The Day The Sun Came Out

Originally published on The Legendary (downdirtyword.com)

The Day The Sun Came Out (April 11, 2012. Issue 36. The Late Issue)

My mother has been in a committed relationship since I was 17 years old. While people staying together that long is an anomaly within itself these days, my mother is still with the woman she fell in love with when I was only 12 years old.

My life as it is today hasn't always been this way. I grew up in a traditional home, my father worked as a journalist and editor for the local paper and my mother worked various jobs as we moved around.

From an early age, however, I knew there was something different about my family.

My parents seemed like they weren't very happy most of my life. My father manifested this by becoming a working alcoholic at a young age and my mother, well my mother cried a lot. Things were pretty bleak but it was my family and all I knew so I assumed this was how all families were. Things went on like this up until I was about 12.

My mother was involved in community theater my entire life. Everywhere we went, she found the local theater and immediately got herself and my brother and I involved in it.

We were all in plays together and had a lot of fun.

My father wasn't interested in the least. He didn't come to our performances and was pretty annoyed when we sat around practicing lines or rehearsing.

We moved away from my hometown for awhile when I was 11 and when I was almost 12, my mother met Mary for the first time. We all met Mary. She worked the light board for most of the plays in the theater and was just generally talented in all things set design.

Mary and my mother soon became best friends. We often did things with her family and things slowly began to change. We went camping more, we went on little trips. My mom smiled more. Mary had a daughter around my age and a son around my brother's age and I thought her husband was hilarious. Mostly, I was just glad my mom had finally found a friend.

As I grew older, Mary and my mother grew closer and closer as my mother and father drifted apart. By the time I was 15, my father was drinking every day, especially so on the weekends, and just didn't really have anything to do with any of us. We continued to all hang out together as a family and sometimes my father joined us but most of the time he didn't.

When I was 16 almost 17, my mother told me that she had decided that she was going to divorce my father. We were going to move again and that's when I found out the secret that all of us KNEW but couldn't confirm.

My mother and Mary were in love.

To me as a 17 year old girl, this news was confusing, frightening, and exciting all at the same time. I knew my mother was happy with Mary but I didn't quite understand same-sex relationships yet. After two nasty divorces, my mother and Mary were free to be together and I was unsure what the future would hold.

I would come to learn over these many years, however, that love is love and my mother deserved to be in a committed loving relationship no matter who it is with. When people ask me today what it was like when my mother came out, I tell them it was like the day the sun came out. Suddenly, everything was clear and bright and I understood things in a way I don't think many other people do at that age.

I have my two moms to thank for teaching me about real love and the sacrifices people make for it. The sun has never stopped shining for me, since. It may not be what most people believe but I know it is real and true and no one will ever be able to take that away from them.