked man striking a gong (talk about young gay boy fantasies, this was far better than anything on the men's underwear pages of the Sears catalog).

It's funny to think about all of this now, but clearly I was exhibiting all these OGTs* and nobody ever called me on it except my brother Darrell. I now think everyone else realized, but just chose not to question it. No wonder, that for the most part when I came out at 40, my family's reaction was pretty much, meh...

* OGT: Obviously Gay Trait

"It's Not So Funny..."

"The Truth Of My Life In Songs..."

This song is special to me for a couple of reasons... Firstly, because it reminds me of my late sister, Ora Jean. I have her original 45 of this song. When I found it still on the turntable of an old phonograph that had been collecting dust on a shelf in a corner of our basement about 50 years ago, I noticed that one side of the record had been played so much you could visibly see the wear and scratches made by many passes of the stylus. That worn out side was the "A-side" with Sam Cooke's "We're Having a Party."  So whenever I hear this, I'm reminded of my sister's joie de vivre and how she must've loved that song. She could miraculously find an exuberant happiness in the most mundane of everyday moments of life and living. I miss her terribly. 

But like that record, I seemed to have born on the other side of things... And like me, this song was on the hardly played "B-side." Somehow, from the first time I heard it, I knew that the lyrics of this song would speak to the precious desires of my own heart one day. Sam Cooke, backed by none other than the unmistakably brassy Lou Rawls pleads for a true love's return. 

"I Am Always Remembering..."

The beloved one is in mourning today, and all day long, I mourned with him.

I know what he must be feeling today. The loss of a beloved sister is a reminder of one's own mortality... I remember how it was for me, as it was just shortly after I was cast aside. I had returned home just in time to witness my dear sister's rapid demise and then her departure from this world of sorrows. And I remembered today how all of our few final talks were about my love for him.

When I was at my sister's funeral, I sat next to an open space on a back pew. In my heart, I was reserving a place for the beloved one beside me. And when it was time to approach for that last glance from this side of the veil, as I gazed upon the temporal remains of one so loved, I was trembling with grief at her open casket. And though no one was beside me, as I took that last look at the face I'd known and loved all my life, somehow, I felt his arm across my shoulders bearing me up in that moment of anguish and sorrow.

Isn't love a strange force in our lives...

I said to him this morning from across a void of many miles, and over the invisible connections of one heart to another, "Remember Dearest, She is not gone, she is just gone from our sight." Somehow, through whatever powers of the heart there are, I know he heard me.

I am always remembering, and my greatest fear is that I may not live long enough to forget.

"Happy Father's Day..."

Dad at 83 still working on the front page of the Sunday Detroit News and Free Press

Dad and shipmates somewhere in the Pacific, WWII

Dad, 10 days before I was born

Another gold watch from Ford, he got two, 25 Years and 50 Years

A prized possession in the Great Depression

Mom, Little Sister, and Dad at Brother's HS graduation

Big Brother and Dad at the Detroit Auto Show

Little Sister, Dad, Me and Big Brother - Dad's Birthday 1973

Little Sister, Dad, Me

Dad, Little Sister

Little Sister and Dad

Dad, a young man determined to make it... about 1940

Dad riding a bike at Russell Woods Park in 1959 - He made it!

Dad and Big Brother 1972

Mom and Dad Entertaining Friends

Mom and Dad - My Oldest Sister's Wedding Party 1975

Dad on Thanksgiving sometime in the early 1960s

Mom, Dad and my Older Brothers 1959

Dad with my Older Brothers

Dad and Older Brother, 1957

Dad giving his speech on retirement from Ford Motor Company after 65 years of service

Through the good and the bad, I could always say,

Thanks for being a great dad!

I love and miss you.

"I Am Always Remembering..."

I was thinking of my late sister this morning around 5:00 a.m.

She was one of those folks who would've started lining up around that time to get into one of these sales.  I never cared to chase a sale (and I usually had to work the day after Thanksgiving) and I can only remember being out once at the crack of dawn for something like this.

I miss you Ora Jean

"I Am Always Remembering..."

It's been nearly 20 years since I myself decided to accept the truth of my heart and then shared that truth with the one's I love.  It's been a long journey to self-acceptance and the freedom to be who I am.

If you wish, you can read about my journey in the posts below:

Coming Out... In The Beginning

Coming Out... The School Days

Coming Out... The Brothers

Coming Out... Dear Sister

Coming Out... The Missionaries

Coming Out... There's Something I Want To Tell You, Son

"Fear Eats the Soul"

"The Truth Of Remembering..."

It is a strange thing to grow older, to approach and then realize that one has arrived at the twilight years of one's life.  And yet, here am I.  I have known and experienced incredible and sometimes unthinkable changes in my life and in the world around me. And it was my discovery that nothing remains the same which I found to be the most shocking and hard to reconcile.

Sometimes I ponder the things that as a boy I marveled at, like the audacity of the WTC. And like it, there are myriad  and countless places and things that once I thought of as timelessly immortal, but which have now crumbled to ruin and disappeared before my very eyes.  My loved ones, including mother and father, siblings and others have preceded me in the final act of life, which is death... and the passing of the notables of my era have reminded me that there too shall I soon journey.

I've known both the unparalleled joys of love and the unbearable pains of heartache, with far too little of the former and far too much abundance of the latter, and yet a quiet still hope remains ever in my heart, even as I can nonetheless feel that same heart growing weaker by the day. And despite what I now find to be a strange hope for joy, melancholies wash over me each and every day, sometimes moving me to tears as I recount what might have been. And here in this corner of a realm that doesn't really exist,  I soldier onward, even leaving a record in words and images of the precious desires of my heart and of the fondest of hopes and dreams that still flood my thoughts and fill the pages of the annals of my mind.  

And so at this strange and unfamiliar time in my life, when the tide is leaving the shore, I am left each day to wonder as I wander in my journey and as I continue my inexorably march towards the sunset that so clearly reveals itself in the golden haze on my horizon, What was it all about?

"Fear Eats the Soul"

"Happy Gay Uncle's Day!"

Today is an unofficial holiday, but it's just as important to many people as Mother's Day and Father's Day.  Today is "Gay Uncle's Day."  According to Queerty, the second Sunday of August was first suggested as a day to celebrate gay uncles back in 2016, when Floridian, C.J. Hatter proposed it on Facebook.  Since then, the notion of a day to celebrate the contributions of gay uncles to the live of their siblings' children has gained traction in many quarters.  And, the reason for this is that many nieces and nephews will tell you that there is something amazing to be said for having a gay uncle(s) in your life.

Pretty much every family has had that "confirmed bachelor," you know, the one who never married (a fact everyone chooses to ignore, or at least not discuss), but who doted on his siblings children, showering them with love, support and gifts.  I was the "gay uncle" in my own family for the first 20+ years of my adult life, and true to the stereotype, I was like a second father to my sisters children.  In fact, this was so much the case, that my younger sister's two children learned to say "uncle" before they said "daddy" which was much to the chagrin of my brother in-law.  I had such an oversized influence on them because at the time they were born, my mother, sister and I all worked together in our family business and we cared for the little ones right there with us.  I'm sure I warmed more bottles and changed more diapers than their dad ever did.  My place in their lives was such, that when they did get around to learning "daddy" they were so convinced that if there was a man in their family, he had to be an "uncle!"  So at first their father was "Uncle Daddy" and their grandfather was "Uncle Granddaddy." Laughably, they were 3 and 4 years old before the confusion was cleared up.

As for me, like most gay men of my generation, I can recall many moments of stark reflection when I realized that raising children of my own wouldn't (and for the longest while couldn't) be possible.  And yet, from my own experience, I knew that just because I was gay (and even in deep denial of the fact), it didn't mean that I didn't have strong paternal instincts. I always dreamed of being a father from even my earliest days of boyhood. As a boy, and even as a young man, I always talked about getting married and raising a huge family (I used to tell people I wanted between 8 and 18 children!) I know my desire to become a parent was probably my strongest motivator to try to force myself not to be gay and led to my terrible mistake of marrying a woman for all the wrong reasons.  

Nevertheless, when my siblings married and began to have their children, I became a "super uncle," always ready to step up and help support them and their parents.  I'd look after the little ones on a moments notice and I came to love them almost as much as their parents did.  In-fact, in the case of my oldest sister's son, when she became widowed and he was still just a little boy, I became the man of her house as I taught him how to assume the role.  When he hit puberty, or should I say when puberty "hit him," as many a boy with raging hormones is want to do, he went off the rails behavior-wise and at my sister's pleading, I took him in and he lived with me for a year so I could "straighten him out" to quote his mother.  I'm proud to say it worked and he turned out to be a very decent fella I'm proud to say I helped raise.

Thankfully, and almost to my utter disbelief, the world changed enough that I was able to adopt a child of my own (my eldest son, Marvin who is now 39 with 3 children of his own) while I was still a single, closeted gay man.  And then later, when my son was in college, and after the death of my mother, I was finally able to find the courage to come out.  I even got married and my husband and I together adopted two children (Meechie is now 21 and married, and his brother Dustin is now 17).  And even though I got to know the joys of fatherhood first-hand, I'm still a super uncle to my nieces and nephews (who are now all grown up, and many are married) and they still seek me out for help, advice and support.

As I believe most gay men at some point in their lives do, I've often questioned, "Why me? Why am I the gay one?"  And having had the experiences I had, in many ways, I've come to believe I know the answer... To my mind, Nature's reason for us (gay people) is exactly this, we are here to lend a helping hand to our siblings in raising their offspring (who happen to share some of our own genes), and in the case of adoption, we're Mother Nature's safety net, we rear the offspring of those who can't, don't or won't, and thereby we're doing our part to perpetuate our species.  There is in-fact some scientific research that backs this conclusion.  If you're interested in learning more, read this article from... Association for Psychological Science, or an easier read... The Advocate: Study Supports Gay Super Uncles Theory

So, if you're reading this, there's a pretty good chance you're someone's favorite "gay uncle," so, 

"Happy Gay Uncle's (and Aunt's) Day" to us all!

 

"This Made Me Smile..."

Suzy Homemaker Toy Ad

1968

The funny thing is that my sister had a lot of these toys, but I was the one who wanted to play with them...

"This Made Me Smile..."

"The Whisper Of Truth..."

The Whisper app allows users in anonymity to share secrets.

"Fear Eats the Soul"

"And The Truth Shall Set You Free..."

This Gay Olympic Diver Will Never Surrender To Fear
Venezuela’s Robert Páez wants to inspire every gay man or woman to find their own acceptance.

Outsports.com
Robert Páez
April 3, 2018

I’ve been in sports since I was 7 years old. Growing up in Venezuela, I knew from a very young age that I was different, despite not knowing what exactly that meant.

It’s a difficult road, to know at a young age that we feel something that makes us believe we are not “right” in the eyes of society. Yet the truth is that if I was born that way, it was because God created me and he wanted it that way. When I finally came to believe that, that’s when I understood that I should accept with pride and courage what others called “mariconeria.”

I understood that this was and would be my truth forever, and my own self-acceptance was only in my hands. It was up to me whether I lived in happiness, or sank and lived in a lie that never would be.

I believe that I was born gay. As I got older I became more aware of it, and as I grew – like with so many others – it became my great dilemma. It was a source of worry that I was interested in things like dancing and fashion, things that in my culture were for women and gays. I shied away from doing many things. I was at times ashamed to go out into society, to face who I really was.

At age 15, while other kids were playing soccer and eating ice cream with girls, my mind was struggling with endless thoughts and questions. Little by little I realized that only I had my answers. Yet even as I found those answers, I worried about how my family would feel. What would my brothers say? How would my friends react? Or people out there watching me from the stands?

When I was 18 years old, I found the courage to open up to my mother. One day, after having competed for Venezuela in my first Olympics, I told her that I was in love.

”With a boy or a girl?” She asked.

Mothers know. My mom knew. She knew how to accept me as I was. And although she cried, and it hurt a little bit, in the end she took it very well.

When my older sister found it, she was great too.

“Let me know if you need high heels so you can borrow mine,” she said with love.

My three brothers all opened up their arms and their hearts to me. It didn’t matter to them if I was gay – They loved me no matter what.

I was afraid to come out to my father because he was a military man, and I thought he was going to reject me. He’s known about me for about a year now, and he accepted me for who I am.

Many times we as gay men, fearing who we really are, find a girlfriend to make our family believe that we are what they call a “real man.” I wish I could show other gay men that we are not deceiving anyone, but we are cheating ourselves of being faithful to who we are as people.

“Life is too beautiful to be hidden in a closet.”

In sharing my story, I hope to help make homosexuality as common of a word as heterosexuality. We have to read it, say it, and accept it with clarity and maturity. He have to understand that we are all equal. Being gay does not make us less as a man, or girls less as a woman. Being gay is not a disease.

Accepting ourselves and respecting ourselves are big first steps. Life is too beautiful to be hidden in a closet.

I always say to myself before I fall into a pool of water waiting meters below me, if something goes wrong I’ll get back on the diving board and try it again.

But I’ll never surrender.


Robert Páez competed in diving for Venezuela in the 2012 and 2016 Summer Olympics. He is on Twitter @RobertPaez9 and on Instagram @RobertPaez. He is also on Facebook.

Story edited by Cyd Zeigler and Javier Ruisanchez

"The Whisper Of Truth..."

The Whisper app allows users in anonymity to share secrets.

"Fear Eats the Soul"

"This Is The Truth Of Love..."

Woman Transforms Bert And Ernie Pop-Up Book Into Adorable Wedding Album For Gay Brother

Dan Avery
January 2, 2014


Blake Rehnberg, a.k.a. YouTube member Breakdownclown, posted a touching video detailing a photo album his sister put together in honor of their gay brother’s recent wedding. But it wasn’t just any album—it was made from an old Bert and Ernie pop-up book. (The irony is delicious.)

“My brother finally got the chance to marry the man of his dreams, my sister took every photo from the wedding and altered a Bert and Ernie pop-up book,” writes Rehnberg. “I made this video to show you that hard word from my siblings.” He finished his description by declaring that “family is those who show up when you need them.”

We have to admit it touched us. It also made us angry at our brother, who gave us a $20 Starbucks card for Christmas. But mostly it touched us.

And, in case you’re wondering, the song playing in the background is the LCAW remix of Sales’ “Renee”

******

This is love and acceptance

"Fear Eats the Soul"