When I was a little girl I didn’t know our family was off or different, things just were the way they were. Yes, I felt the ups and downs of first living with Dad, then with Mom…really with Grandparents shortly before Mom found a house for us. The important thing is I was unassuming, resilient [...]
It was the quiet spaces that were the killer. The fact that I saw things about Dad we didn’t talk about. The quirky way he and Jim would look at one another after having drinks after 5, after being separated all day, then joining back together with us kids for the evening. It was the [...]
Beginning when I was old enough to fly to see Dad on my own, each and every time I visited him he’d guide me to the room I was staying in. On the bed I would find one of his thick velour robes, laid out for me to wear in the morning hours. Each [...]
At 17, I already felt a large tear in my life, in my heart. Dad had been so dear to me, so animated, so gregarious, so loving. Now, in the forefront of my mind he was gay. He was what my friends would label: homo, fag, queer – all negative labels, words used to make [...]
His inhibitions, his spontaneity were what I loved, what made Dad so infectious. Once while Dad was visiting me in Chicago I arrived home from work to find my apartment newly decorated with several tall tropical plants he’d stuffed into a cab, carted from the local Target store. I can see him hailing the taxi, [...]
