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"Silence has an unexpectedly high price
tag for everyone... more than most people have begun to imagine."
I am reading, Silent Lives: How High A
Price? by Sara L. Boesser. This idea comes from the preface in this new
book written for personal reflection and group discussions about sexual
orientation.
I am also reading a current best seller,
The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards. On page 258, the lines jump
out... "The lie had grown up between them like a rock, forcing them
to grow oddly too, like trees twisting around a boulder." Again on
page 315, in this powerful story about the price of secrecy, the character
says, "It's a kind of power, isn't it, knowing a secret?"
Secrets are the stuff of drama, the heart
of novels, the plot of movies and a part of all our stories. What do we
gain and what do we lose with secrecy?
Long ago my mother insisted we share a
secret about my family. Her unconditional acceptance of my lesbian
daughter was a healing bond between us. It washed away the years of
distance and unresolved wounds. It felt like a miracle.
And then she said, "Don't tell the
rest of the family." It was a warning. It was one we hear so often in
PFLAG. "Don't tell... your ..." and the dynamics are changed
forever.
I didn't fully understand the price. After
my mother's death three years later and over the decade since then, I had
to figure out how to reach out to my family across thousands of miles,
many unfinished conversations and my many vague responses to what were
real questions of interest.
Does this sound familiar? I am guessing it
does.
Should we agree to keep secrets? I don't
know.
I didn't know it would involve so much
loss. I didn't know how much energy it takes. I didn't know it gets easier
to let the relationship lapse than to do the work to rebuild it in
honesty. A friendship? I have other friends. A cousin, an aunt, a brother?
We can find substitutions... or at least convince ourselves that is
possible.
Where is the silence in my life or yours?
What do we lose when, as Sara Boesser challenges us, we "pass"-
we pretend for whatever reason to be something else to make it comfortable
for others and easier for ourselves- and lose our authenticity in the
process?
I would not have been able to stand up to
my mother's offer for acceptance in exchange for the secrecy. I am not
sure I could even do it now.
But I will work like hell for the hope that
families and parents will cease to ask this of one another. Let's shatter
the boulders of ignorance and misinformation. Sara Boesser suggests we all
lose when silence separates us. We end up hiding from ourselves. When the
safety net is widened for all of us, the lives of everyone will be
enriched.
No more lies. No more silence. No more.
Kathy Reim
Skagit PFLAG
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