THAT TIME MY BOOK WAS BANNED

It wasn’t a library. It wasn’t a school district. It wasn’t a bookstore. 

 

No, it was my sister-in-law.

 

It happened eighteen years ago, but I only remembered this yesterday. I’m good at repressing. Family matters can baffle me. I don’t like being baffled. But then, I also don’t like being banned.

 

The book, Fouling Out, is my only one to be published…so far. I keep knocking on agents’ doors and they keep turning out the lights and pretending no one’s home. To be clear, I don’t go door-to-door, throughout Brooklyn and Manhattan, my manuscripts resting in crisp manila folders in each hand. Yes, I’m pitching two novels at present while abandoning hope on a third. I email agents in the manner set forth on their websites. I wonder how long it takes them to clear their new messages. I picture agents sitting side-by-side in cubicles, opening up emails and pressing the delete button like it’s a duel, like it’s preparation to be contestants on Family Feud. It feels like the old days of online dating. I just need one to love me…or my work, at least. Alas, neither manuscript is set in a dystopian amusement park and involves queer body horror. (Yes, that’s “of particular interest” to the agent I thought of emailing this morning. I don’t think my funny, sometimes hapless, relatable main character navigating the West Hollywood gay scene technically includes body horror even if there is a certain scene that would qualify in my mind at least.)

 

Fouling Out, published by Orca Books once upon a time (i.e., 2008) is a middle grade novel which means the target audience is kids in grades four through seven. I was at the family cottage when my sister-in-law informed me that she’d read the book but wouldn’t let my niece or nephew read it. They were both in or around the targeted age group and I tried my best not to show that her matter-of-fact announcement felt like a gut punch. I’ve only seen my niece and nephew a handful of times in my life. When my brother’s family lived in North Carolina, I was in Los Angeles; when they returned to Texas, I moved to Vancouver. Our lives and locations felt worlds apart.

 

I’d been excited about the prospect of my niece and nephew reading my book. I hoped they’d get a kick out of knowing their uncle was a published writer. I thought they might get a better sense of me based on my humour, my storytelling and my connection to kids’ perspectives. (I was an elementary teacher when I wrote it and a principal by the time it came out.) But, no. The book was not available to them. I feel my own sense of horror imagining my sister-in-law telling them their uncle’s book was off limits. Like my work was chock full of sex, gore and gratuitous drug usage. Like I bashed puppies. Like I overtly promoted my vegetarian lifestyle. (That might have caused a sweeping book ban across the entire state of Texas.)

 

The intention of my novel, which features two grade seven boys, was to portray young male characters with expressed feelings while dealing with real challenges. (Sorry, no zombies or vampires. No empires in peril due to a deep-seated conflict between Starman and his evil nemesis.) I wanted to show that reputations embedded at thirteen could be undone. Boys had the power to be better.

 

One of my writing challenges was realistically portraying one of the characters who was seen as an obnoxious bully by his peers. My publisher did not allow any profanity. A bully who doesn’t swear? (I guess they had an idealistic view of how twelve- and thirteen-year-olds talk.) I wonder how many times I had to resort to “He swore” in lieu of actually dialogue. It’s been a while since I perused the book, but I hope I refrained from using, “Oh, fudge” and “Shootsy.”

 

To be sure, the book included some dicey issues like racism, family abuse and homelessness. Early in the book, one character fires a gun but a squirrel is spared due to the quick action of his buddy. Only a window in an unoccupied house is harmed.

 

My sister-in-law said nothing about racism, abuse or the use of a gun. (Why would someone from Texas have any issue about guns anyway?) Instead, her problem was with the language in the book. 

 

I was dumbfounded. Had my editor and I missed a swear word despite multiple readings during the editing process? Had I unknowingly chosen a word that has a derogatory meaning in slang? Had the printer slipped in some offensive phrase? (Backwards, the darn trickster!)

 

No. Up until that moment, I’d been proud of my writing and the word choices I’d made. My editor was a top-notch wordsmith who knew which passages and plot points needed revision. I loved that her job was to point things out while leaving all the rewriting to me.

 

As far as I know, shopping at
Walmart on a Sunday is okay...
even in Texas.

What my sister-in-law objected to was the fact that I had apparently written “oh, my god” once or twice in the 168-page manuscript. In her mind, I’d taken the Lord’s name in vain. I’d broken a commandment. Not murder, not adultery, not coveting my neighbour’s wife. But still a commandment. It’s funny because, for the most part, I don’t swear. It’s even rarer that I take the Lord’s name in vain. I say “gosh,” “oh, my gosh” and “gosh darn it.” I’m an atheist, but I still consciously opt for “gosh” because I was raised with an awareness of the commandments…even though they weren’t yet legislated to be posted on classroom walls when I was going to high school in Texas. I don’t recall being in a quandary when I typed, “Oh, my god” as part of a line of dialogue from one of my characters. I’m certain it fit the context—say, after the gun went off—and it fit the character’s age and way of thinking. As a stickler, I don’t even view lowercase god is sacrilege. When one chooses to use the word as something other than a proper noun, I think this distinguishes the word as something ordinary rather than religious.

 

But I’m defending my word choice too much. Let’s say the commandment was specifically spat upon to cause a stir and to out myself as an egregious sinner. It may come off as blasphemy, but I don’t believe each commandment is equal. This might be an appropriate time to admit that I questioned that whole ark tale, too. I always wondered how big an ark would have to be to get all the animal pairs aboard. And didn’t they get hungry during the forty days and forty nights? Wouldn’t a lion or tiger have eaten the zebras and the antelope? What about the rest of the food chain examples I’d learned about (and been disturbed by) in elementary science class? 

 

It would seem to me that, if my sister-in-law was so duly offended—and I have no doubt that, as a devout Southern Baptist, she was—she could have scribbled through the reference(s) or, better, used it/them as a teachable moment. Your uncle may have been good enough to be a published author—ONCE—but let’s review the commandments, shall we?  

 

Alas, it wasn’t even worth a teachable moment. God comes before some rarely seen uncle—a heretic, no less. My niece and nephew were home-schooled. One attended Baylor, a Baptist university; the other went to Letourneau, an evangelical Christian school. Shelter and protect thy children was probably one of the principles at play regarding their education but I am absolutely certain they were exposed to swearing, sexual references and, yes, “oh, my god” many times at school, in shopping malls and at parks. The world doesn’t always conform. 

 

But I guess the idea was control what you can and so my book was banned. I suppose I repressed this because it breaks me more than a little bit when I think of it. My book was studied in many classrooms. It had a place on many school and public library shelves. I’m proud that every print copy was sold, the publisher turned a profit and the book can now only be accessed as an ebook. Still, there’s a part of me that would have loved it if my niece and nephew had been proud of me, too. Gosh golly, if and when one of those evasive agents takes on one (or more!) of my manuscripts and successfully woes a publisher, my niece and nephew will be sure to pass. I will never write a cleaner novel than Fouling Out. 

 

Maybe it’s a good thing they’ve had such little exposure to me. There are things beyond books they would surely find objectionable. I’ve heard that some authors come to view book banning as a badge of honour but, considering how close to home this incident was, I’m not going to get there. I don’t feel shame, but I find myself shaking my head a lot. Time to repress it for another couple of decades.

RE-ENTERING THE RED ZONE

There’s an unofficial understanding that, as a Canadian, I am not supposed to be travelling in the United States. I have a few friends who have refused to cross the border for many years, probably dating back to Trump’s first term as president. To them, the U.S. seems like a scary place or, at least, a place that is extremely foreign compared to Canada where citizens seem to be considerably more tolerant of differences and much less inclined to discuss political opinions. We express our views at the voting box (or via mail-in ballots), not loudly at a table at a local café. The “unofficial” avoidance of going to the U.S. officially began around the time of Trump’s second term when he started taking pot-shots at Canada, stating it should be the 51^st state and rushing to impose tariffs on one of what are traditionally the closest allies of the U.S.

 

A year and a half later, Trump still occasionally mentions the 51^st state thing to rile Canadians, distract Americans and be a commonplace menace. Many Canadians continue to choose other countries to visit.

 

I don’t have a choice. I go to the U.S. because I lived there for sixteen years from 13 to 30. My family continues to live in Texas and Colorado. I’m the only one who decided to return to Canada. My boyfriend, whom I met in Seattle in 2022 during Biden’s presidency, also lives in the U.S., currently Colorado as well. I’ve viewed visiting American friends as a luxury and have thus avoided trips to Boston, Cedar Rapids, Tulsa and Los Angeles, but I will not end my relationship with Evan just because Americans put Trump back in the White House. A president will not be the end of us. So, yes, hello again, Colorado.

 

It used to be that my parents would fly to Vancouver to visit me and I would fly to the family cottage in Ontario to fit in a second visit with them. But all that changed a couple of years ago. My parents, now eighty-six and eighty-nine, are done with navigating airports and flying places. They also can’t handle the altitude in Colorado so they’ve stopped visiting my sister and their granddaughter here. 

 

In order to see them, I must do so on American soil. I can no longer avoid entry to Texas. This is an early Father’s Day visit, five days in completely air-conditioned spaces because outside temperatures rest in the thirties (in Celsius, not that Texans or Coloradans or other Americans, for that matter, know anything about that scale). Basically, it’s going to be very, very hot for the entire time I’m there so I’ll find “relief” immersed in very, very cold artificial indoor conditions. 

 

Oh, if only temperatures were the only significant adjustment for this Canadian.

 

My parents voted for Trump in 2016, 2020 and 2024. My mother purports to be an “Independent” but, when I ask if she’s ever voted for a Democratic candidate for president in the forty-eight years she’s lived in the U.S., the answer is no. (She did once vote for third-party hopeful Ross Perot.) 

 

Over the years, we’ve had some heated phone calls when anything political comes into conversation. I think the only issues we’ve ever agreed on are gun control and Queen Elizabeth II had ugly purses. There is no other common ground. 

 

This wouldn’t be so problematic but for the fact my parents are news junkies. When I step out of the guest bedroom in the morning, a news program is on. It may well have already been playing for an hour and it will continue for at least another hour. I sit in a chair in the living room, ostensibly to be social, biting my tongue every time either parent adds their own commentary about the news. I have a rebuttal at the ready, but I’ve learned it’s better to search for new Instagram followers instead and “like” the latest photos from Lake Bled in Slovenia and the striking landscapes of the Lofoten Islands in Norway.

 

All is well as my parents step out onto the balcony for breakfast and I take my rental car to a local café to write, the one with a biblical quote from Luke taking up a whole wall. 

 

Evenings are dicier. My parents tune in for another hour of news, first on Fox News—yep, that network—and then on CBS. My mother always chimes in about fairness of Fox, especially when it comes to her favoured news anchor, Bret Baier. Typically, I sit through one Fox newscast per visit. I’m genuinely curious about what biases it is feeding my parents. (The days of unbiased news coverage officially died when Trump first campaigned for president, the final nail in the coffin coming when Kellyanne Conway repeatedly talked straight-faced of “alternative facts.”)

 

After my first sit-through of Fox News, I retreat to the bedroom for subsequent broadcasts of the evening news. I read the news as presented by CBC (the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) and scan the headlines on CNN’s website. I’m as up on the news of the day as much as I want to be. 

 

Given our striking differences in almost everything political, my parents and I have reached an unofficial détente whereby we don’t engage when one of us expresses a political view. This came to be a few years ago during my parents’ last trip to Vancouver. As I popped up to my parents’ room after dinner in the hotel restaurant, my mother stepped into the bathroom and, by the time she stepped out, my father and I were yelling at one another, my father insisting that Hunter Biden was wholly relevant to the assessment of Joe Biden’s presidency. I was incensed that he would see things that way and he was equally incensed that I didn’t.

 

After decades of no-win political disputes, enough was enough. Under no circumstances would my parents change my opinions and the same applied to my own impassioned arguments. The impasse would always be. 

 

The dynamics can be tricky in a newsy household as it’s two against one during my visits. I tell myself that, when my parents express a political view, they are conversing with one another, not me. I don’t ask them to turn off the news or to even watch a little less. I will always be the guest now on visits. It’s their home. They have their own habits and make their own choices about how to be informed and entertained.

 

It's only five days. I’ve got this. 

I'M A BIG KID NOW

I’m fifty-seven. This week I finally became an adult. 

 

Always was a late bloomer.

 

For the most part, I’ve been acting like someone beyond adolescence for a few decades now, but there was always one realm where I was thirty going on thirteen and, eventually, fifty-seven going on thirteen. Even teen me knows that’s messed up growth.

 

I’m often told I look young for my age[1] but, to be clear, I don’t resemble an adolescent. Those whiskers that sprout when I can’t be bothered shaving are decidedly gray. TikTok is still the sound of an old-fashioned grandfather’s clock. I haven’t had the urge to get drunk just because it’s Friday night since…well, that’s never been an urge on any night or day. In some ways, I was an old soul even when I was a teen.

 

Despite my age, I can still be childish. Sometimes I think it’s a good thing, like when I can’t stop peeking out the window to see if the forecast might come true and snow may fall. (It came this week! I raced outside to play, desperate to jump and spin like the dogs who seemed to think snow was almost as nifty as the chewed-up tennis ball that, sadly, rolled behind the fridge two weeks ago and has yet to be rescued or replaced.) I still think “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer” is the best show in the whole wide world and I wouldn’t hesitate to do a cannonball off the cottage dock if my sister were lying there getting some sun.[2]

 

Ah, family. That’s where the bad side of adolescence can pop up. There’ve been other domains that have induced immaturity, but I’ve been able to walk away from them.

 

The silver lining in never having children—something I always wanted—is that I don’t have an ex whom I have to continue communicating with to discuss and inevitably disagree on parenting issues and, somewhere down the line, meeting later in life for our child’s wedding, posing awkwardly in one of those family shots with the weary photography shouting, “Smile! Look happy! Cheese! Ricotta, Parmigiano Reggiano and all that!” 

With exes, I can choose which ones to maintain a relationship with and which ones to relegate to the category, Things I’m Glad Are in the Past. Yes, that’s you, John, last known to be in Phoenix. You may join Cabbage Patch Kids, the Reagan years and debates over Debbie Gibson versus Tiffany. (Why couldn’t I like both?)[3]

 

Unfortunately, I can’t put my family in the past. I’ve put an international border between us, but the ties remain, however tenuous. I know I’m not the only one who still gets triggered when interacting with parents. I immediately regret my behavior after the conversation. Sometimes I feel it in the moment. Why am I acting so petulant, so juvenile? Why can’t I stop it? 

 

Thirteen again. The fact that this round comes without zits is no consolation.

 

Not being a parent, I don’t fully know the process, but I suspect that, in the moments after a child is born, there are two official documents that are drawn up. Of course, there’s the birth certificate, one that is officially passed on to the child when the parents deem him responsible enough to hold onto it. (I took possession of mine just before I turned thirty. Such a big boy!) I can’t confirm it, but I’m pretty sure there’s a more secretive second paper given to members of Club Parent. I picture it as pearl white card stock with gold lettering, a lifelong permit: 

 

Having successfully participated in Lamaze classes, given birth to a baby and committed to painting the nursery in gender-stereotyped hues, you hereby have full permission to push said baby’s buttons, at will, in perpetuity.

 

Some parents, such as mine, treat this permit with particular reverence. They misread “permission” as “obligation.” It doesn’t show up on any X-ray, but I think I was born with an excess of buttons. The triggers are different from that period in the last century when we all lived under the same roof and I spent most of my time holed up in my room, showing my rebelliousness by cranking up Donna Summer and Air Supply. But there’s always new material.

 

“Going to church might do you some good, you know.”

 

“You have to be nice to me. I’ll be dead soon.”

 

“Texas has COVID totally under control. What’s wrong with Canada?”

 

Almost all triggers are pulled by my mother. That’s because I only talk to my father when the calendar obligates a phone call, mercifully spaced six months apart: Father’s Day and his birthday which happens to be Christmas Eve. 

 

I’m officially declaring myself a full-fledged adult this week after navigating the birthday call with exemplary social skills. It’s been a few days and I can’t recall a single thing we said to each other but therein lies the proof. No huffing, no puffing, no churlish sigh, no statement or action/reaction akin to a cathartic door slam, followed by me cranking up “Bad Girls.”[4]

 

We talked just like two people who really don’t know each other all that well, like I might talk to Wally in accounting while queued for the eggnog bowl at the office Christmas party. (Tipsy Tracey is a tad shaky with the ladle.) The subjects were safe—that, in and of itself, is a sign of wisdom that comes with age—the tone unwaveringly cordial.

 

My mother is who she is. My father is who he is. I’ve stopped trying to point out how they’re wrong…about politics, about the fact that depression doesn’t go away by smiling more, about how tricky it really is to get my unpublished manuscript on Oprah’s Book Club list. (Wouldn’t it be nice if my mother were actually correct on that last point!) 

 

My mother will continue to land a half dozen once-maddening, naïve and/or condescending “You should…” or “Why don’t you just…” pokes in every conversation and my father may still drop a shockingly intolerant bomb or two, but part of getting past my teens is that I don’t have to work so hard at establishing my independent identity (i.e., “I’m nothing like you!”) when I’m baited. I’ve realized that, by now, it goes without saying. I am who I am, too.

 

So there it is. Goodbye to thirteen. Now I’ll stick with pretending I’m fifty-seven going on thirty-five. If I cover the mirrors, I can still find a make-believe world in adulthood.

    

---

[1] It’s happening so much less though. I’m holding onto a comment from a doctor I met with in the fall who was startled by my age and said I looked twenty years younger. Yes! But then, we were the same age and, well, I thought he looked twenty years older. Of course, I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t want him telling me I was going to die…and not on account of some underlying disease.

[2] She wouldn’t appreciate it—which would be the whole point—but skin cancer runs in the family. I would tell her it was an act of kindness.

[3] Force me to choose and it’s Debbie. She had me at “Only in My Dreams” and hasn’t been able to shake my love since. Aw, Tiffany…what Could’ve Been.

[4] Donna’s “beep beep” is way more satisfying than The Roadrunner’s, right?

CHICKEN SQUAWK

I received considerable feedback on Twitter and on the blog after posting “A Game of Chicken” on Friday.  The comments are so greatly appreciated as I have had no one to talk with about this issue.  I invite you to read the post, but here it is in a nutshell: 

I learned from a Facebook entry that my brother’s family attended “Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day” and I wondered what my response should be.  Ultimately, I decided to leave well enough alone.  I would not be able to enlighten them and my mother, caught in between, would be the one to internalize the family rift.  Not worth it.

I thought blogging about the matter would help me move on.  How naïve.  I let things fester.  Ignoring the issue was not the answer.

I logged back into Facebook.  Foolish move.  Like peeking under a Bandaid to be icked out all over again.  My chest tightened again.  My sister-in-law’s previous entry was a call out for chair donations for her church.  I thought of writing, “Ask Chick-fil-A.”  It made me smile, but I refrained.  I returned to the inciting entry:  “only too happy to support them again today!” 

Enough! I thought.  I have put up with this for twenty-four years since my brother met this woman and he became an extreme Baptist.  My family has quietly tiptoed around my brother and sister-in-law all this time.  My mother gets mad when I count the “God” references in their annual Christmas newsletter.  (I am not exaggerating when I say God makes dozens of appearances.)  We all felt homeschooling their children would create a sense of isolation and deny the kids chances for social interaction, exposure to diversity and opportunities in sports.  (My niece knits.  My nephew plays piano.  They both participated in State Bible Drill competitions.) 

I once tried to bond with my sister-in-law, striking up a conversation after seeing her reading a book.  “Christian mysteries are my favorite,” she said.  Yes, apparently it is a genre.  I suppressed a wave of sarcastic thoughts and poured myself a rum and Coke as my mother frowned at me.  We’re not supposed to drink in front of them.  Don’t let them think of our Episcopalian family as heathens.

But, the thing is, we are heathens in their eyes.  I am, for sure.  Any recitation of my good deeds would be pointless.  Hell awaits.

Why is it that they can live so openly as they believe and I, to spare the family, must shield them from a basic part of who I am?  Family harmony is a complete sham.  I have avoided contact with my brother and his family.  Maybe I am being unfair.  I have made my own assumptions.  I have withheld the truth.

I typed a Facebook reply:  “This hurts so much.”  I stared at the screen, hands shaking.  Yes, I can be very melodramatic.  I erased the words.  Why make a public statement on my sister-in-law’s account?  Instead, I emailed my brother.  The text follows:

Hi Brother’s Name,

I read sister-inlaw's Facebook post about going to Chick-fil-A and I am shattered. To be fair, I have never officially come out to you, but it should come as no surprise. That your family should be against gay marriage is also no surprise.
 
Sometimes I think things were much better before the days of Facebook. I do not need to know certain things and I didn't feel you needed to either. After reading the comment, however, I cannot let you pretend that you do not have a gay brother. So sorry that I do not fit within your "family values", but I am who I am. I do not need your prayers or any talk of loving the sinner, hating the sin. I got enough of that living in Texas and that's a big reason why I left.

The rest of the family knows I am gay. You should, too. However you choose to regard that is your own decision.
 

The message was sent Friday afternoon.  More than forty-eight hours later, I have received no reply.  I don’t expect one.  Still, I am glad I spoke up.  I am tired of assumptions and censoring myself.

I did not attend Pride celebrations in Vancouver today.  I don’t need to.  A stronger sense of pride lives within me.

A GAME OF CHICKEN

I suppose I boycotted chicken establishments twenty-seven years ago.  KFC, Popeye’s, Chick-fil-A,...it doesn’t matter.  I have never wavered since deciding to become a vegetarian.

Chickens, however, have become political pawns.  The outcry isn’t over how they are raised.  Instead, a chicken chain is the latest battleground for gay marriage.  Who’da thunk? (And wouldn’t “Church’s Chicken” have seemed the more likely proselytizer?)

Corporations have been making increasing forays into social politics.  Indeed, many have come out as gay friendly.  Sometimes it is a basic employment decision.  If the company is big enough and extends benefits to same sex partners, it is a newsmaker.  Some go further, participating in Pride celebrations and sponsoring other GLBT endeavors.  I have always applauded when corporations take a political stand—a human rights stand, if you will.  When they take the right stand (er, LEFT stand), of course.

It should come as no surprise that a corporate head should have a different opinion than me.  Chick-fil-A is a Georgia-based company, founded by a devout Southern Baptist.  The business is not open for business on Sundays.  Its express corporate purpose is, in part, "To glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us."  (If chickens could talk.)

I am not shocked that company President and COO Dan Cathy recently publicly stated he supports “traditional family” and warned that “we are inviting God's judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at Him and say, 'We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage.  I pray God's mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we have the audacity to define what marriage is about."

Ah, yes, let the chicken wars begin.  In the comfort of an enlightened Canada, however, I thought I would watch from the sidelines, shaking my head at the Biblical wrath and quietly lauding the mayors, activists and average LGBT members who speak out and change their chicken sandwich habits.

But then I logged into Facebook this morning and things changed.  It got personal.  One friend from Texas had posted something about long lines at Chick-fil-A and ultimately going to Wendy’s instead.  Long lines at Chick-fil-A?!  Well, maybe in Texas, I thought.  I’d read that the company’s consumer approval rating had dropped dramatically.  But why would my friend even go to that restaurant?!  Her sister is a lesbian.  Corporate values or chicken cravings trumped real family values.

A gay friend in Boise posted something about a Kiss-in to counter Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day.  Both actions predictable.  I smiled as I envisioned same sex couples passionately French kissing.  I imagined the response:  loss of appetite, loud prayers, references to Hell and “hating the sin, loving the sinners.”

And then I saw my sister-in-law’s post.  “Chick-fil-A for supper before church tonight. Only 25 minutes in line plus 30 minutes to get food, and such a spirit of joy and happiness with the beyond max occupancy crowd! Chick-fil-A has long been a favorite of mine, so only too happy to support them again today!”  She later added another comment:  “Just saw our family on the news tonight--standing in line outside Chick-fil-A!!!”  And then my 19-year-old niece:  “Whoa seriously? We were on the news?”

My chest tightened, my hands shook.  The pride, the excitement,...I was repulsed.  Yep, this is personal.  In the pre-Facebook days, I would be blissfully ignorant.  I could say I long for the smiley face happiness of the ‘70s, but there were no gay rights then.

Of course, I should not be surprised by the posting.  My brother and sister-in-law are evangelical Southern Baptists.  Their children have been home schooled.  My brother spends his vacations building Baptist churches in the South.  Because there aren’t enough.  My sister-in-law refused to let my niece and nephew read my children’s novel when it was published because I misused God’s name.  (Can’t recall specifically, but I think there is a spot in the book where one of the characters says, “Oh, my god.”)  This is the family that sent me the video “How to Be Saved” as a Christmas present one year.  (To be fair, my Catholic sister got the same “gift.”)  My niece’s Facebook entries are usually biblical quotes.  I could go on and on and on. 

My immediate thought was to “unfriend” my sister-in-law.  Ha!  Take that!  Then I thought of posting a comment.  “So disappointed.  Seems corporate allegiance trumps actual family.”  I passed on both options.  Next idea?  Send my brother an email.  Yes, he had been there, too, likely in the driver’s seat.  Gotta get me some holy chicken. 

And then I thought of my mother.  She’s the one who tries to keep the family together.  She’s the one with the chronic sleep problems, the constant worrier.  I will not have an impact on my brother or his family.  We never talk on the phone.  I sent him a three-sentence Happy Birthday email last month, with the last sentiment phrased as a question, inviting a reply.  Nothing.  If it so happens that we both plan to go to the family cottage in summer, I make sure my stay does not coincide with his.  Last time our vacations overlapped, I didn’t like waking to see an apparel line of Jesus t-shirts every morning.  (Seriously.)   I see him once a decade, at most.  When my parents celebrated their 50^th wedding anniversary two years ago, my sister-in-law noted it was the first time in twenty-one years we’d all been together.  And we’re a small family! 

Full disclosure here:  My brother and his family are the only relatives that do not officially know I am gay.  I haven’t told them and I am certain no one else has.  I wanted to maintain occasional contact with my niece and nephew, thinking they may become more enlightened later in life, if they ever stray from Baptist influence.  (It’s looking less likely as my niece just finished her first year at a Baptist university.)  Otherwise, I think the rest of the family thinks, “Why bother?”

And now a game of chicken leaves me questioning everything.  If I wanted to act solely for myself, I would comment on the Facebook entry, unfriend AND email my brother.  So satisfying.  My mother will be the one to suffer.  I have caused her much grief in life as the stubborn, wilful middle child, the one my father tiptoes around.  I have already written my brother off as much as possible without the family drama that comes from making it official.

The hurt I feel this morning surprises.  My gut says nothing good will come in passing on the hurt to someone else.  Maybe it is time for me to tune out the self-righteousness and take the higher ground.