Come home.
I thought I would do a little something different…the file below is an audio version of this blog. I figure if I am going to tell my stories…I should use my voice too. Let me know what you think! If you are not interested in listening, then scroll down to read the post.
I was a teenager in the age before mobile phones. If I needed to communicate with my parents, then I had to find a phone and call them. So, if I wanted to hang out with friends after work, then I would call to let Mom and Dad know that I would be home late. If I wanted to go grab a bite to eat or go to a friend’s house after the high school dance, then I had to find a phone and call them. If the return trip from the band competition or speech tournament was taking longer than expected, then I had to find a phone and call them.
Here is how that process almost always worked.
I would dial our home number.
My Dad would answer the phone with the following words - “Come home.”
I would say, “Can I talk to Mom.”
He would say, “It’s Will.” And he would wake my Mom and tell her I was on the phone.
Mom would say, “Hey baby, are you ok?”
I would say, “I am fine. Just wanted you to know that I am going to hangout with some friends for awhile and then I will be home.” Generally I gave her an estimated time.
Mom would say, “Ok. Just be safe.”
I would say, “I will.”
She would say, “Love you.”
I would say, “Love you too.”
We would hang up.
For the record...not only was this the time before mobile phone, but it was also the time before caller id. So Dad had no way of knowing who was calling. But his first words were always, “Come home.”
Before recognizing that this would be the routine, I would attempt to respond to my Dad’s “Come home” with an explanation of what was happening and why I was calling. And he would say...”Come home.” I figured out pretty quickly that I needed to ask for Mom.
At the time, I thought it was just my Dad being grumpy and/or controlling. Then that thinking evolved to the idea that he was just asleep and it was his auto-pilot response. After all, he almost never even remembered that I had even called during the night.
After I left home for college, it was the same story. Sometime I would call after Dad had gone to bed and his response was always the same - “Come home.”
It was funny...by college it would make me giggle. “Come home” - as if I was going to quit living my college life and come home!
I don’t remember the exact timing, but at some point early in my college career I remember sitting around the table with Mom and Dad and we began talking about how Dad answered the phone at night. We laughed.
Then Dad said, “It is just that I want all of my kids at home. I sleep better knowing the three of you are here. I am just never completely at ease unless I have all of you here under the same roof.”
Again, I laughed. How silly, right?!
I remember shortly after this conversation that I realized what he was saying. My Dad would never again be completely at ease now that I was gone. It would be the rare occasion for him to have me, my sister, and my brother under the same roof at the same time. And it made me sad. All he needed to be peaceful was his three children at home.
It made me sad...and it changed the relationship I had with my father.
We had a tough relationship during those teen years. I never felt he was proud of me. I wasn’t athletic like my brother. I was involved in school activities that he did not understand. I was a hard-headed, strong-willed, VERY outspoken child...I would argue with anyone about anything at anytime. I was pretty much always looking for a good fight. Especially with my Dad.
The truth is, I thought that if he ever knew who I really was, he would hate me. I was deeply flawed...I was built wrong...I was a sissy.
My father was the opposite of a sissy. He was strong...a man’s man. He had left his home to join the Air Force as a teen. He was a baseball player. He traveled the world in the Air Force. He flew refueling planes over Vietnam. He was a strong Christian, a man of deep faith. I knew I would never be any of those things, do any of those things...he would be ashamed of me.
I remember coming home after a “Meet the Rebels” event - an event where the band played and the football team and cheerleaders were introduced to a stadium full of parents, teachers, and fellow students - he met me outside the front door. This had been a rough one. When my name was announced as Drum Major, the football team started shouting ugly things at me. Some students in the stands did too. He met me outside the door and he was visibly upset.
“Do you know why they say those things about you? Do you know why they did that?”
I interpreted his tone as accusatory. I told him I had no idea. And actually, I didn’t know for sure. I wasn’t out in High School. But I was the sissy kid. I did not play sports...I was in band...I was on the Speech and Debate team...my best friends were all girls. And I had been called names since kindergarten. They had ALWAYS made fun of me...teased me...bullied me. It was just a regular part of any given day at school. I mean, I know on the inside they were right about me. I never did figure out why they felt the need to harass me all the time. But it had become a part of the expected experience.
After I told him that I had no idea...he stormed back into the house. And slammed the door behind him. Which was pretty unusual behavior for him.
As I said, I interpreted the whole experience as accusatory. A new level of fear was introduced to my life. He knew. And it was only a matter of time before I was kicked out...or ignored...or confronted. What was I going to do? Where would I go?
Later that same year there was an episode of 21 Jump Street that focused on a boy who was HIV positive. They never came right out and said he was gay...but it was implied. I remember Johnny Depp’s character drank some milk from the boy’s milk carton at lunch. It was a big deal that this issue was being talked about on TV.
When the show was over, we had all gone to bed. I couldn’t get comfortable. I knew it was time to tell them.
I went to their room.
I said “You know that guy on the show tonight?”
And my father said something along the lines of - they are sick...shouldn’t be allowed in school...etc. I can’t remember exactly what he said. I was already shaking like crazy and freaking out. What I do remember exactly is that I decided in that moment that I would never come out. I would forever hide the truth and just figure out how to manage it. I responded “Yeah...that is what I thought too.” And I went back to my room.
I cried myself to sleep that night.
Many, many, MANY years later, it was my Dad who asked my Mom to ask me if I was gay. My marriage had fallen apart, I was trying to raise two kids...and I had dropped in for a visit. Dad was not home...found out that was planned. She asked me...and I said yes. I completely broke down.
My Mom cried too...but not for the reasons I though she would. She said they were both so worried about me...that they wanted me to be happy...and that being gay didn’t matter at all to them. I remember asking “Are you sure that Dad is okay with this?” She assured me that he was.
I didn’t see my Dad during that visit. I think it was a few days later. But I remember what happened.
When I came through the door...he got up and came right to me. He wrapped his arms around me and we cried. And he kept telling me that he loved me. He just kept saying it.
I wish I was more eloquent. I wish I could come up with words that would accurately describe how years and years of fear and anxiety just pulled out of my body. How for the first time I was being held in my father’s arms as my true self. The relief I felt, the sadness for every other embrace from which I held something back, the excitement of starting new with him. It was a barrage of every emotion. It was intense.
Now, back to “Come home...”
I have two children. I love them very much. And it was the combination of coming out and having kids that helped me to understand “Come home.”
When my children laugh...I feel it. There is something that is connected to me. When they laugh I can actually feel this tugging sensation in my chest.
When my children cry...I feel it. Some part of me breaks. It never completely heals. There is scar tissue left behind.
When my children are away from me, the feeling that I have forgotten something, that something is not quite in place...that feeling intensifies.
My children are adults now. They have their own lives. And I get these crazy, intense urges to summon them home. No reason...it doesn’t even make sense. I just need them with me. I could be watching television, or reading a script, or sitting on a plane, or having breakfast, or day dreaming. Suddenly there is this panic that if I can’t see them, touch them, hear them, that I am going to spiral right off the planet.
I get it, Dad. “Come home.”
I know they can’t come running to me. I know that what I am experiencing is irrational, impractical, unrealistic. But the heart overrides the brain sometimes.
I love my Dad. He has come along on this crazy ride that is my life...always there. Never fully understanding, but always there.
He loves me too. And after all these years, writing those words causes tears to stream down my face. He knows me...and he loves me.
I am going to call my kids now. And when they answer I am going to say, “Come home.”
Just sayin’
