Debate

I thought I was done talking about what happened in that nightclub when I told the story of the candle that's been burning in my heart for three decades. I flung those words out onto a page practically before the last strains of the requiem died, trying to give shape to my grief so that it could be dealt with. I almost succeeded.

I didn't see my son the day we gathered to voice the names of the dead. It's not an unusual occurrence; although he lives with me, he is an adult - a busy one at that. What was unusual was that he missed a moment of remembrance, especially one for LGBTQ+ people. When I saw him finally on Tuesday, I asked him where he'd been.

"Dad's house," he said.

"I saw the list. I couldn't read all the names."

My son came out to me as bisexual four years ago, on a bench by the sea. It was the middle of the night, very dark. He was nervous, shaking, couldn't meet my eyes. I asked him why he was scared, and he said, "I dunno. I just feel like it's something I'm not to supposed to be." I reminded him of the time when he was in third grade and he came home crying because another boy called him gay. That day, I had looked him in the eye and told him that the boy meant it as an insult, but it wasn't, because there was nothing insulting about who or how anyone loves. No one could dictate that, I had said, no one can tell you how you can love. The night my son came out, I was angry at the world that made him afraid to tell his mom that he had feelings he hadn't been taught to expect. I was angry at the world that made him think I would be angry at him for loving. No one can tell you who to love, I repeated. Not even me.

The day after the vigil, my son came to me at work and asked me to hold him. There had been fireworks in the night, he said, and he panicked, thinking they were gunshots. He was shaking, breathing too hard, holding too tight. The mother in me automatically soothed him as if he were small: "You're okay, little man. I've got you. You're safe."

He held me even closer and whispered, "Are we?"

He didn't mean me and him. 

He meant his sweet friend who is "them/him" to me and him and on social media, but who is "her" to their mom and their dad and their baby sister and to the university that made them sign a piece of paper promising not to be gay. He meant his musical theater teacher, who is wise and calm and the strongest man I've ever met - he can hold another full grown adult with one hand - and who just married the love of his life two summers ago. He meant his boss and her wife and their Latinx son. He meant the gawky blond 10 year old who planted himself next to his formless 5 year old self so they could share the illustrated story of the Nutcracker. He meant himself.

No, they are not safe. They are not safe. My queer son is not safe.

I keep seeing people saying that gun control is not the answer, and I keep wondering if they are being asked the same question. Yeah, there are a lot of ways that someone determined to hurt my kid could do it. But could they do it to a roomful of people like my son in seven minutes? What about a roomful of people like your child? - that happened, too, except most of the 24 people killed in minutes in Newtown couldn't even have hefted the gun the killer obtained legally, because they were actual children. Somewhere along the way, someone decided that the right to own a machine that was designed with the express purpose of ending another human's life took priority over HUMAN LIVES.

I am angry at the world that has told me to fear for my son's life. I am angry that it could be so easy for someone to take it. I am far, far angrier at those who refuse to make it just a little bit harder.